I've always been a big stat geek. I think one of the main reasons I collected baseball cards was to look at the back of them and see how a certain player was performing in his career. Granted, the stats on there were conventional, but it at least gave me some idea how good a player was. 

Now though, I'm like a kid at an arcade with all these new stats. Just over the last 3 years I have found out about a multitude of alternate stats to gawk at and play around with. I even attempted to make a new stat (I still have yet to perfect that!). Anyway, my newest idea is sort of related to my projection averages, tangentally anyway. Since fangraphs.com has a lot of pitcher's stats that are scaled to ERA, I wanted to see how it looks when you average those stats together and do a look at the top pitchers in the league using that simple methodology. I also want to look at how hitters are doing after half a season as well.

• First off, Josh Johnson leads the majors in ERA at 1.82. His FIP is 2.39, and xFIP 3.1; tERA 2.54
• Jaime Garcia (I think maybe we should be hearing a bit more about him as ROY, at least at this point) has an ERA of 2.1, FIP at 3.36, xFIP is 3.73, and tERA 3.49 
• Adam Wainwright is third best in the majors in ERA at 2.24; FIP 3.07; xFIP 3.18; tERA 2.93 
• Ubaldo Jimenez is 4th best in ERA: 2.27. his FIP takes a bit of a hit at 3.2 and xFIP 3.74; tERA 3.13
• the AL finally makes the list with Cliff Lee... ERA is 2.34 and his FIP is even better at 2.22; xFIP goes down to 3.25 and tERA is at 2.16!
• Roy Halladay's first year in the NL: 2.42 ERA, 2.85 FIP, 3.04 xFIP, 3.29 tERA 
• The Rays' David Price is at 2.42 ERA, 3.69 FIP, 4.08 xFIP, and 3.63 tERA 
• Tim Hudson of the Braves is doing pretty well... 2.44 ERA, 4.3 FIP, 4.17 xFIP, 3.7 tERA 
• Clay Buchholz is at 2.45 ERA, 3.47 FIP, 4.28 xFIP, and 3.75 tERA 
• Yovani Gallardo rounds out the top 10 in ERA at 2.58; 2.99 FIP, 3.48 xFIP, and 3.42 tERA 

Ok, so now I want to get a little more info and check out what pitchers are doing well in FIP to get more stats (if they weren't in the top 10 in ERA)

• Francisco Liriano doesn't even make the top 10 in ERA but is first in the majors in FIP at 2.1; ERA: 3.32, xFIP: 2.88, tERA: 2.42 
• Jered Weaver is 5th in FIP at 2.89; ERA 2.82, xFIP 3.26 and tERA 2.67 
• Jon Lester 6th at 2.93; ERA is 2.76, 3.39 xFIP, and 3.06 tERA 
• finally Timmeh makes the list... Mr. Lincecum stands at 3.05 FIP, 3.28 ERA, 3.34 xFIP and 3.55 tERA 

Ok, so I'd like to throw a few more pitchers into the mix, xFIP likes Felix Hernandez and Dan Haren

• Felix Hernandez's xFIP is at 3.46 (9th best in the majors); ERA is at 3.03, FIP 3.25, and tERA at 3 
• Dan Haren is 10th at 3.47 xFIP; ERA is 4.38, FIP is 3.84, and tERA at 4.13

Fangraphs doesn't give an option for tERA leaders, but I noticed that Mat Latos is doing really well with a 2.65 tERA... Clayton Kershaw at 2.83, and Clayton Richard at 3.12. So with 4 pitcher's stats scaled to ERA, things look pretty convoluted to me, which is where my idea of averaging the 4 stats together comes in, to see what a leaderboard would look like if you throw all those numbers together. Here are the leaders in this amalgamated ERA stat I just came up with, I'll call it modERA, or Modified Earned Run Ave

1. Josh Johnson 2.4625
2. Cliff Lee 2.4925
3. Francisco Liriano 2.68
4. Adam Wainwright 2.855
5. Roy Halladay 2.9
6. Jered Weaver 2.91
7. Jon Lester 3.035
8. Matt Latos 3.0475
9. Ubaldo Jimenez  3.085
10. Yovani Gallardo 3.1175
11. Jaime Garcia 3.17
12. Felix Hernandez 3.185
13. Clayton Kershaw 3.275
14. Clayton Richard 3.29
15. Tim Lincecum 3.305

Hopefully I didn't overlook anyone, I almost left Latos and Clayton Richard off the list but they are some very good reasons why the Padres are doing so well. Another reason is the bullpen... The Padres and our very own Cardinals lead the majors with their relievers (by ERA and xFIP... the Cards fall to 7th in FIP). 

So, on to offense, and I'd like to point out just how crazy it is that Votto and Youkilis haven't made the All Star squad (yet?) using weighted on base average:

1. Justin Morneau
2. Miguel Cabrera
3. Josh Hamilton
4. Kevin Youkilis
5. Joey Votto
6. Robinson Cano
7. Josh Willingham (another snub)
8. Albert Pujols
9. Paul Konerko
10. David Wright
11. Adrian Beltre
12. Andre Ethier
13. Scott Rolen
14. Vlad Guerrero
15. Corey Hart
16. Colby Rasmus
17. Aubrey Huff
18. David Ortiz
19. Evan Longoria
20. Troy Tulowitzski

Interestingly enough, the top 5 in OPS and wRC are exactly the same as the top 5 in wOBA. Next, let's see who's been most clutch in Win Probability Added...

1. Josh Hamilton
2. Miguel Cabrera
3. Shin-Soo Choo (2nd in the majors by the Clutch stat)
4. Jason Heyward
5. Joey Votto
6. Adrian Gonzalez
7. Kevin Youkilis
8. Justin Morneau
9. Aubrey Huff
10. Scott Rolen

As a final note, Wright, Morneau, and Hamilton are all benefiting greatly from BABIP. Well, one more thing, defense...

• Albert is 2nd in the NL on Baseballreference.com in RF/9 (but has a negative UZR)
• Holliday is 4th in the majors in UZR right now.... Ludwick is 11th overall (3rd in RF)
• Boog is 7th among shortstops in the majors, despite having a lot of errors
• Schumaker is at -7 UZR at second base
• St. Louis is 4th in Defensive Efficiency in the NL and top 10 in the majors http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/2010-standard-fielding.shtml
• Also, in Defensive Chances we lead the majors (Duncan'd!) and are 5th in putouts... 2nd in assists. I think this really illustrates how much the Cardinals rely on defense and how much pressure there is on the fielders.... our 57 errors as a team is among the top 10 most errors in the majors, but it's understandable given the amount of defensive plays they are making since we don't strike out as many batters as a staff
• FWIW, the Cardinals are right around league average in fielding percentage.
• While there are still some improvements that could be made in defense, we are without a doubt among the best teams in defense. definitely not elite levels of defense, but it's definitely not a liability this year