Watching the Game

Watched: Kansas City Royals vs. Anaheim Angels

2011-06-13T07:50:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I am trying to avoid the media-made narratives and just watch sports while creating the narratives for myself. So far it has been kind of nice watching games without the announcers mindless drivel (although I do find myself to be more easily distracted from the game when I watch without sound).

I watched most of the Royals three games against the Angels over the weekend, mainly to get a first glimpse of Mike Moustakas, who was called up prior to Friday's game. Mike started all three games at third base and had a pretty decent series, going 3-10 with three walks and hitting his first home run during Saturday's game. He did not commit any errors at third base over the weekend, although his arm seemed a little erratic and Eric Hosmer had to make a couple of nice plays at first to save an error for Moustakas.

My overall impression of him is (small sample size alert!) that he is patient at the plate - he seemed to go deep in the count almost every time (he saw 4.08 pitches per plate appearance) - and when he finds a pitch that he likes, he swings hard and when he connects, hits it with authority. He was fooled by a couple of good breaking balls, but that is expected out of a 22 year old rookie. I think he'll end up being a guy that hits for a lot of power, gets on base at an above average level, but probably strikes out quite a bit and never hits for a high average. I don't think he's quite at the Mark Reynolds level, as far as that goes, but maybe Adam Dunn. His defense should be adequate, although I can see him bulking up as he gets older and becoming less mobile, killing his range. For the immediate future, though, he looks to be a very nice complement to Eric Hosmer in the middle of the Royals lineup.

Sports Narratives

2011-06-10T21:16:00.005-05:00

I am almost certainly the worst-disciplined blogger in the history of the internet. When will I learn that making a statement about a post that I am going to write in the future almost ensures that I will never write it? It's a good thing that no one reads this blog or else I'd owe an apology for never giving my reasons to watch the American League this year (let's see, Adrian Gonzalez finally in a hitter's park, can Bautista have another great year, the first wave of Royals prospects... that about covers it, right?).

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of basketball lately. We are in the middle of the NBA Finals and there have been some great storylines with LeBron/Wade/Bosh for the Heat and Dirk's incredible run through these playoffs. The thing that strikes me, though, is how quickly the narrative has changed over the course of this series. I read a lot of sports blogs (The Big Lead is a favorite) along with mainstream media sites (like ESPN, Yahoo and SI) and it seems like each game draws out different big picture conclusions. For example, after the Heat easily won the first game, the narrative was that they would cruise to victory, but LeBron gets no vindication because he did it as second fiddle to Wade. My first reaction to this was that people were really reaching for a way to hate LeBron. But then the Heat lost the second game and suddenly the narrative changed - the Heat suddenly weren't sure things to win it all anymore. Then they won game 3 and it changed back and so forth.

Now, it is natural for the blogs and the mainstream sites to read too much into small samples - it makes for a much better story if every game has an importance outside of the win or loss. So I don't blame them, but I have started to wonder if this insistence on creating a narrative has altered the way that I watch the games. I find myself thinking about the things that I've read as I watch the games - does LeBron defer too much in the fourth quarter? When the going gets tough does LeBron quit on his team (as some claimed after Game 4)? I found myself watching for these things, but then wondering to myself if I would have even considered those storylines if I was just watching the games and not reading other people's analysis.

I think back to the pre-internet days and I think that narratives were still created by sportswriters, but, without the immediacy of the internet, the stories were allowed to breath, to find life over time. It's hard to remember if reading the sportspage informed my thought process while watching the next night's game. Then I wonder if these narratives enhance my enjoyment of sports. Would I be better off without all the extraneous analysis? Without them, perhaps I could focus on the game and develop my own narrative based on what I am seeing, instead of looking for evidence to support or refute the narratives that I read elsewhere.

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to stop reading blogs (sorry, TBL) and other analysis and I'm going to watch games with the sound off and let my eyes tell me the story. There will be exceptions, of course. I'll have to do some reading for news and I may have to turn the sound on for injury reports or other news-like information. But I am going to try and avoid analysis as much as possible. We'll see how long I last and if my sports-watching experience is altered for better or worse.

***

Speaking of watching a game - I am currently watching the Royals play the Angels. I've watched more Royals games this year than I have in several years, partly because I didn't buy the Extra Innings package this year, so some nights the Royals are my only baseball option, but also because they are becoming a fun team to watch with all the young players making their debuts this season. Tonight is the major league debut of Mike Moustakas (Moose Tacos), a power hitting third baseman. So far he has flown out to the opposite field (left) and walked. In the field he has only had one opportunity that I can recall (I've been writing the paragraphs above throughout the first five innings) where he handled a popup behind third base in foul territory without incident. And (not to turn this into a live-blog) he just fielded a groundball and threw a bit wide to first, but Eric Hosmer was able to adjust and save Moose from making his first error.

Why to Watch 2011 - NL Edition

2011-03-30T06:00:00.004-05:00

Well, let's see... I posted twice on this blog in 2010 and four times in 2009. I can't seem to figure out why it didn't become more popular... Anyway, rather than make promises to myself (and my hypothetical readers that stats reports tell me do not exist) that I am going to post more often this season or make excuses why I'm not posting very often (did I mention that I now have two daughters?), I'm just going to post randomly when I feel like it. Or not. So, with no further ado, here are the reasons why I want to see each National League team this season (AL coming soon):

Atlanta Braves - I want to see Jason Heyward develop - forget the Sophmore slump, this kid has a ton of talent and last year just scratched the surface of what he's capable of doing. I'm going to enjoy watching him mature. Also, the Phillies seem to be everyone's pick to walk away with the NL this year because of their rotation, but they better be careful of the Braves in their own division, this is a solid team from top to bottom.

Florida Marlins - I want to see how far Mike Stanton can hit a ball. This guy is a monster - he may not have the all around skills like Heyward has, but he may have more pure power than any other hitter in baseball. Also, Josh Johnson leads an underrated starting pitching staff and the offense has a few interesting young players to go along with Stanton and Superstar Hanley Ramirez.

New York Mets - I want to watch a team implode before my very eyes. There is talent on this team, David Wright is great and, if healthy, Jose Reyes is exciting to watch. But the pitching is awful (especially with Johan Santana injured again) and the state of the team is depressing. I am interested in seeing if Carlos Beltran can be healthy and productive again - he was always a lot of fun to watch. Also, will Jose Reyes get traded during the season?

Philadelphia Phillies - Well, this one is pretty obvious, right? I want to see Joe Blanton pitch. No, of course not, it's the big four in the rotation in front of Blanton: Halladay, Lee, Oswalt and Hamels. If they stay healthy all year, the Phillies should make the playoffs, even with their newfound questionable offense.*

*Ok, here's the thing about their newfound questionable offense: I'm not buying that it might stop them from playing in October. Yes, Utley is injured to start the year and yes, losing Jayson Werth hurts. But it seems to me that this is the kind of narrative that happens when baseball analysts in the media have too much time in the offseason to consider a team. The Phillies looked like a juggernaut in January, but that storyline grew old quickly and now people are starting to poke little holes everywhere and reconsider their position. Take a step back and quit looking through a microscope: if the big four are healthy the Phillies will be fine. Utley will be back, Howard will hit homers (although he is aging rapidly and his contract sucks - I'm required to mention that to be a part of the blogger's union), Rollins will make a boatload of outs, but will also score a bunch of runs and the Phillies will find ways to win. Even if they win a lot of 1-0 games.

Washington Nationals - I guess I am most looking forward to the return of Stephen Strasburg late in the season (hopefully). Look, Ryan Zimmerman is a great foundation and there are some other intersting guys like Jayson Werth (overpaid, but still interesting to watch), but interest in the Nationals is all about Strasberg and Bryce Harper, neither of whom will be in the majors for most of the year. I am trying to find some positive reason to watch each team here, though, so I'll just say that I will watch to see if Rick Ankiel can resurrect his career and to watch Zimmerman field his position at third base (he's one of the best in the business).

Chicago Cubs - As a Cardinals fan, I'd like to say something snarky about watching to see how they'll lose this season. But as a baseball fan, I have to admit that I am curious to see how Starlin Castro develops as a shortstop. He seems to be fantastic with the glove and if he continues to be passable on offense, he will be a valuable guy. Also, Matt Garza's move to the NL could turn him into a premier pitcher.

Cincinnati Reds - I want to see if Joey Votto can continue his excellent 2010 performance. He unseated Albert Pujols as MVP in the NL and it took a mammoth effort to do so. It wouldn't be surprising if he regresses slightly, but I think he's the real deal. Also, I want to see if Jay Bruce can join Votto as a premier slugger. He's got the talent to do it and he could be poised to make that jump.

Houston Astros - I am looking forward to seeing if Brett Wallace can develop into a solid major league ballplayer. When the Cardinals drafted him it was clear that he wouldn't stick at third base, but it was always assumed that he would hit. The power hasn't really shown up and the hitting has been underwhelming, but I still believe that he can be a .280/.360/.450 type of a guy with 20 HR and bunches of doubles. Also, well, I guess I'm interested to see if Carlos Lee ends up with the worst defensive rating for a major league player in history.

Milwaulkee Brewers - I want to see Zack Greinke pitch when he is motivated. I saw Zack when he was a rookie and I was blown away by his assortment of pitches - all at different speeds and all plus pitches. Then, in 2009 I got to see Zack master his ability and become the Cy Young winner. But in 2010, he gave up on his team and his season because he got tired of losing. Milwaulkee should contend in 2011, so I want to see what he does when it really matters. Also, I want to see what Prince Fielder does in a contract year.

Pittsburgh Pirates - I am looking forward to watching Pedro Alvarez and Andrew McCutcheon take the next step in their development. Both are exciting offensive players that can be the foundation for the first competitive Pittsburgh team since Barry Bonds left for San Francisco. Also, I am interested to see if the Pirates can crawl out of the basement and finish in fifth place in the division (I'm betting they do - ahead of the Astros).

St. Louis Cardinals - As always, I'm looking forward to seeing Albert Pujols. He's a free agent at the end of the year*, so this could be the last season I see him in a Cardinals uniform. It will be very interesting, though, to see what he does in a contract year. Also, I'm curious to see how the Cardinals overcome the loss of Adam Wainwright to Tommy John surgery. I'm betting they find a way to stay in contention.

*I am still of the belief that Albert remains a Cardinal throughout his career. That is the outcome that both he and the Cardinals want and in the end I believe that both sides will realize that there is more at stake than a few years or dollars. My guess is that Pujols will get some other offers and those offers will shape the outcome between him and the Cardinals.

Arizona Diamondbacks - I am looking forward to the emergence of Justin Upton. It must be difficult living with Ken Griffey, Jr. comparisons, but all of the tools are there. I'm not convinced that he ever reaches the homerun power that Griffey had at the top of his game, but he certainly could be a 30/30 guy that is exciting to watch in every phase of the game. Also, I'm interested in seeing if Stephen Drew and Chris Young (already underrated performers) can mature into star-level MLB players.

Colorado Rockies - I want to see the best player that most people either don't know about or forget about, Troy Tulowitzki. He is a fantastic defensive player that also hits for average, power and gets on base at a good clip. Also, I want to see if the breakout player of 2010, Ubaldo Jiminez, can repeat his success of last year.

Los Angeles Dodgers - I am looking forward to finding out if Matt Kemp will rebound after a down 2010. He proved his worth in 2009 after struggling to get regular playing time previously, but then struggled to follow up on his breakout year. I believe that he (as well as a finally healthy Andre Ethier) will put up a big season. Also, it will be interesting to watch the development of Clayton Kershaw, who could be a Cy Young candidate if everything works out for him.

San Diego Padres - I want to see if Cameron Maybin can finally put it together in the major leagues. This guy has the tools to be a good fielding centerfielder with speed and power, but he has flopped ever since he was brought up to the big leagues too early. Also, I am interested to see what effect Petco Park has on Aaron Harang, the kind of fly ball pitcher that might benefit greatly from the spacious park.

San Francisco Giants - Tim Lincecum is the main attraction on this team, as always, since he is Cy Young caliber year in and year out. However, I am really looking forward to seeing Buster Posey play. The young catcher looks to be a great hitter that really made a difference down the stretch for the World Champions last year. Also, I want to see Madison Baumgardner, the next stud starting pitcher the Giants have to go along with Lincecum, Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez (who I also want to see to find out if he can keep his walks down - if so, he is one of the better pitchers in the league).

Watched: Edwin Jackson

2010-06-26T10:25:00.005-05:00

Last night I was watching the Cardinals/Royals game when they broke away to show a highlight of the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Tampa Rays. The highlight was with two outs in the eighth inning and a runner on first for the Rays. The runner was Carl Crawford, pinch running. Crawford was thrown out attempting to steal, ending the inning and preserving a no-hitter for D-Backs pitcher Edwin Jackson.

I quickly decided to switch to the D-Backs game (a decision made quite easy by the frustrating way the Cardinals were losing to the Royals). I then was able to watch the end of Edwin Jackson's no-hitter, which marks the first time I have witnessed the end of a no-hitter as it happened.

There are a couple of remarkable things about this particular no-hitter. First, Jackson was not dominant in the early going. He walked seven batters in the first three innings, including walking the bases loaded in the third inning before he recorded a single out. But he was able to work his way out of trouble each time and didn't allow another walk until there were two outs in the ninth inning. An 8 walk no-hitter isn't totally unprecedented, of course. When AJ Burnett threw his no-hitter in 2001, he walked 9 and Nolan Ryan walked 8 during one of his no-hitters. What seems unusual is, like Burnett, Jackson struck out fewer men (6) than he walked (Burnett only struck out 7 in his 9 walk no-hitter).

The other remarkable thing is that Jackson threw 149 pitches in the game, the most in a game by a pitcher this year. While going for a no-hitter trumps the usual concerns over pitch counts, there is precedent for such an effort basically ending the career of a promising young pitcher. In 2001 rookie Bud Smith threw a no-hitter for the Cardinals in September and threw 134 pitches in that game. The Cardinals skipped Bud's start after that game in order to allow him to recover and Bud was effective in three of his last four starts that season.

The next season, though, he was mostly ineffective in 12 starts for the Cardinals and then was sent to the minors (where he did have some success in 6 starts). Then he was traded to the Phillies in exchange for Scott Rolen and Bud's arm trouble started shortly thereafter. He was injured for the better part of the rest of his career, which never again reached the major leagues.

There is, of course, no way to correllate Bud Smith's arm injuries to the strain of pitching the no-hitter that September night, but a look at Bud's numbers from 2001 combined with how his career turned out at least raises the issue. Bud was 22 years old that year and, in his first season of enduring the stress and strain of pitching in the major leagues, he was asked to throw more than 90 pitches in 7 of his 14 starts (including over a 100 in 4 of those starts), crowned by his 134 pitch no hitter. Maybe Bud's arm would have fallen apart anyway, but a workload like that for a young pitcher certainly couldn't have helped.

So will Edwin Jackson suffer the same fate? Only time will tell, of course. Jackson has some advantages over Bud: he is 26 years old and has been pitching in the major leagues since he was 19. This is already his fourth season of being a full time starter at the major league level and there is something to be said of the body becoming conditioned to the workload. Jackson has thrown over 100 pitches in 12 of his 16 starts this season, including 10 in a row (and a 123 pitch effort on June 2nd). Last season he threw over 100 pitches in 21 of his 32 starts, including a season high of 132 on May 21. So maybe Edwin Jackson is a horse that is capable of throwing tons of pitches every time out. Or maybe Jackson is headed for a burnout. Again, only time will tell.

Watched: Stephen Strasburg

2010-06-09T06:30:00.000-05:00

Well, probably every baseball blogger watched Strasburg's first start and is writing something about it. I guess it is a good enough story to bring me out of hibernation.

Everyone knows about the Strasburg hype by now: 100 mph fastball, hammer curve, and a sick changeup that just isn't fair. He brought all of those weapons to bear during Tuesday night's game. He seemed a little jittery at the start, getting behind each of the first two hitters, but he quickly turned on the dominance, getting six strikeouts in the first three innings.

And then he showed that he was mortal, giving up a two run homer in the fourth. But he settled back in and destroyed the Pirates lineup for the next three innings, striking out seven in a row at one point and finishing with fourteen strikeouts.

The only thing that limits Strasburg is his pitch count. Because he gets a lot of strikeouts, he ends up throwing a lot of pitches. The Nationals had him on a 90 pitch count on Tuesday and have stated that they will limit his number of innings this season. It is probably a smart move on their part for the long term health of Strasburg and only time will tell if he can physically hold up to the wear and tear of pitching in the major leagues. If he has the stamina to endure the high pitch counts and he stays healthy, he's got the ability to be the best pitcher in baseball for the foreseeable future. He showed on Tuesday that he's already got the stuff of a Cy Young candidate.

Jack Wilson Questions the Pirates Front Office

2009-07-01T11:55:00.004-05:00

I am not really writing to defend the Pirates front office. They've put together some really terrible teams over the last few years. But Jack Wilson's quotes really struck me as funny:

"I've been here nine years. I've seen two or three of these trades every year and still haven't had a winning season."

Um, well, Jack, if you want to experience a winning season, maybe you could - I don't know - play better? I mean seriously, a guy with a career OBP of .312 and a career SLG of .377 is complaining about trades that have not led to a winning season. He should be thankful he still has a full time job. The trade the Pirates should make to get better is one that would get rid of Jack Wilson.

Watched: The World Baseball Classic

2009-03-09T12:11:00.004-05:00

I have never thought much of the World Baseball Classic. It seems contrived, as anything without history will, I suppose. For me, the interest in the first tournament, three years ago, revolved mainly around how it would affect the players once the MLB season started, especially pitchers. I didn't feel very different about it this time around. I enjoy baseball of any sort, so it would be fun to watch some of the best in the world competing, but I felt very little interest in the outcome.

Then I turned on the games this past Saturday. I had missed the majority of the Domincan Republic vs. the Netherlands, but when I started watching, the Netherlands were winning 3-2 in the eighth. This would be an incomprehensible upset. I found myself getting sucked into the game very quickly and rooting for the underdogs. In the ninth, Wily Tavarez walked and was moved to second on a groundout. Then, with one out and down by one, he attempted a steal of third. This was a terrible idea. Tavarez is one of the fastest players in baseball and steals a lot of bases, but the edge that his team would get from him being on third is nowhere near worth the risk of getting caught. As it turns out, the Netherlands catcher, Kenley Jansen, fired a perfect throw to third to get the second out of the inning. It was a fantastic play that deflated the Dominican Republic and reminded me of why I love baseball. When the Netherlands got the final out to record their huge upset victory, they celebrated like children and so did I.

In the second game, the United States faced Canada. The U.S. team seems much more determined this time around and it showed as they muscled up and scored six runs on three homers through the first six innings. But then something curious happened: Canada kept the pressure on the U.S. and got to within one run in the ninth inning. I have to admit that my patriotism was tested as a part of me would have liked to see the underdogs pull it out. But it wasn't to be. The U.S. closed the door and won 6-5.

I was surprised at the playoff atmosphere of both games (not all have been like that, as Sunday saw some double digit victories). The teams all seem to be taking the games seriously* and some good baseball has resulted. I'm not ready to say that I'm converted, but I will definitely be watching a little more intently for the rest of the tournament.

*The Dominican Republic, however, seems intent on not putting its best players on the field. They have both Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez and one is sitting at all times. I understand that you don't want David Ortiz playing first base, so he's got to DH; and Miguel Tejada is playing third and Robinson Cano is playing second. But Hanley Ramirez couldn't play leftfield during the tournament instead of Nelson Cruz? Or centerfield instead of Wily Tavarez? I'm sure he wouldn't be great in the outfield, but the improvement to your lineup over the alternatives would have to make up for his defensive liabilities. In fact, wouldn't playing him at first base (or Tejada at first base and Ramirez at third) instead of the Tatis/Aybar combo give you a better team? Their lineup is stacked no matter what, but Ramirez and Reyes are two of the top ten offensive players in all of baseball, it doesn't make a lot of sense to sit one of them.

Offseason Signing: Milton Bradley

2009-01-06T18:49:00.001-06:00

The Chicago Cubs signed Milton Bradley to a 3 year, $30M contract recently, causing baseball writers to make way too many horrible jokes about board games. I will try to avoid falling into the same trap, but I will point out that Milton's middle name is Obelle... ok, that didn't work out like I planned - I thought I'd find out that he had a normal middle name and then I'd ask why he didn't just decide years ago to go by his middle name, but Obelle isn't that much better, so I'll just move on to the analysis of his signing.

First of all, the basics: Bradley is a switch-hitting outfielder with very good power and plate discipline. In 2008 he put up a .321/.436/.563 line with 22 home runs for the Texas Rangers in 126 games.

Of course, those numbers lead us right into the negatives: Bradley seems to be a bit injury prone. Over his nine year career, he has only played more than last year's 126 games one time: in 2004 he played in 141 games for the Dodgers. In fact, he blew out his knee at the end of 2007 and played most of 2008 as the Rangers DH, which makes penciling him into the outfield for the Cubs a shaky prospect (he logged 20 games in the OF last year). You also have to consider that Bradley's 2008 numbers were put up in an extreme hitter's ballpark in Texas and they represent career bests in almost every important category.

The final negative piece of the Milton Bradley puzzle is his attitude. He has had dougout clashes with managers and teammates and on field clashes with umpires and fans. The Cubs will be the seventh organziation that Bradley has played for in his nine years, which seems to indicate that some teams may think that he is more trouble than he's worth.

So was he a good pickup for the Cubs? There are many factors that come into play when trying to make that determination. To start with, the contract seems a little long. The money isn't terrible (the Phillies signed Raul Ibanez to a contract for the same length and amount and he's six years older than Bradley and not as good - that is a terrible contract), but giving three years to a guy that can't stay in the lineup seems excessive.

The Cubs are apparently going to use Bradley in right field and move Kosuke Fukudome to center field, with Soriano playing left (in essence, he replaces Jim Edmonds' production down the stretch last year). Only time will tell if Bradley will be able to play the outfield with any level of competency after his knee surgery. Prior to the injury he was viewed as an above average fielder, but you would have to assume that his range has been compromised. That could mean that Kosuke Fukudome will be forced to cover a lot of ground in center field between two sub-par outfielders.

Another aspect is that this seems to close the door on Felix Pie's career in Chicago before it really got started. Pie is a young (will be 24 this season), lefthanded center field prospect that has flashed above average tools across the board in the minor leagues. He has failed to make those tools translate in the big leagues, though, and it appears that the Cubs have grown tired of waiting. A wrinkle to this story is that the Cubs have been trying to trade for Jake Peavy all offseason, using Pie as the centerpiece in the deal. Just prior to signing Bradley, the Cubs also traded Mark DeRosa to the Cleveland Indians for three pitching prospects. There has been speculation that the Cubs made that trade in order to add the pitching prospects that the Padres have wanted to get in return for Peavy. So, the addition of Bradley could be intertwined with the potential addition of Peavy, in that they knew they would have to sacrifice Pie and his potential so they went out and got Bradley.

When healthy, Bradley should be exactly what the Cubs lineup needs. All of the Cubs best hitters swung from the right side only: Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Alphonso Soriano, Geovany Soto. Fukudome is lefthanded, but the Cubs are wary of him after he fell off the map in the second half of last year*. Slotting a switch hitter with power and plate discipline in the middle of those right handed sluggers should help balance the lineup. He also will give the Cubs no less than five players in the starting lineup with on base percentages over .350 (and six if Mike Fontenot starts at 2B). That is outstanding and is a great recipe for scoring runs.

But when you compare the Cubs lineup in 2009 to their lineup in 2008, are they better? In effect, they are trading Mark DeRosa and Jim Edmonds for Bradley and an Aaron Miles/Mike Fontenot platoon. DeRosa is clearly better than the Miles/Fontenot platoon (although Fontenot's numbers always surprise me with how good they are), but Bradley is probably a better bet than Edmonds at this point in their respective careers. At best I think the tradeoff is a push and if you consider the blockage of Pie's potential, the team might even be worse off (and defensively they are almost certainly worse). So, while the Bradley acquisition makes sense, the DeRosa trade only seems to make sense if they are able to turn the prospects into Jake Peavy. [Note: I recognize that I got off track here - I was supposed to be talking about the Bradley acquisition and I got off on a little DeRosa trade analysis here, but the Cubs offseason might be the most interesting one outside of the Bronx, so I couldn't help myself. Sue me.]

The two biggest questions I come back to are health and attitude. With fiery Lou Pinella as manager, there is a serious potential for this acquisition to blow up on the Cubs. If Bradley is ineffective because he is in Pinella's doghouse or because he's injured, then this deal looks bad. If Bradley can give the Cubs 450 at bats (something he's only done once before) then he could be a big part of their 2009 success. If it turns out that his acquisition was one of the pieces to also acquiring Jake Peavy, then the Cubs might be looking at some real success (for once).

Watched: The MLB Network

2009-01-02T11:49:00.000-06:00

Yesterday evening Major League Baseball started broadcasting on its new cable network, the MLB Network. Luckily for me, my cable company carries the station as part of its basic package (although the HD version of the channel was not available last night for some reason). Here is a quick breakdown of what I saw in the channel's first few hours:

The Studio Show: The studio sets were huge and spectacular, with two main sets. One was a standard 'SportsCenter'-type of studio with a main desk and several remote locations for guests and other segments. The other set was reminiscent of the NFL pre-game shows because it is a replica of a baseball infield (1/2 size, perhaps?) where they can do demonstrations of the game. Both sets were slick, although the live audience in the stands around the field set seemed a little forced.

The studio show that played last night was "Hot Stove Live" which is supposed to be a recap of the off-season manueverings that have happened to date and also a discussion of rumors of what might happen. The 'talent' was Harold Reynolds, Al Leiter and Barry Larkin (with a host that did a nice job, but whose name I have already forgotten). I am a big fan of Leiter from his stints as color man during the playoffs in recent years and Larkin seemed to be pretty decent. Reynolds, however, was a bit over-the-top and seemed to try and dominate discussions. Perhaps that is his role, as he has much more t.v. experience than the others due to his (mostly successful) years on ESPN doing Baseball Tonight, but I find him overbearing and annoying. Perhaps the gimmick of having guys interrupting each other while they are trying to answer a question or analyze a situation is just over-played (wishful thinking on my part, there, every sports or political commentary show uses this tactic and I can't bear to watch it any more). Hopefully that will tone down as they get a feel for what they are doing.

The segments with the main talent weren't too informative. Hearing Reynolds, Leiter and Larkin give their opinions of where Manny Ramirez may end up was ground that has already been tread a dozen time by analysts on ESPN and a multitude of places on the internet. The best part of the show was when they pulled Jon Heyman (who I vehemently disagree with on statistics and baseball strategy, but who is great when it comes to breaking stories and solid rumors) and Tom Verducci from SI to discuss the rumor mill. Those guys didn't break a whole lot of new ground, but the segment was less bombastic than the segments with the former players and I enjoy finding out what the journalists are hearing from insiders.

The Classic Game: MLB broke open their vault of classic games to give us Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series in its original form. They even included the commercials from the original broadcast, which was a very cool touch. Every couple of innings they would cut to the studio (on the playing field set, for some reason) where Bob Costas would interview Yogi Berra and Don Larsen about how the game was progressing. Costas was his usual classy-but-sometimes-corny self and although there were some awkward moments in the answers of Berra and (especially) Larsen, I thought the concept was great.

Seeing the complete game in its original form was fascinating - the lack of information on screen and the speed of play was a stark contrast to watching a game today. The announcing was superb, with Mel Allen and Vin Scully splitting the duties.

There is a lot of potential for showing classic games. ESPN classic does a good job at times, but their programming is such a hodge podge of different things that it is difficult to find something worth watching. Also, ESPN's interviews with the participants seem dated. I hope that MLB Network continues to reach back in the past and show us classics in their original form on a regular basis.

Rickey and the Hall

2008-12-31T13:36:00.003-06:00

I am coming out of my offseason seclusion to write a little about Rickey Henderson. The first baseball season I remember is 1981, although I have some vague memories of a pack of 1980 baseball cards. Anyway, my formative baseball years were the 1980's and my favorite player (non-Cardinals division) was Rickey Henderson.

I can't really explain my fascination with Rickey, but I think it had something to do with an SI article that came out during the summer of 1982, when he was chasing the all-time single season stolen base record. I read that article and Rickey became my favorite.

Despite his sometimes clownish public persona, Rickey was a pretty good player to have as a favorite. He dominated the game with his speed, his patience at the plate and his power. He reached the 3,000 hit plateau, scored more runs than any player in history and drew more walks than any player in history not named Barry Bonds.

He is eligible this year for the Hall of Fame for the first time and he is a no-doubter*.

*His acceptance speech should be one of the greatest moments in television history. The guy has lived his whole life just to get up on that stage and tell everyone how great he is. It should be pure entertainment, unintentional comedy at its greatest.

