Five Numbers: Why The Rays Will Regress, Why The Giants Won't Go Away, And Much More

Hey there! You're back? That's bold. You must really like numbers. What a nerd. Alternatively, you might be lost, in which case, I can't help you. I'm not actually present. This is the Internet.

As those who read last week's debut edition will know, what follows are not the five most important statistics in baseball. They're just five important statistics. I hope you're not disappointed.

1) .512

Pity the poor Yankees fans. Pity the fans of the team that's currently looking up at the Rays, fans of the team that traded Phil Coke, Ian Kennedy, and Austin Jackson away for a now-injured center fielder who hit the DL batting .225. Curtis Granderson, in the early going, has struggled, while Jackson - just 23 years old, a true rookie - has, as of this writing, batted a remarkable .369/.421/.508 for Detroit. Jackson's a big reason why the Tigers are where they are in the standings, as he's provided a tremendous spark at the top of the lineup in front of Johnny Damon, Magglio Ordonez, and Miguel Cabrera.

But something lies beneath that batting line. Something sinister. One might be surprised to see such production from a guy with a minor league batting line of .288/.356/.410. One might even be skeptical of this performance's sustainability, and one would be correct. For, of the 86 balls that Jackson has hit in play so far, 44 of them have dropped in for hits, giving him a BABIP - a Batting Average on Balls In Play - of .512.

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with BABIP, it's become the popular go-to statistic for people trying to see who's been lucky and who's gotten jobbed.

For those of you who are already familiar with BABIP, then, .512? Your eyebrows are at your hairline.

Among players who went to the plate at least 500 times in 2009, the lowest BABIP belonged to Ian Kinsler, at .241, while the highest BABIP belonged to David Wright, at .394. If you expand the window to qualified players over the last three seasons, then the BABIP range spans from Ken Griffey Jr. (.262) to Ichiro (.368). The point? BABIP tends to fluctuate around a given center. And that center is far, far lower than Austin Jackson's current .512.

Don't get me wrong - Jackson, for the most part, has earned his performance. He's leading the Major Leagues in line drive rate, his 39.3% doubling the league average. He's been hitting the ball hard, and when you hit the ball hard, more of those balls go for hits. But one must consider sustainability, and, simply put, there's no way that Jackson sustains what he's doing. Over the rest of the year, he's going to hit a more normal amount of line drives, and he's going to end up recording hits at a lower rate.

One projection system, known as ZiPS, forecasts that Jackson will hit .265/.315/.363 the rest of the way, with a BABIP of .338. It's a far cry from his current level of performance, but it's also a lot more reasonable, given what we know about Jackson's track record and skillset. Is he a good player? For sure. He's quick, he can play a mean center field, and his eye isn't bad for a player his age. But through the first month of the year, he's been way over his head. Austin Jackson is due for some significant regression, and as it happens, the middle of the Tiger lineup is going to have fewer runners to drive in.

2) .927

Everyone knew the Tampa Bay Rays were going to be a good team in 2010, but I don't think many people expected them to have the best record in baseball through the 5th of May. At 20-7, the Rays have scored the most runs in the AL while allowing the least, and they've hardly given their opposition a chance to breathe.

But as is the case with Austin Jackson, there's reason to be wary. Why? The following split.

Rays' hitters, bases empty: .681 OPS
Rays' hitters, runners in scoring position: .927 OPS

With no one on base, the Rays' offense has been in the middle of the pack. In run-scoring situations, however, they've posted the best OPS in the league. And not just the best - the best by 90 points. The Yankees come in second, at .837. Clearly, the Rays have excelled when they've needed to.

Unfortunately, clutch hitting isn't a skill. Or at least, clutch hitting isn't a skill, on the team level, to this degree. The Rays rank sixth in the AL in overall OPS, but they rank first in runs scored, by a margin of nine runs, and it's all because they've been so timely with the stick. And they won't continue to be this timely all season.

Sadly for the Yankees, Red Sox, and the rest of the American League, the Rays will continue to be a good team. They'll continue to be a very good team. But the rate at which they've been pushing runs across the plate is due to slow down, because they're not going to keep outpacing everyone else with runners in scoring position. As things begin to even out over the coming months, the Rays will score fewer runs, and as they score fewer runs, they'll win fewer games.

Boston, you've still got some hope.

3) 1.10

Cleveland fans, avert your eyes.

The Indians are 10-17. They were expected to be pretty lousy, and they've stayed true to expectations, with a miserable lineup and a largely unknown pitching staff combining for a mediocre on-field product. Truly, unless you're a big fan of Shin-soo Choo or you really missed Russell Branyan, the Indians aren't giving fans many reasons to come out to the ballpark.

While the offense has been poor so far, though, I think there's one statistic that better captures the whole Cleveland experience to date. It's a statistic that reflects on the pitching, and it's a simple calculation: strikeouts divided by free passes (BB + HBP).

