It seems the Mets, not the Yankees are the team that's bidding up Boston for Pedro's services.

The Red Sox reportedly have offered Martinez a two-year, $25.5 million contract with a vesting option for 2007 that would kick in if the right-hander remains healthy. The Mets countered late Sunday with a three-year guaranteed contract worth approximately $38 million with a vesting option for a fourth year that could make package worth $50 million.

Perhaps waiting on an offer from the Yankees, the free-agent ace isn't close to making a decision on where to sign, a person close to Martinez said Tuesday on condition of anonymity.

If you're spend a lot of money on a free agent, it might as well be on the best. While Martinez would not make the Mets winners by himself, he'd do a lot of good for the team from Queens. He'd sell out the place every time he pitched. He'd get the press talking about the Mets again. And he'd be very good in Shea, a park that has been very kind to strikeout pitchers in its history. And he would make the Mets more competitive. If he can put the team 15 to 20 games over .500 in his starts, playing .500 the rest of the way puts NY in playoff contention. It doesn't take much good luck from that point to put a team over the top.

A healthy Pedro and Piazza can go a long way. Let's see if Omar can pull it off, and then let's see if he can put enough decent players around them to win.

The price of Skydome keeps falling.

The Toronto Blue Jays agreed to buy SkyDome, the team's ballpark, for about $21.2 million.

The 50,000-seat stadium, which opened in 1989, cost about $375 million to construct and was mostly funded by taxpayers. The Blue Jays, who are owned by Rogers Communications, will acquire the ballpark from Sportsco International LP, a Chicago-based group of investors who bought SkyDome out of bankruptcy court in 1999 for about $74 million.

"We're getting it for a very fair price," said Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey, a former city politician who was instrumental in getting the building funded by taxpayers.

Just another reason not to use taxpayer money to build stadiums.

Update: Skip at The Sports Economist believes the $375 million figure is incorrect, and gives a thorough explanation why.

Yale pulled a pretty good prank at The Game this year. I wish HD Net had shown it during their broadcast, but I think all of their cameras were on the Harvard side of the field. Of course, it still doesn't beat the MIT balloon.

And it just goes to show the Yale 2nd class mentality again. :-)

(Link via Andrew Sullivan.)

The Baseball Crank presents a study on how well Established Win Share Levels did in predicting win shares this year. He was most interested in seeing how win shares need to be adjusted for age. In looking at his chart, it's interesting to note that the boundary for going from adjusting up to adjusting down is at age 29, just where you'd expect. Peak performance is in a player's late 20's, and by age 29 most players have already had their best years.

Nick Peters talks to a few Giants players about the recent fights with the fans. The players think they are in a no-win situation, and decry the abuse they've been hearing.

Snow said when fans get personal, that crosses the line. And in this age of the Internet, there's more information out there for people to look for weaknesses.

"Players' families don't want to go to some games on the road because fans are so abusive," Snow said. "That was the case in Anaheim during our World Series."

Teammate Jason Schmidt echoed those sentiments.

"The fans don't have a right to say anything just because they bought a ticket," he said. "They get away with too many things. I mean, people yell things in the stands that you wouldn't get away with at a grocery store or in a bar.

"When fans pop off and nothing is done about it, they think they can get away with anything. I've seen ushers stand around and do nothing. Players are at the mercy of everyone. Good-natured stuff is OK, but they have to draw the line."

Maybe professional athletes should be forced to watch Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock. There was a character who could take some taunting.

And Felipe Alou does his best to reinforce cultural stereotypes.

Giants manager Felipe Alou, providing the perspective of experience and ethnicity, called it "a very difficult and dangerous situation. It's easier to control the players, but who can control (fans)? There are so many. Players are expected to tolerate a lot, but don't ever mention mother or family to a Latin."

I suspect Felipe will be hearing a lot of comments about his family on the road this year.

Hideki Matsui returned to Japan and tells the press he was disappointed in his season.

Matsui returned to Japan for the first time in eight months Friday and said he considers his second season in the major leagues a "big minus" because the Yankees missed the World Series.

"I think about it now and it's still heartbreaking," said Matsui when asked of the playoff loss to the Boston Red Sox that sent the Yankees' archrivals to the World Series and saw them become world champion.

"In my eyes it wasn't a good season. My personal stats improved somewhat, but I've only played (in the majors) for two years. It means I've gotten used to their baseball and learned to adjust," he said.

It's the Yankees attitude; if you didn't win the World Series, you didn't have a successful season.

The Pirates and Athletics have completed the deal that sends catcher Jason Kendall to Oakland. I was very surprised by this trade. It's not that the A's didn't make a good deal; Kendall has a career .387 OBA and hit .399 in both 2003 and 2004. He'll be someone the A's sluggers can drive in. It's that Kendall is an old catcher. According to the book Moneyball, Beane was going to replace Varitek with Mark Johnson once he took the Boston GM job. That was based on Varitek's age as a catcher, the same age Kendall is now. Of course the Varitek for Johnson move would have been terrible, so maybe Beane learned something.

The Athletics get the NL leader in win shares at catcher to replace Damian Miller. If you look at the deal as losing Miller, Rhodes and Redman, then the A's gave up 25 win shares among three players to recieve 25 win shares in one plyaer. If you assume the A's can find two other pitchers to generate 10 win shares, then Oakland has picked up 3 wins. That's a lot, considering they lost the west by 1 game in 2004.

I don't think Arthur Rhodes is a useful player anymore; I'm sure the A's just wanted to get rid of him. Redman was a disappointment. After a very good 2003 season with Florida, his strikeouts fell off and his HR went way up. He's an okay back of the rotation pitcher, but I don't see him making the Pirates a whole lot better. Any improvement in that team will come from spending the money they save on Kendall wisely.

