For you Yankees fans, Alex Belth has the first two parts of a four part roundtable discussion about the Yankees up at Bronx Banter. Here's part one.

According to this article by Danny Knobler, a member of the Tigers has not won a gold glove award since Gary Pettis in 1989. With the addition of I-Rod and Vina, Knobler thinks that streak might be over. The pitching coach thinks the better defense will help his staff:

With or without an award, there's little doubt the Tigers will be better defensively this year. They should be better behind the plate (although Brandon Inge wasn't bad last year), and much better in the middle of the infield, with Vina and new shortstop Carlos Guillen.

"That's big, very big, especially for me," pitching coach Bob Cluck said. "Because I'm a good-glove pitching coach. Our whole philosophy is to put the ball in play early, and put it on the ground.

"Last year, we had range problems."

What he means is, the Tigers' worst-in-the-AL .978 fielding percentage didn't tell the whole story, because it didn't count the number of balls that went past infielders for hits. Many of those same balls figure to be outs this year.

According to the Probabilistic Model of Range, the Tigers had the 2nd worst range in the majors last year. Guillen was above average at shortstop last year, while Vina was below average (I don't know how much his injury contributed to that). So they should be improved up the middle this year.

However, given what we now know about pitchers being rather unable to control what happens when the ball is put into play, maybe Bob Cluck should rethink his philosophy and try to get his staff to strike out more batters.

Here's a look at how the Indians pitching staff is shaping up. They are planning on carrying 12 pitchers. It wasn't that long ago that pitching staff went north with 10 pitchers, and trimmed it down to 9 after April. Those days, the big question was whether to carry a third catcher. According to this article, Wedge is trying to decide if he wants to spare outfielders or two spare infielders.

Part of the dilution of pitching is this expansion of the bullpen staff. Yes, expansion has contributed, but growing a staff from 10 to 12 also adds a lot of pitchers who don't really have the talent to be in the majors. I've always thought that 10 pitchers and 15 position players is the right mix. That way, you have enough lefty-righty bats on the bench for any batting situation, and you can carry a couple of defensive wizards to fill in late in the game for your lumbering sluggers. I'd love to see a team go back to 10 pitchers.

The White Sox are using an interesting strategy this spring. They are only using Shingo Takatsu against NL hitters:

With a funky, sidearm delivery, Takatsu has been baffling White Sox hitters during batting practice and his off-speed pitches have been particularly nasty.

"I don't want to pitch him against any American League team down here unless I have to,'' said Sox pitching coach Don Cooper. "I'd rather make it a complete surprise attack. Nobody's seen him, so let's keep him under wraps.''

The White Sox will play six exhibition games against the NL Arizona Diamondbacks this spring, and they also face the Colorado Rockies five times. If that's not enough to give Takatsu suitable work, the Sox have three "B'' games as another option.

I don't know how long they'll be able to keep him a secret. I assume other teams will have scouts watching, and I'm sure video tape of his delivery will get out. It's a good mind game, however.

Another example that signing big free agents helps the ball club at the gate:

In the week following Feb. 7, when tickets went on sale, the Orioles sold 1,200 new season ticket packages. That adds up to about 60,000 tickets and already puts the club near the amount sold for all of last season. In the next week, overall ticket sales will approach 1 million, Brightman said.

Meanwhile, the season ticket renewal rate is almost double that of last year, and the number of new season ticket sales is more than double that of last year.

Interest in tickets has been so high the team had to hire temporary staff to handle the call volume, said Don Grove, senior director of sales and fan services.

"The phone volume is out of control," he said. "The level of interest is comparable back to when the team was in the playoffs -- of the big years when there was a lot of Cal events going on."

When free agency first hit baseball, some people thought it would destroy the game. Instead, fans wanted to come out and see what these high priced players could do, and interest in the game (and revenue) grew. Once again, fan interest is following the movement of the big names (and salaries).

I went to the Harvard-Yale basketball game in New Haven last night. Yale has a really good team and Harvard doesn't. The Crimson hung in for the first 10 minutes, then Yale's superior bench blew Harvard away. I did get a clip of a good play by the Crimson, however.

Rooftop Report tells me that the Cubs have signed Kerry Wood to a new three-year contract. Congratulations to Kerry, and the Cubs fans have to be happy that Wood won't be testing the free agent waters any time soon.

Eric McErlain points me to this post by my favorite Canandian blogger, Colby Cosh. In the post, Colby creates a 2-D projection of the K/Inn, BB/Inn and HR/Inn of each ERA qualifying pitcher from 2003. Basically, if you are in the upper left corner of the graph, you're very good.

Some observations:

• Kevin Brown is located right between Clemens and Pettitte. He's a good replacement for either.


• Vazquez is better than both Clemens and Pettite, so he should be an upgrade for NY.


• The Yankees are the only team with three pitchers in the upper left quadrant.


• Tim Wakefield should be the Red Sox third starter, not Lowe.


• The only difference between Mulder, Zito and Hudson is the number of people they walk.


• Kerry Wood is an extreme outlier. He has the highest K per 9, but also walks a ton of batters. By this chart, Prior is clearly the #1 starter on the Cubs.


• If you walk a lot of batters without striking many out, you don't get enough innings to qualify for the ERA title.


• If Clemens and Pettite can get Wade Miller to walk one less per 9, the Astros will have three pitchers in the upper left quadrant on their team this year.

Nice work from the Great White North!

There are lots of great posts over at Doug's Business of Baseball Blog. Start here and keep scrolling.

To comment on a couple of Doug's posts, I find it interesting that in the article on the Minnesota stadium proposal, the extended tax isn't a new tax. The tax was going to disappear. As a voter, I would be upset if a politician tried to pull that on me.

Doug also comments on HBO's Milwaukee's Best which aired the Brewer's dirty laundry. Doug doesn't believe the Brewers management has been corrupt of venal, just imcompetent. I say, why not all three?

It's amazing how a big cut in pay can get the competitive jucies flowing again:

Roberto Alomar spent more time than usual getting in shape over the winter, and arrived at spring training intent on a big comeback season with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
It will be his 17th season in the majors.

"I think I put on seven or eight pounds. I feel in much better shape," Alomar said as he and the other Diamondbacks' position players reported to spring training Thursday.

"The last few years I didn't do what I needed to do to stay in shape," he said. "I think at my age now, 36, you have to work more than you used to work before so you can stay in shape. This game is not as easy as people think it is."

That last paragraph can't make Mets fans too happy. Alomar denies it's the money, but you I believe not being wanted by other teams hurt his pride. If he is back in shape, I suspect he'll have a good year for the Diamondbacks, and be one of the steals of 2004.

The Bartman Ball is no more. They blew it up real good. The ball blew apart, leaving nothing but the cord in a pile at the bottom of the blast chamber. I must admit, it was pretty cool. I liked the way the ball jumped off it's holder for a second, then ripped itself apart. I'm glad that the remnants are still around, so the remains can be viewed for all time.

Bernie Williams is having an appendectomy. Torre doubts he'll be back in time for opening day. I actually find this a bit surprising, since appendectomies are pretty non-invasive these days. However, the person most likely to benefit from this is Travis Lee. I would think with Bernie out of the picture, the Yankees will use Giambi at DH and Lee at first.

Update: In related news, the Yankees have released Aaron Boone.

Brian over at Rock'em Schnockem thinks that Steve Bartman isn't making enough of his foul ball fame.

Bartman -- When they blow up your ball today, you should be pushing that button. Imagine the feeling! We can't all make oodles of money AND exorcise our past at the same time. Sure, I could go back to West Point and flip off the Superintendant, but that's on my dime, and all it would get me is stranded in frikkin' New York. I could go back to a high school reunion and say to Erin Schreck, "Damn you were hot and I was a dunce", but all that would get me is stranded in frikkin' Iowa next to a gal laughing at my bald head. You see -- you (Bartman) were handed this steaming pile from on high, and have done nothing with it, other than hope it goes away.

Update: You can watch the ball be destroyed on MSNBC tonight at about 8:30 PM, EST. Keith Olbermann hosts, so at least they'll have someone who knows a lot about baseball history.

Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts is encouraging people to read Michael Lewis's follow up to Moneyball in the latest Sports Illustrated.

Athletics Nation wants a ball desctruction moment of its own.

The A's need to track down Jeremy Giambi's shoes. You know the ones that kept him upright in 2001 when he represented the tying run of that Barry Zito gem. The ones that likely cost the A's a possible World Series championship that season.

I'm convinced now that it was those shoes that has started this spiral (even though we lost in 2000, our team was much younger and less experienced and also featured Gil Heredia), this horrible downward spiral of postseason misery the A's have experienced. While we're at it, get Miggy's shoes and Eric Byrnes' shoes circa 2003 ALDS and let's make it a cleat-burning extravaganza.

I'm actually sad they are blowing up the Bartman ball. It's a piece of baseball history that is going to be lost. Maybe they should just give it to the Marlins for enshrinement in Pro Player Stadium. :-)

Three out of four columnists at Baseball Outsider think Piniella's guarantee that the DRays won't finish in last place won't work out.

Baseball Musings has won the Primey for Best Baseball Website - Weblog. Thanks to all my readers, old and new, who make this blog such a pleasure to write.

The Bench Coach links to an interview with Paul DePodesta on Baseball America, and comes away with the impression that DePodesta will be more flexible in drafting high school players than the Oakland A's were. I found something very interesting in the article also (Emphasis added):

Whether Los Angeles outdrafted Oakland in the last two years and has a better farm system—we rank the Dodgers second, the A's 17th—is, for now, a subjective opinion. DePodesta prefers cold, hard facts.

Which is fine with White. He believes in analyzing data from past drafts to find ways to do his job better. The Dodgers have done studies similar to the one Baseball America did last spring, which showed that high school picks yield a higher percentage of above-average big league regulars and stars than college choices.

"Paul likes research and reasons, and I'm into statistics and analysis too," White says. "He's open if you can prove to him what you're saying is accurate. I'll have information to show him."

Now, the draft is not one of my strong points, but the way I understand the research I've seen, is that it's perfectly fine to draft position players out of high school, but high school pitchers are a huge risk. In general, the younger a hitter is when he gets to the majors, the more likely he is to have a terrific career. But pitchers seem to do better in the majors when they've gone through college. So it's perfectly reasonable to have a mixed draft strategy.

Vladimir Guerrero made a good impression on the Angels and batting practice balls yesterday in the Angels first full workout.

Showing no sign of the back injury that limited him to 112 games with Montreal last season, Guerrero was swinging the bat smoothly and mostly making solid contact Wednesday as he joined his new teammates for their first full-squad drills.

"It feels good. I've been working on my back, so everything's OK," the 28-year-old Guerrero said through an interpreter.

What a steal for the Angels.

David Bloom has moved his Devil Rays blog to YaGottaBelieve. Stop by and check out this post on Carl Crawford looking to improve his OBA in 2004.

Dave Metz of Talking Baseball has a much more complete look at why ticket prices are going up. (Here was my brief take on the subject.)

The Rangers have everyone in camp, including Jeff Zimmerman:

Still, one of the highlights for Showalter was watching Zimmerman throw batting practice.

Zimmerman, who missed the past two seasons because of a right elbow injury that required reconstructive surgery, threw for eight minutes to Brian Jordan, Brad Fullmer, Laynce Nix and Ken Huckaby.

"We're happy to get to that point," Showalter said. "He's talking about mechanics, talking about grips, talking about stuff that pitchers talk about in spring training other than the health of his arm."

