73% of all players produce between -1 and +1 WAR. Still.

Breakdown after the jump.

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Another off-season, another set of scoops standings ranking baseball's best reporters based on their success reporting major league deals. In using MLB Trade Rumors' fantastic resources to figure out who scooped what, and who scooped who, I've yet again put together a stat board but, instead of it being for players, it's for those who work around the players. Baseball's team and national reporters put in countless time day after day attempting to break news and report deals to their readers but, aside for simply being credited for breaking a particular story, they rarely get ongoing recognition for their work. Although this formula and thought process is far from perfect, it does just that.

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The A's have been carried offensively in the early part of the season by contributions from various new acquisitions; first Yoenis Cespedes (before the DL stint), some sparks from Jonny Gomes, Brandon Inge (also before his DL stint), and now, Josh Reddick. In the month of May, he's been producing: 0.439 wOBA and 6 HR. Currently, if you look at the Fangraphs May leaderboards, he's comparable to Andre Ethier (0.434 wOBA) and Matt Holliday (0.451 wOBA). Not too shabby of company to be in.

As the A's go into their 40th game, and close to the quarter mark of the season. how does Josh Reddick compare to other OF options the A's could have possibly gone after this offseason?

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Kerry Wood is set to announce his retirement, either today or after his next appearance. We all knew it was coming -- it had to with his recent struggles:

In the nine games he did manage to appear in this year, he was ineffective, walking 11 hitters in 8⅓ innings with an 8.64 ERA. Continuing to pitch with the injuries and ineffectiveness was apparently too much for Wood, so he is expected to announce his retirement from baseball Friday, about a month short of his 35th birthday.

Wood was the No. 1 pick of the Cubs in 1995, and was wildly popular among Cubs fans for the 20-K game, the 2003 playoff push, and his stand-up-guy attitude. It's sad that his performance never measured up to his popularity. He retires with an 86-75 won-lost record and 63 saves over 445 games (178 starts).

But sometimes it helps to see why a player like Kerry Wood decides to hang 'em up, does it not? Enjoy:

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1. Derek Lowe is the 2012 MLB leader in ERA.
2. Derek Lowe pitched a shutout last night, May 15th, 2012.
3. Nobody expected either of the above. What gives?

Our friend Harry Pavlidis of The Hardball Times takes a look at Lowe's pitch types vs. contact rates and concludes that Lowe is "pitching to contact" (shudder). But there are several quick lessons that can help us answer the question posed above.

First, we know ERA is suspect because it fails to include (exclude) defense, and a closer look shows that he's benefiting from his defense this season while actually pitching much the same as seasons past. Here's a good, simple lesson on why ERA is flawed:

One might expect Lowe's ERA to regress to the mean.

Note that Harry's analysis is still essentially correct -- Lowe just isn't getting whiffs at all this season compared to his career marks:

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It certainly has been surprising that Jake Peavy has seemed to have found his 2007-self, the one who pitched 223.1 and a career best 2.24 FIP (not to mention, this was his Cy Young-winning season). Last Thursday, David Schoenfield proclaimed Peavy as the best pitcher in baseball, and while only 7 starts into the season he's laying claim to the title of the best pitcher in the AL. Always hard to judge this early into the season, is this just a hot start, or is he set to drop off sometime soon?

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Well covered early into the season is the struggles of the newly highest paid player in baseball, Albert Pujols. Although going into his age 32 season, we know there's some sort of decline coming. Angels GM Jerry Dipoto knows this, even calling out this issue amidst the signing:

Albert has spent many years operating at peak, and if we want to call a decline going from superhuman to just great, I don't think we've seen the last great days of Albert Pujols...

No one expected this. It's easy to look at HR decline, but what are some of the underlying components behind this. OPS through yesterday is obviously down, but his career wOBA has been below his 0.427 average since 2010. What's wrong this year?

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Happy Friday! This has been a crazy week for baseball news. Harper's on a tear along with giving us tons of video to watch, there's Weaver no-no, Chipper's late inning walk-off HR, the injury news of the Panda's hand today, and sadly, Mo Rivera's torn ACL. Along with the end of the first month of the season, the Rookie of the Months were awarded, respectively to the Diamondbacks SP Wade Miley and the Rangers SP Yu Darvish. Now if it wasn't for Miley's 1.60 FIP and absurd 0.107 opponent BABIP and Darvish's 3.19 FIP most likely his 4 wins, it's likely these other candidates would have won. Were there other's that were deserving?

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