Maybe they can obtain Prentice to go along with Tike and Mark and corner the market on Redman! (Although you'd think the Braves and Indians would be trading for these players. :-))

Have a safe and festive day with your family and friends. As Baseball Musings approaches its 1,000,000th unique visit, I'm thankful for all the readers who made this site successful. Enjoy the day!

There are lots of renovations underway at Fenway. The field is being dug up and replaced with state of the art drainage and heating.

"It's going to be a drier, safer and better-looking field next year as a result of these changes," said Red Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino. "The approximate cost is between $1.5 million and $2 million. To put that in perspective, if we save ourselves one rainout next season, the field improvements will have more than paid for itself."

In addition to the new grass and sand-based drainage system, the field will also have a heating system, allowing the grounds crew to prep the grass earlier in the spring and keep it later into the fall.

"If it's not pouring rain, we should be able to play, or play soon thereafter," said Mellor. "It's a modern field now. This is something that will put us back into the modern playing age."

The Sox are going to put in improvements over the winter for the players, fans and press. Sometimes, you don't need a new stadium; you just need to improve what you have.

Bill Young writes that the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame is looking for votes for their 2004 Tip O'Neill Award. You can see the candidates and a link for voting here.

The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum is asking the public to voice their opinions through their website, www.baseballhalloffame.ca, which will help determine the recipient, awarded annually to the Canadian player judged to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to the highest ideals of the game of baseball. 2003 NL Cy Young winner Eric Gagné ran away with his second consecutive Tip last year (he shared the 2002 award with Larry Walker).

The Twins are not going to be able to sign Brad Radke for $7 million a year. As the article points out:

Radke's agent, Ron Simon, wouldn't discuss the terms he's seeking from the Twins, but the market for Radke figures to start on the high side of the $22.5 million, three-year deal Kris Benson, a 30-year-old right-hander with a losing record over a six-year career and a recent history of injuries, signed Monday with the New York Mets.

Radke does one thing very well, and that's keeping his walk totals low. You have to earn your way on vs. Radke. Organizations like the Red Sox and the Yankkees know the value of that stat for pitchers, and will pay appropriately. Benson has good walk numbers, but still walks over twice as many as Brad. The Twins, in my estimation, are going to need to get closer to $10 million per year to be competitive for Radke's services.

There is going to be a press conference at noon today to announce the name of the Washington franchise. I don't think the Exposés is going to make it. :(

Update: Here's the story. It's the Nationals.

Do you ever wonder why the Kansas City team is called the Royals? This Christmas story provides a clue.

I had doubted the existence of collusion over the last couple of seasons. I assumed that smarter management and a flood of free agents had worked to help fix the value of players. So I was surprised to see this article and this form.

But there sure were a lot of agents who thought they knew it when they saw it over the last two winters.

So this offseason, Bud Selig and his friends at Major League Baseball have agreed to answer those collusion allegations by doing something 100 percent unprecedented:

Any time a team requests "advice" from MLB on how much to offer any free agent -- whether it's Carlos Beltran or Adam Hyzdu -- the team will no longer be allowed to receive that guidance via phone, cell phone, carrier pigeon or even masked courier.

Instead, MLB's Labor Relations Office now will have to dole out that advice in writing, via something called a "Free Agent Advice Form." And eventually, the players' union will get to inspect a copy of every one of those forms.

Why is the league giving advice? Aren't these teams supposed to be competing against each other? Aren't they supposed to hire people to figure these things out?

So over the last two seasons, clubs could just call up MLB and ask, "How much is this guy worth?" Yes, I'd say that was collusion. You'd be silly as a club not to do it. So even though the teams are not supposed to share information, they would be idiots not to ask for data that's available. (By the way, it's not clear if the clubs are charged for this, or if it's just a service of being part of the club.)

My general feeling is that MLB should not be in the business of giving clubs advice on the price of free agents. Part of building a winning club should be good management that knows the value of a player. However, if MLB wants to get into this business to save the clubs money by centralizing the gathering of this information, then it should be available to every club, the players, the agents and the general public. The the players would know what the league thinks they are worth, and can negotiate with clubs, giving them reasons why they deserve more. Either no information or transparent information.

The Anaheim Angels have rid themselves of Jose Guillen, trading him to the Montreal/Washington team for Juan Rivera and Maicer Izturis. The Angels get a couple of younger players and Bowden gets a good power hitter for the middle of the lineup. Guillen is younger than I thought; he'll be 29 in 2005. He's only two years older than Rivera (although River's seasonal age will be 26 in 2005). It's unlikey that Maicer is going to turn into his brother. Cesear is only 7 months older, and he's already played four major league seasons. Seems like a decent trade for Washington.

Steve Lombardi takes a swipe at the contact vs. non-contact argument. I haven't had time to digest the article, but it strikes me that Steve isn't quite measuring the correct thing. Let me know in the comments what you think.

The Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame had its induction ceremony on Saturday. Will Clark and Eric Milton were among the inductees.

Mark Teahen wins the first annual MLB.com Dernell Stenson AFL Sportsmanship Award. The award is in memory of Dernell Stenson, who was killed during a car-jacking last year while playing in the Arizona Fall League. Congratulations to Mark. It's a nice way to remember Dernell. (You can read about the Stenson case in the crime archive.)

Joanna Hicks e-mails:

I wanted to let you know that there is an interview with Ben Cherington at Red Sox Nation here that I thought you might find interesting. http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12293
Any idea how internal player ranking systems that Ben alludes to but declines to describe in detail work?

I don't know anything about their internal ranking system. However, it's not hard to guess that they have a way of projecting minor league accomplishments into major leageu equivalencies. Bill James has been working on that for years. And I'd also bet they have a way of measuring the value of every event in a game, much like the Athletics.

It's a very good interview. Be sure to take a look.

