The Outsiders Look at the Insides of Baseball

Dear Yahoo/Experts League Organizers

2011-02-09T15:18:00.003-05:00

May you please allow me to join a league with Brandon Funston?

Yesterday Yahoo released their starting pitcher preseason ranks. Mr. Funston tabbed Jon Lester as his 11th best starting pitcher. That's right, 11th! Meaning there are 10 pitchers that are superior to Lester.

Now I know it is common for experts to undervalue pitchers, claiming that there are soooo many, and I will admit that I easily overvalue Lester - I have him as my #1 or #2 starter entering this season, I'm extremely bullish on him.

Here's the line I'm thinking for Lester for 2011 season - his age 27 season:
20w, 240k, 2.80, and 1.15

Honestly, I feel as though 20w might be a couple low, but it's tough to project more then 20 wins for any pitchers under any circumstances.

Now, the argument for why I see an improvement. First, the defensive squad behind Lester is arguably the best in baseball. While he pitches in a hitter friendly environment, his ground ball tendencies, that got even better in 2010, should negate the environment. This should then help decrease his ERA and WHIP.

Second, the wins. This Red Sox team is loaded, as I previously mentioned, in a defensive perspective, as well as it's bullpen (at least the top half), and the hitters. Speaking of the hitters, if Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury return to the form of 2009, this is going to be a devastatingly strong lineup. In other words, stay away from pitchers from the AL East this year.

Worst case scenario is that Lester puts up the numbers he did in 2011. While the ERA and WHIP were not the strongest of the top 10 pitchers, he easily made up for that with strikeouts and wins.

Let's look at Funston's top 10 and their 2010 numbers:

Roy Halladay
Tim Lincecum
Adam Wainwright
Felix Hernandez
Clayton Kershaw
Cliff Lee
Josh Johnson
Ubaldo Jimenez
Tommy Hanson
Zach Grienke

I'll ignore the top 5, even 6. But where the question marks begin to pop up are with the seventh through 10th players.

Josh Johnson is coming off of a season where his ERA and WHIP were incredible, neither of which are sustainable given his left on base percentage (LOB%). Further, we're talking about a guy that is fresh off of an end-of-season stint on the disabled list due to his shoulder flaring up and tightness in his back. Both of which are terrible signs for a starting pitcher that has only once logged over 200 innings and never put up 200 strikeouts. Add to the fact that the Marlins are a middling at best squad, and it's easy to think that Lester and Johnson could have similar rate stats with Lester logging an additional 40 strikeouts and 8 wins.

Next, Ubaldo Jimenez. I love the pitcher in real life and his stuff is unreal. However, he's yet to harness his control and until he does so, it's tough to rate him above Lester simply because of another unsustainable ERA. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Funston traded for Jimenez the first week in June - where his from that point out ERA was approaching 5.00. I would expect Lester to have Jimenez is all four starting pitcher categories.

Now we come up to the biggest head scratcher. It's obvious to me that Funston made this selection based on Tommy Hanson's second half, completely ignoring the fact that aside from a nice walk rate, Hanson did nothing to deserve the numbers he put up. If those second half numbers are extrapolated over the course of a full season, we're essentially looking at Kevin Slowey. That's right, Brandon Funston feels Slowey is a top 10 pitcher.

I like Hanson, but I don't see his second half numbers as a sign of things to come nor do I see him as the next Slowey. He's still got a lot of upside, but it's not enough to peg him as a better starter than Lester for this season.

Lastly, Funston picked Zach Greinke over Lester. We can easily conclude that based on the teams around these respective pitchers, Lester will chalk up more wins. Yes, I understand Greinke is moving to the National League and that two years ago he put up monster numbers, but to simply assume that his one monster season is the norm is a mistake.

Managing a fantasy baseball team is about understanding expectations. I agree that Joey Gathright should have become the next Juan Pierre, but it didn't happen. It is out of the question that any of these pitchers, or even another five not mentioned here jump over Lester this season? Certainly, but when we are looking at a pitcher with a clean bill of health that has dropped in 225 strikeouts for two straight seasons, pitches for a phenomenal team in all aspects of the game, and has strong groundball and control numbers, why take the risk on these others with question marks. These others that have to show a semblance of certainty.

So Brandon Funston, I'm asking you to explain yourself here. Fill us in as to why you would let Jon Lester be, in a 10 team league, someone #2 pitcher.

Let's Try This "Blogging" Thing Again, Again

2011-02-08T17:59:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking that it's time to try getting back into writing. I truly did enjoy it when I was at my heyday of putting out an article a day and part of me misses it. While time may play a role in not allowing me to write as much as I would like, I'm going to give it a go, again, again.

The focus however will shift, it will shift to "Fantasy" baseball. While writing about Major League Baseball from an outsiders perspective providing feedback and breaking down trades provided a good starting off point, I feel as though I can't offer anything to the baseball community and the fans at large - at least at this point.

As such, I will focus on fantasy baseball and essentially provide my two cents. Of course I will try to remain open-minded, albeit with a bias towards ex-Bisons, past and present Indians, Canadians, and Koreans, my objective is to provide some insight and strategy for my readers, something I feel is currently lacking. That is, outside of the major media outlets, there is very little in terms of authentic fantasy baseball writing.

Where is this coming from? Today I purchased a "fantasy" guide, USA Today's 2011 publication. Honestly, it isn't to give me an inside edge over my peers in my leagues, rather to give me something to read while otherwise preoccupied. I've went through a few articles and one specifically stood out to me. The author of the article was discussing how fantasy managers "chase" pre-rankings, and average draft positions (ADP). The author made out as if it was foolish to follow these or use them as a guide and instead, owners should create their own set of "values".

While I won't disagree with the author's assertion that owners ought to create their own set of values - I for one have no interest in paying for a Jayson Werth unless he costs $10-12 or is a mid to late round draft selection - I caution an owner who strictly follows their own set of values.

Here's an example. I am in a 13 team, 5x5, mixed auction dynasty league. Two years ago in that league I took a "flyer"on Gordon Beckham in the reserve round. As you know he turned into a very promising keeper, one who cost me a very affordable $5 for the 2010 season. Unfortunately this $5 "bargain" ended up being a terrible disappointment and a huge over-expense.

Here we are just weeks before I am due to select keepers and Beckham's price tag for the 2011 season is now inflated to $11. This is where I'm torn. Had Beckham had the 2010 season I expected him to have (or, essentially the season he is projected to have this year - .273-15-81-77 - Bill James via FanGraphs) there's no question I keep him at $11. However, after his awful sophomore season, it got me thinking that I could potentially land him for a couple dollars less, after all, his 2011 season was disastrous before a mid-season turnaround.

In any event, even though I value Beckham as a $15-18 player and that's where I would take him in a re-draft league (I see 25 home run upside in him) I must adjust my strategy on Beckham based on his pre-draft rankings and "book" auction values. Instead of being torn whether or not to keep him at $11, a price I see him being more then worthy of, I must make a decision based on my league, not based on how I value my player.

That is, do I feel that $11 will be a "value" in my league, or do I feel that it will be too costly? I had originally pegged Beckham at $5-7 based on feedback I had received from my league mates. However, now that I see a lot of his expert values up over $11, it's tough to imagine I'll get him at $6 below cost.

Boiling this down to one quick conclusion, while the magazine I was reading suggested that average draft position should not be your be-all end-all, and there is some merit to that, one certainly has to consider the general consensus of a player when creating his value.

Next up, I will write about knowing your opponents.

Worst Blogger Alive....

2010-10-27T17:26:00.003-04:00

Since the worst blogger died.

Quickly, San Francisco is still my pick to take the World Series. The Rangers have faired well to this point while not having to face the caliber of pitching that they will see from the Giants. Further, four of the possible seven games will take place in a pitchers ball park, where those can'o'corn homers will be more along their rightful lines.

I'm going with San Francisco in five, although I want to say six.

Either way, Giants win.

I think Panda has a huge series.

Gutting It Out

2010-10-22T17:34:00.004-04:00

I don't know a lot, or really anything about cars, so I rarely if ever give my input regarding them. I don't follow basketball and probably couldn't name the "star" player on every team in the league, so I won't stick my nose into a discussion about basketball. Football, ditto. European soccer, same thing. When someone with a background in politics raises a point regarding politics, I typically concede to that person, assuming they know what they are talking about.

Why then, can't radio personalities do the same?

(Maybe the greater question is why I continue to go to the sources I do for entertainment).

I have in my short time writing made mistakes, lot's to be certain. I even mistakenly called right handed pitcher Clay Buchholz a lefty, and at the time, that was much of the reason I liked him as a prospect. I've even started a second, yet short lived blog about my favorite OHLer, Andrew Shaw because I felt as though he deserved to be drafted - didn't happen.

On the radio this afternoon I heard Jim Rome (guh!) give a monologue about how Roy "Doc" Halladay had one of the gutsiest performances in recently history. Rome even asserted that this performance may have overshadowed the performance of Curt Schilling a couple years back. Rome attempted to make it out as if Halladay's performance was the fuel to ignite the fire that was the Phillies win. You can bet that if the Phillies take this series, Rome will talk about how Halladay went out there on "one leg".

Here's the scoop if you missed out on it.

Halladay claimed to have pulled his groin sometime in the second inning. And according to Rotoworld, "might explain why his stuff looked so shaky throughout the night".

Of course, his second inning groin pull had to do with how poorly he pitched in the first inning. It was entirely owed to the fact that Giants hitters were hammering the ball all night!

I'm sorry, maybe I'm beginning to sound like a Doc hater, but this is going too far! The guy is a fantastic pitcher who has had a memorable season and is probably destined for the hall of fame. It's tough to say negative things about him.

However, this wasn't a gutsy performance. What we saw was a pitcher who simply didn't have his best stuff that happened to pull his groin after 30 or so pitches.

Pitches...Pitcher...Throwing pitches. Wait, this gives me an idea...

Tom Verducci has the "rule of 30", where he asserts a pitcher under the age of 25 that increases his workload by more then 30 is vulnerable to injury. Entering last night's ballgame, Halladay had tossed 266.1 innings during the 2010 season (including the All Star Game and Post Season). This falls just 3.2 innings short of eclipsing the magic 30. Maybe we have something here?

We also see that Halladay has thrown 150 more pitches during 2010 then he did during his career high season in 2003. 2004, the season after his previous career high, also resulted in Halladay missing a significant amount of time.

I'm not saying this is an open and shut case, but could throwing a career high in innings and pitches result in Halladay running out of gas? If he were 25, almost everyone would be convinced this is true, so why not for a 33 year old? A 33 year old who year after year has been among the league leaders in pitches thrown and innings pitched.

Baseball Prospectus has a stat called "Pitcher Abuse Points". It hasn't been used to link many injuries recently, and I'll be the first to admit the premise isn't iron-clad. In fact, this stat was created over a decade ago and not much work has been done to further it. Even BP's ex-injury expert Will Carrol wasn't found utilizing this stat.

In any event, PAP is created using the following formula, as per BP,

These points are cumulative: a 115-pitch outing gets you 20 PAP's - 1 for each pitch from 101-110 (10 total), and 2 for each pitch from 111-115 (10 total). A 120-pitch outing is worth 30 PAP's, while a 140-pitch outing is worth 100 PAP's - more than 3 times as much. This seems fair; a pitcher doesn't get tired all at once, but fatigue sets on gradually, and with each pitch the danger of continuing to pitch grows.

Further, BP breaks the pitch tallies into a chart as follows:

Pitcher Abuse Points
Situation	PAP/Pitch
Pitches 1-100	0
Pitches 101-110	1
Pitches 111-120	2
Pitches 121-130	3
Pitches 131-140	4
Pitches 141-150	5
Pitches 151+	6

This is all a lead up to stating that Roy Halladay has finished in the top 5 in PAP for the last five seasons, possibly pointing to a breakdown in the pitcher. Maybe pitching into October has caused the otherwise indestructible Halladay to fall apart?

I need to again state that this isn't me hating on Roy Halladay, two years ago I fought tooth and nail to convince the writers at Baseball Daily Digest to use some critical thinking in making their selections. What I am doing here is proposing the idea that Halladay's "gutting it out" was possibly due to him being worn down due to overuse, something he displayed in the first inning. His "gutting it out" was not due to pulling his groin in the second inning, as his performance did not tail off after that point - he was arguably a better pitcher after the second inning.

ALCS and NLCS

2010-10-15T15:46:00.003-04:00

Well, I went four for four with my AL and NL division series picks. I was a little nervous about picking the Rangers over the Rays and the Giants over the Braves, but in the end, everything ended how I expected.

On my twitter account (@TheOLIB) I tweeted that I expected the Giants to take the World Series entering the first day of the post season. I made this decision based on the pitching of the Giants and while Roy Halladay is getting all the press after his no-hitter, with people going as far as ranking him among the best right handers of all time (something I disagree with and will write about at a later date) I still feel as though the Giants 1-2-3 of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Jonathan Sanchez are superior to the Phils 1-2-3, not to mention I prefer the Giants bullpen.

Where the Phillies have some fortune is going up against a lot of right handed pitchers, only four of the Giants active pitchers pitch from the wrong side with essentially nothing in the end game. That being said, I would anticipate seeing a lot of Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez during this series and a little less Santiago "what's my name" Casilla - even though Casilla has looked incredible this season.

I still have the Giants taking this series in what should go the distance. Hopefully this series has Lincecum winning a couple of games head-to-head against Halladay which will remind people that while Doc has been a phenomenal pitcher for his career, his timing is what truly makes his career stand out (pre-Schilling, post-Hernandez/Lincecum dominance).

Over in the American League I'm going with the Yankees taking the Rangers. I'm taking this one based on strategy, not so much the strategy of having Cliff Lee heading to the bump for game three, but for sending CJ Wilson out there for game one. I would have conceded game one and wend for back to back W's without CC Sabathia on the hill. That is, Wilson is essentially going to have to outpitch Sabathia to win game one, not an easy task facing any group of hitters, but against the Yanks, that much more difficult.

Additionally, this is a possible seven game series where a shaky bullpen is that much more vulnerable, especially against experienced hitters that are solid at putting the ball in play. With all the Yankees hitters up to full speed, it's doubtful the Rangers will have an easy inning towards the end of the game. That said, I see this one ending in five, maybe six with experts blaming it on Washington for the wrong reason (Lee) rather then the rotation configuration as a whole.

So again, Yankees over the Rangers in the ALCS and Giants over the Phillies in the NLCS with the Giants taking home the World Series.

Curiosity Kills Something

2010-10-12T14:00:00.004-04:00

Right, it's playoff time and I'm making a quick post about a single-A catcher, deal with it. I made my Division Series picks at the final hour over on my twitter page (yea, I "tweet") and also promised for a post that evening - best unemployed writer, ever!

Anyways, there has been a fair amount of negative things written about Nationals catching prospect Derek Norris. Here are comments by two of the industries most well-known prospect authors.

Kevin Goldstein stated, "[Norris] became an on-base machine with little power" while giving him a mulligan due to injuries (I'll touch on these later).
Jason Gray wrote, "Norris will look to rebound from a subpar season in the Carolina League, where he hit .235 and slugged just .419."

Truth be told, I actually thought there was more negative press about the 21 year old. However, we still have two authors who walked away unimpressed with the power that Norris displayed in 2010.

Quick explanation. Keith Law wrote in a recent chat transcript that it isn't uncommon for hitters to take a year to a year and a half to recover their power stroke after a hamate injury. I have read that similar power sapping can occur to wrist injuries. The hamate bone is, from my non-medical opinion, a part of the wrist, and as such, Derek Norris' power sapping should not have been too much of a surprise.

Norris also suffered a minor concussion when he was hit in the head by a "96mph fastball". Which Norris admitted took him a fair amount of plate appearances to bounce back from, something his month-by-month statistics show as this was the only full month where Norris posted an OPS under .830 (keep this number in mind for later). Even his playoff-shortened month of September had Norris posting an OPS of .865 (if my math is correct).

Of course we don't want to altogether eliminate Norris' month of June, but we can see that something might not have been right that month, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that it had to do with having just taken a fastball off the head.

Neither of which is the point. The point here is that Norris didn't really have that bad of a season. In fact, his power numbers as is would suffice in the big leagues.

Consider where he would stand with those numbers at the show. These numbers I am speaking of are the end of season line of an .838 OPS and an ISO of .184.

Among catchers with 390 plate appearances (Norris had 387) there are 20 qualified catchers, five of whom posted an OPS higher then Norris' .838, while six put up an ISO over Norris' .184.

In other words, if Norris' numbers translated cleanly to major league baseball, he suffered a serious hand injury, and a concussion, we're looking at a top 5 or 6 hitting catcher in baseball. Keep in mind Norris is also putting in a conscious effort to being a better defensive catcher, something we all know a guy like Jorge Posada could care less about.

Derek Norris is one of my favorite prospects and should be one of yours as well. Keep his name in mind over the next 20 months or so, because he'll be making a splash in Washington while Stephen Strasberg is making a push for his first Cy Young award.

Quick question, is the catcher position getting "deep"? There are a fair amount of highly regarded youngsters that are already in the majors, and we should see another handful or so in the next year.

All About the Playoffs

2010-10-04T22:25:00.004-04:00

Dave Cameron of FanGraphs keeps the playoff story alive in proposing yet another idea for "improving" baseball down the stretch. Honestly, it's not a terrible idea, although I'm not sure it will solve any current "problems" while not annoying certain fan bases.

To me, the bigger issue is that we are rewarding teams for winning their division under any circumstance. Take the Texas Rangers, for example. Here's a team that if divisional winners weren't given the golden ticket (a mistake in my opinion) would have JUST made it into the playoffs. They finished one game above the Red Sox and two ahead of the ChiSox, two teams that were eliminated with more then a week left.

One has to wonder what kind of "extra effort" those teams put in if they knew it was about win #90 (a foreseeable goal with the Red Sox needing 15 and the Chi Sox needing 17 as of September 1st) instead of win #95 (based on the Yankees and Rays pace as of September 1st).

Likewise, authors have made a stink about a lack of drama in the American League East, but what about the lack of drama in the American League West?

Sadly the 2010 season didn't offer a lot of last week entertainment. Most teams were more concerned about setting up their rotations for the playoffs and wondering where they would play their first round of golf rather then digging deep and making a run of things. But keep in mind that the 2009 season had a division winner crowned on day #163.

Wait, let's look at 2009 again...

Wow, if teams weren't put into the playoffs based on geographical boundaries, we could have has a VERY exciting end to the season. While the Yankees, Angels, and Red Sox were all locks to make the playoffs and had things all but wrapped up a week in advanced, look at all the teams that come into contention if they are shooting for the 86 wins that both the Tigers and Twins settled in with.

We'd have the Rays, who finished with 84 and had the two best teams in the American League in their division (can't blame a team for packing that in). We'd also have the Rangers, who with 87 wins would have been the class of the final playoff spot, possibly providing a little more oomph with leading a race rather then trailing by 10 games. And we'd also have the Mariners, who with 85 wins might have had a shot.

2009 offered a little bit of drama with the Tigers and Twins fighting it out and needing an extra game, but imagine if those imaginary geographic lines didn't exist? There would have been 5 teams fighting the last days of the season for one playoff spot.

Maybe 2009 was a special case, how about 2008? Same thing, the American League Central went down to game #163 while two nearly equal teams, the Yankees and Jays were out with plenty of time left in the season.

What about 2007? Not too much excitement. Although having 88 wins and chasing two 94 win teams has got to look a lot nicer then chasing a single 94 and another with 96 as the Mariners and Tigers had to do respectively.

Then there is 2006, where a 90 win team didn't make the playoffs, while in the National League, an 83 win team made the playoffs with an 85 win team dusting off their fairway woods.

All of this is to say that the wild card isn't the issue. The wild card is predominantly rewarding one of the top teams in the league for being a top team. Is it taking some drama out? Certainly! But think how ridiculous the old system was where a team like the 2009 Red Sox, the team with the third most wins in the American League, would have been sitting at home.

The system, as is, works. It's not perfect, but it works. I would get rid of the geographical lines altogether, as it isn't as if the players are riding buses or non-chartered airplanes.

The WhO's

2010-09-24T20:45:00.004-04:00

During tonight's Jays-O's radio broadcast I heard a "record" that hasn't been getting any press and also one that drew me to an even more startling conclusion.

Baltimore Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis became the third (yes, the THIRD) major leaguer in history to have 4 straight seasons of 43 or more doubles. Wow, really? Ever? That's quite impressive, well done Nick!

However, what really stuck out to me as the Jays announcers were talking about Markakis was that Nick may have more extra base hits (55) then runs batted in (53) - which in fact is true. While Nick has been hitting in the two hole for a good chunk of the season, having as many runs batted in as extra base hits is disastrous!

Possibly that is somewhat of an overstatement. However, how disheartening does it have to be for Markakis to be hitting the ball so well, yet offering so little production for his club?

I suppose this simply highlights the fact that the Orioles have been terrible at creating runs this season. So bad, that they need to have one of their best hitters hitting 2nd as things rapidly go downhill after that point. The team has three hitters with an on base percentage above league average. Their first basemen have the second lowest combined OPS in the league and it can't be chalked up to Justin Smoak (who has played for both the worst and third worst teams in terms of team first base OPS).

With as much young pitching depth as the Orioles have, their lack of hitting both at the major league and minor league level make it increasingly less likely that this team turns around any time soon. We may not be looking at the Pirates, but I'm not sure we are too far off given the depth of the systems and pockets of the teams in this division.

"Illogic" - A Race for MVP

2010-09-20T18:58:00.003-04:00

I will touch on this more in the coming days, but I simply could not pass up on the opportunity to call out one of the most stupid comments I have ever read. And let me tell you, that bar is quite low!

Cliff Corcoran of SI.com writes,

[Joe] Mauer might be the first player you'd eliminate from that list, if only because his performance this season (.331/.407/.473, 9 HR, 74 RBIs) falls so far short of his otherworldly MVP campaign of a year ago.

You can check out the list of obvious candidates for yourself. You can also ignore the fact that for some reason I keep going back to SI.com despite the continual abomination that is their baseball writing (although there is more to come).

Despite all of that I have to wonder where Corcoran gets off eliminating Mauer based on the fact that Mauer is failing to be Mauer. That is, Corcoran feels as though simply because Mauer's MVP season in 2009 was greater than his season in 2010 that he is undeserving of it this year. What he fails to mention is that there is a hippo standing on a banana in odd numbered months that make it impossible to vote for the Twins backstop.

What a joke!

Well thanks for eliminating Mauer out of the MVP race based on that logic, I was really scratching my head there!

But Corcoran goes on to oust his own logic time and time again.

First, he suggests that Troy Tulowitzki is undeserving of the NL MVP simply because he missed a month of the season (okay) and consequently his counting stats are down (okay, fault MVP voters). However, this "logic" only applies to Tulowitzki because...Well, because.

That is, Corcoran believes that despite not leading the league in any counting categories and missing a significant amount of time, Josh Hamilton is the favorite to win AL MVP. Sadly, Corcoran leaves out his rationale behind the pineapple taking home the Cy Young, but I can't imagine the logic would be much different then removing Tulo from the NL ballot for injuries and a lack of counting stats and adding Hamilton to the top of his despite the same inefficiencies.

Second, Corcoran uses his "Mauer defense" MINUS the counting stats argument to write why Albert Pujols deserves third instead of first in writing,

"The counting stats are there, but relative to his own absurd standard, Pujols' rate stats are down this season. In the course of winning the last two NL MVPs, he averaged 42 home runs and 125 RBIs, totals within his reach this year, but also hit .342/.452/.656, which is yet another level of awesomeness above what he has accomplished in 2010. Expect Pujols to be penalized a bit for failing to live up to his own past performance..."

Corcoran does mention that this may be "unfair" however is not willing to fully commit to the level of fairness in this discussion nor state if Pujols should be the winner.

Going against his own logic, Corcoran writes about the counting stats being there, but the failure of Pujols to be Pujols as his fault. There is an interesting comment about Coco the talking monkey and Afghanistan though, which certainly leads to a further understanding of who will win the NL MVP.

If I were a less serious baseball fan, or simply a casual observer of the sport. Maybe I'm from Minnesota and I'm bummed that the Vikings started off 0 and 2 and I'm looking for something to heal those wounds ending up at Corcoran's article. However, upon completion I'm not certain this person would have a better understanding of who the deserving MVP is in either league. Where an argument goes against one player, it supports another; where it disqualifies one, it inflates another. Simply put, the logic makes teaching flip cup to a class of 5 year olds seem like a great decision.

By the way, that's a decision I made while teaching in Korea, so thank you Mr. Corcoran.

(Take note that 3 of the students were one'n'done - I'm a great teacher!)

Expanding MLB's Playoff Format

2010-09-07T16:11:00.004-04:00

Mmm, I don't like it.

Next!

Here's the basis; Tom Verducci at SI.com writes an article suggesting a way to improve Major League Baseball's playoff format and add some revenue. He has an excellent point that recent "win or go home" games have drawn outstanding viewership and the lack of these nail biters have hurt baseball. Although the former has evidence only in that the National Football League is a behemoth and Major League Baseball is simply puttering along. I'm not sure if Verducci follows the National Hockey League or not, but the Stanley Cup has went the distance in 4 of the last 7 seasons, yet the NHL isn't doing all that hot. In fact, the NHL Finals have gained little (if any) ground on the NBA Finals despite being drastically more dramatic (the NBA Finals have went 7 games only four times since 1988).

Verducci states that teams are content simply making the playoffs in Major League Baseball. Whether factual or not, this is not really a big deal in my opinion given the home field advantages (albeit small) provided to teams. While Verducci points out that the Rays may sit their staff ace in a potential division winning game at the end of the season, it's tough to blame the Rays for wanting David Price available to pitch at least twice in the first round of the playoffs. Further, with injuries being a part of any sport, it's smarter to keep your best pitcher available for the playoffs, rather then risk him getting hurt for home field advantage.

Verducci suggests an idea which I totally disagree with. He suggests that MLB open up two wild card spots instead of the current set up of one (per league). He sets up a situation where the two wild card teams play a play-in game, where the winner goes onto the playoffs and the loser goes home. What this would do is create more meaningful games as teams further down the pecking order would still have a shot at the playoffs. To me, there isn't anything really wrong with this basis and it's tough to argue against making baseball more competitive in September. But that's it.

Verducci writes, "I have a hard time thinking of a down side to this system." His rationale for said statement is, "It rewards division winners and penalizes second-place teams."

Okay, that is fair, and Verducci brings up an example of the 2005 Houston Astros who were far out of contention as early as May 7th.

But here is where I disagree. We are giving lesser teams a ridiculous breath of air. Anything can happen in a single game and while this game may have encouraged a few better games on the last day of the season, we could conceivably hurt the playoffs by allowing - for example - the Boston Red Sox (leaving history out of the picture) into the playoffs.

That is, the Yankees and Rays are the two best teams in baseball, by a fairly significant margin. I'm sure the Rays would prefer to win the division, but they certainly aren't going to kill themselves to get in. They are currently 7 games ahead of the Sox and a vastly superior team (owning a +123 run differential to the Sox +68).

Verducci is then suggesting that we potentially kick the second best team in all of baseball (inexcusable) out of the playoffs for a good, not great team in the Sox.

Worse yet, while this system would give the Rays something to play for if they were tied with the Yankees on the final day of the season, what does this do to the 5th ranked team? A team like the current White Sox who are out of the playoffs but if the season were to end today, would have nothing to play for on the last day - win and they are in, lose and they are in (the wildcard playoff that is).

In fact, I would argue that the Rays would be likely to sit Price on the last day of the season anyways, as they would want him for the more meaningful game against the ChiSox. That is, on the last day of the season, if tied with the Yanks, their destiny isn't even in their own hands. Whereas against the ChiSox, it would be.

Verducci isn't wrong to ask the question of how we can improve the playoff format and the last week of the season. He is wrong, however, to suggest a one game playoff. Using the NFL as a barometer in this scenario is not appropriate as the sport is vastly different. The NFL, for example, never uses a "best of" playoff format.

This then leads to the question of how MLB can improve the playoffs and the end of the season. One area I have always been a proponent of is not allowing any division winners into the playoffs based solely on their standings in the division. Some years this may be unfair as one division may be particularly strong, but even in that scenario, if we go by Verducci's logic, "just win" and you have nothing to complain about.

For example, this season the American League would be represented by the Yanks, the Rays, the Twins, and the ChiSox, the four best teams in the league. This would satisfy Verducci's desire for more meaningful and competitive games. It would make more teams eligible down the stretch as we would have a team like the Jays sitting 6 games out of the playoffs instead of 12. That would give us 4 teams fighting to make the American League bracket instead of 1.

In the National League, things get even better, where we have three exciting races, but only involving two teams. My suggested playoff format would invite an additional two teams into the playoff picture.

How would you change Major League Baseball's playoff format without watering down the competition? Keep in mind, making more teams eligible, while adding the excitement of March Madness, doesn't always add excitement to the final and could potentially water it down.

That is, while the wildcard has been a good addition, remember the throttling the ChiSox gave the 'Stros in the 2005 World Series.

I personally like the way things are, I would just like to see an additional bonus for the best team in the league. For example, in Japan, the best team only has to win 3 games to win the series whereas the underdog has to win 4. In Korea, the league winner sits out the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Verducci, you have some good intentions, but your comparisons aren't accurate. Baseball is not Football, and nothing is the NCAA Tournament. Don't waste your time trying to make baseball like those two events.

"Illogic" - I Really Tried...

2010-09-05T13:32:00.006-04:00

I know, I know, I'm not going to make it in the business if I keep making enemies, burning bridges is not a good idea. I know my "elitist attitude is not going to get" me far. But when there are errors in baseball writing, I feel the need to point it out - I sure wish someone would do the same for me.

