AL Rookie Roundup

Jason Michael Barker

Welcome back to another edition of the Roundup, where we monitor the progress of baseball's top rookies. There's a new player featured this month, but I won't spoil your fun by giving him away. You'll just have to read to the bottom of the page. Trust me, it won't hurt a bit.

Carlos Beltran, CF, Kansas City
Age	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
22	52	230	34	66	13	1	9	38	12	46	10	5	.287	.321	.470

Beltran's batting average have slipped since last month, but he's upped both his OBP and walk rate, which are always good signs. After drawing just two walks in the first 20 games of the season, he's gotten on via the bases on balls ten times in the last 30 games. He's still a long way from being Frank Thomas or Edgar Martinez, but it's a start. He's also improved his stolen base success rate, which never hurts. These improvements go to show that he's adjusting well to the pitchers and the league.

He'd still probably be better off hitting further down in the batting order, but for whatever reason manager Tony Muser seems to have his heart set on Beltran leading off, or at least he did at the beginning of the season. In Saturday's double-header against the Reds, Beltran hit second in both games, hit two home runs in the first game and added a double in the nightcap.

So just who should be leading off for the Royals, you might ask?

Carlos Febles, 2B, Kansas City
Age	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
23	49	177	30	54	12	4	5	22	19	35	9	3	.305	.380	.503

Why, Carlos Febles, of course. Febles has quickly established himself as one of the top second basemen in all of baseball, and he's only 23 years of age. When we last profiled him, he was hitting a very nice .333/.479, and I commented that his OBP was going to come up but that the power was a surprise. Instead, he improved both his OBP and his SLG with a fabulous May in which he hit .427/.556 and scored 21 runs.

Muser had been experimenting with Febles in the second spot in the order, which is certainly better than eighth or ninth, where he had been hitting at the beginning of the season. He did hit in the top spot in both games Saturday, though, so perhaps Muser has figured something out. Febles missed a few games last week with a sore shoulder, but given that he played both games Saturday it looks like there's nothing to worry about.

Eric Chavez, 3B, Oakland
Age	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
22	44	134	18	33	10	2	2	14	17	17	1	0	.246	.331	.396

He's improved his OBP by 27 and his SLG by 67 points since last month, but these still aren't the numbers you'd expect from last year's Minor League Player of the Year. It looks as if he's beginning to turn things around, however -- after a dismal .304/.329 in April, he rebounded to hit .359/.455 last month. Those are the type of numbers I expected to see from Chavez heading into the season. His walk-to-strikeout ratio is also an encouraging sign.

His biggest problem at this point seems to be left-handed pitching, although he's only had 15 at-bats (one hit, a double) against lefties so far this season. I don't know how manager Art Howe expects Chavez to learn to hit lefties if he never gets a shot at them, but then again, perhaps that's why I'm not managing the team.

Jeff Weaver, SP, Detroit
Age	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	W	L	SV	OOBP	WHIP	ERA
22	10	10	60.0	44	21	20	8	16	45	6	3	0	.271	1.00	3.00

Jeff Weaver continues to impress, and is the top rookie hurler in the league at this point, not to mention the top pitcher on Detroit's staff. He's been giving the Tigers six strong innings each time out, and perhaps most impressively, is only allowing one baserunner per inning. It's easy to see why his ERA is so low, since he isn't allowing runners to get on base in the first place, as evidenced by both his WHIP and OBP against.

He's really only had one "bad" start, when he allowed four earned runs in four innings against the A's back on May 11. Weaver has been handled very well by manager Larry Parrish, as he's only averaging 93.2 pitches per start, and 15.5 per inning. Part of that is Parrish not overworking him, and part is Weaver being so good that he hasn't had to throw very many pitches.

If both players continue at their present levels, picking the AL Rookie of the Year is going to be a tough call between Febles and Weaver.

Freddy Garcia, SP, Seattle
Age	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	W	L	SV	OOBP	WHIP	ERA
22	12	12	70.1	75	35	33	6	27	44	7	2	0	.337	1.45	4.22

Garcia's still pitching well, but he hasn't been nearly as dominant as he was at the beginning of the season. His strikeouts are down, and he's allowing too many baserunners (both via hit and walk), one and a half per inning. Still, four of his five starts since a ten-day layoff (he was hit in the shoulder by a line drive) have been good, his lone bad outing coming last Monday when he allowed six earned runs in 5.1 innings against the Orioles. Yesterday's start in San Diego was nothing short of brilliant, as he allowed just one unearned run on four hits in eight innings.

The bad news is that both manager Lou Piniella and pitching coach Stan Williams are concerned about Garcia "hitting the wall" after five or six innings. They'd really like to see him be able to throw 125 or 140 pitches before having to be taken out. Williams went so far as to say that Houston, with whom Garcia came up through the minors, "teaches limits" and "babied" him, grooming him to be a six-inning pitcher. They got their wish yesterday, as Garcia threw 123 pitches over eight innings.

Compare Houston's track record of developing pitchers against Seattle's, and you'll see how silly this line of thinking really is.

Roy Halladay, SP/RP, Toronto
Age	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	W	L	SV	OOBP	WHIP	ERA
22	13	8	55.0	66	33	25	5	27	23	4	2	1	.374	1.69	4.09

Halladay's last start was May 25, and he's worked twice since then, both times in relief. He's been moved back into the bullpen for the time being, although that might change given the status of Joey Hamilton. The top four spots in the Toronto rotation are pretty much set, which leaves Hamilton and Halladay competing for the fifth and final spot, although recently the Jays have only needed four starters.

Clearly Halladay hasn't been very effective recently, since he's allowing a .374 OBP and putting over one and a half runners on per inning. It's also never good to see a pitcher more walks than strikeouts, and his strikeout rate is very low to begin with. Yet somehow he's kept his ERA around a very respectable 4.00, although you can see that he's allowed eight unearned runs as well. Halladay seems a good candidate for further collapse, perhaps this time more noticeably if his ERA begins to reflect how he's been pitching.

Jeff Zimmerman, RP, Texas
Age	G	GS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	W	L	SV	OOBP	WHIP	ERA
26	22	0	36.0	14	5	5	1	5	35	5	0	0	.156	.528	1.25

The new kid on the block has been perhaps the best reliever in baseball this season. Zimmerman is a great story -- undrafted out of college, three years on the Canadian National team, then a year in an independent league. Before last season, he actually sent out résumés to all the teams in the bigs, and caught on with Texas, where he dominated at both A and AA. He made the team after a great spring, and hasn't looked back since.

His numbers are simply incredible, from his miniscule WHIP to his 7:1 strikeout to walk ratio to his .154 OBP against. Manager Johnny Oates was worried about overworking Zimmerman early in the year, so his workload has been reduced slightly, to where he's been pitching an inning at a time instead of two.

This is yet more proof that you don't need to spend millions to have a great bullpen. Just ask Felipe Alou, who puts together great pens every year with guys other teams didn't want. Then sometimes you'll just get lucky, and have a player like Jeff Zimmerman fall into your lap.

about the author

Jason Michael Barker is hoping no relievers fall into his lap anytime soon, and specifically requests that you not forward the Mariner Moose his address at jmb@strikethree.com.