The Tigers must be doing something right. Troy Percival met with the team management, looked around the city and signed on the dotted line.

The whirlwind courtship caught even Dombrowski by surprise. Percival stayed Monday night at Birmingham's Townsend Hotel, ate breakfast with manager Alan Trammell, Hall of Famer Al Kaline and owner Mike Ilitch on Tuesday morning, and by Tuesday afternoon was taking a precautionary physical to prove his various ailments -- past shoulder surgery, a hip ailment and last season's forearm injury -- were fine.

"I'm as good right now as I've ever been," Percival said.

By dinner with Trammell, Dombrowski and upper management, Percival was sold, telling the brass to call his agent and make the deal. According to Dombrowski, the agreement came somewhere in the middle of the entrée and while Percival's agent -- also surprised by the news -- was on his way to a Los Angeles Clippers game.

"I know what I want when I want it," said Percival, who said he turned down more money elsewhere to sign with Detroit.

Only time will tell how big a deal this becomes. The Tigers now have insurance if the tragedy in Urbina's life keeps him from pitching in 2005, and depth if Urbina can pitch. UU strikes out more batters, but Percival walks fewer. No matter who is used in the setup/closer role, the Tigers have a good chance of reducing games to 7 innings.

The other benefit of signing Percival is that he may bring in Troy Glaus.

The Percival benefits are far-reaching. Not only did the closer discuss his desire to lead the bullpen and help the younger pitchers, but he has a strong friendship with one of the Tigers' other free-agent targets, Anaheim third baseman Troy Glaus.

Close enough that the players speak daily. "We may have our best salesman in the closer," Dombrowski said, smiling.

When the Tigers were putting up the worst record in 40 years, I wondered if Dombrowski had lost the magic that worked so well in Montreal and Florida. It looks like he's gotten the owner to open up the purse strings, and while I doubt we'll see a 30-game improvement this year, even a 15 game surge will put the Tigers in contention.

Repoz at Baseball Primer has a discussion going on about this article on how the Angels are encouraging their players to advance runners, even with productive outs. I'm not impressed.

As one of the commentors at Primer says:

Mikael is right that there is a good point buried under all the junk. Too bad there's SO much junk!

The point of Mr. Smith's article is one Bill James made 20 years ago. Given two teams with the same OBA, the team with the higher batting average will have the better offense. Hits are simply more valuable than walks in advancing baserunners.

If the Angels philosophy is to make contact, I can't argue with that. It worked well for them against a poor fielding Yankees team in the 2002 playoffs. If it's bad for pitchers to strike out few batters, then it should be good for offenses not to strike out very often. The Angels do that very well, and they should be commended.

But the author misses the A's philosophy. It's not "draw walks." It's "don't swing at bad pitches". It seems to me that the Angels philosophy will be that it's okay to swing at bad pitches if you advance a runner. If that's true, it's wrong. There are very few batters who can be successful in the long term doing that (Ichrio, Puckett and Gwynn come to mind), but most players will be more like Alfonso Soriano, who just expands the strike zone and end up striking out more. And as Mr. Smith wrote, you can't make a productive out with a strikeout.

The Angels have the personnel that make contact without expanding the strike zone. I like that. As I wrote during the 2002 World Series:

They've shown that aggressive style throughout the playoffs. What I love about watching this team is that they know how to hit. So many teams go up and just swing for the fences. The Angels are trying to make contact, and when they do they really drive the ball. Eckstein chokes up on the bat! I never see anyone do that anymore. Get the bat on the ball and good things will happen. I'm glad the Angels are teaching us that again.

I just hope they understand swinging at good pitches is part of making contact. Otherwise, we'll see their strikeout totals go up and their valued efficiency go down.

Tony Massarotti looks at the Red Sox positioning in their bid to sign a catcher for 2005. It seems their top choice after Varitek is Damian Miller.

Should the Sox fail to sign Varitek, it remains unclear what their options are beyond Miller. Among the possibilities are free agents Mike Matheny, who played in St. Louis this year, and Brian Schneider, who played in Montreal.

If the Sox sign Miller, Matheny or Schneider, their intentions would be to use that player as their starter. That would leave open the possibility of re-signing backup Doug Mirabelli [stats, news], who, like Varitek, also became a free agent at the end of the season.

The Sox are in a rough position vis-a-vis Varitek. He's a very good player and a fan favorite. He's also 32, and a long term expensive contract is not a good idea for a 32-year-old catcher. But baseball contracts are often rewards for past performance, rather than payment for future services. (That's one of the reasons for the salary inflation prior to this decade.) After all, Varitek was an integral part of the Red Sox winning the World Series. Maybe, in this one case,
Boston should bite the bullet and give Jason the big contract, and just think of it as a bonus for past services. The Sox have a history of shabby treatment of catchers (Fisk, Gedman). Overpaying Varitek would make up for some of that.

Feel free to disagree with this point. I'm not sure I really believe it myself. Comments?

If yesterday's signings by the Exposés are an indication of the direction of the franchise, Peter Angelos doesn't need to worry about the competition. The Montreal/Washington franchise inked third baseman Vinny Castilla and shortstop Christian Guzman to play the left side of the infield.

"Guzman and Castilla will be above-average defensively on the left side of the infield and that's important," interim general manager Jim Bowden said. "These two guys have been to the postseason and that's important, especially for this franchise that has a lot of players that haven't been to the postseason."

Sorry, Jim. I understand wanting good defense. But post-season experience as the second reason to sign someone? Sounds like an excuse for not having the money to sign anyone good.

The Expos had made an initial offer to third baseman Corey Koskie, but he was asking for too many years and too much money.

"[Koskie's people] came back with a conversation of what they needed and what they were thinking. [It was] enough so that that we wouldn't be able to afford the length or the amount they were are probably going to end up with. That's why we went with Castilla," Bowden said.