After making the All-Star team as a rookie in 1999 and having 28 saves in 31 chances in 2001, Zimmerman got a $10 million, three-year contract. He got hurt the next spring and hasn't pitched for Texas since.

A healthy Zimmerman will be a boon to the Texas pitching staff. Glad to see he's recovering.

Rich Lederer and Alex Belth team up to give you a rather long history of Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter over at Bronx Banter. One paragraph reminded me of something:

Jeter is a major star, a sex symbol. Williams looks like a bookworm and is a family man. Jeter is Spiderman and Bernie is Peter Parker. Jeter is the cool extrovert and Williams is the thoughtful introvert. Jeter does little things that get noticed while Williams is easy to overlook. Recall the infamous Jeffrey Maier game against the Orioles in the 1996 ALCS which made the rookie Jeter a household name. It was Williams’ home run in extra innings that actually won the game for the Yanks, but who remembers that? Many of us just remember that’s the night that some lucky kid made another lucky kid a star.

As you may know, Jeff Maier is now playing for Wesleyan University. They are hosting Amherst on Saturday, March 27 at 1 PM, a double header. I'm planning on attending, and if I'm lucky, maybe I can get an interview with Jeff.

Fungo Pundit has all the information you need on the destruction of the Bartman Ball. Looks like NBC will be covering it full force. I guess they have to find something for Bob Costas to do. :-)

The Cincinnati Reds will honor slain outfield Dernell Stenson on Opening Day.

Billy Wagner hurt his finger. It doesn't look serious, but will keep him on the sideline for one week.

Steve Goldman offers an excellent essay on Jason Giambi's contributions to the Yankees over at Bronx Banter.

Juan Vilafane makes, I believe, a flawed argument in his comment to this post on baseball economics:

I'm a yankee fan, but what there doing is ridiculous. when does the roof come in to play? higher team salaries mean higher ticket prices. Higher ticket prices mean less and less middle and poor people being able to attend games. that cant be good after all there is a hell of a lot more middle class and poor people than there is rich. isnt there? put a 100 million dollar cap for every team and bring prices down. after all how many good to great games have you seen since teams began passing the 100 million mark?

Juan has this backward. Higher salaries don't drive ticket prices higher. Higher ticket prices drive salaries higher. And what drives ticket prices up? Higher demand. As long as the Yankees are drawing over 3 million fans a year, their ticket prices seem about right to me. If the Yankees were to cut the payroll to $100,000,000 and still have a winning team, they would not cut their ticket prices one bit. There is no reason to do so. They would just make more money. It seems to me the Yankees make so much money that they can just concentrate on winning. Lower ticket prices with the same demand would just mean the scalpers would make more money.

The other day I referred to an article about the Orioles use of psychological tests to help them select players. In the article, they talk about Arthur Rhodes:

Meanwhile, Flanagan had become the Orioles' pitching coach. In 1995, while struggling to find a role for talented, inconsistent Arthur Rhodes, he sought from Ritterpusch's advice. He said Rhodes' psychological testing indicated he should neither start nor close, roles the Orioles wanted him to fill.

Rhodes was made into a middle reliever and setup man, and is still pitching in the major leagues today.

So what is Arthur Rhodes going to be doing this year? Closing for the A's. What Beane sees is someone who strikes out a lot of batters, doesn't walk too many, and keeps the ball in the park. In other words, he does the three things pitchers can control very well. So Rhodes will be an interesting data point for a sabermetrics vs. psychology debate.

Does talent matter more than makeup? In the past I would have said yes. But I'm willing to be open minded about the subject. Rhodes won't prove anything by himself, but we will be able to watch the Orioles starters, closers and middle relievers from now on, so we should get a good idea of how this theory plays out.

I've seen a couple of stories about Bonds reporting to camp, but none tell me what I want to know; does he look thinner?

Update: Once again, I've written something that has been misconstrued. I meant this as a smart-alec comment. All winter long I've been reading and hearing about how these ballplayers are going to come back thinner, and we finally see one of the big suspects and the writers don't even put in a line about how he looks! If you read my previous posts on the subject, you'll see I don't really think you can tell the difference between steriods and physical therapy. I agree with John's comment:

Does anybody here know for sure that a steroid user who stops juicing will lose muscle mass? Are the steroids necessary to *maintain* said mass? I find it hard to believe that it's even possible to lose 25 pounds of muscle in 4 months even if you tried HARD, let alone just by laying off of very specific mass-enhancing substances. Ask Roy Jones Jr. about how easy it is to lose muscle and you may have second thoughts about the idea of muscle just evaporating - or being pooped out or whatever.

If you keep up your weight training, you should retain your muscle mass. You don't blow up overnight; you have to exercise with the steroids. And you don't deflate overnight either, especially if you keep up the work. The description of Giambi is just what I'd expect if you had gone through intense physical therapy for the knee. Remember Nancy Kerrigan? She skated her best after going through knee rehabilitation. Don't be surprised to see Giambi have a great year. Sounds like he's lean and mean to me.

Chad Bentz, a left-handed pitcher, is trying to make the Expos bullpen. What's most interesting about him is his lack of a right hand.

"I don't consider it a handicap," said Bentz. "If I did, I would get a parking sticker.

"It doesn't prevent me from doing anything. I call it a birthmark. I think it would be boring to catch normally, without switching the glove, but I'm sure it's not normal for anyone else."

He hopes to follow in the footsteps of Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand but had a 10-year major league career that included throwing a no-hitter for the New York Yankees against Cleveland on Sept. 4, 1993.

"I saw him and I almost fell out of my chair -- he was exactly like me," Bentz said of Abbott, whom he met in 1999 while playing for Long Beach State University. "Meeting him was probably one of the best experiences of my life.

Like Abbott, he throws and catches with the same hand. I really enjoyed watching Abbott pitch, and I hope Bentz has as much success.

Ralph Nader accuses John Henry of being a puppy squasher! :-) Good thing Boston Dirt Dogs is all grown up. There goes the all-important Green Red Sox vote!

As you may know by now, the Houston Astros have named Roy Oswalt their opening day starter.

A 19-game winner in 2002, Oswalt chose to rehab his injury last summer rather than get surgery. The decision allowed him to return to the mound in September and win four games down the stretch as Houston's bid to catch the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central fell just short.

"He could have said, 'I'm injured, I need an operation, I might hurt myself if I try to continue pitching,'" Williams said. He didn't, and the manager rewarded his dedication with Sunday's move.

I have a minor quibble with this. Spring training should be used to decide some things, like who should be the opening day starter. Why not have a friendly competition between Oswalt, Clemens and Pettitte? Make them work for it, in other words.

Ken Mandel of MLB.com has an article on how the Phillies are trying to correct an offensive flaw; their pitchers can't bunt.

I'm not a big proponent of the bunt in general, but it is the one offensive contribution pitchers can make. Why is this issue just being addressed now? Clearly, if pitchers weren't good at laying down bunts, something should have been done in the middle of last season. It shouldn't be that difficult to teach a professional ballplayer how to bunt.

Here's the sort of added benefits winning can bring to a team. Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post pens this article about how the Marlins have become a marketing dream:

Once a joke of the sports world, the Florida Marlins -- a franchise synonymous with the terms "fire sale" and "dismantling" -- have blossomed into sports marketing darlings.

"Now it's cool to like the Marlins. It's cool to like what they stand for,'' said John Boggs, a San Diego-based marketing agent whose clients include McKeon, the National League's Manager of the Year.

After upsetting the New York Yankees in the World Series, the underdog, low-revenue Marlins stand for hope. And that message is being conveyed by representatives of two distant and different demographic targets.

"In Miami, you have a lot of retired people who can relate to Jack McKeon and are excited to see someone of his age be able to achieve what he can. Then you have the South Beach set who relate to young guys like Beckett and (Dontrelle) Willis,'' said Robert Tuchman, president of TSE Sports and Entertainment, a sports marketing company in New York.

"Except for New York, the whole nation fell in love with the Marlins for showing they can win with these youngsters. To have a manager that age and basically kids on the same team definitely increases their appeal, especially these days with the way the Yankees are gobbling up all the talent.''

Even MLB seems to realize they are on to something here:

"For the month of October, Josh Beckett captivated America. It's our job to keep the spotlight on Josh,'' said Jacqueline Parkes, an MLB senior vice president for marketing.

"He very much appeals to demographics we're trying to bring into the game, (ages) 18 to 38. What better way to attract them than have someone who looks very much like them? Josh is a very down-to-earth guy who is exceedingly talented on the field, and he's very relevant to target.''

One of the big complaints I've heard about MLB over the last decade or so is that they don't market the most important part of their product, their players. A big reason for that was labor strife. Maybe with that somewhat settled, MLB will do more to entice fans to come out and see the stars of the game, rather than just the concept of baseball. It looks like that's starting to happen.

John Geer sent me the link to this fascinating story on how the Orioles are using a psychological test to help them choose players to draft and trade.

Frank Marcos, head of the Major League Scouting Bureau, said, "As popular as [psychological testing] is, I'm not sure many teams go as in depth as Baltimore. They're at the forefront."

Why have the Orioles jumped in so deep? They believe Ritterpusch's conclusions are a breakthrough.

"The test isn't new, but the interpretation is new," Flanagan said.

Personnel executives have long believed that desire was a key to success; teams that used psychological tests did so primarily to identify that quality.

But Ritterpusch startlingly contends drive is less important than several other qualities.

"The old cliche about 'the guy who wants it the most will get it' - it's a myth," he said.

Winslow, the test's godfather, is surprised and impressed.

"Dave has taken this beyond what anyone else has done in baseball," Winslow said. "It's a step beyond conventional research. He has found specific and valid correlations between the data and why pitchers are succeeding and failing. And not just pitchers in general, but starters and relievers. He has broken it down that far.

"I have seen what he has done. It isn't a hypothesis."

It appears that the Orioles have done with this test what Beane and DePodesta did with batted ball locations. They have figured out which psychological attributes are most important for success. So given two players with the same overall ability, the Orioles are now going to take the one with the higher psych scores.

This underscores my point about there being many different ways to win baseball games. This is sabermetrics of a different form. It's another way to find good young talent, and young talent is cheap talent. How long the Orioles will have this edge is unclear, but it seems to be working for the Twins and the Braves.

The AL East is certainly becoming the test bed for how to win. You have the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Orioles all trying new things. In front of them is the prize, the New York Yankees. If one of these upstarts can unseat the king, acceptance of these methods won't be far behind.

I guess this makes the car a hot-rod. :-)

It keeps growing. Billy Beane has appointed David Forst assistant GM to replace Paul DePodesta.

Forst graduated from Harvard in 1998 and was a four-year baseball letterwinner, earning third-team All-America honors in 1998.

"David is one of the bright young minds in the game today," said Beane, whose club reports to spring training Saturday. "This is his next step toward what promises to be a long and successful career as a baseball executive."

There's something I want to add to this post. Moneyball isn't acquiring slow players with good OBA's, or pitchers with strange deliveries who strike a lot of people out. It's about acquiring undervalued talent. There's a big difference between the two. I believe, as Beane and others continue to succeed with the strategy, other teams will adopt the perceived strategy, not the actual stratgey. So teams will start signing high OBA players, overvaluing them. That is going to leave a different class of players undervalued. So in five years, the undervalued players in baseball might be high batting average, low OBA players. They might be speedy centerfielders. They might be pitchers who get a lot of ground balls but don't strike out many batters. And at that point, the real moneyball players will exploit those players. And because there are many ways to win ballgames, they will continue to find a way to win.

This is just to remind us that there is more to baseball than statistics.