The league average ratio of K/(BB+HBP) right now is 1.81. The Cubs lead the way at 2.44. The Indians bring up the rear at 1.10.

Cleveland pitchers have only struck out 13 more hitters than they've put on first base, with 141 whiffs, 119 walks, and nine beanballs. Take Justin Masterson out of the equation and their ratio drops all the way to an unfathomable 0.96.

Masterson's the only guy who's been able to do anything. The rotation's been bad. The bullpen's been bad. Everyone knew that Fausto Carmona has some problems, but the entire pitching staff has either struggled to throw strikes, struggled to put hitters away, or both. Leaving aside Hector Ambriz's four innings, Masterson's the only arm on the team with a ratio higher than 1.25. The only one.

This pitching staff is miserable, and while Carlos Carrasco and Hector Rondon offer some promise in AAA Columbus, it sure seems like the team could use some wholesale help. Groundballs are neat, and the Indians generate a lot of them, but things fall apart in a hurry when you combine a lot of walks with an inability to strike people out.

4) .454

Coming into the season, it looked like the Mariners had everything figured out. They'd platoon Eric Byrnes and Ryan Langerhans in left, they'd bump Milton Bradley to DH, and they'd give Ken Griffey Jr. only enough playing time to let people remember that he was still on the team.

Then Mike Sweeney batted .999 in spring training to force his way onto the roster. Sweeney's presence created a problem. Sweeney bumped Bradley to left and Langerhans to AAA, and all of a sudden, what was once a roster with promise became a roster with Mike Sweeney and Ken Griffey Jr. platooning at DH.

It's difficult for me to exaggerate just how bad this tandem has been to date. They're two players who're beloved for their qualities in the clubhouse, but when the team's taken the field, they've been an unmitigated disaster. The league average DH right now has a .730 OPS. The second-worst DH slot - Chicago's - comes in at .610. Griffey, Sweeney, and the Mariners come in last, at .454. .454.

.454 is lower than Ronnie Belliard's slugging percentage. .454 is lower than what six NL teams have gotten from their pitcher slot. .454 is an embarrassment, and things have gotten so bad that even Ken Griffey flipping Jr. is starting to draw criticism and calls to retire from a fan base that worships him like a son.

Griffey, to date, has two doubles. That's the extent of their extra-base hits as a pair. Two doubles. Griffey and Sweeney are far from the only problems in a lineup that has Chone Figgins batting .202 and Jose Lopez batting .216, but they represent the easiest problem to solve, and if the front office doesn't do something about its DH situation soon, things could get real. Very real.

5) 2.11

When you think of the San Francisco Giants, you think of the pitching. Right? They're distant enough from the Bonds years that people have kind of forgotten that he ever existed, and the organization has done a good job of re-branding itself as a pitching-first ballclub that'll scratch and claw for every last run it can muster. Which isn't to say that the Giants have built a powerhouse or anything, but they clearly wanted to push all the Bonds stuff as far away as possible, and as such, they've done well. Barry Bonds isn't the guy you associate with the Giants anymore. The players you associate with the Giants are Tim Lincecum, Pablo Sandoval, and Matt Cain.

Despite the reputation, though, the Giants haven't actually been real great on the mound. Cain and Lincecum have obviously been good, but they struggled to get consistent help from the others, and Barry Zito was routinely identified as being in possession of the worst contract in baseball. The Giants were known as a pitching-first ballclub more because of their lousy offense than because of their wonderful pitchers.

Until now. Lincecum's on another level. Cain's gotten better. Jonathan Sanchez is difficult to hit. Zito's rebounded in a big way. And while fifth starter Todd Wellemeyer hasn't been anything more than a fifth starter, that front foursome has been nothing short of phenomenal through its first 22 starts, with a combined K/9 of 9, a combined BB/9 of 2.8, and a combined ERA of 2.11.

2.11. The Giants have received ace-like performance not from one guy, and not from two guys, but from four-fifths of their starting rotation. Not surprisingly, they've allowed the fewest runs in baseball, at 78. They've been superb on the mound, they've been superb in the field, and though the offense still isn't lighting up many scoreboards, it's actually quite a bit better than usual, thanks to pretty much everyone but Mark DeRosa chipping in.

Those four starters aren't going to keep tossing a 2.11 ERA for the rest of the season, of course, as that would make for something historical. With Zito throwing more strikes, Sanchez missing more bats, and Cain keeping more balls on the ground, though, all the question marks have taken steps forward, and it's for that reason that the Giants have joined the Padres as surprise leaders in the NL West. The Rockies and Dodgers were predicted to be the cream of the crop, but right now they're looking up at a pair of teams who're excelling at run prevention to such a degree that, combined, they've still allowed fewer runs than the Pirates.