My favorite statistic in Rickey's career is the line he put up during the 1989 playoffs. The Yankees had traded him back to Oakland during the season and he put up spectacular numbers in leading them to the title. He won the ALCS MVP and he should have won the World Series MVP (although Dave Stewart, who won, was outstanding in his two starts). Here is his combined stat line for the two series:

.441/.568/.941 3 HR 8 RBI 11 SB 12 R 9 BB

He did all of that in 9 games and 34 at bats. In addition, he hit three triples and two doubles. That's 8 extra base hits in 9 games! There was no way to stop him. Throw him a strike and he was going to pummel it; walk him and he was going to steal second and maybe third. He was absolutely on fire.

It didn't end there, either. His best complete regular season was in 1990, when he won the AL MVP with a .325/.439/.577 line over the complete season (he also stole 65 bases and hit 28 home runs).

Rickey was an amazing player and a unique player. His combination of patience, power and speed has been unparalleled in baseball history and we are unlikely to see another player with his skillset. I look forward to seeing lots of Rickey highlights this summer in the build up to the Hall of Fame ceremony.

Watched: Game 5 of the World Series

2008-10-30T10:00:00.002-05:00

The rain delay/game suspension was an odd twist to the World Series that took away some of the momentum and excitement of the event. The final three and a half innings of Game 5 were exciting, though, and it was fun to watch.

I couldn't have been more wrong about the way this series turned out. Jaime Moyer and Joe Blanton more than held their own and the Rays offense never really woke up in this series. Congratulations to the Phillies. If you had told me before the season started that the Phillies would win the World Series, I think I would have accepted that. They have built a solid team from top to bottom, and although I still think that their starting pitching is a little shallow, they certainly went into the season as one of a handful of favorites.

The Rays, on the other hand, were a bit of a surprise. A lot of people thought that they would be a much improved team, but most thought they were still a year or so away from really contending. Despite their loss, they should be positioned to be a contender for the foreseeable future - but how they handle their pre-free agency position players will be interesting to watch.

On another note, I love it when a World Series ends with a strikeout, as it did last night. Sure, a walk-off homer is more dramatic, but there is something classic about the strikeout-catcher/pitcher bearhug-team dogpile on the pitching mound. I don't have any particular fondness for the Phillies, but I enjoyed watching them celebrate last night. Fox (who deservedly gets a lot of flack for its coverage) did a great job of replaying the strikeout/initial celebration from every conceivable angle: from the CF camera, from the dugout camera, focused on Howard, focused on Utley, focused on the owner's box, focused on the players in the dugout, etc. I thought that was very well done - particularly that neither Joe Buck or Tim McCarver were pontificating over the replays.

Again, congrats to the Phillies and their fans.

Watched: 10/23/08 World Series Game Two

2008-10-24T07:54:00.003-05:00

It almost seems like the World Series is unfolding like the first couple of rounds of a boxing match. The teams are feeling each other out and looking for weaknesses. We've had pretty solid pitching and sloppiness in the other facets of the game. They have been two entertaining games to watch, but I think we are still waiting for the compelling storyline to emerge. Perhaps a change in venue will help.

I think both teams can take away positives from the two games in Florida. The Phillies have to be happy that they were able to split the first two on the road and swing home field advantage in their favor. All they need to do is hold serve at home and the World Series is theirs. On the other hand, the Rays have to feel like they are in good shape mainly because they have faced the Phillies best two pitchers and came away with a split. As I said yesterday, the Phillies starting pitching quality really drops off after Cole Hamels, but even moreso after Hamels and Myers. Blanton is just a little better than league average and while Moyer's story is great, he is far from a shutdown pitcher at this point.

My prediction is that the Rays win two of the next three (probably losing Game 5 to Hamels) and then head back to Florida with a 3-2 series lead. Then the Phillies will come up big in Game 6, but the Rays will win it all in Game 7.

Watched: World Series Game One

2008-10-23T07:35:00.002-05:00

It was a great game - a well pitched battle between two young lefthanders. Both Scott Kazmir and Cole Hamels looked great and both bullpens were fired up and throwing smoke.

Here's the thing, though, Cole Hamels is by far the Phillies best pitcher while Scott Kazmir, while an excellent young pitcher, is only one of several good young pitchers with the Rays. I think the pitching matchups from here on out heavily favor the Rays. So, while it was a disappointing start for the Rays, I think the advantage is still theirs.

Snakebitten

2008-10-21T08:26:00.003-05:00

Today the Cardinals announced that they would not be exercising the team option on Mark Mulder for next year. This was a no-brainer, as the team would have owed him $11M for 2009 and he hasn't been healthy since sometime in 2005.

The trade for Mulder was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. He never produced for St. Louis and Danny Haren, half of what they gave up for Mulder, became a bona fide top-of-the-rotation starter for Oakland and Arizona and will probably get some Cy Young votes this year. The other player involved in the trade, Daric Barton, struggled this season when given Oakland's starting job at first base, but he is still only 22 years old and has a promising future.

The coda to this story is that there has been a lot of talk on blogs and in the St. Louis paper about the Cardinals perhaps making a similar trade this offseason for the Padres Jake Peavy. The proposed trade would have top prospect Colby Rasmus going to San Diego along with two young pitching prospects. There is no saying whether such a trade would turn out to be as big of a disaster as the Mulder trade, but it seems unlikely that the Cardinals will pay the price necessary to get Peavy with the risk that it could blow up in their face. Again.

Watched: 10/19/08 Game 7 Rays vs. Red Sox

2008-10-20T12:24:00.002-05:00

What a fantastic game. Matt Garza was fired up from the start, pumping fastballs up there at 94-95 mph. When Pedroia jumped on one in the first inning for a homer, I thought the Red Sox were going to finish off their comeback from being down three games to one. But Garza didn't allow another hit until the seventh inning.

Garza's curveball (which actually looked a bit slurvy to me) was his putaway pitch as he typically got ahead throwing fastballs past the hitters and finished them off by dropping in the curve. When Wheeler relieved Garza I was again afraid that the Red Sox were going to stage another comeback, but rookie phenom David Price emphatically slammed the door shut. He looked like the #1 overall pick last night and I would be surprised if Tampa doesn't use him as their closer the rest of the way.

A lot of writers are talking about how the World Series will get crappy t.v. ratings, but I'm really looking forward to the matchup. The Rays seem to have the advantage in starting pitching, but the Phillies lineup is just about as deep as the Rays. It should be interesting. My pick: Rays in 7.

2008 Playoffs

2008-10-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm a terrible blogger - sue me. It has been exactly two weeks since I last posted, but don't think that this is an apology and a promise to start posting more regularly. It isn't. I have come to realize that there is far too much going on in my life to have decent posts on a daily basis, so I am going to revert to posting whenever I attend a game, watch a particularly interesting game or have a post idea that particularly interests me. It may be three times a week, once a week or once a month. I apologize for the inconsistency, but that's life. If you don't want to visit the blog every day just to see if something new is posted, send me an email (roarke49 at hotmail dot com) and I will send out a notice whenever I post something new.

So, the playoffs start today (really they started a couple of days ago with the White Sox make up game and the tie-breaker game). Even if your favorite team is not involved, there is a reason to watch each of these series. Playoff baseball is usually very intense and every pitch takes on more meaning. Here are your reasons to watch each series, a breakdown of who should win and who I would like to win.

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Philadelphia Phillies

I picked the Brewers from the beginning of the season, believing that Ben Sheets would have a Cy Young caliber season and lead the team to the promised land. Sheets did pitch well, but got injured and now will miss the playoffs. No matter, the team picked up CC Sabathia and he led them to the playoffs. This is a fun team to watch with young sluggers like Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Corey Hart (whose second half swoon cost me in my wager) and savvy veterans like Mike Cameron and Ray Durham.

The Phillies are also a fun team with a balanced combination of speed (Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino) and power (Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell). They also have Cole Hamels as their ace pitcher to match up with Sabathia.

One weak point of both teams is starting pitching depth as Philly will send out Brett Myers (who re-discovered himself after being sent to the minors this season), Joe Blanton and Jaime Moyer while the Brewers have Yovani Gallardo (making his first start in a couple months today), Jeff Suppan and Dave Bush. In the bullpen the Phillies have the advantage, with Brad Lidge being one of the best closers in the game. The Brewers try and get by with Salomon Torres.

I'm going to give the edge to the Phillies because of I like their pitching staff better, but as a fan I'm pulling for the Brewers to win the series because I like their youngsters.

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs

A lot of people are pulling for the Chicago Cubs because they have a chance to win for the first time in 100 years, but, beyond my St. Louis bias against the Cubs, there is a very valid reason to be interested in the Cubs losing this series: think about the Red Sox - ok, got 'em in your head? You don't like them very much do you? Their fans are smug, they seem to get an inordinate amount of attention in the media and they spend almost as much as the Yankees do on their payroll. Well, the 2008 Cubs are a lot like the 2004 Red Sox. Both teams inflated their payroll in order to overcome a decades-long World Series drought and both teams became the media darling during the season. The world will be a better place if the Cubs don't replicate the Red Sox success of 2004.

On paper the Cubs match up well against the Dodgers. The Cubs have Zambrano, Dempster, Harden and Lilly as starters who are quite a bit more fearsome than the Dodgers starters: Lowe, Billingsly, Kuroda, Maddux. The Cubs also have a balanced offense built around Alfonso Soriano, Derek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. They are surrounded by veterans like Mark DeRosa, Jim Edmonds and Kosuke Fukudome and youngsters like probable ROY Geovany Soto and Ryan Theriot.

The Dodgers hopes rely on the hot bats of Manny Ramirez and Andre Ethier and solid performances from Russell Martin, Matt Kemp and James Loney. One wild card is the health of Rafael Furcal, who will be playing for the first time in a long time (and trying to earn himself a pile of cash in free agency). Healthy and motivated, Furcal could be a huge difference maker in this series.

I think the Cubs will probably win the series - they just have an edge in talent, especially their pitching staff (and I didn't even talk about Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol in their bullpen), that will be difficult for the Dodgers to overcome. Of course, I will be rooting for the Dodgers to beat the snot out of the Cubs at every turn.

Anaheim Angels vs. Boston Red Sox

Despite what I wrote above about the Red Sox, they are becoming more likeable. How can you not root for cancer survivor Jon Lester? How can you not like the shrewd trade of Manny Ramirez (and other spare parts) for Jason Bay? [ok, Manny has been great for LA, but in the long run the Red Sox did very well for themselves in getting Bay to replace Manny. He's maybe 75% of Manny offensively, but he's a lot better defensively and from a money standpoint they are getting much more value per dollar with Bay than with Manny] While the Red Sox could not pull out the division title, they are very dangerous as a Wild Card team. They have excellent pitching with Daisuke Matsuzaka, Jon Lester and hopefully a healthy Josh Beckett. They have a good bullpen with Jonathon Papelbon closing out games. And they have a solid lineup with sparkplug Dustin Pedroia, Big Papi, Bay, Ellsbury, Youkilis and a hopefully healthy JD Drew and Mike Lowell.

The Angels have been on cruise control this season, blowing away the AL West. They grabbed Torii Hunter in the offseason and Mark Teixeira during the season to go with Vladimir Guerrero and they have the strongest pitching staff in baseball with John Lackey, Jared Weaver, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana and Jon Garland starting and K-Rod closing games.

This should be a very interesting series and I think it may hinge on the health of several Boston players, most notably Josh Beckett. If Beckett can pitch and Lowell and Drew are at full strength, I think the Red Sox have a chance. Otherwise the Angels pitching will be too strong for them. I'm picking the Angels to win and that's who I'm rooting for, as well (yeah, yeah I know what I said about Lester and Bay, their fans are still too obnoxious to every root for that team).

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Chicago White Sox

The White Sox bring out conflicting feelings in me. On one hand I can't stand Ozzie Guillen's arrogant attitude (and his managing decisions are very Tony Pena-esque - just with better talent to employ). But on the other hand, it is difficult for me to root against good guys like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jim Thome trying to get their first World Series ring. The White Sox have a big hole in their lineup due to the injury to their team MVP, Carlos Quentin (.288/.394/.571 with 36HR in the 130 games before he broke his wrist) and Thome, Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko will have to step up to fill the void (the team went 11-14 in September after Quentin went down).

The Rays are one of the most exciting young teams in the majors with talented players like BJ Upton and Carl Crawford, who can do everything on the field and veteran Carlos Pena who crushes the ball. They also have a very talented pitching staff with James Shields, Scott Kazmir and Matt Garza leading the staff. Possibly the two best players on the team, however, are rookies that started the season in the minor leagues. Third baseman Evan Longoria is a power-hitting, gold glove caliber fielding stud that will be in MVP discussions for years to come (and should win the ROY this year) and LHP David Price was the first pick overall in 2007 and has the chance to dominate the league.

I like the Rays offense in this series, but the White Sox pitching (Burle, Vazquez, Danks, and Floyd starting and Jenks closing). I usually take the pitching over the hitting, but I think the White Sox are really going to miss Quentin in this series and the Rays will take it. I really can't say who I'll root for because I like the Rays young players, but I would like to see Griffey and Thome get their rings. Tough.

Building for 2009: Pittsburgh Pirates

2008-09-17T07:49:00.000-05:00

The Pirates are in disarray. No kidding, right? That statement has been true for quite some time. They have a .420 winning percentage, which puts them on pace to win 68 games this year. The good news is that they have a few talented young players; the bad news is that they don't nearly have enough.

The Pirates two highest paid players are arguably their worst everyday players. Second baseman Freddy Sanchez (scheduled to make $6.1M in 2009) and shortstop Jack Wilson (scheduled to make $7.5M in 2009) are being paid based on past performance and their present performance doesn't come close to those levels. Sanchez won the batting title in 2006 and was a valuable player that year, putting up a .344/.378/.473 line. He didn't walk a lot or hit a lot of home runs (6), but he hit a ton of singles and doubles. Unfortunately for the Pirates, they paid him based on that season and he has been progressively worse each year since then. In 2007 his line was .304/.343/.442 and this season it has been .267/.295/.368. He is only 30 years old this season, so it is possible that he could recoup some of the value that he's lost over the last two seasons, but it is unlikely that he will ever get back to his 2006 form, or provide enough value to be worth his contract.

Jack Wilson, on the other hand, has been bad for some time. In 2007 the Pirates benched him and tried to trade him (they couldn't find anyone willing to take on his contract) and it seemed to light a fire under Jack as he bounced back to put up a .296/.350/.440 line. It was good enough that the Pirates decided to stick with Jack and he started this season as the starting shortstop. Unfortunately, he reverted to his previous form and has put up a .274/.314/.351 line while playing only about half of the time.

The other half of their infield consists of the LaRoche brothers at the corners. The Pirates acquired Adam LaRoche after the 2006 season, when LaRoche had hit .285/.354/.561 with 32 homeruns. In a recurring theme, LaRoche hasn't repeated that performance since the trade. He has been solid, but not quite the intimidating middle-of-the-order threat that the Pirates had envisioned. They traded for Adam's younger brother Andy during this season. Andy has been a highly touted prospect for several years in the Dodgers organization. Andy crushed the ball at AAA, but never had the same performance at the big league level and many blamed his struggles on the Dodgers refusal to give him consistent playing time. He has struggled mightily since the trade (and he has been given consistent playing time for the Pirates), but he will begin 2009 as the everyday third baseman for the Pirates and most expect him to play well.

The Pirates best position player is playing center field for them this year. Nate McLouth didn't exactly come out of nowhere, but it was next to nowhere. McLouth was seen as a fourth outfielder type of guy that couldn't sustain his hitting as a full time player, but his at bats have increased in each of his four seasons and his numbers have gotten better as his playing time has increased. There was some hint of a breakout in his numbers last season (.258/.351/.459), but no one expected the season that he has had. McLouth has hit 26 home runs and stolen 20 bases while putting up a .280/.359/.515 line. I would expect that McLouth's numbers will regress towards his 2007 numbers, but he has earned himself a spot in the outfield next year.

The rest of the team is a mix of potential and potential gone wrong. Their catcher, Ryan Doumit has been excellent this year, putting up a .3185/.357/.495 line. He is a solid building block for the future. In addition to Andy LaRoche, the Pirates received outfielder Brandon Moss as part of the trade of Jason Bay. Moss has struggled a bit since coming over, and he doesn't look like a star, but he could be a solid major leaguer. The pitching staff has a lot of guys in their mid-20's that have had varied success in living up to their expectations. Starter Paul Maholm and closer Matt Capps have both pitched very well this season, while Zach Duke and Ian Snell have had their ups and downs. Jeff Karstens, who they received from the Yankees in the Xavier Nady trade, has pitched pretty well since becoming a Pirate.

So what should the Pirates do to build for 2009? Well, unfortunately, under even the sunniest of scenarios it is difficult to see the Pirates reaching .500 next year. Sure, they could back up a truck full of money and lure CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Mark Teixeira and several other free agents to the team and they'd be pretty good, but that isn't going to happen. The Pirates payroll was at $48.6M for 2008 and, except for getting Matt Morris' horrendous $9.5M off the books, the budget should be about the same for next year.

Help will be on its way from the minor leagues. Top prospect Andrew McCutcheon should be ready to start in center field for the Pirates next season. He is the proverbial 5 tool player and should be the guy that the Pirates build around for the future. Another guy to build around is Pedro Alvarez (assuming that the contract snafu with Scott Boras ever gets resolved). He was just drafted this past June and hasn't yet played any professional baseball, but he is expected to move very quickly through the farm system and might be ready for a major league role by 2010. The Pirates also have the enigmatic Jose Tabata, who they also received in the Xavier Nady trade. He has a lot of talent, but has never really lived up to the expectations placed on him. Perhaps he can blossom since he no longer has the pressure of being a Yankees prospect.

This isn't a very hopeful offseason plan, but my suggestion would be to try and trade Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez and one or two of their middling pitchers (Zach Duke or Phil Dumatrait might have some value) and try to get young middle infield talent and/or pitching. Nate McLouth, Andrew McCutcheon, Ryan Doumit, Andy LaRoche, Matt Capps and Paul Maholm are all young, inexpensive and under team control for the next several years. They should use those guys as the foundation for the team and continue to look for talent others have overlooked and fill around the core with inexpensive options. There would be no point in signing anyone to a big free agent contract at this point. The Pirates are playing for 2010-2011.

Desperation: The Milwaukee Brewers

2008-09-15T19:49:00.002-05:00

[UPDATE: DAILY LINKS FOR 9/16/08 HAVE BEEN ADDED BELOW]

Today the Brewers fired manager Ned Yost. Rob Neyer called the move unprecedented, in that no manager of a team in the running for the playoffs has been fired this late in the season. If the season ended today, the Brewers would be tied for the Wild Card. Of course, the Brewers have been in a big slide, having gone 3-11 so far this month.

So, has Yost been to blame for the slide? Well, Joe Sheehan points out that some questionable moves by Yost certainly haven't helped, but I don't think that you can reasonably place the blame on Yost for the Brewer's slide (mainly because managerial decisions don't really have that big of an impact on games).

But here's the thing: the Brewers had no other option. They went all in prior to the deadline by trading for CC Sabathia and that worked beautifully for them. Sabathia has been better than they could have ever hoped for. But Sabathia isn't enough and the Brewers can't make any more player moves. The playoffs are slowly slipping away from them and the team felt like it needed to make a move. Taking out Yost was really all that was left for them. The hope is that the move will serve as a wake up call over the next fifteen days and the team will catch fire heading into the playoffs. It is a move of desperation and probably the only move the team had left. The real question is why a talented team like this would need such a desperate measure to motivate them.

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Daily Links - 9/16/08

A few days ago, when I posted about Mickey Mantle being the greatest switch-hitter of all time, a commenter asked about Pete Rose (and continued to argue for Rose in private correspondence). I still don't think it is close between Mantle and Rose, although Rose was a great ballplayer. Coincidentally, Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) posted a comparison between Derek Jeter and Rose that is very close, at least through their age 34 seasons. I think I prefer Rose in that comparison, but it is a close call - Jeter will have to keep up his pace for several more years, though, in order to be close at the end of his career.

Is the Diamondbacks fall from grace due to the decidedly "un-clutch" David Eckstein? [Note: I pray that some day some one will find this site by googling "Decidedly un-clutch & Eckstein." That would be fantastic.]

Here are the quotes from last week. The Ned Yost quotes are particularly interesting.

This is an interesting Q&A from Baseball America that goes back and re-thinks the 2006 draft using what we know now about the players.

This post lists the worst #9 hitters ever. Why? I'm not really sure, but it is strangely fascinating. The worst ever was so bad that a baseball term was coined based on how crappy he was with a bat in his hands.

Daily Links - 9/15/08

2008-09-15T11:49:00.001-05:00

The Fire Joe Morgan guys are back with a nice, snarky little post about Ned Colletti.

Many people, me included, have complained about the selection process (and rationale) for the Hall of Fame - in this post, Chris Jaffe takes a look inside that process and explains why we shouldn't give up on it.

Carlos Zambrano pitched a no-hitter last night (and, of course, I wasn't watching - continuing my streak of missing no-hitters or turning the game on just as the first hit is allowed). His performance is broken down here.

And once again my internet connection is horribly slow this morning. I will try and update with more links later.

The After-Effects of a Work Stoppage (v.2008)

2008-09-10T19:49:00.007-05:00

[UPDATE: 9/11/08 LINKS HAVE BEEN ADDED BELOW]

I am going to poach an article that I wrote for my old website six years ago (I actually couldn't believe it when I saw the date on the article - it is amazing that I have been writing this drivel for that long). I am going back to this article because it is a topic that I find fascinating and because I think there is more to the story than I hit on back then.

I originally wrote this in August of 2002, as major league baseball was preparing for a work stoppage (which was averted before the deadline). What I wrote mainly concerns the fate of the Montreal Expos after the 1994 strike and then mentions a few other feats that were in progress in 1994 that were interrupted. Here is what I wrote then:

The Major League Player's Association has set a strike date for this Friday, September 30. I'm sure you already know this fact (if you don't then you've probably clicked on the wrong link). There are a multitude of articles being written lately about how the economics of baseball works (or doesn't work) and why there will or won't be a strike, depending on who is doing the writing. But I am going to take a different approach to this article, I am going to write about the effects of a work stoppage. No, I don't mean that fans will lose interest and that the economics will actually probably get worse before they ever get better. No, I am referring to the effects on the history of the game. Baseball is an inherently historical game. Players and teams do not just face their opponents of the day, but they also are challenging their historical predecessors. This is true because the game of baseball and its history is so very statistically oriented. The majority of baseball fans could tell you the signifigance of the numbers 755, 56, and 61. This article, then, will make a case study of the 1994 strike shortened season and its effects on the history and statistics of baseball.

In 1994 the player's union stuck in early August. Most teams had completed between 110 and 120 games of their schedule. The Montreal Expos had completed 114 games. Their record was 74-40, which is a winning percentage of .649, and they were six games ahead of Atlanta in the National League East. It is possible that Atlanta would have mounted a charge in the last 50 games to catch Montreal, but we will never know. Instead, let's look at the statistical projections based on the first 114 games of Montreal's season. They would have won the East by 9 games, winning a total of 105 games (which, by the way, would have projected to the best record in baseball). Here is their starting lineup and primary pitchers (with projected stats):

[Note: back in 2002 the level of sophistication that I used for statistics was really quite low. To project the stats I just took the prorated portion of the season and extended the statistics out as if they played 162 games. I am sure that BP and others have more sophisticated projection models that would take into account the remaining schedule and usage patterns in making a projection, but this is good enough for the purposes of this post]

C - Darrin Fletcher .260 14 hrs 81 rbi 0 sb
1B - Cliff Floyd .281 6 hrs 58 rbi 14 sb
2B - Mike Lansing .266 7 hrs 50 rbi 17 sb
3B - Sean Berry .278 16 hrs 58 rbi 20 sb
SS - Wil Cordero .294 21 hrs 90 rbi 23 sb
OF - Marquis Grissom .288 16 hrs 64 rbi 51 sb
OF - Moises Alou .339 31 hrs 111 rbi 10 sb
OF - Larry Walker .322 27 hrs 122 rbi 21 sb

SP - Ken Hill 23-7 3.32 era
SP - Pedro Martinez 16-7 3.42 era
SP - Jeff Fassero 11-9 2.99 era
SP - Kirk Rueter 10-4 5.17 era
SP - Butch Henry 11-4 2.43 era
RP - John Wetteland 6-9 2.83 era 36 saves
RP - Mel Rojas 4-3 3.32 era 23 saves
RP - Jeff Shaw 7-3 3.88 era

This team led the national league in ERA and SB, was tied for second in batting average, and was third in homeruns. The next year, though, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Ken Hill, and John Wetteland were gone. By 1998 not a single player listed above still played for the Expos. Would this team have been able to win the World Series in 1994? No one can answer that, but it was certainly a possibility. Would the Expos have been able to keep this team together even without the financial strain caused by the strike? Impossible to say, but you have to believe that the strike had a direct correlation with Montreal's subsequent fire sale of players. We know that Larry Walker went on to have an MVP season and continues to be one of the top players in the game, Moises Alou put up all-star numbers until the last two years when he disappeared due to injury, John Wetteland was an all-star closer and won a World Series with the Yankees, Cliff Floyd is just now reaching his full potential after years of solid play, Jeff Shaw was a solid closer for the Dodgers for several years, and of course, Pedro Martinez has been one of the top four or five pitchers in all of baseball over the last five years.

It is obvious that, if Montreal could have kept the core of this team together, they would have been one of the elite teams in baseball throughout the late 1990's. Usually success breeds fan interest. If the Expos had that kind of success, would there have been enough fan interest to remove them from Bud Selig's contraction chopping block?

There were other things happening in 1994 at the time of the strike besides the Expos strong season. Tony Gwynn was batting .394. Once again, we can only speculate as to whether he would have been able to improve his batting average by .006 over his last 45 games (San Diego played 117 before the strike), but it is certainly possible. The last person to bat .400 for a season was Ted Williams, but for the 1994 strike that piece of history might have changed. Matt Williams hit 43 homeruns in 1994. That put him on pace to hit 60.57 homeruns through a full season. Would he have broken the single season homerun record then held by Roger Maris? Who knows, but it was well within the realm of possibilities. If he had hit 62 homeruns, would people have treated Mark McGwire's 70 homeruns in 1998 with the same "disinterest" (that term is used loosely here) as they did with Barry Bonds' 73 homeruns in 2001? Instead McGwire is seen as the hero breaking Maris' record and Bonds is seen as, well, still a jerk, regardless of what he does on the field.

What we can see from this look back at 1994 is that the 20/20 vision of hindsight will be the true judge of the effects on baseball of a strike. It is impossible to see now what far-reaching effects the strike could have on the game of baseball.

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Ok, so that wasn't too bad - my writing hasn't really gotten better in the last six years, which is disappointing, but otherwise I think the point was adequately made (the one funny thing I found is how much I disliked Barry Bonds back then - I have mellowed on that quite a bit). I think the part about the strike leading to the downfall of the Expos is pretty good, actually.

Anyway, we now have even more perspective on the costs of the work stoppage, as some of the stars of that era have retired or are wrapping up their careers. I want to look especially at a player who wasn't mentioned in the original piece because he wasn't chasing any records, but who had a significant part of his prime cut down by the strike (there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 65-70 games per team lost due to the strike between 1994 and 1995 and if you assume a player has a three year "prime" then we are talking about close to 15% of their prime that was lost).

Greg Maddux

I once wrote an ill-conceived article for my old website about the twenty greatest pitching seasons ever. It was ill-conceived because my method for ranking the seasons was irretreivably flawed. Nonetheless, the two seasons that jumped out at me when making the list were Maddux' 1994 and 1995 seasons. Maddux clearly had other great seasons - '94 and '95 were #3-4 of a four year Cy Young streak for Maddux, and he is a no doubt first ballot Hall of Famer, but these two seasons were his absolute best.

In 1994 Maddux had an ERA+ of 271 (on an ERA of 1.56), which means that he was 171% better than league average. He went 16-6 with 10 complete games and three shutouts. He struck out 156 batters in 202 innings (people don't think of him as a strikeout pitcher, but his strikeout numbers are actually quite good) and walked an amazingly low 31 batters (as it turns out this wasn't his lowest BB/IP of his career, neither was 1995, but it is still incredible).

In 1995 Maddux had an ERA of 1.62, which made for an ERA+ of 262 (which, by the way, make Maddux' 1994 and 1995 the fourth and fifth best single season ERA+ ever). He went 19-2 and again had 10 complete games and 3 shutouts. He struck out 181 batters over 209.2 innings and only walked 23 batters (three of which were intentional - same as in 1994).