Larry Walker has trimmed down, according to this article by Tracy Ringolsby:

He canceled plans to spend the winter in South Florida, choosing instead to stay in the Denver area. After undergoing surgery on his right knee and left shoulder, he spent the winter working out regularly at Coors Field under the supervision of Rockies conditioning coach Brad Andress.

And on Thursday, when pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, Walker greeted them. He arrived Feb. 7, eager to see the results of his off-season effort.

Walker is noticeably trimmer. Word is, he lost about 30 pounds, but he's not saying.

"I didn't even weigh in when I took my physical," he said. "I know my pants got awful loose, but I didn't lose as much weight as I expected. Brad said he thought I was fine.

"The program was a lot more agility, not strictly work in the weight room."

There is going to be a lot of talk this year about players being thinner due to stopping steroids. Just remember, physcial therapy after surgery gives one a very good workout. And, as in the case of Walker and Giambi, doctors are likely to want you to take weight off after knee surgery. I'm not drawing any conclusions here. I just want people to be aware that there are other reasons for losing weight.

As for Walker, good for him. He's always been a fun player to watch, and the picture of him with the article makes it look like he's in great shape. A great year from Larry will be a boon to Rockies fans.

Aaron Schatz pens his first piece for The New Republic Online on the spread of sabermetrics in baseball front offices. He the adpotion of these methods by teams with great resources (Dodgers and Red Sox) will make it harder for teams like Toronto to compete.

No, the real losers in the Rodriguez trade are the Toronto Blue Jays, who also play in the AL East and are run by Ricciardi, another Beane disciple. The division has reached the point where Toronto has almost no chance of making the playoffs--despite managing its resources in an ultra-efficient manner--because it is competing with two other teams that also have relatively intelligent management, plus more than double (the Red Sox) or triple (the Yankees) its resources. Yes, the regular season can always produce some surprises, and every year some team outperforms expectations. But the AL East's five teams (New York, Boston, Toronto, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay) have finished in the exact same order for six years in a row. And one can understand why: No matter how smart Ricciardi is, how many chances for arbitrage can he find that Epstein or Yankees general manager Brian Cashman won't find as well?

Unfortunately, thanks to the mainstreaming of sabermetric techniques that DePodesta's hiring signifies, the future of Major League Baseball probably looks a lot more like today's AL East than the league Michael Lewis brings to life in Moneyball. In the end, the revolution pioneered by Billy Beane and the Oakland A's may make the market for baseball players a lot more efficient. But it won't make the game any more competitive.

Aaron had written me with some questions before submitting the piece, but one answer that didn't make the final edit was on the subject of Toronto being able to compete with New York and Boston. Here's my take on it:

I have to say yes. The way the system is set up, players don't cost you an arm and a leg until they become free agents, at which point they've played six years. Unless you are like A-Rod or Robbie Alomar who came up at 19, most players are not free agents until they are past their prime. So in general, the team that drafts a player is going to get that player's best years.

Now it's a lot easier, given unlimited resources, to hire good players rather than draft them. So teams with lots of money will tend to spend their resources on free agents rather than the farm system. That's pretty much what has happened with the Yankees. Teams without a lot of cash will do the opposite; they develop players, bring them to the majors, get their six years out of them, and let them go. If you do this well enough, you will always be able to have a decent team on the field. In addition, you'll have resources you can trade for veterans when you need to fill a hole to put you over the top. You just have to stay close, and let luck work it's magic.

Remember, there are many different ways to win in baseball, none much better than the others. Some just require more work.

Update: JC at Old Fishinghat also disagrees with Aaron.

The Baseball Crank notices the chatter about baseball players on steriods is heating up. It won't be long before more names are named.

Update: Sheffield is denying he used steroids.

Brian at Redbird Nation quotes from one of my favorite movies, and not in a way that's complimentary of the Cardinals.

The rich get richer.

New York has sold nearly 104,000 tickets worth a total of $4.6 million since Monday, when it acquired the American League MVP from the Texas Rangers. The sales are double the amount for the same period last year, the team said Thursday.

The latest in Boston Red Sox headwear. Thanks to Michael Genrich.

Eric Neel of ESPN.com has a spot on article about how to win against the big boys in baseball. My favorite paragraph:

You market your small-market: Sell the underdog story. It's the oldest, truest, most inspiring tale in the big book of sports stories. You're the rag-tag band of rebels, and A-Rod, Jason, and Jeter are manning the Death Star. Saddle up. Make every seat sold a slap at the overfed overlords in Gotham. Hand out Steinbrenner voodoo dolls with every paid admission. Let the people inflict some pain and defy some odds. Let them in on the revolution. Then buy some ad time and have your players read underdog speeches on TV: The "St. Crispin's Day" speech from Shakespeare's Henry V -- "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother!"; Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" speech; Rockne's "Gipper" speech; and so on. Rouse the masses. Make loving your outgunned-but-plucky crew the hip thing to do. It'll be good for revenue, and good for creating enough good will and latitude to try some unorthodox drafts, signs, and trades.

He might have included George C. Scott's opening speech from Patton. This paragraph is a close 2nd:

You ignore the so-called competitive imbalance: This is old-school. It's Norman Vincent Peale and the power of positive thinking. Whining about what the Yanks can do and what the little guys can't do is just that: whining. It poisons the well. Kills fan interest and short-term revenue, gives players a reason to be satisfied with less, and most important, distracts from the mission of finding combinations on the field and in the farm system that will work. The Twins have been better at this than any other small-market team. From GM Terry Ryan to manager Ron Gardenhire to the guys in the locker room, the message and mood are consistent: "This is the hand we're dealt. Now let's go play."

The whole article is well worth the read.

Just saw the Torre interview on CNBC. The most interesting thing he said was that he credits Cashman and his staff for being creative in finding the money to pay A-Rod. He made a point that they just didn't add A-Rod contract to the mix, that they made some moves to afford the contract. That sort of goes against the idea that the Yankees will just spend anything to win.

Joe Torre will be interviewed on CNBC in a few minutes if you can tune in.

The Baseball Savant has a lengthy post on how the Maddux signing impacts the NL Central race. He also writes me with this:

I read the other day your "musing" about Maddux and the notion that you need both pitching and offense to win.

I couldn't agree more. I ran the "Expected Performance Values" for the Houston starting 8 and pitching staff and did the same for Chicago. I then figured win shares for each player based on those projections. The Cubs did indeed have a better pitching staff by about 10 win shares, but the Houston offense had a better offense by about 23 win shares giving Houston a +13 net win shares over Chicago. This equates to about 4-5 game lead over Chicago.

What I think is amazing is that last year, according to Pythagorean, Houston was a 7 game better team than Chicago even though they finished 1 game out of the Central and lost.

Now, do you think that if Houston does beat out Chicago for the NL Central, will everyone jump on the pitching bandwagon and say that the additions of Clemens and Pettitte really put Houston over the top seeing how that they were the 2 big additions to Houston and completely ignore the fact that if Houston does beat out Chicago it will probably have more to do with the fact that Kent will have been healthy all season, Berkman should have a true Berkman-like season, Ensburg will get to start everyday, and Oswalt will be healthy? What do you think?

Lots of people will jump on the pitching bandwagon, because the pitching moves were made the headlines over the season. I do wonder however, if they will jump off the "you need a great closer" bandwagon, since Wagner has gone to Philadelphia.

But the Savant points out something else very interesting, and that's how much luck plays into a season. In this case, luck was an eight game swing in the standings. And that should worry Chicago fans, because luck has a way of evening out over time (I believe it's called regression to the mean). Neither of these teams stood pat, however, and both are improved. It should be a great race in the NL Central.

I came across this article in the Tucson Citizen by Shelly Lewellen. This bit reminded me of something:

Pitchers and catchers from the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox don't officially report until later this week.
But many players have been in Tucson for a while.

More than 50 D'backs are here early, preparing for spring training.

The team has a year-round training center across from Tucson Electric Park.

"Many players from both the major and minor leagues have been here since January, rehabilitating injuries or just working on strength and conditioning," said Tucson operations manager Jack Donovan.

Spring training used to be just that, six weeks to get back into shape after taking the winter off. But players train year-round now. Spring training is now a very long, lucrative warm up for the season, not a part of the year that really decides much.

It looks like Albert Pujols will avoid arbitration by signing a seven-year contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. If he's really as young as he says he is, the Cardinals are likely in for seven terrific seasons. He's not near peak performance yet, and he's having MVP type years. It looks like he'll get $100 million for the length of the contract, which is a very reasonable amount for what the Cardinals are likely to receive in return. Congratulations to Albert, and St. Louis fans should be jumping with joy!

I wonder if George Steinbrenner reads Baseball Musings?

Christian Ruzich, author of the Cub Reporter and Transaction Guy writes:

I am proud to announce a complete re-design and expansion of All-Baseball.com. For the last six months, All-Baseball.com has been home to a handful of baseball blogs. In preparation for the 2004 baseball season, we've undergone a site re-design and also added a number of new writers, bringing the total number of blogs in the All-Baseball.com family to ten.

The main page is located here, where you can see the latest entry from each of the ten bloggers. Good luck to this excellent group! (Although, I think their tag line is a little over the top. :-))

Update: The tag line has been changed. Much better.

Will Leitch noticed the counter hit 500,000! He wins a mention in this post. Thanks, Will, and thanks to every one of my readers who have made this possible.

I started blogging on March 24, 2002. This site hit 100,000 just about a year ago, on Feb. 12, 2003. That's a 400% increase in readership in 1 year. I'm such shocked at how much this has grown.

Thanks to everyone who links to this site and sends your readers this way. It's always appreciated. Thanks to everyone who leaves comments, you enhance the discussion of the issues raised here. I hope you continue to enjoy reading this site as much as I enjoy publishing it.

Julie Jette reports on a speech by Michael Moritz in which he puts forward the thesis that Billy Beane is a model venture capitalist. (Hat tip to Steve Timberlake.)

Avkash Patel sends me this link to a NY Daily News story on Alfonso Soriano's age.

The Rangers revealed yesterday that Soriano is 28 - not, as originally believed, 26. The Yankees had his birth date listed as Jan. 7, 1978, in their 2003 media guide, but he was born two years earlier.

The Yankees knew about the age discrepancy and GM Brian Cashman told Texas GM John Hart about it as they discussed the trade for A-Rod. The Rangers, obviously, were not put off.

Cashman said he did not know the details, but Soriano and his agent came to him last year and admitted he had once lied about his age.

"Sori's a good guy and it was something on his mind," Cashman said. "He wanted us to know first, before it got out. It would've been updated in our media guide this year.

I guess A-Rod's not the only one who is lying. :-) This story also makes me much more confident of this post. The difference between 26 and 28 is huge. You're approaching the peak of your career at 26. At 28, you're likely starting downhill. Another plus on the Yankees side of the ledger for this trade.

There's a lot of things I like about the Red Sox organization, but statements like this aren't one of them:

"One thing is certain the status quo will not be preserved," Henry wrote.

"There must be a way to cap what a team can spend without hurting player compensation ... without taking away from the players what they have rightfully earned in the past through negotiation and in creating tremendous value. There is a simple mechanism that could right a system woefully out of whack."

Oh boo-hoo. Cowboy up the money, John. Or stop whining and use your sabermetic brilliance to beat this team with a cheaper payroll. This is just typical Red Sox negativity. I thought this group would be above that.

Ken Rosenthal of the Sporting News does not believe that Alex Rodriguez has any credibility left:

No longer should anyone believe a word out of the mouth of Alex "Captain" Rodriguez.

