Given the inexplicable popularity of NFL football practice in these parts, who cares about Major League Baseball anymore, anyway?

As expected, the Stros (59-62) faded into obscurity during the third quarter of the 2009 season, going 19-21 during that stretch. Although the mainstream media reported mainly that the Stros fell apart during the third quarter, the truth is that they did not play all that much different from the first two quarters of the season (18-22; 23-19). The 2009 Stros simply is not — and never has been — a good baseball team.

Reviewing basic productivity statistics reflects what happened to the Stros during the third quarter of the season. As regular readers of this blog know, the RCAA ("runs created against average") and RSAA ("runs saved against average") statistics, developed by Lee Sinins for his Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia, provide a simple but revealing benchmark of how an MLB player or MLB team is performing during the long MLB season.

RCAA reflects how many more (or fewer) runs that a player generates relative to a league-average player (an exactly league-average player’s RCAA is zero).

Similarly, RSAA measures how many more (or fewer) runs that a pitcher saves relative to a league-average pitcher (an exactly league-average pitcher RSAA is zero).

Thus, a club’s positive RCAA number reflects how many more runs a club’s hitters are generating relative to what a league-average club would generate using the same number of outs. Likewise, a club’s positive RSAA number reflects how many more runs the club’s pitching staff is saving relative to what a league-average pitching staff would prevent in the same number of innings. Negative RCAA and RSAA numbers are just the opposite. A negative RCAA reflects how many fewer runs a club’s hitters are generating relative to a league-average club and a negative RSAA indicates how many more runs a pitching staff is giving up in comparison to a league-average staff.

As a result, good teams generally have a positive net RCAA/RSAA figure, while bad teams tend to have a negative net RCAA/RSAA statistic. Occasionally, a good team will have a high RSAA statistic and a negative RCAA figure (i.e., the Stros’ 2005 World Series team), but it’s almost never the case that a good team will have a high RCAA and a substantially negative RSAA. In other words, you can win with really good pitching and poor hitting, but it’s hard to win consistently with really good hitting if your pitching is poor.

The following charts shows the NL Central clubs’ net RCAA/RSAA figure at the All-Star break and after the third quarter of the 2009 season, along with their current percentage chance of making the playoffs, as calculated by Coolstandings.com:

Through 2nd Quarter

 Through 3rd Quarter

As you can see, the Stros were muddling around with a .500 record based on slightly above-average hitting and slightly below-average pitching as of All-Star break. However, the Stros pitching fell apart during third quarter, saving an astounding 43 fewer runs during that 40-game stretch than a National League-average pitching staff would have saved over those games. Combine that with a downturn in hitting resulting from a DL stint by slugger 1B Lance Berkman and slumps from regular players such as SS Miguel Tejada and RF Hunter Pence, along with the Cardinals’ upsurge in hitting primarily from the acquisition of Matt Holliday, and it’s not surprising that the Stros are 10 games out of first place in the NL Central.

As noted in the preview of the 2009 Stros back in April, this performance level was easily predictable given what Baseball Prospectus has dubbed the "stars-and-scrubs" Stros roster. Frankly, the Stros are an organization playing out a weak hand while attempting to deal with the long-overdue rebuilding program that has became necessary — but was generally ignored — during the final years of the Biggio-Bagwell era. GM Ed Wade has just completed his second straight strong draft in terms of numbers (36 out of 51 drafted players signed), so the rebuilding program is in full swing. But it’s going to take another 2-3 years before any appreciable amount of that investment begins to payoff at the MLB level.

So, hang in there, Stros followers. In the meantime, please pray that the Stros don’t do anything idiotic in the free agent market, similar to what they did in regard to the Carlos Lee deal. Tejada and closer Jose Valverde will become free agents after this season and neither of them is good enough at this stage of their career to command an expensive contract. The Stros would be much better off giving younger, cheaper and likely just as productive players the playing time that fading and overrated veterans such as Tejada and Valverde would otherwise take up.

By the way, the Stros’ trade of C Ivan Rodriguez this past week to the Rangers for a couple of marginal prospects did not indicate, as some mainstream media commentators suggested, that the Stros were "giving up on the season." A club does not "give up on a season" by trading the dead weight of one of the least productive regular players in the National League. Rather, the deal would be better characterized as getting "something for nothing."

The 2009 season statistics for the Stros through the first 80 games are below, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here. The Stros’ active roster is here with links to each individual player’s statistics: