Stats

How good has Ubaldo Jimenez been through 11 starts in 2010?  Almost unbelievably good.

Everyone knows, or should know, that Coors Field in mile-high Denver, is far and away the best place to hit in the major leagues.  Jimenez has a 1.29 home ERA this year, and only an 0.52 ERA on the road.  Based on that performance, I’d guestimate Jiminez’s current ERA (0.78 in fact) at 0.60 if he played his home games in a completely hitting/pitching neutral park.

With the first two months of the season in the books, we'll take a look at how Rays prospects have performed at the two highest levels.

Each team is loaded with talent, as the Rays feature one of the top farm systems in the game.

We'll have a look at who's off to a hot start and who's struggling, with special attention to some of the Rays' most noteworthy prospects.

AAA: Durham Bulls (31-23, First Place, IL South)

Who's Hot

Since the Jeet man is chasing Gehrig's sacred numbers I thought I would compare the two...something Jeter himself would never admit doing.

They both had the basic same legnth careers, G-man 16 years and Jeet-man 15. Gehrig had three seasons of 15 or fewer games, two in the beginning and one at the end. Jeter had one season where he played 15 games...his first. Jeter will play for at least two more years.

Lou Gehrig: 2,164 games/8,001 AB/ 1888 runs/2,721 hits/ 534 doubles/163 triples/493 HR/1,995 RBI/1,508 walks/790 strikeouts/.340 AVG./.447 OBP

At the start of the 2010 MLB season, the Toronto Blue Jays were not in high hopes of their many often disappointed, but loyal, Canadian fans.

The Jays lost their beloved ace, pitcher Roy "Doc" Halladay . Halladay went to the Philadelphia Phillies for a bigger paycheck and a greater opportunity for finally getting his well-deserved Major League Baseball's World Series Championship.

Halladay was the rock of the team.  Surely, the Jays would fall apart, and quickly at that, without him...or would they?

Coming into the 2009 season, the Atlanta Braves' Tommy Hanson was one of the most hyped prospects in baseball, even ranked by some above Jason Heyward.

Despite being seemingly ready for the major leagues, the Braves opted to give Hanson a taste of AAA, and left Jo-Jo Reyes in the rotation.

Instead of getting a full year of Hanson’s 2.89 ERA and 8.18 K/9, the Braves were treated to five starts of 7.00 ERA from Jo-Jo Reyes (Kris Medlen also made a couple starts, not faring much better than Reyes).

On May 23, 2010 against the Minnesota Twins, Trevor Hoffman pitched game No. 1,000 for his career, coming on during the eighth inning in a 4-3 victory. He became the 14th player in major league history to accomplish this.

We then went back to our daily routines.

For a sport so focused on the milestone stats, it's interesting to see this one completely slip by. We have 500 home runs, 3,000 hits, 300 wins, and others. Yet, any milestone for games played is not really looked at as any accomplishment. It's a testament to little more than longevity, right?

I have to preface this by saying that I have totally and fully jumped onto the Sabermetric bandwagon. I know I'm late with it, but I am hooked.

There is still a lot I have to learn in the intricacies of the endless list of stats that didn't exist 15 years ago (for instance the difference between WPA-win probability added and VORP-Value over a replacement player, they seem like they are measuring the same thing).

Anyway, I had to preface with that because I have become fascinated with one stat in particular, clutch.

The first 40 games of the season are in the books, and when compiling the report card for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the first quarter can pretty much be summed up in two words — roller coaster.

Undoubtedly, injuries have plagued the boys in blue already during the young season.

At some point or another, the Dodgers have had seven players visit the disabled list, and have heavily relied on bench play or minor league call-ups to pick up the slack.

Baseball-reference has a stat that is rarely ever used: bequeathed runners. 

It's the number of runners on base when a pitcher leaves the game.  Subsequently, there's also a stat on how many of these runners score.  These runs are added to the starter's ERA, even though the relief pitcher was pitching and, ultimately, allowed the runs to score. 

Want a full year of data? Look at the stats from 2009. 

Besides Paul Maholm, Zach Duke is the longest serving Pirate. And he is still hard to typecast.

On a good night, he is capable of beating a Cy Young award winner like the New York Mets' Johan Santana, or the Phillies Roy Halladay. On a bad day, he can be truly awful.

An example of this was Duke's last outing against Cincinnati. He gave up five runs, two of them homers, in five innings, for a 9.00 ERA.