His stated desire to stay with the Rangers was as comical as the Rangers' stated desire to keep him. And if you believe A-Rod will be content moving from shortstop to third base with the Yankees, you probably think Jack Nicholson would be willing to accept second billing to Ben Affleck.

Ken then goes on the make a very good argument why Rodriguez should be the shortstop, and I agree. Is Rodriguez and the Yankees playing politics with Jeter? Probably. I think A-Rod will be the shortstop eventually and Jeter will move positions. But Rosenthal certainly pulls no punches in the story when it comes to A-Rod's honesty.

Just discovered a new blog, Baseball Widow. She has an excellent post on keeping teams competitive with a salary cap.

I've felt for a long time that what baseball needs is a competitive form of revenue sharing. Teams would be paid for their road games based on how many people they brought in, not just in the stadium, but for the TV and radio audiences as well. This would encourage teams to sign an Alex Rodriguez, since they would make money from the fans he would draw on the road.

Bambino's Curse has information about an independent film project on Bill Lee. Lee is certainly one of the more colorful characters to play the game, so the film should be quite interesting. The link has information on how you can be a part of the process.

It some point today, the visitor counter will likely hit 500,000. If you visit today, scroll down (it's on the right) and see if you've turned it over. Drop me an e-mail or leave a comment here if you're the one.

Thanks to all my readers for their support over the last two years. I can't believe this web site has come this far.

In my roundup of LA Times stories on the hiring of Paul DePodeta, I pointed to this negative story by Bill Plaschke. I didn't comment on it much, other to say that Plaschke was dismissive of DePodesta. The greater blogosphere has taken up the slack and given it a right fisking, mostly on the idea that Plaschke doesn't know that Branch Rickey used statistical analysis in making his baseball decisions.

Aaron Gleeman attacks on this front.

Matt Welch invents a new award, the "Moneyboner of the Day," and gives the first to Plaschke.

Baseball Primer has a whole thread dedicated to this article, again, ripping Plaschke for the Rickey reference.

Just to add my two cents on Rickey, one of my favorite quotes of his is, "Trade a player a year too early rather than a year too late." That seems to be a philosophy adopted by the Oakland Athletics, and I'm sure one that DePodesta knows very well.

ESPN and Will Carroll are reporting that Greg Maddux will sign with the Cubs today. He'll earn $24 million over three years, with the third year dependent on meeting certain performance criteria.

Maddux as your fourth or fifth starter is so cool. The Cubs could even pitch him once a week if they wanted, to give him plenty of rest. A fine move at a reasonable price.

For the last couple of days I'm been hearing about how pitching wins. The Boston fans who didn't get A-Rod talk about how the Yankees don't have the pitching they've had in the past, so Boston has a chance to beat them. I heard Joe Torre say something similar on Countdown with Keith Olbermann (the transcript is not yet available). So now here's the test. The Cubs, 1-5, have about the best pitching staff in the majors. What happens if the Cubs pitch great all year, but don't win? Will someone finally realize you need both pitching and offense to win?

One other thought. The big movers in the offseason have been the Cubs, the Red Sox, the Yankees and the Phillies, four teams that came up just short of their goals. That's the great thing about losing a close one; it really makes you focus on what went wrong and how to fix it. I think all four of these teams improved themselves, and that should make for a fun season.

Will Carroll links to the Smoking Gun, a web site famous for publishing mug shots of famous people and intriguing court documents. Will points to the search warrant affidavit in the BALCO case that leaves out the names of ball players, save one, Gary Sheffield.

Now, this doesn't prove anything. I assume BALCO was also sending legal supplements to players. But now Gary is open to questioning by reporters. Between A-Rod and Sheff, there aren't going to be enough reporters left to cover the rest of spring training.

Update: Sheffield denies using steroids. He says he bought vitamins.

According to this article on SFGate.com, MLB is going to make teams enforce the rules about unregulated personnel in the clubhouse. What I hadn't realized before reading this story was how much like the 1980's cocaine scandal this is:

Strong (along with six Pittsburgh men) was convicted and found guilty of 11 counts of distributing cocaine. He received a 12-year sentence and was released after serving four years. As in the current steroid case, attorneys for the defendants questioned why the drug-purchasing players weren't indicted.

Although then-Commissioner Peter Ueberroth handed down suspensions to 11 players -- seven for a full season -- all avoided the suspensions by agreeing to donate a small percentage of their 1986 salaries to a drug program and do community service work.

Afterward, Ueberroth made his ridiculous statement that "baseball's drug problem is over."

Nearly 20 years later, it's not cocaine. It's steroids.

It's not a caterer with complete access. It's a personal trainer with complete access.

Interestingly enough, Dusty Baker's name comes up in both of these cases.

Cubs manager Dusty Baker, who managed Bonds for 10 years in San Francisco, told The Chronicle in October that the steroid scandal could turn into something similar to baseball's cocaine scandal in the '80s.

"This is similar to, back in my day, the Pittsburgh drug trials," said Baker, referring to the case in which several players were called to testify in a drug probe, leading to the conviction of Phillies caterer Curtis Strong, who distributed cocaine to players. "That's bad. I've been through (guilt by association) already. When your name is mentioned, some people, all they see is guilt."

Baker's name was mentioned in testimony, along with names of dozens of big-leaguers, but he wasn't called to testify.

Too bad Dusty didn't notice the similarities sooner.

It looks like federal agents know the names of some players who have taken steroids:

"Inside Anderson's residence, agents found steroids, syringes and other paraphernalia associated with steroid distribution activities," the documents said. "In addition, agents found files identifying specific athletes. These files contained calendars, which appear to contain references to daily doses of steroids and growth hormones."

The indictment announced last week said federal agents found about $63,920 in cash in a locked safe at Anderson's residence during the first raid.

"Some of the money was broken up into separate envelopes with the first names of known athlete clients written on them," the documents released Tuesday said.

My mom used to use the envelope system for budgeting my dad's paychecks until we were robbed and she switched to a checking account. Low tech, but under most radars. I have to believe this information is going to come out in the trial.

The San Diego Padres have picked up the option on Bruce Bochy's contract, giving him at least one more year with the Padres.

Bochy has the most wins of any manager in team history and has compiled a career mark of 694-746. With six more wins, Bochy will join Atlanta's Bobby Cox and New York Yankees skipper Joe Torre as the only active managers with at least 700 wins.

Well, that last statement isn't true, unless you mean with their current team. But Bruce is now the 2nd longest tenured manager in the NL behind Cox. Not bad for someone with a below .500 record.

Redbird Nation notes how the Cardinals are trying to have an old-timers day in spring training.

John Rogan sends me details of the death of Lawrence Ritter, chronicler of baseball history.

In the early 1960s, when reel-to-reel tape recorders were bulky and unwieldy, Mr. Ritter traveled 75,000 miles in a five-year period to hear the voices from an era when roughneck ballplayers came out of farms and small towns with battered suitcases, when baseballs were dead and spitballs were alive.

Mr. Ritter located old-time baseball stars living in obscurity and asked them of a time when their deeds were the stuff of headlines. ``The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It,'' published by Macmillan in 1966, became a classic of baseball history.

The nice thing is that those tapes are in the Hall of Fame, so they will be available to generations of researchers. We all owe Mr. Ritter thanks for his work. My thoughts are with his friends and family.

A big story in LA, there are four articles about DePodesta in today's LA Times. The first is the basic news story. It's interesting that Paul is trying to allay the Moneyball fears.

"I'm not looking to make changes in scouting, I'm looking to change the way we do business," DePodesta said. "I'm open to new ideas — that's how we became successful in Oakland…. What we'll try to do is take everything into account when we make a decision. We're not going to only rely on statistics or only rely on scouting reports. It's all going to play a part in the process….

"The games are not played by computers. It comes down to whether players can perform in critical situations. There's a human element to this that is not measurable. You have to mesh everything into the decision-making process."

"A part in the process." Notice he doesn't say how big each part will be. He's being a good politician, ambiguous enough that everyone can think what they want to think.

Ross Newhan looks at the way DePodesta might be unconventional, comparing him to Beane and Ricciardi. When he talks about Dan Evans stocking the Dodgers farm system, Beane gives him a great quote:

Under the deposed Dan Evans and scouting director Logan White, a long-fallow Dodger farm system improved from 28th to 14th to fourth among the 30 teams in annual rankings by Baseball America. DePodesta saluted the work of Evans and White in that regard and said there are now some "real studs" in the system.

However, it was Evans' refusal to trade any of his elite prospects for the needed power hitter that may have contributed to his firing, and DePodesta seemed to be making a point in that regard when he said a farm system serves two purposes: restocking the major league club and providing trade fodder.

From Oakland, DePodesta's former boss was even more pointed.

"The object is to win games at the major league level," Beane said by phone, "and not to run around waving a flag and saying how great your farm system is and how much it has improved."

Bill Plaschke is somewhat dismissive of DePodesta, based on his age and his mathematical accumen.

The Dodgers have a new voice, and it speaks in megabytes.

Meet General Manager.Com, otherwise known as Paul DePodesta, a 31-year-old computer nerd who was hired Monday to rid the Dodgers of their, um, virus.

"I'll admit, there's some boldness to this," said owner Frank McCourt. "But that's exactly what we need to do to change things around here."

Change it they have, from Branch Rickey to Little Rickey, from Buzzie Bavasi to Bill Gates, from wise old men who trusted effort to a kid who relies on … equations?

Finally, T.J. Simers is downright hostile. He seems to be dismayed that the Dodgers only got the 4th best GM prospect as rated by Baseball America.

BEYOND THAT, I know the Dodgers called a news conference Monday to tell everyone they had just hired the fourth-best GM prospect available in baseball to run their storied franchise. "We got No. 4, We got No. 4, We got No. 4."

I found it interesting the Dodgers would quote such a thing from Baseball America in their own Paul DePodesta news release, so I asked the Boston parking lot attendant who borrowed everything to buy the Dodgers if there was a reason why he hadn't hired Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on Baseball America's list of top GM prospects.

And there was. He had no idea who they were. Some exhaustive search.

However, if you look at the list, DePodesta is at the top in terms of people who use statistical analysis as the basis for their decisions. So if you believe in that, Paul would be your #1 choice.

I think he's going to be great, just as Theo has been great for Boston and Ricciardi has been great for the Blue Jays. Paul will find a way to keep the Tommy Lasorda wing of the Dodgers happy, while building the team his own way. LA fans should be very excited about this move.

Avkash Patel at the raindrops uses four different defensive measures to rate fielders, including my probabilistic model of range. The results are interesing. However, the way runs are calculated using PMR is very simple. UZR, I believe, looks at whether fielders are giving up doubles vs. singles, so my guess is that the runs calculated by UZR are much more accurate at this point.

The first beneficiary of the A-Rod trade appears to be Hank Blalock. Buried in the trade story was the Rangers signing Blalock to a five-year deal. Terms have not been released, but this deal will make Hank very rich and secure, while insulating the Rangers from having to go through arbitration. It's the model Hart used in Cleveland, signing his best players to long term contracts, insulating the Indians from salary inflation due to arbitration.

The only downside to the deal is that it's only for five years, so Blalock will be able to walk at that point. He'll be 28 then, and I suspect he'll be commanding a big salary then. A good move by Texas, however. I wonder if they'll try to do the same with Soriano?

Part of the salary reduction the Yankees were able to negotiate with Alex Rodriguez was the following:

Rodriguez gets a hotel suite on the road and the right to link his Web site to the Yankees' Web site.