I found myself on SI.com reading one of the cover stories about Manny Ramirez, a perfect time given Ramirez's recent trade to the White Sox and the weekend set of the Whites versus the Reds (socks that is). I typically don't find myself reading SI.com too frequently as I find they mix real life emotions with that of sport. Yes, it is fine to get emotional over sports and to feel some semblance of joy or sorrow based on them, but at the end of the day, they are simply sports and are there for entertainment and nothing more.

In any event, the article mentioned the headaches that Manny will provide to the Chi Sox, as he had to the Red Sox, Indians, and Dodgers. The author mentions a couple highly publicized events which made Manny into some sort of anti-hero.

The purpose of this article isn't to praise Manny Ramirez, I really don't care about him as a person, he's one of the greatest hitters regardless of performance enhancers (which, this just in, ONLY helped hitters, meaning that the stats from the past 20 years have only inflated the numbers of the hitters - great science Mr. Shaughnessy) and that's all that matters to me. The purpose of this article is to question why another author is making assumed claims about a hitter based on illogic (spell check confirms, I just made up a word and am now titling this series "Illogic").

So here goes...

The author writes,

It's harder for Manny to hit now that it's harder to juice.

Testing is not his friend. Some of the power and skill is gone.

Oh! That's the correlation?!? It's harder to hit now that Manny can't use steroids, and that's it? No other reasons it's harder for Manny to hit? Nothing? Okay, I'll give you a second to think about that....

Anything?

No, not yet?

How about now?

Here, I'll give you a couple hints...

#1 "Ballpark Factors" are a "factor" in the performance of a hitter and pitcher. Fenway, for example is consistently improving the numbers of a hitter, especially a right handed power hitter who needs to hit the ball 310 feet instead of over 370. Conversely, Dodger stadium tends to sap this power.

It's not a difficult concept. The numbers are fairly straight forward. Some ballparks help a hitter (Fenway) others hinder a hitter (Dodger Stadium).

Admittedly, Manny's Fenway vs. road OPS doesn't really display this. In fact, Manny managed to hit better (according to OPS) at Dodger stadium then at Fenway. OPS isn't the greatest statistic, but it shouldn't be dismissed.

In any event, ballpark factors ought to be considered, and the fact remains that Dodger stadium i less of a hitter friendly ballpark then Fenway Park. Regardless of "juice".

#2 Manny Ramirez is no longer in his late 20's/early 30's (aka the Prime of a hitters career). It is a well known fact that ball players typically get worse as they leave the prime of their career. I wouldn't expect a baseball writer to know this fact, as it doesn't draw reader interest the same way a headline including "Manny" and "badly" does.

In any event, Manny is simply an older hitter. With or without steroids, Manny would have seen a dip in production, the same way David Eckstein saw it - of course, we could chalk Eckstein's career ISO, which scored below "steroid era" league average up to steroids, after all, who knows what he would have been like without them? Positive test be damned, right Cox?

The point is, Manny's ISO peaked during his age 27 and 28 seasons at an amazing .330 and .348. During five of the next six seasons, Manny hovered around .300 having a low of a still impressive .262 in 2003 (presumably a statistical anomaly). Manny's age 35 season was easily the worst of his career and possibly signaled the end of what was an amazing career (keep in mind, that he still had an excellent season that year).

Then, the trade to LA occurred and Manny's career was, can I go as far as to say resurrected? He did, post a .270 ISO that season, which again, continued the negative trend that one would assume from an individual who is in his late 30s. This was then followed with a .241 season, and then the .188 he is posting this year.

We do see a trend forming here though. If you start at 2004 and run the numbers up to 2010 you see it clear as day - 305, 301, 298, 197, 270, 241, 188. That is Manny's age 32 season running through his age 38 season. It's tough to suggest that this isn't simply the normal aging pattern of a player (possibly to the extreme because Manny's peak was so incredibly high).

#3 Manny's "skills" have hardly diminished.

While Manny's power numbers have tailed off, his wOBA (weighted on base average) has seen only a marginal drop in production and remained well above that of the league average hitter. In fact, he is in the top 20 in all of baseball (among hitters with 200+ plate appearances) despite being clean - baffling, isn't it?

Another little factoid, he is one of only two hitters older then 35 in the top 20. I wonder how much of his career is to be blamed on steroids in the first place. That is, a hitter who is in the twilight of his career and is clean is still among the top 20 hitters in baseball, where does this put him for the prime of his career?

Instead of chalking Manny's decreasing power up to steroids, would it be so difficult to look a little further? Instead of assuming that steroids created Manny into the hitter he is/was, do some research, ask some questions. The fact is, there is very little to link PEDs to Performance Enhancement other then the name.

I really wish that writers who get paid would take some time and do a bit of research. Stop aiming for tabloid-style points and write concrete material that brings something to the discussion. Yes Manny will provide some headaches for this team's management, but he's also going to win the team some games.

The better headline would have been, "Kenny Williams admits letting Jim Thome go a HUGE mistake".

Thinking it Over - End of Year Awards

2010-08-28T10:16:00.003-04:00

The Cy Young Award, and many other in baseball are typically given to a pitcher which it is often times difficult to agree with. I think back to when Bartolo Colon won the award in 2005, a year when he led the league in essentially one statistical category, yet walked away with the award.

This insight (read - tangent) came from my perusing of Baseball Prospectus' On the Beat series, where author John Perrotto provides us with a handful of scout reactions to some Major League players. On August 9th, Perrotto had this tidbit about sure-thing non-Cy Young contender Felix Hernandez,

"The fact that this guy is 7-9 is just further proof that you can't judge a pitcher solely on his win-loss record. He was 19-5 last season and his stuff is basically the same and he's pitching almost as well. Believe me, there's nothing wrong with him that some run support wouldn't help. He's still as nasty as ever."

And really, once you look deeper, Felix truly is having the same season as last year, with an argument that he's performing better. That is, his strikeouts are up (career high), his walks are down (career low). In fact, Felix is performing at the best level of his career across the board.

Felix is currently tied with CC Sabathia for the highest WPA in the American League. His 3.27 mark is higher then the total he put up in 2009 and the highest mark of his career.

I suppose what this post boils down to is A Case for Felix, as there is a legitimate chance that despite his mound heroics, Felix won't come home with the Cy Young this year. It wouldn't surprise me, that his potentially sub .500 record would leave him off the ballot of most BBWA despite being among the most valuable and dominant in the American League.

Wahn, Wahn, Waaaaaahnnnnn

2010-08-26T11:08:00.003-04:00

Yesterday the Bisons (you think I forgot about them, didn't you?!?) placed still-a-prospect Fernando "That's Fun to Say" Martinez on the disabled list. Ironically, this was also the same day the Bisons had their last big promo night of the season - a Fernando Martinez bobble head.

The bitter pill became even more bitter when the Bisons made an 8th inning comeback only to allow 5 runs in the 10th.

It's as if Buffalo knows I am back home - thanks!

No, You Don't

2010-08-25T10:08:00.003-04:00

I won't link you to the article which is the basis for this article, but I will give you a brief summary:

A hockey writer and self proclaimed pot stirrer, decided to take his turn writing about baseball - after all, hockey season is just around the corner and he wouldn't want his readers to forget he exists. Short story even shorter, the writer asks if Jose Bautista is juiced.

Well, that's unfair. He never directly asked the question, simply alluded to the possibility of bringing up said question.

There is so much to cover here I'm having a difficult time figuring out where to start.

First, into the allegation. I'm not going to deny nor confirm that Bautista is juiced. All we can go on is that he hasn't failed a test, so as far as the public knows, Bautista is clean. Is there a chance he is doing something that isn't being detected? Sure. But asking a question to an answer we already have isn't really journalism, is it? That is, over a decade ago the question was asked if players were using something to aid their performance. The question was answered and as such baseball was slagged with this imaginary line of a time when players began using "something to aid their performance".

Which leads to the second point. Cox writes,

For the following unpopular question, blame Major League baseball and all the nonsense it has spewed over the past decade.

Don't blame me.

No, I'm going to blame you. I'm going to blame you for a lack of journalistic integrity. I'm going to blame you for being a lazy journalist. I'm going to blame you for simply being you, a "pot stirrer".

I wouldn't expect Cox to know of a statistic such as isolated power (ISO), which gives a legitimate understanding of a player's power. Similarly, I wouldn't expect Cox to know about Park Factors. However, if one is going to "ask a question", shouldn't they at least know what they are talking about.

Let's do the hard work for Cox.

Yes, Bautista's ISO increased. In fact, it has doubled. Okay, case closed. Evidence in the bag. No no, Cox, wait a minute, maybe there is more.

Park Factors. These are...Well let's have ESPN explain them.

Park Factor compares the rate of stats at home vs. the rate of stats on the road. A rate higher than 1.000 favors the hitter. Below 1.000 favors the pitcher. Teams with home games in multiple stadiums list aggregate Park Factors.

In other words, a park factor can tell us if a park helps or hurts a hitter. Pretty simple. I'm sure even a hockey writer could figure this out.

In 2010 the SkyDome is playing to a park factor of 1.369 for home runs. In other words, the SkyDome is increasing home runs by 37% over the average ballpark.

PNC Park has a park factor of 0.757 for home runs, or it decreases home runs by 24% over the average ballpark.

That's a fairly large difference. One that hasn't existed since the opening of PNC, but on average, SkyDome has favored hitters and PNC has deflated them.

Possibly we have the beginning of an explanation, something to look further into before proclaiming Bautista a 'roid user.

Admittedly, I don't feel like going all the way into it, but briefly we can see that Bautista's career at SkyDome has produced a .312 ISO (close to his current season rate) with his PNC ISO sitting at .153 (close to his previous career average).

This doesn't merely open and close the case that Bautista's improvements have been a result of playing half of his games at the SkyDome. In fact, Bautista has provided a higher then career average ISO on the road this year.

So yes, Cox, you are right to ask a question. You are wrong, however to ask your current question. What would should be doing, as a journalist with some sort of integrity is asking, "what is up with Bautista" and then digging deep. Don't take the easy way out and slap him with the steroid tag. Do some research. Make a real story. Give some information that people can use and learn from.

What Cox did isn't baseball writing. It isn't journalism. It's the same garbage we see on FOXNews. It's a reporter with a bias directing his bias onto a subject with which he has little information. It's like asking a child who will win the World Series in spring, of course the child will answer that his/her favorite team will win.

But, at least it started a conversation and provides us with a jumping off point. That is, "Is Damion Cox a worthless writer?"

Keepin' It Up

2009-06-17T18:18:00.002-04:00

Now I am simply confused...

Listening to Toronto's AM 640 yesterday, the sub for Bill Waters was discussing the Blue Jays and taking calls about the Blue Jays. There seemed to be an ongoing theme that JP Riccardi did not know what he had in terms of arms in the system. This theme was coming as praise for the young arms in the Blue Jays system with the solid job they had done to this point.

The host mentioned that Jays fans had been told that there is not much in the cupboards, that the Jays were going into the season with five starting pitchers and needed health in order to be competitive.

The first issue is that this is simply obvious. Very few teams can afford to dig deep into the minors in order to cover up long term injuries to their starting five. I would say that Baltimore, Boston, and San Francisco are two exceptions to the rule, with others being capable of replacing low-end starters, but having no hope of replacing top end starters.

That aside, I find this report to be conflicting with what another writer stated (one whom I ripped up) that the Jays had raised a white flag on the season prior to Spring Training. That is, the author of the aforementioned article mentioned that the Jays actually had nothing in the cupboards and in order to be competitive, should have spent money and draft picks to add proven starters.

However, quite the opposite has proven to be true-something I asserted. The host of the Bill Waters show on AM 640 should have taken Riccardi's inaction during the off-season as evidence that he had faith in the youth that had been coming through. Riccardi's big off-season splash to his rotation was bringing in Matt Clement and minor signing Bryan Bullington. Clement proved to be as useless as one could be, but Bullington has offered some nice organizational depth, even showing some of the promise that once made him the first overall pick.

To be honest, as someone who was quite familiar with the Jays system, I didn't walk away from this offseason unimpressed. I figured the rotation would be fine and signing free agents would have been useless.

My problem with the discussion on AM 640 is that Riccardi clearly knew what he had. Riccardi showed this by going against the author at Baseball Digest Daily and not wasting money and draft picks. If Riccardi did not know what he had, he would have went the route of Mark Shapiro and signed a David Dellucci type player (to a long term, Major League contract).

With over half the season remaining, the Jays have one of the deepest rotations in baseball. The club can comfortably go to it's 9th or 10th starter, adequately replacing all but Roy Halladay. The big issue for Jays fans shouldn't be that Riccardi "doesn't know what he has", rather, it should be that Riccardi is going to have some difficult decisions to make for 2010.

That is, with Halladay, Dustin McGowan, and Shaun Marcum, more or less a lock to anchor the front three spots of the rotation, they also have to figure out what to do with youngsters David Purcey, Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Robert Ray, and Brad Mills, converts Casey Jansen, Jeremy Accardo, and Brian Tallet, prospect Marc Rzepcynski, and 'veterans' Scott Richmond and Bullington. Oh, and Jesse Litsch along with 2009 draftees Chad Jenkins and James Paxton would be fringey September 2010 contributors.

While the names after Marcum will not blow anyones socks off, each one is plenty capable of being a high quality 4th or 5th starting pitcher.

However, if Riccardi does not do anything, one voice in baseball will claim that he has raised the white flag, while the another will assert that going 10 or 11 deep by mid-June shows that Riccardi is clueless as to what he has. I see both as Riccardi not wanting to spend on what he knows he already has. It is Riccardi understanding the market.

Gasp - A Noble Truth

2009-06-17T02:52:00.004-04:00

Now I hate to be cynical, but really? This is a story?

I first heard the news that Sammy Sosa had tested positive for taking performance enhancing drugs as I was driving around, taking care of some pre-Korea errands. And I must say, my first reaction was, "this is news?" That is, I was questioning whether or not this was something that had not already been broken.

Alas, the presumed guilt of every player in the Majors.

But wait, that's not the point. The point here is that not every player is presumed guilty of taking steroids during the steroid era (although I certainly would not doubt that a great majority did so), the point is that it has always been obvious that Sammy had been a user throughout his career.

My problem isn't that Sosa's name got leaked, it isn't that some innocent players are presumed guilty, nor is it that a non-story is being covered, it's the fact that there were some, we'll call them noble truths, some no-brainers out there that simply should not surprise anyone.

So I'm sorry Sammy, even without this story, I simply assumed that you had used steroids. It's like assuming that in a few hours it will no longer be dark outside. It's like assuming that Albert Pujols is an outstanding ballplayer. Or like assuming that some baseball writers will use information that legally should not have been leaked and use it as a slight against a player that brought an enormous amount of energy and joy to the ballpark.

It is times like these that I loathe 24 hour media coverage.

It's Not That I'm Back...

2009-06-03T16:52:00.002-04:00

I have, for all intents and purposes, clipped the wings that made this site soar. While things were far from booming for me, I was very pleased with the direction of the site and the increased readership. Four months of school-related busy-ness and it feels like the first time all over again.

Over this time I began to question why I was "blogging" and if there was a point to continue. While I did not come up with an affirmative yes, I furthered my understanding of why I write and to whom I write for.

That is, it is not as if I am writing through the lens of some minority, fact is, like the majority of baseball fans, I fall under the category of WASPy-McWASP; but a Canadian WASP! While I have a relatively open mind when it comes to writing and researching (read, filled with cynicism) there really isn't a whole lot that I can offer to the baseball world that couldn't be found elsewhere.

Alas, a purpose must be found, a purpose must be committed to, and a purpose must be put into action.

Over the coming weeks as I prepare for a major change in my life I intend to develope (/discover) this purpose, stringing it together as a work in progress.

The National League - Without Ration or Reason

2009-04-19T23:19:00.002-04:00

Here is my bare bones National League prognostication:

National League
East
1. Atlanta Braves
2. New York Mets*
3. Florida Marlins
4. Philadelphia Phillies
5. Washington Nationals

Central
1. St. Louis Cardinals
2. Chicago Cubs
3. Milwaukee Brewers
4. Cincinnati Reds
5. Pittsburgh Pirates
6. Houston Astros

West
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
2. Colorado Rockies
3. San Francisco Giants
4. San Diego Padres
5. Arizona Diamondbacks

I'll take time in the next few days to break down the teams and divisions, MLB.tv takes up more time then I thought it would.

Procrastinating Prognostication American League

2009-04-12T08:21:00.004-04:00

While a week has passed, I can't honestly say I am in a different frame of mind with my projections then I was a week or two ago. In fact, teams have simply cemented what I already thought of them in most cases, with the exception of the Marlins - whom I still don't trust.

This will be brief, but hopefully it gets the ball rolling on further posts.

American League
East

1. Toronto Blue Jays - Last year I had the Jays taking second and winning the wild card, this year I have them winning what is easily the toughest division in baseball, and arguably North American sports. The Jays were 5 games below .500 before Cito Gaston arrived and ended the season 6 games above - that's an 11 game turn around in a little over half the season. Projecting a 90 win season out of the Jays is easy, projecting 95 games will rely on a decent amount of luck.

Offensively the Jays are deep, Travis Snider and Adam Lind fill holes that the team had for more then half of last year, Vernon Wells and Scott Rolen need to stay healthy, and Aaron Hill will provide a marked improvement over the Eckstein/McDonald mess that the Jays went with for much of last year. Gaston pushes a more aggressive style at the plate which certainly helped the Jays in the second half of last year.

What the Jays Need? Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum aren't coming back, that's the end of that. Why not kick the tires of Pedro Martinez?

2. Boston Red Sox - I simply cannot deny it, the depth of the Sox bullpen and rotation makes them a feirce opponent whom no one would want to face. Offensively the Sox are deep but are aging and have some major holes (see Varitek and Lowrie). The Sox shouldn't expect Pedroia and Youkilis to repeat 2008, but they will be spectacular hitters no matter what.

What is scary about this Sox team is the fact that this could quite possibly be the club's worst team over the next decade.

What the Sox Need?Forget tradition, forget being faithful, Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield should no longer be taking on vital roles within this organization. The Sox have fine replacements for both players and they should be using them.

3. Tampa Bay Rays - On paper this team is as good as any, where they have offensive weaknesses, they have defensive gems. The club has a deep rotation and bullpen with plenty of backups within the system.

I am cautious in not putting the Rays in second and fighting for the wild card considering all that went wrong for this club in 2008, but I simply prefer the Jays and Sox over the course of 162 games. Despite ranking 3rd, I feel Tampa Bay is the best team in baseball and will make it very close, with the potential at winning the division if the Jays and Sox hit some road blocks.

What the Rays Need? Not much really. If anything they need to make some organization decisions like the one they made with Jason Hammel. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus recently proposed a situation where the Rays move Scott Kazmir to the Indians for Carlos Santana, this is the sort of active move I would expect the Rays to make.

4. New York Yankees - I know, they added a lot, but they also took a lot away. In all, I see what the Yanks did as moving parallel rather then advancing. Long term they are in a better situation, but for today we're looking at an old team where one missing part could end their season.

With the focus shifting towards defensive play the Yanks did well in cutting ties with Jason Giambi and Bobby Abreu, but this team is still weak in most areas with the glove.

In addition, their "ace" is somewhat of an enigma. Certainly Charles Carstens' run with Milwaukee makes him appear as a legitimate ace, but consider that was in the National League. Further, while Sabathia has had a nice career, consider the division and opponents he has, for the most part, faced. That is, all but one of the ballparks in the American League Central is pitcher friendly. Not only that, but CC has had the luxury of facing the terrible Royals and prior to 2006, the terrible Tigers on an annual basis. In other words, leaving the Central is only going to hurt the big guy.

What the Yanks Need? Health. If this club is healthy, they can hit with anyone. If they suffer the expected bumps and bruises of a team with an average age well into the 30s, expect another season of disappointment in the Bronx.

5. Baltimore Orioles - The "Next Year's, This Year's" Rays have a team that won't roll over, at least offensively. In terms of pitching, the O's are set up to let their young guns arrive at the show as soon as they are ready - both Matusz and Tillman will make their Major League debuts sooner then later this season.

Despite the right direction, the Orioles are still a few pieces, and a year (atleast) away from being a true competitor. Put this team in the National League, and we've got a different story. In the men's league, the tough division of the men's league, not so much.

What the O's Need? Don't screw this up, things are heading in the right direction and your fanbase is getting excited for the franchise to show up. A hot start will be lucky and treated as a learning experience.

Central

1. Cleveland Indians - Homer alert! Truth be told, I do not like the way the Indians are currently set up. Offensively they are fine, although I feel as though a good lefty could shut them down. Defensively they are adequate, they have their holes, just as they have their strengths. The bullpen has a lot invested in it, both money and youngsters, and should be able to hold its own. Where the Tribe are lost is with their rotation, that is filled with maybe's and if's and nothing certain, not even within the organization.

That said, I am hesitant to place the Indians atop the division, and do so simply because of my personal biases. In addition to that, I simply cannot see another team in this division being worthy of winning, each having their own major flaws.

What the Tribe Need? Every season I preach the same line, "Let the best play". The Indians, more so then any team in the Major Leagues will keep their players down in the lower levels for what must feel like an eternity. At some point, Matt LaPorta is going to be talking with Mat Gamel and asking him what the show feels like, despite the fact that LaPorta is the far more advanced player.

There were very few who figured that LaPorta wouldn't have been the better Opening Day option in left then Ben Francisco, unfortunately those few are making the decisions in Cleveland.

2. Chicago White Sox - I actually really like this team. The rotation goes 5 strong and I am a big fan of the bullpen. Offensively the ChiSox are old, but with enough promising hitters to even out any drop in production. In addition to this, the Sox are the anti-Tribe in that they will promote their prospects even if they aren't ready. Fortunate for them, Gordon Beckham is ready.

What the Sox Need? A drink from the fountain of youth. If Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, and/or Paul Konerko begin to really show their age, this team is doomed. If that trio can stave off aging for one more year, watch out!

3. Detroit Tigers - Admittedly, the Tigers are alright. Having Cabrera and what he can do with the stick will help even the most hopeless of clubs. The Tigers, are slightly more hopeless, having a nice offensive unit and an improved defensive club.

The issue is with pitching and what to expect from the pitchers. The fact that there are question marks from top to bottom with their arms means the Tigers are rolling the dice that they aren't entering every series expecting an out and out slug fest.

What the Tigers Need? Zumaya to come back healthy and for the rest of the bullpen to simply fall into place. If the Tigers can lean on their bullpen it will take some pressure off of the starters who aren't overly conservative with their pitch counts to begin with.

4. Kansas City Royals - This is built entirely off of promise, and the hope that everything lines up accordingly. Out of spite, I wanted to place the Royals in 5th, as Dayton Moore is showing a total disregard for modern baseball analysis.

That being said, the Royals have a fine pitching staff that will steal a series or two. Their hitters, while inferior to the rest of the division, are good enough to win them the occasional 2-1 game.

What the Royals Need?A new leader who has a single plan, rather then a few plans that are half hearted to begin with. Consistent at bats need to be given to their young emerging stars, and innings need to be ripped from their old, lousy veterans.

5. Minnesota Twins - I don't trust them, I don't love what they have, I just can't see them being a team that can contend in what has become a deep, albeit mediocre division. The thing is, no Mauer is a tough pill to swallow. Add to the fact this club has a young rotation that may need to rely on the bullpen, and it just doesn't seem like a formula for success.

I must admit, this was as much of a coin toss as it is an educated decision. The club still has some nice hitters, and defensively they are fine (without Delmon in the lineup), but this isn't enough to save them from being the bottom feeder of this division. Keep in mind, by "bottom feeder" I am referring to the club being an 80 win team in a division being won by an 88 win team.

What the Twins Need? Some help to their bullpen. As much as I am a homer for Canadian born players, Jesse Crain is not the guy you want handing the ball to Joe Nathan. Pat Neshek was, but he is out for the year. This team would be well served to add an arm or two to the bullpen.

West

1. L'Anaheim Angels - The other teams in this division simply are not ready to compete at the level of the Angels. While they aren't the team they were in 2008 (which was a very lucky team), they are still the class of a weak division. The Angels don't really have any strengths, but they also lack that glaring weakness.

The addition of Bobby Abreu was an excellent one for a team that lacked on base and power. Abreu isn't going to win another home run derby, but he still has fine power. Missing Lackey and Santana has started the Angels off on the wrong foot, but they should be able to sustain the losses, as long as they don't go too far into May.

I suppose this is as good of a time as any to mention the loss of Nick Adenhart. As someone who lost a friend at an early age to tragic incident, there really isn't anything that can be said that hasn't been said, or that will add some comfort to what happened.

What the Halos Need? To play this game with Adenhart on their minds. It has to be impossible to go about regular business, but that is what the club needs to do. They need to play this year for Adenhart.

2. Seattle Mariners - I know, crazy, right? Well I don't think so. This team shed a lot of bad weight and has fine hitters and quality defenders around the diamond. I can't understand why they didn't swoop in and scoop up Dallas McPherson, however, the M's may have their sights set on the #1 pick in the 2010 draft, maybe hoping that Strasburg is too difficult to sign?

That said, the Mariners are in a division with holes. The Angels aren't really that good, and both the A's and Rangers are without reliable starters. This would be quite the improvement, but there are still a lot of things that I like about this team. Don't forget the duo at the top of the rotation, one that is arguably as good as any in the American League.

What the Mariners Need? Depth/Power. The outfield is defence first. Griffey Jr adds some power and should be an adequate designated hitter, but first base is a black hole, and their left fielder is more of a bench player then a guy who deserves 600+ plate appearances.

3. Oakland Athletics - If this club had even one pitcher that could be relied on, say Joe Blanton, then I might have them atop the division. I like what they have, specifically in the bullpen, and offensively they are solid, but the rotation is a year away.

I'm typically not a "names" guy. I am, however, concerned about what a player has done, and what I believe they are capable of doing. Trevor Cahill, for example, has a fine career ahead of him. But how can a team expect a pitcher that has walked nearly 4 hitters per 9 innings to at the lower levels of the minors to succeed at the big league level?

What the A's Need? You guessed it, pitching. Find some cheap, "reliable" pitching, and this club could make some noise. Stand pat, and I have a feeling they are in for some major trouble.

4. Texas Rangers - The Rangers have a plan, one that seems very positive. Unfortunately the pitching is a year behind. The club has nothing to worry about, however, as the next two or three years should have them standing alone in the division.

Offensively the Rangers are stacked. This lineup is dangerous, one that has me sitting my starting pitchers when they go up against the Rangers in fantasy baseball. Defensively the club is fine, not spectacular, but fine. The pitching, however, is dreadful - for now.

What the Rangers Need? Time. They may be tempted to rush things with Holland and Feliz, and they may be justified in doing so. However, if the club is not going to make a legitimate run at the playoffs, there isn't any need to push up the service clock of those two.

As I did last year, I will be reflecting on these projections at the All Star Break and season's end.

Did You Get the Memo - Wasting a First Round Pick

2009-02-22T19:50:00.001-05:00

Well maybe that is a little harsh but the point remains the same, Orlando Hudson is not worth a first round pick. This is the reason Hudson, a highly valuable middle infielder, took until the first week of Spring Training to finally sign a Major League deal.

We have seen over the course of the last year or so that team's are becoming more hesitant to trade expiring contracts of players expected to highly rated by Elias. That is, if the Elias board rates a player as a Type A free agent, and the player is offered and rejects arbitration, the team losing him will receive compensation in the form of a draft pick.

There is a lot that goes into this, but that isn't the point here. What is the point is that the system now appears to be potentially broken, or at least in need of serious restructuring. The reason behind this is that a player such as Hudson should not take this long to sign.

However, when a player like Hudson costs the amount of money he does, as well as a pretty darn good prospect, teams begin to stay away. Not only does a team signing Hudson have to be certain that he is worth the dollar value over an in-house option, but they also have to consider the long term affects of losing a top 60 pick.

It is this prospective value which led the Colorado Rockies to stand pat with Brian Fuentes at last year's trade deadline. A player, whom could have been the difference between the Philadelphia Phillies winning the World Series and not making the playoffs altogether had the Mets pulled the trigger and acquired him.

This inherent value is also causing Major League Baseball to re-evaluate their rules regarding the signing of free agents. That is, under the current rules, free agents are not eligible to be traded prior to June 15th of the year they sign their free agent contract. However, this rule may be changed in order to facilitate a sign-and-trade for Juan Cruz (rumored to be heading to the Minnesota Twins via the Arizona Diamondbacks).

Consider a trade the Twins and Diamondbacks may be able to come to terms on, say Cruz for Anthony Swarzak. Some may argue this is too high of a price, others may argue it is not enough, but consider the alternatives. For the Diamondbacks, it is either Swarzak or nothing; for the Twins, it is either Swarzak or their 23rd overall pick.

However, this is where we currently stand in this market. Teams are beginning to recognize that a free agent is being paid predominantly for what he has done in the past, with only a minor consideration of what he will do in the future. Slowly the long term potential is taking precedence over short term gains. We are in a market where the highly effective Bobby Abreu signed for $5M on a one year deal.

But we are also in a market where full-time designated hitter Raul Ibanez signed for three years at $10M a year-to play in the field nonetheless.

Maybe baseball isn't getting smarter after-all?

New Inadmissable Evidence

2009-02-20T07:01:00.002-05:00

The first games of Spring Training are just days away which must excite even the least enthusiastic fan. Here at the Outsiders Look, I am simply beside myself with joy, oh, and the biggest sports trial in recent memory isn't too far off either. Baseball is about to grab center stage and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Via David Pinto's Baseball Musings, an interesting article at CBS Sports which states that much of what seemed to be key evidence against Mr. Bonds has been ruled inadmissible for the upcoming trial.

According to the article,

The decision is a setback for the government in its five-year pursuit of Bonds, who has pleaded not guilty to lying to a grand jury on Dec. 4, 2003, when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said the test results -- urine samples that are positive for steroids -- are inadmissible because prosecutors can't prove conclusively that they belong to Bonds. The judge also barred prosecutors from showing jurors so-called doping calendars that Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, allegedly maintained for the slugger.

