Wells

It's back! Using the best technology available to us today, SlumpBot .200 identifies a few players who are currently having a bit of trouble and then offers solutions for performance recovery.

Vernon Wells, Los Angeles Angels

Data: .091/.149/.114, 0 HR, 2 RBI

Malfunction: Two weeks into his Angels career, Vernon Wells is looking utterly lost. He's 4-for-44 with just one extra-base hit, a double. His manager benched him on Tuesday for Reggie Willits and Angels fans already started booing him over the weekend. Is his slow start a sign of diminished skills, or is he just pressing?

Diagnosis: Scout John Klima offered a detailed look at Wells's struggles. Klima writes that his foot speed is "a small notch below average for a right-handed hitter," and that "he still has an average major league throwing arm." But it's his approach at the plate that was most worrisome. {YSP:MORE}

In Wells' second at-bat, [Brett] Cecil — a nibbler who by then had thrown 47 pitches and whose 86 mph to 90 mph

buchholzcahillAfter breaking out in 2010, Trevor Cahill and Clay Buchholz have just agreed to long-term extensions with the Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox, respectively. The money both will receive is virtually identical — they're guaranteed $30.5 million from 2011 to 2015 with additional club option years in 2016 and 2017 at $13 million and $13.5 million.

And yet they're far from identical pitchers, despite how similar their deals are.

Cahill is 23 years old and an extreme groundball pitcher with a sinking fastball that sits around 90. Though he struck out a lot of men in the minors, he hasn't gotten many strikeouts or swinging strikes in the big show. (He's doing much better in that department so far in 2011, though.)

On the other hand, Buchholz is 26.  He gets fewer groundballs but strikes out more batters with a significantly zippier fastball.

Despite their differences, their teams have valued their services almost identically.

But despite their performances last year, they certainly

Rangers1

We all have questions about the 2011 season and Alex Remington luckily has some answers. The Stew's resident stats guru will address some of the big ones as the year progresses.

The Situation: There are a few amazing things about the all-time record for team home runs in a single season. One, it has lasted for 14 years, making it older than nearly any other current record regarding homers. Two, it isn't held by the often powerful New York Yankees or Texas Rangers, but by the 1997 Seattle Mariners, who slammed 264 taters behind Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Jay Buhner, Edgar Martinez, Paul Sorrento and others. (The '97 Mariners broke a record that lasted for exactly one year: 257 home runs, hit by the Brady Anderson-led Baltimore Orioles in 1996.)

But despite the fact that the peak of the steroid era seems to have passed, the record hardly seems unbreakable. Unlike Barry Bonds' 73 in 2001 — which no one has come within 14 homers of over the past decade — a couple of teams have

Heyward

Just call him Mr. Opening Day.

For the second straight year, Atlanta Braves rightfielder Jason Heyward hit a home run in his first at-bat on opening day — this one coming off Washington Nationals pitcher Livan Hernandez to lead off the second inning in the Braves' 2-0 victory.  {YSP:MORE}

Heyward2Combine the shot with 2010's blast off Carlos Zambrano and Heyward becomes just the second player in baseball history to hit an opening day homer in his first career at-bat and then follow it up with another homer to lead off the next season. Stats Inc. says the only other player to notch the feat was Kazuo Matsui, who did it for the New York Mets in 2004 and 2005. Interestingly, he also hit an inside-the-park homer to lead off the 2006 season.

Unfortunately for Matsui, those homers were the high point of his career with the Mets. While his first homer thrilled Mets fans who hoped he'd bring power, speed and defense to shortstop, he only hit six more home runs that season, and just 32 in his

Hampton1

To no one's surprise, Mike Hampton called it a career on Saturday. Unfortunately, over the past six years, he's become less known for pitching and more for a seemingly constant run of injuries. His retirement always seemed just around the corner.

But Hampton was also a Cy Young runner-up, a Gold Glover, a two-time All-Star and a five-time Silver Slugger award winner. He was one of the best pitchers at the turn of the millennium, and appeared to be fully in his prime when the Colorado Rockies made him the best-paid pitcher in history, signing him to an eight-year, $121 million contract in late 2000 at the age of 28. Unfortunately, that turned out to be the high point of his career. {YSP:MORE}

As John Sickels recounts, Hampton was originally a Seattle Mariners draftee, taken out of a Florida high school in 1990. He moved quickly through the minors, perhaps too quickly: He got his first cup of coffee as a 20-year-old in 1993, and got crushed, giving up 18 earned runs in 17 innings in

BillJamesAt this point, Bill James has reached an undeniable status of an elder statesman in baseball. He's justly celebrated for his work in baseball analysis, turning countless myths on their head and helping to bring together a like-minded community of intelligent and skeptical baseball fans to which many of us now belong. But his most important work in the public sphere has probably already been done, as his most cutting-edge work is protected by his current employers, the Boston Red Sox.

So it should go without saying that what James writes for public consumption nowadays is more breezy than definitive. His new book, "Solid Fool's Gold," is mostly a collection of essays from his website, billjamesonline.net. It is not, however, a bad thing that they collected it in print form — James' site really is a shame with wonderful material badly marred by poor presentation and a horrible search function. James partly acknowledges that the site isn't entirely reader-friendly, and apparently an

ARODWe all have questions about the 2011 season and Alex Remington luckily has some answers. The Stew's resident stats guru will address the big questions as opening day approaches.

The Situation: Alex Rodriguez has been one of the best players in baseball for a decade and a half. But the last few years have seen a bit of a decline. He's averaged just 133 games a year since 2008, with DL trips for injuries to his calf, quadricep and hip. The hip injury was so serious that he had preseason surgery to fix it in 2009, costing him the first month of the season. He's still averaged 32 HRs, 109 RBIs and a .914 OPS over the last three years, which would be spectacular numbers for anyone not named Alex Rodriguez. But this spring he's been turning heads around the New York Yankees camp, inspiring "best shape of his career" stories, and he's been devastatingly effective even by his own standards, starting the spring with a 13-game hitting streak and batting a cool .410/.459/.949 with five homers

CarGoWe all have questions about the 2011 season and Alex Remington luckily has some answers. The Stew's resident stats guru will address the big questions as opening day approaches.

The Situation: Last year, Carlos Gonzalez took his place as one of the most exciting players in the game, hitting 34 homers, stealing 26 bases, playing all three outfield positions, and finishing third in the MVP race. Acquired from the Oakland Athletics in the Matt Holliday trade, he's only 25, and the Rockies couldn't bear the thought of him playing anywhere else — so they locked him up to a seven year, $80 million contract this offseason. It looks like everything's coming up Milhouse for Carlos Gonzalez.

The Question: Can Gonzalez avoid taking a step back in 2011? {YSP:MORE}

The Analysis: Gonzalez has power and speed, but a dropoff is likely. He isn't yet a fully-rounded player. Defensive stats suggest that his defense isn't stellar, particularly in center field. (He seems to be better in left, where he's