What's going on with Jason Heyward?

Braves phenom Jason Heyward came up to the majors and immediately started producing for the Braves. But now, he's in a bit of a slump. What's going on?

So far in '10, Heyward is hitting .239 with 3 doubles, 5 homers, 17 RBI, and a .365 OBP. During his first 10 games, he hit .316 with 3 doubles, 3 homers, 12 RBI, and a .409 OBP. But since then, he has hit just .152 with 2 homers, 5 RBI, and a .317 OBP. Everyone goes into slumps, but let's go a little bit more inside this slump.

So far in '10, he has hit .255 versus righties and .208 versus lefties. He has hit .264 versus righty starters, but just .167 versus lefty starters. The lefty starters he has faced so far are Sean Marshall, Jamie Moyer, Jonathan Niese, Greg Smith, Jonathan Sanchez, and Clayton Richard. He only got one hit against all of these pitchers, a single against Jonathan Niese. That's obviously very bad.

The big problem for the Braves is that they only win when Heyward does well. Heyward has hit .433 in games that the Braves win, and just .098 in games that the Braves lose. He completely carries the team when they win, but is helpless when they lose!

The funny thing about this is that Heyward has been so clutch. He is hitting .444 with runners in scoring position and .462 with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. But seems to be so bad at every other time. In fact, he's hit just .195 with the bases empty, and just .083 with a runner on first. He does have 4 solo home runs.

Heyward is a very interesting case so far in his young career. Unlike most players who are better without runners in scoring position, Heyward appears to be much better with runners in scoring position. If he keeps this up, he'll be a very clutch player and a fan-favorite, but then you'll look up at the stats and you'll see that he's hitting just .250 or less. But, he's on pace to hit 39 homers, so the Braves would probably be okay with that.

What have been the keys to Cano's early season success?

Robinson Cano is hitting .407 and is on pace to hit 61 homers. There's no way he'll keep those stats up, but moving Cano to the 5th spot looks like a genius move by the Yanks. He leads the majors with 21 runs, 33 hits, the .407 BA, an amazing .790 SLG, an incredilbe 1.235 OPS, and 64 total bases. He leads the Yanks in nearly every offensive category. What has made him so great so far in '10?

During his career, Cano has hit .312 against righties and .302 against lefties. In '10 he's killing righty pitching, hitting .426 against them, while still managing a .370 BA against lefties. Cano has always started well in April, hitting .293 in April for his career, but in '10 he's taken that to a new level, hitting .407.

It's interesting that despite the fact that Cano is just "one of the guys" on the Yankees, the Yankees winning or losing has often depended on Cano during his career. He has hit .349 in wins, but just .249 in losses, a 100 point difference! In '10, Cano has been completely consistent no matter how the game turns out as he has hit .407 in both wins and losses.

Here''s why the move to the 5th spot in the lineup is so great. During his career, he has played the most games and done his best batting 7th, as he has hit .337 with 27 homers and 132 RBI in 247 games. In only 88 games batting 5th during his career, Cano has already hit 16 homers and has driven in 57 runs. In 159 less games, he only has 11 less homers!

And here's the biggest reason why Cano is flourishing so far in '10- his success with runners in scoring position. During his career, Cano has hit just .257 with runners in scoring position, including a .245 BA with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. In '10, he's really turned that around, hitting .300 with runners in scoring position and .333 with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. He's becoming a very clutch player. That is why Cano will succeed in the long run.

What's the history of Teixeira's struggles in April?

Mark Teixeira is hitting just .139 with 2 homers and 9 RBI's so far this April. Has he always been this bad in April?

In '09 with A-rod injured, Teixeira hit .200 in April with 3 homers and 10 RBI for the Yanks. But, in '08 he hit a much better .273 with 4 homers and 17 SB in April for the Braves. In fact, that year, he hit better in April than he did in May as he hit .268 in May in '08. Was the April slump only a thing that Teix has had with the Yankees?

In '07 with Texas in April, Teixeira hit .231 with 2 homers and just 6 RBI. But in '06, Teixeira had a good April, hitting .293 with 3 homers and 13 RBI. What is going on?

In April of '05 he did pretty well, hitting .261 with 6 homers and 14 RBI. In '04 in April, he hit .276 with 2 homers and 7 RBI. But in '03, he had a bad April hitting .188 with 2 homers and 7 RBI. It is it completely random for Teixeira?

