T
ThomasTomasz
Guest
It's easy to see what Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera and Andrew McCutchen are doing to keep their teams in the race this year. All three are having fantastic seasons, and are doing their part (and then some) to help keep their teams in contention.
However, baseball is the major sport where an individual player has the least impact on his team's results, and no player can single-handedly carry his team to a playoff berth. To make it to October, a team needs production from up and down the roster, but not every contributor gets his fair share of recognition. Today, we shine a light on four unheralded players whose performances have been instrumental in keeping their teams' playoff hopes alive.
Coco Crisp, CF
Crisp was one of the worst players in baseball for the first two months of the season. After going 0-for-4 on June 6, his batting line stood at .158 AVG/.213 OBP/.175 SLG, and he had hit into twice as many double plays as he had extra-base hits. However, over the last 10 weeks, Crisp has turned his season around in a big way, hitting .307/.370/.513 over his last 258 trips to the plate. To put that in perspective, that .883 OPS matches what Mark Trumbo has put up this season.
Crisp isn't thought of as a major power hitter, but he has 26 extra-base hits in the last 2½ months, all while playing in a park that significantly depresses offense. Even with his terrible start and a DL stint in May, Crisp has already racked up 2.1 wins above replacement, and he is one of the underrated cogs that is keeping the A's in contention. While there were scoffs when a rebuilding Oakland team gave a 32-year-old a two-year contract as a free agent, Crisp has proven to be worth far more than he signed for, and his offseason signing was one of the best moves any team made.
Wade Miley, LHP
The Diamondbacks entered the season with one of the best trios of pitching prospects in baseball, as Archie Bradley (No. 19), Trevor Bauer (No. 21) and Tyler Skaggs (No. 25) all rated highly on Keith Law's preseason top 100 prospect list. However, while Bauer struggled with his control upon being called up, Skaggs just made his MLB debut this week, and Bradley has spent the year in A-ball, rookie southpaw Wade Miley has been the main reason Arizona is still hanging around in the NL West race.
The 25-year-old is doing his best Ian Kennedy impersonation, pounding the strike zone with average velocity and succeeding in a way that shouldn't logically work in Arizona's hitter-friendly ballpark. However, his command has been so precise that he's been able to limit walks and keep the ball in the yard, the combination of which has led to an ERA that is 33 percent better than the league average. In fact, the only two NL pitchers with a better park-adjusted ERA are Johnny Cueto and Jordan Zimmermann. Miley didn't have much hype coming into the season, but he's been the one with substance so far in 2012.
Angel Pagan, CF
While Melky Cabrera has gotten the headlines (for reasons both good and bad), the offseason pickup of Angel Pagan hasn't received as much attention. But he's been an extremely valuable piece for the Giants this year. After Pagan had a down year with the Mets in 2011, the Giants acquired him for Ramon Ramirez and Andres Torres, and he has responded by putting up numbers right in line with his prior career norms.
His jack-of-all-trades skill set is the one that is most often undervalued, as he doesn't excel in any one area, but instead is a solid player across the board. Pagan draws walks, makes good contact, hits for some power, steals bases, and plays good enough defense in center field. This year, that package of skills has added up to 3.0 WAR, which is third among Giants position players behind Buster Posey and Cabrera. Pagan's presence has as a switch-hitter has given the Giants' offense some flexibility at the top of the order.
Chad Billingsley, RHP
Last year, it appeared that Billingsley might be pitching his way out of L.A. At age 26, he had the worst year of his career right after signing a three-year contract, and questions about whether he'd ever mature into a reliable rotation stalwart only seemed to get louder. Over the last few months, Billingsley has seemingly put those questions to rest and is quietly having a pretty terrific season for the Dodgers.
Command was his main issue a year ago, but Billingsley managed to get through 102 batters in July while issuing only one walk the whole month, a Halladay-esque performance from a guy who has never really resembled a strike-thrower. In fact, he's issued 10 or fewer walks in every month but May, and the result has been a career low walk rate of 6.8 percent, turning Billingsley into a guy who can work deep into ballgames. Clayton Kershaw is the undisputed ace of the Dodgers staff, but the midrotation guys behind him are one of the main reasons the Dodgers are surprise contenders this year, and the rejuvenation of Billingsley -- who has a 3.44 ERA and 3.21 FIP -- is one of the keys to the success of the boys in blue.
Dave Cameron covers baseball for ESPN Insider. He is the managing editor of FanGraphs, where he has worked since 2008, and has been covering baseball since he founded USSMariner.com in 2003. He has written for The Wall Street Journal since 2009. You can find his ESPN archives here and follow him on Twitter here.