Below are MLB leaders in BABIP over the last few years.  Jeter appears near the top of the list every year, and Ichiro is never far from the top, either.  But other than that, there appears to be a decent amount of turnover at the top from year to year.  In 2003, for example, the top 10 were: Jeter, Helton, Marlon Byrd, Podsednik, Koskie, Grudzielanek, Jacque Jones, Bill Mueller, Abreu, and Wilkerson.

It does not appear to be a common event for a hitter to have a BABIP of over .390 in consecutive years, considering that in most years, either one or zero players have achieved that number.  Granting that it is still somewhat early, B.J. upton does not appear to have fallen off in terms of BABIP as most of us assumed he would.

Anyone have any thoughts on what it is about his approach, or Jeter's for that matter, that makes such excessively high BABIPs sustainable?  LD% does not seem to be the determining factor for these two, at least.  This year, Upton ranks at #108 with an LD% of 18.2% and Jeter is at #152 with 15.8%.  Last year, they were both a bit better: Upton's 19.6% put him at #57 and Jeter's 19.9% placed him at #49.  But this is not really satisfying me.

Is Bossman still due for a dropoff?  Or is there something in his approach or skill set that has allowed him to maintain his ridiculously high BABIP for 1 1/3 seasons?

P.S. Another interesting tidbit.  Chipper Jones is batting .418 with a .422 BABIP.  I don't think anyone has ever finished a season with an actual BA that close to his BABIP.  Anyone want to figure out what the record is?

I was aimlessly searching players on Baseball Reference and watching a game when the announcers mentioned Kevin Mitchell.  This prompted me to look up Keith Mitchell.  I was amused to find he played parts of four seasons in the majors, on four different teams, and never in two consecutive seasons ('91 Atlanta, '94 Seattle, '96 Cincinnati, '98 Boston.)  His prolific career spanned all of 128 games.

So, for anyone with a better knowledge of baseball stat-finding than me: Has anyone ever played fewer games for more teams in a major league career?

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/story/2008/3/23/16447/2153

According to R.J. Anderson's reasoning, Derrick Turnbow has had two of the three unluckiest seasons of any pitcher since 2004.  He concludes that Turnbow is, for whatever reason, significantly worse when there are runners on base.

I'm going to flash my ignorance here.  Does Turnbow use a full windup with the bases empty?  I guess nearly everyone does, except for a very few relievers.  If he does, there could be a mechanical flaw when he pitches from the stretch.  

Either way, it doesn't seem like "clutch pitching" is quite the same as clutch hitting since there are soooooo many other factors that come into play when runners are on than just nerves or strength of character or whatever... holding the runner, different motion, different pitch selection, different strategy (pitching to a groundball vs. a strikeout), etc.

http://blogs.jsonline.com/brewers/archive/2008/03/25/brewers-release-vargas.asp

A bit of a surprising move today by the Brewers, as they release Claudio Vargas, even with Capuano going down for the year.  So what do you all think of Villanueva?  He will be 24 for the whole season after floating around in the minors for the better part of five years.  Really, he has seen nothing but success in the majors with decent K/BB (138/64), 117 ERA+, 1.238 WHIP in 168 innings.  Of course, this includes only 12 starts, and a whole lot of relief innings.

What kind of year can we expect from Villanueva in his first year as a full-time member of the rotation?  Ceiling?

Updated title: Vargas out, Villanueva in: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Anyone Else and Love the Mythical Beast

Does anybody know what kind of options Evans has left.  I would love to see this guy get a chance to play regularly in the majors, but I don't see it happening anytime soon in Anaheim.

He seems like an ideal trade commodity.  What is his ceiling if he gets a chance to start?

With limited research, I see AT LEAST a Scott Hairston-type player with more speed with the potential to be MUCH better.  I think he could outperform Juan Rivera in LA right now.  And for me, that is saying something, because I like Juan Rivera and think he probably deserves to be starting.

I'd love to hear what others think about him though.

Here are two guys with all the stuff to succeed but lacking results.  In my mind, they are quite similar as well (possibly with the exception of attitude).  Their progressions resemble one another, though Olsen's WHIP exploded last year amidst personal and legal troubles and Bonderman's K/BB has been better than Olsen's so far in the majors.

What are the outlooks for these two?  What adjustments might they make that could help them harness their above average stuff?  What are your predictions for either of them becoming a solid #2 or better?  Or what are their ceilings at this point?

In my dynasty H2H league, I usually send out some off-season trades in jest such as Joba, Ian Kennedy, and Damon for Johan with comments like, "If only the Twins could get so much from the Yankees..."

Well, one of my joke trades was Damon for Jason Bay, citing Damon's better 3-year averages.  The offer was returned with a supposedly joke offer of Bay for Hafner. But I'm wondering if this is really a joke.

Here's some background. SBs are 1 pt, HRs are 4 + 1 rbi + 1 r, for 6 pts total.  Position eligibility is easy in our league -- 5 games in the previous or current season -- so Hafner is easily eligible at 1B.  In my lineup as of now are:

1B - Ortiz (Hafner, Damon)
OF - Sizemore, Ichiro, Sheffield (Damon, Bruce; also Juan Rivera, Stephen Pearce, who may be dropped for the draft)
DH - Hafner

The obvious reasons for turning this down are that  two of my current infielders (Upton and Braun) may never play infield again, and then I will just have too many OFs.

But purely for this year, is it unreasonable to think Bay might out-perform Hafner in 2008?  What about over the next few years?

I was just browsing through some player notes and noticed something I hadn't seen before.  CBS Sports was reporting that Ian Stewart may be moved to 2B over the winter.

Are the any Rockies fans out there (or anyone else) who have heard about this possible position switch?  Any ideas if he could make the switch successfully?