Last week I commented on the huge 80+ point swing Stephen Strasburg’s sparkling debut had on his expected ability according to the baseballcalculus player ability model. After his 2^nd start (5 1/3 innings, 2 hits, 5 walks, 8 K’s), Strasburg’s current ability estimate (expected OPS against) is .691, moving him up to 51^st from 64^th in the overall rankings. So after two starts, Strasburg has now made the 6^th largest  improvement in estimated ability among all pitchers from opening day. The list of players ahead of him is:

		E OPSA as of
		4/1/2010	6/14/2010	change
Jonny	Venters	0.775	0.677	-0.098
Colby	Lewis	0.824	0.731	-0.093
Mat	Latos	0.780	0.692	-0.088
Francisco	Rodriguez	0.775	0.689	-0.086
Matt	Belisle	0.828	0.742	-0.086
Stephen	Strasburg	0.775	0.691	-0.084

Not too surprising for those familiar with this sort of analysis, hot rookies and a couple relatively young players doing a lot better this year than they had previously.  And by the way, that Francisco Rodriguez is not the K-Rod you are familiar with, but the new K-Rod in Anaheim, whose given up 3 hits and recorded 11 K's in 8 MLB innings so far. Now for the flip side, let's see the players who have dropped the most

		E OPSA as of
		4/1/2010	6/14/2010	change
Trevor	Hoffman	0.665	0.747	0.082
Ryan	Rowland-Smith	0.745	0.818	0.074
James	Russell	0.775	0.845	0.071
Rich	Harden	0.695	0.758	0.063
Randy	Williams	0.753	0.805	0.052

For the most part a collection of pitchers that have had just dreadful years (at least compared to their historical performance). The most interesting of these might be Russell, whose stats look reasonably respectable, except for the 7 HR allowed in 21 career innings. For reference, here are the top 5 as they stand right now:

First	Last	E OPSA
Jonathan	Broxton	0.566
Carlos	Marmol	0.604
Luke	Gregerson	0.609
Joe	Nathan	0.623
Tim	Lincecum	0.623

Gregeorson is the obvious surprise on this list, but this really shouldn't be that shocking since he was ranked in the top 20 to start the season.