As Columbia-Union points out, what possible value can A-Rod get out of linking to the Yankees web site? Well, I believe people are misinterpreting this clause. I don't think they are talking about a hyper-link from A-Rod's site to the Yankees site (although that would be included). As I read it, it's linking the sites in the sense that if you visit one, you visit both. Link, as in, their fortunes are linked. That's the only thing that makes economic sense to me.

A reader writes:

David, I'm thinking that the Yankees adding A-Rod is a bit like adding pig to pork. I took a look at Runs Created from 2003, A-Rod had 135 Soriano had 112. So unless I'm missing something the Yankees pick up 23 (offensive) runs with the trade. If I add the 23 runs they pick up to their total from 2003, (877) that gives them an even 900; which would put them 6 runs better than Toronto and 61 runs worse than Boston.

So is picking up 23 runs going to make a huge difference in the Yankees fortunes this year? Is their pitching staff 23 runs worse than last year? I doubt it since the bullpen looks much better and the starting five could at this point be considered a wash.

Other than defense which I really won't get into because I don't think the Yankees defense got much worse this winter, is there anything else of significance that I'm missing that A-Rod brings to the table, or does it boil down to 23 runs? Merchandising, PR, Ticket sales and ratings not included.

Now, 23 runs isn't nothing. That's 2 wins. And that's two wins over a pretty good player. The win shares difference last year was five, which is close to two wins, also. Here's the reply I sent to the letter.

I think A-Rod is just a better long term player than Soriano. To take a phrase from Moneyball, it's not the result, it's the process. A-Rod approaches hitting correctly. Soriano doesn't. And it's getting a little too late for Soriano to learn.

It became pretty clear to me at the end of last season that you can get Alfonso out by throwing a ball low and outside. My guess is that this year, that pitch is going to kill him. A-Rod doesn't (to my knowledge) have such a weakness. So as time goes on, that RC difference is just going to increase.

And I'll stand by this. I think we've seen the two best years we'll see from Soriano offensively. He's had OBP the last two years of .332 and .338. That just doesn't cut it, especially if he's used as a leadoff man. Maybe Showalter can get him to lay off the outside pitch. But at some point, he'll hit a HR off one and fall in love with it all over again. Pitchers realize this. There's no reason to throw the man a strike to get him out.

The Shea Hot Corner is a new blog dedicated to the Mets. Drop in and see just how hot it is!

Only Baseball Matters is taking an in-depth look at steriods. Start here and follow the links.

I got this letter in response to my audio blogging today:

please please please stop.

I like being able to READ your site, not have my browser fire up iTunes every time I try to want to see(hear) the contents of an article. :-)

If you must audioblog, can you PLEASE include a transcript or something?

Sorry, but this gives me a chance to record my opinions real time, which for me is what blogging is all about.

So, with apologies to Bruce Springsteen:

I'm driving in my car,
I turn on the radio.
They're taking about Sori,
I just say no.
They think that he's real good,
But I just want to shout.
'Cause when he hits,
Oh, oh, 
Strikeout.

Update: Just to allay the fears of some of the commentors, I have no plans to go to full audio blogging. I'm only going to use it if I'm on the road and can't get to a computer.

audio post powered by audblog

audio post powered by audblog

audio post powered by audblog

Jurgen at some calzone for derek takes a look at how good Alex Rodgriuez might be defensively at third base.

The AP reports that the Pirates are nearing deals with Raul Mondesi, Randall Simon and Urgeth Urbina. This appears to be the second year in a row where the Pirates waited until the last minute to pick up some decent veterans, who will be tradable to a contender come July. It appears that Littlefield's plan is to sign veterans cheap, but a decent enough team on the field, then trade for prospects once the Pirates are out of contention. That, coupled with low draft picks from a few years of poor finishes should be giving the Pirates a pretty good minor league system. Does anyone have info on what the Pirates AA team looks like this year?

If all you know about Miguel Tejada's background is that he came from the Dominican Republic, this article by Joe Christensen of the Baltimore Sun is well worth the read. My favorite part:

He has a good relationship with Dominican President Hipolito Mejia, and he leaned on him to improve the Los Barrancones area. When Tejada lived there, it was a crowded slum, but now all the potholed roads leading out have been paved.

Tejada also has committed more than $1 million to replace that old field where he started playing baseball with a modern complex, complete with lights. And he routinely ships Mizuno equipment back to Soto to distribute around the old neighborhood.

On the eastern outskirts of Bani, Tejada is building a shopping complex. Closer to downtown, his father runs a new Esso gas station built with Tejada's earnings from baseball.

He's investing in and renewing his home town. Good to see his money is being put to good use.

Richard Ceccarelli is writing a new blog about the Angels, Pearly Gates. I love the logo. Check out his take on the Angels outfield defense.

There has been speculation in the A-Rod trade post about who will play 2nd base for the Yankees. Of course, the Yankees have a MLB second baseman under a minor league contract, Homer Bush! This would be great for HR record fans. A-Rod would chase Hammerin' Hank, while Homer Bush chases Homer Summa!

Doug's Business of Baseball Blog points out a paradox of the BALCO trial. That case threatens to identify players who have tested positive, and the union won't stand for that. If players are outed, drug testing in MLB will stop.

In the comments to my previous post on Travis Lee, some people pointed to rumors of a Yankees-Rangers deal that would bring A-Rod to NY. They seemed more like speculation to me at the time, so I didn't comment on them. The last comment, however, points to this article by NY Newsday, which says the deal is just about done.

The Yankees are expected to send a minor-league pitcher along with Soriano to Texas to complete the deal.

The impetus for the deal was Rodriguez's surprising willingness to agree to play third base. Once Rodriguez signaled to the Yankees that he'd be willing to play third for them and defer the coveted shortstop position to Derek Jeter, a longtime friend, the talks moved very quickly.

Soriano for Rodriguez is a great deal, especially since money doesn't matter to the Yankees. It's the wrong move in terms of defense; Jeter is the one who should move. And of course, who's going to play 2nd?

Actually, they are going to score so many runs they can probably get by without a second baseman. A murder's row of A-Rod, Giambi and Sheffield (in any order you choose), surrounded by Jeter, Posada, Williams and Matsui. All Lofton and the new second baseman have to do is play defense.

You think Boston fans are a little upset?

Update: Looks like Bambino's Curse is taking the news just fine.

It looks like the Yankees are trying to sign Travis Lee. I would take Lee in a second over Tony Clark. However, first base is not the problem. The problem is the team has no infield defense. The need to find a glove wizard who can play 2nd or short to back up the rangeless duo in the middle. Lee is not the answer to the Yankees defensive problems.

For your convenience, the Transaction Guy has a post with all the spring training invitees listed by team.

Correction: Fixed a typo.

Scott Broduer of MassLive.com sent me a couple of links that I might find interesting. The first links to a post about Wade Boggs' latest job. Let's just say that given Wade's past, his looking younger is probably not a good thing. :-)

The second link just blew me away. Turns out Joe Trippi (architect of the Howard Dean internet strategy) is a baseball fan, and has Baseball Musings on his blog roll. Thanks for the link, Joe!

John Harper of the NY Daily News writes that Lenny Dykstra is back with the Mets as a special-assignment instructor and scout. I always thought Lenny had a lot of Pete Rose in him. But unlike Pete, Lenny seems to have changed:

So already he's beaten the odds that some former teammates would have given him. It was no secret that Dykstra ran as hard off the field as he did on it during his heyday, which once prompted fellow scrapper Wally Backman to predict privately, "It'll be a miracle if he lives to see 40."

Oh, he's living, all right. Has a house at the Sherwood Country Club in L.A., home to Tiger Woods' high-profile charity tournament every December and one of the most exclusive golf addresses in the country. Such is the payoff not just for Dykstra's career with the Mets and Phillies, but a line of successful car washes and real-estate holdings that have catapulted him into a business world where he's doing deals with Fortune 500 companies such as the Penske Corp.

As a player, Dykstra was always motivated by money, or glue, as he called it. What has changed, he says, are his priorities. He's a family man now, as happy being a husband and father of three sons these days as he was driven to chase glory and good times as a Met.

"I've changed, I've grown up," Dykstra said. "I'm a man. I'm not afraid to say it - I was wild in those days. Hey, I had great times. I was blessed to be able to live that life, but I've moved past that. I've dedicated myself to my family. I'm doing what's right."

And Dykstra actually offered an insightful comment on the game today:

Dykstra as a shrewd talent evaluator no more jives with his old "Hey, dude" image than Dykstra as a business tycoon. But he always had an instinctive feel for the game that made him far savvier as a player than he liked to let on.

Or as he puts it, "I was always dumb like a fox. I liked to set pitchers up, and I knew how to work the umpires. I'm not saying I'm smarter than anyone else, but you've gotta know what you're doing to succeed in this game. You have to know situations.

"I don't see that anymore. I see guys up there, down two runs in the ninth inning, hacking at a 2-and-0 pitch with no one on base. You can't hit a two-run home run with no one on. A lot of it has to do with money, I know that. But if you want to win, there are ways you have to play the game."

I hate those 2-0 swings in that situation myself, especially when the pitch is out of the strike zone. Maybe Lenny can teach the youngsters a thing or two.

Correction: Fixed broken link.

Raul Tavares has started a blog devoted to Dominican players. Stop by and say hello. (Hat tip to the Bench Coach.) Tavares also links to a Contra Costa Times article disputing that rumor that DePodesta will be named GM of the Dodgers this weekend.

I wish I had seen this piece last month when it was posted, but it goes well the previous posts on the Expos and Twins. Matt Welch writes about how teams get the government to build them stadiums, then leave for greener pastures. He thinks municipalities should start selling off the stadiums they own:

Keating made the obvious but infrequently stated point in a March 2000 article for USA Today magazine: "Another major downside to government-built and -owned ballparks is that clubs are transformed from owners to renters. It is always easier for a renter to move to get a better deal. So, government officials who advocate taxpayer-funded sports facilities to attract or keep a team virtually ensure that teams will continue issuing threats and moving."

Here’s a different approach: Tax-funded entities should immediately begin selling off all their sports venues. Why on earth should two-thirds of Major League Baseball parks be fully or partly owned by governments? San Francisco’s glorious Pac Bell Park was the first privately financed stadium to be built since 1962; not coincidentally, it generates the most revenue in baseball. Private owners are far more likely to upgrade facilities, seek creative revenue-generating schemes, and stay put in their host cities.

A fire sale of stadiums and arenas would bring some much-needed revenue for cash-strapped cities and counties, even in the long term (in the form of future sales and property taxes, which frequently go uncollected on municipally owned properties). The city of Los Angeles, for example, projects a $180 million deficit in the next fiscal year, yet it continues to co-own and operate the nearly vacant Memorial Coliseum and Sports Arena while failing to fill the two-foot potholes in the street in front of my house.

Sounds like a good idea to me. People in LA paid a million dollars for a tiny house that they knock down so they can build what they want. Imagine what the real estate under some of these stadiums is worth?

Cities really have to start limiting their investments in these properties to infrastructure improvements, so people can get in and out easily. But for the property and the building, let the teams own those.

Doesn't look like the Montreal Expos will be moving to Portland, Oregon:

"I think everybody realizes that letting things drift along too much longer is a decision -- whether it's made consciously or not -- not to get the Expos," said Steve Kanter, president of the Portland Baseball Group.

ESPN is reporting that four people will be charged in the BALCO case. The interesting thing is that the athletes are being kept out of this to a great extent.

The charges include conspiracy to distribute steroids, possession of human growth hormone, misbranding drugs with intent to defraud and money laundering.