The judge said for prosecutors to introduce such evidence, they need direct testimony from Anderson. Illston said Feb. 5 she was leaning toward that ruling.

Not being familiar with the in's and out's of the court system, I decided to contact the author(s) of Sports Law Blog for further information. Once I receive a reply I will be certain to discuss this issue further. However, at this point, it is looking as if Mr. Bonds is going to be set free from these charges. If that is the case, the union's collusion case against MLB will gain that much more steam.

A Call

2009-02-17T17:46:00.002-05:00

Rare, if ever, will I sign a petition. I always seem to know of a much better way to spend the 30 seconds of my life it would take to put my name on a form.

However this situation is different.

By now everyone has heard that a plane crashed in the east Buffalo suburb of Clarence. The magnitude of this crash was felt immediately as WGR 550 morning radio hosts Howard Simon and Jeremy White reported their respective feelings for the tragedy. It was at this point I took note of just exactly the size of the Buffalo community. You can feel it at Sabres games, even when outnumbered by Leaf fans, Western New Yorkers do not go down without a fight.

As if hearing the cracking voices of Schopp and the Bulldog on my drive home was not enough to remind me how small the Buffalo community is, today I received an email from my college informing me that a Program Counselor had been directly affected from this tragedy. The counselor lost her uncle, who happened to be living in the house that flight 3407 crashed into on Thursday night. Six degrees of separation was just reduced by two-thirds.

So here it is, my official request to sign a 'petition' to get Extreme Home Makeover to assist with the rebuilding of a lost home. While nobody can help restore the life that was lost, we as a community can lend a hand to get two lives back on track.

And where I would typically end with a scene from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I will instead sign off with Facing and Backing by Hot Water Music:

Instead of resting your legs,
you should be standing up.
Instead of folding your hands,
you should be giving them out.
Instead of turning your back,
you should be showing your face.

Salary Capping

2009-02-15T16:16:00.000-05:00

I've never been pro-salary cap. I simply cannot understand the rationale behind enforcing a cap. Yes, the Yankees spend way more money then the lower class citizen's, and yes there is a decent relationship between the playoffs and spending, however it is not a direct relationship.

That is, spending does not invariably get a team into the post-season. It does, ensure the team has a shot at being competitive, but so too does smart management like we have seen in Oakland and Minnesota over the last decade.

Sports fans will point to the other sports leagues as examples of why there should be a salary cap in baseball. As if there isn't competitive imbalance in basketball (Milwaukee anyone?), football (the dynasty-esqe Patriots), or hockey (see Detroit). For the most part, people ignore the fact that the Cincinnati Bengals have been awful for the better part of two decades. That the Los Angeles Kings are not looking to recreate Wayne Gretzky. Or that the Los Angeles Clippers have essentially always been awful.

Let's use a hypothetical cap which Shawn Hoffman of Squawking Baseball suggests in an outstanding article at Baseball Prospectus. Shawn suggests that the cap would sit around $100M and the floor would be over $75M. At a cap of $100M there would only be nine teams that would have to lower their payroll. A floor of $75M would increase the payroll of at least eleven teams. In other words, the rebuilding efforts of the Washington Nationals, Kansas City Royals, etc would be squashed as they would have to dish out money to players without long term value.

Even if those teams could remain on track with their respective building efforts, another issue exists, one which fans ignore, one that is of incredible importance. That is the fact that baseball is simply different then the other sports. In football and basketball there isn't much a team can do with their excess revenue. Sure they can hire better coaches, supply superior medical facilities, but for the most part, teams operate on an even playing field to begin with.

Not so with baseball. In baseball, not every player is involved in the amateur draft. Between professionals from international leagues overseas, or kids from Latin America, the teams with excess cash could simply blow the small market clubs out of the water in those markets.

That is, in basketball a player is drafted, signed, and added to the roster of the pro team. He immediately becomes a contributor, if only marginally. It is very rare for a player to be drafted early and sent to the D-League. For the most part, players are NBA-ready on draft day.

In baseball this could not be further from the case. Even players with three or four years of college experience under their belts will need a year or two (at least) of minor league seasoning before they are ready to be called up. Due to this, a player's salary could not be justifiably added to the Major League payroll.

Adding more confusion to this is in regards to how a player is acquired. Taking a look at the draft we see 'over slot' bonuses handed out all the time. Imagine if the Yankees were spending $100M less on their big league roster? You better believe that they are going to spend it somewhere, the first place being the draft.

Now imagine the Yankees setting aside an extra $40-60M for the first year player draft. Imagine a top-10 player sitting there with Scott Boras as his agent, knowing full well that the Yankees are going to pay whatever the player asks. The $6M+ that Pedro Alvarez received would be half of what the Yankees would have available for the drafts top prospect. Where are the Pirates going to get $10M to sign this kid?

But let's take this a step further. Now we're looking at the top 10 prospects in the first year player draft, each knowing the Yankees have a boat load of cash to spend on draft day. Do you think the teams with lesser financial luxuries will have a leg to negotiate with? No way!

So one will say, 'easy solution, we cap the draft spending'. Well, MLB has tried that, so has the NFL. It simply does not work.

However, let's pretend that this does hypothetically occur. The Yankees still have that additional $100M that they aren't allowed to spend on their big league roster or on the amateur draft. Where does that money go?

How about to the international market, a market which is impossible to cap because of how large of a market we are talking about. Also, what would be capped? Would teams be limited at how many academies they open? Certainly no one is going to argue that the Yankees offer less opportunity (albeit, while being Un-American) to the have-nots of the world.

So now we have the Yankees blowing the lid off the international market. Michel Inoa, here are your pinstripes. Felix Hernandez, welcome to the Bronx. Juan Duran, you never knew the Reds.

The simple fact remains that there are teams that simply have more money then those they are competing against. Is it absolutely fair? I suppose it isn't. But baseball cannot be fair without devastating the sport and it's current player development.

Let's stop this call for a salary cap. Let's remember that the money the Yankees bring in isn't going to stop them from spending, rather, it will cause them to spend money elsewhere. For now, as a fan of a small market club, I don't mind the current financial environment. I don't mind that the Yankees are in a market and a financial position where winning today is everything. That mentality forces the club to spend great sums of cash in order to build the best team possible.

However, that is for today. That is the Yankees building a team of players based on what they have done in the past. Who thinks the CC Sabathia or AJ Burnett deals won't look like atrocities toward the end of their respective contracts?

So I suppose it is unfair that the Indians didn't have a chance to resign Sabathia long term, but in 2013, I'm sure Indians fans coast to coast will be smiling that Sabathia is not 'anchoring' (literally and figuratively) the Tribe's rotation.

Time to re-build.

Hey, I Remember You

2009-02-12T08:02:00.002-05:00

That's right, today is one of the most important days on the calendar-pitchers and catchers officially begin to gather for Spring Training. What better way to start your day then to know spring is right around the corner. Who cares what the groundhog said, baseball season marks the end of a cold winter and with pitchers and catchers reporting, we are merely weeks away from the start of the marathon we know as Major League Baseball.

I Think I Finally Understand...

2009-02-09T17:52:00.003-05:00

So I think I finally get it now. I get, as the video clip says, that "I'll never understand" the steroid issue. Where I associate doing steroids to speeding for a job interview, others see it as stealing answers to a placement exam. I see taking steroids as someone cheating off of your paper, popular perception likens it to bringing in crib notes.

But I get it now. I just don't get it.

Mr. Joe Baseball-Fan

2009-02-07T19:57:00.004-05:00

As you all know, Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids back in 2003 when he and the rest of Major League ballplayers agreed to steroid testing under the condition that the results remain private. Of course, to ensure that the "big boss-man fat cat...[can] escape by helicopter" there has to be some promises broken, some goats to be scaped.

In other words Mr. Joe Baseball-Fan, the person (or persons) who have slighted you are not the individuals who have tested positive for a substance that was not banned. Rather, it is the individual(s) who have decided to not step forward for the problem they built.

Via John Brattain's Ground Rule Trouble,

I tend to be more surprised when somebody is completely above reproach or suspicion rather than otherwise--the culture of getting any kind of edge in the sport is as old as the game itself and it’s largely a myth that MLB reflects the best in America; to the contrary, it reflects America as it truly is: winning isn’t everything it’s the only thing, nobody remembers who finished second, if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’...

And like usual, I couldn't have said it better.

A Week Today

2009-02-07T10:26:00.003-05:00

A week today marks the official start to the baseball marathon. On this date pitchers and catchers begin reporting to the Spring Training facilities of their respective Major League clubs and all that has been put on paper over the previous four and a half months begins to take shape.

This date will also mark the end of my neglect from writing. My schedule has been jam-packed and as my as I enjoy writing, I simply haven't had the motivation to do so.

That said, I have kept up with the on-goings of baseball as I typically do as well as coming up with some great topics to write about.

What can be expected in the coming week:

Trade Reflections - A few trades have gone down that I haven't written about. Specifically a swap between the Indians and Cubs, not to mention a swap between the Cubs and Mariners;
Award Reflections - I never got around to finishing this up. I plan to take care of the MVP Awards as well as giving out the OLIBy's;
Under the Radars - There have been plenty of lesser reported moves, a handful of which deserve mention;
Random Articles - These include articles about Salary Arbitration, Salary Caps, wOBA, The Battle Between Boston and New York, Rule V Draft Recap, More on Bonds and Steroids, Analyzing General Managers, among others; and
Team by Team Reflections - This year these will be slightly more detailed. In addition to my personal reflection of the team's offseason and what to expect for the 2009 season, the reflections will involve a top 5 prospect list as well as word from a fan of the team.

Articles should begin rolling out with more frequency in the next day or two as I try to get back on track.

Thanks for sticking around.

Wait a Second!

2009-01-19T09:39:00.001-05:00

Didn't we already acknowledge that the Yankees are 'Un-American'? Who does this 'Peter Gammons' guy think he is?

Well Gammons is right, the Yankees are not 'Un-American', spending, and bullying the competition is, for all intents and purposes, the American way.

Gammons is reflecting on the crying out for a salary cap (something I will touch on later this week) after the Yankees went 'America' all over baseball. But what is more American then buying up the best available assets? What is more American then trying to win at all costs?

Gammons writes,

Feel sorry for the Brewers and the Blue Jays and the Rangers? Yes, because for all the Yankees may pay in luxury tax and revenue-sharing money, for all the fannies they put in opposing teams' seats, for all Bud Selig does to try to level the playing field, the Yankees are back to being a smartly run business. And their business is to turn as much of the baseball business as possible into a game of fattening frogs for snakes, as Sonny Boy Williamson once put it.

But do we really need to feel bad for the Brewers, Jays, and Rangers? While the Yankees have the largest market, they have also done well to ensure their subsequent market stays strong. The same cannot be said for smaller market teams which rely on Major League Baseball to market their sport.

In conclusion, Gammons writes,

Didn't Hal Steinbrenner invest $423.5 million to buy back the we're-the-Yankees-and-you're-not swagger? Look at it this way: The Yankees will still be helping some small-market owners pay down their interest.

For now, it's the American way. Wal-Mart eats up small-family businesses. The Yankees eat up the Brewers and the Indians, and there may not be an owner in any sport who, given the opportunity afforded to Hal Steinbrenner, wouldn't have done the same thing.

So no, baseball does not need a salary cap, and no, people should not feel sorry for the small market teams. If an individual feels opposed to this, I sure hope they do not spend at the big box stores. I hope these individuals do not live a penny beyond what they need.

Baltimore + Pie = An Uncreative Title for an Analysis of a Trade

2009-01-18T17:53:00.008-05:00

How many authors are going to drop some lame Baltimore desiring a piece of Pie joke on this one?

On January 18th, 2009, the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs came to an agreement on a trade that would send outfielder Felix Pie to Chicago in exchange for left handed starting pitcher Garrett Olson and righty Henry Williamson. Pie had been highly coveted by the Orioles last off season, however I am uncertain why the Orioles felt the need to add him now.

From the Cubs perspective this doesn't make a lot of sense although it fits well with their previous deals (which have been about dealing hitting surplus for arms). While this is not a terrible idea, it will not prove beneficial if the Cubs treat the arms they are acquiring the way they treated Donald Veal. With the rotation currently looking seven or eight arms deep the addition of Olson certainly signals the start of something much larger-something I will touch on at the end of this article.

I will begin with breaking down what the Cubs received.

First, the 23 year old right handed reliever, Henry Williamson. Selected out of the 14th round of the 2007 first year player draft, Williamson has not been around long enough nor was he a high enough rated prospect entering the draft for information to be readily available.

Despite the lack of written reports, the numbers (a 10.93k/9 and a 2.25bb/9) show a guy with a fairly sound arm. Given he hasn't really put a dent into the minor leagues Williamson is very far away at this point, he's not a bad guy to have in the system, but not a guy that anyone should expect to make the Majors prior to September of 2010.

Garrett Olson is the real 'prize' of this deal, in that he is still young enough and lacking the big league experience to know exactly what type of pitcher he will become. That said, Olson's once "middle of the rotation" starter status has certainly diminished to the point where he's probably a long shot to be a quality end of the rotation guy.

Olson's stuff isn't phenomenal, owning three nice pitches, but no true out pitch. With that in mind, there is a possibility that being a left-handed pitcher has carried Olson to this point in his career and inflated his minor league numbers. Kevin Goldstein mentioned that during Olson's debut season (2007) he got too "cute...trying to paint corners and fool hitters by changing speeds".

While Olson has been hit fairly hard during his brief Major League tenure. He hasn't benefited from any luck however, which is due to the fact that he has pitched in front of a fairly mediocre defensive team. Add in the fact that he would be the worst rated pitcher in terms of getting hitters to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone.

The move to the National League cannot hurt Olson, I imagine he will be hard pressed to make the starting rotation out of camp. With Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly, and Rich Harden manning the front four spots in the rotation, Olson will have to be absolutely dominate to beat out Chad Gaudin, Rich Hill (remember him?), Sean Marshall, and long shots Angel Guzman and Jeff Samardzija for the final spot in the rotation.

All in all, we're probably talking about an arm that starts the year in Iowa and makes very little impact for the Cubs in 2009.

In exchange for the equivalent of "future considerations", the Cubs moved "the future in center field", Felix Pie. This is, however a defensible move for the Cubs who are out to win and not really in the position to go through the aches and pains of running out the equivalent of a second year player.

Pie has had a phenomenal Minor League career, something that is even more impressive when one considers he has consistently been one of the youngest players at each level he has played. The young outfielder has only recently begun to utilize his legs, adding to the high power potential that he displayed with his always quick wrists.

For the Orioles Pie is in the perfect spot to come aboard and get a fair amount of playing time. Pie has always rated as having an extremely high ceiling, his tools even being compared to that of Carlos Beltran's and at just 23 years old (24 for Opening Day), Pie could still develop into an excellent hitter.

Being left handed the Orioles will give him the better half of a platoon with Ryan Freel. This will allow Pie to slowly adjust to Major League pitching and help him get comfortable with his new position in the outfield.

If Pie can at least put some of his tools together and become an everyday player, the Orioles are set for years to come-not to mention the fact that the trio of Pie, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis will be an outfield that hitters do not want to hit into.

The Cubs certainly gave up the best player in this deal, and the return wasn't really franchise altering in terms of value. However, Pie was going to be hard pressed to make the club out of Spring Training which would have put the Cubs front office with their backs up against the wall as Pie is out of options. With better in-house options, the Cubs were better making a move sooner, rather then Shapiro (read, later).

For the Orioles, if they can be as patient with Pie as they were with Jones, this has a lot of long term potential. Understanding that the club is extraordinarily deep with pitching prospects and that Olson's long term value with the club was minimal at best, this was a no-brainer.

With those individual scenario's in mind, I am going to give this to the Orioles. The risk (an end of the rotation starter and a questionable reliever) is far less then the reward (a solid all around outfielder). If this doesn't work out for the Orioles, they can patch the Olson hole with any number of in-house or free agent options.

Conversely, the Cubs, while sticking to a plan of acquiring a boat load of pitching, may end up on top here if this allows them to acquire Jake Peavy. Keep in mind that Olson was said to be an arm the San Diego Padres were interested in. The worst case scenario for the Cubs is better today then it was yesterday.

Barry Bonds Didn't Sin Afterall

2009-01-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

Jonathan Littman at Yahoo! Sports writes the first part of a series which will dive into the 30,000 pages of testimony from the BALCO case. The conclusion of this first article in this series, apparently the perjury case against Barry Bonds does not hold as much water as we have been led to believe.

I am not incredibly knowledgeable in regards to the justice system and perjury charges; however I have found it interesting that congress found 19 cases in which Bonds lied however are only charging him with 4 acts of perjury. While Bonds simply needs to be found guilty of one of these charges, I would think that the more charges against an individual the greater chance of one sticking.

The problem, which Littman discusses, is that it is looking more and more likely that Bond did not knowingly lie to congress. At the time, the Clear, the substance Bonds did not deny taking, was not classified as an illegal steroid. This, according to Littman, could be enough for Bonds’ lawyers to have his charges dropped due to the assumption that an individual may refer to steroids as an illegal substance.

From the Littman article,

Bonds’ attorneys could argue that even if he took the Clear, he wasn’t lying when he responded by saying "Not that I know of."

"It’s reasonable to think that the person answering a question about steroids would think they were asking about an illegal steroid," said Charles La Bella, a former U. S. attorney and chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of California who now practices criminal defense in San Diego.

"[A jury] wants unambiguous terms."

More than two months after Bonds testified, the government dropped clues that it was aware that the Clear was legal – and not a steroid.

While this is not evidence to the Bonds apologists that Bonds did not take steroids, this can be place in the "Bonds did nothing wrong" file.

Furthermore, Littman asserts,

The government believes it has tripped Bonds, but whether he falls will be determined in court. The fact that the key drug he is accused of taking was legal and not recognized as a steroid under federal law could complicate the case, experts say.

"I don’t understand why the government would seek an indictment after obtaining Catlin’s expert testimony that the Clear was not a steroid," Cannon said. "Why come up with an indictment based on an ambiguous definition?"

One needs to keep in mind that no matter the outcome of this trial, Bonds is not being tried based on whether he has or has not taken steroids. Rather, Bonds is being investigated in his part with the BALCO investigation.

According to Littman,

Neither Conte nor Anderson was charged with distributing THG. In fact, nobody in the seven-year BALCO investigation has been charged with possession or trafficking of the drug. Less than $2,000 of drugs was found in the highly publicized raid of the Burlingame, Calif., laboratory in 2003.

With this in mind, I find it interesting that congress is spending as much time and money on such a minor issue. This will certainly go down as an embarrassment to congress if (and when) the charges are subsequently dropped. That the media has fed into this being a larger case then it actually is seems to be more associated with Bonds and pinning him as the bad guy then it does with solving the steroid issue.

An Open Letter

2009-01-16T20:10:00.006-05:00

I am in the midst of working out my team by team preview for the 2009 season, something that will be much further in depth then what I did last year.

With that, I hope to do a '5 Questions' type thing with fan-bloggers to add to each of my team previews, getting an 'Armchair Experts' opinion on what is going on and what can be expected with each individual club.

Currently I am working on solidifying my questions as well as coming up with a wishlist of contributors. However, I understand that people will be busy with their own season previews and may not get a chance to help out with this.

That said, anyone who reads this and hosts a team-specific site and would like to be apart of this, please send me an email and let me know of your interest. Further, for anyone reading this, if you have a suggestion of an 'expert' you would like to hear from, let me know, and I will do my part in getting that author aboard with this.

Buffalo Bisons New Uni's Unveiled

2009-01-16T16:27:00.007-05:00

This afternoon, at the Bisons annual Hot Stove luncheon, the New York Mets triple A affiliate unveiled their new uniforms. While I am as opposed to change as the next person, I'm not terribly disappointed with the direction of these sweaters. Truth be told, I sort of expected the Bisons to turn into the Baby-Mets.

Looking at the image above, from left to right. I like the addition of the 'NY' under 'Buffalo' on the away jersey. I'm not overly thrilled with the font, but it is acceptable. The home jersey is nothing special, I've never been a fan of numbers on the front of jerseys, but it is beginning to grow on me (thanks Sabres). Lastly, the Thursday/Sunday, 'Alternate' jersey doesn't do much for me. Mostly because it takes away what was previously my favorite logo in all of sports and 'modernizes' it.

In terms of the caps, they could be worse. From left to right we have the away cap which seems to mimic the font seen in the Buffalo Braves logo. The home cap has the new logo, while growing on me, still represents the beginning of the end of the incredible and historic buffalo in a baseball logo. Lastly, the alternate cap I am fairly unimpressed with. The NY seems to look more New York Giants then New York Mets. Maybe adding some black or orange trim somewhere in the hat would help but until I see this cap up close (and subsequently purchase), I will remain impartial.

Overall, things could have been substantially worse. I walk away not hating what the Mets have done, but at the same time, I'm not overly impressed. Maybe it is because there are so many changes going on in such a short period of time, maybe it's because I don't want the 'Labatt Blue Zone' to be renamed the 'Coca-Cola Family Area'. Whatever the reason, I'm sure these new threads will grow on me, and before long I will forget the green and orange doned by Ryan Garko and Jason Davis.

Buffalo Bisons New Uni's

2009-01-16T11:53:00.003-05:00

In a few short minutes the Buffalo Bisons will unveil their four new uniforms. The new primary logo and basic color scheme had been unveiled a month ago, and at first did not sit very well with me. A month later and the logo is starting to finally beginning to grow on me.

It will be interesting to see what the Bisons do with their caps. They have experimented with non-traditional, cartoon-y logos in the past, but have eventually come back to a simple "B" or otherwise.

While I'm not a big fan of the Met-based color scheme, I can easily accept it.

Once the new Uniform's are unveiled, I'll be certain to post them...

ADHD and Baseball

2009-01-13T07:35:00.000-05:00

I’m not entirely sure why or how this made headlines, but Major League Baseball is just like the rest of America. That’s correct; according to baseball’s recent ‘Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs)’ eight percent of baseball players have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This is on par with the national rate of ADHD; in fact, this is actually lower than the estimated twelve percent among males nationwide.

What caught my attention is that players are being given exemptions to take medication for this disorder, medications that otherwise would have shown up on baseball’s banned substance list. Let’s keep in mind, that baseball upholds a much higher ethical standard then the rest of professional sports and under no circumstance would encourage members of their organization to ‘pretend’ to have ADHD.

Or would they?

It is said that with proper treatment, an individual with ADHD could cut down their need for medication by up to 66%. Treatment, which ranges from simply being more active to coping mechanisms, coupled with a decreased amount of medication, is the best way to fight ADHD. However, do we really think that a Major League Baseball team would lower the prescription dosage for a player if it helped the player on the field?

We aren’t talking a cough syrup which may contain chemicals that raise red flags to the International Olympic Committee. We are talking about players being allowed to take amphetamines and other stimulants that are often provided to those suffering from ADHD.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), medications that treat ADHD increase the level of dopamine in an individual. An increased dopamine level will lead to an increase in libido. An increased libido means the body has more energy.

This sounds an awful lot like a performance enhancer, does it not? While these drugs are prescribed, it isn’t as if the testing for ADHD is necessarily vigorous. In most cases, ADHD will be diagnosed through the observation of patterns and based on a checklist. Search for “ADHD Checklist” and you will get a feel for how vague this checklist is.

While I am not going to immediately suggest that those doing these checklists do not know what they are talking about, I simply would urge baseball to enforce mandatory MRI’s on the players said to have ADHD. It has been found that an individual with ADHD has thinner brain tissue, and a small brain, between three and four percent. While inconsequential, this is a simple way to diagnose the disorder.

With all of this in mind, what is to stop a Major League organization from ‘mis’-diagnosing an extra player or two on their 40-man roster? With national ADHD rates for males around twelve percent, each Major League team could conceivably have up to five players on its 40-man roster with ADHD; five players whom would be eligible to test positive for amphetamines under baseball’s TUE.

ADHD is a relatively new disorder, having only been recognized by the American Psychological Association since 1980. Some believe that ADHD is simply cultural; however there is evidence against this. The research I have studied does assert that the gender deviations with ADHD exist predominantly due to the current structure of education in the west. This is not to say that ADHD is being overdiagnosed; instead, I would argue that if every child were to take an MRI, we would see that far more then eight percent of children would have ADHD.

That aside, we are still talking about a potentially major loophole in baseball’s drug testing policy. One that, despite how “moral” or “ethical” the league claims to be, will be open to abuse until it is closed. As it stands, the league is essentially allowing five players per team to take amphetamines.

Of course, this is only an issue if the ballplayer invariably becomes a star and breaks records.

Mis-Article of the Week - Misremembering Facts

2009-01-09T12:01:00.007-05:00

When did it become okay for writers to improperly analyze facts?

I know everyone wants to be a sports writer, but simply because you have fingers and a keyboard does not give an individual the right to incorrectly report the on goings of the game. If you aren't going to offer anything of worth to the conversation, my advice, don't offer anything at all.

On Wednesday, a writer from Baseball Digest Daily decided he would pen one of the least educated pieces baseball will see this year. The writer proclaimed that the Toronto Blue Jays have called it quits on the 2009 season simply because they are not being overly active in free agency. The author's central thesis, 'The Jays spent x in 2008 and are on pace to spend x-1 in 2009, they certainly don't care about winning'.

Now the jump to conclusions mat is often a comfortable place to land for authors, and I suppose it is irresponsible for me to assert the author understands the current economic realities in North America, but really? Come on Mr. Hamrahi, if you are going to drop me as a writer, at least bring in someone who is going to report some of the facts, not merely typing aimlessly to reach a weekly quota.

Let's attack what is incorrect about the authors article.

First, if the Jays are in fact spending less money this year, it is completely rationale. Recall, in early December that the Blue Jays were said to be laying off many of it's employees, predominantly from the sales staff. The layoffs were said to be 'in the 30s'.

While I can't confirm how significant 30 layoffs are, I am willing to speculate the Jays are cutting over a million dollars. So that the Jays may be spending less money on the on-the-field product, this is a top to bottom decision, presumably tied to the passing of Ted Rogers.

Second, are the Jays spending less money? The author states that the Jays are scheduled to fall $15M under 2008's $100M team payroll. For arguments sake, I will assume the author does not know that different nations use different currencies and that different currencies have different respective values.

According to the Bank of Canada, the exchange rate on the day the article was penned (January 7th, 2009) sat at 18.5%. This means that in order to purchase one American dollar, it would cost $1.18 Canadian. Keep in mind, this is the Bank of Canada's rate, which is not the rate an individual would be able to buy the currency, but for simplicity sake, we'll say it is.

A year ago to that very day, the exchange rate was essentially par (0.5%), in fact, the following day the exchange rate actually favored the loonie.

So let's break this down. On January 7th, 2008, the Jays $100M payroll cost them $100M. Simple.

Exactly one year from that day, eighty five million loonies would have cost a little over one hundred and one million Susan B. Anthony's.

In other words, that Jays have actually increased their payroll and are subsequently not "quit[ting] on a season".

With the loonie sitting relatively idle, it is not unreasonable for the Jays organization to believe that the eighty five million United States dollars they are investing has the same value as the one hundred million they spent last year.

Assuming the author does not know anything about the current state of the economy, nor the differences between currencies, one would expect a writer for a baseball website to provide accurate and insightful information regarding baseball specific facts. Not so.

The third piece of misinformation, the author discusses the Jays failure to sign Jason Giambi. While Giambi would certainly be an offensive upgrade over Adam Lind, Lyle Overbay, and/or Travis Snider there are more negatives to this signing then the offensive upgrades. That is, Giambi would mean that Lind, Snider, or Overbay would be pushed out of the starting lineup. One can make an argument for Overbay (although the Blue Jays high valuation of team defensive play would arguable eliminate Giambi from playing in the field), but Lind and Snider are two young, high upside players. Both are essential locks to be healthy all season, and given their youth, could potentially outperform the aging Giambi.

Not only that, one has to assume that Giambi would play in Toronto instead of signing for a home-state discount in Oakland. In other words, signing Giambi may marginally benefit the Jays, but it would almost be like the Yankees bringing in Francisco Rodriguez at a closer's salary to close the games Mariano Rivera can't. We're bordering on useless and stupid.

The author then attacks JP Ricciardi's decision to bring in David Eckstein. I suppose the new standard at BDD is accurately reporting one fact-a year late. Eckstein has since left town (in exchange for a nice, albeit relatively unimportant prospect, Chad Beck) and the Jays are, according to the author, need to find a replacement.

Because Eckstein was such a vital part of the Blue Jays success in 2008, the author states, "so couldn’t the Blue Jays use a veteran like Orlando Cabrera with his .281 BA, 8 HR’s, 57 RBI’s and 19 SB’s?"

The easy answer, 'Sure', any team could use any above replacement level player. You know, I could 'use' a new car. I could 'use' a new watch. When you ask a stupid question, there are only stupid, pointless answers.

That said, the question the author should have asked is, 'so don't the Blue Jays need a veteran like Cabrera and his pointless counting stats?'

At which point, a person with even a marginal ability to analyze baseball would say, 'No! They certainly do not!'

Really? Why not? I mean Cabrera's contract would not only get the Jays well over what they spent in 2008, but it would also cost the club a draft pick.

That's not all! For signing Cabrera the Blue Jays would also have the honor of placing Cabrera in a position that is currently manned by the superior, Marco Scutaro. Scuatro, if you recall, was the 'Shoulda' runner-up for the short stop gold glove award in the American League. While his hitting leaves much to be desired, so too does Cabrera's at this point in his career. In other words, the Jays have a similar hitting short stop who also happens to have an incredible mit.

By deciding not to throw his money away, by choosing not to exceed last years payroll, JP Riccardi is, I quote, "a slap in the face of Blue Jay fans". In other words, according to this incredible analysis, JP Riccardi's decision to ensure his team does not get worse, is the same as slapping each and every Jays fan in the face-specifically those Drunk Jays Fans.