Please take a look at Castilla's career. There's no reason to believe he can get on base outside of Colorado. There's no reason to believe he can hit for power outside of Colorado. Are there no light hitting defensive wizards in the minors that could be had for a few hundred thousand dollars a year? It's a waste of the future owner's money.

Guzman isn't as bad a choice. He's an out machine, but he is a very good defensive shortstop, leading the AL in defensive win shares last year. He's also 26, so the Exposés will have him during the prime of his career. At a bit over $4 million a year, he's not being overpaid. Maybe Frank Robinson can teach him to be selective at the plate. His batting average is fine for a shortstop, his power is fine for a shortstop but he needs to find a way on base more. Otherwise, with the pitcher batting, Montreal/Washington will have three very easy outs in their lineup. The defense is going to need to be really good to win games.

Aaron Gleeman has more.

Congratulations to Vlad Guerrero who won the AL Most Valuable Player award today.

Guerrero, who batted .337 with 39 home runs and 126 runs batted in and led the league in runs scored (124) and total bases (366), was a vital factor in the Angels' winning the AL West by hitting .371 with 10 home runs and 23 RBI in September.

It just goes to show that recent performance stays with voters. If Vlad had had his best month in April, gotten the Angels out to a big lead so they could coast the rest of the way he might very well have not won the award. After all, that's basically what Sheffield accomplished in June, as the Yankees went 19-7 in his best month.

Nonetheless, it's a good selection. Vlad was dangerous both at home and on the road, putting up nearly identical OBAs and slugging percentages. He was consistent throughout the year, only having his BA dip below .300 in July (.298). If only the Expos could have held on to the Impaler, the new Washington team would have a fantastic draw. Instead, Arte Moreno made one of the most cost effective free agent signings of all time.

Jorge Arangure Jr. of the Washington Post looks at the free agents the Orioles are persuing this winter.

Beattie was reluctant to say whether the Orioles would ask Sexson to work out, saying the Orioles haven't made a decision on whether they would pursue Sexson. But should they enter the bidding, Beattie said Baltimore would need evidence that Sexson was healthy.

The Orioles haven't made an offer to any of their targets, which include first baseman Carlos Delgado, outfielder Magglio Ordoñez and pitcher Carl Pavano. Beattie expects the negotiations for those players to move slowly.

It looks like the Orioles are going after the right players. Their first basemen did not hit well last year as a group, nor did their outfielders. A healthy combination of Ordonez/Sexson would add a great deal of punch to that lineup.

There's an excellent study at Sabernomics on which pitchers are most likely to throw no-hitters.

Congratulations to Barry Bonds who won his 7th NL MVP award today. It was an easy win for Barry as he out pointed Adrian Beltre 407-311.

Bonds had 53 win shares this season, making him responsible for 17 of the Giants 91 wins, or nearly 1/5 of the team's total. Just how amazing is this? If you're lucky, a great player can make a five win difference in a team. That's replacing a below-average to average player. But Bonds Bonds is 8 wins better than Hideki Matsui, the AL left fielder with the most win shares (29)! If this were high school, Bonds would be the student who gets 100 on his chemistry test while the rest of the class gets 70's.

Until Barry Bonds, no one won more than 3 MVPs. There's a good reason for this. To be the most valuable player, an athlete should be at the top of his game. There is usually a very short window in which this happens, usually in a hitters late 20's. Bonds having the best part of his career at the end has of course drawn suspicions of steroid use. Whatever he's doing to stay in shape, he's produced the best four year run in the history of baseball.

He also could have easily won eight awards. In 1991, Bonds accumulated 10 more win shares than the winner, Terry Pendleton. He dominated the game when he was young, and he continues to dominate the game at age 40. If he can clear himself of the steroid suspicisions, he's staked his claim as the greatest hitter ever.

Update: You can see the complete voting here. It's impressive that Mark Lorretta finished fairly high, but it's as Brian Gunn commented below, Bobby Abreu did not draw much attention. The writers need to wake up to how good a player Bobby is.

Joe Torre happened to run into Carl Pavano in Florida over the weekend, and it seems Carl is very interested in joining the Bronx Bombers. The article also list the Yankees offseason priorities for pitching acquistions:

The Yankees have prioritized Pavano, Al Leiter, Eric Milton, Brad Radke and Jaret Wright as the free-agent pitchers who interest them. Milton is most likely to sign with the Yankees (or somewhere else) first, for as a Type C free agent, he will not require compensation - in the form of amateur draft picks - to Milton's old team, the Phillies.

It's pretty clear from this list that the Yankees believe they need a lefty or two in the starting rotation. Milton and Leiter, of course, came up through the Yankees system. What's also interesting is that Pedro Martinez is not on the list.

Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel explores the possibilities of a Florida-Arizona-Anaheim deal for Randy Johnson and Jose Guillen. In Juan's version, the Diamondbacks get some young arms, the Marlins get a troubled outfielder and a prime reliever, and the Angels acquire the Big Unit. The deal makes sense to me. Arizona saves money and gets help rebuilding. Anaheim dumps a troublesome player and gets a pitcher who can neutralize Johan Santana or Pedro Martinez in the playoffs. Florida improves the pen and the outfield. Each team assumes a different sort of risk:

• Arizona takes the risk of youth, that the pitchers might not pan out.


• Anaheim takes the risk of age, the Johnson might break down.


• Florida takes the risk of personality, that Guillen might get upset with Jack McKeon.

My favorite line from the article, however, is why the Marlins can afford to get rid of Juan Encarnacion.

To accommodate Guillen, the Marlins would look to jettison Juan Encarnacion. That's problematic as well, considering Encarnacion had the National League's third-lowest on-base percentages in 2004 and is coming off shoulder surgery.