An affidavit from an IRS agent who investigated the case cites e-mails from Conte to unidentified athletes indicating that the scheme was aimed at fooling drug-testing programs used by pro sports leagues, the Olympics and other competitions.

According to the indictment, the four were involved in the scheme between December 2001 and Sept. 3, 2003, in which steroids were distributed to athletes on six different occasions.

One steroid, called "The Cream," included a substance that masked an athlete's use of the drug during testing. Another, called "The Clear," was sold to the athletes as a substance that would provide steroidlike effects without causing a positive drug test.

If there is a trial, you would think the unidentified athletes would be asked to testify. Until then we'll have to wait.

It looks like the Minnesota governor's stadium screening committee has selected two possible sites for a new park for the Twins, one in Minneapolis, one in St. Paul.

The Hennepin County/Minneapolis site is in downtown Minneapolis’ Warehouse District, northwest of Target Center.

Proposed financing for a ballpark in that location calls for $263 million from Hennepin County, $120 million from the Twins or other private investor, $100 million from the state, and $7 million from the city of Minneapolis.

That's a lot of public money going into the stadium. And it looks like the public may not get a chance to vote on this:

The screening committee also recommended that municipalities not leave the decisions up to voters by using a referendum to decide the stadium financing issue. Johnson agreed with that decision.

“I am not a big fan of referendums,” Johnson said. “I believe in representational government. If the people don’t like the decisions that their elected officials make, they can elect someone else.”

If I were an opponent of Hennepin County Board Chairman Randy Johnson, I'd definitely bring that quote up in the next election.

Al Bethke holds a round table discussion at Al's Ramblings on the state of the Brewers. Get your fix as they head into spring training.

Robert Targorda is giddy that ESPN is reporting that Paul DePodesta will be named GM of the Dodgers this weekend.

Of course, I think it's a great move. I do wonder, however, how much splitting up the Beane/DePodesta team will hurt both. They complimented each other perfectly. Beane's a great salesman. DePodesta's a great number cruncher. Will Paul be as good selling players to other clubs? Will Billy be able to find another creative mind like DePodesta? We'll see if and when the deal is final.

To paraphrase Nigel Tufnel, Baseball Musings is a big hit in Japan. :-)

The only thing this has to do with baseball is that Rooftop Report mentions the article and my name in the same post. That said, I first saw the report on Wonkette. Harvard (my alma mater) students are starting, well...

After flipping through the pages of Squirm, a Vassar College erotica magazine, the Committee on College Life (CCL) voted to approve a student-run magazine that will feature nude pictures of Harvard undergraduates and articles about sexual issues at its meeting yesterday.

Fourteen members of the CCL approved H Bomb—a magazine that will be similar to the Vassar publication—as an official Harvard publication. Two members abstained.

Assistant Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin, a CCL member, said he consulted University General Counsel Robert W. Iuliano ’83, the University news office and University spokesperson Robert P. Mitchell before the decision.

“I needed to see if there were liability issues,” McLoughlin said.

In order to avoid liability, students will not be able to take nude pictures inside of Harvard buildings, according to McLoughlin.

(Insert loud scream.) Thank goodness there were no liability issues that couldn't be overcome! I guess the issue of whether one of the most prestigious universities in the world should be sponoring smut never got into the conversation.

Are there no adults at Harvard? If Vassar told Harvard to jump off the Weeks Bridge, would they do it? There are 16 people on this committee, and none of the thought to say no? Not one dissenting vote? All they could manage was two abstentions? That shows a lot of guts, abstaining on an issue like this. Here are some reactions I got to this story. From my wife Marilyn:

We're not sending our daughter to Harvard.

From my 13 year-old daughter:

They're Harvard people! How stupid can they get?

From a fellow member of my class:

Why didn't they have this when we weren't adults?

I just finished interviewing applicants for Harvard. A couple were immigrants with very conservative families. One told me if he went to Harvard, he was going to have to come home every weekend. My guess is that when his family hears about this, they won't let him go if he gets in.

I really don't care that Harvard Students want to start a sex magazine. I really do mind, however, that Harvard is recognizing this as a student organization, and that a member of the faculty is advising them. Colleges should not be in the business of sanctioning the exploitation of individuals. I'm hopeful that once Larry Summers, president of Harvard finds out about this, he'll take some action to disassociate the university from this magazine. Until then, I'll just be embarassed to be an alumnus.

Update: The students and faculty advisor respond to the Crimson article.

Correction: Fixed spelling of Vassar.

Bill Kelly is a new blogger, writing about the Cubs at Rooftop Report. Stop by and say hi.

Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion set me a link to this article by Paul DePodesta, the assistant GM of the Athletics. It's not published as a baseball article. It's title is "The Genesis, Implementation, and Management of New Systems." He discusses how the A's challenged everything they thought they knew by asking the question, “If we weren't already doing it this way, is this the way we would start?”

He also quotes from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. I've talked about that book in reference to the A's before, so it's nice to see I'm on the same page as DePodesta.

Read this article, not just because you're interested in baseball, but because it applies to so many things we do in life.

Also, be sure to follow the link to Off Wing Opinion for an article on how Rick Peterson is applying biometrics to the Mets pitching staff.

Update: The above link no longer works. It appears the speech was pulled when DePodesta got the LA job. However, you might be able to find it here.

Another ballplayer who should be blogging. Doug Glanville writes about his trip to South Africa for ESPN.com.

I saw reading the transactions column today that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays signed Fred McGriff to a minor league contract. However, the Rays don't think McGriff has much of a chance to make the team. According to Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times, this was a courtesy signing:

With McGriff nine home runs shy of the 500 mark and unable to land a job elsewhere, the Rays extended the Tampa native an unusual courtesy, and essentially did him a favor, by inviting him to spring training even though he has little chance to make their team.

"It is unusual," general manager Chuck LaMar said. "I felt obligated. We are the local team, Fred was born and raised here, he's had a tremendous major-league career and he has struggled to get a job this offseason.

"I felt it was our organization's responsibility, and mine, to give Fred an opportunity to come in. Stranger things have happened. If we have a rash of injuries, it's possible he'd make our club and get his home runs here. There's a better chance he'll come in and show other teams he's still capable of playing this game and hopefully go on and set this mark. ... It's a very important one for him and we'll be proud to be able to say we helped him achieve that goal."

Is nine HR really going to make a difference in this player's Hall of Fame credentials? As John Romano writes in the same paper:

The shame is his numbers may not yet add up. Oh, you could point out that of the 20 players with more career home runs, all who are eligible are in the Hall of Fame. And of the 33 players with more RBIs, all but one who are eligible are in the Hall of Fame.

But times are changing and standards are expanding. Numbers that once seemed automatic for Cooperstown may soon be subject to debate.

If McGriff is borderline today, another nine home runs could help to change perceptions.

I don't think McGriff is a Hall of Famer, 500 HR or not. The problem, as I look at his career, is that McGriff petered out after age 30, just as offense was taking off. While players like Tony Gwynn and Paul O'Neill took advantage of offensive surge to play better in their 30's than their 20's, McGriff's slugging numbers went down in this time period. From 1987 to 1994, McGriff slugged over .500 seven times. From 1995 on, when it was easier to slug .500, he only reached the mark three times. He had laid the foundation for a Hall of Fame career in his 20's, but didn't complete the job in his 30's.

Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts sent me this post about Raul Mondesi owing Mario Guerrero over $1 million dollars. Seems they had a gentleman's agreement for Guerrero to coach Mondesi. Since I don't read Spanish, it's difficult for me to comment on the story, but I'd love to know more about the case.

Nick Schulz comments in this post on baseball broadcasting on the internet. He points to this post by Dana Blankenhorn which was inspired by this C-Net article.

The bottom line is that MLB is looking for a web distributor for it's radio and television web broadcasts, and MLB wants lots of money up front to grant those rights. The distributors think this is unreasonable, and MLB may go off on it's own distribute content on the internet. Like Dana, I think that's just fine. Prove a subscription model can work. Prove an advertising model can work. Or find something that none of use have thought about. Nick's suggestion is that baseball use the internet as a way to get more fans watching the game, especially day games. Baseball was slow to adopt radio and TV, but both proved to increase the fan base. With that in mind, I believe Nick has the right strategy in mind.

David Damiani at The American Enterprise Online gives a spirited defense of sabermetrics: (and gives Aaron Gleeman a great plug!).

Sabermetrics are a threat to many of baseball’s long-standing party lines, such as issuing paeans to those who “manufacture” runs (giving up outs to advance runners); dismissing “one-dimensional” players who walk frequently and hit for power; focusing on errors rather than range in judging fielders; and emphasizing wins and saves as the best measures of pitching performance. As a result, the sabermetric teams and their leaders--all successful on the field in recent years--are open to an endless barrage of media criticism.

Damiani recognizes what is driving the sabermetric revolution:

Most importantly, though, sabermetrics is a largely fan-driven phenomenon. It arose from something of an underground baseball culture that challenged traditional ways of thinking, and with precious little media support outside of a handful of columnists, launching a rebellion against general managers’ and media members’ shortsighted analysis. Through websites like Gleeman’s, the inimitable baseballprimer.com, and dozens of other discussion boards and weblogs, the sabermetric movement applies indirect groundswells of pressure against both mismanaged teams and media hegemony.

What’s more, the fact that fans are leading the way in a revolution of baseball thought directly challenges many Fourth Estate elitists’ perception of fans as idiots. Doling out simplistic explanations of teams’ performance, pontificating about alleged fan misbehavior or willing-executioner support of athlete transgressions, and challenging fans to name more than five players on a team are the modi operandi of far too many sportswriters. The idea of thinking fans so befuddles them that they take opportunities to stereotype sabermetricians--not just Beane, but the fans themselves, as antisocial eggheads who threaten baseball’s mystique.

Sabermetrics is much more accepted now than 25 years ago, when the first Bill James Abstracts started to appear. Each succeeding generation of sports writers will be more in tune with OBP and Slugging percentage than their predecessors. That's the nature of these types of revolutions; eventually, the convinced outlive the disbelievers.

Theo Epstein is interviewed at Baseball Prospectus (hat tip to Al's Ramblings).
I liked this exchange:

BP: What do you do to make yourself better at this job?

Epstein: I think listening is important. And being actively aware, every day, that you want to get better is the most important thing. Then you can't help but learn from the great people around you. I benefit from having people like Bill James, Bill Lajoie, Craig Shipley, Josh Byrnes, and Mike Port all around me. And they each have an area of expertise. It's as if I'm at Baseball College--you go to college and you take your classes and get to learn from experts in certain fields. You know, if I want to go watch a game with Bill Lajoie, maybe I can pick something up about a pitcher's delivery, and then later in the day maybe I'll have an e-mail exchange with Bill James and learn something about some metric. As long as I'm open-minded I can't help but get better every day.

And also making mistakes. It's definitely true that you learn your hardest lessons from your own mistakes.

This would have been fun to attend.

Jim Reeves of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram sees Nolan Ryan's move from the Rangers to the Astros as a metaphor for the off-season in Texas:

No, the way to keep Ryan was probably to offer him less, not more. But keep him. Somehow, keep him.

Instead, he'll soon be hooking up with the Astros.

Andy Pettitte. Roger Clemens. Nolan Ryan. Now there's a trifecta for you.

Have two teams in the same state ever been at such different ends of the spectrum in one off-season?

Looks like the signing of Ivan Rodriguez by the Tigers is already paying dividends:

The Tigers sold a single-day team-record $160,000 worth of tickets Monday, the day they announced signing the 10-time All-Star catcher to a four-year, $40-million contract.

Tuesday, the Tigers did even better, and Wednesday topped $100,000 again.

"Hall of Fame players don't drop on your door step every day," senior vice president Jim Stapleton told the Associated Press. "There's no question he's made a significant impact."

And each one of those tickets is going to bring in additional revenue when the fans come to the park and by food and other items. And if the Tigers put on a good show, more might even come out on game days. The best scenario is that I-Rod jumps starts them to more revenue, which allows the team to continue to develop, obtain and keep better players.

Only Baseball Matters has a new look. It's a very nice redesign; you get the impression immediately that it's a Giants blog. Lots of new features, stop by and check them out.

After reading this article, I don't hold out much hope for the Colorado Rockies this year:

After a few high-priced flops and plenty of losses, the Rockies have shifted their focus and money to players who can contribute in the clubhouse as much as they can with their arms or bats.

Talent is still important - no team can win without it - but the Rockies want a little substance to go with the skills.

"I know people don't want to hear this," general manager Dan O'Dowd said, "but we've learned from the past that having players without character doesn't mean anything, even if they have skill.

"I feel pretty good about the 25 we'll break with and the 32-35 we'll use," he said. "I don't think they'll be a guy in the group that doesn't measure up to our test of character through the course of the season."

The character issue is an excuse for an organization that has not produced talent. They had one great player (Helton), two good players (Wilson and Walker), one okay player (Payton) and then nothing. All 21 of those people lack character? All I have to say is, "Christ, Sparky!"

Correction: Sorry, I meant had instead of have in the last paragraph. I was talking about last year.

Jody Gerut is still blogging, and in this post talks about avoiding the sophomore slump. He defines sophomore as "wise fool" and finishes with:

Colorado Rockies manager Clint Hurdle once told me 'there are 2 types of player in this game, Jody: those that are humble, and those that will be humbled.' Well I am humble. Being humbled sucks. And I want no part of that again. If I approach this season with a humble heart just as I have in the past I know I will be satisfied with the results, no matter what they are. No wise fools here any longer- that is one thing I can guarantee.

He's a pretty good writer, and it looks like he'll continue posting this year. I hope more players start blogging soon.

The Baseball Crank continues his research on established win share levels, today chronicling the AL East.

John Fay breaks down the Reds payroll and finds it's back to the level at Cinergy field:

The club's victory over Chris Reitsma in his arbitration hearing put Reitsma's salary at $950,000, meaning the team has $42.25 million committed to 13 players. The guess here is Adam Dunn will make around $700,000, and Austin Kearns will make around $500,000.

That puts the payroll at $43.45 million. The other 10 players will be at or near the big-league minimum of $300,000. So let's say they'll make a total of $3.5 million. That makes the payroll roughly $47 million. Throw in another million for about three guys on the disabled list, and you get $48 million.

The Opening Day payroll for the final year at Cinergy Field was $48.5 million, if you count all of Ken Griffey Jr.'s $12.5 million salary (as the Reds do), even though nearly half of it is deferred.

Last year, the Opening Day payroll was bumped to $59.3 million.

Now is the time for the Reds to lock up Dunn and Kearns for the long term. Both will be seasonal age 24 this year. The best six-years of their careers are ahead of them. Given continued improvement, their salaries are going to skyrocket next year with arbitration. Offer them six or seven million dollars a year for six years. The Reds and the players will both save arbitration costs and the bad will that goes with that. And if they turn out to be great ballplayers, the Reds will have gotten them cheap.

Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times rips into the White Sox management for not signing Magglio Ordonez to a long term contract. Part of his screed is due to a fanfest gone bad, where Jay was accused by Hawk Harrelson of being negative.

Is signing Ordonez long term a good idea? Here's what Ordonez wants (from the Jay Mariotti column):

Basically, he wants a contract in line with recent deals signed by comparable players -- Vladimir Guerrero's five-year, $70million deal in Anaheim and Miguel Tejada's six-year, $72 million deal in Baltimore. Considering Ordonez has stayed healthier than Guerrero, never has hit below .300 and is good for 30 homers and 120 RBI every year, his demands are more than fair. He's 30, in the prime of his career and sure to be productive another five seasons. As South Side no-brainers go, keeping Maggs is right up there with ordering the kosher dog without onions at the stand behind home plate.

"I think I have market value similar to that of Vladimir and Tejada,'' said Ordonez, apparently not bummed about his proposed role in the aborted Nomar Garciaparra trade. "It could be even more if you take into account that the market is going up again. I want a five- or six-year contract so I can relax and be in one place for a long time. I hope that can be in Chicago, a city that I like a lot.''

There are some assumptions here that I think are incorrect. First of all, a 30 year-old player is not in his prime, he's just past it. I would think it is more likely that you are going to see Ordonez's production decline over the next five years. Magglio is very good, so that decline may still leave him a productive ballplayer, but you can't depend on his numbers staying this good for that period.

Tejada and Guerrero are two years younger. That makes a big difference. Both are better ballplayers than Ordonez, and they still have a few years before their declines are likely to set in. Given that, I'd set Ordonez below $12 million a year.

Also, I don't understand why Ordonez thinks the market is going up again. I assume he means the market for player salaries. With insurance difficult to get and management realizing the value of flooding the market with free agents, I don't see a lot of upward pressure on salaries.

Given these caveats, however, I agree with Jay that the White Sox should sign Ordonez. I'd make it $40 million for four years. That's a fair price, and it does appear that White Sox fans need something to make them believe this team is committed to winning. Ordonez is an excellent player and a fan favorite, so it's worth the money to keep the base intact. If Jay is right, and Mags remains highly productive during that time, and Mags is right and the market rises, he'll be able to get another big contract when this one is up.

Update: One of commentors below disagrees with my assertion that Tejada is a better player than Ordonez. Bascially, over the last three years, Ordonez is over 100 points better in on-base+slugging than Tejada. He asks the question, "How much is playing SS worth over playing OF?"

Win shares gives a clear advantage to Tejada:

Win Shares by Year	Tejada	Ordonez
2003	25	23
2002	32	26
2001	25	25
2000	23	22

The best that Ordonez has been able to do in the last four years is be even with Tejada. So defense at shortstop can make up for 100 points in OPS.

Jay Jaffe is angry about my being asked to take down the Schilling quote. Meanwhile, Edward Cossette is conflicted.

Update: Eric has posted an apology for questioning my ethics in the comments below. My sincere thanks, Eric.

I just received the following letter:

This is to notify you that you have been selected as a Baseball Primer Primey Award Finalist. The Primey Awards are the awards that recognize the best baseball content on the Internet, and voting for the winners has now begun.

You have been nominated for:

Best Baseball site - Weblog: Baseball Musings
Best Baseball Research Project: "A Probabalistic Model of Range"

The ballot is located at:

http://www.baseballprimer.com/articles/danwerr_2004-02-05_0.shtml

Please feel free to vote and to link to the ballot to make sure you have the support of your readers as well.

We take these awards very seriously and hope you do too.

That was a nice surprise. There are lots of other categories to vote on as well, all with links to interesting articles and posts. Go vote for your favorites!

Peter White at Mariners Musings sees that Ellis Burks used the internet to help him decide on the Red Sox, and wonders what sources Ellis used.

JD Arney is writing Redsfaithful's Baseball Blog, a blog dedicated to the Cincinnati Reds. Drop by and say hello, and check out this post on Reds GM Dan O'Brien's success in arbitration this year. He quotes O'Brien on how he prefers to settle with players, because arbitration forces you to focus on the negatives.

I always felt the worst thing the Pirates did was take Bonds to arbitration three years in a row. They won all three years, but they created a lot of bad blood, and Bonds couldn't leave fast enough. A long term in 1990 would have made all the difference in the fate of the Pirate franchise over the last ten years. Maybe O'Brien understands this.

Welcome to everyone coming to this site from Kausfiles. Do you know that there's never been a major league baseball player with the last name Kerry? But there have been seven with that first name? (Kausfiles has been sending readers to this post.)

I'd like to say thanks for all the support I'm getting at Bronx Banter today.

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According to police, Dernell Stenson's murder was a random act, and not associated with alleged threats made by his ex-girlfriend.

Although early information led Chandler police to search the Indiana home and workplace of Jennifer Gaddis, nothing links her to Stenson's Nov. 5 death, according to Sgt. Mark Franzen, a Chandler police spokesman.

"It seems like this was a random act," Franzen said. According to Scottsdale police reports, Stenson filed a complaint against Gaddis two weeks before his death after receiving threatening messages on his cellphone.

It still seems like a little too much violence just to steal a car, although I suppose they wanted to make sure he was dead so they couldn't be identified. I guess that didn't work out the way they planned. If they had just tossed him from the car, they'd be facing a few years in prison. Now they may never see freedom again.

The Midnight Hour is going to run a weekly feature to see which one of the above baseball experts makes more mistakes during the season. I guess I'll put a hold on the Schilling Boo-O-Meter. :-)

ESPN.com has an editorial urging a living memorial for Jackie Robinson.

We propose that baseball keep alive the legacy of Jackie Robinson with a living memorial, that rather than retire Robinson's number, it instead put No. 42 back on the field.

A living tribute. One player. Each season. One No. 42.

The Jackie Robinson "42" Award, an honor that embodies all that Robinson meant to his sport and to fellow man ... to be worn one season at a time by the one player who exemplifies the best of Robinson's attributes: Courage. Dignity. Excellence. Respect. Sportsmanship. Sacrifice. This player would have the honor of reminding both the public and his peers of Robinson's historic role in baseball and this country. Wearing No. 42 would be baseball's most special recognition.

That player would be chosen by a process that would assure that the No. 42 Award winner is a man who personifies the spirit of Jackie Robinson, the man, the soldier, the pioneer, the inspiration.

It's not a bad idea. I'm surprised the editorial doesn't spell out the process, however. The qualities a player must posess for the award are all pretty subjective. And do we really know the players well enough to make these judgements? Kirby Puckett might have won this award in his career, but Kirby didn't turn out to be the good guy I thought he was. And frankly, I don't know how many ballplayers today lead as multifacted a life as Robinson did. I have difficulty, off the top of my head, thinking of someone playing today who would be deserving of the award. Looking at the top 20 in win shares from each league last year, the only name that really pops out at me is Mike Lowell. He came back from cancer, is an excellent player and a team player.

It's a fitting tribute, I'm just not sure there are enough players who fit the bill. I'm interested to see what process ESPN.com envisions for choosing the winner.

Eric Herman of the Chicago Sun-Times details the Cubs lobbying efforts in 2003:

Most of that money went to Piper Rudnick, a La Salle Street law firm that collected $100,000 in fees from the Cubs in 2003. The remaining $13,000 went to Jasculca/Terman and Associates, a politically connected public relations firm.

The Cubs' city lobbying expenditures doubled in 2003 from the previous year, records show. In 2002, the ball club paid $35,000 to the law firm Shefsky & Froelich and $17,500 to the Jasculca firm -- a $52,500 outlay.

The Cubs organization hired the firms to push four pieces of City Hall business, each designed to bring in more revenue for its Tribune Co. parent, which also owns the Chicago Tribune and WGN-Channel 9. The team sought to increase the number of Wrigley Field night games to 30 per season from the current 18; to add 2,000 seats to the outfield bleachers; to keep Wrigley Field from being designated a landmark, and to add about 200 premium seats behind home plate.

So far, the team is batting one-for-four.