Teixeira has hit .236 with 24 homers and 83 RBI during his career in April. To put the 24 homers and 83 RBI into prespective, Teixeira's month with the second least career homers is May with 39, and Teixeira's month was the second least RBI's is July with 119. Overall, Teixeira has been bad an April, but he has had at least decent Aprils three times in his 8 year career. Maybe he's due for a good April in 2011.

What ever happened to C.J. Henry?

With the 17th overall pick in the 2005 MLB draft, the Yankees drafted a shortstop named C.J. Henry. The Yankees paid him a 1.6 million dollar signing bonus. He was going to be a point guard for the Jayhawks basketball team. He had a decent year his first year in '05 at Rookie ball for the GCL Yankees, hitting .249 with 9 doubles, 3 homers, 17 RBI, 17 SB, and a .333 OBP in 48 games. For a lower level prospect, that might be okay, but with Henry being a top prospect, the Yankees were disappointed. His second year in '06, Henry disappointed even more, hitting just .240 with 19 doubles, 2 homers, 14 SB, and a .330 OBP in 77 games for Low-A Charleston. He posted just a .867 Fld% at SS. (Henry's fielding stats are not available from the '05 GCL season.) The Yankees had seen enough. On July 30th, the Yankees traded Henry with 3 other prospects to the Phillies in the deal that netted the Yankees Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle.

The Phillies knew that Henry had the potential to be a good player- he just had to put his game together. But, he just couldn't do it. He hit .253 in '06 with Low-A Lakewood, with 3 doubles, 1 homer, 16 RBI, and a .313 OBP in 25 games. He stole just 1 base. The Phillies were worried, but it was just a pretty small sample. He did improve to a .914 Fld% at SS. '07 was going to be Henry's make-or-break season. Henry went back to Lakewood in '07 and hit just .184 with 12 doubles, 9 homers, 38 RBI, 13 SB, and just a .238 OBP in 102 games. Not only were his offensive numbers disappointing, but no matter where the Phillies put him defensively, Henry could not do well. He posted a .860 Fld% in 31 games at 3B, .946 in 58 games in LF, and a .500 Fld% in 1 game in RF. After the '07 season, Henry was released by the Phillies.

The Yankees resigned Henry just hoping he put it all together. In '08 with the High-A Tampa Yankees, Henry hit .234 with 2 doubles, 2 homers, 6 RBI, 3 SB, and a .319 OBP in 20 games. One positive was that he finally found a comfortable defensive position, as he posted a 1.000 Fld% in LF in '08. Still, Henry gave up on baseball.

Henry returned to college later in '08. He went to the University Memphis and was a walk-on on the Memphis basketball team. But, he redshirted that year and did not play a single game for Memphis. In '09, C.J. Henry's younger brother Xavier Henry committed to Memphis. But, when John Calipari took the University of Kentucky job, the Henry brothers decided they would go to Kansas, with C.J. transferring and Xavier uncommitting from Memphis and committing to Kansas. Unlike his brother Xavier who starred for Kansas during the '09-'10 season (13.4 PPG, 4.4 RPG, 1.5 APG, 1.5 SPG, .458 FG%, .783 FT%, .418 3P%), and has declared for the NBA draft, C.J. Henry didn't do very well. He averaged just 3.1 PPG, 0.7 RPG, 0.3 APG, and .4 SPG, with a .583 FG%, .500 FT%, and a .524 3P%. The FG% and 3P% were good, but since he only played 5.6 minutes a game, it didn't really matter. He should get more minutes during the '10-'11 season with his brother going to the NBA.

It's pretty sad that C.J. Henry has gone from a 1st round draft pick in baseball to averaging just 3 points a game in college basketball. He'll be 24 years old when the '10-'11 season starts, so he still has a chance to be NBA player. But, he was an underachiever his whole baseball career, and he did nothing his first year at Kansas. He better play up to his potential in '10-'11.

Is Stephen Strasburg ready for the majors?

Stephen Strasburg came into the 2009 MLB draft as probably the most hyped prospect. He was coming off of a ridiculous junior season as San Diego State, going 13-1 with a 1.32 ERA and 195 K's in 15 starts and 109 IP. He also had 2 complete games, 2 shutouts, an incredible 16.1 K/9, and just a 1.6 BB/9, 5.4 H/9 and 0.3 HR/9. His K/H (used for measuring prospects) was an incredible 1.79. The only downside was 11 wild pitches. He was the 1st overall pick by the Nationals and rightfully so.