A sports writer noting that a player is mediocre due to his low OBA. The world is changing.

It seems the Red Sox players were very generous in distributing their World Series money. Good to see. There was a time when the World Series shares could be a major part of the money a player earned during the season. Now, it's more like a nice bonus. I'm glad they're spreading the wealth.

Jon Weisman looks at what the departures of Edward Cossette, Brian Gunn and Doug Pappas mean for the baseball blogosphere in his column, The Disposable Baseball Blogger. Although about baseball, the column applies to any set of niche market blogs.

Omar Vizquel becomes the first free agent to switch teams as he signs a 3-year deal with the San Francisco Giants. The contract will pay Omar about $4 million per year.

Omar's career path reminds me a lot of Ozzie Smith. He started off as a poor offensive player with the Mariners. After his trade to the Indians, he developed a good eye for the strikezone, and in many seasons after that had OBA's good enough to bat at the top of the order. But that hasn't been true in 3 of the last 4 seasons. And while he rebounded in 2004, I would bet that at age 38 (in 2005) Vizquel's best offensive days are behind him.

Of course, the Giants may be getting him for defense. However, there are signs that Omar is not the defensive player he once was. He ranked 8th in the AL in defensive win shares for shortstops at 4.5. Not terrible, but not gold glove caliber either. And there's no reason to believe Vizquel will get better.

Not only that, but Devi Cruz, who is signed for a mere $800,000, is just about as good as Vizquel in terms of defensive win shares! If all the Giants were looking for is defense, Cruz would probably do as well for a lot less money.

Vizquel could be a good one-year stop gap for the Giants. Paying him for three years is a waste of money, and just delays San Francisco from developing a good, young middle infielder who'll be there for the long run. It wasn't a good move.

Nick Canepa is concerned about the Padres trading Phil Nevin, and asks an interesting question:

If GM Kevin Towers trades Phil Nevin, he'd better get plenty in return. The Padres aren't exactly loaded with 100-RBI guys . . .

All this trade talk. Why does an 87-win team have to be broken up? . . .

To answer this, one has to understand the two separate tasks the Padres have tried to achieve. The first was to establish the team in the new ballpark. This was a rousing success. San Diego combined a new home with a winning team to bring over 37,000 fans per game to PETCO park. To do this, Tower traded youth (Bay, Perez) for a solid veteran (Giles). This, however, was a short term solution.

What I suspect, now that the Padres have established their fan base in the new park, is that they will act more like the Oakland Athletics. They'll let expensive, older players go and concentrate on building a winner from good young players. So you trade Phil Nevin because he's in his mid-thirties and he's injury prone. You consider letting Giles go. He's also in his mid-30's, and likely in the decline phase of his career. Giles especially would bring some talent, as he doesn't have the injury baggage of Nevin. I don't think this is breaking up an 87-win team. This will be, piece by piece, turning an 87-win team into a 95 win team that will make the playoffs.

My copy of the Bill James Handbook 2005 arrived in the mail today. Although I worked on the publication, this is the first time I've seen the finished product, and the first time I've seen the Bill James sections of the book. If you are a fan of the Abstracts, you'll want to pick a copy up to see how and why Bill has updated the runs created formula. He has a whole section on efficient teams that came from the realization that the Red Sox have been an inefficient team for nearly two decades. In trying to figure out why, Bill revised the runs created formula by adjusting the advancement part of the formula, making the weights for hits non-integer. This has the nice effect of making the formula more accurate for teams going back to 1955.

One of the other new sections is by Sig Mejdal. Sig is a biomathematician who works for NASA (not a rocket scientist, but close). Sig is doing extremely interesting work using stepwise logistic time series regression to try to determine the probability of a player being injured given his history and body type. I hope interview Sig about his work more over the winter.

If you're interested, follow the link above to purchase a copy. You won't be disappointed.

It's snowing in Western Massachusetts today, and that can only mean that winter ball is around the corner. Gabrielle Paese rounds up who will be staying warm in Puerto Rico this season. Roberto Alomar will be playing for Carlos Baerga, who owns the Santurce Crabbers. Alomar and Baerga were both 2nd base prospects for the Padres in the late 1980's. Looks like there will be a good mix of veterans and prospects on the island. Seems like a good place to escape the snow and catch a ball game.

Update: Gabrielle writes with some links to Winter Ball web sites.

You might also want to alert your readers who follow winter ball that former player and Triple A coach Edwin Rodriguez has a website, www.ebaseballpr.com that keeps the day-to-day statistics updated. The website is in Spanish, but the numbers need no translation. Also for stats (of all four winter leagues), you can access (for free) www.baseballamerica.com and click on statistics and the winter leagues. All of the league's stats are done by SportsTicker (formerly Howe).

Also, the Manati Athenians, owned by former Chicago White Sox infielder Jose "Tony" Valentin, have their own website, www.atenienses.com (also in Spanish).

Johan Santana capped off a great season today with the AL Cy Young Award. In an award I thought might be close between Santana and Schilling, Santana took all the first place votes. As good as Schilling was, Johan's superior ERA and K numbers put him over the top. Congratulations, Johan!

These two pitchers are much closer than the award voting indicates. Schilling had better walk numbers, and both allowed about the same number of HR. However, win shares gives a clear advantage to Santana, 27 to 22. Could it be that AL voters are more sophisticated than their NL counterparts?

Evan Brunell is blogging about the Red Sox at Fire Brand of the American League. Right now, he's very excited about Boston claiming Billy Traber from Cleveland.

Charles Rector also writes for MVN, with his focus on independent leagues. His blog, Independent Thinking can be found here.

The GMs are talking about bringing instant replay reviews to baseball.

"I think there seems to be some level of understanding that getting the play right is what underscores this thought process," Reds GM Dan O'Brien said. "I don't think any of us have any idea of a timetable."

Said Brad Kullman, the Reds' director of major league operations: "It doesn't make sense that you might have a million fans out there watching on TV and knowing what happened while the umpires huddle without that benefit."

There are definitely pros and cons to the issue. The pros, of course, is that it would help umpires get plays right. The cons, however, are many.

• It would make a slow game slower.


• Not all broadcasters have the same number of cameras. Some parks would not be able to give the umpires good angles.


• Not all games are broadcast. What happens in games without TV?


• I'm seen lots of replays over the years. Sometimes they are conclusive from one angle, and conclusive in the other direction from another. Which do you believe?

Now, on the pro-side, if this were adopted, we might get all baseball games broadcast. And those broadcasts might all need to be made with numerous camera from numerous angles, which should improve the game on TV.

However, I'm not sure it's really needed. We saw during the playoffs what happens when umpires are willing to seek help from each other. If more of that cooperation were seen during the regular season, there would be fewer calls that needed replay to fix.

On this Veterans Day, I'd like to thank all the military readers (past and present) of Baseball Musings for their service. I appreciate the dangerous job you do, and hope that each of you comes home safely.

Buck Showalter and Bobby Cox have each won the covetted Manager of the Year award. This award usually goes to the manager whose team exceeded pre-season expectations, and both Texas and Atlanta certainly did that. Cox showed that he did not need a stellar pitching staff to carry Atlanta to victory. In a season where Atlanta could easily have fallen apart, Cox rode an improved offense to another division title.

Buck Showalter has always been good at putting his players into situations where they will succeed. He did that with both his batters and pitchers this year as Texas moved out of the AL West cellar and into contention for the division. His handling of the chair throwing incident in Oakland was poor, but the voters seemed to ignore that in the voting. Kudos also to the general managers of both teams who provided the personnel to pull off these seasons.

The voters made two good choices here. It was nice to see Eric Wedge gets a few votes as well. I suspect he'll win this when Cleveland is back on top.

Brian Gunn is retiring from blogging and taking Redbird Nation with him. His voice will be missed. Best of luck with your endeavors, Brian!

Congratulations to Roger Clemens on winning his 7th Cy Young Award, and his first in the National League. It certainly was the year of the old pitcher in the NL, as Clemens beat out Randy Johnson for the award. Once again, the voters show they are more interested in wins than actual pitching performance. Johnson was ahead of Clemens in K per 9 and BB per 9, and just slightly behind in HR per 9 (and both were extremely good in that category). If Randy Johnson were on a decent offensive team, he would have won going away.

Wins are a team statistic that is applied to players. No pitcher gets a win in isolation. Sometimes the wins are mostly attributable to a pitcher (a 1-0 shutout, for example), but there are always fielders doing their job to back him up, and batters who need to put some runs on the board for a victory. I've been hoping for years that Cy Young voters would realize the difference between wins and ability, but it hasn't happened yet. In my opinion, wins should act as a tie breaker; given two hurlers that have very similar seasons, use the wins as a tie breaker. But in this case, Johnson had the superior season and should be recognized for that.

Amazingly to me, Jake Peavy did not get a single vote. You might think that the league leader in ERA would merit a third place point from the SD voters at least. I guess it was a combination of too few innings and playing in a good park for pitchers.

The Hardball Times is going from pixels to paper with The 2004 Hardball Times Baseball Annual. I'm sure the book will be as interesting as the site. And if you like pixels better than paper, you can download the publication for very little money. I'll have a review when I get my copy.

It's Jason Bay and Bobby Crosby taking home the BBWA Awards for NL and AL Rookie of the Year. This differs from the IBWA, which awarded the NL Debut of the Year to Greene. However, I liked both Crosby and Bay as my #1 picks. I liked Bay's power vs. Crosby's defense.

I didn't realize that the Pittsburgh Pirates have never had a rookie of the year award winner. Jason Bay may change that today. Amazingly, the view in San Diego is that Bay will beat out Greene.

Tangotiger is once again asking fans to fill in a survey to help determine who are the best fielders in the major leagues. If you've watched many games this season, take a few minutes to fill out his forms.

The NY Times has an interesting article on applying game theory to measure the worth of a player.

The method's logic is actually very simple: every confrontation between pitcher and batter affects, however marginally, each team's chances of winning. With various numbers of outs and men on base, a double or a strikeout or even a runner-advancing grounder either adds or subtracts a specific amount from the inning's run-scoring potential. Depending on the game's inning and score, each of those amounts takes on varying significance to the final outcome.

"It's just our way of looking at the world from studying game theory," Lonergan said. "Each team starts the game with even probability, and ends at either 0 or 1. In between, you're looking at what the players are doing for their team."

An example: when Beltre stepped to the plate on Aug. 23 with the Dodgers down, 7-4, in the top of the seventh in Montreal, Los Angeles had a 12.17 percent chance of coming back to win. (This percentage, derived from extensive data from the entire season, would have been 1.29 percent if there were two out in the ninth.) Beltre delivered an R.B.I. single, making the score 7-5 and the Dodgers' chances of winning 19.11 percent.

So Beltre was awarded with the difference in percentages, or 0.0694, of what Lonergan and Polak call Wins Relative to Average Player (WRAP); and on the other side of baseball's double-entry bookkeeping, the pitcher who surrendered the hit, Luis Ayala, was credited with a minus 0.0694.

They then use this system to show that Sheffield and Bonds should be the MVPs. However, the system also shows that Nathan and Gagne should be the Cy Young award winners.

A.L. CY YOUNG Despite having a higher E.R.A., Schilling tops Santana, 5.15 to 5.01, because he often performed in hitter-friendly Fenway Park (yes, WRAP accounts for this) and because he thrived in particularly tight situations. But the two were bested by Twins closer Joe Nathan (5.47), whose 1.62 E.R.A. and 44 saves do not truly quantify how many games his late pitching helped decide. (WRAP leans toward relievers because, although they influence fewer at-bats, the at-bats are inherently more crucial.)

It strikes me that this system isn't good at picking Cy Young award winners. There really should be a stamina component to that award. My other problem with the system is that, like linear weights, it can only be accurately evaluated after the season is over, when all the probabilities are correctly known. Just as an example, in a low run environment, the probability of coming back from a 2-run deficit is lower than in a high-run environment.

Still, it's nice to have another tool in the in the drawer, and this does appear to be a good way to measure how clutch a player turned out to be in a season.

Lance Berkman tore up his knee in a flag football game and will need at least five months to recuperate. Unlike Aaron Boone last year, Berkman's injury did not violate his contract.

"In all of our guaranteed contracts, there is a prohibition against (non-baseball athletic activities),'' Purpura said. "Now, the salary that he was paid for this year and the terms on his guaranteed contract essentially expired at the end of the season, so there's really no prohibition, per se, at this point against it. But, obviously, it has the potential to impact his ability to play next year."

This injury may also give the Astros more of a reason to pursue Carlos Beltran.

I just did a search on Google News and All-Baseball.com came up as one of their sources. If anyone ever sees a Baseball Musings post on Google News, please let me know.

It really would be great if Google had a similar service just for blogs. Often times I see a story and would like blog reaction, but if my favorites aren't covering it yet, that reaction can be tough to find.

Mike Hunssinger e-mails to tell me Wally Backman was fired as manager of the Arizona DBacks before he even signed the contract. (See this post from yesterday.)

The management group acknowledged they failed to do a criminal or financial background check but initially indicated they would stand by Backman.

"It's obviously a mistake on our part to have made a decision without having done the proper background work," said managing partner Ken Kendrick. "I take full responsibility for that."

Backman was offered a two-year contract but had not signed it, so there were no financial repercussions for the team.

"I'm stunned, so is my family, so is everybody," Backman told the Arizona Republic. "I'm not prepared to say anything today but I will definitely have a statement [soon]."

Bob Melvin was hired to replace Backman. I thought he was a victim of circumstance in Seattle. It's good he's getting another chance to prove himself as a manager.

This made me laugh.

Houston Astros free agent center fielder Carlos Beltran is seeking a 10-year contract, his agent told a television station on Thursday.

I think this should read Scott Boras is looking to gaurantee his income for the next ten years.

And it's probably not going to happen. Why? Insurance. Insurance companies will no longer cover baseball contracts longer than three years. That doesn't mean that Beltran can't get a long term contract. However, since the risk in such a contract won't be borne by insurers, it will have to be carried by Beltran and the team signing him. That means either less money or less guarantees.

On top of that, as good as Beltran is, he's not Mays or Mantle. For his career, his OBAs are good, not great. His slugging percentages are good, not great. He is a marvelous center fielder, which does count for a lot. But he was 27 in 2004, which is pretty near the peak of a player's performance. He's not going to get much better than he was in 2004. So why give a long term contract to someone with a career .353 OBA and .490 slugging percentage unless the price is low?

My guess is that Beltran may be much better off going for a short term (3 year) contract. With all the risk involved, my seat of the pants guess is that Beltran would be worth $10 million a year for 10 years. However, if the risk of a three year contract could be passed off to insurers, he could easily get $50 million over the period of a three year contract.

To put it another way, most organizations can't bid on Carlos over 10 years. So to get a lot of money, Boras has to depend on someone being stupid and over paying (A-Rod with Texas, e.g.). But if Boras goes for a three-year deal, then many organizations can bid because they can cover the risk. And the more bidding, the higher the price will go. The risk to Beltran is that he gets injured and has to live the rest of his life on $20 million he's taken home from his $50 million contract. The upside is that if he has three great years, he can sign for even more and make in six years what he would have made in 10.

These negotiations will make an interesting winter.

For those Red Sox fans in the audience, 1918-The Film should appeal to your interests.

"So the curse only lasted 86 years, huh? I guess the ol' Bambino wasn't as powerful a necromancer as we thought."

More thoughts here. :-)

The Phillies make a safe choice for manager, going with former Cleveland skipper and Thome friend Charlie Manuel. It looks like the fans wanted Leyland.

As for passing on Leyland, team sources say Wade expects a lot of outrage from fans, and it's already begun.

With rumors circulating that Manuel would get the job, several angry Phillies fans emailed Wade on Wednesday threatening to drop their season tickets if Leyland isn't hired.

"Nothing against Charlie Manuel, but how can you pass up on Leyland?" said Samantha Bloch, a Center City resident and Phillies' season-ticket holder since 2002. "This is a gift opportunity to get a guy that wants to come here and who has won a World Series. It's having it put in your lap and throwing it away.

"The second Jim Leyland wanted to come here, all other options should have been closed in my eyes and in a lot of fans eyes."

I'm not sure there's all that much difference. The history is that if you give either of these men a good team, they win. That will be a big change from Bowa.

Congratulations to Willie Randolph, named the new Mets manger late last night. Randolph was one of my favorite players of the 1970's Yankees. As a hitter he had no power, but did an excellent job of setting the table and scoring runs. He was a fine 2nd baseman who was a great at turning the double play. He always struck me as a smart player. I remember one game against the Red Sox in the 80's that showed this. He was facing Bob Stanley with the bases loaded, bottom of the inning in extra innings. On every pitch, he fell away from the plate as if the pitch was going to hit him. Each one was called a ball by the ump (even though at least one was close enough to be a strike), walking in the winning run. Randolph knew the situation, and his reputation for selectivity worked to his advantage.