How does this pile of garbage get published?

Prior to being 'released' from BDD, I had been considering leaving the site due to a lack of quality analysis involved. The site appeared more for the casual fan of the game then for someone who is looking to be challenged, someone who wants to dive deep into the game of baseball. BDD, for all intents and purposes, had become more of a secondary place for baseball news. If it is a weekend at MLB.com, then BDD is the place to go.

Not only does the author of this piece think that the only way to win is by spending money, but he feels that teams should ignore their current assets and load up on free agents. This author is essentially useless to the baseball community with articles of this ilk.

Questionable Assumption - Would Barry Have Been a Good Hitter in 2008?

2009-01-07T15:42:00.003-05:00

As promised, yet another follow up to the Barry Bonds saga.

Jack Marshall writes,

...[S]igning Bonds in order to make the playoffs would have been a dubious and foolish deal for any team, even if one buys the questionable assumption that he would have played well enough to hold up his end of it.

Questionable assumption? I'm sorry, but did I miss something?

While Marshall is accurate in asserting that Bonds would have been an injury risk had a team signed him for the 2008 season (or even for half of the 2008 season), sometimes the risk outweighs the reward. The risk involved in this scenario would be signing Barry to the league minimum and getting zero at bats out of him.

The reward? Signing Barry to the league minimum and getting close to the season Barry put up in 2007.

On the surface, to someone who is simply a fan of the game, that might not mean much. I mean, 28 home runs and 75 runs batted in is not going to win an MVP award in this day and age-unless of course you are a scrappy underdog. But further analysis gives us a different story.

Let's first look at some of the numbers Barry put up in 2007 as a 42 year old.

Barry posted the 6th highest wOBA in all of Major League Baseball during the 2007 season. This is not a park adjusted figure, but alone, that speaks highly of Mr Bonds. Keep in mind Bonds' .429 mark that season would have rated 4th in the league in 2008. That .429 figure would have been tops among American League DH's , and 80 points higher then the league average DH with 300 or more plate appearances, a number that is higher then it should be due to some non-DH qualified hitters making the list (Guerrero and Guillen).

Thus, in the best possible scenario, Bonds is the #1 rated DH in the American League ahead of Milton Bradley.

However, despite wOBA being 'league adjusted', I don't feel comfortable simply sliding Bonds' numbers over to the American League and saying, 'viola'. What I want to prove is that Bonds would have been a highly efficient hitter had he moved to the American League and DHed. This is giving the author that Bonds absolutely could not play in the outfield-which is a 'questionable assumption' given some of the iron glovers that patrol left field, but something I will still accept for arguments sake.

Let us, however, look at one more statistic before diving into the knitty-gritty.

Equivalent Average (EQA), Baseball Prospectus' league, park, and pitching adjusted statistic which takes into account baserunning-something I will readily accept Bonds can rate low at. Still, from 2005 to 2007, Bonds posted an EQA of .330, .334, and .353. Even if we take Bonds' half season, injury wrecked 2005, he still would have rated as the 5th best hitter in all of baseball in 2008. His .353 mark in 2007 would have rated him as the top DH, ahead of Bradley by 12 points.

In other words, based entirely on what Bonds had done recently, there was little reason to believe he couldn't have been a useful designated hitter in 2008, even for 50 games.

But how useful?

As I dove into when analyzing the JJ Putz to the Mets deal, the FanGraphs.com provided statistics of O and Z-Swing Percentage and O and Z-Contact Percentages. Briefly summarizing this, via FanGraphs.com:

O-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.
Z-Swing%: The percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone.
Swing%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter swings at.
O-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with outside the strike zone when swinging the bat.
Z-Contact%: The percentage of pitches a batter makes contact with inside the strike zone when swinging the bat.
Contact%: The overall percentage of a batter makes contact with when swinging the bat.
Zone%: The overall percentage of pitches a batter sees inside the strike zone.

Utilizing this data, and understanding that this data translate extremely well from season to season for individual players, we can begin to see what we could have expected from Barry in 2008, based purely on his approach at the plate.

As one might expect, the fewer times a hitter swings at pitches outside of the strike zone (ie. having a low O-Swing Percentage-OS%), the higher the hitters walk rate. Interestingly, this does not correlate to a hitters strikeout rate.

In 2006 and 2007, Bonds displayed his usual excellent eye at the plate, rating in the top five among most patient hitters in the league. Keep in mind, Barry had essentially nothing around him during these two seasons, en route to receiving the most intentional base on balls both years.

Of course that would go on to skew Barry's numbers, as he obviously is not going to swing at a pitch when the catcher is not in his crouch and is a few steps from the plate. Nevertheless, Barry did not receive those type of walks through having Wily Mo Pena-type discipline.

Thus, Barry's ability to lay off outside pitches means he was likely to sustain a high walk rate in 2008. Further, Barry has consistently been among the league leaders in seeing pitches outside of the strikezone, as well as having a very low (which is good) first pitch, strike rate. Again, there is definitely a connection between having no one around Barry, and being a league leader in this area, but clearly Bonds' ability and reputation is enough for pitchers to keep staying away from him.

One area where Bonds is simply 'average' (by Barry's standards) is in regards to making contact outside of the strike zone (OC%). This is not necessarily a negative, but does go to show that the odd occassion where Barry swings at a pitch outside of the strike zone, it's most likely not his pitch. That being said, Bonds still rates well above average in making contact during these occassions, so the change in leagues shouldn't account for much of a deviation aside from a short adjustment period.

Given, as mentioned, these statistics are fairly constant from season to season, it is safe to assume that Bonds would have been an equally as valuable asset getting on base as he had been the previous years with the Giants. While an adjustment period would have ensued, it is unlikely that he moved to a worse hitters park in the American League, and thus, would have been an equally proficient hitter.

Worst case scenario, however, is that Barry is platooning at designated hitter. Having additional time off, as well as not being required to stand, jog, and run for up to two hours a night would certainly keep Barry fresh.

BOOM!

I told you not to get involed with that...

Why is an ethicist, a 'fan', analyzing baseball? That would be like me calling Rachel Ray and telling her how to prepare for a formal function. Sure, I like food, but that doesn't mean I know how prepare a high quality meal. I mean, you could get a good look at a cow by putting your head...Wait, the butcher?

Just Let it Go...

2009-01-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

Not just yet. I'm going to take a look at three of the main aspects regarding the Barry Bonds issue as pertaining to the article written by Jack Marshall over at the Hardball Times. I know, I have went over this article twice already, but I feel as though there are a couple more issues which need to be addressed.

This article will address Marshall's flawed argument regarding 'Baseball uphold[ing] the American ethical standards more so then any other professional league in America'. With this argument, Marshall asserted that baseball would never put up with a Pacman Jones. In fact, as I mentioned, the argument regarding Clay Buchholz holds little water.

The next article will address Marshall's assertion that Bonds would not be of a help to a Major League roster. While Marshall can always fall back on the fact that Bonds is 'old' and invariably vulnerable to injury, I will provide evidence that even if Bonds does succumb to injury, he was likely to be more valuable in 2008 then a great deal of players.

The final (hopefully) article will return to the question regarding baseball's place in upholding America's ethical standards. That article will touch on ideas offered by John Brattain as well as those found throughout other portals of the web.

Once this is all taken care of, I will return to my regular articles, Under the Radar, Trade Reflections, as well as getting back to work on my prospect lists.

Back at the topic at hand, a response to Marshall's article at Ball Hype brought up an excellent point, one that Marshall unethically ignored. That is, baseball is different then the other major sports leagues in North America, this, from a socio-economic perspective.

The commenter wrote,

Furthermore, I disagree that baseball has less crime than football or basketball, at least relatively speaking. If you compare the crime rates of baseball players against their socio-economic peers prior to becoming professional baseball players, you will see the same thing that you see in football and basketball: the crime rate is slightly lower...It just so happens that football and basketball (particularly basketball) draw from a socio-economic group that has a higher crime rate than baseball. That has more to do with the fans of the sport - it's not something that baseball itself cultivates. My point is your belief that baseball somehow upholds a higher ethical standard is pure fantasy.

Now this is based on relatively vague evidence, and something that could certainly be further investigated, but stay with me.

In America, African Americans are substantially more likely to be imprisoned then any other race. While there are many reasons that lead to this result, of which I will not spend the time going over, the fact remains that an African American male is six times more likely to be imprisoned then a Caucasian male. While this does not equate to criminal activities as a whole, the trend is large enough not to ignore.

If we take this generality and look at it from the perspective of sports, it would appear obvious that baseball (and it's fewer then ten percent population of African Americans) would follow only hockey in terms of imprisonment league-wide.

This seems to hold true as it is rare to hear about any ballplayer going to jail or being charged criminally. It is even more rare to find this within hockey, that is even more dominated by Caucasians.

Marshall cited the Cincinnati Bengals and their players continual involvement with criminal activity. He brought up Pacman Jones who is the exception for football players, not the rule. But even still, the NFL has nearly seven times the amount of African American's that baseball has, would it not be obvious that football then would have around seven times as much criminal activity?

The same can be said within basketball, which has nearly ten times the amount of African Americans.

None of this is to say that African Americans are invariably, not in the least bit. Rather, statistically, there is a greater chance for an individual of color to end up imprisoned then a non-Hispanic, white.

The next thing to look at is in regards to culture. The culture in these sports is vastly different. In hockey and baseball, even the most prolific prospects are stuck riding in buses, making little to no money (relatively speaking) until around their 25th birthday.

Conversely, the amateur stars in both football and basketball are praised prior to becoming professionals. We hear about the party life that is so closely tied with football. Basketball has an annual All-Star binge that is highly publicized. And to the fact that a great deal of players in both sports are multi-millionaires prior to their 25th birthday, and there is a perfect storm for irresponsibility.

Stan McNeil of the Sporting News wrote an interesting piece of the lack of African American's in baseball, part of his conclusion read,

Youth baseball has become so organized (translation: expensive) that kids from poor families have little chance of keeping up with players on traveling teams that participate in 80 games a summer across various states.

Baseball competes with football and basketball, games which appear to provide a quicker path to fame and fortune.
"It's simple, really," the Blue Jays' Wells says. "The length of time it takes to get to the big leagues is a turnoff, and having to go to (minor league) cities that most people have never heard of is a turnoff. The NFL and NBA make for a quicker way to be famous."

We also have another factor at play, a factor that is outside of race and ethnicity-press and media.

Think back to the final weeks of this season on SportsCenter or otherwise. This should be a time when baseball is at the forefront of American sports media, but this isn't the case. While baseball logs a substantial amount of time at this point of the year, it is still battling football (both college and professional), basketball, and to a lesser extent, hockey, and soccer.

Baseball is clearly not as popular as basketball, and especially football. Thus, even if the criminal activities were the same in baseball, we wouldn't hear about them as frequently as we do the criminal activities of basketball and football based solely on the amount of media coverage.

Consider the amount of criminal activities we hear about in MLS? Because we rarely, if ever, hear of anything of this sort, does that mean there are not any wrongs being committed by the players in this sport?

So perception is the catalyst of criminal activity in professional sports, if we hear about it more, it must be happening more frequently. Interestingly, baseball plays the most games and for the longest periods of time, yet we hear about it less then we do football.

Perception can also be seen from another angle.

In each of the other professional sports there are legitimate 'faces' of the league. Basketball has LeBron Jame, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, etc. Hockey has Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, etc. Football has its Eli and Payton Manning, Tom Brady, Reggie Bush, etc. But who does baseball have?

Yes, Albert Pujols is a household name, but I would wager that there are even a casual baseball fans who couldn't pick him out in a lineup. I wouldn't be surprised if the only time a non-baseball fan saw Alex Rodriguez's face was when it was linked with Madonna.

In baseball, unlike the other professional sports in North America, it appears as though the heroes and legends are built locally. Each team has a face, but there are few players who would be recognized outside of the context of baseball.

As we can see, there is a lot more to the story then what Marshall decided to report on. Marshall decides that 'counting stats' are the way to go in this discussion when there are clearly more logical ways to analyze it. True, this is a minor part of Marshall's argument, but by dissecting his article and pointing out the major flaws, much of his explanation begins to unravel.

That is, the evidence behind baseball holding up America's ethical standards is weak at best (and lessens when looked at from yet another angle). So what is Mr. Marshall trying to say?

Well, he has somewhat changed his tune to suggesting that he 'told you so'. I'm not sure if it surprises many people that Bonds was not signed, rather, I think there is enough of the population that simply do not agree that Bonds shouldn't have been singed.

"Personally, I (Jack Marshall) DO feel the same about Brendan Donnelly, Giambi, et al"

That's false, he does not.

In his article he wrote that he would stop supporting the Boston Red Sox as long as the regime that employed Bonds was still intact. Yet comically he does not have the same angst toward the Red Sox for buying Paul Byrd? In other words, he does not feel the same about Donnelly, Giambi, et al. that he does about Bonds.

Which helps confirm the fact that Marshall is more a Bonds hater, then anything else.

On Logic and Barry

2008-12-25T21:42:00.006-05:00

Well apparently I've gone out and upset someone, quite possibly ticked them off. That's fine, often times during a discussion individuals let their passion and opinion trump logic. Yesterday I reviewed an article over at the Hardball Times. An article which seemed to ruffle a bunch of feathers and even got 'voted down' at Ball Hype (something I have personally never seen from a THT article). That said, there was a very interesting discussion at Ball Hype in regards to this column. About 10 people chimed in with responses to the article, only one of whom was truly agreeing with the author (although I recognize that people are more likely to speak up when they disagree then when they agree).

The author of that piece decided to chime in himself, disregarding many of the comments made and shutting down only those that he can illogically skew - albeit, these were the typical rejections that are met with this discussion.

The discussion at hand is, Why did teams refuse to sign Barry Bonds? The author believes there is a simple ethical explanation, although it doesn't hold much weight when you break it down (something I will do later).

What I am writing about is a few issues I have with the authors rejection of logic.

First, the author ignores the cases in which baseball has turned its eye to 'bad behavior'. Between the message board at Baseball Think Factory (I encourage you to flip through them, it is a great and educated discussion) and at Ball Hype, there are mentions of a parallel between Pacman Jones and Elijah Dukes.

While Pacman Jones is clearly not a model citizen, Elijah Dukes isn't really reeking of parental approval - although truth be told, I imagine Dukes doesn't care. Not being one to typically dive into the personal lives of the sport I love, a post at Ball Hype states,

"Baseball sure likes to pick and choose its ethical battles, then...Drunk driving is a much greater evil than steroid use. And do you really believe that anyone would hesitate picking up Urbina if he weren't in prison?"

Isn't that the sad truth. I think back to a story when Milton Bradley asked a police officer if he knew who Bradley was. This invariably led to Bradley leaving the Indians, but in the midst of baseball's off season, we see Bradley is one of the most sought after free agent outfielders. More so then perfect records of Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, and Bobby Abreu.

Or how about when baseball's good guy, Albert Pujols, was named in Jason Grimsley's affidavit? How quickly was that brushed aside by baseball? How many reporters jumped on that story discrediting Pujols for his miraculous climb up baseballs ladder?

The author then turns this morality issue on an axis, providing factually defunct examples. One such example, "Basketball refuses to do anything about pot use, because it would decimate the league."

Decimate the league? I know we hear some about marijuana issues in the NBA, but of the 500+ players in the NBA, are there more then 10 arrests a year? I mean, how many NBAers played in the Olympics? How many of them have tested positive for marijuana? Were those not most of the best players the NBA has?

At worst, I'd say marijuana use in the NBA is worth monitoring, but extremely far from being a cause to 'decimate' the league. I'd say STD's have a better shot at doing that.

The next error, "Has any baseball team ever tolerated the number of criminals, or even a small percentage of same, accumulated by the Bengals of recent vintage?"

Answer, no. Bravo! But I would like to further my answer with a question to the authors question: Has any other football team ever tolerated the number of criminals, or even a small percentage of same accumulated by the Bengals of recent vintage?

Answer, no. The Bengals were a special case. A team that went after 'bad seeds' as they were under valued on draft day. A team that had perpetually lost for nearly two decades that was looking for any semblance of progress.

The fact there, however, is it sort of worked for the Bengals. If only for a moment.

This is where logic chimes in loud and clear. The author obviously does not know specifics about what he is talking about. He understands ethics, but cannot argue popular culture to save his life.

The author takes the following stab at me,

"Brandini, on the other hand, adopts the ridiculous argument that because baseball was a little late adopting a wholly unnecessary rule against what was already ILLEGAL under US law, Barry wasn't cheating. Baseball, like the rest of society, is bound by the laws...it doesn't have to specify that every felony is prohibited by baseball too. This may be the lamest of all the Bonds defenses."

First, my assertion that Bonds wasn't cheating is based on him not breaking any of the rules of the game of baseball. In baseball, a pitcher can throw a ball at a hitters head and get a 'warning'. Whereas here in the West, if one were caught throwing a ball at an individuals head, I'm more then certain a restraining order would at least be placed on the thrower.

This is not to say that all laws in the US do not apply to the world of baseball, although that is a questionable assertion in and of itself. For example, if one were to purchase and use steroids in Mexico, would they be breaking a US law? Would this then make it acceptable for one to use steroids, as long as they did them in legal settings?

Second, I did not claim that Bonds was not cheating simply because baseball was 'behind' in making its rules. In fact, I argued that baseball was pushing the use of steroids (and I used a source too! Wow! What a concept!).

That being said, my point was that 'cheating' is breaking the rules of baseball, not society. If Ken Griffey Jr was a negligent parent, would this mean he is 'cheating'? Obviously that is a stretch, as being a poor parent has nothing to do with baseball performance, but I wonder how much the author knows about steroids and baseball performance? On a scale of 10 to -10 do we think he would rate in the positives or the negatives?

He does, however, attempt to know the relationship between performance and steroids (something not even Bill James is able to conclude on). Here the author reasons, "Drunk driving may or may not be worse than illegal steroid use, but unlike steroid use, it doesn't provide a competitive advantage, now, does it?"

First, how many terrible players have taken steroids and still ended up being terrible? All we know is that there are some players who allegedly took steroids that had 'breakout seasons', although it is simply an assumption that the player had this breakout season due to the steroids. If all one needs to do to provide reasonable is to suggest a player who did not improve while taking steroids, how about Alex Sanchez? Breakout seasons happen for all sorts of reasons. To argue that every steroid user had a breakout season is to simply ignore facts.

Second, how do we know that driving drunk does not improve a players ability? Yes, this is a stretch. But think of the pressures a player puts on himself during a baseball season. If the player decides not to go out to the bar, or maybe head home a little early, is it unreasonable to think that a couple drinks wouldn't relieve him of some stress?

The author continues with a lengthy explanation of his justification. But he presents a major error in his first example. One that I need to point out.

The scenario,

"The presumption of innocence has nothing to do with rightly concluding that someone is guilty of misconduct when the evidence is overwhelming. Let us presume your companion, standing right next to you, suddenly ran up to someone on the street and strangled him right before your eyes, in broad daylight, then came back to you and said, "I'm sorry you had to see that, but I just had to kill the guy." Would you later maintain that there was a question whether he had actually committed the murder? In the eyes of the law, your deadly companion would still be technically "innocent," because a jury hadn't pronounced him guilty. But this wouldn't mean that there was the slightest doubt that he committed the act, and it would be unreasonable, indeed absurd, for you to claim otherwise. The huge amount of documentation and testimony gathered in the book "Game of Shadows" places Bonds perilously close to the status of your fictional companion. At a certain point, the presumption of innocence concerns only process, not truth."

Let's put this into some different perspectives.

The first, the 'murderer' has a clean record, is a model citizen, and has a good relationship with the district attorney. The 'witness' has a long record, is a narcotic user, and has little to no references to speak of.

Would a judge find the 'murderer' guilty based on the claim of the 'witness' in this scenario? Probably not.

Let's spin this around. We're got the 'murderer' who has a fine record, but isn't well liked. The 'witness' doesn't report the issue immediately, but has a decent track record and most people like him.

Chances are, that even without raw evidence the judge won't be able to find the murderer guilty, but on an off day, evidence be damned.

Let's put this into baseball perspectives now. In scenario number two, the 'murderer' is Barry Bonds, the 'witness' are those belonging to the media.

Now I'm not going to say that Barry Bonds did not to steroids. What I am going to say is that I'd like to see some more evidence before passing judgment. While there is plenty of quality evidence, I'm still not sold. I won' argue for or against it nor will I tell people they are wrong for going either way, but I won't watch FOX News, those people probably do.

With all of that said, there is no way a person can call Barry Bonds a 'cheater'. If Barry was the only player to use steroids, sure, but he wasn't. In fact, he wasn't the first, nor will he be the last. Did Bonds break some ethical standards? Sure. But how many people wouldn't take the same efforts to be the best they are? This is occurring in academia. It is occurring in medicine.

However, this does not make what Bonds did as 'ethical'. So the author has a marginal point. What Bonds did was unethical. So too were the actions of the majority of baseball. Thus, the question to ask then, 'is it ethical to pick a scapegoat?' While many of us may do so currently, that doesn't make it right.

Barry Bonds is Unethical?

2008-12-24T08:44:00.005-05:00

Over at the Hardball Times there is a well-written, albeit illogical, rationale regarding why teams did not sign Barry Bonds for the 2008 season. THT writer John Brattain has spent much of the season putting together a series of asserting that MLB has intentionally avoided Barry and done so wrongfully.

To start, I will reaffirm everyone that I am an official Barry Bond apologist. I always thought the needle-throwing incidents, while humorous, were inappropriate and appeared to align with jealousy and envy over anything else. That is, I simply do not feel that the chance that Bonds did steroids was worthy of the scrutiny that he received (keep in mind, this 'chance' has increased exponentially in the last 4 years, although it still is not confirmed with any legitimate evidence).

Barry Bonds is still a phenomenal ballplayer. If the court of public opinion had not already drawn up their verdict regarding Bonds' alleged steroid use, the 2007 season should have went a long way in guiding Bonds to innocence. I mean, how many 43 year old ballplayers put up a wOBA of .429? A non-park adjusted rate that would have been good for number six in all of Major League Baseball had Bonds qualified. Keep this fact in mind.

All that being said, in similar fashion to John Brattain, I do feel as though Bonds would have helped a number of teams in the 2008 season. His impending trial would not have affected how many games he played, at worst giving Bonds some much needed time off from the baseball world.

While there is a legitimate reason to believe that the fans of the teams Bonds could have helped would have been disappointed regarding the signing of Barry Bonds. But how many of them would have truly turned their backs on their favorite MLB franchise? How many of them wouldn't have come pouring in through the turnstiles in the midst of a postseason race in August and September? How many of them would have rejected the playoffs because of speculation?

If, of a teams fan base, more then five percent were truly against the Bonds signing so much so that they would bail from following the team, I would be surprised. While it may take some time to warm up to Barry, even in the worst of lights, his game would have created enough buzz to forget, at least temporarily, why people hated the best player of all time.

Back to the article at hand. Jack Marshall is labelled an 'ethicist', a questionable moniker if there ever was one. This, in my opinion, is the equivalent of the faux pas it would have been for a professional snowboarder to call himself a 'pro' a decade ago. This is like religions battling over who is going to be saved. This, is an interesting profession, and comically un-ethical.

Getting to the article, the author asks, "Are baseball commentators really so disconnected from the ethical imperatives of the game?" He mentions these 'imperatives' later, but they are a joke. He claims that these 'imperatives' are obvious due to one case, the Red Sox potentially avoiding the drafting of Clay Buccholz due to a high school incident. I don't think I need to remind everyone how that turned out. Yes, the Red Sox still drafted Clay and he has vaulted up the clubs prospect rankings.

Now I'm not a 'logicist', but has the author not heard of negotiation tactics? Is he also 100% certain that this is factual? Could this not simply been one of the 'cons'? Nope, not according to the author. It is an open and shut case in his opinion.

It's too bad jumping to conclusions is ethical.

The author also fails to properly report facts. "Can anyone imagine a pro football team hesitating for one second from drafting a promising prospect because of something like this?"

Yes, there is a penalty for teams drafting players with a 'history' if that player gets into trouble with his drafted team. There is also a strict personal conduct policy in the National Football League. What does baseball have?

The author asks another question, "Do they really not grasp what signing Barry Bonds, for any amount of money or no amount at all, would have meant?" To which he himself never really answers, maybe I can piece some sort of logic together.

"[S]igning Bonds in order to make the playoffs would have been a dubious and foolish deal for any team, even if one buys the questionable assumption that he would have played well enough to hold up his end of it."

'Questionable assumption'? Based on what? Yes, Barry would have been 44 years old in 2008, but is this author really trying tell me that it was likely that Bonds would fall off the map as a designated hitter? We would be talking a fairly substantial fall as well. That is, Bonds' non-park adjusted wOBA of .429 would need to plummet nearly 100 points in order for him to be worse then the league average designated hitter.

The author then points to the Mitchell Report as his evidence why teams were justified in avoiding Barry. We do recall that the major sources in the Mitchell Report were essentially drug dealers, right? Either way, as a lawyer and an ethicist I find it depressing that the author is: a) taking the opinion of a drug dealer, and b) acting upon Napoleon Law (guilty until proven innocent). How ethical is it to circumvent due process and figure that a person is guilty based on a tiny amount of evidence?

In case you thought it was hilarious that the author tried to suggest that Bonds wouldn't help a team, you might want to cover your eyes for this next doozey.

"Cynics may scoff, and Barry himself couldn’t care less, but baseball is the one professional sport that carries with it a duty to the American culture. Character counts in America, and baseball is bound by history, tradition and its role in legend and myth to make certain that character counts on its playing fields as well. Baseball players, as Bill James quite accurately stated, are paid to be heroes. The sport does not have the raw physical display of football, or the speed of basketball, or the simple-minded appeal of soccer. What it does have that no other professional sport even values very much is integrity, or at least an appreciation that integrity is important."

Carries the duty of American culture? I think the author means Melanophobia, right Houston?

Let's skip through the bulk of that quote as much of it comes off as ignorant and comical. But let's tough on 'integrity'. Is the author really trying to tell us that the baseball executives, journalists, and fans of the 90s truly thought steroid use was 'ethical'? There was no integrity at the height of the steroid era, there was a campaign to encourage hitters to take more steroids.

It has been well documented that teams shifted their focus towards weight training in light of the home run explosions. In Howard Bryant's Juicing the Game the author has multiple sources suggesting teams use to provide amphetamines for its players. Baseball has integrity? Since when?!?

"But the Mitchell Report, released a year ago, was a crystal-clear announcement that the sport was banishing its ethical ambiguity on the matter of performance-enhancing drugs."

Crystal clear? Taking the word of a man with a gun to his head is 'crystal clear'? I'm sorry, but I really cannot understand how one can make that conclusion. What the Mitchell Report did was name some names and force it down the public's throat. For a couple years prior to the Report, baseball had been attacking its steroid problem head on. Not a whole lot has changed since the Report, at least nothing that is 'crystal clear'.

"Cheating was not cool, and cheaters were not welcome. The conduct was officially inconsistent with the values and best interests of the game (as it had, in fact, always been), and the owners, players, teams and fans were hereby expected to heed that fact."

How is Bonds a 'cheat'? Did he break any rules? Did he do something out of the ordinary? Let's agree that he did PED's, was this against the rules of baseball? Were they throwing the book at Bonds' peers while Bonds invariably threw his teammates under the bus? What logic can one have to assert that Bonds 'cheated'? How would one define 'cheat' or 'to cheat' in order to conclude that Barry in fact did cheat?

The fact is, Bonds did not 'cheat', he simply was an amazing player would benefited from baseball turning a blind eye. This isn't like a student copying off of a peers test when the teacher isn't looking. This is like driving over the speed limit and then slowing down in areas where police officers typically park. This is like not properly counting your change at the grocery store not noticing that the cashier gave you an extra 50 cents.

According to the author,

"A team could employ one of the many mediocre, borderline or journeyman players whose names appeared in the Mitchell Report without making the implied statement that it was endorsing and rewarding a cheat."

Why?

Well, according to the author, it is because Bonds broke records. The author asserts that Bonds did so on the back of PEDs and PEDs alone. It would come as no surprise if the author believes Bonds was using in 2007, and probably still is today.

"[H]is career stood for the proposition that steroid use could turn a great player into a super-human juggernaut, shattering all previous limits; that they could allow players to improve dramatically when historically athletes began to decline; that the drugs could lengthen their careers, make the players become more valuable to their teams, and earn them millions more dollars than they would have earned otherwise—and they could get away with it."

A 'great' player? Lance Berkman is a 'great' player. Chipper Jones is a 'great' player. Barry Bonds was historical prior to any steroid allegations. He was historical prior to even becoming a feared home run hitter. Had Barry Bonds retired after the 1999 season he would have been a Hall of Fame no-brainer, and would have went down in history as one of the best hitters of all time.

What did the steroid use do? Honestly, we don't and won't ever know. In 2006 and 2007 Bonds was 42 and 43 years old. During these years, which are labeled as 'post-steroid', Bonds was still in the upper echelon of hitters in all of baseball. Wait?!? Players aren't supposed to do that sort of stuff, he must have been still using.

As we can see from Bonds' age 42 and 43 season, clearly his career would have been long no matter what. In fact, there is a legitimate argument to be made that steroids have shortened his career. I mean, isn't rapid degeneration of muscles, joints, etc one of the main reasons steroids aren't prescribed more frequently?

Also, isn't there a legitimate argument that steroids took money out of Bonds' pocket? Think about it. While Bonds was making a lot of money, how much more would he have made if there wasn't a Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, or juiced up pitchers?

The author then goes about an interesting scale called the Cognitive Dissonance Scale. In summary, this scale is a popularity index. For example, I love apples, but hate bananas. I find out apples are bananas and begin to like apples less, and bananas more.

What I don't see is how this relates to Barry Bonds.

The author is telling us that Mets and Jays fans (and other 'also ran' franchises) would feel better in October watching other teams in MLBs playoff then their favorite simply because of an accusation?

Let's put it this way, maybe I am in the minority, but October 2008 was half as enjoyable as October 2007 because the Indians were not in the post season. This, coming from an individual who simply loves baseball and doesn't spend an intense amount of time following a single team.

That said, there is very little the Indians could have done to get into the playoffs that would have pushed me to the brink of not cheering for them. Very little.

"I would not continue to follow or support the team if it embraced the warped ethics of Barry Bonds and the steroid apologists by signing him. I would, I am quite sure, actively dislike the team until a new regime took over, and it would probably never regain my previous level of loyalty or good will. Cognitive dissonance dictates that the team’s unavoidable decline on the value scale would also pull down others associated closely with it, such as its players, management, and major league baseball itself."

This is interesting. The author discussed the Clay Buchholz issue and seemingly had no issue with that. The Red Sox employed David Wells recently, and we all know how little Wells stands up for. What about the team acquiring Paul Byrd for the playoff run? I'm sure there are many other scenarios where players have had questionable ethical considerations, so why is Barry any different? Why would Bonds affect this authors fan-ship?

This is sounding more of personal vengeance then logic. Logic, would suggest that you stand up for what is wrong no matter what. Personal Vengeance is taking a stance when it suits you. One is ethical, the other is wishy-washy.

"Sure: some factors could raise a player’s score: cooperating with Mitchell (Giambi), apologizing (Pettite), minimal use (Paul Byrd), not being good or healthy enough to matter (lots of guys). But Bonds had many factors that deepened his negative score: greed, warping the records, encouraging other players to use by his success, arrogance, embarrassing the sport through his prominence, and more."

Greed? How was Barry greedy?

Warping the records? The ones he would have already 'warped'?

Encouraging other players to use by his success? Right, because Barry was at the forefront of steroid chemistry. Bonds was the first one to stick a needle in his backside. Bonds was only successful through the addition of drugs.

Arrogance? Oh, because Bonds doesn't like the media.

Embarrassing the sport through his prominence? The author is talking about the prominence which Bonds did not create himself.

Is it ethical to have a pre-conceived notion prior to writing a piece of this sort? The author asserts that a team adding Bonds would be making a 'questionable assumption' that Barry would add offensively, yet has nothing to back this up (ie his previous season in the Majors which was among the best in all of baseball).

This is a maddening article writen by a non-baseball mind about a non-baseball subject. It is depressing that such a legitimate site as the Hardball Times would post such a piece of garbage.

People are welcome to have their opinions, but have something to back it up. Has some logic and reason. Don't step into the pool when it is the thing everyone else is doing (ie hating Bonds and steroids) and step out when the story is under the radar (ie Paul Byrd and steroids). Be a man! go all in, or don't go at all!

Analysis of a Coast to Coast Blockbuster

2008-12-12T17:23:00.003-05:00

By now, we've all heard of the 12 player, 3 team blockbuster that occurred on Wednesday Night between the Mets, Mariners, and Indians. In fact, I even posted a breakdown of the trade Thursday morning, so if you haven't heard of it yet, you probably aren't reading this.

So we're got 12 players, being exchanged between three teams, from two different leagues. My first impression, good on the Mets for getting another highly talented relief pitcher while maintaining each of their top prospects. In addition, I'm impressed with what the Indians did, although disappointed with the return (I'll explain this later). However none of this means that I feel as though the Mariners lost out on this deal.

So let's look further...

The Mets received JJ Putz, Sean Green, and Jeremy Reed. All three players came from the Mariners, which leads me to believe this trade could have occurred without the Indians. However, the Mets weren't too interested in trading any of their young, good players, so matching up with the Indians was necessary.

JJ Putz had an awful season in 2008. He was injured for much of the season and when he was active, he hardly looked like the healthy Putz from previous seasons. This injury plagued season seemed to come a year late, as Putz was hurt for much of Spring Training in 2007. Despite having a strong season in 2007, was this a precursor to 2008? Or was 2008 purely based on not being healthy?

Prior to investigating the numbers, I believed 2008 was a result of the injuries Putz endured. It seemed that everytime he would get things figured out, he would head back to the disabled list. Obviously, then, 2008 was a result of Putz's overall health.

Not so fast. In 2007 Putz saw a slight uptick in his walks and a decrease in his strikeouts. Both remained as phenomenal rates, in fact, among relievers with at least 60 innings pitched, only one had a better strikeout to walk ratio. Nevertheless, Putz did regress in this area and I'd like to know why.

As excellent as Pitch F/X data is, it isn't 100% accurate. When 'naming' pitches, it becomes even less accurate, as it sometimes confuses pitches based on velocity, rather then break. Thus, it is difficult to simply look at pitch velocities and draw a conclusion, or assert that a pitcher certainly went away from a pitch (as is the case with Putz).

However, one of the things that Pitch F/X (and FanGraphs in particular) do an excellent job tracking is pitch by pitch data. At FanGraphs, they log a statistic called 'O Swing %' (OS%), which is the amount of pitches outside of the strike zone that are swung at. This is a statistic that sticks out to me with Putz from 2007 and again in 2008.

In 2006, Putz had an OS% of 31.1%. This is an outstanding rate, and a seemingly unsustainable one (although this statistic is more representative of the pitcher then it is luck or otherwise). Even still, Putz's OS% dropped to 24.7% in 2007, good enough to drop him from the second best down to the sixty-fifth (among relievers with 60+ innings pitched). Needless to say, this is a substantial drop and obviously had to do with Putz's drop in strikeout rate and raising the walk rate. Although as I mentioned, both statistics were still phenomenal.

However, as the 65th rated reliever in OS%, this could be the beginning of a trend. That is, with a decrease in OS% also created a drop in Swing % (S%, a statistic which states the percentage of pitches that are swung at in total).

2008 appeared to coalesce the situation, where Putz's medicore OS% caused a mediocre S%.

Possibly this was a matter of Putz not figuring out his changeup in Spring Training, eventually ditching it, and then not creating the same sort of batter confusion that may have been the case in 2006. However, this also could be the league figuring out JJ Putz. Keep in mind that in 2006, Putz came to Spring Training with a new split finger pitch, one that he has begun to rely on more with each successive season. One that maybe is not so surprising to big league hitters as it was in 2006 and 2007.

In other words, I'm less thrilled with Putz's potential then I was prior to writing this.

The next piece the Mets received, Sean Green, is one of those durable, simply okay relievers. Green does not throw the ball very hard, but he does well with what he has. That being said, Green is probably more roster filler then he is legitimate reliever. The Mariners don't mind losing him, and it doesn't hurt the Mets to add him as depth.

Lastly, the Mets added failed prospect Jeremy Reed. He is a scouts dream, owning plus tools, but a sabermetric nightmare, failing to perform at the highest level. However, at age 27, having absolutely conquered triple A (in essentially four different seasons), Reed is not a terrible gamble to take. At worst, he's probably an even exchange for what the Mets gave up (read: Reed will be a sufficient 4th/5th outfielder).

The Indians simply tagged along in this deal, they allowed for the Mets to not have to give up any of their top prospects, and added enough to make the Mariners want to make the deal. For the Indians, this was also a necessity. The team has too many outfielders and too few roster spots. While the Tribe would have been just as well dropping David Delucci, it doesn't seem likely that Mark Shapiro is willing to admit defeat on that mistake.

That being said, in acquiring Luis Valbuena, Shapiro does appear willing to admit the mistake he made in acquiring Josh Barfield, otherwise the Tribe would give the 26 year old a legitimate shot at playing second base.

Valbuena is a fine acquisition in his own right and provides the Indians with a great deal of flexibility on their infield. With remaining options, Valbuena can be sent down to the minors, or he can man second base, which would move Asdrubal Cabrera to short, and Jhonny Peralta to third, improving the infield defense, as well as solving the third base crisis.

As for Valbuena the hitter, there isn't really much to expect with him. He offers a solid eye at the plate with minimal power and adequate speed. Valbuena will never be an everyday top of the order hitter, but if his glove remains strong and he can provide a league average on base percentage, the Indians have themselves the makings of an excellent middle infield. If not, my hatred for David Dellucci will continue to grow.

The other player Cleveland received is side-arming relief pitcher Joe Smith. As a player who went from college to the Majors in a little over a year, Smith is a solid reliever that will help what was a weak Cleveland bullpen in 2008. Smith will never be a closer, and would be stretched as a teams top setup man, but he should fit well with how the current Indians bullpen is configured.

Additionally, he is a player with option years remaining, which certainly comes as a benefit for this club.

Trading Gutierrez for Valbuena and Smith is probably a little on the low end. As a team that was pressed to make this trade by Spring Training, it is understandable why Shapiro jumping at this.

The Mariners received a team's worth of players in exchange for four bodies. Two of the players the Mariners received have a great deal of value, one is bench fodder, and the other four are all 'wait and see' types. But let's look closer at what they received.

Franklin Gutierrez was one of my favorite Indians. While he will be 26 years old as of Opening Day, I still see a vast amount of potential in him. Even if the offensive tools do not come to fruition, Gutierrez should be one of the best center fielders in all of baseball next season. There are very few Indians fans, scouts, and stat heads who would disagree with such a claim.

The major problem with Gutierrez is his ability to take a walk. However, he did a great job in cutting back his strikeouts in 2008, which could be a sign of things to come. Even the best of outcomes still means that Gutierrez is a Mike Cameron-type, not one to build around, but good enough to be on a winning team (and excellent for a losing one).

The most impressive part of this deal may be the fact that the Mariners actually improved their closer, that is, if Aaron Heilman accepts his role in the bullpen. If he does, there is reason to believe that Heilman could be as good, if not better, then JJ Putz, at a substantially lesser cost.

However, Heilman will need to cut down on the walks and get his ground ball percentage (GB%) back to his normal rates, thus lessening the chance for home runs.

Endy Chavez was an interesting addition to this deal. I'm not entirely sold on why he would be added, but he isn't a terrible 4th outfielder. Chavez is an excellent fielder, but does not bring much to the plate. For my money, I'd much rather give Wladimir Balentien the playing time.

In terms of the prospects, let's first look at Maikel Cleto, the 19 year old starting pitcher who should start the 2009 season in high A ball. Cleto was not discussed on anyones prospect lists entering the 2008 season, although his performance this year should change that and land Cleto on the Mariners top 20.

Cleto is armed with a hard hard fastball that regularly reaches 97mph. He is still considered as raw, although his control is extremely impressive for a pitcher of his age. That being said, he is still 2 or 3 years away from the Majors, and another 2 from being a reliable contributor. As Christina Karhl at Baseball Prospectus wrote, if Minaya wins a World Series in that time, it won't matter what type of pitcher Cleto turns into.

The next prospect I want to take a look at is Ezequiel Carrera, the 21 year old lefty hitting outfielder. As the case with Cleto, Carrera is extremely raw, and still a considerable way from the Majors. In fact, with how raw he is, and his distance from the Majors, he's a long shot to be a contributor.

Right now the reports are putting Carrera as a 'Juan Pierre plus power minus the speed'-so maybe Ryan Freel is a better comparison. But again, he's still fairly raw, so it's rather difficult to judge what type of player the Mariners received here.

Jason Vargas is probably less valuable then a bullpen catcher at this point. He's coming off of a season in which he didn't pitch until the Arizona Fall League as he recovered from hip surgery. Once upon a time Vargas was an interesting prospect, and he isn't a terrible gamble to take at this point, but the Mariners can't be banking on anything more then him being a LOOGY.

The final chip in an endless stack is Mike Carp. Carp is a first basemen that repeated double A as a 22 year old. Repeating the level did Carp wonders as he saw all of his numbers improve, the best of which was his plate discipline which looked outstanding this season.

As a player that projects as a high on base, low power first basemen, Carp does not have incredibly high value. However, he certainly can be useful to the rebuilding Mariners as a Lyle Overbay/Ryan Garko-type.

With ALLL of that said, am I moving from my original statement that the Mets won? Not necessarily. We're still talking about a team that did not give up a lot. However, this deal, despite getting Major League talent, is still about potential, even for them.

That is, Putz is far from a sure thing. If baseball has figured him out, then Putz is worthless. If it was just a matter of Putz not getting a feel for all of his pitches due to being hurt, then the Mets have one of baseballs best bullpens. Reed and Green are marginal acquisitions that will have minimal impact on the club.

For the Indians, this was a great trade as it has the potential to pay immediate dividends. Even if these players do not contribute immediately, the Tribe moved Gutierrez before it became too late and at least have something to show for him.

The Mariners have the potential to be big time winners. They will be patient with their acquisitions and allow the players to force their way onto the Big League roster. If Putz flops, this will be an incredible swap no matter what. If Putz bounces back, this was a weak swap, even if the trade market on closers is poor.

Overall, I'm sticking with the Mets as the winners in this deal, but marginally. If Putz flops they didn't spend a lot to get him, so it won't hurt the long term future. What it will do, however, is hurt the Mets in 2008 as they could have went after a lower ceiling player that is more reliable-I'm thinking Joe Beimel or Juan Cruz.

The Trades That We Could Have Done Without

2008-12-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

The 2008 MLB Winter Meetings have wrapped up and while there was some action, many of the headlines were either predictable or were not the ones everyone was looking for. This entry will review three trades that went down in a little over 24 hours in Las Vegas-three moves which were largely unheard of prior to being finalized.

The first move occurred late Tuesday evening, as the Cincinnati Reds shipped Ryan Freel and two prospects to the Baltimore Orioles for Ramon Hernandez.

This isn't a move that I particularly agree with for the Reds and one I feel as though they sold themselves short on. While the return is fine, it is the direction of the return that I question.

First, Ramon Hernandez has had some success as a Major League catcher, he is only two years removes from posting a park adjusted .367 weighted on base average(wOBA*). In fact, 2006 marked the end of a four year streak where Hernandez's wOBA* did not go below .351, and reached as high as .373. This four year stretch marked a period where Hernandez was one of the top hitting backstops in the game.

Hernandez also gets points for being an adequate defensive catcher-think, a slightly superior Victor Martinez.

To get Hernandez for what the Reds did is a fine swap. A couple months ago I suggested the Orioles move Ramon to the Detroit Tigers for middle infield prospect Scott Sizemore. To me,
this was more about dumping salary in hopes of acquiring Mark Teixeira.

However, what I don't understand is why the Reds wanted to pay this type of money for Ramon Hernandez when they could have brought in Josh Bard to have at least an equal offensive season. That said, the same argument can be proposed to me with my idea for the Detroit Tigers acquiring Hernandez.

For the Orioles, this move was more about clearing a way to get Matt Weiters into the bigs then it was in receiving anything of worth. That being said, the O's did well in bringing aboard the versatile Ryan Freel, and two low end prospects that are worth the gambles.

Ryan Freel can essentially play any position in the ballpark (save catcher). This versatility is probably his best asset, and one the Orioles will be certain to take full advantage of. That being said, for a player without a full time role, he is also somewhat overpaid, earning $4M, plus the $2M the Orioles sent to the Reds for Hernandez's contract. Freel will presumably become a fan favorite in Baltimore as he was in Cincinnati and Joe Fan will call for Freel to start after he dirties his uniform in the top of the ninth in a blow-out.

Of the two prospects Baltimore received, Brandon Waring is the one I feel has the greatest long term potential. John Sickels rated him as a C+ prospect entering the 2008 season and would probably drop him back a notch entering 2009. Waring is an all or nothing power hitter that simply needs to work on his discipline at the plate.

While Brandon will be 23 as of Opening Day, it would not be surprising to see him hitting double A pitching by the end of this season. If he can successfully move to that level, there is hope for his future. As of now, Waring is more organization filler then legitimate prospect.

The other prospect, Justin Turner, is a 24 year old middle infield prospect that projects more as a utility player then anything of real worth. Justin has posted a wOBA of approximately .360 throughout his Minor League career. If he can maintain that mark into the majors, he would certainly rate as an above average middle infielder.

However, like Waring, Turner is at best a fringe prospect and one that is hardly worth tracking at this point. Neither are terrible players to have within an organization, but both are more future bench players then everyday hitters on a winning team.

Even still, this trade was more about addition by subtraction then it was adding actual pieces. The Orioles saved themselves a chunk of change and manage to improve their team, as well as finally beginning 'life-after-Cal'. This trade also provides the Orioles some insurance if they so choose to deal Brian Roberts, which would be another positive bonus. In other words, the Reds win on this one.

That being said, I don't see why the Reds went after Hernandez, even at this cheap of a price. If the club manages to boost his value due to hitting in the lesser league in a joke of a ballpark, possibly he can be spun for something of worth at the deadline. If not, this trade was commenced simply to take time out of my life to write about-thanks!

The second move nearly gave me a heart attack. This move saw the Pittsburgh Pirates trading Ronny Paulino to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for Jason Jaramillo. While you may be asking yourself how I nearly had a heart attack, I can explain, although I am not justified. You see, I had thought I read 'Ryan Doumit'. "My bad".

Ronny Paulino is nothing special, but he is an adequate backup catcher. He had one good season-his first as a full time back stop-and has since been a roster filler.

It is interesting, however, that the Phillies would want Paulino in the first place.

Although the same can be said about the Pittsburgh Pirates. I suppose being younger, cheaper, and under control longer made Jason Jaramillo attractive to the Pirates, but I'm certain the club could have gotten a similarly productive backup that holds the same qualities that Jaramillo holds.

Despite not wanting to award a winner for this deal, I suppose I'll give it to the Pirates. Jaramillo and Paulino appear to be relatively interchangable. Thus, the cost, 'youth', and team control makes Jaramillo slightly more valuable. Although Paulino will hold value in his own right, being a more experienced backup for a winning ballclub.

Lastly, the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays uncovered the most secretively deal of the Winter Meetings, swapping Matt Joyce for Edwin Jackson.

There had been rumblings that the Rays were looking for a left handed bat, but there was not a word about Joyce. The Tigers, known to be in the market for a closer, presumably made this deal as a part of a bigger deal down the road.

But let's look at what the two teams got in this swap.

The Rays brought aboard a big time power bat in Matt Joyce. The 24 year old posted an isolated power (ISO) figure of .240 despite hitting in a pitcher friendly ballpark. This ISO contributed greatly to Joyce's .378 wOBA*, an excellent figure for any player, let alone a rookie.

Joyce is also blessed with being an outstanding defensive right fielder and will combine with Carl Crawford and BJ Upton to form what will far and away be baseball's best defensive outfield.

However, Joyce also has a problem not striking out. While Joyce saw his strikeout rate drop upon his Major League arrival, his rate still stood at a poor 26.9%. Despite being excellent at taking walks, Joyce's inability to control the strikezone will be his downfall.

In exchange for Joyce, the Rays moved Edwin Jackson, clearly a spot for David Price and selling high on an immensely gifted pitcher. I can still remember the hype surrounding Edwin, the hype that only grew as he won his debut against the best pitcher at the time, Randy Johnson.

The following seasons Jackson struggled with both his control and health. When Jackson was healthy, he was being shuffled around the Dodgers organization, getting a cup of coffee, then being sent down to double A.

The Dodgers eventually grew tired of all the promise and eventually traded him to the Tampa Bay Rays. Jackson was packaged with fellow failed prospect Chuck Tiffany in exchange for eventual blow-up relievers Danys Baez and Lance Carter.

Jackson split the 2006 season between triple A and the bigs, although his control issues persisted. The Rays staff must have noted the problem, as they had Jackson throw 11% fewer fastballs in 2007 then 2006. Jackson's walk rate declined and he began to rebound.

2008 will certainly go down as Jackson's breakout season. While his strikeout rate took a major hit, Jackson's walk rate dropped to a much more managable rate. Jackson logged a career high in innings pitched and became a reliable starter for the Rays.

Entering 2009, Jackson was all but gone from the Rays rotation, if not to the bullpen, then to another organization. Here we are today, with the 25 year old now sporting the old english D and a lock for the Tigers rotation.

The Tigers have done a lot to improve their infield defense for the upcoming season. Comerica is, by all standards, a pitchers park. If Edwin can manage to bump up his strikeout rate and keep his walk rate down, the players behind him should be good enough to help Jackson build on what was a career year.

While I am more bullish on Jackson then I am on Joyce, the fact remains that this was a better trade for the Rays then it was for the Tigers-at this point. That is, Joyce will fill a hole for the Rays and do so at a high level for an affordable price. Conversely, the Tigers moved one of their few remaining trade chips to add to what is already a surplus.

True, the Tigers rotation is lacking after the top two (maybe three), but with the money owed to both Dontrelle Willis and Nate Robertson, the Tigers are better served taking their lumps and hoping one of them figures it out then adding a third or forth starter.

What will make this more tolerable for the Tigers is if the club manages to move one of Willis or Robertson for a player worth more then Joyce. If not, this is more of a move for the sake of making a move, then it is improving the club for 2009.

Coast to Coast Blockbuster

2008-12-11T09:03:00.002-05:00

Here's how the trade between the Seattle Mariners, New York Mets, and Cleveland Indians shakes out:

Analysis to follow...

Rule V Draft Primer

2008-12-11T07:44:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow marks MLB's Rule V draft, a draft where unprotected players can be had by any team for a fee and a roster spot. Of course, teams do a good job at protecting their most valuable assets, there are players who slip through the cracks, most notably being Johan Santana and Josh Hamilton in recent years.

That is, players signed at age 19 or older have 3 years of minor league eligibility before they must be added to a team's 40-man roster. If they are not added to the roster before this time, they will be eligible for the Rule V draft. Similarly, players signed at age 18 or younger with 4 years of minor league service become eligible for the draft if not added to a teams 40 man roster.

Another caveat in the rules, if a player is selected, he must stay on the teams 25-man roster for a full year after being selected. If he is left off the roster for one reason or another, the player will be returned to his original club-a la Matt Whitney, now with the Washington Nationals.

Typically, 'toolsy' middle infielders or left handed pitchers are the ones to be selected in the draft. The thinking is that a young, high upside middle infielder can, at worst, be a defensive replacement for a year, then be returned to the minors for another year or two of seasoning. The same with a left handed pitcher, who can be used in situational roles, as the Twins did with Johan Santana at first.

Over at Baseball America, a complete listing of all the players available for the Rule V draft is posted. It is a ridiculously long list, one that I had a tough time believing. While very few will go name by name through the list, it would have been helpful had BA gotten an intern to go through the list linking every player to at least their MiLB.com player profile page. First Inning has a tool for such, unfortunately it did not work-or fortunately for my desire to sleep.

I did, however go through the list searching out all of the players aged 21 and under. I will go over my findings in a moment.

While there is unlikely to be another Santana or Hamilton in this years draft, there are a handful of very intriguing young players. Tim Dierkes at MLB Trade Rumors highlights some of the players that are most likely to be selected in the draft, we're talking predominantly ex-top prospects who simply did not work and have run out of time with their respective clubs.

From that list, there are three players that specifically stick out to me. Those being Chuck Lofgren from the Cleveland Indians, Donald Veal from the Chicago Cubs, and Eduardo Morlan from the Tampa Bay Rays.

After a breakout season in 2006, Chuck Lofgren took a minor step back after being promoted to double A the following year as a 21 year old. While his numbers were not terrible in 2007, they were never good enough to warrant serious consideration for promotion. The Indians again started Lofgren in double A for the 2008 with the expectations that he would at least make a splash in triple A, if not making the big league club at some point.

Obviously this never happened as Lofgren's control-which was never a strength to begin with-took a further step back. While Lofgren has the stuff and the body that makes scouts drool, he also is a continual source of frustration. A team will certainly take a look at him at the back end of their bullpen hoping to iron out any mechanical flaws. I still really like Lofgren and think leaving him unprotected was a terrible decision-at least David Dellucci is still in town.

Donald Veal was once an untouchable prospect.Veal is a straight up power pitcher with a power pitchers body. The left hander sits in the low 90s but can touch 96 on occassion. His delivery could be tinkered with, but in all, Veal could very well be a change of scenary pitcher. The fact is, most teams are currently running out worse pitchers with the fifth spot in their rotation.

The most promising player is Eduardo Morlan.Received from the Twins as part of the Garza for Young deal, Morlan can presumably be owned for $50,000 and then stashed on the disabled list for much of 2009 season. While not technically injured, according to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, Morlan lost 3-5mph off his fastball this season and took a significant step back from 2007.

While 2008 was a fine season by anyones standards, it was certainly an off year for Morlan who saw his strikeout per nine drop from over 12.00 down to 8.62. Morlan managed to put up a decent walk rate, the loss in velocity sends up some serious red flags. That said, I'd be willing to take a shot at the 22 year old giant.

Another interesting prospect comes in the form of wooden-shoe wearing Loek Van Mil. Van Mil is a 7'1" dutch right hander who reaches 97mph on his fastball. Control has been an issue for the 24 year old, but considering how raw the prospect is, he may be worth bringing into Spring Training to see what he's got.

Also stealing headlines is Indians first basemen, Jordan Brown. Brown could probably be an alright bench player, but unfortunately the hopes of him developing into a legitimate power hitter are long gone. Armed with a stellar eye at the plate, Brown will be picked with one of the first few spots in the draft and owned the duration of the 2009 season.

As I mentioned, I took a look at the class of Rule V eligible players aged 21 and under. My thinking was that these players are young enough where a season of cage work and instruction may actually improve their long term futures. Unfortunately, this theory has not worked out in the past, as many high ceiling youngsters have been taken, only to fall on their faces after not hitting for a full year.

Of my list of 20 players whom I saw fit to being drafted, here are my top 5:

Edgar Osuna - 21 years old - Left Handed - Starting/Relief Pitcher - Atlanta Braves

Osuna has some phenomenal statistics, starting with a 9.69 strikeout per nine and a walk rate on the low end of the spectrum. While he took a step back in his advancement from rookie ball to A ball, we're talking a kid with a fair amount of potential.

I can't find much regarding Osuna's stuff except that he has a changeup which he uses as an out pitch. John Sickels recently rated him as a C+ prospect calling him a 'sleeper'.

Luis Ortega - 21 years old - Right Handed - Starting Pitcher - Washington Nationals

How Ortega's season has gone unnoticed in a weak Nationals farm system is beyond me. Nevertheless, the 21 year old put up strong numbers against inferior competition during the Dominican Summer Leagues. Ortega struck out more then a batter an inning while maintaining an incredible walk rate.

Without accurate scouting reports teams will certainly shy away from this player. However, if his stuff pans out, he certainly could be the next Joakim Soria.

Luis Sumoza - 20 years old - Bats and Throws Right - Outfield - Atlanta Braves

The second Brave to make this list, Sumoza is an outfielder with a boat load of power. Despite having only a few hacks above low A ball, Sumoza is a player that I would give a long look at, potentially giving him the occasional platoon-like at bats. At age 20, his development may stunt, but better stunted in my system then growing in another.

Ivan Nova - 22 years old - Right Handed - Starting Pitcher - New York Yankees

Nova entered the 2008 season ranking as the #18 prospect in the Yankees organization. Considering the incredible strides Nova took while moving up a level, the kid seems more then poised for a breakout season.

In 2008, Nova saw his strikeout rate jump from 4.89 to 6.60. While only a marginal amount, his base on balls dropped as well.

Adrian Aviles - 19 years old - Bats and Throws Left - Outfielder - Los Angeles Dodgers

Adrian hasn't done anything special. He has performed at a league average rate against equally as young competition. However, Aviles is the youngest player on this list and could easily be the cheapest draft pick a team could land.

While there are a few more players I would strongly consider picking up, these are the top 5. None of these players are likely to find their way on a Major League roster this coming season, so it will be fun to see how each player developes with their current ballclubs in 2009. It will be interesting to see who, if any, crack top prospect lists entering the 2010 season.

Enjoy the draft tomorrow.

The OLIB's First Birthday

2008-12-10T20:47:00.006-05:00

A year has gone by already?

I've got to say, when I first started this thing, it was wishful thinking to believe it would last a year. I never anticipated posting daily or even having more then a handful of posts or so a month. But here we are, full circle, 216 posts later.

Obviously a lot has gone on, not only here at The OLIB but in baseball in general. There really isn't much need to reflect upon either, given the fact that if you are interested you can search the entire sties database.

After a year, I am pleasantly surprised with the amount of readership. While I am not on the cusp of obtaining any corporate sponsorship, the fact that I have averaged over 20 readers per day since the websites Opening Day means a lot.

Below are the stats from the past year, courtesy of SiteMeter, a surprisingly free stat counting website.

Nearly 8,000 visitors since Opening Day, whether or not that is something to be proud of, I really do not know. Needless to say, I'm impressed.

The first time I broke 1000 readers, I had a mini-celebration. In stead of taking the bull by the horn, however, I let personal issues get in the way en route to a whopping 5 posts for the month of August.

I rebounded in September. Although the hits were slow to come, I continued churning out posts and began brain storming for the future. This led to another busy month in October, coupled with the most hits the site has seen in a given month.

While not breaking a single month record for views, November followed suit in cracking 1000 readers, a milestone I hope for as a minimum from this point forward and am currently paced for entering the 13th month of The OLIB's existence.

Thank you to everyone who has come and read anything on this site. Whether you have agreed or disagreed with whatever I have had to say, your viewership is greatly appreciated.

-Brandon

Contemplating Speculation

2008-12-09T16:38:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact that we are still two months away from pitchers and catchers meeting for Spring Training, there is plenty of action going on. The Winter Meetings signal the actual start to free agency, where the majority of big name free agents will either sign their contracts or begin to put the specifics of an upcoming contract down.

This is a time where General Managers beginning checking off items from their shopping lists, where the off-season plan either comes to fruition or is the start of 'plan B'.

But the most exciting part of Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings are the rumors, the speculation. This is the time of year where a team can do nothing and find fans turning against them. This is where fans should figure out exactly how invalid the majority of rumors are.

Let's kick it off with the most outlandish one:

Kansas City will trade Zach Greinke to the Atlanta Braves for Jeff Francouer.

There's two side to what is an obviously inaccurate trade rumor. First, if this trade is literally on the table and the Braves front office is not running to Bud Selig with the details, they should be kicked out of the league. There is not an easier move to make then this speculated one.

That being said, if the price tag on Greinke is as low as a player such as Jeff Francouer then the front office of 28 other Major League teams should be burned down. Literally. There is not a reason for any team to not want to make a move such as this. At 25 years old, Greinke may well be one of the most valuable players in baseball.

True, a Tim Lincecum is obviously worth more and there are plenty of other pitchers and hitters that are making the low salary that Greinke is. However, how many of them would cost a player with as little value as Francouer? The 24 year old with a career .318 wOBA (which is brutal for an outfielder).

The only nugget of truth here is that Dayton Moore openly wants Francouer. However, even Moore, Frenchy's biggest fan, wouldn't send Greinke in this deal. That said, it's safe to assume the conversation went more along the lines of,

DM - I'm interested in bringing Jeff Francouer to Kansas City.
Frank Wren - He's expendable.
DM - How much?
FW - Let's start with Zach Greinke.
DM - Let's stop talking.

Then,

DM - If I give you Zach Greinke would you be willing to move Jeff Francouer?
FW - I'll even give you my Blue Man Group tickets!!!

Also, do we really think that Dayton Moore would want to add another outfielder? Is his job as General Manager not already difficult enough that he wants to create more log jams?

Interesting rumor number two - Jermaine Dye leaving Chicago. The Reds already shot down the speculation that Dye would come to town in exchange for Homer Bailey, how far are we from Frank Wren shooting down a Dye for Tommy Hanson swap. Wait, did I just start a rumor?

Certainly Kenny Williams is trying to move Dye, but I think the understanding of that is clouding the better judgement of reporters. That is, why report a rumor of a trade that you wouldn't do?

The rumor that won't die - Jake Peavy joining the world's greatest pitching staff.

Everyone is reporting this and everyone has a different story. Long story short, whatever you read in the next 12 hours is false. There may be pieces that are accurate, but for the most part we are hearing a couple of names from different people. Interestingly, the team that is reported to give up the best player is easily getting the worst package in return.

That being said, ignore everything you hear until you come home from work on Wednesday.

An accurate rumor - Matt Weiters is being handed the starting backstop job in Baltimore, and Ryan Freel is going to get an orange uniform dirty. Freel goes to Baltimore for Ramon Hernandez.

This trade doesn't make sense for the Reds, but neither did the big contract they handed out to Eric Milton. Maybe the Reds don't have a plan?

I also wonder why the Orioles aren't looking for a prospect in return instead of Freel. Although the possibility of another Red prospect going to Baltimore makes some more sense.

There's lots going on, most of which can be ignored. Needless to say, this is a very exciting time of year.

Rangers move Laird to the Tigers for Prospects

2008-12-08T17:00:00.001-05:00

Late friday evening, the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers came to terms on a deal that would send Gerald Laird to Detroit in exchange for two pitching prospects, Guillermo Moscoso and Carlos Melo. My first impression of this deal, is that the Tigers received a good haul for what can be considered as wildcard type prospects.

Even though I initially felt as though the Tigers had come out on top in this deal, I was curious why they set their sights so low. A friend later pointed out that this trade was made for defensive purposes and defensive purposes alone. In which case, this was probably as good as the Tigers could have gotten.

However, the Tigers have to have a concern regarding Gerald Laird's durability. At 29 years old, it has to be troubling that Laird has not once played a full season. In 2007, the season in which Laird had his career high in plate appearances, he also had what is arguably the worst offensive season of his career.

That being said, if this trade was indeed made for defensive reasons, then certainly this career wOBA (Weighted On Base Average-more on that later this week) catcher is a fine player to add. Durability, however, is still a cause for concern.

While Laird has never truly been given an opportunity to be an everyday catcher, he also has not done an incredible amount in earning that job. While Laird is a fine defensive catcher, he still needs to show that he can be excellent as a full time catcher.

Laird did not cost the Tigers any of their top prospects-the few that the organization does have. What Laird did cost the Tigers is a hard throwing pitcher that is close to being Major League ready, and a youngster with an incredible ceiling.

The first, and closest player to the majors, Guilermo Moscoso is an absolutely interesting acquisition. Moscoso was signed out of Venezuela as a 19 year old. It was not until two years later that he would make his professional North American debut.

Since this time, Moscoso has provided an outstanding strikeout rate, coupled with an equally as impressive walk rate. There is, however, concern that his success has been more a product of performing against younger competition, as at 25 years old, Moscoso has only thrown 34.2 innings above A ball.

That aside, those 34.2 double A innings were outstanding. Posting a 6.25 stikeout to walk ratio at any level of baseball is outstanding. It will be interesting to see how Moscoso developes and is certainly a player that the Tigers will regret moving.

One order of concern, durability. Moscoso has never exceeded 100 innings in a professional season. Couple that with his performance thus far in the Venezuela Winter League, albeit in a small sample.

The second player is equally as intriguing, although very far from the Majors. Carlos Melo, the 17 year old from Dominican Republic is a name to remember. The kid is already registering a fastball between 92 and 96mph. Melo registered 61 strikeouts in 49 innings, good for 10 strikeouts per nine innings-an excellent rate at any level.

As expected from a raw and electric teenager from Latin America, Melo struggled with his control, registering 3.5 walks per nine innings. This is not a dreadful statistic, but certainly one that Melo will need to work on in order to build his stock.

As I initially suggested, this looks like a win for the Tigers. However, I am inclined to assert that the Rangers got the best part of this deal through adding a very nice long term piece in Melo. Further, I wonder if the overall value of Laird will be significant than any one of a number of free agent catchers. While Laird will certainly be the best defensive catcher, is that enough to make up for his offensive short comings.

Additionally, I gather that the pitching starved Tigers will regret the loss of Moscoso, specifically if Jeremy Bonderman can not return from his injury and if Armando Galarraga can not repeat his unexpected success.

That being said, the Tigers are better behind the dish entering Opening Day of 2009 then they were entering Opening Day of 2008. The club also saves some money in the process.

It's Arbitration Day

2008-12-07T12:24:00.004-05:00

Those who were offered arbitration have the remainder of today to announce whether or not they are accepting arbitration. There were 24 players who were offered arbitration and presumably each one will accept, subsequently receiving a one-year contract with an assumed pay raise. There are some more specifics which occur during the arbitration process, and I'll touch on that later.

For now, however, let's look at who was offered arbitration and what that means.

Of the 24 players offered arbitration, nine were hitters. This list is headlined by Manny Ramirez, Mark Teixeira, Raul Ibanez, and Milton Bradley. Also received arbitration were Casey Blake, Orlando Hudson, Jason Varitek, Orlando Cabrera, and Mark Grudzielanek.

From the headliner list, I can see both Ramirez and Ibanez considering these offers. While both would prefer to sign long term contracts, the top heavy depth in this years free agent class for outfielders means neither player may get the dollars they are looking for. Specifically, Ibanez, a type A free agent and arguably less valuable then free free agents Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, and Bobby Abreu.

That is, since neither of the aforementioned trio was offered arbitration, teams do not have to worry about losing a first round selection. Since the performance and subsequently contract demands will extraordinarily similar, it is tough to imagine a team giving up the salary plus a high pick for Ibanez.

The same can be said about Varitek, Cabrera, and Grudzielanek. In the case of these three players, there are similarly talented players available without the cost of giving up a draft pick.

Manny is an interesting case. Here is a player, who if he accepts arbitration will receive a contract exceeding $20M. While Manny would be running the risk that at his age the contract he signs will be his last, he also has to be confident that a single year at $20M is greater then the average annual salary of a three year or more contract would provide. One has to wonder if player for next years salary would be enough to keep the incredibly talented Manny motivated.

In what is a deep free agent pitching class, there may be some interesting decisions among the arbitration eligible pitchers. In all, 15 pitchers were offered arbitration. While CC Sabathia, Oliver Perez, and Jon Garland from the starters, and Francisco Rodriguez, Brandon Lyon, Juan Cruz, and Brian Fuentes will certainly decline arbitration, there are players who have some tough calls to make.

Derek Lowe comes to mind in this case. While he is at a similar point in his career to Manny, in that any contract could conceivably be the last contract, the fact remains that he is likely to make more in 2009 through arbitration then by signing a three or four year contract. There has been plenty of speculation regarding interesting teams, and Lowe has had a long enough career where an extra million or two over the next couple of seasons may not make a big enough deal to risk a major injury.

Another interesting case is Ben Sheets. Here is a pitcher that has been extrmely vulnerable to injury. Entering September, Sheets was having the dream 'contract year' season. He hadn't missed a start and had been performing at a very high level. In all honesty, between he and Sabathia, teams would have been excused for more aggressively pursuing Sheets.

Then the wheels fell off. Sheets suffered an injury in a start on the first of September, and never really got all the way healthy. Sheets tried to pitch through the pain, but failed and didn't even make it onto the Brewers post-season roster.

There is no doubt that this will affect the contract that Sheets is offered, in both length and value. This then raises the question, does Sheets accept arbitration, taking a lesser raise and hopes for a full season in 2009 where he can work to increase his value, or does he simply take the best three or four year offer and run, knowing full well he won't be healthy for the duration of his contract?

AJ Burnett is in a similar position, although it is more clear that he feels as though this is going to be the final contract of his career. That is, Burnett's agent has let it be known that AJ is willing to take a lesser average annual salary in exchange for a fifth year on the contract. While much of this is simply jockeying for position, the Yankees have suggested they would be willing to go no more then four years. Given that Burnett also voided the final two years of a contract that would have paid him $24M from the Blue Jays, it is clear the pitcher is concerned about his ability to maintain his value over the long term.

Paul Byrd is a player who could conceivably accept arbitration. At this point in his career, it is unlikely anyone offers Byrd a multi-year contract and being on an organization with as great of a chance to win as the Red Sox have has got to be a nice bonus for the elder stateman.

Additional fringe players include relievers Darren Oliver, Brian Shouse, Dennys Reyes, and David Weathers. Each of these players are on the fringe of being valuable and may be better served waiting another year when there isn't a KRod, Fuentes, and Chad Cordero.

Cruz is another interesting case, albeit one that will certainly decline arbitration. That is, I am curious as to what sort of contract he would receive if he accepted arbirtation.

There was much made about the Cubs not offering Kerry Wood arbitration, and at first I completely agreed with the mob mentality that suggested this was a foolish decision. However, digging deeper, I realized this was the correct decision to make.

The initial argument was made that the Cubs threw away draft picks by not offering arbitration. This is simply false. Consider the depth of the free agent closer market, where Wood could conceivably be as highly ranked as #1 but as low as #5 or 6. His agent may then suggest that Kerry accepts arbitration and waits a season to go into the market, where he would undoubtedly be one of the top two closers available.

Further, given that Wood is coming off of a year in which he made $8M+ after incentives, his arbitration figure would be close to $10M, if not higher. While $10M is probably the figure he would make annually as a free agent, that he wouldn't be the Cubs closer means they would be paying a premium for a set up reliever.

That aside, Wood's agent may have also advised Kerry that another healthy year as a high leverage reliever will lead teams to forgetting about his failures as a starter. Remembering Wood as a starter may cause teams to be apprehensive to dish out a long term contract.

Thus, there is not a simple conclusion that the Cubs threw away draft picks as Wood was probably 50-50 to accepting arbitration.

Also, consider what that would have meant for the Cubs, owners of one of baseball's most phanatic fan bases. Hendry would have been asked, 'Why are you paying Kerry like a closer while not having him close?' Given that Carlos Marmol is the superior option as the teams closer, Wood's contract would have only muddied what should be an obvious decision.

Furthermore, let's not forget how fragile Wood has been over his career. Imagine the reaction of Cubs fans if Wood was hurt at some point during Spring Training?

All that being said, Hendry took the safe route in not offering Wood arbitration. While he does not receive the obvious benefits of arbitration, he also avoids the equally as damaging side affects of Wood accepting arbitration.

Another positive comes in the fact that Hendry has had these last weeks to decide what to do with the $8-10M that Wood would have cost. Given that the club does not need a closer, Hendry could bring in two relievers and an Adam Everett for the cost of Wood.

I did, however, find it interesting that not one of Abreu, Burrell, nor Dunn were offered arbitration. While I can acknowledge the argument behind Abreu (too costly, too old) and Dunn (unaffordable and unnecessary for the DBacks), Burrell's omission surprised me.

There is little doubt that Burrell would decline arbitration. He is at a stage in his career where a multi-year contract is the minimum requirement.

However, even if Burrell accepted arbitration, the Phillies could certainly afford him. In addition to this, there is a legitimate argument (especially with the news of Chase Utley) that the Phillies need Burrell in order to compete. Considering that the ballclub squeaked into the playoffs to begin with, voluntarily losing a major piece of the clubs offense was not a wise decision.

Teams await the news of whether or not their impending free agents will accept arbitration. They await this news to understand what type of draft they will have lined up for 2009, as well as what holes they need to fill this offseason. The Hot Stove is officially firing up and the excitement of baseball's offseason is just beginning.

Khalil Greene Traded to the St. Louis Cardinals

2008-12-05T14:15:00.001-05:00

"The San Diego Padres continued their firesale today, trading Khalil Greene to the St. Louis Cardinals..."

If there was ever a reason to disregard the baseball coverage from network media in Canada, this is it. The Padres continued their firesale today? Continued? As in, this is the first move they have made? As in, the final details of the trade (at the time of the comment) are yet to be announced meaning we don't even know exactly what the Padres are receiving for Greene to be certain this actually is a firesale, and not simply a trade?

The fact is, the Padres are looking to cut payroll. This is presumably a trade that signals a step of that process. But to have the ignorance to suggest that this is a part of the firesale, is to simply ignore the facts.

To this point, the Padres have directly been responsible for sending three players to free agency (Josh Bard, Chip Ambres, and Shawn Estes). Let's face it, only Bard has a chance to truly be missed and could be termed as a cost cutting move-albeit minimally.

The Padres also declined to offer arbitration to Trevor Hoffman. While Hoffman is still an effective closer, it's tough to argue with the Padres' front office deciding against bringing him aboard. Even still, this wouldn't be considered a 'firesale' move in the least bit.

In what is arguably the most 'non-fire-sale-y' move of the offseason, the Padres picked up the 2009 option of Brian Giles. This was a fairly easy move to make, and when everything is all said and done, Giles may be with another team on Opening Day, but the fact remains, he is still with the club.

So too is Jake Peavy, one of the hottest discussed names of the 2009 Hot Stove League. While one can't blame the Padres for not backing down from their current asking price of Peavy, if they were truly involved in a 'firesale' this move certainly would have been made by now.

With all of that being said, how can anyone suggest that the Padres have continued their firesale? It's debatable whether the Padres are legitimately involved in a firesale.

That rant withstanding, the Padres and Cardinals have officially come to terms on a deal that will send Khalil Greene to St. Louis in exchange for relief pitcher Mark Worrell and our favorite PTBNL (Player to be Named Later).

Let's take a look at what is clearly a win for the Cardinals.

Khalil Greene is coming off of a down season, which is typically the perfect time to act on a trade. While Greene has never been one to display an incredible amount of patience, his power and league average contact rate is enough to overcome what will otherwise be a pathetic on base percentage.

Much has been made about Greene's move away from PETCO Park, and how much better he performed on the road then at home. Similar to the case with Matt Holliday, it is lazy analysis to suggest that Greene will perform up to par with his road measures, although the deviation does give us a footing to begin with.

EQA is a statistic that takes into account league and park factors. The statistic is meant to read similar to batting average, in that a mark over .300 is considered good to great, and a mark under .260 is considered worse then league average. The one thing EQA does not consider, however, is if a player was simply unlucky.

Looking at Khalil's career EQA, we see a player that rates as slightly worse then a league average hitter, owning a career mark of .258. However, as we all know, statistics can oftentimes not tell an entire story.

That is, if we see a hitter with a .258 EQA, a simply assumption is that he has performed as frequently above league average, as he has below that mark. This, however, is not the case with Khalil Greene. Looking at the seasons where Greene was a full time member of the Padres, we can see that in four of his five seasons, Greene's EQA has been above .258, only once did his mark fall below that line-well below at that.

Can we then consider this figure to be an outlier? Certainly. While Greene did increase his strikeout rate in 2008, he also provided a line drive rate higher then his career mark. In other words, while we may have expected his batting average to be slightly lower then in previous season's, his .215 mark this year was well below where it should have stood, and subsequently lowered his EQA.

However, if we are going to eliminate a low outlier, should we not eliminate an otherwise high outlier? Of course. In 2004, Greene's rookie season, he provided a career high EQA of .281. While this is not as much of an outlier as his 2008 season, it is far enough from his next best season to predict that it will be a career high. Whether a weakness was noted in Greene, or something altered in his approach we truly do not know, but the fact remains that this is a season that was potentially a career best.

All that being said, we now have 3 seasons of data to look at, 3 nearly identical seasons in terms of EQA. From 2005 to 2007, Greene posted an adjusted OPS of .759, .781, and .813, good for an average of .791.

Entering his age 29 season, it is doubtful that Greene will begin a downward spiral so soon, thus, one could predict that his adjusted OPS would be around .791. Compare that to a 2008 league average OPS of .714 and we have one of the better short stops in the majors. In fact, only 6 teams had a cumulative short stop OPS above that figure, including St. Louis' 26th ranked .635.

A .791 OPS is probably wishful thinking for Greene, but there is little doubt in my mind that he won't exceed his non-adjusted 2005-07 OPS of .745.

As for Greene the fielder, he's probably closer to being a gold glover then an iron glover. That said, he's still a middle of the pack fielder that may surprise a few inching into the top 7.

In exchange for Khalil Greene, the Padres will receive right-handed, sorta side-arming reliever Mark Worrell. This certainly is not a bad pickup by the Padres given Worrell's Minor League track record, however, this can't possibly be as much as they could have received for Greene.

While repeating triple A, Worrell posted a dominated line of over 12 strikeouts per nine innings. At 25 years old, Worrell is a borderline old prospect, although being drafted at age 21 is partially to blame for such.

After being drafted in the 12th round of the 2004 first year player draft, Worrell signed quickly and showed that he was more then capable of handling Minor Leaguers. In 37 innings split between rookie and A ball, Worrell allowed 10 runs, while strikeing out 55.

The 2005 season saw Worrell facing high A hitters for the duration of the year. While Worrell's strikeout rate took a marginal step back, his walks were down and Worrell was displaying the tools that allowed John Sickels at Minor League Ball to rate him as a C+ prospect, citing his 'live arm' as evidence.

2006 was Worrell's first action against men. While Worrell's ERA took a step in a negative direction, his strikeout and walk rates both improved. Sickels again rated him as a C+ prospect, again sitting as the 16th best prospect in the Cardinals organization.

2007 saw another promotion for Worrell, but one that he appeared not ready for. Worrell posted a worse strikeout and walk rate then he had in the previous two seasons despite lowering his FIP. His work in the 2007 season knocked him from Sickels' 2008 prospect list.

Despite being promoted to the Major Leagues at the end of the 2008 season, Worrell's walk rate again rose. This time, however, he coupled an increasing walk rate with a tremendous spike in his strikeout rate. It was because of this spike that Worrell has again become an interesting prospect.

Worrell should flourish in San Diego. As a pitcher who throws 89-90mph from an unusual angle, he should have just enough to provide the Padres with a nice long term arm out of the bullpen. With some decent fielding behind him, and a spacious PETCO outfield, Worrell will never have more value then he does entering the 2009 season. He does, however, have options remaining, which means the Padres have the luxury of not having to carry Worrell on their 25-man roster.

What this also provides San Diego with, is a bit of salary relief for the 2009 season. The $6.5M they save on Greene can now be used to help justify keeping Jake Peavy around for a while, or simply helping with the handful of arbitration eligible players the club has.

In all, for $6.5M and a slightly above average young reliever, the Cardinals picked up a top half short stop. Also, consider that if the Cardinals do not extend Greene-something I would begin working on immediately-there is a very good chance that Greene is at least a Type B free agent, which would net the Cardinals a compensatory draft pick, inside the top 100.

Considering that Worrell had little value to the Cardinals for the 2009 season, and that they flipped a 12th round pick for a potential 3rd rounder is reason enough to consider the Cardinals winners in this deal. That they received a top 12 short stop at a below market price is further evidence of victory for the Cardinals front office.

What I would like to know, however, is what the Orioles and Tigers were doing during these negotiations?

Oh, and TSN, from this point forward you can now refer to moves made by the Padres as part of a firesale.

Braves and South Siders Strike a Deal

2008-12-04T17:40:00.000-05:00

The San Diego Padres may have been bluffing about Jake Peavy after all. While the demands for the ace right handed pitcher were not unreasonable on paper, in today's baseball world, asking for three of a teams top prospects for any player is asking a lot. Today, the Padres officially lost out on what seemed to be the best match for Peavy.

On Thursday morning, the Braves introduced the new ace to their rotation, right handed starter Javier Vazquez. While nobody would ever confuse Vazquez for Peavy, the cost, as well as years under control make Vazquez equally as valuable.

Upon first glance, this is a trade that I feel favors the White Sox. However, this is not to say that I feel as though the Braves are not winners in their own right.

The Atlanta Braves receive the best player in this deal, 32 year old Javier Vazquez, the perpetually disappointing Vazquez. That I deem Vazquez as a disappointment does not diminish his value, in fact, it boosts his value as it provides hope that his ceiling is far superior to how he has performed.

Vazquez has shown glimpses of dominance, dating back to his days with the Expos. He has been as durable as it gets for a pitcher, a testament to his season to season consistency. However, at age 32, with the large amount of innings under his belt, there has to be at least some cause for concern. That is merely speculation and nit picking an otherwise fantastic pitcher.

While Vazquez's ERA has been mediocre for four of the last five seasons, he has been largely unfortunate. Consider that over this five year period, Vazquez's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching-a statistic which measures how well a pitcher performed regardless of the players around him) has averaged nearly 50 points lower then his eventually ERA.

That is, when one considers that Vazquez's ERA over the last five seasons sits around 4.50, this 50 points deviation would drop Vazquez from right around league average, to far superior.

At a cost of $11.5M over the next two seasons, the Braves are getting a very good pitcher, at a very reasonable cost. That his contract only goes two seasons is actually an added bonus as Vazquez is starting to get up there in age, and thus becoming more suseptible to injury.

Also joining Vazquez in the Peach state is lefty reliever Boone Logan. I have read predominantly negative reviews about Logan, specifically that the Braves bullpen is fine without him. While it is a stretch to suggest that Logan is going to be anything more then a LOOGY, it is very likely that Logan is an excellent left handed pitcher on a righty dominated bullpen. It was, afterall, lefthandedness which had me writing an entire entry about Eric O'Flaherty, another recent pick up of the Atlanta Braves.

That being said, I see the 24 year old reliever as much more then a throw-in, and someone who should play a large role with the Braves as a situational pitcher-read facing Ryan Howard.

While the Braves added a very nice piece, a necessary one given the injury to Tim Hudson, it wasn't as if they landed Vazquez for free.

The player being a contributor at the Major League level is middle infielder Brent Lillibridge. While Lillibridge is still young enough to hold a fair amount of upside, I wonder if he will ever get enough playing time in Chicago to put those skills on display. As is, I would rate him as a lesser option then another recent Kenny Williams pickup, Jayson Nix. Nix, as you may remember, was picked up from the scrap heap, his defense is significantly superior to Lillibridge's, enough to make him the favorite to start along side Alexei Ramirez up the middle for the South Siders.

Brent is still a fine player in his own right, and if he manages to win an infeild job, it will certainly help the White Sox overall return on this deal. However, I think that Lillibridge is a long way from where he was rated entering the 2008 season. That is, even if Lillibridge was stripped of 29 ugly Major League games, very few would consider keeping him as a 4 star prospect as per Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus or the B grading from John Sickels at Minor League Ball.

The headliner going to the Sox is first basemen/catcher Tyler Flowers.

About a month ago, while looking at the Braves system, Tyler Flowers was one of two or three prospects that legitimately stuck out to me. Not only had he performed at a very high level for a second consecutive season, but he had also gone predominantly ignored among prospect lists.

Since that time, more recent prospect lists have been provided. Both Kevin Goldstein and John Sickels saw enough in Flowers to boost him into the top 10 of their respective rankings. Goldstein, tabbing Flowers as a 3 star prospect, and Sickels shooting Flowers all the way up to being a B rated prospect.

Both ratings suggest that Flowers is all but useless defensively. While the Sox are surely going to stick with Flowers behind the plate for as long as possible, it is obvious that the soon-to-be 23 year old will find himself as a designated hitter sooner, rather then later.

Assuming that Flowers does make the move to designated hitter, his arrival to the White Sox could not have come at a more perfect time. That is, with 2009 being the last season the White Sox have current designated hitter, Jim Thome, under control, Flowers could potentially see himself facing big league pitchers in September of this year.

While that is arguably an aggressive path to take, Flowers is as good of a bet as any to handle such an aggressive promotion.

Third base prospect Jonathan Gilmore is a very intriguing addition. In two seasons as a pro, he hasn't done anything to overly impress. John Sickels rated Gilmore as a C+ prospect and suggested that Gilmore could crack the top 20, dependent on what one prefers (either pitching or hitting).

That being said, Gilmore is at least three seasons from being Major League ready, and will need to build on his first half, rookie ball numbers in order to slide up anyone's prospect charts. Right now, it's too soon to tell what type of player Gilmore will become.

Left handed reliever Santos Rodriguez used a second season in rookie ball to bump his stock. Not only did Rodriguez dominate in 2008 with another solid strikeout rate, but he also put things together keeping his walks down-although to a less then stellar rate.

Rodriguez is said to have above average velocity on his fastball, and it wouldn't surprise me if the White Sox turn him loose as a starter in 2009. Being a left handed pitcher, with a hard fastball the White Sox may have netted themselves something of worth here. However, given how raw Rodriguez is, and the fact that he is very far from the Major Leagues, this is a wait and see type of player.

As I previously mentioned, this trade looked as though it initially favored the White Sox. While the Braves received the best player in this deal, the White Sox traded from a position of strength. Where the Braves received an important piece for today, the Sox added a great deal of potential.

All that being said, I now have to flip-flop, suggesting that the Braves took the cake on this deal. Despite the vast amount of potential that the Braves gave up, the fact remains that those players are all simply prospects. There is only a chance that they make a splash. Conversely, there is little reason to believe that Vazquez won't be a solid top of the rotation starter.

Updates

2008-12-04T11:09:00.003-05:00

Despite a lack of activity recently, there is quite a bit going on here at The OLIB.

First, I am in the midst of moving to the Most Valuable Network. MVN offered to host my weblog and it was something I simply could not turn down. Nothing will change except for me, there is some added exposure. My complete archive has been moved to MVN where my posts will slowly begin to pop up.

Next, WWOD has been cancelled. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. Each article took me upwards of four hours to complete. I also decided that the teams in the top half of the league don't really need my help (although the Astros might consider me).

That being said, I intend to concentrate additional time and effort on my prospect lists. This is something I had been doing while putting together the WWOD series, and something that I thoroughly enjoyed. With more then a third of the teams under my belt, I should begin posting these before the New Year.

For some reason I forgot to knock out my MVP awards. I'll take care of that shortly.

Additionally, I have begun an article on arbitration, how it affects the free agent and trade markets, as well as taking a look at rationale behind not offering arbitration to specific players.

Lastly, as always, trade analysis, specifically for that of the White Sox and Braves recent trade should be up by the end of the day. Under the Radar will return this weekend as the Hot Stove has seen a fair amount of minor signings recently.

Thanks as always for checking out my stuff, if you have this site in an RSS feed, I'll be sure to let you know when I switch over to MVN full time.

2009 Hot Stove Updates - Part Two

2008-11-30T12:30:00.003-05:00

Another week into the off season, and another week with little to no action. Rumors, however, are beginning to heat up as teams send out their arbitration offers to impending free agents, as well as letting it be known what their intentions are for the winter meetings.

With the rule five draft a little over two weeks away, we see a front office executives look at how things work. Paul DePodesta of the San Diego Padres writes,

It would seem logical that the best way to protect a player would be to put him on the 40-man roster. That is often, but not always, the case. Sometimes, for players who are borderline roster considerations, you may be safer by leaving him OFF the 40-man. The reason is that if he's taken in the Rule V, he has to stay in the Majors or else be offered back. However, if for some reason (add a free agent, add someone through trade, need someone during the season due to injury) you need to add a player to the 40-man at a later date, you may be forced to outright someone to make room. When you outright a first year roster player, he still has all of his minor league options, so teams can claim him and send him right into their minor league system. In short, it's much easier to lose a player trying to remove him from the 40-man than it is to lose him via the Rule V draft.

This is certainly an interesting take, and one that few probably consider. The Indians, for example, left the electric, yet highly unpolished left hander Chuck Lofgren off the 40 man roster. While Lofgren is likely to be selected in the draft, it seems unlikely that he will remain on a teams 25 man roster for the duration of the season. While Lofgren is blessed with incredible stuff, his lack of control has gotten the better of him and he has failed to show improvements while repeating levels.

I will take a more indepth look at the Rule V draft once we get a little bit closer to that time.

December first, marks the date that teams have to finalize arbitration offers to any impending free agents. There are a lot of interesting cases this year, none more so then the New York Yankees Andy Pettitte. Pettitte's agent leaked that the Dodger's had asked if Andy would be willing to come to the West Coast. This news sparked the interest of the Yankees as a rejected arbitration offer to Pettitte would make it likely that the Yankees would land some high draft picks as compensation.

However, there is a question whether the Yankees want Pettitte around for another season. With three arms almost certainly locked into the rotation, and speculation regarded the addition of at least one top tier free agent, the Yankees simply do not need the 36 year old lefty.

The Red Sox have a similarly interesting case on their hands with Jason Varitek. The major difference here is that Varitek's value is predominantly placed within the intangibles, such as being the team captain. However, Tek the hitter, has slipped to a point where his bat may be hurting the Sox more then his intangibles help. That being said, do the Sox offer Varitek arbitration and risk him accepting the offer? If Varitek rejects arbitration, the Sox would have a type A free agent on the market that would net them two high draft picks.

While many of the cases are obvious, there are the aforementioned pair, as well as a dozen borderline candidates, players whom their current teams would prefer to be without, but are risking being stuck with if arbitration is accepted.

In other news, Junichi Tazawa will announce the team he will sign with on Monday. Rumor has it that Tazawa will pick the Boston Red Sox and sign for a reported $6M for three years. The contract is presumed to be a Major League deal, despite the fact that Tazawa will start his North American career in the minors.

As I wrote previously, the Pittsburgh Pirates came to terms on deals with two pitchers from India. Both Patel and Singh were involved in a contest that would see the winner given $100,000 cash, and a chance to train under the watch of University of Southern California's pitching coach. These two are certainly worth monitoring during the 2009 season.

Here's a brief wrap-up of the minor league signings that occurred this week,

Mike Koplove signed a minor league deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. Koplove had a fine season for the Dodgers triple A affiliate but isn't much more then an insurance policy for the back end of the Phillies bullpen.
The Kansas City Royals brought in backstop JR House. While House has never been able to succeed at the Major League level, his recent minor league statistics give reason to believe he could be a fine backup. At worst, he is organization depth.
Trying to scoop up the next Joakim Soria, the Kansas City Royals signed 24 year old, right handed pitcher Federico Castaneda. Armed with a fastball that sits between 92 and 94mph, Castaneda is a fine pick up and one to keep an eye on.
Dayton Moore continued his busy week, also signing ex-Orioles short stop Luis Hernandez, as well as Corey Smith of the Angels and Carlos Sencion from the Braves. There are predominantly organizational filler, but with enough of these signings, an organization is bound to land at least one worth-while player.
The Milwaukee Brewers brough aboard Robert Swindle of the Phillies, and Jason Bourgeois from the White Sox. Swindle is a soft tossing left hander who had phenomenal success in both double and triple A.

The Jake Peavy rumors warmed back up this week as the Orioles surfaced as a possible partner in a three-way deal with the Cubs and Padres. This most recent offer would see Felix Pie heading to Baltimore in exchange for Garret Olson who would then be flipped to the Padres as part of a package for Peavy. To be completely honest, I cannot understand why the Padres would prefer Olson to Pie, but that's just me.

The Angels also surfaced as a potential landing place for both Peavy and CC Sabathia. This news surprises me as I recall Angels owner, Arte Moreno, suggesting that Alex Rodriguez is not an investment he would make. Moreno suggested that no single player is worth that percent of a teams spending.

Two trades did go down this week. The first saw the Red Sox acquiring soft-tossing relief pitcher Wes Littleton from the Texas Rangers for two players to be named or cash. As a ground ball pitcher, the Sox may hope to get out of Littleton what they have from Hideki Okajima.

In equally as useless news, the Astros acquired Tyler Lumsden from the Kansas City Royals for a PTBNL or cash.

The starting pitcher market, which is relatively deep, took a hit this week with the news that Freddy Garcia's shoulder injury has again flarred up. Garcia had made a successful return from his shoulder injury that sidelined him for the better part of two years. He was considered as a great bargain entering the free agency, however this news has got to hurt his chances of signing anything more then an incentive based deal.

Finally, the weak short stop market appears to be cornered by the Oakland Athletics. It appears imminent that Rafeal Furcal will choose that side of the bay to call his home. This will almost certainly make Bobby Crosby expendable as well as opening the door for Eric Patterson to be moved.

This weak market has also encouraged the Pirates to ask for a king's ransom for Jack Wilson. Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Dodgers have balked at the Pirates asking price of highly regarded prospect Chin-Lung Hu, Delwyn Young, and a third player. It would be wise for Huntington to take Hu straight up, but with the market in his favor, Huntington is in the position to get exactly what he wants.

In non-specific player news, MLB announced that the names of players who tested positive for Amphetamines. By MLB rule, players were suspended only after testing positive a second time, which has resulted in only a couple of suspensions. This new ruling will alert the public the names of every player who tested positive during the 2008 season and going forward.

It will be interesting to see what sort of performance correlation there exists with positive tests.

That's the wrap from last week...

Rebuilding the International Way

2008-11-27T16:15:00.005-05:00

The Hot Stove League has hit a lull, the big name free agents are still jockeying for the best possible offer, and many of the trade rumors have cooled for now. The Winter Meetings, being held in Las Vegas beginning December 8th, is where most of that action will occur.

However, some of the best long term moves have been made in recent days, and they also haven't involved players with household names in North America.

On Monday, it was confirmed that the Pittsburgh Pirates had signed Indian contest winners 20-year-old right-hander Dinesh Patel and 19-year-old southpaw Rinku Singh. This is big news for a team that had typically been quiet signing international free agents. Even more important is the fact that Neal Huntington has put another stamp on the Pittsburgh Pirates, giving this franchise some legitimate hope.

The two youngsters have spent the better part of the last year learning how to pitch under the tutelage of the pitching coach from the University of Southern California. The last year has seen the two Indian pitchers gradually learn the nuances of the game, as well as American culture.

According to a report from MLB.com,

When it comes to the scouting reports, the 6-foot-2 Singh throws 89-90 mph and has a split-finger changeup pitch. The 5-foot-11 Patel throws a circle change and can reach 91-92 mph with his heater.

Not bad for two young arms that are just learning how to throw a baseball.

Further reports from EWC.com,

Dinesh Patel, RHP, 5′10/185

Aaron: Definitely the more polished of the two. Strong upper body, but the legs are a little thin. Throws from the stretch and starts in a crouched position. Nice tempo — quick, but not hurried. Leg comes in high and he’s very aggressive to the plate. Call it a 3/4 arm angle. Has a very smooth and natural-looking delivery for someone who had never played baseball before last year.

Fastball is 84-85 and touches 87 with some tail down and in on right-handed batters, showing occasional sink. Delivery looks repeatable, but his release point is a little inconsistent, which will create command issues until he sorts it out. Due to his lack of height, he doesn’t get great plane but nice movement on the fastball can compensate for it. The ball doesn’t come out of his hand as easily as I’d like, but I he gets good extension on his follow-through. Nice aggressive finish.

Slider is 77-79. Doesn’t always get a lot of depth, but, again, like everything else with both these players, you have to remember Patel has been playing baseball for a friggin’ year. With that in mind the slider looks like it has the possibility of developing into a useful secondary pitch.

He looks polished and I find that somewhat shocking. It’s difficult to project what Patel might become or if he’s got the talent to be a pitcher in the majors, but I will say I don’t think this is some gimick signing. There’s something there.

Rinku Singh, LHP, 6′2, 185 lbs.

Jackson: Ringku Singh is clearly the less polished of the two prospects and is more of a project, likely a more boom-or-bust type pitcher than his counterpart Dinesh Patel. He has poor command at this point and gives his bullpen catcher headaches, frequently losing his grip on the ball and struggling to find his form.

However, at 6’2 185, the ceiling is there and he’s clearly an athlete. He’s got long arms and legs, a nice, strong high leg kick and overall shows strength and flexibility in his unpolished delivery. He throws from a ¾ arm slot, bringing his arm way down below his waist and then letting go with a sort of catapault-like delivery where he pushes the ball a bit. He struggles to repeat his form, especially with the lower half, and his follow through needs a lot of work. His arm speed is average at best and he relies on leverage to generate velocity.

Singh’s FB comes in 79-83 MPH, with a slow moving curve that ranges from 67-72. He currently lacks a real feel for the breaking pitch and his curve has little bite to it.

As the authors stress, the two players are extremely advanced for the amount of baseball they have played. Another thing to keep in mind is that they have received training from a world class instructor, the pitchers haven't had years of little league ball to develop bad habits, or throw too many breaking balls with poor form.

In other words, the Pirates picked up two high ceiling pitchers that they can mold however they see fit. This is a big move for baseball's most hapless franchise, one, that as I mentioned, has to provide hope for fans of this ballclub.

Which leads me to wonder if people consider moves in November when awarding their Executive of the Year award. While this move may not have an immediate impact on the Pirates, it certainly improves them for the long term, as well as opening the doors to the franchise entering the international market more aggressively.

This more aggressive approach even led Huntington to sending a scout to check in with Junichi Tazawa-only to find out that Tazawa's price tag would be out of the reaches of this small market club.

If you recall, the hype surrounding Tazawa began at the end of October when he went unselected (as per request) in Japan's entry draft. At this point, I suggested a Major League team blow away the competition and offer Tazawa a Major League contract of $10M a year for 5 of 6 years.

Tazawa has Major League stuff, he has the control to be a quality forth or fifth stater right now. While ten million may be a little steep to pay for an end of the rotation starter, it is a much wiser investment then bringing in a Jon Garland. Not to mention the international dividends from adding a Japanese player, the same dividends that has a report suggesting that Tazawa will reportedly sign with the Boston Red Sox.

With Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima already in New England and the Red Sox in the midst of building a dynasty-like organization, Tazawa does not have a particularly difficult decision to make, all else being equal.

If the Sox sign Tazawa for a sum under eight million dollars, it will have to be considered a failure on the part of the other Major League executives. While the Sox have as much money to spend as anyone, they also have the aforementioned advantage of Dice-K and Okajima. Thus, if a team truly wanted Tazawa, they would have to outright buy him.

The Problem With Lazy Analysis

2008-11-22T12:49:00.006-05:00

Over at the Bleacher Report there is a debate regarding the merits of the MVP award and who it rightfully deserves to be awarded to. One author believes it must go to a player on a winning team, as a player on a losing team could be replaced with any player and that team would still lose. The author asserts that a loss is a loss; although he claims 'confidence' and intangibles are important factors.

Admittedly the author believes that the BBWAA got the 2008 American League Most Valuable Player wrong, but isn't too alarmed at the selection feeling it was an unqualified group to begin with. Thus, he continues discussing meaningless merits such as defensive value-although incorrectly tabbing second base as the 'easiest infield position to field'. His source, Little League Baseball. The logic is utterly horrifying, but is a great place to start at pointing out the lazy analytical skills of this writer.

With the internet such an easy tool to make quick searches, would it have been so difficult for the author to discover that second base is rated as the third most difficult position to play? Behind short but ahead of center field? Possibly the author was stuck in a 1920's, when the double play wasn't as prominent.

Whatever the reason, we can see the beginning of a rather lazy analysis. This only furthers the misinformation provided earlier where the author asserts that only those on playoff caliber teams are worthy of the Most Valuable Player Award. This is noted due to the fact that the author lists players only on playoff caliber teams.

The statistical analysis is equally as weak as the author ignores park factors. This is a fairly simple task nowadays, Baseball Prospectus offers a straight forward and easily accessed stat called Equivalent Average. Dustin Pedroia had a fine season, but offensively he wasn't even on the map of Milton Bradley, Alex Rodriguez, among others.

What is worse about this authors analysis is the next step he takes towards justifying his justification regarding Pedroia. The author states that the award must go to a player on a winning team, simply because that is how the voters have done things historically.

Before diving too deep into this, has the author already forgotten the Edinson Volquez debacle of two weeks ago? Remember, when three voters were so confused with the rules of rookie eligibility that they named Volquez on their ballots. Worse yet, these voters are so ignorant that they managed to convince themselves that Geovanny Soto's impressive rookie campaign was somehow superior to Volquez's excellent non-rookie season.

The next obvious error the author makes is in assuming that the voting criteria has not changed. That is, we now know that batting average is only an important fact in context. On base percentage, has taken over as a significantly more vital statistic. Thus, where players would previously win award based on high batting averages, those figures have now become secondary to on base and slugging averages.

As the voters understanding of value evolves, the winners will become more accurately understood.

According to our author, playing on a winning team is much more valuable, according tot he voters, then playing on a losing team. The argument, not as bad as his Little League justification, but a joke nonetheless, "History and Major League Baseball are screaming it right in your face."

Before I go too far into this, can anyone remember when history and Major League Baseball made errors? Hmm, how about when there was racial segregation in the sport? Prior to Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, was it accurate to suggest that black players were inferior? Or is it more accurate to figure out why those players were left from the ranks of Major League Baseball?

Similarly, the author's this is the way it's done philosophy is in shambles. First, simply because that is the way it has been done, does not legitimize the process.

Second, claiming that a direct correlation exists between MVP's and being on a winning team is a lazy conclusion to draw. Especially when the author admits that the two players that won MVP awards from non-winning teams were obvious choices. The obvious question then, were the players selected because they were on winning teams, or because they were obvious choices?

I decided to properly analyze this trend to find out if it was a coincidence that the last fourteen respective MVP's came from winning teams. The following chart represents my findings:

I will begin by stating that this analysis is far from iron-clad. One thing I would alter about this analysis would be to utilize more value based statistics. Since not every one of these stats agree with one another on the basis of what is valuable and what characteristics make a player valuable, it would be superior to use a couple more. However, utilizing Baseball Prospectus' VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) is a nice place to start, and one that statistically ranks players.

I then researched the recent MVP winners. A more in depth study would look at the second and third place finishers, but for now, this will suffice.

My next step was to find the top three finishes according to VORP as well as the position the eventual MVP finished in. As you can see, Baseball Prospectus picked the accurate MVP winning (within 2 places) in 16 of 28 years. In other words, the best or close to the best player (according to Baseball Prospectus) was the eventual best player as per the BBWAA. This has nothing to do with winning. I repeat, NOTHING!

However, I wanted to find out what winning had to do with eventual winners. I wanted to find out if there was in fact a correlation between being in the top three in VORP and being on a winning team.

The conclusion, of the top three players in terms of VORP over the last 14 seasons (84 in total), 64 came from teams with a recordof .500 or better. In other words, the best players play for the best teams-logical, right?

What does this brief study show? That the BBWAA are not picking the players based on whether or not they play for a winning clubs, rather, the BBWAA are picking the best players-albeit in a relatively flawed system.

Eric O'Flaherty - Under the Radar

2008-11-22T10:49:00.003-05:00

Under the Radar moves are typically the type of pick-ups that fill the end of a teams roster, the 23rd, 24th, or 25th man. A Spring Training invitee with plenty of upside. Frank Wren of the Atlanta Braves made one of those moves on Thursday, claiming left handed reliever Eric O'Flaherty off of waivers from the Seattle Mariners.

The 23 years old O'Flaherty has been mediocre at best while pitching in the Major Leagues. In exactly 70 innings, O'Flaherty owns a Fielding Independent of Pitching (FIP) of 4.41, a good, but not great figure. In fact, other then his FIP, there isn't much to get excited about given his Major League performance to date, that, of a 1.53 strikeout to walk ratio.

However, O'Flaherty has some nice minor league statistics, particularly the ones that are important for his likely Major League role. That is, O'Flaherty's line against left handed hitters is outstanding, and can hardly be considered as a product of facing minor leaguers.

The first thing that sticks out is the plus two strikeouts per nine innings that O'Flaherty experiences against left handed hitters. Eric goes from owning an average strikeout to walk ratio of just over 2:1, to a solid ratio of 3:1. While this hasn't entirely translated to his performance in the Major Leagues, O'Flaherty also has not been utilized in the appropriate role.

That is, a move to becoming a situational left handed pitcher, a pitcher who comes in to face predominantly left handed hitters, would be a move that would certainly bump O'Flaherty from potential to dependable.

Consider that entering the 2007 season (the last season O'Flaherty qualified), John Sickels of Minor League Ball rated O'Flaherty as a C+ prospect stating that Eric should be a very good reliever.

In a similarly high rating, Baseball America tabbed O'Flaherty as the 10th best prospect in the Mariners system. Either that is telling of a weak system, or that O'Flaherty is a fine relief prospect.

Given that Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus had O'Flaherty 'just missing' his top 10 under 25 Mariners prospects for the 2008 season, it seems justifiable to assert he has a legitimate ceiling.

O'Flaherty has a Minor League FIP of 3.28, and while much of the shine on his prospect badge has worn off, it is certainly too early to write him off as at least an effective LOOGY. At just 23 years of age, O'Flaherty is an excellent pick up, still having enough upside to be a complete steal of an acquisition.

As an added bonus, Johan Santana shows up on O'Flaherty's Most Comparable list according to his PECOTA card.

2009 Hot Stove Updates - Part One

2008-11-21T13:44:00.002-05:00

This is the first installment of a weekly series reporting on Major League Baseball's off-season, The Hot Stove League. I will continue reflecting on trades that go down, as well as Under the Radar columns, and pretty much the same stuff that I would typically be doing during the off season.

This series then, will touch on everything else that I deem important, but not important enough for it's own post. It's like taking Lassie out into the woods, and...

Leading off with the biggest news of the Hot Stove League this week is Mike Mussina announcing his retirement, axing a potential 300 winner from baseball. I'm not sure whether or not Mussina is a Hall of Fame pitcher, but he didn't hurt his cause by finishing his career with one of his best seasons. Mussina's reputation as a good guy coupled with a solid winning percentage should be enough for the voters to get him in eventually. He deserves to be in, but not based on those two, but rather because of his 3.57 career FIP and incredible durability.

The next highlight, or low light for Phillies fans, is the announcement that Chase Utley will require major surgery on his hip. As it stands, Utley is scheduled to miss at least April and May of the 2009 season. Hip surgeries are serious, and if not treated as such (ie. the Phillies caring more about repeating then longevity) Utley's career could quickly become in jeopardy.

In other news, Bud Selig has assured the fans that he won't have to implement the commissioner's best interest of the game clause the next time a playoff game is to be ended early. Selig announced on Thursday that playoff games will be played in their entirety.

A couple trades went down last week, first, the Royals and Red Sox agreed to swap Ramon Ramirez for Coco Crisp. I gave this trade to the Red Sox, as they were the ones who filled a spot on their roster with a meaningful piece. I can't see Crisp truly being a worthwhile player for the Royals.

ESPN's Rob Neyer reacts to the Crisp and Mike Jacobs deals questioning what the use of acquiring two players who only make this club marginally better, but still not good enough to contend. While I am not currently impressed with either acquisition, it is impossible to believe that Dayton Moore does not intend to make another deal off of these ones. That said, we have to believe that David DeJesus and Billy Butler will net a substantial gain over Leo Nunez and Ramirez.

While Moore takes a partial hit from DeJesus and Butler to Crisp and Jacobs, the gains ought to be larger then the value of Nunez and Ramirez. Until that occurs, however, Neyer is right, what's the use?

The second trade, a largely ignored swap of ex-first round picks between the Rangers and Phillies. The Rangers received uber-toolsy Gregory Golson in exchange for Hulk-like John Mayberry. This will be an interesting trade to look back on in a year or so from now.

Free Agency has been relatively quiet and largely disappointing in terms of signings. Yesterday, the White Sox and Cuban defector Dayan Viciedo agreed to terms on a contract. In other Chicago news, Ryan Dempster decided to stay put with the Cubs, thus foregoing his opportunity at winning a World Series.

The San Francisco Giants made an excellent move this week, bringing in highly underrated reliever Jeremy Affeldt. Affedlt's 2 year, $8M contract is well below market value, which is shocking, simply because he signed with the Giants-a team that traditionally overpays.

AJ Burnett seems to have stolen many of the headlines among available free agents. According to the Toronto Star, Burnett's agent has said any team not willing to offer a five year deal is going to be behind the eight ball. I can't see why it wouldn't worry a ball club that a player is so adamant about signing for a fifth year, especially with the injury history of a player like AJ Burnett.

Phils and Rangers With a Minor Deal

2008-11-20T22:09:00.002-05:00

Today, the Texas Rangers and Philadelphia Phillies completed a trade swapping ex-first round picks. This deal hardly skimmed the surface of Major League Baseball headlines, despite the fact that there really wasn't anything else to report today. That aside, neither piece swapped is going to make or break the futures of either of the teams involved. However, there still has to be a winner, right?

The Phillies picked up John Mayberry who turns 25 on a historic day in December. The monstrous corner outfielder hit 65 extra base hits in 519 at bats. While he is a free swinger by nature, there really isn't a better location for him to hack away then in Philadelphia.

Mayberry was rated as a B prospect by John Sickels entering the 2008 season. Presumably Mayberry's stock will drop, although there is a chance he makes the Phillies top 10 list. He has what is described as 'plus plus raw power'.

A great tool over at Minor League Splits allows us to input data from a players seasons and translate those stats into their Major League equivalents. John Mayberry's 2008 triple A OPS of .784 translates out to .659 in Philadelphia. Adjustments will need to be made in order for Mayberry to excel at the Major League level, as is, he's probably a decent right handed platoon hitter.

In exchange for Mayberry is 2004 first round pick Gregory Golson. The speedy 23 year old outfielder has been vulnerable to striking out, despite not showing any specific flaws against either right or left handed pitchers. Couple that with a weak base on balls rate, and you have the perfect (albeit terrible) National League leadoff hitter.

Golson began this season as a C+ prospect, according to John Sickels. Sickels asserted that many disagreed with Golson's relatively low rating, however Sickels felt as though his strikeouts were holding him back. That managed to hold true, and unless Golson improves his plate discipline, he will have no part on a Major League roster.

That said, Baseball America rated Golson as the Phillies #10 prospect entering the 2007 season and #7 for the 2008 season. He also rated as the fastest runner and best athlete within the organization. In addition to that, Golson has the best arm in the Phillies system. Couple that with speed and athleticism, Golson rated as the best defensive outfield in the Phillies system, so possibly he has a chance as a 5th outfielder and a defensive substitute.

What I find most interesting about the Baseball America report is the fact that they rated him as the best power hitting prospect in the Phillies system entering the 2008 season.

Similarly, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus wrote that Golson "might possess the best package of tools in all of the minor leagues". Goldstein continues, suggesting that Golson has plenty of raw power and as high of a ceiling as anyone in baseball.

Possibly a change in scenary will be the best bet for Golson, as a change in his overall approach, coupled with some good mentoring could certainly be the remedy to Golson realizing his potential. All it will really take is a positive step in his contact rate, and the Rangers could have themselves a monster of a player.

Based on potential alone, this deal will go to the Texas Rangers. The Rangers have a more pressing need for a center fielder (right now), and the chance to win a job at the Major League level may help Golson become a better student of the game. The Phillies did not receive a slouch on their own, however Mayberry will be hard pressed to find at bats outside of Leigh High Valley.

White Sox Snag Dayan Viciedo

2008-11-20T18:30:00.005-05:00

Today, the Chicago White Sox announced the signing of 19 year old Cuban Dayan Viciedo. Viciedo, a third basemen, signed a Major League deal worth $11M. Obviously having Alexei Ramirez and Jose Contreras, not to mention a Latin American manager, helped in the signing of this promising young player.

According to Baseball America (free content), "Viciedo has excellent power and hitting ability..." There was concern, according to the article, that Viciedo does not have much athleticism and his body could quickly begin to detriorate-meaning, he would get fat.

Viciedo has been compared by a power hitting corner infield prospect Angel Villalona, of the San Francisco Giants. Villalona, for those of you who don't know, is one of the best prospects in all of baseball. Playing the in the 2008 season predominantly as a 17 year old (ie. as a high school senior), Villalona slugged 17 home runs, en route to a .726 OPS against A ball players (predominantly 20 and 21 year olds). In other words, some outstanding praise.

Another report suggested that had Viciedo been eligible for the 2008 Rule IV Draft, he would have almost certainly been a first round selection, despite the concern that he becomes the next Kendry Morales, lacking the upside of Villalona. To be fair, that shouldn't deminish the praise one provides for Viciedo as Morales still has a great deal of potential.

In all, this is an outstanding move by the White Sox. They utilized the players on their roster in ways not commonly seen among Major League Baseball. Viciedo will easily be one of the White Sox top 3 or 4 prospects, and if there is no worry about adjusting to life in North America, Viciedo could start the season at Chicago's Double A affiliate in Birmingham. It is more likely that the Sox start him with a lesser assignment in the South Atlantic League (Single A ball).

Royals and Red Sox Come to Terms

2008-11-20T14:56:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I am guilty of unfairly grading a trade based on the partners that are involved. I'm not referring to any extraordinary biases, nor am I claiming that my judgment is based on anything more then personal speculation. Either way, I am guilty of such.

Yesterday this occurred as the Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals came to terms on a deal that would send Coco Crisp to the Royals in exchange for Ramon Ramirez. Had this been a year ago, I would have spent the next 500 or so words fluffing Dayton Moore. However, this is the second interesting (read: confusing) move that Moore has made in the short weeks of the 2009 Hot Stove League.

The first, if you remember, was Moore adding to an already deep position, making a sticky situation, that much more sticky. I ended up giving Moore somewhat of a pass on that deal, offering up a 'wait and see' conclusion. However, I am unable to do so with Moore's recent acquisition of Coco Crisp.

Covelli "Coco" Crisp is a fine ballplayer. He's an 'okay' center fielder defensively, with the ability to be phenomenal. He doesn't offer the typical traits of a corner outfielder, but would be a top notch left fielder. Crips also happens to be relatively inexpensive being owed just under $7M for the next two seasons. Durability is not an issue, neither is age, as Crisp is young enough to maintain his current level of production, with the possibility of seeing improvement.

What else makes Crips a fine ballplayer? Well, he's about league average in terms of hitting from center field. His 94 OPS+ is slightly above what the average Major League center fielder offers. And Crisp's adjusted .766 OPS is 14 points above what Major League teams averaged in 2008. Crisp's .264 career EQA is only a few points over what the Major League average is, although keep in mind that is league-wide, inclusive of first basemen, designated hitters, etc.

In other words, we're not talking a world beater, but a fine center fielder. We're not talking about a player teams build around, but a player that can fill a hole on an otherwise strong team. He'd be a great fit for a team like the Chicago White Sox or maybe the Texas Rangers.

On the Kansas City Royals, however, he is a weak to terrible fit. While it is a nice value, in acquiring a player that would cost around $10M a year on the free agent market, and that the cost was simply a reliever, it still doesn't make much sense.

Dayton Moore and the Kansas City Royals already have their very own Coco Crisp in David DeJesus. In fact, DeJesus is a notable improvement over Crisp-although with a lesser reputation and a greater vulnerability towards injuries.

Even still, DeJesus' adjusted career OPS is .821 with a career OPS+ of 105 is substantially superior to Crisp's, and DeJesus .275 EQA begins to border on solid for center fielders.

While this trade eliminates the possibility of Joey "I jump cars" Gathright logging serious playing time with the impending departure of Mark Tehean, one has to believe that with $7M plus a reliever Moore could have gotten more then Coco Crisp. The Royals could have stretched Jose Guillen (one of the worst free agent signings from the 2008 Hot Stove League) in right field and brought in Garret Anderson.

However, Moore decided not to take that route, which leads me to believe he made another deal in anticipating of making a deal.

Otherwise, why would he send off Ramon Ramirez?

Let's not get too down on Moore, Royals fans. While Ramirez is replaceable by any number of free agent relievers, we are still talking about a hard throwing reliever that will make the league minimum in 2009. We are talking about a reliever that will make an already strong Red Sox bullpen, that much stronger, while providing the club with $7M of cash to spend.

Dayton Moore does, in a way, have the right idea. Relief pitchers are volatile, thus treating them as luxuries for roster upgrades is the right thing to do. Ramirez is the perfect reliever to sell high on, as Moore knows as well as anybody, how much his organization hid Ramirez in 2008.

Crisp, has more value long term then Ramirez, as Moore will certainly be able to pedal him for more then a 27 year old reliever. However, like the Mike Jacobs for Leo Nunez trade, Moore does little to improve the overall quality of his ballclub.

Thus, at this point, Theo Epstein and the Boston Red Sox won this deal as they received a piece that will certainly help their club. If Moore and the Kansas City Royals swing DeJesus or Crisp for a piece greater then Ramirez, the trade will swing in the other direction. However, if appears as though Moore is looking forward to having an outfield of Guillen-Crisp-DeJesus, which is rather unfortunate.

The Marlins Strike Again

2008-11-19T16:04:00.001-05:00

In what appears to be a strategy of business 101, the Marlins picked up a reliever off of the scrap heap, inflated his value, and flipped him for a very promising return. This is how you run a sports franchise. This is why in the 16 seasons the Marlins have been in existence, they have managed to win two Major League Baseball World Series Championships, all the while having a penny pinching low payroll.

The club hasn't wasted it's time building a brand new ballpark, or impressing fans. Instead, the club has put together a cast of players to win a championship, then sold those players off for new players that they would have for the next championship run.

The latest appears in the form of a closer who was acquired in an under the radar type of deal. The Florida Marlins Kevin Gregg was traded to the Chicago Cubs, for an explosively talented relief prospect in Jose Ceda. Without even getting into the analysis, the Marlins won this deal hands down, but let's look a little further, to see exactly how foolish the Cubs were in this move.

Kevin Gregg is nothing special. When news broke that the Marlins were looking to unload Gregg, as a fan of the Indians, a team in need of relief hope, I simply shuttered at the idea of giving away anything of value for the still powerful 30 year old reliever.

Gregg owns a nice, by unspectacular strikeout rate. Couple that with a poor walk rate, and you have the makings of an okay reliever. The move from a ballpark which greatly deflates home runs (as noted by Gregg's home run per fly ball rate of 5.15% as a Florida Marlin) to a ballpark which inflates them, one can expect Gregg to take a considerable step back in value. It is a positive that Gregg has improved his fly ball statistics, but we're still talking about a guy who was extremely fortunate to be playing in Dolphin Stadium.

We are also talking about a reliever that is coming off of an injury and is entering the back end of his career.

Jim Hendry and the Chicago Cubs must have decided that it was wise to acquire a cheap plan B closer then to go into the season with Carlos Marmol, Jeff Samardzija, and company-not a terrible idea, however a poorly executed one.