So what did Maddux lose in the strike? In 1994 he probably lost nine or ten starts and probably another four at the start of 1995. So baseball fans missed out on fourteen starts from one of the top two or three pitchers of the last twenty-five years at the very apex of his career. Statistically, Maddux probably would have two more 20 win seasons on his resume and 10 or 11 wins to add to his already-gaudy total, not to mention all of the peripheral counting stats he would have compiled. It may not seem like much because Maddux has had such a long and distinguished career that his accomplishments are still Hall of Fame worthy. But think about other superstar players and what their careers would look like if you cut out 15% of their prime. Just imagine what Maddux' career would look like if he had that 15% back.

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Daily Links - 9/11/08

This is a great post by Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) about Carlos Beltran, but the best part was when he listed the most absurd mishaps of the Royals over the last decade. What a team!

Buster Olney likes the Blue Jays going forward.

Here is a convincing argument that Todd Helton may be underrated and an attractive trade target this offseason.

Every year Tom Tango solicits opinions from fans on the fielding abilities of players they watch on a regular basis - a "wisdom of crowds" study. Here, Tom breaks down how fans viewed one team compared with how a (pseudo) expert viewed the same players.

Daily Links - 9/10/08

2008-09-10T11:49:00.002-05:00

In 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were chasing each other and Roger Maris, I was living in Virginia. Both of my roommates were huge baseball fans, although not Cardinals fans, and so we saw a lot of games. I remember that at the time that I would argue with people about McGwire being on steroids. I would argue that just because they found creatine in his locker, which wasn't illegal, it didn't mean that he took steroids. That seems pretty naive now and I think that I knew better even back then. But I wanted to believe. I wanted McGwire to break the record and become a national hero because he played for my hometown team (which is sort of silly when you think about it, but next to winning championships, holding all time records comes in second in bragging rights for a franchise).

It's funny, I don't think that the home run chase saved baseball for me - mid to late 1990's baseball was exciting enough to keep my interest (the emergence of the Yankees dynasty, the exploits of Griffey Jr., my hometown team becoming relevant again after a few lean years, etc.), but I think that the chase brought back a lot of the casual fans. A lot of people point to Cal Ripken, Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive games record, but, while that was made out to be an epic event, it wasn't as dramatic and engrossing as the home run chase. The home run chase was easy for the casual fan to follow and understand and it made for great summer theater. The steroids scandal has tainted the chase, but it was one of the greatest baseball events of this generation and the memory of that summer is still fond for me. The Jerks agree with me on this, too.

Kevin Goldstein is one of the best in the business when it comes to writing about baseball prospects. In this article (subscription only) he writes about a player from each major league team that took a big step forward in the minor leagues this year. (Prediction: Daryl Jones will be the player Kevin writes about for the Cardinals when he does the NL teams).

And here's a non-subscription Baseball Prospectus item: I don't agree with Joe Sheehan a lot of the time, but he covers a lot of ground in this chat and covers it well.

Here's a quick note about the surprising leaders in the category of infield hits.

The Greatest Switch Hitter of All Time

2008-09-08T20:49:00.003-05:00

[UPDATE: DAILY LINKS HAVE BEEN ADDED BELOW]

I have one of those page-a-day calendars on my desk that has sports trivia on each day. It is a little odd because the trivia doesn't have anything to do with what day it is, like most do, they are just random facts. Last week one of the facts started out like this: "Arguably the greatest switch hitter of all time, Mickey Mantle..."

Reading that, I wondered what the argument would be - who could possibly be argued to be a better switch hitter than the Mick? So I did a little digging and I don't think there is much of an argument. Here are the Mick's credentials:

18 season career: .298/.421/.557 536 home runs, 1,509 rbi (if you like that kind of thing), 153 stolen bases, 344 doubles, 2,415 hits, 172 OPS+. He also hit 50 or more homers twice, 40 or more homers four times, and 30 or more homers nine times. He also had more than 100 rbi four times and batted over .300 nine times. He won three MVP's, went to 20 all star games (early in his career there were two per year), won a triple crown and won a gold glove.

No other switch hitter really comes close to matching those numbers, but for fun here are the two closest competitors. First, their credentials:

Player #1 - 15 season career: .310/.406/.547 406 home runs, 1,366 rbi, 137 stolen bases, 445 doubles, 2,258 hits, 144 OPS+. He hit 40 or more homers once, and 30 or more six times. He had more than 100 rbi nine times and batted over .300 ten times. He won one MVP and went to five all star games.

Player #2 - 21 season career: .287/.359/.476 504 home runs, 1,917 rbi, 110 stolen bases, 560 doubles, 3,255 hits, 129 OPS+. He hit 30 or more homers five times, had 100 or more rbi six times and batted over .300 seven times. He also won rookie of the year, three gold gloves and went to eight all star games.

Can you guess who they are? Clearly, Player #2 is inferior to Player #1 (and certainly to Mantle). He doesn't get on base as much and didn't hit for as much power, although the length of his career allowed him to accumulate good numbers in the counting statistics. Player #2 is Eddie Murray. Quality ballplayer, not on same level as Mickey Mantle, but probably the third best switch hitter of all time.

Player #1 isn't much below Mantle in on base percentage or slugging percentage, but he does lag behind a bit. He is also behind in the counting stats, but, since this is an active player, he can still add to those totals. Player #1 is Chipper Jones. Jones is having a great season this year, although it has been marred by nagging injuries. Jones is only 36, so it isn't out of the question that he could play another three years to match Mantle's 18 seasons. If he does, it is likely that he would pass the Mick in rbi and hits, although it is unlikely that he will hit 130 home runs over that period. It is possible, however that he could get to 500 home runs in that time (although it might be a stretch considering his health issues).

So, in conclusion, I don't really think it is arguable that anyone has been a better switch hitter than Mickey Mantle. For that matter, there isn't really anyone currently active that could challenge him for that title: Chipper will fall short and guys like Lance Berkman and Mark Teixeira aren't really on pace to do it, either.

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Daily Links - 9/9/08

Here is a credible argument that Curtis Granderson is as good or better than Grady Sizemore.

Also from Fangraphs is a two part argument for Max Scherzer being in the Arizona starting rotation. Here is part one and here is part two.

Here is a pitching workload study on CC Sabathia from Josh Kalk.

A seemingly disinterested AL team has a tangential reason to watch the NL playoff race.

Daily Links - 9/8/08

2008-09-08T11:49:00.006-05:00

I live in Kansas City and in 2004 I bought a partial season ticket package for the Royals. I didn't do this because I am a huge Royals fan (my allegiance was and always will be with the Cardinals), but because I love baseball and the 2004 Royals seemed like an interesting team. They were coming off of a 2003 in which they were over .500 for the first time in 75 years (or it seemed that way, at least) and the team went out and spent some money on big name free agents (Juan Gonzalez and Benito Santiago are the two I remember off the top of my head). They had Carlos Beltran, Mike Sweeney and the reigning ROY: Angel Berroa. They also had some interesting pitching: Zach Greinke was a rookie that year and Mike McDougal and Jeremy Affeldt were nasty in the bullpen.

But things went horribly wrong for that Royals team. Gonzalez was hurt early in the season and played a total of 33 games for the Royals. Santiago was old and really bad. Greinke was magical at times, but the other pitchers were pretty disappointing. Tony Pena had managed in 2003 by the seat of his pants and all of his crazy manuevering somehow worked in his favor, against all odds. In 2004 every crazy move worked out the way it statistically should have: horribly.* And (here is the part where I actually get to the point and give you a link) Angel Berroa turned out to be a really poor baseball player. Joe Posnanski, TBSWIA, provides his account of Berroa's Royals career here. The next season I did not renew my season tickets but instead took the money and bought the Extra Inning package and several sets of Royals tickets to games that I actually cared about - a tradition that carries on to this day.

*Ok, so I am stealing the Posterisk thing from Joe, which I figure is fair since I am linking to his blog. The highlight of the 2004 season had to be opening day, which I attended with a friend. The Royals were behind big going into the ninth inning and somehow got the tying run to the plate in the form of Matt Stairs, one of the few true power threats that the Royals possessed. To counter Stairs, a lefty, the White Sox brought in Damaso Marte at which time Tony Pena made one of his absolutely insane moves and burned Matt Stairs for... wait for it... Mendy Lopez. I mean, sure, he was playing the lefty/righty matchup, but I think that 99 out of 100 times you would rather have Stairs face a lefty in that situation than have Mendy Lopez in the game at all. Luckily for Pena this was the 1 out of 100 time that it worked out: Mendy Lopez hit a game tying homer, which sent the crowd into a frenzy. Carlos Beltran followed with a walk-off home run, making the game perfect. By the way, Mendy Lopez batted .105/.209/.184 on the season with exactly one home run.

I agree with this post that finds the recent Dustin Pedroia-for-MVP movement a little bit over the top.

And actually, the links are going to be light today because my computer is running extremely slow and I need to get going. I will try and update this post later in the day.

Daily Links - 9/5/08

2008-09-05T07:49:00.000-05:00

What is the deal with Dustin Pedroia? That dude has been white hot recently and has carried the Red Sox offensively. Who would have thought that would happen?

Here is more evidence that K-Rod shouldn't be the Cy Young winner in the AL - this is the worst season of his career.

Aubrey Huff is a dark horse MVP candidate. Seriously. If Baltimore was anywhere near the playoff hunt he'd have an outside shot at it. This post discusses Huff's great season.

Here is Keith Law's early look at the 2009 MLB draft.

I missed this because it didn't show up on his blog (it's on SI), but here's Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA)'s take on the Tampa Bay Rays and hope.

Postseason Awards - American League

2008-09-03T19:49:00.001-05:00

As promised yesterday, here is the breakdown for the American League postseason awards.

MVP

Despite all the negative things said and written about Alex Rodriguez, he is still one of the front-runners for the MVP award. He is ninth in the league in batting average, fifth in the league in on base percentage and first in slugging percentage. He has hit 30 home runs, which ties him for sixth in the league. He has also stolen 16 bases. My guess, though, is that he won't win the award this year. The decision this year is not as clear in years past and the Yankees disappointing season, combined with the negative press A-Rod receives will work against him this year.

Maybe he doesn't deserve it anyway. Grady Sizemore has put up a .273/.385/.525 line and has 31 home runs and 35 stolen bases. The problem for Grady is that the Indians are currently under .500 (although they are surging) and voters don't usually like candidates that play for teams that are out of the playoff hunt. Carlos Quentin plays for a contender and has a .288/.394/.571 line and leads the league with 36 home runs. An argument could be made for Josh Hamilton because he leads the league with 121 RBI, but I'm not even going to dignify that. Joe Mauer has a very good line, but his power numbers are a bit too low and his high batting average and on base percentage can't make up the difference between him and other candidates.

I really think that a vote for A-Rod or Grady Sizemore would be a rational pick, but that the BWAA will probably not be rational and will choose Quentin.

My pick: Alex Rodriguez
My preseason pick: Alex Rodriguez

Cy Young

By almost any metric, the answer here is Cliff Lee. He leads the league in wins (20-2) and ERA (2.32) and is second in innings pitched. The only starter that is close is Roy Halliday, who is tied for second in wins (17-9), third in ERA (2.69) and is third in the league in strikeouts with 178. The only problem with these two candidates is that their teams are not in contention, which is important to the voters. Ervin Santana pitches for the Angels, who will win the AL West, and he has a 14-5 record with a 3.31 ERA and 183 strikeouts. Those are great numbers, but I don't think the contention of his team is enough to overcome almost a full run in ERA.

The complicating factor this year is that Francisco Rodriguez will almost certainly break the single season record for saves this year. He already has 54 and those kinds of things really impress the voters. The problem is that, while he has piled up the saves, he hasn't really even been the best closer in the American League, much less the best pitcher. Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) made the argument that K-Rod is undeserving of the Cy Young better than I could in a digression in this post, so just go there and read Joe's take - I'll wait. Ok, are you back? I can understand if you just stayed over there and read all of Joe's stuff, but then you would miss my picks:

My pick: Cliff Lee
My preseason pick: Daisuke Matsuzaka - he would have been a great pick if he hadn't missed some time this season: 16-2 with a 2.88 ERA and 131 strikeouts in 146.2 innings.

ROY

Evan Longoria was called up a month into the season and has missed about a month since then due to a hand injury, so he only has 381 at bats. In that time, however, he put up a .278/.352/.533 line with 22 home runs, seven stolen bases and outstanding third base defense. His competition is, uh, hmmm... Alexei Ramirez? With a .306/.324/.491 line and 16 home runs, he's had a solid season, but I'd put him short of Longoria. David Murphy? Ben Francisco? How about Armando Galarraga and his 12-4 record with a 3.17 ERA and 108 strikeouts? Nice, but...

My pick: Evan Longoria
My preseason pick: Adam Jones, who has had a good year, but apparently isn't eligible for the ROY (yup, I'm an idiot). I did mention Longoria would win if given enough at bats, so I get partial credit, right?

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Daily Links - 9/4/08

TBSWIA, Joe Posnanski, weighs in on some Hall of Fame comparisons. This is another one of those classic topic to argue in baseball, just like postseason awards.

Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus takes a look at some interesting September call ups.

Buster Olney has the details of a great story from last night's games that will make any true baseball fan smile.

Post Season Awards - National League

2008-09-02T19:49:00.003-05:00

This is such a typical topic - everyone that writes about baseball has a column like this every year. But I can't help it, these are the arguments that make baseball fun.

National League MVP

Call me biased, but I think the choice here is clear cut. Albert Pujols currently leads the National League in batting average, on base percentage and slugging percentage. He is in the top ten in hits, doubles, home runs and walks. Of course, unless a miracle occurs the Cardinals won't make the playoffs and a lot of voters put a lot of weight into a candidate's team success.

Albert's closest competitor also suffers from the same problem, however. Lance Berkman is third in batting average, third in on base percentage and second in slugging percentage. But he is a clear second to Pujols and since the Astros aren't going to make the playoffs either, it is unlikely that he will win the award over Albert.

So who is on a contending team that could win the award? Well, Ryan Braun has put up a .304/.344/.597 line with 34 homers and 11 stolen bases for the Brewers, Chase Utley has put up a .293/.382/.550 line with 31 home runs and 12 stolen bases for the Phillies and David Wright has put up a .292/.383/.521 line with 27 homers and 14 stolen bases for the Mets. Each of these candidates are inferior to Lance Berkman and, especially, Albert Pujols, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of them won the award, considering past voting of the BWAA.

My choice: Pujols.
My preseason choice: David Wright, who still has a shot.

Cy Young Award

This award isn't quite so clear. The question is muddied by the fact that Brandon Webb has three more wins than any other NL starter. He will likely be the league's only 20 game winner and the BWAA puts a lot of emphasis on wins, which is ridiculous. Webb has had a bad couple of starts lately, which has brought his peripheral stats back to the pack - three weeks ago it was inconceivable that anyone else could win this award. Now the matter is not so certain.

Webb is currently 19-6 with a 3.19 ERA and 160 strikeouts. The league leader in strikeouts and ERA is Tim Lincecum, who is 15-3 with a 2.43 ERA and 210 strikeouts. Lincecum has put up these numbers while pitching for a terrible Giants team, which you would think would make his numbers all that much more impressive, but voters, as with the MVP, often vote for a guy on a winning team.

Other candidates are Johan Santana, who is 12-7 with a 2.67 ERA and 169 strikeouts for the Mets, Ryan Dempster, who is 15-5 with a 2.95 ERA and 160 strikeouts for the Cubs, and Edinson Volquez, who is 16-5 with a 3.04 ERA and 161 strikeouts. Some are arguing for CC Sabathia, who is 9-0 with a 1.43 ERA and 88 strikeouts in 11 starts since being traded to the Brewers, but I don't like the idea of giving the award to a guy that only played in the NL for half the year.

My choice: Lincecum.
My preseason pick: Ben Sheets (12-7 with a 2.97 ERA and 144 strikeouts - not a bad choice, probably in the top ten).

Rookie of the Year

This has become a runaway race since Kosuke Fukudome has slumped badly in the second half. His departure from the race leaves his teammate Geovany Soto as the clear front runner. He has put up an excellent .292/.371/.508 line with 20 home runs. Coming in a distant second would be Joey Votto, who has put up a .294/.361/.458 line with 15 homers, which are decent numbers, but clearly second to Soto. Immediately after he was called up, Jay Bruce looked like he was going to take over this race, but he has fallen off quite a bit after a hot first couple of weeks.

My pick: Geovany Soto.
My preseason pick: Soto.

Tomorrow: the American League

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Daily Links - 9/3/08

Tom Verducci agrees with me about CC Sabathia and the Cy Young and then lists the five most impactful mid-season trades of the last twenty-five years.

Here is a breakdown of the AL Central race by Baseball Musings.

Here is a look at the very nice crop of free agent pitchers that will be available this offseason.

This entry takes a look at what should be looked at when considering choices for MVP and Cy Young.

Daily Links - 9/2/08

2008-09-02T11:49:00.002-05:00

Well, we've made it to September. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day - I did, mainly because I didn't do much but lay around. Perfect. Anyway, as we head down the home stretch I'm going to do a few more posts about building for 2009, a few posts about season performance vs. playoff performance and definitely a recap of my preseason predictions, so look for all that over the next few weeks. Now, on to the links:

Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) was way more productive than I was over the holiday weekend, posting three times. This post is a breakdown of good managing as exemplified by Ron Gardenshire. Personally, I think managers are overrated: they neither help nor hurt their teams as much as most people suggest.

This post from Hef at Major League Jerks is also a few days old, but I love stuff like this. He breaks down the performance of the Dodgers and D-Backs since the respective trades for Manny Ramirez and Adam Dunn.

Quotes, quotes and more quotes.

Here is a detailed breakdown of Josh Beckett, whose health and success is essential for the Red Sox's chances in October.

I completely agree with this take on the Brewers protest of the scorer's decision during CC Sabathia's one-hitter that if overruled would make it a no-hitter.

Daily Links - 8/29/08

2008-08-29T11:49:00.003-05:00

I'm really not sure what to think about the Pedro Alvarez situation with Pittsburgh. On one hand, it appears as if Scott Boras is (again) trying to game the system, but on the other hand it is his job to advocate for his client to the best of his abilities. I think I'm going to have to go against Alvarez on this one because he is going back on his agreement with the team. This article is subscription only at Baseball Prospectus, but it does a really good job of going over all the details and possibilities of the situation (and besides, why don't you have a subscription to BP - don't you like baseball?).

Here is Tangotiger's take on rule changes. I don't exactly agree with him here (some of his hypothetical rule changes would not sit well with me, and not from a "watched Field of Dreams too many times" standpoint, but from the standpoint that they seem arbitrary and would not advance the purpose of finding a clear winner on the field), but he makes some interesting points, especially regarding HR review (which I do agree with).

Here is an interesting use of fielding metrics to analyze players over the last five years.

John Heyman gives his opinion on what teams will do this offseason with several high priced players that have team options for next year.

Daily Links - 8/28/08

2008-08-28T11:49:00.002-05:00

First, a post from Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) regarding how to determine good pitching performance. Then, a post from the Fire Joe Morgan guys about judging pitching performances against standards set long ago. These posts don't exactly disagree, but Joe comes close to saying some things that the FJM guys would throw a fit about.

Joe and FJM definitely agree on the value of a 'Win' as a pitching statistic.

The Hardball Times continues its excellent series of breaking down players from the most recent draft.

This is one of the cooler things on baseball on the internet: using the wisdom of crowds to scout baseball players. If you've watched some games and have opinions on players - go fill out a form.

Building the 2009 Washington Nationals

2008-08-26T19:49:00.000-05:00

The Washington Nationals are really bad. They are on pace to win only 57 games this season after winning 73 last season. The interesting thing about the team, though, is that they really aren't in bad shape. Ok, that's an overstatement - they are in bad shape, but things could be a lot worse - they have no players that are making more than $10M a year and they have no contractual obligations that extend past 2010 (and there are only a couple that go past 2009). So, while the roster is pretty bad right now, the team is in a position to make moves and turn over as much of the roster as they desire.

The Nationals best player is Ryan Zimmerman, who is a fantastic defensive third baseman and has been a terrific hitter in the past, although he has slumped this season to a line of .268/.315/.403. The team has surrounded him with a group of talented hitters that, either through injury or attitude problems, have failed to live up to their billing. Imagine what this lineup could do if they could all stay healthy for a full season:

Christian Guzman
Lastings Milledge
Ryan Zimmerman
Nick Johnson (or Dmitri Young)
Austin Kearns
Wily Mo Pena (or Elijah Dukes)
Ronnie Belliard
Jesus Flores
Pitcher Spot

So, while the Nationals have done a good job of accumulating unrealized talent, it has been their misfortune that none of these guys have had a breakthough. You would think that at some point one of these "projects" would end up working out and turn into a very good major league ballplayer.

The pitching staff, unfortunately, doesn't even have the upside that is present in the offense. John Lannan is the only starter they have that has value going forward and he is probably best suited to be a #3 starter. To add insult to injury, the Nationals have taken polished college starters with thier first pick in each of the last two drafts and the 2007 pick, Ross Detwiler has struggled in the minors and the 2008 pick Aaron Crow did not sign and will go back into the draft pool next season.

As opposed to their hitting, however, the Nationals didn't fill out their pitching staff with high potential offcasts, instead they signed no-upside retreads like Odalis Perez and Tim Redding. They, predictably, received mediocrity in return which would have been a decent temprorary fix if their offense had broken through, but instead they have become the worst team in baseball.

The Nationals 2008 team salary is about $55M. After offsetting some salaries that are coming off the books with some built-in increases, it looks like the Nationals will have about $20M to spend in free agency this offseason (while keeping their budget the same as in 2008). I think they should continue the strategy of investing in high potential players that can be acquired cheaply - eventually one of these guys will be an impact player. They should extend that strategy to pitchers as well and try and accumulate talent for the pitching staff.

But the best way to spend the money they have available would be on a free agent starting pitcher. They have a lot of holes in their pitching staff, many of which can be filled by dumpster diving, but you usually cannot get a staff ace that way. The Nationals will almost certainly never attract Ben Sheets, CC Sabathia or anyone at that level, but if they can get one or two solid pitchers that can be quality major league starting pitchers- similar to the way the Royals grabbed Gil Meche in 2007 - they will take a big step towards respectability. I think the Nationals should spend what it takes to get Kyle Lohse and Oliver Perez. Combined with John Lannan, they would have three solid major league pitchers. If they dumpster dive for some other young pitchers, they would have a respectable starting rotation.

Then, whatever money is left should be spent on the medical staff so they can try and keep their talented young hitters healthy and on the field. The road to respectability isn't as long as it may seem.

Building the 2009 Royals

2008-08-24T19:19:00.005-05:00

With most of the focus turned to the playoff race, I thought now might be an intersting time to look at some teams that are far out of the race in an effort to see what they can do to be in the race next year (or, in the near future). First up is the Kansas City Royals.

The Royals began the season with as much hope as they have had since 2004, when they were coming off a 2003 season in which they were over .500 for the first time in a long time. The reasons for hope this year were different: they had a GM in Dayton Moore who seemed like he knew what he was doing, the team had spent big bucks on a free agent acquisition for the second off season in a row and fans were expecting some of the promise of the minor league system to finally turn into production.

As it turns out, the team has not quite lived up to the preseason hope of the fans. They are on pace to win 70 games, one more than they won last season. There are signs of long term hope, however. Zach Greinke has matured into a solid major league starting pitcher, Gil Meche continues to be worth the big free agent deal that he was signed to in 2007 and Joakim Soria has turned into one of the best young closers in all of baseball.

On offense all of the positives carry caveats: David DeJesus will never be a superstar, but he is a solid major league ballplayer; Alex Gordon has not yet lived up to the hype (and has paled in comparison to Ryan Braun, who was selected after him in the draft), but he has become solid and shows signs of the talent that made him the first overall draft pick; and Billy Butler has shown a lot more power since he was recalled at mid-season.

The negatives are numerous. First is that they still owe $24M over two years to Jose Guillen, who, aside from one scorching hot month, has been one of the worst outfielders in baseball. I didn't like the signing at the time and it looks worse now. Additionally, Brian Bannister has regressed, as many thought he would (to his credit, he foresaw this also and tried to adjust his game this season to compensate - he just hasn't found the right adjustment). So, while Bannister was thought to be a credible #4 starter at the beginning of the season, he has turned out to be a disaster more often than not. Finally, Mark Teahen has never regained his form from the last half of 2006, when it looked like he would become a quality power bat as a right fielder. Now, with Guillen on board he has shifted to left field and has batted like an "all glove" middle infielder.

From the looks of things, the Royals might have about $20M to spend this offseason. So what can they do to contend in the future? They are set at 3B, DH, CF, closer and 40% of their pitching staff. Anywhere else on the field that they can get better, they need to.

Between Bannister, Kyle Davies and Luke Hochever, they should be able to cobble together a decent back end of the rotation, but none of those guys should be counted on as a top 3 starting pitcher. One place they should be looking to improve is the starting rotation. Of course, without upgrade in other positions, spending a lot of money on a high dollar free agent pitcher would be pointless, so guys like CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets and even Jon Garland are out of the question (if they would even consider Kansas City in the first place). The Royals should be looking at guys like Anthony Reyes, who was acquired on the cheap by Cleveland because he'd worn out his welcome in St. Louis. Young scrap heap pitchers with upside is they way to go for the Royals until they can solidify the rest of the team (then spend big on pitchers).

As for the offense, the Royals have holes at 1B, 2B, and Shortstop. For first base, they have a 24 year old minor leaguer named Kila Kaaihue who should be given every opportunity to win the starting job next year. He tore up AA this year and has continued his success at AAA since his promotion. He hits for power and has good plate discipline, but he doesn't exactly have a long track record of success in the minors, so this season could be a mirage, but the Royals need to find out. At shortstop, the Royals have been playing Mike Aviles, a 27-year-old rookie that is having his best season of his career. Even if he can't duplicate his .332/.357/.500 line (and I wouldn't expect him to), playing him for a full season would be a huge upgrade over giving 201 shortstop at bats to the worst everyday player in baseball (Tony Pena, Jr.).

That leaves scond base, which is where I think the Royals should spend their money this offseason. I would target Orlando Hudson as priority #1 for the Royals in their free agent quest. Hudson is a very underrated hitter, .305/.367/.450 before getting injured this season, and is one of the best (if not the best) defensive second basemen in all of baseball. Having him on the team would not only give them a bat in the top 3 of the lineup, but he would make all of their pitchers better with his fielding.

The Royals have the makings of a decent team. Greinke and Meche give them the beginnings of a respectable rotation; Soria and Ron Mahay provide the foundation for a solid bullpen; and DeJesus, Gordon and Butler have the ability to be part of a good offense. Adding Orlando Hudson will not allow them to contend, but I think his acquisition would be the best way for the Royals to spend their money this offseason (getting lucky with a couple of low cost upgrades to the rotation and having some of their young players take full strides forward would be helpful, too).

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8/25/08 Daily Links

I didn't post at all last week because an illness that kept me isolated in an oxygen bubble all week (not really, but close). I did read a little about baseball during that time, though, including this article by Tom Verducci that I found fascinating. I am really interested in pitchers' health and proper mechanics, so I will be curious to see how Lincecum's career continues.

Also from last week is this post by TBSWIA, Joe Posnanski - his final from Beijing - as he ponders the meaning of a Tony Pena, Jr. bobblehead.

This article discusses poor starts to outstanding seasons.

Here is yet another example of a team getting bitten by trading prospects for a 'proven veteran'.

Daily Links - 8/15/08

2008-08-15T11:49:00.002-05:00

Here is an update on the unsigned first round draft picks. The Aaron Crow thing is a mess - it's too bad that he signed with an agent or else he could have gone back to Mizzou for his senior year. Instead he's signed with an independent league, should negotiations fail to result in a deal.

Should Tampa fans be worried now that Longoria and Crawford are hurt? Here's a look at some simulations to predict the Rays future.

The Hardball Times 'Remains of the Season' series hits the New York Yankees.

Here is a quick look at the top five picks in the last five drafts and what they are doing today.

A scary thought from Rob Neyer: the Yankees payroll will be increasing next year.

That's all I've got for this week. Enjoy the weekend.

Pitch f/x: Randy Johnson

2008-08-13T21:49:00.001-05:00

I really wish that Pitch f/x had been around in the late 90's and early 2000's so we could look at what Johnson did back when he was absolutely dominant, but it has only been around since 2005. Still, it is interesting to take a brief look at his pitch selection since he turned 40 years old.

The first thing that I noticed is that there is a clear delineation between the first two years, when Johnson was with the Yankees, and the second two years since he re-joined the Diamondbacks. With the Yankees he was very consistent: 56% fastballs both years, similar slider numbers and asmall percentage shift from a curveball to a splitter between the first and second season.

Then, when he moved to Arizona and the National League, the number of fastballs dropped to 51.5% (which he has maintained over both seasons) and the number of splitters jumped from 6.7% to 11.7%.

The second thing that jumps right out at you is the decrease in velocity. Even through last season he was still averaging 92.3mph on his fastball, but this season it has dropped to 90.8mph.

So the shift is clear: as Johnson has gotten older and his fastball has lost a tick or two he has had to become more of a crafty veteran, throwing more splitters. Where he used to overpower hitters, now he has to decieve them.

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Daily Links - 8/14/08

This blog post by Will Carroll is the second reference I've heard to CC Sabbathia winning the NL Cy Young in the past couple of days. He has certainly been amazing since getting picked up by the Brewers, but something doesn't seem quite right about it. I can't really put my finger on it, because the award goes to the best pitcher in the league that season, and if Sabbathia only requires 60% of the season to prove that, then why not? But it seems a bit fortuitous that Sabbathia's sub-par start to the season gets to be disregarded because the best part of his season came after the trade.

The famous Fetch, from Major League Jerk, writes about the rough start for Team USA in Beijing. I didn't see the game, but I agree with Fetch: when I looked at the box score and saw that John Gall had led off for the US, I did a double-take. What was that all about?

The results are in on the poll presented last week on the Hardball Times regarding ethics and baseball.

Here is a first hand account of the crazy game played at Fenway on Tuesday night.

This is a quick look at closers vs. set up men in terms of which are used in more important situations. The standard pattern of 'closer' usage in baseball has been one of my pet peeves for a while now. Interestingly, the Cardinals have used rookie closer Chris Perez in a save situation in the eighth inning twice this week and allowed him to finish the game.

Daily Links - 8/13/08

2008-08-13T11:49:00.002-05:00

Joe Posnanski: even with the room spinning he's TBSWIA.

Dak seems to be a little tired of writing for Fire Joe Morgan (which must seem like banging your head against a wall at times when the same crappy articles keep coming up), but it is entertaining nonetheless.

The Major League Jerks weigh in on the Adam Dunn trade. I'm not sure I agree with the comment towards the bottom of the article from a reader - Dunn is a 29 year old outfielder that is in the prime of his pitcher-bashing career, I can't imagine that he would accept arbitration and forego the opportunity to test the free agent market. Hef's response, though, that Arizona would probably take him on a one-year, arbitration determined salary, is right on the mark.

mgl at Inside the Book does not like the Red Sox acquisition of Paul Byrd. Emphatically.

JP Ricciardi in Toronto is proud that he has stocked his team with "character guys", but they don't have much of a winning character, do they?

Daily Links - 8/12/08

2008-08-12T11:49:00.002-05:00

Ken Tremendous at Fire Joe Morgan checks in with a JoeChat.

Christina Kahrl breaks down the Adam Dunn trade and provides an interesting nugget that I hadn't seen (or maybe 'noticed' is the right word): Cincinnati also paid Arizona $2M to take Dunn. I thought Arizona was getting a great deal before I realized that fact and that just seems like piling on.

Baseball America answers a question about the unsigned draft picks as we come up on three days left before the signing deadline.

Here is a look at Randy Johnson's peak of dominance. I would have never thought that Johnson would continue to be successful this long. He clearly isn't dominant, or even a #1 or #2 pitcher anymore, but he is still effective as a #3 for Arizona, which is amazing at age 44 for a guy that always was high effort in his delivery.

An interesting roundtable discussion here with Paul DePodesta.

Trade: Adam Dunn to Arizona

2008-08-11T19:49:00.001-05:00

I'm more than a little befuddled by this. Mainly I can't believe that Adam Dunn made it all the way through waivers to Arizona. Every other team in the National League with a worse record than Arizona had a chance to claim him. Dunn was playing this year on a $13M extention and he will be a free agent after the season. So, pretend you are the Washington Nationals (I know, it's painful). You could have claimed Adam Dunn on waivers and then either the Reds would try and work out a trade with you (which you probably wouldn't have tried too hard to pull off), the Reds would have pulled Dunn back off waivers (which costs you nothing) or the Reds could have just let you assume his salary for the rest of the year. In the first two cases you are out nothing and in the third case you get Adam Dunn for two months of the season at a prorated cost of his salary (which is pretty reasonable for his production) and then he leaves at the end of the year and you get two draft picks as compensation. Why wouldn't they take the chance?

But no one claimed Dunn until the Diamondbacks (meaning eight teams passed on him). So then, the question becomes whether the package of prospects that Cincinnati received were more valuable than the two compensation picks that they would have received if they had held onto Dunn. The primary player the Reds received was Dallas Buck, who was a third round draft pick in 2006 and was currently pitching at single A after having Tommy John surgery. They will also receive two players to be named later, which could mean that they have either been drafted too recently to be traded at this point or that they compensation will depend on Arizona's results (i.e. if they make the playoffs they get two guys out of group A, if they miss the playoff they get three maple bats and a dozen balls). It will be impossible to evaluate the cache the Reds received until we know who the players to be named later are, but if Buck is the centerpiece, I'd be a little disappointed.

As for the D-Backs, Adam Dunn gives them a huge lift in the middle of their order. Dunn is a monster: he gets on base at a great clip (.373 on the season) and hits for immense power (.528 slugging percentage, 32 home runs on the season). He is undervalued by some that focus on traditional statistics because he strikes out a lot and never hits for a high average (only .233 on the season), but Dunn will immediately step into the cleanup role for the Diamondbacks and will provide a big veteran bat down the stretch to go along with all the talented youngsters already in the lineup.

The cost for Arizona is clearly worth it. They have answered their rival Dodgers' acquisition of Manny Ramirez and given themselves a great chance to make the playoffs. When the cost is three low level prospects, which will be partially replenished by the two compensatory draft picks they should receive when Dunn signs elsewhere in the offseason, it seems clear that they got a great deal.

Daily Links - 8/11/08

2008-08-11T11:49:00.002-05:00

There is more from Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) on Albert Pujols after someone irrationally accused him of padding stats by only coming up big when it didn't matter. Apparently said person doesn't watch Albert regularly. I think Joe's method of calculating his new stat is a bit flawed, but give him a break, he's watching synchronized swimming in Beijing.

Here's another article, this one from John Perrotto at Baseball Prospectus, that lists out some players that might move this month before the waiver trading deadline.

Baseball America has a roundup from the Aflac high school all american game.

Miguel Cabrera for MVP? Before the season it would have been eminently reasonable, mid-season it would have seemed impossible and now Sky makes a credible argument for it playing out just that way.

Profile: Vernon Wells

2008-08-10T19:49:00.001-05:00

In the winter after the 2006 season Vernon Wells signed a seven year, $126M extension to stay with the Toronto Blue Jays. He turned 28 years old that same winter and was a year away from free agency. He was seen as a perennial fringe MVP candidate that was just entering the prime of his career. In 2006 he put up a .303/.357/.542 line with 32 homeruns and 17 stolen bases and he seemed to be on the verge of superstardom.

Since Wells signed that contract, however, he has played a season and a half of very mediocre baseball. Now the Blue Jays are looking at paying Wells and average of $18M a year for the next five years and he may be the most overpaid player in baseball. So what happened?

The first thing to note is that there were signs before 2006 that Wells might not be the superstar that many thought him to be. He had an MVP caliber season in 2003, putting up a .317/.359/.550 line, which was very similar to his 2006 season, but his other three full major league seasons (2002, 2004 and 2005) weren't nearly as good. He failed to hit better than .275, get on base better than .337 and slug better than .472 in any of those three seasons. Also, prior to 2006 he had never had double digits in steals. So, while he had flashes of brilliance, he had not been consistent in his performance throughout his career.

In fact, this season when he's been healthy (he's only played in 64 games on the year), his numbers have been very comparable to the rest of his career. His line this season is .287/.339/.449, which is right in line with his 'down' years. But his 2007 was an unmitigated disaster. His line was .245/.304/.402 with 16 home runs in 149 games.

Perhaps Wells got lazy because he was making the big bucks, or maybe the put too much pressure on himself to live up to the contract - or maybe he was just unlucky. Wells' BABIP was .265, well below league average and also the lowest of his career and his line drive rate was also the lowest of his career, while his home run per fly ball rate plummeted to 7.3% (his career rate is 12.3%). Regardless of the reason, all of those numbers point to one thing: 2007 is the anamoly in Wells' career.

So, while injuries have hidden it to a certain extent this season because the accumalated numbers aren't there, Wells has returned to his career averages. I am sure that the Blue Jays had hoped that Wells would take a step forward in his 28 year-old season instead of having the worst season of his career, but the truth is that Wells has not performed too far below his established level since signing his big contract. The answer, then, to the question posed above, what happened to Vernon Wells, is: nothing. He hasn't performed like an $18M ballplayer, but there wasn't a real good reason to bet that he would improve to that level in the first place.

My guess is that Wells will get healthy and have a nice season, perhaps even back to the 2006 level, sometime before his contract expires. Given his career to this point it should be expected that he will perform at that level again. He will almost certainly never live up to the huge contract that he signed prior to 2007, but you can't blame Wells for the Blue Jays' willingness to overpay him.

Daily Links - 8/7/08

2008-08-07T11:49:00.002-05:00

Well, it was bound to happen and it has: Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) wrote a post dedicated to the best player on my favorite team - Albert Pujols. It is a great post, as always. Today is my lucky day.

Here is a post (with scouting video) about a player that could be drafted three years from now. Wait until you read the superlatives about him before you decide that it is too early to be thinking about the 2011 draft.

Waiver wire intrigue - a mystery team claimed Brian Giles.

Here is a contrary opinion to the near-universal (at least by internet analysts) dislike for Juan Pierre batting leadoff for the Dodgers. As a bonus, the author takes a shot at Joe Sheehan's logic towards the end.

This is a really interesting study about ranking baseball's ethical transgressions and a link to allow you to rank them. Also, the Hardball Times continues its series of projecting the rest of the season by taking on the Cardinals.

Daily Links - 8/6/08

2008-08-06T11:49:00.003-05:00

This is one of the best running bits around: Baseball Prospectus' transaction roundup. Christina Kahrl does a great job of providing analysis to all the moves made around the league.

The ongoing mess that was Jose Vidro's performance as Mariner's DH has finally come to an end. He has been terrible this season and it was borderline lunacy to continue to play him everyday as the DH.

Joba is going to see Dr. Andrews. That's not a good sign. It seems to me (and I haven't don't any research on this, so it's just a baseless impression) that shoulder woes are more difficult than elbow problems. If it's an elbow problem they just do Tommy John surgery and the pitcher comes back in 18 months, better than ever. But shoulder problems seem to linger and the pitcher is never quite the same again (see: Mark Mulder). Hopefully Joba doesn't have any serious issues with his shoulder.

I haven't delved into this too much, but if Sky says that there is a stat that is better than VORP for valuing a player in-season, then it is worth looking into. Note that the team rankings at the end have the Cardinals #1 (which makes me somewhat skeptical of the stat since they have given far too many at bats to guys like Cesar Izturis and Chris Duncan this year).

More speculation about Mark Cuban and the Cubs here. There is a valid point in this about the anti-trust exemption. If the exemption were repealed it would change the landscape of professional baseball. It would be a shrewd move for Cuban to threaten it as a way to strongarm the other owners into approving the sale of the Cubs to him.

Trade: 2005 Shortstop Carousel

2008-08-05T17:49:00.002-05:00

Watching the Blue Jays game yesterday and seeing David Eckstein play second base for Toronto reminded me of one of the more intriguing player movements in recent history. After the 2004 season, three teams switched starting shortstops. The Red Sox signed Edgar Renteria, who had been with the Cardinals, to a four year/$40M contract. The Angels signed Orlando Cabrera, who had been with the Red Sox, to a four year/$32M contract. And, after the Angels waived him, the Cardinals signed David Eckstein to a three year/$10.25M contract.

It was a unique situation because all three played the same position, all three were the same age (30 years old at the time), and all signed brand new contracts. These factors make the comparisons pretty straightforward.

Renteria and Cabrera are now in the last year of their contracts, and Eckstein's expired after last season. One telling fact to start with is that neither Reteria or Cabrera stayed with the team that signed them through the life of the contract, while Eckstein did. Renteria lasted only one year in Boston before he was traded to Atlanta for two years and then traded to Detroit before this season. Cabrera lasted three full seasons with the Angels before getting traded to the White Sox before this season.

I am going to use WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player, described here) as a way to compare these three players and determine which team got the best of their deals. I like WARP for this purpose because it takes fielding into account.

Here are the cumulative WARP totals for the 2005-2007 seasons:

Eckstein - 15.6
Cabrera - 17.4
Renteria - 15.8

Based on raw numbers, Cabrera was the best of the three, followed by Renteria and then Eckstein. But let's add the salary component. For Cabrera and Renteria we will just consider the pro-rated portion of their salary, since the contracts actually continue through 2008. With that in mind, here is how many dollars each of their teams paid for each win added (according to the WARP system):

Eckstein - $657,051
Cabrera - $1,379,310
Renteria - $1,898,734

From this perspective, Eckstein was clearly the better value. Of course, if the marginal difference between Eckstein and Cabrera or Renteria was the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs, the calculation of value might be different. But, in 2005 all three players made the playoffs with their teams, in 2006 Eckstein's team made the playoffs while Renteria's and Cabrera's did not (so clearly the extra expense was not worth it that year) and in 2007 Cabrera's team made the playoffs while Eckstein and Renteria's did not. The Angels won their division in 2007 by six games. Cabrera had a WARP that season of 7.3 while Eckstein's was 3.8, a difference of 3.5 games. So, if Eckstein had played for the Angels instead of Cabrera they still would have won their division by 2.5 games.

Of course, real life doesn't exactly work that way. You can't just take one player off of a team and swap statistics in from another player and assume that everything would have fallen exactly the way it did otherwise. But by almost any calculation you can come up with, David Eckstein was clearly the best value of the three shortstops that changed addresses before the 2005 season.

Daily Links - 8/5/08

2008-08-05T11:49:00.003-05:00

Baseball Prospectus gives us the weekly quotes from around the league.

The esteemed Hef (not the guy with the mansion and all the half-naked women lying around - well, actually I've never seen his place, so he could have the same set up as Hugh Hefner, for all I know) breaks down the effect that the deadline trades will have on the playoff races.

Now that the Dodgers have Manny Ramirez, they have five outfielders that have been starters for most of their career (I had to write that carefully to avoid saying that they were all good enough to start). Joe Torre has said that Juan Pierre will continue to start and play center field while Andre Ethier sits - so just how bad is that decision?

This article argues that the Red Sox are better with Jason Bay than Manny Ramirez (and it also includes some nice scouting video of Bay's swing). This is an argument that resonates with me. I've always liked Jason Bay and I tend to think that playing in Feway and in a big media market like Boston, will make him a super star. Also, the Hardball Times continues its series by looking at the Brewers outlook for the rest of the year.

This article is an interesting look into the sale of the Chicago Cubs and the staggering price tag that will be attached. If my favorite team were for sale and it looked like Mark Cuban was the favorite to buy it, I would be excited. He can sometimes come off as a bit of a clown (like running on the court at NBA games and the whole Dairy Queen stunt), but the man is passionate about his team, is involved in team and league management and he puts his money where his mouth is (which takes quite a bit of money in his case). He would certainly bring a fresh face to the stogy 'old school' owners in the MLB, which is probably overdue.

Watched: Oakland @ Toronto - 8/4/08

2008-08-04T20:49:00.001-05:00

I wanted to check out Sean Gallagher, one of the main pieces Oakland received when they traded away Rich Harden. At the time of the trade, some analysts insisted that Gallagher would win more games in the next five years than Harden and some others went so far as to claim that Gallagher might even win more games in the rest of this season than Harden will (of course, predictions like those are easy to make - if you are wrong no one remembers, if you are right you can quote yourself in a later column to show that you are a genius). So far Harden and Gallagher are even at 1-1 since the trade. Of course, wins and losses don't tell the whole story. Gallagher has made five starts since the trade (including tonight) and has thrown 25.1 innings in those five starts, and while he has struck out twenty seven men, which is excellent, he has also walked nineteen batters and has an ERA of 4.26. Harden, on the other hand, has made four starts since the trade, lasting 24.1 innings in those starts. He has only walked eight, while striking out thirty nine batters and he has an ERA of 1.11.

Anyway, I wanted to see what Oakland got in Gallagher and the numbers above were indicative of his performance. He clearly has good stuff, but he needs to learn to reign it in a bit. His fastball seemed to top out at about 92 and he had a good sharp slider, which was his strikeout pitch. He was very inefficient with his pitch count and only lasted three innings on the night. During his brief appearnace he was able to accumulate four strikeouts and four walks. He also hit two batters.

Clearly, Gallagher did not pitch well enough to win, and with an average of about five innings per start, he's really not giving his team much of a chance to win when he's on the mound. But Gallagher is only 22 years old and he seems to have the talent to become a solid major league pitcher. There are innumerable stories of pitchers with great stuff that never learned to harness their abilities and burned out without ever making an impact in the major leagues. Gallagher could easily become one of those guys, or he could mature into his talent and make himself into a solid #2 or #3 starter.

Daily Links - 8/4/08

2008-08-04T11:49:00.002-05:00

The first game I attended at the most recent incarnation of Busch Stadium in St. Louis was a gem pitched by Chris Carpenter in 2006. It was against the Pirates on September 1 and it was the most dominating pitching performance I have ever seen. Carpenter allowed three hits and only struck out eight, but was just unbeatable that night, getting ground ball after ground ball (15 ground outs, 8 strikeouts and 4 fly outs). The game only took 1:54 to play. Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) writes about a similar experience watching Greg Maddux pitch in 1997.

Baseball Prospectus has some new reports for translated minor league statistics. Here is their explanation of what is available.

The Twins finally resolved the Francisco Liriano situation by calling him up to the big club. If healthy, he's probably the best starting pitcher that they have. It was a little strange keeping him down on the farm.

The Hardball Times looks at what the rest of the season has in store for the Cubs and the Phillies.

Now that we are past the non-waiver trading deadline, Keith Law looks at who he thinks might and might not make it through waivers to be traded this month.

Manny has certainly enjoyed Los Angeles so far, but Buster Olney thinks that he is miscalculating his value for his next contract.

Daily Links - 8/1/08

2008-08-01T11:49:00.001-05:00

The trading deadline is over and Manny Ramirez is a Dodger. There is so much analysis out there about the trade already that I'm not going to bother with a whole post about it. I'll just say this: the marginal difference between Bay and Ramirez isn't that great and this trade is good for the Red Sox in the long run, bad for the Dodgers in the long run unless they win the World Series this year and pretty good for the Pirates both now and in the future. Here is Keith Law's analysis of the trade.

Every team has a bench guy that performs so well that fans clamor for him to start - then when he does start, the fans are sorry that he does. Here is Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA)'s take on the topic.

Hef, from Major League Jerk, has been writing a semi-regular piece on The Big Lead and takes on the differences between traditional and "new" statistics.

Was the trading deadline top heavy this year?

It's probably a little early to really tell, but what the hell: trade deadline winners and losers in two parts - Part 1 and Part 2. Without putting a lot of thought into it, I agree with the writer on the Royals, Yankees, Rockies, Mariners, A's, Brewers, Cubs, Marlins, Astros, Reds, Pirates, Rays, Indians, Dodgers and Red Sox and I disagree on the Angels, Tigers and Braves.

Daily Links - 7/31/08

2008-07-31T11:49:00.002-05:00

The big news, of course, revolves around Manny Ramirez and the trading deadline. The Mill at Baseball Prospectus gives the details on the Yankees trade for Pudge Rodriguez and the overview on other rumors, while this blog entry by Will Carroll and this blog entry by Kevin Goldstein cover variations of the rumored Manny Ramirez/Jason Bay three way trade.

How about some non-deadline-related analysis? When Khalil Greene made his major league debut he was hailed as the next of the big shortstop superstars. He is a great fielder and it was thought that he would hit for average and power and quickly become one of the best shortstops in baseball. So what happened on his way to greatness?

Ok, back to the deadline: this post analyzes the potential Manny Ramirez trade from the Marlin's perspective. If before the season I had ranked the teams that might acquire a $20M/year player during the season, I think the Marlins would have been in the bottom four along with the Royals, Pirates and Twins.

Jon Heyman goes over all of the players that could get traded in the next several hours.

The breaking news is that Ken Griffey, Jr. has approved a trade to the Chicago White Sox. I have not seen what prospects will be headed back to Cincinnati.

Pitch f/x: Dan Haren

2008-07-30T17:49:00.000-05:00

Dan Haren was traded by Oakland to Arizona this past offseason as part of the rebuilding effort of Oakland and the push by Arizona to solidify their chances in the National League West. His addition gave them a strong 1-2 punch at the front of their rotation with Brandon Webb, allowing Randy Johnson to slot as their #3 starter.

The conventional thinking was that Haren would thrive in the National League, which is traditionally more of a small ball league. However, there were some in the media that looked at the pitching-friendly environment in Oakland and the hitter-friendly environment of Arizona and believed that the difference in leagues would be evened out, or even overcome, by the ballpark differences and that Haren would pitch worse in the NL than he did in the AL.

Well, Haren has, in fact, been signficantly better for Arizona than he was with Oakland last year. His ERA so far is 2.56 compared to 3.07 last year for Oakland. That difference grows to more than a run when you compare his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, defined here): this year he's at 2.75, while last year he was at 3.70. He has improved his strikeout rate, his walk rate, his homerun rate and his WHIP this season.

The interesting thing is that the difference does not seem to be due to haren changing leagues. Baseball Reference has a great tool that neutralizes statistics to allow them to be compared across leagues and seasons (their explanation of how it works is here). According to Haren's neutralized statistics, his ERA is still more than half a run better this season.

So why is Haren better? Haren turns 28 years old this September, so the improvement could just be the natural progression of his talent; he is just entering his prime and he is learning how to pitch to major league hitters and how best to utilize his talents. By looking at his Pitch f/x stats we can see exactly what he is doing differently that may account for his improvement.

The first thing to note is that the changes in Haren's pitch selection have been gradual over the last few years. His first year as a starter with Oakland (and coincidentally, the first year that Pitch f/x data was available) was 2005 and he threw 59.2% fastballs. That number has gone down every year since then, to the point where this year he is throwing 50.3% fastballs.

Also, in 2005 Haren was throwing a small percentage of curveballs and changeups. He has gradually worked those out of his repertoire. In 2007 he increased the number of splitters that he threw from 19.5% in 2006 to 22.9%, but those have also decreased this year, down to 20%. So with the decrease in fastballs and splitters and the elimination of curves and changeups, what is he throwing more of?

Well, there aren't too many pitch types left. The answer is sliders and cutters. He has always relied on his slider, throwing it as often as his splitter in 2006 and 2007, but so far this year it has gone up to 23.9%. His cutter was a rare pitch in previous seasons, never even reaching 2%, but this year he has thrown it almost 6%.

I would suggest that this change indicates that Haren is figuring out what works best for him and is paring away all of the other unnecessary pitches. By removing curves and changeups from his arsenal, he can focus on the pitches that work well for him. I also wonder if being around two other dominant pitchers with limited arsenals has worn off on him. Brandon Webb throws about 75% fastballs and Randy Johnson is primarily a fastball/slider guy (with a few splitters mixed in). Regardless of the reasons, Haren continues to improve as a pitcher and is certainly everything the Diamondbacks hoped for when they traded for him this past offseason.

Daily Links - 7/30/08

2008-07-30T11:49:00.001-05:00

Here is Baseball Prospectus' take on the Mark Teixeira trade. On the other side of the ledger, here is a post that calls the trade a mistake for the Angels.

This just wasn't the year for the Braves. Despite what I said yesterday about their acquisition of Teixeira being a failure, they were positioned at the beginning of this season to be a contender in the NL East. Then all of their pitchers got hurt, Jeff Francouer fell apart, Chipper kept getting dinged up (while in the midst of his best season), and now Tim Hudson might be out for the next 18 months.

This is a cool article that uses pitch f/x to visualize a platoon split for a batter.

Some teams (like say, the Astros) are in acquisition mode at the deadline and it really doesn't make a lot of sense. But what if the Astros have decided that the best way to truly rebuild their franchise is to amass draft picks. So to do this, they are trying to trade some of their mediocre talent to get veterans in the last year of their contract, hoping to get draft pick compensation when the veterans leave via free agency. If the veterans can lead them to semi-respectability at the same time, all the better. I'm not saying that I agree with this strategy (although the Astros farm system is horrible and could use an infusion of draft picks) and it is probably more likely that the Astros are just delusional, but what if acquiring expiring contracts becomes as fashionable as it is in the NBA?

This is a great article about why we should not be upset with players for making so much money, but rather the men that pay them.

Trade: Mark Teixeira to Angels for Casey Kotchman

2008-07-29T20:34:00.004-05:00

Well, yesterday's rumored trade of Teixeira to Arizona did not come true. Instead he was traded to the Angels for Casey Kotchman and a AA relief pitcher. When taken in isolation, the Braves did ok in this trade. In Kotchman they got a big league caliber first baseman that is relatively cheap and under control until 2011. Kotchman is not quite the power threat that Teixeira is, but scouts believe that his power will develop.

The problem for the Braves is that the trade will always be looked at in combination with the trade from last year when they acquired Teixeira. The Braves gave up multiple solid prospects, knowing that he would be a free agent after this season. The trade did not result in a playoff appearance for the Braves in 2007 and it will not result in a playoff appearance in 2008. In that sense, the Teixeira era in Atlanta will always be considered a huge failure. He did not improve the team enough to get them to the playoffs and the package they ultimately received for him was far inferior to what they gave up to receive him.

For the Angels, Teixeira probably doesn't represent the difference between making the playoffs or not - in all likelihood they were already going to make the playoffs. What Teixeira does for the Angels is give them a secondary power threat in their lineup behind Vladimir Guerrero. They already had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball and a very good defense, now they have an offense that rivals any in the league. The Angels have gone from being one of the players in the American League playoff picture to being the favorite in the American League. If they fail to win it all this year, they will have lost Kotchman, but will have two draft picks as compensation for Teixeira, who is almost certain to test the free agent waters. So, in essence they gave up Kotchman for two draft picks and the increase that Teixeira gives them in their chance of winning the World Series this year. I'd call that a good trade.

Daily Links - 7/29/08

2008-07-29T11:49:00.002-05:00

The Mill is up and running at the Baseball Prospectus. If rumors are true, then the Braves are going to give up Mark Teixeira for Chad Tracy and a middling prospect, which is quite a step down from what they gave up for him last year. Since he didn't help them get to the playoffs in either year in which they possessed him, it is clear that trading for him didn't work out too well.

The first question in this round table includes a much better option for Arizona than Teixeira: Adam Dunn. They mention a couple of players that really make sense in trades, but aren't being talked about.

The history/myth of the Cal Ripken, Jr. as the first power hitter middle infielder is chronicled here.

The Francisco Liriano situation is sort of unbelievable. If the Twins legitimately feel like he isn't one of the best five starting pitchers in their organization, then I think they are crazy. If they have an excess of talent, right now would be the perfect time to trade one of these pitchers that have been pitching well to pick up another needed piece.

Peter Gammons has some harsh analysis of the Manny Ramirez situation, questioning not only his motivation (money) but also his competitive desire. The Red Sox receive so much media coverage that I tend to tune it out, so I missed that Manny has been skipping games with his "injuries" only when the opposing pitcher happens to be Cy Young quality.

Watched: Cubs at Brewers - 7/28/08

2008-07-29T05:25:00.003-05:00

It is far too early to pin playoff hopes on one series, but this Chicago/Milwaukee series is as important as a series can be in late July. Miller Park was rocking last night and the atmosphere was similar to a playoff game. (Have I met my cliche quota, yet? Ok, good).

This game was so good that it is tough to avoid cliche in describing it. From the sixth inning until the end it was a back and forth battle that ended when a game-tying homerun bid fell short on the warning track. The Cubs kept taking leads and the Brewers kept launching home runs to come back - JJ Hardy, Ryan Braun and Russell Branyon all went deep.

CC Sabathia pitched well and was betrayed by his defense, particularly Rickie Weeks, in the seventh inning. Weeks flubbed a hard grounder that was ruled an infield hit (should have been an error) and then threw away the relay on what would have been an inning-ending double play, but instead allowed the Cubs to score the tying and go-ahead runs.

Regardless, the Brewers came back and tied the game again. But the Brewers bullpen blew the game in the top of the ninth when closer Solomon Torres couldn't keep the game tied. The Milwaukee bullpen has been a bit suspect lately, and while you wouldn't want to overreact to one game, it wouldn't surprise me if the Brewers moved quickly (duh, the trading deadline is in two days) to shore up their pen.

The teams play three more games this week and they will all be fun to watch, especially tonight's game featuring Carlos Zambrano and Ben Sheets.

Daily Links - 7/28/08

2008-07-28T11:49:00.002-05:00

Ken Tremendous from Fire Joe Morgan seems to be getting bored doing his JoeChat breakdowns. I can understand - four years of the same schtick would get old, but he can't quit with all the great material Joe provides.

Joe Sheehan from Baseball Prospectus breaks down the trades from over the weekend. All three trades were one-sided in my opinion and I think I'll be writing my own breakdown tonight (unless something else worth writing about happens).

The first time I read about this new rule in Olympic Baseball I thought it was the beginning of a joke. But no, it's real. Let's hope no important games go into extra innings.

Tailoring your team to your ballpark isn't quite as easy as it may seem.

Chris Jaffe continues his look into the job that the BBWAA has done in selecting players for the Hall of Fame.

Also from the Hardball Times is this post from John Walsh, where he takes a look at the adviseability of throwing inside changeups.

Daily Links - 7/25/08

2008-07-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, I really try not to do this, because this blog is supposed to be about baseball and the link I'm providing here isn't about baseball. But it is from Fire Joe Morgan and it is really funny, so I'm going to make an exception. Here, then, is the absurdity that is Steven A. Smith and Skip Bayless arguing about the virtues of the movie The Dark Knight.

Back to baseball. Hef gives an update on the games from last night, which is a good thing since I think last night was the first night all season that I didn't catch a single pitch from any of the games.

A brawl at a minor league game resulted in a player attempting to throw a ball into the opposing dugout, missing, and hitting a fan. Ugly stuff. I can't even imagine an appropriate punishment for the player.

In this interview Josh Kalk provides some valuable background information into understanding pitch f/x (a tool that I still haven't had the chance to play with enough).

Here are two articles from Fan Graphs. The first is a discussion of AJ Burnett's trade value and the second is an article discussing CC Sabathia's performance since the trade.

And that's all I've got for this week. The Cardinals bullpen has sapped my will to live... or at least to write about baseball for the time being.

Daily Links - 7/24/08

2008-07-24T11:49:00.001-05:00

Every day when it is dinner time I have the same conversation with my wife, which Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) goes into detail about in his latest post (it's amazing how much he knows about my wife and I when we've never met).

Do you know why some pitchers get better run support from their team than other pitchers? Yes, that's correct, it is a random confluence events that actually has very little to do with the pitchers themselves. Unfortunately, many people in baseball want to attribute the difference in run support between pitchers to magic and other nonsense. Luckily we have the Fire Joe Morgan guys around to make fun of the people that think these things. The link at the end of the post goes to a classic FJM post from about two years ago.

It seems self-evident that experience is a valuable commodity for teams in a playoff race - baseball announcers certainly tell us that often enough. But is it really true?

This note from Rob Neyer about an instance of cherry-picked stats underscores the old adage that 'you can make statistics say whatever you want.'

Jon Heyman has an update on the rumors swirling around the trade deadline.

Wager Update

2008-07-23T21:49:00.001-05:00

As I have mentioned previously, I have a bet this season on who will end up with better statistics on the season between Corey Hart (my pick) and Nick Markakis. We came up with a very complicated method for comparing the players, which isn't important here - I'm just going to provide the raw statistics as of games through July 22.

Corey Hart .286/.325/.507 16 hr, 59 rbi, 14 sb, 108 h, 52 r

Nick Markakis .295/.400/.489 15 hr, 54 rbi, 9 sb, 111 h, 66 r

As with last time, these guys are pretty close. Markakis has a pretty big lead in OBP and runs, and Hart is pulling away in stolen bases and has a decent lead in SLG, but all of the other categories are still up for grabs. If the season ended today, I think I would lose the bet but there are still two months to go. The Brewers are getting hot as they push for the NL Central lead, while the Orioles may dump players at the deadline. My hope is that Hart and Markakis will trend with their teams from here on out, bringing Hart ahead in the end.

Daily Links - 7/23/08

2008-07-23T11:49:00.002-05:00

So, uh, that potential trade that I talked about yesterday that didn't seem to make any sense? It actually happened. I share Fetch's sentiment about not knowing what the Astros are doing and Tangotiger is even more harsh in his analysis.

TBSWIA, Joe Posnanski asked a good question the other day: how many great seasons does it take for a player to be considered great? He then went about answering that question. He posted a follow up that probably is better than his first attempt at answering the question. Also, there is an update in this post to a Stan Musial story he told a few days ago.

Baseball Prospectus has a running feature around the trading deadline called 'The Mill'. They haven't exactly started it up yet, but Will Carroll is posting trade rumors in a buildup to the beginning of The Mill.

The Baseball Digest Daily opines that the Mets lost because the Phillies outsmarted them.

The Cubs and Cardinals lost last night, meaning that the Brewers moved within a game of the lead in the NL Central, while the Cardinals stayed two games back. The Cubs are slumping and this division race keeps getting tighter.

This post describes the concept of "vulture wins" and gives a leaderboard for individuals and teams.

Contending Trading Partners

2008-07-22T21:15:00.003-05:00

The trading deadline is a little more than a week away and the baseball world is buzzing with trade rumors. Usually trade deadline deals are between one team that is in contention and another team that is already thinking about next season. Occassionally, however, teams that are both in contention trade with each other because they have compatable needs. I wondered if this has ever led to players getting traded in-season and then facing their former team in the World Series. Here, then are the five occassions since 1980 where eventual World Series participants have transacted with each other during the course of the season:

August 23, 1998 - Yankees send Shea Morenz and Ray Ricken to Padres for Jim Bruske and Brad Kaufman

This one hardly counts because none of the players played an inning in the World Series and, in fact, only Jim Bruske even played in the major leagues that year (and he only threw a handful of innings for the Yankees).

June 10, 1984 - Padres sold Sid Monge to the Tigers

Once again, this was not an important trade to either team, as Monge did not appear in the post-season.

August 12, 1983 - Orioles sold Paul Mirabella to the Phillies

Similarly, Mirabella never appeared in the major leagues for the Phillies.

Ok, so those three were pretty worthless, but I've been saving the ones that actually mattered until the end.

March 21, 2004 - Red Sox trade Tony Womack to the Cardinals for Matt Duff

This trade occurred late in Spring Training and was basically a castoff of Womack by the Red Sox because he wasn't going to make their team. On the Cardinals, though, he became the everyday second baseman and leadoff hitter. He hit .307/.349/.385 with 26 stolen bases in the regular season and solidified the biggest question mark in the Cardinals lineup going into the season. The Red Sox did not regret his presence in the World Series, though, as Womack (and everyone else on the Cardinals) slumped against the Red Sox. His World Series line was .182/.250/.182.

Matt Duff never made it to the major leagues.

May 17, 1985 - Cardinals trade Lonnie Smith to the Royals for John Morris

Lonnie Smith had been one of the stars of the Cardinals team that won the World Series in 1982 and he played at a high level in 1983, as well. Then he mysteriously started to slide. Ok, it wasn't so mysterious, really: he had a drug problem that eventually landed him in front of a Pittsburgh grand jury testifying about drugs in baseball. Anyway, the Cardinals traded him across the state to Kansas City - whether they knew about the drug problem or they were just clearing space for phenom Vince Coleman is questionable.

Smith became a key player for the Royals the rest of the year. He put up a .257/.321/.366 line during the regular season for the Royals, but more importantly, he scorched the Cardinals to the tune of a .333/.400/.444 line in the World Series.

Whether the trade was meant to open up a spot for Vince Coleman or not, that was the result and Coleman won the Rookie of the Year award in the National League. However, while Smith was tearing up the Cardinals in the World Series, Coleman was watching from the sidelines after getting run over by the automatic tarp system in Busch Stadium. It is pretty safe to say that, while the Lonnie Smith trade didn't exactly come back to haunt them in the World Series, they weren't particularly happy to see him on the opposing team, either.

John Morris, by the way, did not make his major league debut until 1986.

Daily Links - 7/22/08

2008-07-22T11:49:00.002-05:00

I wonder if Dave O'Brien has ever heard of Fire Joe Morgan. I hope not. I hope that someone at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution goes up to Dave's desk this morning and says "Hey, did you see Fire Joe Morgan this morning?" And he says, "What's that?" And they say, "It's a really funny website, you should check it out." And then he does a quick Google search and seconds later is smacked in the face by this.

I'm using this link to Joe Sheehan's second half preview of the National League as a way to let you know that this is a free week of Baseball Prospectus. If you aren't a subscriber, take this week and read all the articles. Then hang your head in shame for calling yourself a baseball fan and not having a subscription. Then pay for a subscription.

Here is a potential trade that makes no sense to me whatsoever. The Astros? They have played better than I thought they would, but they are 12 games back in their division and Roy Oswalt is headed to the DL - they can't give up prospects for Randy Wolf, can they?

John Sickels reviews his top twenty prospects for the Tampa Bay Rays. Even if you aren't interested in the Rays, go to Sickel's blog and look around, because he is reviewing his top twenty prospect lists for every team.

John Donovan says that the NL Central is the race to watch this season. With the Cubs and Brewers loading up for the stretch run, the Cardinals hanging tough and all three teams within 2 games of each other, Donovan's point is hard to argue.

Daily Links - 7/21/08

2008-07-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

Stan Musial gets the Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) treatment. It is well done, as always.

Rick Ankiel version 2.0? I saw Adam Loewen pitch in Spring Training and he was lobbing up meatballs to the Cardinals (in fact, this picture I took of Albert Pujols crushing a homer off of him is the wallpaper on my computer).

One of the great arguments in baseball is about who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. I am of the opinion that the Hall of Fame should be reserved for the greatest of the great and guys like Gary Carter, Bruce Sutter, Andre Dawson and Jim Rice (two in, two not in, but get a lot of support) should be left out. Dawson and Rice were great, but were they really in the same conversation as Mays and Musial? Anway, this post looks into the job that the BBWAA has done in electing Hall of Famers.

Speaking of starting arguments, SkyKing lists who he believes are the top ten best position players in baseball. He's got a method to his madness, although he admits that it isn't 100% scientific.

A few years ago it was thought that Rocco Baldelli would be leading the Rays to the top of the AL East. The Rays have made it, but Baldelli hasn't quite. This is a somewhat sad story, but it still may have a happy ending.

Jon Heyman gives his latest trade rumors/speculation (including one about Ray Durham that is now dated).

Weekend Miscellany

2008-07-21T07:00:00.001-05:00

It was an interesting weekend in baseball. First, the Rays have gone 2-8 over their last ten games, but found themselves back in first place in the AL East this morning because the Red Sox got swept over the weekend by the Anaheim Angels. Don't look now, but as both Boston and Tampa struggle, the Yankees are making headway in the division, having gone 7-3 in their last ten and pulling to 4.5 games out. This should make for an interesting stretch run.

There was also a trade over the weekend. The San Francisco Giants traded Ray Durham to Milwaukee for two prospects. The prospects weren't premium ones, but they might be useful down the road. One is pitcher Steve Hammond, who is left handed and strikes a good percentage of batters out, so that will probably earn him some play at some point. The other is outfielder Darren Ford, who profiles as a pinch runner/defensive replacement/fourth or fifth outfielder at the big league level. These guys aren't top prospects, but they are a bit more than organizational filler, too.

Durham could make a significant difference for the Brewers. For all of his tools and promise, Rickie Weeks has not performed as a major league second baseman. Durham is almost old enough to be Weeks' father, but he's putting up a line of .293/.385/.414 compared to Weeks' .216/.326/.365. The Brewers don't have too many weak spots in their lineup, but if they platoon Durham and Weeks (they are almost perfectly suited for this - Durham is significantly better against right handers and Weeks is much better against lefties) they will have filled the biggest weak spot admirably.

There is also a three team race in the NL East, with the Mets pulling into a tie with the Phillies and the Marlins hanging around a half game back. It should be fascinating to watch the Mets down the stretch because the media will mention their second half collapse last year at every turn.

Also, Oakland has gone 3-6 since trading Rich Harden and has now fallen nine games back of Anaheim in the AL West.

Daily Links - 7/18/08

2008-07-18T12:25:00.002-05:00

Rob Neyer reports that Oakland may trade everyone on its major league roster with a pulse (not really, but almost). I agree with what Rob is saying except that I am just not sure that Oakland is trading these guys at the absolute height of their value.

This is an interesting post that gets into the nitty gritty of performance projection. After reading this you may need to head over to Major League Jerk for some bathroom humor to balance yourself out.

The Baseball Think Factory analyzes the Joe Blanton trade.

John Perrotto of the Baseball Prospectus runs down his list of buyers and sellers at the trade deadline.

And that's all I've got for today. Have a great weekend.

Trade: Joe Blanton to Philadelphia

2008-07-17T21:00:00.001-05:00

Don't question Billy Beane. That was the response of many after Oakland traded Rich Harden to the Cubs last week. It's understandable to feel that way based on the way Beane has fleeced teams in the past when making trades. Many of Beane's moves over the years seemed unconventional at the time, but made his team better in the long run.

Perhaps the moves Oakland has made this month will be looked at the same way in the future, because it is certainly unconventional to trade 40% of your starting rotation when your team is seven games over .500, only six games out of the division lead and only four and a half games out of the Wild Card race. Oakland's rotation is down to Justin Duchscherer, Dana Eveland, Greg Smith and Sean Gallagher - not exactly an intimidating rotation.

So trading Joe Blanton to Philadelphia for prospects (and the best of these prospects isn't very close to the big leagues) seems to be an odd move on its face. In an earlier post, I said that I thought that Oakland was a team that should go for it and be buyers at the deadline. Clearly Billy Beane disagreed and I admire his ability to honestly evaluate his team and its chances of making the postseason this year. It certainly won't be a popular decision with the fanbase.

My biggest problem with the trade, which is the same objection I had to the Harden trade, is that it doesn't seem like Oakland maximized its return on Blanton. With two weeks left before the deadline, it seems like Oakland could have created a bidding war and increased the return by waiting. There will certainly be other teams that will be looking for dependable pitching at the deadline, and while Blanton is having an off year, he has proven to be a solid middle of the rotation starter in his career.

As always, only time will tell, but I wonder how many GMs around the league are scratching their heads and thinking "I would have given him more than that for Blanton." Then again, it's Billy Beane, who am I to question the move?

Daily Links - 7/17/08

2008-07-17T12:25:00.001-05:00

Finally we will be back to having regular season games to watch tonight. The day after the All Star game is one of the worst days for sports all year - none of the four major sports have any games going on. I'm sure that isn't the only day of the year that happens because I'm sure in February there are days when there aren't any NBA or NHL games, but with nothing else in season right now, the All Star break just seems to drag. Anyway, we are thankfully past it and back to games every night.

Now, on to the links:

Joe Posnanski (TBSWIA) writes a post about dead stadiums (AL Edition). I have only been to four dead stadiums, myself: Tiger Stadium, the Astrodome, Milwaukee County Stadium and Busch Stadium II. Tiger Stadium is probably the #3 coolest stadium that I've ever visited, behind Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Just for the fun of it, I've also seen major league games at Camden Yards, Turner Field, Yankee Stadium, Jacobs Field, New Comisky (or Cell Phone Park or whatever they are calling it), Coors Field, Busch Stadium III, and Kaufman Stadium.

The Fire Joe Morgan guys fire away on Murray Chass' new blog, wherein Chass professes his hatred for blogs and other curmudgeony nonsense.

Ok, this is completely ridiculous, but it made me laugh pretty hard, so forgive me for a little goofiness this time.

This is an interesting look at what might have happened in recent years if baseball didn't have interleague play and an unbalanced schedule.

Here is a quick and easy post about the team leaders in runners left on base. There is a passing reference at the end to why this supposedly negative stat isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The Big Lead (and commenters) give their predictions for the second half of the season.

Preseason Predictions Revisited

2008-07-17T05:14:00.003-05:00

Why is the All Star Game played so late in the season? It is considered the halfway point of the season, but it seems to be creeping later into the season every year. Most of the teams are in the mid-90's of games played and the Red Sox have played 97 games. Not that it really matters, but it just seems strange that the "midway point" in the season should be almost 60% of the way through the season.

Three and a half months ago I gave my predictions for both the National League and the American League. Let's see how those predictions are working out a the midway point:

Division Leaders

NL East - I took the Mets, with the caveat that I was nervous about Pedro Martinez' health. The Mets currently sit a half game behind the Phillies for the division lead and Pedro has been injured for much of the first half of the season. I was a little off in my support for Atlanta as a division contender, but I feel pretty good about the Mets pick.

NL Central - I took the Brewers, with the Cubs winning the Wild Card after a season-long battle between the two teams for first place. I was't too far off: the Cubs lead the division and the Brewers are five games back. What I didn't foresee was that the Cardinals would be in the mix as well - they are four and a half games back of the Cubs and lead the Wild Card race. I still feel confident about my Brewers pick, though, and while they might not overtake the Cubs, I think both the Cubs and Brewers will head to the playoffs.

NL West - The Dodgers were my pick in the West, with Colorado, Arizona and San Diego bunching up behind them. This division has been very disappointing with none of the teams having a record over .500, but Arizona and the Dodgers are at the top of the division, with Arizona leading by a game. I feel pretty good about this pick, too, because it is basically a coin toss between Arizona and Los Angeles at this point.

AL East - I picked the Red Sox, with the Yankees coming in second and winning the Wild Card - a safe pick considering the past few seasons. I missed the emergence of the Rays, though. They are currently in second place and led the division for a bit of the first half. They are currently the Wild Card leader. So, while my pick of the division leader looks pretty good, I missed one of the bigger stories of the first half.

AL Central - I missed pretty badly in this division, picking the Tigers as the division winner and picking their main competition to be the Indians. The Indians have completely fallen apart and are currently in last place in the division. The Tigers still have an outside chance at winning the division - they are seven games back - but they will have to overcome both the Twins and the White Sox. This pick would be my worst if it wasn't for the next one...

AL West - I picked this division to be the worst in baseball and picked Seattle to win the division. Instead, three of the four teams in the division have records over .500 and Seattle is the odd team out and are twenty games out of first place. Seattle has been one of the worst teams in the league. At least I didn't actually like Seattle, I just thought they'd win the division by default. Instead, the Angels look like one of the best teams in baseball and Oakland and Texas are surprisingly good, while Seattle is just terrible.

Most Valuable Player

NL - I picked David Wright and he wasn't a bad pick. Wright has solid numbers and a good second half that propels his team to the playoffs could still win him the award. That being said, the MVP at the midway point would probably be Chase Utley, Lance Berkman, Hanley Ramirez or Albert Pujols.

AL - Alex Rodriguez was my pick, which wasn't very courageous, and it wasn't a bad pick. A-Rod would certainly be in the group of finalists at the point along with Josh Hamilton, Carlos Quentin and Grady Sizemore.

Cy Young

NL - I took Ben Sheets and the pick looks pretty good right now as Sheets was the starter for the NL in the All Star Game. He would probably be in contention with Edinson Volquez, Brandon Webb and Tim Lincecum.

AL - Daisuke Matsuzaka was my pick and if he hadn't been injured he might be the pick. He is 10-1 with a 2.65 ERA. If the season ended today, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay and Justin Duchscherer would be the favorites.

ROY

NL - Geovany Soto has lived up to my preseason expectations and he is probably the Rookie of the Year at this point, with Joey Votto, Kosuke Fukudome and Jair Jurrjens as his main competition.

AL - My pick was Adam Jones and he has played ok, but probably not up to ROY standards. I mentioned that Evan Longoria would win if he had started the season at the big leagues, but he is probably the front-runner even though he started the year at triple A.

Overall I feel pretty good about my predictions. The only truly embarrassing pick is Seattle to win the AL West. This is probably the best set of predictions I have ever done, which only means that they will all fall apart in the second half. My first have grade on my picks: B+.

Daily Links - 7/16/08

2008-07-16T12:25:00.001-05:00

I didn't get a chance to write a main post for today because I needed to finish up a post for Future Redbirds that I'd been procrastinating about for a while. You'll just have to make do with links today.

Joe Sheehan posts about a late night walk through Yankee Stadium.

Also from Baseball Prospectus, here is a look at the warming trade market as we enter the last two weeks before the deadline.

I find this kind of stuff interesting because looking at groupings of 162 game periods that don't begin and end with the start and finish of a baseball season can provide you with some unexpected results.

This breakdown of a poor trade by the Tigers illustrates the danger of "going for it" and sending prospects for a veteran with little left in the tank.

Daily Links - 7/15/08

2008-07-15T12:25:00.003-05:00

The announcing was horrible (as usual) on the home run derby broadcast last night, but I'm not going to critique it, I'll leave that to the experts.

I plan on taking a look at my preseason predictions this week, but MLJ jumped in and took a look at some predictions from the "experts".

Josh Kalk looks into whether relief pitchers are less effective after their first inning of usage.

Rob Neyer gives his opinion on some complaints regarding prices in the new stadiums in New York.

And, as it is a pretty slow day and I don't feel like linking to nonsense about who will close for the AL in the All Star game or to articles that rehash Josh Hamilton's rise from meth addict to home run derby hero, I'm going to leave it at that.

Watched: Josh Hamilton

2008-07-14T21:06:00.007-05:00

At the end of the movie Tin Cup (ugh, I can't believe I'm starting a post that way) Kevin Costner's character is lamenting that he just threw away the U.S. Open and his girlfriend says something to the effect of "who cares? No one's going to remember who won the Open in five years, but they will always remember your 12. Why, it's immortal."

There came a point during Josh Hamilton's first round performance at tonight's home run derby where he crossed that threshold. It wasn't immortal, of course, it was only a home run derby, after all, but there came a point where it didn't matter who ended up winning the competition. All anyone will remember is Josh Hamilton's first round performance. He hit twenty-eight bombs, including 13 in a row, and there weren't many cheap ones. He hit three that went over 500 feet, including a mammoth 518 foot shot into the third deck in rightfield. It was a stunning display that eviscerated the competition of its intrisic meaning: it no longer mattered who ended up winning.

So what other baseball events fall into this category? I'm thinking of Carlton Fisk's homerun in the 1975 World Series - everyone remembers Pudge waving the ball fair down the line, but what's often lost is that the Reds won the next game and took the Series. Pujols' bomb off of Brad Lidge in the 2005 NLCS probably qualifies, too. I'm thinking the George Brett three homer game in Yankee Stadium fits, too, because I honestly don't know if the Royals ended up winning that series or not. [They didn't - in fact, they didn't even win the game - it was Game 3 of the 1978 ALCS] Are there any others that I'm not thinking of at the moment?

Daily Links - 7/14/08

2008-07-14T12:25:00.001-05:00

The All Star festivities kicked off on Sunday with the Futures Game, which is odd since all of the Major League teams still had games. I, for one, was really interested in the game and it is my impression that the number of fans following the minor leagues and watching prospects is growing exponentially. It doesn't make sense to me, then, that the showcase game of the season for the brightest prospects (supposedly, there were issues getting in the way of some of the brightest prospects playing) is buried on ESPN on Sunday afternoon amidst a full slate of big league games. Regardless, it was interesting and here is Joe Sheehan's take on the game.

Also from Baseball Prospectus, here is an interesting Q & A with one of the best pitchers in baseball, Brandon Webb.

Over the weekend Joe Posnanski, TBSWIA, gave tribute to Bobby Murcer.

The Home Run Derby is tonight and here is a post that breaks down the idea that participants are ripe for a second half letdown.

And SkyKing posts about why we should be interested in watching each of tonights participants.

Tangotiger takes a look at why the AL is a better league than the NL.

This article on Fan Graphs discusses some pitchers whose performance is due for some regression after the All Star break.

What We Know

2008-07-12T09:17:00.005-05:00

Last season the NL Central was widely considered to be the worst division in the league and deservedly so. Only two of the teams were over .500, the Cubs and the Brewers, and neither won more than 85 games. None of the six teams in the division were over .500 against any other division in the NL (although both the Cubs and the Brewers were over .500 against the AL). No other division was so completely futile against the rest of the league.

Things change, though, and they change quickly. While the NL Central was the laughingstock of baseball last year, I couldn't help shaking that as recently as 2005 the NL Central had the team with the best record in baseball (the Cardinals) and the NL Wild Card winner (the Astros). In fact, St. Louis had the best record in baseball and the Astros had won the Wild Card in 2004, as well.

In contrast, the NL West in 2007 was considered one of the strongest divisions in baseball, with four of the five teams finishing over .500. In 2005, however, the NL West was the laughingstock with San Diego winning the division with only 82 wins.

In the first half of this season fortunes have changed again. The landscape looks much more like 2005 than it does 2007, with none of the NL West teams having a record over .500 and the NL Central having three teams over .500, including the team with the best record in baseball (the Cubs). All six of the NL Central teams have respectable records against the other divisions in the National League.

So, again, things change and they change quickly. One of the things that makes this game great is that what we think we know about a team today can be 100% different tomorrow. Prior to September of 2007 most thought that the Mets were the best team in the National League. They ended up sitting at home in October. I can't wait to find out what happens in the second half to change what we think we know right now.

Daily Links - 7/11/08

2008-07-11T12:25:00.004-05:00

While I agree with this post from the Fire Joe Morgan guys in principle (sacrifice bunting is often the wrong move to make), their irony/sarcasm is a little too subtle when mentioning Nate McLouth's bunting ("He probably hasn't been asked to bunt in a real game in years, given that he is an awesome hitter, and bunting is stupid for awesome hitters."), as he has two sac bunts on the year this year and ten in his 371 major league games played. Regardless, note that the two posts below the Nate McLouth post are from earlier this year and are all-time classics.

I really like both Evan Longoria and Corey Hart, but they clearly were not the right choices for the final all star roster spots.

This post raises some interesting points about the Hall of Fame. While I don't agree that we shouldn't base enshrinement on statistics, I do think there should be a much higher standard to get in.

There are some interesting names in this list of starting pitchers that might be available at the trade deadline. There are a number of those guys that might be valuable down the stretch and wouldn't require a top tier prospect to acquire.

This is Chris O'Leary's revised explanation of the 'Inverted W' in pitching mechanics.

Shysterball writes about Jorge Posada's positional complaints and he links to It Is About The Money's take on the same topic - raising an intresting point about Derek Jeter in the process.

And finally, Joe Posnanski (the best sportswriter in America) discusses Batting Runs.

Going For It

2008-07-10T21:37:00.001-05:00

With the trade deadline approaching, I'd like to consider the concept of when a team should "go for it". When should a team decide that they have a chance that's good enough to give away some of the future (ie talented prospects) to increase the chance that they have in the present?

First, let me say that I think that a championship is worth almost anything. If by making a trade you could somehow guarantee a championship now, I would trade the potential of every player in the minor league system to get that championship. Of course, there is never a guarantee, so adjustments to the scale must be made, but if we start at that absolute (trade everything for a championship), then we have a baseline for the discussion.

Let's start at the end of the spectrum that can be labelled 'obvious': Cleveland, Kansas City, Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, Colorado and San Diego are all at least ten games below .500 and are all at least ten games back in the Wild Card standings and basically have no chance at the post-season. Clearly there is no way that any of these teams should be trading prospects in an attempt to improve themselves for this season.

The next tier of teams include Baltimore, Toronto, Houston, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Cincinnati. These teams are all under .500 and at least 7.5 games out of the Wild Card. It is highly unlikely that there is anything that any of these teams can do at this point to give them a legitimate shot at the playoffs. The only way that a trade where these teams are giving up prospects for a better shot to win now makes sense, is if the trade would bring young talent that would be with the team for multiple years, making them contenders in the future as well. Those type of prospects for young talent trades are unusual, though. The only team in the group listed here that might be an exception is the Atlanta Braves. They are only 6.5 games back in their division and are only 6 games below .500. They have a positive run differential of +30, so they have been a little unlucky to this point, so there is reason to think that they might be a better team than their record suggests. They have quite a bit of young talent with Brian McCann, Kelly Johnson and Yunel Escobar, so they could be a team that might be able to trade some minor league prospects without damaging their future too much, but with the odds stacked against them, I'd think the trade would have to be a clear win for them to consider it.

The next group is probably the most difficult to gauge. This group really needs to be looked at on a team-by-team basis:

The New York Yankees are seven games over .500, 6.5 games back in their division and 4.5 games back in the Wild Card. They have a positive run differential and are playing exactly to their expected record. This is a team that historically has gone for it and I think they are in position to go for it again this year. They are in striking distance and the window for success with older players like Jeter, Giambi, Abreau, Pettitte and Mussina is shrinking. According to Baseball Prospectus the Yankees currently have a 10% chance of making the playoffs. If they can find a big move to make that will give them a 5-10% better chance, they should take it.

The Detroit Tigers, who I talked about extensively before the season started, are currently one game over .500, 7.5 games back in their division and in the Wild Card and they are playing exactly to their expected record. They have a mix of young and old on the team and it is conceivable that if they could make a big move that they could improve themselves into contenders. The problem is that they really don't have much left in their farm system to trade at this point.

The Minnesota Twins are ten games over .500, three games back in both the division and the Wild Card and are playing three games better than their expected record. This is one of the borderline teams for me - they traded Johan Santana prior to the season and so you would think that they are rebuilding, but they are close enough to the playoffs that it could be worth it to go for it. I think they should probably play it about half way, too.

The Texas Rangers are four games over .500, 6.5 games back in their division and six games back in the Wild Card. They, however, have a negative run differential and they are playing eight games better than their expected record. That means they have been lucky and it is uite possible that they will regress a bit in the second half. This is exactly the kind of team that can get fooled into making a deal at the deadline because they think they are in it, but they shouldn't be trading. If the team regresses as expected any improvement through trade will only be towards maintaining their current pace, which isn't good enough to make the playoffs.

The Oakland A's are eight games over .500, 4.5 games back in the division and four games back in the Wild Card race. They have a huge positive run differential and are actually playing four games worse than their expected record. Yet, Billy Beane just traded Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Cubs for prospects. I have seen it suggested that Beane didn't trust Harden to stay healthy until the trading deadline and that some predict that Sean Gallagher (the 22 year old pitcher that Oakland received as part of the trade) will win more games in the rest of the year than Harden. I'm not sure I buy all of that, but I would expect Oakland to have a strong second half (unless they trade away more of their talent). They would be a team that I would advocate for making a deal to go for it at the deadline, but the team is run so unconventionally that it is difficult to predict what they will do.

The Florida Marlins are three games over .500, two games back in the division and 3.5 games back in the Wild Card. However, they have a negative run differential and have played four games better than their expected record. This team has not historically acquired veterans at the trade deadline and it would be surprising to see them do so. They might be a team, though, that could improve themselves enough to stay in the playoff race until the very end. While they have been somewhat lucky and could be expected to regress, they are close enough to the top right now that even keeping pace allows them a chance at the playoffs. I wouldn't mortgage the future, but it could definitely be worth it if they could trade some of their second tier prospects for a chance to win now.

The St. Louis Cardinals are nine games over .500, 4.5 games out in the division and only a half game out of the Wild Card. They have a positive run differential but have played about three games better than their expected record. In my opinion, the Cardinals might be in the most dangerous position in all of baseball. They have a fanbase that expects them to contend every fall, they have recently tasted success with an over-achieving team and their farm system has finally become average after years of being at the bottom of the league. This is a team that will be tempted to go for it and make a dramatic trade to improve their team for the second half, but they shouldn't. This team will almost surely play worse in the second half and there isn't a clear way to "put this team over the top" with a trade. If they can make a 'go for it' trade with their second tier of prospects, they should do it. Otherwise, they should concentrate on 2009 (when they are much better set up to make a run).

The final group of teams are those that are in lead for a division, the Wild Card or are close enough that it could be a coin flip. This group includes Tampa Bay, Boston, both Chicago teams, both Los Angeles teams, Philadelphia, the New York Mets, Milwaukee and Arizona. There are ten teams in this group and any of the ten can make it to the playoffs and win the World Series. These are the favorites as of today. Some might not need to do anything to get there, but the teams in this group should all be willing to trade the future for the chance to win today, because the championship is out there for the taking.

Daily Links - 7/10/08

2008-07-10T12:25:00.001-05:00

Is the other shoe (wait, the third shoe?) going to drop? This article mentions in passing that the Cardinals could be in the hunt for Erik Bedard.

I have a love/hate relationship with Jon Heyman of SI - I love the behind-the-scenes information that he reports on a regular basis, but I am vehemently opposed to his version of analysis (or actually, his aversion to any non-traditional statistics). He is a nice guy, though, we traded emails about VORP a few months ago and at least he has a sense of humor about the issue. This article is in the vein of behind-the-scenes info regarding who might get traded at the deadline. I love articles like this.

There is a recap of the Johan Santana trade after a half season on the Major League Jerk blog. As you know, I enjoy this kind of stuff, too. I'm just upset that they beat me to it.

I was able to see a game at Tiger Stadium the last year that Detroit played there and I am very happy that I did. It was one of the great old stadiums in the league. The picture that accompanies this story makes me a little sad.

This is kind of a mixed bag of items, but I really like the concept he talks about in the first part, equating strike outs and infield pop ups to pitcher dominance.

I'm not sure how I missed parts 1 and 2 of this series (they are linked from part 3), but this is great.

Daily Links - 7/9/08

2008-07-09T12:25:00.002-05:00

I think there are three distinct 'hot periods' in the baseball season when everyone is talking about baseball and the internet is buzzing with baseball rumors and opinions. The first period is Spring Training through Opening Day. It can last a couple of weeks into the season at times, but everyone that writes about baseball (including me) feasts during that time because there are so many available stories to write: season predictions, rookies making the club, veterans trying a comeback, etc. The second period is the trading deadline, for obvious reasons. We have entered the second period a bit early this season, with the Sabathia and Harden deals happening before the All Star break. It will be interesting to see if the momentum will hold up through July 31.

Oh, and the third period is the pennant race/playoffs, naturally. Now, on to the links.

It is amazing that the best sportswriter in America primarily covers the Kansas City Royals. It might be difficult to believe, but his blog is actually better than his columns. This one tells a historical tale that I had not heard before.

Here is a blogger's reaction to the Harden trade from the perspective of the only NL Central contender not to make a huge trade this week: the Cardinals.

Christina Kahrl gives the Baseball Prospectus breakdown of the Rich Harden trade. She asks the question that popped into my head immediately when I heard the package of players going to Oakland: Where is Felix Pie? [subscription only]

Tangotiger has a response to the Paul DePodesta blog entry that I linked to yesterday. I chortled.

Here is a quick list of the first round draft picks that have signed and what they are doing so far in their professional debuts.

And finally, The Big Lead does a side-by-side comparison between the Brewers and Cubs starting rotations. With Harden and Sheets prominently involved, they should have included a section for each team's training staff.

Watched: Power Lefty Night

2008-07-08T23:30:00.002-05:00

There were three games that I wanted to watch tonight and all involved left handed power pitchers. CC Sabathia was making his first start for the Milwaukee Brewers against Colorado, Scott Kazmir was starting for the Tampa Bay Rays against the New York Yankees and Cole Hamels of the Phillies was facing the St. Louis Cardinals.

The story of the night, of course, was supposed to be CC Sabathia and he lived up to expectations. The crowd in Milwaukee was loud, the Brewers offense came out swinging (Ryan Braun hit a three run homer before the Rockies had recorded an out in the first inning) and Sabathia was pumping heat. He looked a little nervous, walking two batters in the first inning, but he was also getting his fastball up to 97 mph in the first frame. Sabathia's stuff seemed fantastic all night, but he was a bit wild - walking five men on the evening and piling up the pitch count as he worked in and out of trouble all night. The walks caught up with him in the sixth inning when the Rockies loaded the bases on an infield hit and two walks and then Yorvit Torrealba slashed a two-run double to right. Sabathia survived the inning without giving up another run and left the game with a 4-3 lead (only two runs were earned), having struck out five over his six innings of work. The Brewers tacked on some runs against the Rockies bullpen and won the game 7-3.

Scott Kazmir looked great to start the evening, as well. He struck out five of the first six hitters and seven of the first nine outs he recorded were by strikeout. Unfortunately, he also allowed a single and two doubles in the third inning resulting in two runs. Kazmir didn't manage his pitch count very well, which happens pretty often to strikeout pitchers. He only lasted five innings (97 pitches), striking out nine and giving up five hits and a walk. On the other side of the ledger was Andy Pettitte, who was dominant. He went 8 innings, giving up five hits and no runs and the Yankees took the win, 5-0.

Cole Hamels was also dominant, but, like Kasmir, he was outdueled on this evening. Hamels only gave up three hits over seven innings and struck out eight, but two of the three hits were solo home runs (Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick). Those were the only runs that the Cardinals needed to beat Hamels and the Phillies on this night as Joel Piniero pitched 6.1 shutout innings and Ron Villone, Kyle McClellan and Ryan Franklin were almost untoucheable in relief (Franklin allowed a base hit in the ninth - the only hit off of the St. Louis bullpen).

Trade: Harden to Cubs

2008-07-08T21:13:00.004-05:00

The Cubs wasted little time in answering the Brewers' aquisition of CC Sabathia. Rich Harden isn't quite as much of a sure thing as Sabathia is, but if he can stay healthy he can provide similar results.

While I liked the Sabathia deal for both the Brewers and the Indians, I'm not as sure that I like this deal for Oakland. Perhaps they felt that they had to strike while the Cubs were still feeling the pressure of the Brewers deal or perhaps they wanted to make the move before Harden could hurt himself again, but the move seems a little premature to me. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus wrote that he believed that the Indians could have gotten more for Sabathia if they had waited until closer to the trade deadline, I can only imagine what he thinks of this move (actually, I'll probably read about it tomorrow). It seems to me that Oakland had even more incentive to wait to trade Harden: with Sabathia off the market, Harden became the best available starting pitcher on the trade market. Had Oakland waited and played all of the potential suitors off of one another, they could have driven the price up - potentially higher than what the Brewers paid for Sabathia.

There are several differences between this trade and the Sabathia trade. First, Harden will not be a free agent until after the 2009 season, so he is not merely a second half rental, as Sabathia is expected to be. Second, Oakland is also sending Chad Gaudin to the Cubs. Gaudin is a young (25 years old) right handed pitcher that has started some in his career and has also come out of the pen. He is the type of pitcher that will not be a difference maker, but can be a valuable pitcher to a contender. Third, none of the players that Oakland received back from the Cubs appear to have star potential like Matt LaPorta does in the Sabathia trade. Sean Gallagher is probably the best prospect in the deal; he is a twenty-two year old starting pitcher that has a pretty decent strikeout ratio. I've never seen him pitch, but he seems like he might have the potential to be a decent mid-rotation starter. Matt Murton has proven to be a valuable fourth outfielder for a major league team (he was probably being under-utilized by the Cubs, actually). Eric Patterson is an exciting slash and burn type of player that would be much more valuable if he could stay at second base, but the Cubs had decided that he would have to be an outfielder if he was to make it in the big leagues. Perhaps Oakland disagrees and will shift him back to the infield. The final piece is Josh Donaldson, who is a catcher that is still at low A Peoria, so it is difficult to know what they've got in him.

So, while LaPorta seems to be the type of player that can be used by the Indians as a foundation to their offense, Oakland hasn't really received anyone with quite as clear of a path. Gallagher represents one of the most valuable commodities in baseball: a cost-controlled starting pitcher, but those are also much more speculative than players of LaPorta's ilk (as Oakland knows - it worked for them with Danny Haren and did not with Dan Meyer).

I'm not trying to argue that Oakland should have received as much as Cleveland received for Sabathia, I am only wondering why they made the deal now, for a package that can hardly be described as 'bowling them over'. It is almost heresy in some circles to criticize Billy Beane's moves, but they don't always work out (as the Tim Hudson for Dan Meyer deal showed). Oakland almost certainly got some useful pieces in this deal, but I have to believe that they could have gotten more had they waited until July 31st to make a trade. They may get to test that theory if they decide to also trade Joe Blanton this month.

The questions we are left with are: Is AJ Burnett the next pitcher to get traded? Erik Bedard? Which team will feel the pressure to make a move next (St. Louis?)?

Daily Links

2008-07-08T12:38:00.005-05:00

The bloggers union has been getting on me about the lack of links that I provide on a daily basis, so I decided I should try and fulfill my quota. Here, then, are links to the stories that I've been reading today.

Joe Sheehan (who I almost always disagree with) had a nice take on the CC Sabathia trade.

I love this idea for a yearly column, some of the guys on the list, though, seem to have been washed up for a while now.

I didn't see this play happen live, but I watched the replay multiple times last night and this morning.

Buster Olney's recap of news stories from around major league baseball is a must-read every morning and I agree with his take on the Cubs response to the CC Sabathia trade.

Fan Graphs has Evan Longoria as the most valuable commodity in major league baseball. I'm not sure I can agree with that, but they've got the numbers and methodology to support that position. Agree or not, it is a fascinating piece.

Former Dodger's GM Paul DePodesta is in the front office for the Padres now and he wants the public's opinion on what the Padres should do at the trading deadline.

And that's all I've got for now. I'll try to post a half dozen or so links every day, just to keep the blog union thugs from knocking on my door.

Watched: Braves @ Dodgers

2008-07-07T22:41:00.006-05:00

I have never seen a no-hitter. Not in person and not on television. So when I heard that Hiroki Kuroda had put down every hitter he'd faced through five innings, I turned on the game. I figured that as soon as I started watching, the Braves would get a hit. But he put them down in order in the sixth and then he got Chipper Jones to weakly ground out to end a perfect seventh and I started to wonder. Blake DeWitt made a brilliant play on a bunt attempt by Gregor Blanco to lead off the seventh and that's when it started to feel like it might be really happening.

This was the first time that I'd seen Kuroda pitch. All I really knew about him is that the Dodgers paid a pretty good price for him to pitch for them and he hadn't really lived up to the hype. Looking at his stats, though, he hasn't pitched all that poorly. Going into the night he was 4-6 with a 3.59 ERA.

Kuroda has good "stuff" - his fastball touched 95 and he also threw a nice sinker at 88-89 and a slider in the mid 80's. As would be expected, he was hitting his spots almost without fail. He wasn't striking out a ton of guys, just six through seven innings, but he wasn't giving up any solid contact, either.

Mark Teixeira led off the eighth inning and... I still haven't seen a no-hitter. Teixeira ripped a double down the right field line, ending the perfect game and no-hitter. The Dodgers ended up winning the game 3-0 and Kuroda finished off a masterful complete game one-hitter.

Trade: Sabathia for LaPorta and others

2008-07-07T13:24:00.003-05:00

The first big trade of the season came today, more than three weeks before the trading deadline. Getting the trade done so early puts the Brewers in a unique position: they could conceivably trade Sabathia away if they somehow fall apart in the next three weeks. Imagine a scenario where the Cubs and Cardinals (or some other Wild Card contender) get hot, Ben Sheets gets injured (not hard to imagine) and the Brewers fall ten games back in the Central and 5-7 back in the Wild Card. Under such a scenario, maybe the Brewers re-trade Sabathia for prospects in an effort to re-load for next year.

Ok, now that the implausible is out of the way (it is much more likely that the Brewers are energized by the acquisition and pull ahead in the Wild Card and closer to the Cubs in the Central), lets get to the trade itself. I think the trade is a great one for both teams. From the Brewers perspective, they now have arguably the best 1-2 punch at the top of their starting rotation in the National League (Arizona with Webb and Haren would be the other candidate for that honor). The move also allows Jeff Suppan to slot back into the #3 slot in the rotation, which fits his 'league-average-innings eater' profile much better. With young stud lefthander, Manny Parra, in the #4 slot and future-ace Yovanni Gallardo scheduled to come off the DL late in the season, the Brewers could have a very stingy rotation come playoff time.

Then you look at what they gave up. The big name, of course, is Matt LaPorta. LaPorta was a power hitting first baseman at Florida and many considered him to be the best college hitter in the 2006 draft. The Brewers took him with the seventh overall pick, which surprised everyone because they already had Prince Fielder holding down first base for the foreseeable future. The Brewers turned LaPorta into a left fielder and he has been tearing up the minor leagues since being drafted. The problem was that, even if he could play outfield passably (which is up for debate), the Brewers still didn't really have a spot for him. They moved Ryan Braun to left field from third base this season - a move that was an absolute necessity considering Braun's defense at third. It is unlikely that LaPorta would be able to play a credible right field, but even so, the Brewers have Corey Hart, who is one of the better players on the team (and a personal favorite of mine). There is some talk that Hart could play center field, but an outfield of Braun, Hart and LaPorta would have certainly been the worst defensive outfield in all of baseball. Maybe ever.

So while it was becoming apparently that LaPorta didn't have much left to prove in the minor leagues, it was a serious question of where the Brewers were ever going to play him. That he became the centerpiece in a deal to acquire one of the top pitchers in baseball seems like a perfect utilization of assets to me.

The Indians, on the hand, have no use for CC Sabathia right now. They faced the grim realization that their hopes for contending this season are over (they are in last place in the AL Central, a game and a half behind the Royals as I'm writing this). Grady Sizemore is having a fantastic season and Casey Blake is playing well for being, well, Casey Blake. Otherwise, every one of their offensive players have disappointed this season. Many people expected Travis Hafner to bounce back after a down season for him last year, but instead he fell off a cliff. Ryan Garko has slugged .342 as the Indians everyday first baseman. Victor Martinez' OPS is .665 and he hasn't hit a home run yet. On the pitching side, Cliff Lee has been outstanding and Sabathia has been great since his rough first month of the season. Paul Bryd has been his usual less-than-mediocre self and Fausto Carmona has been injured for about half of the season.

On top of the really bad baseball that they've been playing all season, the Indians were in a bad spot with Sabathia. He is due to be a free agent after the season and he refused to work on an extension with the team during the season. Left with the option of holding onto him and receiving two compensatory draft picks for him, or trading him for four prospects, I think they made the right decision. LaPorta is almost certainly more valuable by himself than the highest of those picks, if only because he has proven to be successful at AA and draft picks are still mostly a crap shoot (not to mention that there is no guarantee that the picks would be at the top of the first round - that depends on who signs Sabathia as a free agent).

So they get LaPorta (for starters), who should be competing for either Garko or Hafner's job next season and will certainly be a starter in the big leagues by the end of 2009 (barring unforeseen circumstances). He will probably never hit for a high average in the major leagues, but he should provide solid power in the middle of the Indians lineup. As long as they hold onto Sizemore and Ben Francisco continues to develop, LaPorta gives them the start of a nice offense. A couple of other savvy pickups and they are right back in the playoff hunt - which makes this deal a nice accelerant for a rebuilding effort.

The trade should really be analyzed like this:

To Brewers:

The increase in potential to make the playoffs in 2008

The ability to try and sell Sabathia on Milwaukee for the rest of the season (possibly negligible in value)

A first round pick (assuming Sabathia signs elsewhere)

A supplemental first round pick

From Brewers:

A former top draft pick with no position to play for the foreseeable future

Three other lesser prospects

To Indians:

A potential middle-of-the-order hitter that can replace either of two weak spots on the big league squad within a season or so

Three other lesser prospects

From Indians:

An ace starting pitcher that wasn't going to make any significant difference in the outcome of this season and who wouldn't be with the Indians next year (unless they sign him as a free agent, which they can still do)

The right to two draft picks.

All Star Rosters

2008-07-02T20:17:00.004-05:00

The last two days I've discussed who should be selected as starters for both the National Leauge and the American League. Now I'm going to close the loop on this subject by giving you what I think should be the complete rosters for each team. Then I'll be done discussing the rosters for the All Star Game (finally). I have followed the rules for roster construction, so each team is represented and there are 32 players per team.

With no further ado, here are my rosters (the starters are marked with an asterisk):

National League

Catchers: Brian McCann*, Russell Martin, Geovany Soto

First Basemen: Lance Berkman*, Adrian Gonzalez

Second Basemen: Chase Utley*, Dan Uggla

Shortstops: Hanley Ramirez*, Jose Reyes

Third Basemen: Chipper Jones*, Aramis Ramirez

Outfielders: Pat Burrell*, Jason Bay*, Carlos Beltran*, Ryan Braun, Ryan Ludwick, Nate McLouth, Kosuke Fukudome

Designated Hitter: Albert Pujols

Starting Pitchers: Brandon Webb*, Edinson Volquez, Tim Lincecum, Ben Sheets, Danny Haren, Aaron Cook, Johan Santana, Jair Jurrjens

Relief Pitcher: Brad Lidge, Billy Wagner, Kerry Wood, Jon Rauch, Brandon Lyon

Jon Rauch was the only selection that was a bit of a stretch so that all teams were represented, but he's had a pretty decent half season as closer for the Nationals. Aaron Cook is the only Colorado representative and there were other pitchers that were probably more deserving, but his selection isn't a huge stretch. Notable snubs on my selected team include Mark Teixeira, David Wright, Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster, Tim Hudson, Cole Hamels, Kyle Lohse, Chad Billingsly.

American League

Catchers: Joe Mauer*, Dioner Navarro, Gerald Laird

First Basemen: Jason Giambi*, Kevin Youkilis

Second Basemen: Ian Kinsler*, Brian Roberts

Shortstops: Michael Young*, Derek Jeter

Third Basemen: Alex Rodriguez*, Evan Longoria

Outfielders: JD Drew*, Josh Hamilton*, Carlos Quentin*, Grady Sizemore, Manny Ramirez, Jermaine Dye, Magglio Ordonez

Designated Hitter: Milton Bradley

Starting Pitchers: Cliff Lee*, Joe Saunders, Roy Halladay, Zach Greinke, Felix Hernandez, James Shields, Justin Duchsherer, Ervin Santana

Relief Pitchers: Francisco Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, Joakim Soria, Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon

The American League was easier (which makes sense with fewer teams) - there were no choices that were made solely to make sure each team is represented. Jermaine Dye was not on my list on Monday, which was an oversight on my part. Notable snubs include Nick Markakis, BJ Upton, Justin Morneau, David DeJesus, John Danks, Shawn Marcum, Dana Eveland, Greg Smith, Gavin Floyd, Matt Garza, Jon Lester.

National League All Star Selections

2008-07-01T19:06:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I went through the American League All Star selections and discussed the criteria for my selections. I am not going to go through that again with the NL, you can look at yesterday's post for my methodology. Today I'm just going to get right to the picks.

[All statistics are through June 30, 2008]

Catcher

It wasn't too long ago that the catcher position was a weak spot in the National Leauge, but in the last couple of years there has been a renaissance at the position with some of the best hitters in the league playing catcher. Here is the list of candidates:

Brian McCann - .295/.365/.536 - 14 hr, 45 rbi
Russell Martin - .307/.404/.444 - 8 hr, 37 rbi, 7 sb
Geovany Soto - .281/.367/.513 - 13 hr, 47 rbi

Ryan Doumit - .346/.391/.622 - 10 hr, 25 rbi

I set Doumit apart because he missed about twenty games while he was on the DL. His statistics are fantastic, but he's been limited to only 156 at bats, which is just more than half of what the other candidates have logged (which actually makes the homerun total more impressive).

McCann and Martin are just about a toss up for the catcher's spot on the team and Soto isn't far behind. You get a bit more power with McCann and a bit more OBP and speed from Martin. Both are solid behind the plate and you can't really go wrong with either choice. I would take McCann because his edge in power is larger than Martin's edge in OBP. Neither have an edge in the 'legacy' category, as they have pretty similar performance histories.

First Base

Because the All Star Game is being played in an American League park this season, the NL will get to utilize a DH in the starting lineup, which is good for the NL, because the two best hitters in the league both play first base. Here are the candidates:

Lance Berkman - .365/.448/.699 - 22 hr, 68 rbi, 12 sb
Albert Pujols - .357/.482/.635 - 17 hr, 47 rbi, 2 sb
Adrian Gonzalez - .288/.358/.530 - 21 hr, 68 rbi
Mark Teixeira - .276/.379/.495 - 16 hr, 62 rbi

This is obviously a two man race. Berkman and Pujols are both putting up MVP caliber seasons to this point. Pujols is a bit behind on the counting statistics because he spent 15 days on the DL with a leg injury, but Berkman's rate statistics are probably a tick better than Pujols' anyway. Berkman's twelve stolen bases are already a career-high, and they are surprising for a guy that once called himself "Fat Elvis". Pujols probably has the edge in 'legacy' as a former MVP winner, but Berkman is the right choice, regardless.

Second Base

Before I had looked at the numbers, I thought this position was a no-brainer, but it is a lot closer than I had thought (although my original thought was the right one). Here is the list:

Chase Utley - .297/.384/.610 - 23 hr, 65 rbi, 7 sb
Dan Uggla - .289/.375/.620 - 23 hr, 58 rbi, 4 sb

Utley would have won the MVP last season if he hadn't missed some time towards the end of the season due to injury. He started this season on fire - hitting eleven homers in March/April, then slowing down considerably in May (8 hr, .259/.354/.537) and June (4 hr, .266/.364/.511) which allowed Uggla to start to catch him statistically with a torrid May (12 hr, .347/.425/.827). I think Utley still gets the nod, but it is much closer than I would have thought. Utley might have a slight edge in the 'legacy' category, but they both have a pretty decent history of performance.

Third Base

Chipper Jones - .394/.485/.630 - 16 hr, 46 rbi, 2 sb
Aramis Ramirez - .289/.390/.502 - 14 hr, 55 rbi
David Wright - .283/.376/.492 - 15 hr, 64 rbi, 8 sb

Chipper is having a historically good season, which is only tempered by his inability to stay healthy. He has already missed twelve games with various nagging injuries, but any time he is in the lineup he has hit and hit for power. Expectations are so high for David Wright that his performance to this point is seen as a little bit of a disappointment. Wright should have won the MVP last season and he is one of the best players in the National League, but there should be nothing disappointing about the numbers above, no matter who you are.

Shortstop

There are two wonderfully talented young shortstops in the National League and they are joined by an over-the-hill player that has somehow raised his game to levels no one expected. Here is the list:

Hanley Ramirez - .296/.384/.536 - 19 hr, 36 rbi, 20 sb
Jose Reyes - .292/.354/.478 - 9 hr, 34 rbi, 28 sb
Christian Guzman - .314/.342/.434 - 5 hr, 27 rbi, 3 sb

Now, Guzman shouldn't really get any votes above Ramirez or Reyes, but I just have to mention him here. I wrote about his history a bit in an earlier post, so I won't go into it again, but everyone thought he was washed up two years ago and now he is playing better (at age 30) than he has ever played in his life. Pretty amazing.

Ramirez is one of the best young offensive players in the game, but is absolutely brutal defensively. He will almost certainly be moved to the outfield at some point in the near future. For now, though, he gets my vote for the All Star team because his offensive advantages over Reyes overcome his defensive deficiencies.

Outfield

The NL outfield is a bit odd this season. There aren't any big name players dominating and making the choice an easy one and most of the candidates have some flaw that keeps them from being an automatic vote. Here is the list of contenders:

Pat Burrell - .271/.410/.571 - 19 hr, 49 rbi
Jason Bay - .284/.387/.531 - 16 hr, 43 rbi, 6 sb
Carlos Beltran - .271/.374/.479 - 12 hr, 54 rbi, 11 sb
Ryan Ludwick - .285/.362/.574 - 16 hr, 56 rbi, 4 sb
Ryan Braun - .282/.317/.544 - 20 hr, 58 rbi, 8 sb
Nate McLouth - .280/.359/.522 - 15 hr, 52 rbi, 9 sb
Kosuke Fukudome - .296/.404/.430 - 6 hr, 34 rbi, 7 sb

That's an odd looking group to be discussing for All Star berths, right? Carlos Beltran is the biggest star on the list and his numbers aren't necessarily eye-popping. Burrell's numbers are great and he has some history of this kind of performance in his career, but he has been very inconsistent from year to year. Bay is returning to form after a sub-par 2007 by his standards. Ludwick has never been healthy enough to keep a job for a full season and there isn't much prior history with him to determine whether his hot start is for real. Braun was the ROY last year and has picked things up after a slow start, but his OBP is still a bit low for my taste.

I suppose I'd take Burrell, Bay and Beltran, but you could almost take any three players on this list and make a solid argument in their favor.

American League All Star Selections

2008-06-30T18:34:00.006-05:00

[Note that all statistics in this post are through June 29, 2008]

The All Star Game is just around the corner and that means that it is time to go to http://www.mlb.com/ and stuff the virtual ballot box for your favorite players. On the other hand, if you want to vote for the players that have earned their spot on the All Star team, I'm going to give you a handy little guide. Today I'll go through the American League and tomorrow I'll look at the National League.

Before I get started though, I'd like to briefly discuss the qualifications for making the team. In my mind, there are two schools of thought, if you exclude the 'vote for every player on my favorite team' method. There is the 'half season of performance' method and the 'performance plus legacy' method. I think the 'performance plus legacy' method has a valid argument for legitimacy; that argument is that a guy who has never done anything before, but has a great three months at the beginning of the season, should not beat out an established star that has maintained a consistent level of performance over several years, even if the first guy is outperforming the second guy. There is merit to that argument, however, because things like Hall of Fame voting use the number of All Star appearances as a measuring stick, I think the selections should be made only on the merit of the current season. Otherwise, certain guys that get selected by reputation alone will receive unearned credit that they don't deserve (yes, I know this happens all the time - I am just giving my rationale for why selections shouldn't be made this way).

Anyway, my choices will be based on only the performance to this point in the 2008 season, but I will add comments regarding the players' past performance, if you choose to base your selections on other criteria. So, with no further ado, here are the selections:

Catcher

The American League has several legitimate choices at catcher. Here is how I would rank them:

Joe Mauer - .321/.406/.442 - 3 homers, 32 rbi
Dioner Navarro - .317/.368/.444 - 4homers, 31 rbi
Gerald Laird - .306/.360/.437 - 4homers, 25 rbi
AJ Pierzynski - .296/.337/.423 - 5homers, 30 rbi

I am personally not a big fan of the rbi as a comparative statistic, but I am including it for all players because so many people put so much stock in it and some of the comparisons you'll see in these lists show exactly why I dislike it. Anyway, Joe Mauer seems to be the clear leader of this group. He's a hell of a hitter, an on-base machine and he's got solid pop in his bat (if not homerun power). He probably gets the nod from a 'legacy' standpoint over the others on the list, as he put up a near-MVP season in 2006 (he should have won) and has been a premier catcher for the last several years.

First Base

This one is really close and it comes down to (to the disappointment of the rest of the country) New York vs. Boston. Here are the contenders:

Jason Giambi - .262/.396/.542 - 17 homers, 46 rbi
Kevin Youkilis - .313/.382/.544 - 13 homers, 50 rbi
Justin Morneau - .306/.368/.483 - 12 homers, 63 rbi

Morneau is clearly third in this race (although this is the first example of how the rbi can be misleading). Giambi and Youkilis are basically even in slugging percentage and Giambi has a decent lead in OBP, while Youkilis has a solid lead in batting average (which is probably the least important of the "slash" statistics). But they are really close to each other offensively, but Youkilis is far superior to Giambi defensively. I think I would choose Giambi because of the homeruns and the OBP advantage, but I don't think that a vote for Youkilis would be a travesty. Giambi probably has the edge from the 'legacy' standpoint, as a former MVP, although that legacy now also includes a steroids tag.

Second Base

The most deserving second baseman in the American League is one of the most unknown and underrated players in the game. He's not in Chase Utley's league, but it might surprise many to find out that he's not that far behind Utley. Here is the list:

Ian Kinsler - .323/.377/.534 - 13 homers, 50 rbi, 20 sb
Brian Roberts - .293/.370/.478 - 5 homers, 30 rbi, 21 sb
Dustin Pedroia - .304/.348/.442 - 8 homers, 37 rbi, 9 sb

Many people thought that Pedroia was overrated and would come back to Earth this season, myself included, but he has continued to play at a level that not many expected from him. Brian Roberts is having one of his typically great seasons, which would probably give him the 'legacy' edge at this position, since he's been doing this for some time. Ian Kinsler, however, clearly gets the nod here. He was a 20/20 player last season and has raised his game this year and has an outside chance of being a 30/30 player.

Third Base

The answer here is pretty obvious, but a darkhorse candidate seems to gain ground with every game played:

Alex Rodriguez - .322/.404/.591 - 15 homers, 43 rbi, 10 sb
Evan Longoria - .270/.342/.529 - 15 homers, 47 rbi, 4 sb
Joe Crede - .271/.343/.506 - 15 homers, 46 rbi
Mike Lowell - .296/.359/.519 - 12 homers, 46 rbi

I did a preliminary list last week for this post and Longoria didn't make the cut, but he's gaining momentum and is now neck-and-neck with Joe Crede for the backup spot on the team. As a rookie, he certainly doesn't have the 'legacy' vote, but that's only a matter of time. He's going to be a special player. Alex Rodriguez is having another MVP-quality season. He hasn't hit as many homers as he has in the past, but I would expect him to finish with around 40 anyway.

Shortstop

This position used to be a strength for the American League with the 'holy trinity' of Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra. Then Miguel Tejada was added to the mix and throw in Omar Vizquel and someone is going to get snubbed every year. This year, though, I had a difficult time coming up with qualified candidates. Here is my list:

Michael Young - .280/.333/.408 - 7 homers, 43 rbi, 5 sb
Derek Jeter - .284/.344/.393 - 4 homers, 35 rbi, 5 sb

That's it. In most years these guys wouldn't sniff consideration (at least from me - Jeter will always get a lot of votes). Both of these guys have been quality players in the past, but Jeter obviously would win the 'legacy' battle here.

Outfield

I've never understood why outfielders are lumped together - the positions are similar, but you clearly need different skills to play the different outfield positions. Regardless, the votes are for three outfielders, indpendent of position, so that is the way I have them listed as well.

JD Drew - .304/.417/.570 - 15 homers, 48 rbi, 2 sb
Josh Hamilton - .312/.362/565 - 19 homers, 79 rbi, 3 sb
Carlos Quentin - .288/.396/.544 - 19 homers, 61 rbi, 5 sb
Grady Sizemore - .268/.372/.525 - 19 homers, 45 rbi, 19 sb
Manny Ramirez - .289/.378/.519 - 16 homers, 52 rbi
Nick Markakis - .288/.394/.474 - 12 homers, 39 rbi, 8 sb
Magglio Ordonez - .307/.376/.490 - 12 homers, 50 rbi
David DeJesus - .316/.377/.480 - 8 homers, 41 rbi, 6 sb

This is clearly the position of strength for the American League. Any of the first five would be valid selections to start the game and the other three aren't that far behind. Take a close look at the numbers and especially the rbi. Does the difference in rbi between Josh Hamilton and JD Drew (or Grady Sizemore) really tell us anything about the relative abilities of those players? I submit that it does not (to steal a phrase from the hysterical Jeff Kay of the West Virginia Surf Report).

Also, take a look at David DeJesus' season so far. Those are some outstanding numbers that are getting lost in another wasted season for the Royals. DeJesus doesn't fit the mold of the speedy leadoff hitter (his stolen base success rate is barely over 50%), but if he remains at the top of the order and Alex Gordon and Billy Butler continue to develop as hitters, he will score a lot of runs for the Royals in the future.

There is a look at your American League All Stars, check in tomorrow for the National League.

Watched: Smorgasbord Live - 6/25/08

2008-06-25T18:01:00.022-05:00

6:02 (Central Time) - I'm going to try something a little different tonight and live blog the various games. There are some interesting pitchers starting tonight, so I'll be flipping around to get a glimpse of as much as I can.

6:06 - Skip Schumaker led off with a homerun on the first pitch of the game from Armando Galarraga. Galarraga is 7-2 with a 3.03 ERA so far on the season and has been a very pleasant surprise for the Tigers. Oops, Rick Ankiel just crushed another Galarraga offering and the Cardinals are up 2-0.

6:15 - Roy Halliday is impressive - he's got filthy stuff that he locates well. He struck out the first two batters of the game before walking Brandon Phillips and then giving up a homerun to Ken Griffey, Jr. on a good pitch - a low changeup that Halliday might have left a little bit too far inside. I'm off to a good start on this live blog: as soon as I start praising a pitcher he gives up a homerun before I finish typing the sentence.

6:20 - The Yankees spotted Joba Chamberlain a 2 run lead before he'd thrown a pitch. Reports from New York are that the Yankees are removing any pitch restrictions for Joba for the rest of the season. I am interested to see if he can reign in his pitch count to stay effective later into games. He certainly has electric stuff - getting his fastball up to 96 in the first inning. Joba is not cursed by this blog - he puts the Pirates down 1-2-3 in the first.

6:30 - Has Barry Zito returned from the edge of oblivion? He struck out the first two batters of the game against the Indians and got the third on a groundout to thirdbase. He has looked terrible this season (and last season) and his statistics seemed to indicate that he was over-valued a bit before he signed his big contract in free agency, but he went from being an overrated, but still above average pitcher to being one of the worst pitchers in the major leagues awfully quickly. I think he may be in for a bit of a bounceback in the second half of this season.

6:38 - There are currently eight games available to me to watch and at seven o'clock there will be another three. The Extra Innings package is the best investment of the year for me every year. Currently pitching: Joba Chamberlain, Roy Halliday, James Shields, Barry Zito, and Aaron Harang, among others.

6:43 - Well, in my last entry I missed Randy Johnson pitching for the Diamondbacks at Fenway Park. Johnson is not nearly the pitcher he was a few years ago, but he still looks deadly against lefthanded hitters. I am really surprised at Johnson's longevity - I never thought that he would be the type of pitcher that would be effective into his 40's. His injuries haven't been surprising with his size and high-effort delivery, but his ability to come back from those injuries has surpassed my expectations.

6:45 - David Wright just hit his second homerun of the night - in only the second inning against Seattle.

6:55 - The Tigers tied the Cardinals at two, going into the third inning and then Galarraga gave up a single and then a two-base error on Marcus Thames put runners on second and third with none out and Rick Ankiel coming to the plate. I was surprised that the Tigers did not walk Ankiel to load the bases in that situation, especially since Galarraga is more effective against righthanders (and Troy Glaus was on deck). Galarraga threw a 92 mph fastball over the outside portion of the plate and Ankiel just missed his second homer of the night - driving Curtis Granderson to the warning track and driving in a run with a Sac Fly.

7:05 - Joba just threw a really nice sequence of pitches to get the final out of the third inning: a 95 mph fastball on the inside corner, a 78 mph curveball that froze the hitter, a 96 mph fastball outside for a ball, and an 85 mph slider that broke the hitter's bat causing a groundout to shortstop. The hitter really had no chance.

7:12 - David Wright is coming up for his third at bat in the first three innings. Seattle's Miguel Batista will leave to go take a shower first, though. Jose Reyes just hit a three-run homer and Batista then walked Jose Castillo to bring up Wright. The Mariners are already down 8-0 and relief pitcher Roy Corcoran's job is just to keep this game respectable. He gets off to a good start by walking David Wright (hey, it's better than a homer, right?).

7:28 - Detroit traded Denny Bautista to Pittsburgh today for a minor league pitcher. I remember when Bautista came up with the Royals a few years ago - I watched him pitch a masterful game at Kaufman Stadium his rookie year and I thought for sure that he was going to be a star. He has great stuff, throwing in the mid-90's with his fastball and his slider is virtually unhittable. But Bautista could never harness his stuff and be consistent with his location. The Royals, Rockies, Tigers and now Pirates have all been seduced by the potential, but at this point it is clear that Bautista will never live up to what he could have been.

7:33 - In one of the games that started at 7:00, the Cubs are all over Baltimore in the first inning. They've already got one run across and the bases are loaded with one out and Geovany Soto at the plate. Matt Albers got the start for the Orioles, but only lasted a third of an inning and now Lance Cormier just gave up a two run single to Soto and a one run single from Mark DeRosa and the Cubs are up 4-0 with runners on the corners and still only one out. This one is getting ugly quick.

7:42 - Joba Chamberlain has now gone five scoreless innings, giving up three hits and a walk. His pitch count is in the upper 80's, which means that he probably has no more than one more inning in him. He qualifies for the win, but I'm sure the Yankees would love to see him get a little deeper into the game to reduce the stress on the bullpen.

8:09 - Barry Zito has continued his (one-night?) revival. He has gone 6.2 scoreless innings while giving up four hits (including a double to the Indians catcher moments ago) and striking out four. And, in fact, Zito is being pulled from the game with a three run lead after throwing 108 pitches.

8:15 - A game I haven't been keeping a very close eye on has gotten out of hand: the Rays are beating the Marlins 14-0 in the sixth inning after putting up a ten spot in the fifth inning. James Shields has gone the whole way for Tampa, giving up three hits and striking out four. And, of course, just as I type that last sentence, Mike Jacobs takes Shields deep for the Marlins first run. Make that four hits and four strikeouts. Shields gets the next hitter to ground out easily to short to end the sixth.

8:26 - And Joba comes out to start the seventh after throwing 98 pitches, proving me wrong as always. He gets the first two Pirates in the seventh and then gives up consecutive hits before getting pulled for a reliever. His final line is 6.2 innings pitched, six hits and one walk allowed, and seven strikeouts. He was so close to finishing the seventh, but he clearly started to tire. He threw 114 pitches on the night.

8:43 - And that's about it. It's time for me to start working on my other blog post of the evening, the Daily Farm Report for Future Redbirds.

Watched: Cincinnati @ New York Yankees - 6/22/08

2008-06-24T17:58:00.006-05:00

[click on pictures for a larger view]

My East Coast tour continued - after leaving Boston and Fenway Park on Friday the 20th of June, I made my way to New York and Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees play the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday June 22. This was, actually, the reason for my trip - I wanted to see a game at historic Yankee Stadium in its last season. The Stadium doesn't have the charm of Wrigley or Fenway, but there is still a lot of history at the park that makes it impressive to visit.

One of the things that I really wanted to visit was Monument Park in Centerfield, but unfortunately, we didn't make it to the park in time and this is as close as I got to it:

As for the game, we got to see a matchup of Andy Pettitte and Johnny Cueto (who I've written about before). Pettitte was riding a scoreless streak, which continued to nineteen innings before he was taken out of the game. He was extremely sharp. Here is a sequence that shows his pitching motion:

Cueto has struggled some since his first two starts that I so glowingly wrote about, but I was still very interested to see him pitch in person. He was credited with the loss, but he pitched five very strong innings before the rains came, striking out seven while giving up one run on four hits. Here is Johnny's pitching motion:

Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a homerun late in the game that I missed, but I did get a nice picture of his beautiful follow through.

The Yankees prevailed in this game mainly due to Pettitte's dominance. The Reds lineup leans heavily to the left with Griffey, Bruce, Votto and Adam Dunn (who did not start) as their big power bats and Griffey, Bruce and Votto were a combined 1-7 against Pettitte. By the time Pettitte came out after the sixth inning the Yankees were ahead 4-0 and both teams wanted to get the game over with after a fifty-five minute rain delay.

I am left to wonder what might have been without the rain. Cueto had only thrown 75 pitches and was down 1-0 when the rain came and washed out the rest of his afternoon. Meanwhile Pettitte had thrown 97 pitches through six innings when the rain came. It is certainly plausible that Cueto could have remained in the game another couple of innings and held the Yankees at bay while the Reds tried to mount a comeback, only down a run. Instead, the relief corps for the Reds immediately surrendered three runs after the rain delay and the Yankees cruised to victory.

Watched: St. Louis Cardinals at Boston Red Sox - 6/20/08

2008-06-23T16:45:00.006-05:00

[as always, click on pictures for a larger view]

The Boston Celtics won the NBA title on Tuesday June 17, 2008. I attended a Red Sox game at Fenway on Friday, June 20th. It was the first game at Fenway since the Celtics won the title and there were plenty of pre-game festivities. The truth of the matter is that my seats weren't really all that great for watching the game (we had one of the notoriously terrible Fenway sightlines from the rightfield corner), but they were perfect for watching the Celtics circle the field in duckboats.

I am not a huge NBA fan, but I have always been a fan of Kevin Garnett. I took a lot of pictures of Garnett at Fenway and there isn't a single one where he isn't beaming. The whole team was happy, but there seemed to be more with Garnett - joy, relief, validation, whatever - it was a lot of fun to watch.

As for the baseball game, it was quirky, which fits since Tim Wakefield started the game for the Red Sox. There are so few knuckleball pitchers around that it is really a unique experience to watch one pitch. Wakefield had the knuckler working for the most part - he gave up three runs on seven hits in seven innings. The funny thing about the knuckler is that Wakefield looks as awkward throwing it as the hitters do trying to make contact:

The game was marked by bad defense and power coming from unlikely sources. Julio Lugo made two throwing errors from shortstop for the Red Sox, Cesar Izturis made a fielding error at short for the Cardinals, and a blooper fell between four Cardinals, causing Brendan Ryan to flip over Rick Ankiel just prior to this picture being taken:

In the end, power from unlikely sources for the Cardinals (homers by Jason LaRue - .228/.337/.329, Skip Schumaker - .305/.363/.435, and Yadier Molina - .290/.347/.382) trumped power from unlikely sources for the Red Sox (homerun by Julio Lugo - .275/.364/.346 - first homer of the season) and the Cardinals won 5-4.

By the way, you may have noticed that both Jason LaRue and Yadier Molina were in the game for the Cardinals. Molina was the DH and LaRue started at catcher, presumably because Molina was coming off of a concussion. While the move worked to the Cardinals advantage, I really couldn't understand the thought process. The Red Sox had Wakefield, a soft-throwing righty, on the mound and the Cardinals had Brian Barton, Aaron Miles, Brendan Ryan and Molina to choose from for the DH (assuming that LaRue was starting at catcher because of Molina's concussion). But between those four guys, I'm not sure how Molina was the correct choice. If LaRue had gotten hurt, then the DH position is burned when you move Molina to catcher and I don't think that the upgrade in ability from Barton to Molina, Ryan to Molina or Miles to Molina (if there is any), is worth that risk. If any other player had gotten hurt (and Izturis actually did get hurt, bringing Ryan into the game), the other bench players could be shuffled to cover the position so as not to have to burn the DH, but not catcher.

Matt Holliday Update

2008-06-05T09:33:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago I posted about the Colorado Rockies and Pitch f/x. The conclusion of that post was that Rockies pitchers react to pitching at altitude differently than visiting team pitchers. In essence, visiting team pitchers throw fewer breaking balls and more fastballs, while Rockies pitchers throw fewer breaking balls, but more changeups.

That differetial was exemplified in Matt Holliday's pitch f/x data showing that last season over 70% of the pitches he faced were fastballs, compared to a league average of just over 60%. Holliday's differential is the biggest on the Rockies, but all of their hitters (besides Yorvit Torrealba) had higher than average rates.

This season there has been a lot of talk about the Rockies considering a trade of Holliday while his value is high and before he hits free agency. The problem that is often mentioned is Holliday's home/away splits, which are drastic. This puts Holliday's value in question - it likely means that he is far more valuable to Colorado than he is to anyone else.

As usual, the explanation for Hollidays splits is that the ball carries farther at altitude making it easier to hit there. While this is certainly a measure of the reason for his splits, I again turn to his pitch f/x numbers and point out that, once again, Holliday is seeing far more fastballs than the rest of the league. This season he is seeing fastballs, sinkers and splitters at a rate of 68.13%, while the rest of the league averages 59.75%.

I would not be willing to give up a package of prospects worthy of an MVP candidate for Holliday. Away from Coors Field, where he won't see quite so many fastballs, he is a solid, but unspectacular player.

Watched: Memphis Redbirds at Iowa Cubs - 5/30/08

2008-06-04T20:52:00.005-05:00

I attended the Memphis Redbirds at Iowa Cubs game in Des Moines, Iowa on May 30th. A full breakdown of the game will be posted on Future Redbirds next Monday, but I wanted to share a photo sequence I took at the game that didn't make the cut for the FR post. The Iowa Cubs have multiple players (Felix Pie, Eric Patterson and Matt Murton are the first that come to mind) that could start for about half of the teams in the major leagues. Those players dominated the game that I watched. This picture sequence is of Felix Pie sliding headfirst into third base after hitting a triple [as always, you can see a larger version by clicking on the picture]:

Markakis vs. Hart

2008-05-29T12:11:00.010-05:00

As I previously posted, I have a running wager this season with a friend regarding the performance of Nick Markakis of the Orioles and Corey Hart of the Brewers. As it is turning out, we could not have picked two more similar players through the first two months. Here are their respective stats as of today:

Nick Markakis: 187 at bats .251/.367/.433 9(hr) 24(rbi) 7(sb) 28(r) 47(h) 7(2b) 0(3B) 33(bb) 43(k)

Corey Hart: 196 at bats .296/.347/.464 6(hr) 27(rbi) 9(sb) 26(r) 58(h) 11(2b) 2(3b) 13(bb) 40(k)

The only significant difference is that Hart has a higher batting average, which Markakis makes up for with walks (leading to a higher OBP). I still feel pretty good about the wager, though. To this point, Markakis and the Orioles have played above their heads (the Orioles are 26-26 right now) and should slow down - in fact they have lost seven of their last ten games. The Brewers, on the other hand, have been unable to get things going. They are currently 26-27 and while they may not be as good as I thought before the season, I still expect them to pick up the pace. I somehow doubt that Prince Fielder will stay on pace to only hit 19 homeruns this season (after hitting 50 last season).

So, I believe that while Markakis' stats are the best you can hope for out of him considering the performance of his team and the players around him, Hart has considerable room for improvement once his team begins to play better.

Watched: 5-20-08 Smorgasbord

2008-05-21T11:12:00.003-05:00

As I looked through the schedule yesterday I realized that there really wasn't one game that stood out from the others. I wanted to see Cole Hamels pitch, I was curious to see how the Royals and Red Sox would respond to the no-hitter yesterday, the return of Alex Rodriguez might be interesting - so I watched them all simultaneously. It is pretty amazing how much you can catch when you flip between eight or so games at a time. Here is a sampling of my observations on the evening:

Orioles at Yankees - I flipped to this channel just as Derek Jeter was getting hit in the hand by Daniel Cabrera. He was taken out of the game (x-rays show no broken bones) immediately. What was striking was the crowd. The Yankees were already down by nine runs and have been struggling with injuries all season. I think every Yankee fan feared the worst. The crowd wasn't silent, it was just filled with quiet murmuring. I think the fans know that they are on the brink of losing this season.

I missed it later on when the Yankees retaliated and a brawl almost ensued. A-Rod also hit a homerun in his return (I didn't see that either).

Seattle at Detroit - This game was ugly early, with Carlos Silva giving up seven runs in the first four innings. I think there is an interesting comparison between Carlos Silva and Gil Meche. The Mariners had Meche and could have resigned him in 2007 for 5 years and $55M (well, that's what he signed for with the Royals, the Mariners probably could have had him for less), but instead let him go and then signed Silva before this season for 4 years and $48M. They are both 29 years old and both are struggling somewhat this season, but they should provide an interesting side-by-side comparison over the life of their contracts.

In a similar vein, who was the last big money free agent that really performed up to the value of the contract for his team? Alex Rodriguez with Texas (then why would they trade him)? Manny Ramirez with Boston (he was placed on waivers a couple of years ago)? I can think of a lot more big money free agents that have busted since they signed with another team than guys that were successful (here's a fun list: Barry Zito, Gary Matthews, Jr., Jason Schmidt, Carl Pavano, Juan Pierre, Mike Hampton, Andruw Jones - so far, etc.).

Kansas City at Boston - Speaking of Meche, he pitched tonight against Boston and did a fine job. He lasted seven innings and struck out eight, while giving up two runs on five hits. Unfortunately, the Royals offense sputtered again - at least they got a few hits this time, but they only scored one run and Meche gets the loss. This is one of the games that I flipped to for a while, but almost nothing happened while I watched. It happens, but on the other hand...

Chicago at Houston - ...sometimes you just get lucky: I flipped to this game just as Ryan Dempster walked Geoff Blum to load the bases, bringing Hunter Pence to the plate. Pence drilled a pitch the other way over the rightfield wall for a grand slam and the only runs that Houston would need to win. I know I'm not the only one to mention this, but is Hunter Pence the most awkward player in the major leagues? He is tremendously athletic, but he just looks odd doing everything.

Washington at Philadelphia - This is the game that I ended up watching the most. Cole Hamels reminds me a lot of Johan Santana in that his changeup is just a devastating pitch. His fastball is in the low 90's, but it must look like it is 110 after he throws one of his disappearing 81mph changeups. He shut down Washington for seven innings and struck out eleven.

The other thing I couldn't help noticing in this game was Wily Mo Pena. He didn't do anything spectacular in the game (he doubled in four at bats), but he looks like a linebacker. He is listed on ESPN.com as being 6'3" and 268lbs. That might even be a little heavy for a linebacker. But he isn't fat at all (unlike his teammate Dmitri Young, who looks like he just swallowed a wheel from a pitching machine - ESPN.com has him listed at 298lbs and he's every bit of that). In fact, you could probably put Pena at strong side linebacker, Elijah Dukes at middle linebacker (6'2" 241lbs) and Ryan Zimmerman at weak side linebacker (6'3" 228lbs) and you'd have a linebacking corps as big and athletic as the one that plays for the Redskins.

One final thing from this game: what happened to Christian Guzman? The Nationals signed him in 2005 and he was horrifyingly bad, putting up a .219/.260/.314 line. In fact, he had only had one decent (and partial - 118 games played) year in his whole career and that was in 2001 (.302/.337/.477). His career numbers are .265/.303/.382. Last year he played in only 46 games, but played well in those games (.328/.380/.426) and so far this year he has played in 45 games and put up a line of .311/.333/.459. Who is this guy?

Watched: Pittsburgh Pirates at St. Louis Cardinals - 5/13/08

2008-05-14T22:43:00.004-05:00

I attended the Pirates/Cardinals game in St. Louis on Tuesday night and the game had all of the drama, euphoria and heartbreak that make baseball the greatest sport. Both starting pitchers threw extremely well early, with only a Nate McLouth two-run homer in the fourth inning as a blemish on the scorecard.

Phil Dumatrait was cruising until the bottom of the sixth inning, when Troy Glaus came to the plate with two outs and two runners on. Glaus has struggled so far in his tenure with St. Louis, but came through with a blast that just made it over the left-centerfield wall to give St. Louis the lead. Here is what Glaus' follow-through looked like from the seats my friends and I claimed via adverse possession:

[as always, you can click on the picture for a larger view]

The Cardinals lead did not last long, as the wheels started to wobble for Kyle Lohse in the seventh and he gave up another pair of runs. Albert Pujols did his thing in the eighth, though, and tied the game with a bomb to leftfield. The Cardinals had great opportunities to put the game away, with runners on first-and-third after the Pujols homer in the eighth and a bases loaded situation in the ninth, but the game was destined for extra innings. Late in the game I leaned over the Cardinals bullpen and took this picture:

"Ok, whoever wants to blow the game tonight, raise your right leg. Great, go out there and do your thing, Villone."

I'm not even going to go into what happened in the tenth, but suffice it to say that it was ugly. Villone was allowed to pitch the entire inning and gave up four runs on four hits and two walks.

And finally, just because it is one of my favorite things to take pictures of, here is a sequence of Kyle Lohse's pitching motion, which looks pretty clean to me.

Watched: Kansas State @ Missouri

2008-05-03T08:26:00.007-05:00

I finally got around to making the trip to Columbia to see the Tigers (and especially Aaron Crow). The Tigers have been in a little bit of a slump, dropping their national ranking from #4 to #15. Aaron Crow was on the mound on Friday and they hoped to change their luck.

Aaron looked pretty strong in the first few innings, despite giving up a run in each of the first two. Aside from a double to lead off the game, Kansas State's hits were all ground balls that found their way through the infield. Crow combined an overpowering fastball with a wipeout slider to rack up the strikeouts.

The Mizzou offense was firing on all cylinders early, as well. After two innings the score was 7-2 and Aaron Senne and Jacob Priday had both homered. Priday would add another later, as would Trevor Coleman and Ryan Lollis. Here is a three picture sequence of Priday's second homerun:

The leftfielder never moved [Note: you can click on the pictures for a full-sized view].

Mizzou held on to win 13-10, but the story was Aaron Crow. He seemed to have the ability to 'turn it on' and become dominant when he needed to, but other times he seemed to lose focus. Maybe he was just hurting, though. Crow came out of the game in the sixth inning with an injury. It looked to me like he was grabbing at his lower back. [UPDATE: It has been reported that he had muscle spasms in his back, which as far as I know did not recur during the rest of Missouri's season] I hadn't noticed any deterioration in his stuff, but he had been a little wild in the inning (in which he gave up 3 runs - two earned - and left with men on first and second).

There are some concerns about Crow's mechanics - check out this picture of his delivery where his throwing elbow is above his throwing shoulder:

I believe that is what Chris O'Leary would call an 'inverted W', which is a warning sign (according to Chris). In the link above for Chris O'Leary, he breaks down Crow's delivery and explains why the 'inverted W' is a bad thing. He also talks about a red herring in Crow's delivery: the wrist wrap. O'Leary's conclusion is that the wrist wrap is not a red flag, and that may be, but it is odd looking in person:

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in seeing Crow in person. He has been tabbed as a top five pick in the draft, but he was far too inconsistent to me. His flashes of dominance showed what he is capable of, but I'm not sure that is enough for a top five pick.

As a bonus, here is three picture sequence of Trevor Coleman ripping a pitch into leftfield:

Coleman is a switch hitting catcher who hits for power and average from both sides of the plate. He seemed to handle himself well behind the plate, too, as he threw out a runner trying to steal and did a good job of blocking pitches in the dirt. He is only a Sophmore this year, but I would expect him to get some early draft consideration in 2009.

Pitch f/x and Colorado

2008-04-24T11:39:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the percentages of pitch types thrown by the top pitchers in baseball. I was going to do a similar post about the pitch types seen by the top hitters when I got sidetracked by a portion of the research that I was doing.

I was combining the types of fastballs that the hitters had seen (normal fastball, sinker, and cutter) to get a sense of which hitters had seen the most off-speed pitches when I found that Matt Holliday's numbers stuck out like a sore thumb. 70.62% of all pitches that Holliday saw last year were fastballs, sinkers or cutters. I was comparing the top 20 homerun hitters last year and the next five highest results were:

2) Ken Griffey, Jr. - 63.9%
3) Ryan Braun - 63.69%
4) Adam Dunn - 62.16%
5) Lance Berkman - 62.09%
6) Carlos Lee - 62.01%

Aside from Holliday's 70.62%, the rest of the top 20 were fairly evenly distributed between 50.23% (Ryan Howard) and those listed above. So I wondered if this anomaly extended to other hitters for the Rockies - here are the percentages for the top eight Rockies hitters by at bats in 2007:

1) Matt Holliday - 70.62%
2) Troy Tulowitzki - 63.23%
3) Garrett Atkins - 64.37%
4) Todd Helton - 65.48%
5) Brad Hawpe - 65.16%
6) Kaz Matsui - 65.93%
7) Yorvit Torrealba - 59.68%
8) Wily Tavarez - 68.47%

Except for Torrealba and Tulowitzki, all eight are higher than any of the top 20 homerun hitters from last year. I then looked up the league average, and the percentage was 60.85. It is clear, then, that the Rockies are seeing a significantly larger amount of fastballs than the rest of the league.