The Cubs lost the landmarking fight, limiting the owner's discretion about changes to the historic structure. But the designation allows the team to build the seats behind home plate -- something contractors will do in time for the 2004 season, if possible. And though the Cubs still have not secured permission to add bleacher seats, the landmarking does not prohibit it. A deal for more night games foundered in the City Council last year, but one person involved said a deal could happen before Opening Day.

$113,000 To get what you want from city hall? That's a lot cheaper than a rookie sensation, and probably a whole lot more profitable.

Nick Schulz and Robert Tagorda each comment on this post about the relative importance of OBP and Slugging. Each brings up the use of speed on the Oakland A's. Nick thinks speed is more important in the post season than the regular season. Robert wonders why Beane doesn't make better use of the speed he has (emphasis added):

Nick's right to suggest that the speed debate is much more complicated than the A's approach indicates. On the one hand, Billy Beane seems right to argue that speed is overvalued, and as a low-budget team, Oakland should probably take advantage of this "market glitch." On the other hand, he seems too reluctant to use speed even when he has it. This raises a question: if you're giving a fast player a certain salary, and the amount reflects his attributes, shouldn't you get the most out of your investment by turning him loose, especially since you're financially strapped?

I don't agree that Beane is reluctant to use speed. Yes, the A's only attempted 62 steals last year, tied with the Blue Jays for last in the majors. But they were successful 48 times! That's 77%, a very good percentage. In other words, the A's are using their speed when it has the best chance of being successful. My guess is that the A's set the threshold for attempting a steal at an 80% chance of working. If you set it there and get 77%, you're still doing fine. If you set it at 75%, and attempt a lot more, you may wind up with a 72% success rate, and now you're close to breaking even. I beliieve if the A's were presented with 200 chances a year of an 80% success at stealing, they would attempt 200 steals. It's good percentage baseball.

As for Nick's point that speed matters more in the post season, that's something I'll have to explore. Little things can get magnified in the post-season. Someone like Orel Hershiser or Gene Tenace can have a much bigger impact than they ever would over a whole season. So it's quite possible that speed can have a bigger impact in a post-season series, but I'm not sure that it will have that impact as a rule.

It looks like the Yankees are going to try to answer their third base problem with Mike Lamb of the Texas Rangers.

The 28-year-old Lamb was designated for assignment by the Rangers last week after hitting .132 in 38 at-bats and losing his everyday job to All-Star Hank Blalock. But the lefty-swinging Lamb showed decent production in 2002, batting .283 with nine homers and a .354 on-base percentage in 115 games. He is not regarded as a strong fielder.

You would think that if the Yankees are having a hard time finding anyone to play third, they at least would try to come up with someone who could field! Lamb's minor league numbers look pretty good; not a lot of power but he drew a decent number of walks with a .310 BA. If he can draw a walk every ten AB and keep his BA above .250, he'll be fine in the 9 slot.

It looks like the Altoona Curve will lose their manager, Dale Sveum, to the Boston Red Sox. According to the Altoona Mirror, Sveum will become the new third base coach of the Red Sox.

Sveum is one of those players who had a long career based on a great 1987 season. That was the year HR jumped temporarily, and Sveum hit 25. He stayed around until 1999 despite never being any good again.

The Orioles hold a fan fest this Saturday, reports Tim Nichols of the Cecil Whig. If you are a Baltimore fan, sounds like a great opportunity to meet players and coaches.

On another note, I'm impressed that there is still a newspaper called The Whig. They haven't had a party since the 1850's.

Doug's Business of Baseball Blog has a link to DugoutDollars, a new site that is tracking salary information. I've always found salaries a bit difficult to find on the internet, and Michael Sirhari is doing a bang-up job. This will be a very valuable resource for future discussions. Stop by and say hi.

John Smoltz discusses the new look Braves with Paul Newberry of the AP:

Still, when Smoltz looked around the Turner Field clubhouse on Monday, he couldn't help but wonder how the Atlanta Braves will pull off a 13th straight division title.

Greg Maddux's old locker? Empty. Gary Sheffield's former stall? Now occupied by rookie first baseman Adam LaRoche. Javy Lopez and Vinny Castilla? They're gone, too.

"This is not a team that's going to be able to rely on past experiences," Smoltz said, a bit of resignation in his voice. "We're not going to be able to just ride it out and keep saying, 'We know we'll be there at the end."'

Smoltz also believes that if the Braves had won the NLDS, the cost cutting would not have happened:

Smoltz approached last season with a sense of desperation, believing a championship might keep the team together.

"If we had won it all, I don't think all of this would have happened," he said. "That's why I was like, 'Man, don't blow this one.' I don't think any of this was written in stone if we had won a championship."

I've learned not to count out the Braves. They're an excellent organization, both in the front office and on the field. This year will be a challenge, but they still have some excellent players, and a few great ones can take you a long way.

The Yankees and Drew Henson have parted ways.

Henson and the Yankees have reached a resolution that frees him from the final three seasons of the six-year, $17 million contract he signed with New York in 2001, sources close to Henson confirmed Monday for ESPN.com. Henson will receive none of the $12 million he had been contractually guaranteed between this season and 2006, and the Yankees will not seek any of the money already paid to him.

It essentially was a clean, quick divorce with no alimony involved. The settlement was negotiated by Henson's representatives from the marketing and representative giant IMG.

Money for nothing...

The big question continues to be how the Yankees will fill the gap at third base. As people have pointed out in the comments on this post, Brian Myrow may be the Yankees best option. He's older (seasonal age 27 in 2004), but he's a walk machine. Twenty seven is peak age for ballplayers, so if you are going to get a great year out of a career minor leaguer, this would be the year. Let him bat ninth, set the table for Soriano, and see what happens. If nothing else, the Yankees will save a few million dollars.

John Gambadoro is ready for some baseball now that the Super Bowl is over, and he takes a look at how the Diamondbacks shape up at AZCentral.

Here's an excellent article by Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post on the changing landscape of baseball economics.

With baseball's free agent signing period almost over, the size and length of player contracts have fallen for a second straight offseason, threatening to upset the tenuous labor peace the sport has enjoyed since its new collective bargaining agreement was signed 16 months ago.

The owners' strategy of flooding the market with players and exercising financial restraint has created a new economic climate in Major League Baseball that is forcing players to accept deals that are shorter and less lucrative than those signed by free agents in previous winters.

It also has intensified the union's examination of the owners' negotiating practices and resurrected suspicions that the owners are conspiring to keep salaries low. "We may not be very far from raising charges" of collusion, one union source said.

Sheinin makes some good points as to why this is happening:

• It's tough to get insurance.


• Owners are aware that past huge contracts have been mistakes.


• Bargain hunters. (I'll call this the Billy Beane effect.)


• The flood of free agents.

The last is a point I've made in the past. Here's Sheinin's take on it:

Suddenly, the supply of players is outrunning the demand.

"We've had a role reversal," said William B. Gould IV, the former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board who helped broker the end of the 1994-95 strike. "In the 1970s when free agency was first established, the clubs were very anxious to limit the number of free agents. . . . Now, the clubs are anxious to create 'more' free agents because they realize the laws of supply and demand will cause prices to drop."

This winter, a record 211 players filed for free agency. Teams added another 58 players to that marketplace on Dec. 21 by declining to offer contracts to, or non-tendering, their arbitration-eligible players. With teams willing to wait for prices to drop after the non-tender date, some free agents felt pressure to sign early so as not to be shut out when the extra players hit the market.

"For second-tier players and below the market has changed," said Baltimore-based agent Ron Shapiro. "The teams seem to wait longer and have moved themselves from a bidding process to a buying process."

I love the way he sums up the article with these quotes:

"There have been some clubs that have been very aggressive, and some not very aggressive due to their financial situation," said Dombrowski, whose team is trying to recover from a 119-loss season. "Some players have made lots of money and some haven't. It's a free market, and decisions are made on individual basis. I always chuckle when I hear [talk of collusion] because, frankly, some players we've pursued are not even interested in talking to us."

The players and their agents have a slightly different take. "What has happened over the last two years, unfortunately, is vindication for the union [for saying] that the owners didn't need new a system. They needed to use the current system more effectively," Berry said. "The question is, are they using it too effectively?"

A more effective use of the system. The free agent system worked for the players for so long because owners wanted to get rid of it and go back to the old days of the reserve clause. They spent so much time trying to figure out how to destroy it they never bothered to figure out how to work it to their advantage. Now they are seeing the light. I don't know if the union will be able to prove collusion. I don't even know if it exists. But for the first time in my memory, the teams have figured out how to use the system as well as the players.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the Tigers will have a press conference at 1 PM EST to announce the signing of Pudge Rodriguez.

The signing will help the team. I-Rod posted 23 win shares last year vs. 6 for Inge and Hinch. That should add six games to the win column. The Tigers are paying a lot of money for Ivan, but they need to do something to get the fans back, and Ivan is fun to watch. He's not going to make them a contender over night, and he may be gone by the time the Tigers are rebuilt. But I sure love to see him throw out runners, and I hope Tiger fans will too.

Baseball Outsider is a new news and opinion site dedicated to looking at baseball from the outside in. I was impressed that columnist Mugs Scherer listed the Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers as one of her favorite books. (There aren't enough baseball writers named Mugs anymore.) Worth checking out.

Dominic Rivers points me to this Sons of Sam Horn thread in which Curt Schilling is answering real baseball questions. In it, he makes disparaging comments about Rob Neyer. (If you follow the link, go to page 3 and search for Neyer to see the quote.

(Edward Cossette points to another part of this post to try to bolster his team chemistry theory). Schilling makes a very good point; that what statistical analysis yields is trends and probabilities. The question is, how good are those trends and probabilities? In Neyer's case, I'd say they are pretty good. I'm tempted to go through Rob's archives and see how many of his predictions were really ludicrous, and how many were right on the mark. One thing is for sure, Rob would not make such a statement about Schilling without having done the research to back it up. And remember, for every Rob Neyer, there are many more sports writers who comment on the game without any idea what the stats mean. I guess players look at Rob Neyer the way Democrats look at Fox News. :-)

As for booing based on stats, I find that hard to believe. Schilling seems to see the Sons of Sam Horn as typical Red Sox fans. My experience is that most hard-core fans still just look at batting average and RBI. They boo when a guy strikes out in crucial situations. They boo when a pitcher gives up a game winning HR. They boo when they see performance on the field that hurts their team, not because someone has a .340 OBA when they expected him to have a .360 OBA.

But for you hard core stat-head Red Sox fans out there, I would boo Curt Schilling if:

• He strikes out less than 7 per 9 innings.


• If he walks more than 3 per 9 innings.


• If he gives up more than 40% of his HR with men on base.


• If his winning percentage is below his pythagorean projection, unless it's the fault of the bullpen. (Exception: If Schilling actually blames the bullpen, he's destroying chemistry, and should be booed heartily. :-) )

My statistical analysis tells me Schilling will be pretty good. For the sake of Curt's sensitive nature, I hope I'm not ludicrously wrong.

Update: I have been accused of being unethical in using a quote from Schilling that Schilling had declared to be off the record. (See comments below). For the record, the off the record comment was at the beginning of the thread, and I didn't see it. I have removed the quote at the request of Eric of SoSH.

However, I do not buy Eric's argument that what Schilling says is off the record. It's a publicly viewable web site. Schilling does nothing to hide his identity. What Curt has is a forum in which he can criticize and not be criticized. That seems a bit unfair to me.

I just got an e-mail from our friend at NASA reminding us of the shuttle disaster one year ago. We saw the launch as guests of Dave Brown. Here's what I wrote last year after the accident.