There was a question of whether Strasburg would be able to make the Nationals out of 2010 Spring Training. He did very well while he was in major league spring training, as he went 1-0 with a 2.00 ERA and 12 K's in 3 starts and 9 IP. Still, the Nats didn't want to rush him, and they kept him in the minors. So far at Double-A Harrisburg, Strasburg has dominated, going 2-0 with a 0.73 ERA and 17 K's in 3 starts and 12.1 IP. He has an great 12.4 K/9, a good 2.2 BB/9, just a 5.1 H/9, and he hasn't given up a single homer yet, so his HR/9 is 0.0. His K/H is a ridiculous 2.43. He looks ready for the majors.

But, is there room for him? The Nationals are 10-10, so they must have gotten good starting pitching, right? Wrong. John Lannan is 1-1 with a 5.53 ERA, Craig Stammen is 1-0 with a 6.75 ERA, Scott Olsen is 1-1 with a 6.14 ERA, and Jason Marquis is 0-3 with a 20.52 ERA. The one bright spot is Livan Hernandez who's gone 2-1 with a 0.75 ERA. I know it's early in the year, but it sounds like the Nationals need some help at starting pitcher. That's of course where Strasburg comes in. I doubt those 4 Nats starters will do this bad all year, but if it continues into maybe mid-May, the Nats will have to call Strasburg up. Double-A is much different from the majors, so the Nats should probably move Strasburg up to Triple-A for a few starts before he goes to the majors so he gets used to a little bit better competition. Strasburg is ready- he's just going to dominate in the minors until the Nats call him up to the majors.

The future of the Yankees: Pat Venditte

Pat Venditte isn't the greatest prospect in the world (he will turn 25 on June 30th), but he sure is unique. He is the first full-time switch pitcher since Tony Mullane in the late 1800's. He will probably make the majors as a middle reliever at some point.

Venditte, an ambidextrous pitcher from Nebraska, has sure had an interesting baseball career. After walking on to the baseball team at Creighton, Venditte played well enough to warrant being drafted twice by the Yankees: in the 45th round in '07, and in the 20th round in '08. He signed with the Yankees in '08, and immediately started putting on a show. In '08, in addition to becoming a YouTube star with this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDyCRTlKllk&feature=player_embedded), Venditte put up incredible stats with the Short Season-A Staten Island Yankees, going 1-0 with a 0.83 ERA, 42 K's, and 23 saves in 30 relief appearances and 32.2 IP. In '09, the legend continued, as he went 4-2 with a 1.87 ERA, 87 K's, and 22 saves in 49 games and 67.1 IP between the Low-A Charleston Riverdogs and the High-A Tampa Yankees. He has gotten off to a good start in '10, also for the Tampa Yankees, going 0-0 with a 2.19 ERA, 18 K's, and 2 saves, and 6 games and 12.1 IP. Venditte has really done well in the minors so far. I would not be surprised if he gets as high as Double-A this year.

He's a little bit old for a player who's never played above A-ball, but he has the potential to be the most versatile reliever ever. This is probably in Joe Girardi's dreams: the batters coming up are a righty, a lefty, and another righty, and he brings in Venditte and Venditte gets out the first righty as a rightly pitcher, the lefty as a lefty pitcher, and the second righty as a righty pitcher again. Also, wouldn't that be some awesome to watch! He throws overhand as a righty, and sidearm as a lefty, so that would also be interesting. Venditte is so unique that he gets his own rule- the Pat Venditte rule for switch pitchers that deals with the chaos in the YouTube video above. The rule is that when a switch pitcher pitches to a switch hitter, the switch pitcher chooses which arm he will pitch with, and then the switch hitter chooses. Also, both the hitter and the pitcher each have one switch during the at-bat. In addition, if the switch pitcher were to get injured, he could switch arms, but he would have to use only that arm for the remainder of the game. At least for the next few years, the Pat Venditte rule will only apply to Pat Venditte. I'm sure that Pat Venditte will be getting major league hitters out in 2011 or 2012 as a middle reliever for the Yankees.

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