I then turned to the Rockies pitchers, to see if they were throwing a larger percentage of fastballs than the league average. Here is the top five Rockies pitchers, as ranked by innings pitched in 2007:

1) Jeff Francis - 57.49%
2) Aaron Cook - 52.38%
3) Josh Fogg - 61.99%
4) Jason Hirsch - 56.85%
5) Taylor Buchholz - 60.87%

Only Josh Fogg threw more than the league average and he barely threw 1% more than the average. Interestingly, though, except for Taylor Buchholz (who only throws fastballs and sliders), the Rockies pitchers did not throw more breaking balls. Jeff Francis, Josh Fogg and Jason Hirsch relied on the changeup, while Aaron Cook threw the splitter as his primary second offering. The league average for changeups is 12.84% and Francis, Fogg and Hirsch threw 28.54%, 25.28% and 22.6% respectively (Aaron Cook threw 22.71% splitters compared with a 2.18% league average).

The conclusion we can draw from this is that the commonly-held belief that breaking pitches are less effective at altitude, whether it is scientifically accurate or not, has taken hold in major league baseball. The Rockies response to that belief, however, is different from that of the rest of the league. The Rockies pitchers do not throw more fastballs in response, they throw more changeups. I can't say whether this response is calculated or not. Perhaps the Rockies came to this conclusion and acquired and developed pitchers with good changeups or perhaps the Rockies stumbled into this response.

The real question is whether the strategy works, and by the numbers it certainly appears to. There was a lot of publicity about how the humidor in Colorado was keeping the scoring down and while that may be true, that should be true for the home team as well as the visiting team. This difference in strategic reactions to the belief that breaking pitches are ineffective at altitude should show up in the home and away splits for the offense and pitching of the Rockies.

At home last year the Rockies scored 478 runs, or about 25% more than they scored on the road. The Rockies gave up 396 runs at home last year, which is only 9% more than they gave up on the road last year. It is unsurprising that the Rockies pitchers would cope with the park effects of their home park better than their opposition, even without a different strategy, but it hardly seems reasonable that "home cooking" could account for a 16% difference.

There has been a lot of research into park factors and the development of park-neutral statistics. What those numbers don't take into account, however, is that some of those factors are impacted by the way teams construct their rosters and design strategies to make the unique aspects of their parks work in their favor. In Colorado's case, it certainly appears that they are addressing the aspects of Coors Field in better ways than their opposition, which gives them an advantage.

Watched - Matt Morris

2008-04-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

I can't say that I exactly feel bad for Matt Morris - he has earned $56,311,850 playing baseball (according to ESPN.com) - but there is something sad about watching the downside of his career. Matt was the 12th pick overall in the 1995 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals. He came up two years later and finished second to Scott Rolen in the Rookie of the Year balloting. He was injured in 1998 and missed all of 1999 after having Tommy John surgery. He came back in 2000 and made 31 appearances in relief.

Matt broke out in 2001, winning 22 games and striking out 185 batters while posting a 137 ERA+. He was third in the Cy Young balloting. At the age of 26, the Cardinals thought they had found their Ace for years to come. But 2001 was the last time that Matt put together a truly great season. He was very good in 2002, with a 117 ERA+ and striking out 171, but thereafter settled into the "solid, but unspectacular" category, reaching double digits in wins every year and eating a lot of innings, but never dominating. He was an integral part of the Cardinals teams that led the majors in wins in 2004 and 2005, but he wasn't their best pitcher. Many people viewed him as the heart and soul of the pitching staff, though.

I think what I like so much about Matt is that he had been great and had great potential and even though injuries and age sapped him of that potential greatness, he still gave everything he had and found ways to be a successful pitcher. What makes me sad about Matt is that he was not on the Cardinals team that won a World Series in 2006. He was so much a part of the build up to that World Series - the close calls in 2004 and 2005 - that he seemed like he should have been celebrating with the team on the field in 2006.

I watched Matt's start last night against the Florida Marlins for old time's sake. Unfortunately, the experience was a little depressing and made me feel old (I am about two months older than Matt). During his early, dominant, years, Matt threw in the low 90's with his fastball and had a put-away 12-6 curveball. As he settled into his career, his fastball was about 89-91 and he still had a great curveball. He also learned to mix in a cutter to give hitters a different look. Last night Matt had the same repertoire, just slower. His fastball was anywhere from 83 to 88 (but it still had great movement), his cutter was in the upper 70's, and his curveball was in the upper 60's. The curve had a bit of a loop to it and he hung a couple.

Matt is clearly not the pitcher he was even three years ago, but I think that it is possible to be a league average pitcher with the stuff that he has. He is willing to throw any of his pitches on any count and if Matt could locate his fastball on the corners and low in the strike zone, he can still be successful. Unfortunately, Matt's biggest problem last night was that he couldn't locate any of his pitches consistently.

Matt lasted only four innings, giving up eight runs on nine hits, a walk and a hit batsman. He struck out two and threw 99 pitches. He gave up a couple of homeruns, the first to Hanley Ramirez on a 71mph hanging curveball that looked like it had been set on a tee for Ramirez. The second was on an 83mph fastball that was right down the middle to Josh Willingham. The first homer didn't bother me as much as the second. When a pitcher relies on his curveball as much as Morris does, he will hang a few on occasion. The pitch to Willingham, though, looked like Matt was just out there throwing batting practice. Unfortunately, it looked like that a lot in the four innings Matt threw. Almost all of the nine hits were hit hard - he also gave up 5 doubles - and seven of the nine hits were off of the fastball.

I hope for the best for Matt, because he has always been one of my favories, but the Pirates can't afford to keep sending him out there the way he's been pitching - no matter how much they are paying him.

Miguel Tejada and Gotcha Journalism

2008-04-18T07:50:00.004-05:00

By now you have probably heard that Miguel Tejada is two years older than previously thought. He lied to the Oakland A's when he was first signed as an amateur because of the pressure to find a way out of poverty. The excuse doesn't make it right, although my guess is that the A's, or any of the teams that have signed or traded for him since, would not have changed their decision based on the two year jump in age (Houston might not have been willing to give up such a big package for him, but then again, we are talking about Ed Wade).

The issue for me, though, is how this story was broken (which makes this post less about baseball and more about journalism, sorry). ESPN set up an interview with Tejada and sat him down in front of a camera and asked him how old he is. Tejada seemed a bit confused by the line of questioning, expecting the interview to be about his new team or the start of the new season. When Tejada answered that he is 31, the questioner asked if he was sure and then pulled out a birth certificate showing that Tejada was born in 1974, not 1976. Tejada then became very confused, then upset. He said something to the effect of "I didn't come here to talk about this kind of thing," and then took off the lapel microphone and left.

This kind of journalism sickens me. The story is legitimate news, but why does ESPN think it has to pull the Jerry Springer move with Tejada to break it? They brought Tejada in under false pretenses and then ambushed him with embarrassing information. Is that entertainment? ESPN should be ashamed that they have turned to this kind of gutter journalism to get a cheap pop.

Watched: Twins @ Royals

2008-04-12T23:20:00.004-05:00

Using "Watched" might be a little strong in this case. "Shivered through" is probably more appropriate. I attended the Twins @ Royals game this evening, but the temperature hovered around forty degrees and there were snowflakes in the air throughout the day. The Royals wore their throwback, powder-blue jerseys, which were pretty cool (although they wore them with white pants that looked ridiculous):

I really can't break down much of what happened during the game because 1) it was too cold to take notes, mental or otherwise; and 2) everyone's performance is a bit skewed because of the conditions (for example, both starting pitchers, Brett Tomko and Boof Bonser, pitched very well - which in and of itself should prove that the results are unreliable).

So, in lieu of any analysis, here is a picture of Royals legend Frank White throwing out the first pitch:

Watched: Johnny Cueto

2008-04-08T22:01:00.008-05:00

Johnny Cueto's major league debut on April 3rd was the talk of the baseball world last week. The 22 year old struck out 10 in seven innings, giving up only one hit, a Justin Upton solo homerun. Cueto (pronounced 'Kway-tow') was signed by Cincinnati out of the Dominican Republic as a 19 year old and flew through their minor league system.

Tonight was Johnny's second start, so I decided to check him out. I have read comparisons between Cueto and a young Pedro Martinez, and I can understand that: they are both Dominican, they are both slight of build (Cueto is a bit stockier, though), and they both have electric stuff. Tonight, though, the FSN Ohio crew showed a side-by-side comparison of Cueto's pitching motion next to Bob Gibson's motion and they are very similar. Gibson is a bit taller than Cueto, but the motion and especially the follow through (falling off towards first base) are very similar.

Cueto pitched well again tonight, although he wasn't quite as dominant. He came out of the game after 6.1 innings, having given up 5 hits and 2 earned runs, while striking out 8. The statistic that I find most impressive is that he did not walk a single batter (which gives him a total of zero on the year so far in 13.1 innings). He throws four plus pitches: a 2 seam fastball, a 4 seam fastball, a slider, and a changeup. He seemed to mix them well, throwing any of his pitches on any count. It seemed that he gave up on his 2 seam fastball after missing a few times with it early - it was coming in at 91-92mph and had a lot of run to it. His 4 seam fastball sits around 94-96mph, but was very straight [edit - note: pitch f/x seems to disagree with me here, as almost all of his fastballs show at least some movement]. The few times that he got in trouble (other than a hanging slider that Bill Hall hit over the leftfield fence) it seemed like he relied too much on the 4 seam fastball and the Brewers hitters were able to sit on it.

Both his slider and his changeup can be used as put-away pitches. The slider is the type that is usually thrown out of the strikezone to get the batter to chase, which works well with his fastball. The changeup is used similarly, as he has very good arm action and the pitch fades down and in to a righthanded hitter. He used both pitches as strikeout pitches and to setup a high fastball for the strikeout.

One of the concerns with Cueto is with his workload. He is not a big guy and his manager (Dusty Baker) has a history of overworking his young pitchers (Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, please pick up a white courtesy phone). I was especially curious to see how Dusty would handle him as the game wore on. The Reds were down 1-0 in the top of the seventh inning when Cueto's spot in the lineup came up with a man on second and one out. He had already thrown 86 pitches at that point, but Dusty did not pinch hit for him. Cueto grounded out to short, moving the runner to third (who eventually scored). I couldn't help thinking of Mark Prior and wondering if Dusty would run Cueto out there for 120 pitches. In the bottom of the seventh Cueto gave up a leadoff homerun to Hall (on the aforementioned hanging slider, which probably made every Reds fan scream obscenities at Dusty for not pinch hitting for the kid), but then struck out Corey Hart on some of the nastiest pitches he had thrown all night. Then Dusty took him out after 96 pitches.

Setting aside the questionable game management, I think 96 pitches is probably a smart limit for Cueto. He is only 22 years old and has less than 350 innings as a professional prior to this season. He is a dynamic talent and the Reds need to protect their investment in him. Hopefully Dusty Baker has learned from his failure to manage Prior and Woods' innings properly and Cueto won't suffer the same fate.

A Far-Reaching Trade

2008-04-07T12:13:00.008-05:00

I read today that the Arizona Diamondbacks have reached a six year agreement with their young outfielder, Chris Young. Young is an extremely talented young player - he hit 32 homeruns and stole 27 bases last season as a 23 year old rookie. His on-base skills have yet to develop at the major league level, but his minor league history seems to indicate that he will improve in that area.

While Chris is an interesting ballplayer and I think the D-Backs will get good value out of this contract, what I find most interesting is how he got here. Chris was drafted out of high school by the Chicago White Sox and was their top prospect. After the 2005 season, however, the White Sox traded Chris to Arizona. You may recall that the White Sox won the World Series in 2005. Apparently, they believed that the key to maintaining their success was to upgrade their pitching. So they traded Chris, Orlando Hernandez (a key to their pitching staff, but one that was already at least 39 years old), and Luis Vizcaino to Arizona for Javier Vazquez. Vazquez was enigmatic, pitching well for Montreal from 2001-2003, but struggling with the Yankees and Arizona thereafter.

Two months into the 2006 season, the D-Backs flipped Orlando Hernandez to the Mets for Jorge Julio. Julio finished the season with Arizona, but they then traded him to Florida in exchange for Yusmeiro Petit. At the time Petit was a young starting pitching prospect with a lot of upside, but his K/9 rate has dropped his last two seasons in the minors (in truth his rates began deteriorating much earlier - maybe Florida knew something before they traded him).

Luis Vizcaino, the other piece the D-Backs received with Young, was flipped to the Yankees before the 2007 season as part of the trade to acquire Randy Johnson. So, to sum up, the Diamondbacks gave up a talented, but enigmatic starter in the prime of his career for a potential 30/30 outfielder just about to break into the major leagues, a fringy pitching prospect at the cusp of the major leagues, and a spare part used to acquire a once-dominant hero of the franchise that could still be a quality starting pitcher if used properly.

I would say that the D-Backs "won" the trade, although it is certainly a defensable move by the White Sox if Vazquez becomes an anchor of their staff and leads them to the playoffs. How much better would the Sox have been last year if they had Young in the outfield instead of Scott Podsednik, Jerry Owens, etc.? How much better would they be this year with Young? Instead, they were forced to trade four prospects to shore up their outfield: three to Oakland for Nick Swisher and one to Arizona for Carlos Quentin.

Trades like this one fascinate me because of the domino effect with the other trades that occurred and because so many of the names involved are impact players.

Profile - Brian Bannister

2008-04-03T08:37:00.006-05:00

Brian Bannister is getting a lot of publicity lately. This post by Joe Posnanski provides a good overview of why Bannister is a good player to root for. The short version is that Bannister does not have overwhelming "stuff" and has dedicated himself to studying statistics to find any edge he can to succeed. And he has found success at the major league level.

Brian is the son of former major league pitcher Floyd Bannister and presumably grew up around major league baseball. He was undrafted out of high school and went to USC. His Sophmore year at USC he put up decent numbers out of the pen, with a 2.83 ERA in 54 IP. Brian had elbow surgery the following season, which he red-shirted, but was drafted by the Red Sox in the 45th round anyway. He returned to school instead and put up sub-par numbers his Junior year (2003). He went 6-5 with a 4.53 ERA in 93.1 IP; his WHIP was 1.38 and his K/9 were only 5.4

The Mets drafted him in the 7th round after that season anyway, apparently believing that Brian's struggles were only due to his recovery from surgery. This time Brian signed and joined the Mets Brooklyn affiliate immediately and was successful, with a 2.15 ERA over his first 46 professional innings.

The following season, 2004, Brian started the year at Port St. Lucie, the Mets advanced A level club. Brian threw 110.1 innings with a 4.32 ERA at Port St. Lucie and was very stingy with the free passes, walking only 27 against 107 strikouts (that's a 2.20 BB/9 and a 8.65 K/9). He was promoted to AA Binghamton for his final 44.1 innings of the season and while his ERA improved slightly (to 4.06), his rate stats did not. His BB/9 increased to 3.45, his K/9 lowered to 5.68 and his WHIP rose to 1.40.

At 24 years old, he started the 2005 season back at Binghamton and dominated. He logged 109 innings and his ERA was only 2.56. His rate stats went back to the levels he had attained in Port St. Lucie, with a BB/9 of 2.23 and a K/9 of 7.76. The strikeout rate is what held Bannister back from ever being considered a top prospect. Regardless of minor league ERA or other measures of success, the K rate is viewed as being the best indicator of future success in the major leagues (and statistical studies have proven this to be true).

Nevertheless, the Mets promoted Bannister mid-year to their AAA affiliate at Norfolk and continued to impress. In his 45.1 innings he had a 3.45 ERA and improved his K/9 rate to 9.53, while keeping his BB/9 rate at 2.58 (although his WHIP jumped to 1.35). Brian was named the Mets Minor League Player of the Year for 2005.

2006 was an up and down year for Brian. On the down side, he was placed on the 60-day disabled list with a hamstring problem, which limited him to only 80.1 innings pitched the whole season. On the up side, however, Brian made his big league debut for the Mets early in the season and after rehabbing at Port St. Lucie and Norfolk, he stuck with the Mets for the rest of the season. His rehab stats were very similar to his previous minor league stats, but he struggled a little in the majors. While he had a 2-1 record with a 4.26 ERA over 38 innings, his BB/9 was 5.21 and his K/9 was only 4.50 and his WHIP was up to 1.47.

Scouts and statistical analysts alike believed (and many still believe) that Brian lacked the "stuff" to consistently get major league hitters out and considered him a marginal starter for the back of a rotation at best. Brian very rarely breaks 90 mph with his fastball, sitting at 86-88 usually - according to Josh Kalk's Pitch f/x database, the initial speed of Brian's fastball averages 89.48 mph. He throws curves, sliders and changeups in addition to his fastball, with a slight preference for the slider (19.89%), but he mixes in the curve and changeup at good rates also (13.98% and 12.98% respectively).

Prior to the 2007 season the Mets traded Brian to the Royals in exchange for Ambiorix Burgos, a flamethrowing reliever that had worn out his welcome in Kansas City with his lack of control. Burgos is quite likely Bannister's complete opposite as a pitcher. Bannister made 27 starts for the Royals and posted a 3.87 ERA in 165 innings. His walk rate stayed low (BB/9 of 2.4) but his K/9 was also low, at 4.20. Bannister's BABIP (that's batting average on balls in play - which is often used to determine how 'lucky' a pitcher is because BABIP has been shown to be something largely out of the pitcher's control so if a pitcher's BABIP is significantly higher or lower than the MLB average - last year the MLB average was just over .300 - then they have been 'lucky' to the extent that they differ) last season was .266, which he has acknowledged as a key to his success. In fact, Brian spoke at length about his low BABIP last year. He also said (in the Posnanski blog linked above) that he believes he will need to decrease his walk rate slightly and increase his k rate slightly to compensate for the expected increase in BABIP (statistically: regression to the mean).

Walking fewer hitters will certainly be difficult, as his BB/9 last year was already excellent, but I suppose it is possible - 21 pitchers posted better BB/9 than Bannister last season (the lowest was Greg Maddux at 1.14). Striking out more hitters seems like a more attainable goal, though. He will almost certainly never get back to his minor league rates, but if he could just get to league average he should be able to retain his success of 2007 and then some. So far in 2008 he's off to a good start (BB/9: 0.0; K/9: 5.14).

Opening Day Predictions - American League

2008-03-31T11:02:00.009-05:00

Yesterday I posted my NL predictions and here are my AL predictions:

AL East: Red Sox - Boston's lineup is getting older and soon they will need a new thumper in the middle as Manny and Big Papi decline, but I think they've got another big year in them. I also think that Daisuke Matsuzaka is going to have a Cy Young quality year now that he's got a year of American baseball under his belt and should be more comfortable. The Schilling injury won't hurt as bad as some think as Clay Bucholtz will soak up the innings without missing a beat. I'm not sure about Bartolo Colon, but as a #4 or #5, it isn't a bad risk to take (since they have Jon Lester and Tim Wakefield to pick up if Colon falters).

While I like Boston better this year, I think the Yankees are set up better for the future. A-Rod will be the centerpiece for the foreseeable future and Wang, Hughes, Kennedy, and Chamberlain provide long-term solutions for the rotation. A lot of big contracts will be gone after this year or next: Giambi, Abreu, Damon, Pettitte, Matsui, Mussina and while they might resign some (Pettitte and Abreau possibly), the others will create a vacuum that will certainly be filled with other high-dollar players (Mark Teixeira, I'm looking at you). While they aren't ready to retake the division, they should still win the Wild Card this season and come back even stronger for 2009.

AL Central: Detroit - As I wrote in an earlier post, the Tiger's window is open. They've got an amazing lineup, with Granderson at the top, Sheffield, Ordonez and Cabrera in the middle, and Pudge Rodriguez, Carlos Guillen, Renteria, and Polonco as complementary pieces. The rotation is strong with Verlander and Bonderman at the top and Rogers, Willis and Robertson filling out the bottom. The bullpen could be the best in baseball if they could stay healthy, but injuries to Zumaya and Rodney present the biggest internal speedbump to Detroit.

The biggest external speedbump to the Tigers is the Indians. Cleveland is walking a fine line with their team this year - if a couple of things go against them, they could be mediocre quickly. Travis Hafner is on the wrong side of 30 and his production is in decline. Victor Martinez isn't far behind him and you have to wonder if staying at catcher will take a toll on his offensive production. The top of their rotation is great, with Sabathia and Carmona, but Bryd, Lee and Westbrook all fail to inspire.

AL West: Seattle - I predict that the AL West will be the worst division in baseball this season and I have the Mariners winning almost by default. The acquision of Erik Bedard gives them a true Ace at the top of their rotation and Felix Hernandez could develop into an Ace before the end of this season. The rotation is shaky thereafter. The lineup probably doesn't have a legitimate 30 homerun threat, but is solid top to bottom with Ichiro, Lopez, Beltre, Sexson and emerging youngster Wladamir Balentien. They are, at best, the fifth best team in the AL, but that should be enough to win a weakened West.

The Angels would be the team that provides the West with some legitimacy, but injuries have them depleted. John Lackey should come back after missing the first month, but Kelvim Escobar might be done for the season and Scot Shields' future is cloudy. I like Jared Weaver, but I'm not sure he's ready to step up and carry the team while Lackey and Escobar are out. Offensively the club still revolves around Vladimir Guerrero and there isn't a lot of power to be found elsewhere, but I think that Howie Kendrick has a chance to be a quality doubles and average kind of hitter.

MVP: Alex Rodriguez - I wanted to put someone else here, I really did, but every time I thought about another player (Grady Sizemore, Manny Ramirez - who I think will have a great season this year, Miguel Cabrera) I kept asking myself if I really thought that they would have a better season than A-Rod and I could never say yes.

Cy Young: Daisuke Matsuzaka - As with Ben Sheets in the NL, I figure if I'm going to make a bold prediction, I might as well take it all the way. I really think he's got the stuff and makeup to be a top shelf starter in this league. He had a very good year last year and he was still adjusting to the schedule and cultural differences in America.

ROY: Adam Jones - If Evan Longoria had started the season in the majors, I think this would be his. Jones is going to be very good and his two month head start on the counting stats will give him the ROY over Longoria.

Nik Markakis: .274/.355/.482 22hr

Miguel Cabrera: .317/.402/.554 32hr

Erik Bedard: 16-6, 3.26 ERA, 204 K's

Opening Day Predictions - National League

2008-03-30T16:52:00.009-05:00

Technically, opening day was a week ago, when the Red Sox played the A's in Tokyo. The games counted towards the regular season, but it didn't feel much like Opening Day. Even tonight, Atlanta plays Washington, won't seem like Opening Day - that's tomorrow, when the rest of the teams start playing for real.

Every year about this time I make some predictions and I'm usually only right about the obvious stuff. That won't stop me, though - it's just too much fun making the predictions. Here goes:

Division Winners:

NL East: New York - they aren't without their problems, namely that Delgado and Castillo are past their prime and the Church/Pagan/Chavez trio will be filling 2 outfield spots, but the offense can revolve around Wright, Beltran and Reyes and let Delgado and the others be complementary players. Their big upgrade in pitching (switching out Glavine for Santana in the rotation) makes them a lot better, although I am skeptical of Pedro's health at this point in his career. I would expect the Mets to deal for a starter at the trade deadline (although they've only got one big trading chip left: Fernando Martinez).

I'm not a fan of the Phillies - their offense will be exciting with Howard, Utley, Rollins, and Burrell - but the back of the rotation with Jaime Moyer, Kyle Kendrick and Adam Eaton scares me. The Braves, on the other hand, I do like. With Kelly Johnson setting the table and Jones, Teixeira, McCann and Francouer forming the heart of the linup, they should score some runs. Smoltz and Hudson at the top of the rotation is nice, and I like the pickup of Jurrjens for the middle of the rotation. Unfortunately, the starting 5 is rounded out by Mike Hampton and Tom Glavine, who both might be toast (although Hampton looked good when I saw him in the Spring).

NL Central: Milwaukee - I like this Brewers team a lot. There is no doubt that they will score some runs, with Fielder, Braun, and Hart in the center of the lineup. They are complemented well in almost every spot: Weeks and Hardy are young starts just notch below the other three, Hall has proven that he can play big (see 2006), and Cameron will be his usual solid-if-not-spectacular self. The health of Ben Sheets is always a question, but I am going out on a limb and picking him to get 30 starts and be in the hunt for the Cy Young. Add Yovani Gallardo, the ever-steady Jeff Suppan and the potential of Manny Parra to Sheets and you've got a deep and talented starting staff.

I dislike the Cubs on principal as a Cardinals fan. As an unbiased baseball fan, though, I think this team is poised to make a run. The NL Central, which was the laughingstock of baseball the last two seasons, will be an exciting division to watch, as the Cubs and Brewers will battle for first place all season and the loser will get the Wild Card. The Cubs upgrades over last season (Fukudome and Pie instead of Jaque Jones and Clif Floyd; and a full season of Geovany Soto instead of Barrett/Kendall) will make a huge difference in their offense (as would the potential switch of DeRosa for Brian Roberts, if they can ever finalize the deal with Baltimore). I am a bit worried about the possibility of Marquis and Dempster at the end of their rotation, but they've got some youngsters (including Sean Marshall) to fill in if trouble arises. I also like the end of their bullpen with Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood (converting him to the pen will save his career, in my opinion).

NL West: Los Angeles - I don't trust this team to do the right thing with its young players, but I think they will overcome some poor choices because they have talent across the board (Juan Pierre notwithstanding). Russell Martin is just entering his prime, Ethier, Kemp and Loney are young studs (and LaRoche would be if he'd stay healthy) and Kent and Andruw Jones still have some in the tank. The pitching is deep, too with Penny, Lowe, Billingsly and Kuroda starting and Broxton and Saito in the pen.

If the Dodgers falter, there will be a mad rush to take their place. I love the Diamondbacks young team and Webb/Haren is might be the best duo in the NL. If they aren't the best duo in the NL, then it is probably Peavy/Young with San Diego. The Padres problem is that they will rely too much on Jim Edmonds and Brian Giles to carry their offense. The reigning NL Champions, the Rockies, will also be in the hunt, but I am afraid that their pitching will come up short this season.

Miscellaneous NL Predictions:

MVP: David Wright - He should have won last year and I would expect him to be close to the top of the ballot for years to come. He wins this year as he leads the Mets to the playoffs.

Cy Young: Ben Sheets - The obvious choice would be Santana or Peavy, but I'm sticking with my prediction of this being the year that Sheets stays healthy and puts it all together.

ROY: Geovany Soto - Every fiber of my being wants it to be Colby Rasmus of the Cardinals. If Braun won it last year after coming up in May, why can't Colby this year? Colby and Jay Bruce will probably have better careers, but I'm going with Soto in this one because he will get more at bats to pile up the counting stats and his team will get more attention because they'll be in the pennant race.

Johan Santana: 17-8, 3.23 ERA, 242 K's - A very good year, but not a Cy Young performance.

Dan Haren: 15-10, 3.63 ERA, 194 K's - Haren might be the game's best #2 starter, but don't confuse him for a #1 (luckily the D-Backs already have Brandon Webb).

Kosuke Fukudome: .278/.389/.438 - He will adjust well to the United States and will be even better in 2009.

Corey Hart: .292/.367/.571 and 32 homers - a breakout year, combining with Fielder and Braun to bring the Wallbangers back to Milwaukee.

Tomorrow: the American League

Spring Training Photo Dump

2008-03-29T10:46:00.007-05:00

I finally got around to going through the rest of my pictures from Spring Training. Here are the best of what's left.

The first one has a story - I have a bet going into this season with a friend of mine regarding who will have a better season, my breakout pick, Corey Hart, or Baltimore's Nik Markakis. Since I got to see Baltimore play while I was in Florida, I took a bunch of pictures of Markakis and emailed the following awkward looking one to my friend, offering to let him out of the bet, if he wanted:

The next one has no story, I just think it is a nice looking picture (Chris Duncan singled to rightfield on this pitch):

The next pair of pictures concerns me as a Cardinals fan. I hope that this isn't the extent of the video crew that the club is using for internal purposes.

Here is a closeup of the guy:

Finally, rookie Adam Jones (who the Orioles acquired from Seattle as part of the Erik Bedard trade) had a nice spring and I expect him to be a very good all around ballplayer for years to come. Here is a picture of him just prior to contact.