That is, after coming off of a season in which Gregg made $2.5M, in his second season as a closer, there is no reason to believe that Gregg's arbitration figure will not head north of $4M, and stick at at least that number for 2009. As a 'reliable' closer, that is a fair price tag, however, there is little reason to believe that he will be closing in 2009, and even less of a shot at doing so in 2010.

Wouldn't it then have been equally as efficient to bring aboard a pitcher like Kyle Farnsworth? Farnsworth has some experience as a closer and wouldn't cost a top pitching prospect-arguably baseball's best relief prospect. If the Cubbies wanted too, they could have upped the ante slightly, and went hard after Brandon Lyon.

Both angles would have brough aboard a reliever with similar talents, as well as landing one with closing experience in the case of Marmol not quite working out. The dollar and year commitments might have been slightly higher, but not by enough to disuade one from making such moves.

We aren't talking some run of the mill prospect. We aren't talking a failed started who happened to catch on as a reliever. We're talking a legitimate relief prospect. If one were to make odds about what current minor league player would become a closer, and a great one at that, Jose Ceda would top most peoples lists.

The soon-to-be 22 year old right handed fireball reliever has been absolutely dominant in the minors. Three years as a starter (to get in work) and reliever have went a long way in building Ceda's stock, to the point where he was considered as the likely closer-of-the-future in a Chicago organization that has Carlos Marmol.

According to MLB.com,

He throws plenty hard, with a fastball that sits comfortably in the upper 90s and has hit triple digits in the past. His slider has sharpened considerably since he began working in relief in 2007.

The only real blip on Ceda's radar came in '07, when he missed some time with a sore shoulder. When he returned, he finished off the season with 23 1/3 consecutive hitless innings.

Really? 23 1/3 consecutive HITLESS innings?!? If that doesn't sell you, I'm not sure what will. Although I'll keep trying.

Entering the 2008 season, here are a list of highlights from around the interweb:

Baseball America rated Ceda's fastball as the best in the Cubs system;
John Sickels rated Ceda as a B- prospect, one of the best relievers in the game;
Kevin Goldstein rated Ceda as a 3 star prospect, stating, "fastballs that sit in the 94-97 mph range, and he has hit triple-digits on occasion. His slider is also a plus offering that features heavy two-plane break."

Goldstein even rose his praise on Ceda after the 2008 season, now bumping him up to a 4 star prospect. Further, Goldstein asserts that there is little doubt Ceda will be pitching late in games sooner rather then later. He cites members of the Cubs organization who believe Ceda is very close to being ready for Major League action right now.

This is a substantial gain from where Ceda was to start the 2007, where Sickels suggests Ceda was a long ways away.

While nobody will suggest that the Cubs shot themselves in the foot here, there is very little reason to believe they improved their club from an angle they couldn't have attacked via free agency. Ceda's value, while an understandable luxury for a club with Marmol, Samardjiza, and Donald Veal, has got to be substantially higher then what the Cubs received for him.

That is, as I mentioned, would the Cubs be worse off with Farnsworth or Lyon for the next 2 or 3 years instead of Gregg? If so, by how much? I think it is reasonable to suggest that Ceda would more then make up for any possible deviation noted there.

2008 BBWAA American League Most Valuable Player

2008-11-18T15:03:00.003-05:00

Dustin Pedroia?!? Oh, COME ON!

Now Pedroia had a fine season. The Red Sox would have been a worse team without him, but can't the same be said for almost any of the top 5 or 6 MVP candidates? In fact, with a cast of Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, and JD Drew, it could be argued that Pedroia had it easier then the rest of the field.

According to Baseball Prospectus' "Baseball Between the Numbers", the authors founds that despite batting orders not mattering, the type of hitter following the next did have an influence on production. The following is a chart from the book:

As you can see, the better the hitter behind results in superior production. It also results in a drop in intentional base on balls. This is especially noteworthy as the players walk rate improves despite a drop in IBB.

In any event, we can see that a player like Pedroia, whom the Sox would miss, is less valuable then a player like Joe Mauer.

There is an argument for Pedroia due to the amount of games the Red Sox hitters missed, namely Drew, Lowell, and Ortiz, in addition to the eventual trade of Manny Ramirez. While Pedroia's improvement this season may have motivated the Red Sox to move Manny, I'm certain receiving Jason Bay, and knowing that Drew, Lowell, Ortiz, and Youkilis would be around didn't hurt.

All that being said, let's look at the win and value stats and see where Pedroia matches up among hitters in the American League:

WPA - 6th (behind Mauer, Carlos Pena, Justin Morneau, Carlos Quentin, and Grady Sizemore);
VORP - 3rd (behind Alex Rodriguez and Grady Sizemore); and
WSAB - Tied for 12th (behind Mauer, Youkilis, Ian Kinsler, Morneau, Rodriguez, Sizemore, Josh Hamilton, Quentin, Johnny Damon, Vladimir Guerrero, and Milton Bradley).

These are three very important win and value statistics, of which there is consistently one player ahead of him (Sizemore) and a handful that show up on at least two lists ahead of Pedroia (Mauer, Rodriguez, Morneau, and Quentin). Does it make sense then, that Pedroia wins this award?

What is additionally shocking, a writer somehow decided to leave Pedroia off his ballot altogether. While I have spent the last while arguing that Pedroia should not have won the award, there is certainly not a lot of ways that I could be convinced to leave him off the ballot entirely.

However, from an assembly of writers which concluded that Josh Hamilton was more valuable then Grady Sizemore (by nearly three times as much), that Milton Bradley was essentially useless (he received 2 votes, a 6th and 7th), and a ballot where Ian Kinsler can only net 1 10th place vote and Mike Mussina can receive an 8th place one is simply a joke.

I truly do not know how to put this into words any longer and I am relieved that the post-season awards are finished.

2008 BBWAA National League Most Valuable Player

2008-11-17T14:09:00.001-05:00

Pujols wins!

This afternoon Albert Pujols was named the National League's Most Valuable Player. In what was an extremely close race due to the fact that there was not a clear cut favorite for the award, the BBWAA managed to pick the most deserving player.

In total, 27 players received votes. That seems like a lot of confusion between the writers. I can't understand how, or why, there would be so many players nominated for the award and it will be interesting once what type of home team biases exist. Specifically, the bottom four players all received one vote each.

I'd like to mention one thing that sticks out to me that, well, is pathetic.

Ryan Howard? Really, what did Howard do to encourage the writers to make this such a close race? What did Howard do that made the writers feel as though he was superior to teammate Chase Utley?

Let's compare the value and win stats of these two players:

RC/27 - Utley 7.79, Howard 6.43
WPA - Howard 2.37, Utley 1.47
VORP - Utley 62.2, Howard 35.3
MLV - Utley 42.7, Howard 27.5
WSAB - Utley 16, Howard 12
WARP - Utley 10.4, Howard 5.0

As you can see, Utley is substantial superior to Howard, leading in 5 of 6 value or win statistical categories.

How about EQA?

Utley - .308
Howard - .291

There you have it, Utley was clearly more valuable then Howard.

An argument was made for the play of Howard down the stretch, however can that same argument not be made for Utley's play to start the season? Chase posted an OPS as of June 2nd of 1.083. By comparison, while Howard was hot down the stretch, his play during that time was substantial less then Chase's, posting an OPS of .954 in the second half.

By voting for Ryan Howard over Chase Utley, the writers are invariably saying that production in April and May does not count to the same degree as production July, August, and September. While games appear to be more meaningful towards the end of the season, had Utley not performed at the level he did in April and May, Howard's second half production would have gone largely unnoticed as the Phils would have been playing meaningless games.

2008 BBWAA American and National League Manager of the Year

2008-11-17T10:09:00.002-05:00

The BBWAA announced the American and National League Manager of the Year awards. The selections were not overly surprising, nor am I in the position to debate the decisions made.

Joe Maddon took the honors in the American League with 27 of 28 first place votes. I wonder what Maddon did differently in the eyes of the writers to make him jump from not being in the top 4, to being the best manager? That, or the other managers performed at a substantially less rate.

In the National League, Lou Piniella the award in what was a much tighter race. He was not listed on everyone's ballot but did make it on 27 of 32, which is fairly impressive.

The most interesting vote was for the Brewers Dale Sveum, who was listed on one writers ballot as the third best manager. If CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez do not qualify for award in the National League, I think it is laughable that someone picked Sveum for the managerial award.

The OLIB's 2008 Manager of the Year

2008-11-15T11:25:00.003-05:00

The Manager of the Year Awards are ones that I truly do not care about, nor do I have a strong opinion in regards to it. It may be in part to being lazy, or it may be due to the fact that I have little to no experience playing baseball. Whatever the reason, I simply do not feel qualified to judge the performance of a manager.

That is, the easy and popular choice for the American League Award is Joe Maddon. A just argument is that Maddon was responsible for the Rays climb from worst to first. Having catchy slogans and being an interesting character certainly helps Maddon's case.

But what exactly did he do? It isn't as if Maddon 'managed' his team to being better hitters in 2008 compared to 2007, the statistics suggest both seasons were essentially identical. He did have to deal with a fair amount of injuries to deal with, so maybe he can be complimented for getting what he did out of Eric Hinske and Willy Aybar to patch up a wounded lineup.

However, Maddon also had a fair amount of underperformances. Players who simply played below their expected levels, such as Carlos Pena and BJ Upton. If Maddon is not to be punished for that, shouldn't Eric Wedge get a mulligan for Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner?

Some people may point the the improved performances from the Rays pitchers as evidence to the job that Maddon did, but is that a reflection of his management, or simply a matter of the teams defense improving? I do suppose he can be given credit for getting his pitchers to trust the players behind them, but to what degree?

Maddon successfully implemented two platoons and was patient with Jason Bartlett, so that is working in Maddon's favor.

Working against Maddon is the fact that his pinch hitters were among the worst in all of Major League baseball. Managers are often applauded for picking the right guy off the bench at the right time, but the Rays had the second worst OPS by a pinch hitter in the American League.

The question then, how have people come to the conclusion that Maddon was the American Leagues uncontested Manager of the Year? If the Rays have an identical performance in 2009, will he again win the award, or will it go to a manager that takes his team from the scrap heap to a championship?

That is, is this award a reflection of a team 'over-achieving' in the eyes of the public, or is this an award based on actual management? Are experts so certain about the specific game plans, and managerial styles that they can conclude the exact value of a manager?

Take Terry Francona for example. The Sox were expected to win. The Sox have a roster that on paper, looks like one of a winner. The Sox spend like a winner. Lo and behold, the Red Sox are winners. Can we legitimately say that Francona has less to do with the Sox winning then Maddon had with the Rays winning?

The National League holds a similar story. Lou Pinella seems to be the easy choice. But weren't the Cubs expected to win this year? Didn't many experts pick the Cubs to be the best team in the National League?

My formula for picking a Manager of the Year in each division will be to calculate how many wins per dollar spent each manager contributed. This will not be how I draw my conclusion, it will simply provide me with a couple candidates. In addition to wins per dollar, I will also look at how much a team 'overachieved' (explanation to follow) as well as considering hurdles a manager had to over come.

The chart below ranks teams based on the average price of players (courtesy CBS Sportsline). The highlighted teams (Blue = American League, Red = National League) represents the top three. The sixth column, improperly titled 'wins per million' is actually the amount of money each team spent on a win. The final column utilizes Baseball Prospectus' 3rd order standings compared to a teams actual standings.
In the American League, the top three Managers are the Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Joe Maddon from the Rays did the most with the least amount of money spent. However, this is a tricky statistic, as the Rays are a product of having a lot of very impressive youngsters. Nevertheless, putting up a victory at less the $500,000 is an impressive feat.

Ron Gardenhire and the Minnesota Twins posted the second highest amount of wins better then their third order standings suggest. The Twins also did such with the 4th lowest payroll in the American League.

While the Angels are one of the highest priced teams in the league, Mike Scocia also got the most value out of each of his teams' wins among franchises in the top 10 in payroll. What sticks out most with the Angels is that Scocia managed to grab an additional 16 wins then his team deserved according to BP's third Order Wins.

While it is impressive what Maddon did with his low payroll, it isn't as if he took a bunch of nobodies and turned them into gold. A player such as Evan Longoria is a star and while he is not being paid as such, the expectations are similarly as high. Maddon then, is my runner-up for AL Manager of the Year with Mike Scocia taking the award due to managing his team to an additional 16 wins better then expected.

The top three in the National League are Charlie Manuel from the Philadelphia Phillies, Cecil Cooper of the Houston Astros, and Fredi Gonzalez of the Florida Marlins.

The other Florida team managed to get the most wins for the least amount of money, absolutely demolishing the impressive figure the Rays posted. Unlike the Rays, the Marlins did so while exceeding their third order wins. Additionally, Gonzalez did not have the benefit of putting out a roster of extraordinarily talented youngsters.

Cecil Cooper and the Houston Astros had one of the most underrated seasons in baseball. A team, that despite being in the top half in team spending proved to be relatively efficient with the money they did spend. The biggest factor working in Cooper's favor is the fact that his team over-achieved by more then 10 wins during the 2008 season. Those 10 wins are substantial, in that they represent the difference between a team that still had a shot up until the trade deadline, and a team without a prayer.

The Phillies Charlie Manuel had similar success to Cecil Cooper. While expectations for the Phillies were higher then they were for the Astros, Manuel provided decent punch compared to the dollars spent. His 5.2 wins above third order standings also help his case.

However, they do not help his case to be the winner, nor the runner up. Those votes will go to Fredi Gonzalez and Cecil Cooper respectively. Gonzalez just did too much with too little to ignore.

While popular opinion has it that Maddon and Pinella are the best managers in their respective leagues, popular opinion does not have a fancy chart.

The OLIB's 2008 AL Cy Young

2008-11-14T14:05:00.001-05:00

To this point in the post-season awards, there has been two obvious candidates for each award. The same holds true for the American League Cy Young Award which sees Cliff Lee and his miraculous turn-around of a season, up against Roy Halladay and his underrated 'horse'-like season.

The two pitchers are inseparable, and despite Lee leading Halladay in essentially every category, there is reason to question whether or not Lee is deserving to be rated ahead of Halladay.

Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus first proposed the idea of rating Halladay over Lee. His theory was that Halladay's schedule had been substantially more difficult then Lee's. This is something I had never truly considered prior to reading Sheehan's article, but clearly this is relavent information.

Sheehan writes,

Cliff Lee has made 28 starts this season, Roy Halladay 29. Of those, 13 are in-common starts: the A’s, Rays and Rangers twice, and the Angels, White Sox, Reds, Royals, Twins, Yankees and Mariners once. Those starts cancel out. Of the remaining starts, there seems to be a very wide gap in the calilber of competition, enough to at least mention. Of the 15 starts Cliff Lee does not have in common with Halladay, nine have come against teams in the bottom third in offense, as ranked by team EqA, and none have come against a team ranked in the top six.

Looking at it from the other direction, Halladay does not have a single not-in-common start against a team ranked below 18th in EqA. So of the 15 (in Halladay’s case, 16) not in common starts between the two, 60% of Lee’s have come against offenses worse than any of Halladay’s. Halladay also has four not-in-common starts (one against the Cubs, three against the Red Sox) better than any of Lee’s.

Wouldn't you agree that is substantial? Wouldn't that be like not adjusting a hitter's stats that were inflated by an extremely favorable hitting environment?

Sheehan continues,

Let me run the data this way, because I think it illustrates the point. The following numbers are the team EqA ranks for each not-in-common opponent, highest to lowest.

Halladay: 3, 4, 4, 4, 9, 9, 9, 11, 11, 14, 14, 14, 14, 17, 18, 18

Lee: 7, 7, 7, 12, 13, 13, 21, 22, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 28, 28

It helps if you read those numbers right to left. It’s clear from this data that Cliff Lee has seen a significantly inferior set of opponents than Halladay has.

The argument becomes substantial. However, individuals may slightly discredit it, by taking a lazy approach, looking at the 'similar opponents' and grouping them together. One writer, debated me at BDD using this lazy approach.

His theory was, for example, that 6 'common' starts are the same no matter who the common starts are. While anyone with a moderate amount of intelligence can understand that if one pitcher throws 5 games against the Yankees and 1 against the Royals it is vastly more difficult then 5 games against the Royals and 1 against the Yankees. This doesn't even account for the enormous deviations in hitter friendly environments that exists.

What that lazy analyst should have done, is the following:

Halladay faced the following teams in common:

Boston 5 times
Kansas City once
Minnesota once
New York Yankees 6 times
Seattle once
Tampa 5 times
Texas once

Lee faced the same opponents:

Once
Five times
Four times
Once
Twice
Twice
Twice

What he then should have done was calculate each teams runs per game:

Boston Red Sox - 5.22
Kansas City Royals - 4.27
Minnesota Twins - 5.13
New York Yankees - 4.87
Seattle Mariners - 4.14
Tampa Bay Rays - 4.78
Texas Rangers - 5.56

The next step would have been to create a balance going one way or another. That is to say, Halladay faced Boston 5 times and Lee faced them once, thus, Halladay gets credit for 4 starts against a team with 5.22 runs per game. Similarly, Lee faced Minnesota 4 times and Halladay faced them once, thus, Lee gets credit for only 3 starts against a team with a 5.13 run per game.

The next step is to multiply the games played by the amount of runs per game. I separated Halladays starts from Lee's and found:

Halladay faced 12 'similar' games against teams with a cumulative 4.96 runs per game,

Lee faced 9 'similar' games against teams with a cumulative 4.69 runs per game.

That deviation is the difference between facing baseball's 7th best offensive team instead of baseball's 15th best offensive team. In other words, Halladay had a substantially more difficult 'similar opponents' schedule.

Thus, despite the writers assertion that Lee fared better then Halladay against similar opponents, the writer failed to discover that Lee had a substantially easier similar opponents schedule.

While Sheehan's analysis is excellent and provides quite the step towards arguing for Roy Halladay, his analysis assumes that Halladay was facing the best Red Sox lineup everytime he went out there. While my procedure takes a similar shortcut, we can utilize Baseball Prospectus' database to tell us who faced more difficult batters.

According to BP's "Opponent's Quality, On Base Plus Slugging Average (OQO) is the aggregate on base plus slugging average of all batters faced by a pitcher..." We can use this tool to figure out who regularly faced tougher opponents.

In the American League, among starters with at least 200 innings pitched during the 2008 season, Roy Halladay had the most difficult OQO of .766. Ranking last out of 15 pitchers was, guess who, Cliff Lee, posting an OQO of .735.

In other words, we're talking the difference in Felipe Lopez and Yunel Escobar. By show of hands, if you were to pick one of those hitters to face for every at bat of a season, which one would you take over the other?

While this certainly should not entirely discredit what Lee accomplished this season, it does go to show that one must utilize some perspective when selectiving the leagues best pitcher. It is because of this perspective that Cliff Lee is the inferior pitcher to Roy Halladay in the American League.

Brian Cashman, You Devil!

2008-11-13T16:50:00.003-05:00

On afternoon of Free Agency, the New York Yankees completed a trade to replace Jason Giambi, acquiring Nick Swisher and Kanekoa Texeira from the Chicago White Sox for Wilson Betemit (one of my favorite players), and Minor League pitchers Jeff Marquez and Jhonny Nunez.

Upon first impression, Brian Cashman looks like a genius and Kenny Williams looks like a goat. If you recall, Williams traded for Swisher just under a year ago. At this point, it appears obvious that Williams paid a lot more then he received for the slugger.

Let's look at what Williams received for Swisher first.

Wilson Betemit has power, nobody would argue that. He is still young enough to be seen as a player with potential. What he doesn't have are greater flaws then what he does possess. Betemit is poor at taking walks and great at striking out, not an excellent combination to have.

Betemit is also a capable fielder at essentially any position save catcher. While he is stretched at places, he can certainly field them on at least a temporary basis.

As an arbitration eligible player, Betemit should see a modest increase from his 2008 salary of a little over $1.1M. What this part of the trade boils down to is Gio Gonzalez, Fautino De Los Santos, and Ryan Sweeney for a utility infielder. While Betemit's still youthful enough to provide something offensively, he will have to beat out Josh Fields, or one of Chris Getz and Jayson Nix. Not an impossible feat, but one that is doubtful to provide anything beneficial.

The Yankees are also sending two pitching prospects, neither scoring very high on anayones radar, and lacking the youth of true high upside players. However, both have scouting projectability to be watched for the next year or two.

The eldest prospect being Jeff Marquez, a 24 year old pitcher that hasn't shown anything special throughout his professional career. Being a groundball pitcher and having an adequate walk rate, Marquez could fill an end of the rotation role. However, Marquez was relatively homer prone in Triple A this season. Possibly this was due to poor fortune, or maybe Marquez was at a level where his mistakes would go over the fences.

Entering last year, Minor League Balls' John Sickels rated Marquez as the 14th best prospect in a weak Yankees system. He was given a C+ grade, which I imagine had much to do with his age, then performance.

Baseball America had Marquez rated as the organizations number seven prospect. While a more promising ranking, BA asserts that there is not much outside of the top 5 in this organization, although the Yankees were taking steps.

In consideration of this, Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein placed Marquez as a just missed player. While there are players that have gone under the radar, and largely ignored as prospects onto bigger and better things, it's tough to see that happening with Marquez.

22 year old Jhonny Nunez, the one time Washington Nationals prospect, rounds out the players received from the Yankees. Nunez was received from the Nationals for glove-first short stop Alberto Gonzalez. In what was a nice trade at the time for the Yankees, is now much more attractive.

Nunez struggled in high A ball with the Nationals, although he pitched better then his 5.22 ERA would lead one to believe. Once Nunez moved to double A, fly balls began to stay in the park, and Nunez's strong strikeout and adequate walk numbers remained.

One could propose the idea that it was Nunez's conversion to reliever which had him take a major step this season. Personally, I'd like to see him in the rotation at double A to start the 2009 season. If it is a matter of getting weaker as the game wears on, then a move to the bullpen won't be the worst thing.

I find it interesting that despite being in a weak Nationals system, only Sickels had Nunez listed on his top prospects list. Albeit, Nunez was fairly low on his radar, ranking as a C+ prospect and #18 out of 20. It wouldn't surprise me to see Nunez be bumped up everyone's list this year, although cracking the top 10 may still be a stretch.

Sending a utility infielder, an at best #4/5 starter, and a likely Major League reliever in exchange for a hitter of Nick Swisher's talent is what could be referred to as a bargain, a steal, an improper exchange of valuables.

Swisher will be 28 years old as of Opening Day, and entering the prime of what has already been a nice career. While 2008 was certainly a disappointment for Swish, it also marked the worst season of his career, one with uncharacteristically low batted ball figures. It can be expected that Swisher will rebound in 2009 and hit at least to the levels of his career average (.800+ OPS).

At an average of close to $8M a year for the next four seasons, Swisher is an absolute bargain. One hot season and the Yankees could certainly flip him for some high level prospects. However, if the Yankees choose to hold onto Swisher through the duration of his career-and the duration of his prime years-the annual savings will allow them to overspend in other areas, even moreso then they already do.

As if Swisher was not enough, Cashman had Williams throw-in Kanekoa Texeira. In terms of 'throw-ins' go, this is as good as it gets. In fact, Texeira has as good of a chance at being a quality Major League contributor as eitherMarquez and Nunez.

Armed with an arsenal of fastball, change-up, and what was considered the best slider in the White Sox organization, Texeira is a reliever that has had success at every level of the minors since being drafted in the 22nd round of the 2006 draft. Texeira's performance to date shows that he very well could be ready for the Majors immediately.

While it is unlikely that he starts the 2009 season on the big league club, an eventual call-up is not out of the question. It also seems reasonable to expect Yankees fans to deem him the heir to Mariano Rivera. Unjustified as it may be the Yankees swiped a very good prospect here.

This is a very confusing trade and one that certainly has to be given to the Yankees. The White Sox are not a small market club, so it isn't as if they could utilize the salary flexibility and this was more of a cash dump. In fact, the ChiSox may have been better off eating some of Swisher's salary and then shopping him.

Whatever the reason, there is little doubt that the White Sox took a major step back from the day before they acquired Nick Swisher to today. They sent the A's three very highly coveted youngsters and swapped that product for three end of the roster players.

Worse yet, while Kenny Williams has a 'surplus' today, this is the last year of Jim Thome's contract. Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye are not getting any younger. Josh Fields isn't going to get any better repeating triple A for the forth season. REGRET, is soon to be spelt S-W-I-S-H-E-R in the South Side of Chicago.

For the winner of this deal, it appears unlikely they will go after Mark Teixeira, or any other top hitter via free agency this off-season. While Teixeira would be an obvious upgrade over Swisher, the teams rumored to be interested in the first basemen should drive up his price making him less valuable. That being said, the Yankees can concentrate on acquiring pitching and spending like, well, like the Yankees.

I will discuss the Cubs-Marlins trade tomorrow.

2008 BBWAA American League Cy Young

2008-11-13T14:54:00.000-05:00

I was reading a comment by Pete Toms which asked the question, "why do we care about the awards given by the BBWAA?" This is a very valid question.

Despite spending a lot of time reading about baseball, I rarely, if ever, will closely read a baseball column in the newspaper. If I am somewhere that happens to have a Toronto newspaper handy, I will eventually make it to the baseball portion of the sports section. But that is a rarity, maybe once a week.

So why do we care?

I suppose it is a matter of integrity. The winners of these awards will be immortalized in baseball history. The average fan will forever know that Tim Lincecum was the "best" pitcher in the National League during the 2008 season. But that same fan shouldn't have to personally evaluate the performance of each pitcher in the National League during that season to figure out who was the second best.

That is, since the BBWAA do not properly evaluate the players merits, if the average baseball fan wants to know, for example, who the top three pitchers were, they will have to do their own homework. This is due to the fact that the BBWAA simply cannot be trusted. The writers can make anyone they choose into stars, and slander any player that doesn't provide a good interview.

It is because of that desire to have a personal relationship with the players, that 'press' writers should stand off from voting for the post-season awards. Let them paint their pictures of the play on the field, but let the analysts do their jobs.

The reason for the tangent is in response to the BBWAA's American League Cy Young voting. While the voters did not swing and miss to the extent of their National League brethren, there was a great deal of voters who simply do not get it.

Cliff Lee won the award, and while there is certainly an argument supporting his candidacy, there is also an argument against it. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this selection, although I would have taken the runner-up, Roy Halladay (explanation tomorrow). Rounding out those given votes were Francisco Rodriguez, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, and Ervin Santana.

I spend a lot of time harping on the BBWAA, and this award does not come away unscathed. Here are cases against the BBWAA based solely on the American League Cy Young ballots for the 2008 season. Put in other terms, if the writers credibility were to be up for trial, this would be one of the areas they could be attacked.

Case #1

Roy Halladay. As I mentioned, not picking Halladay as the winner is fine. What isn't fine is the 3 writers who left Doc off of their ballots altogether. The only possible excuse I could think up for these 3 writers, is that they felt so stupid for not naming Halladay as the 2nd best pitcher, that they simply left him off altogether.

There is a legitimate argument that Halladay was the best pitcher in the American League. That 9 writers felt he wasn't in the top 2 is embarrassing and evidence to the lack of understanding these writer have.

Case #2

Francisco Rodriguez. Other then saves, what category did Rodriguez lead American League relievers in? I'm not willing to look hard enough to find that category, but I will list some important ones that he trailed his leaguemates in.

Save Percentage: KRod's 89% is outstanding, Rivera's 97.5% happens to be better. So too was Jensen Lewis' 93% rounding out the three American League relievers with 10 or more saves.
Win Probability Added: Another area where Rodriguez had a fine season, albeit, not as fine as Rivera, Joakim Soria, and Bobby Jenks.
Pitching Runs Created: Rodriguez wasn't even the best reliever on his team in this aspect. He trailed closers Rivera, Joe Nathan, and Sora.
Win Shares Above Bench: Probably the most interesting stat to utilize here, and one that arguably convinced the Angels to let Rodriguez walk in Free Agency. KRod is tied as the third best closer in this category, behind Rivera and Soria, tied with Jonathan Papelbon and Nathan. Oh, KRod is also behind teammate (and rookie) Jose Arredondo.
Adjusted Runs Prevented from Scoring: A key stat for relievers, not so key for closers specifically, but important nonetheless. For this category, Rodriguez ranks behind top closers Rivera, Nathan, Soria, Papelbon, and Jenks.
Expected Wins Added Over a Replacement Level Pitcher: KRod finishes second in this category, behind Rivera.
Value Over Replacement Player: Rivera, Nathan, and Soria all rate higher then Rodriguez here. Papelbon and Jenks trail Rodriguez by a marginal amount.

That is seven stats where Rodriguez trails Rivera in every single one, not to mention trailing Soria and Nathan in nearly every one. Seven stats where on average, Rodriguez compares very closely with Papelbon and Jenks-great closers in their own right, by Cy Young candidates?

Don't get me wrong, Rodriguez had a very strong season. Not only do closers have the pressure of shutting the door on some close games, but he was also dealing with the spotlight of breaking Bobby Thigpen's 18 year old record.

However, his performance was vastly inferior to Mariano Rivera's, and there is even an argument for a handful of other closers, even relievers, who performed at a higher level then Rodriguez. To hand top 3 votes to a player because of one category is ridiculous.

These are two major cases against the credibility of the BBWAA. Obviously the organization as a whole is not lacking credibility, but there are a good amount of writers whom should be scrapped from the voting process. Otherwise, baseball's post-season awards and the hall-of-fame will lose much of it's value.

I would truly like to see a major corporate sponsor step up, and put together a legitimate vote. One where the voters are educated analysts. One where home team biases are eliminated through facts and information-not lead stories.

That is, imagine a situation where some of baseball's brightest minds, Bill James, Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, I'll even give Ken Rosenthal a vote, and others. Couple this with "Pepsi presents..." and enough people would at least hear about this award to eventually legitimize it.

Dream on, dreamer...