How he'll do as a manager, I don't know. He has no experience in that job, but he's been around a good one for a while. Minaya had some interesting requirements for the job:

From the beginning, Minaya maintained consistent criteria for a manager. He wanted someone with leadership qualities who is willing to work 12 months a year, can communicate daily with players and the front office, understands how to delegate to assistants, is open to performing community service, is excited to interact with the minor league system and will travel to winter leagues and the instructional league in the off-season.

He might have included, "Has a clue about strategy," or, "Wants to win more than breathe," but that's just me. It's a great opportunity for Willie, and I hope he succeeds.

It appears that police have finished their investigation into the murder of Dernell Stenson. They've concluded that robbery was the motive and the ex-girlfriend was not involved.

It appears that Wally Backman has been in trouble in the recent past.

Backman acknowledged that he was arrested in 2001 after an altercation with a female family friend at his home in Prineville, Ore. He said he agreed to plead guilty to fourth-degree assault. He was placed on 12 months' probation, ordered to undergo an anger management evaluation and donated $1,000 to the local Boys and Girls Club.

Backman was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence in Kennewick, Wash., in 1999, when he was manager of the Tri-City franchise of the independent Western League. He said he fought the charge for two years before pleading guilty.

He also has had financial problems, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year, The Republic reported. Backman said many of the financial problems, including several tax liens he said he has paid, were caused by dealings of his then-wife that he was unaware of.

(Emphasis added.)

Maybe the DUI is actually a positive indicator. Bill James wrote in the introduction to his marvelous book, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers:

Managers are fascinating people. Of the twenty-five greatest managers of all time, at least eighteen were alcoholics. Is this a coincidence, or is there a reason for it? Should we, in looking to hire a manager, make sure he has Betty Ford on his resume?

I'd like to think not.

The AL Gold Glove winners were announced today. Derek Jeter won at shortstop. The amazing thing is that Jeter was a good candidate. He amassed 7.2 fielding win shares, tied for 3rd in the AL.

The Gold Glove voting system stinks, by the way. I believe the managers and coaches vote for their top choice only, and whoever gets a plurality wins. They really need to do a 1-2-3 system, as the writers do for their awards.

Gerry Hunsicker has resigned from his post as general manager of the Houston Astros. Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle sees this as a bad move for Houston.

He gave the Astros credibility. He gave them a conscience. He contributed more to their success than any of us may ever really know.

He didn't cry Monday when he announced his resignation, but he came close a couple of times.

If you love the Astros, you're the one who should be crying. Your favorite baseball team is far worse off than it was before Gerry Hunsicker stepped to a microphone on Monday morning at Minute Maid Park.

It appears that Gerry no longer wanted to tolerate McLane acting like, you know, a boss.

Hunsicker is no longer general manager of the Astros because he had finally had enough of McLane.

He resigned because their relationship had run its course and because he was worn down by the constant budget battles and by dealing with an owner who wanted a hand in virtually every decision.

Yes, they disagreed over McLane's decision to bring back Craig Biggio for 2001. That wasn't the reason he quit.

It wasn't even about McLane's latest slashing of the player-development budget. McLane has asked his baseball people to do more and more with less and less for so long that cutting the budget became the norm.

It was all those things and more. It was a desire for more freedom, to maybe answer to someone who trusted him a bit more and who understood that building a team is more art than science.

Actually, it's a lot of science, but that's an argument for another day.

Hunsicker is going out on top after doing a very good job for the organization. I'm sure he'll get a good job somewhere else, and with any luck, a less meddlesome boss.

John P. Lopez looks at Hunsicker's successor, Tim Purpura.

There's no reason to believe Purpura will falter. Eminently qualified in ways not even Hunsicker was when he stepped in, Purpura paid his dues as an intern, rose through the player development ranks and ultimately became one of Hunsicker's most important sounding boards.

But never has Purpura felt the burden and responsibility of being a GM.

"It's sort of like molding a great Triple-A player," McLane said. "He's hitting great in Triple A, and you bring him up to the big leagues. You think he can be good. But until he gets there, you don't know."

Make no mistake. This is one of the most crucial junctures in club history, and Purpura will face pressures like never before. There is a manager to hire, a decision to make on Kent, negotiations with Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt looming, that 1 percent chance Roger Clemens will return, and a momentous call on how much to offer free-agent outfielder Carlos Beltran.

Lisa Gray has her thoughts here.

Here's a very positive article about the Dodgers. If the minors are as good as this article implies, DePodesta should be able to build a winning, low-cost franchise that can sustain the debt that so worried some people when McCourt bought the team.

It looks like Wally Backman will be named the new manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks today.

Known for his fiery temperament during his 14-year career as a major league infielder, Backman apparently is just as intense as a manager. As he managed Lancaster to the best record in the California League — the JetHawks lost in the deciding game of the championship series — he reportedly had six ejections, two suspensions and some clubhouse tirades.

So is he going to be another Larry Bowa?

But he also won strong reviews for his managing ability and relationships with players. The Sporting News named Backman its minor league manager of the year, and Baseball America cited Lancaster as its team of the year and Backman as the top managerial prospect in the league.

Backman, 45, has never managed or coached in the majors but worked his way up from independent leagues to affiliated ball.

Before joining the D-Backs organization earlier this year, he spent three seasons in the Chicago White Sox organization, going to the Class AA Southern League playoffs twice and winning one title. His overall record is 410-396.

He has a history of sucess and good reviews. I remember liking Backman as a player. He was the left-handed part of the Mets 2nd base platoon in 1986, a year he posted a .376 OBA. The manager who gave him a steady job after four years as a part time player was Davey Johnson. If Backman turns out to come from the Earl Weaver/Davey Johnson mold, the DBacks will do just fine with him at the helm.