In a new poll, Florida voters are overwhelmingly against spending tax dollars for new sports facilities.

Respondents opposed using tax money to help pay for sports venues in general by a 76-22 percent margin and each of those three projects by an even wider margin, according to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University.

I'm glad voters are catching on to this. The results even surprised the governor:

Gov. Jeb Bush said the poll results could play into lawmakers' thinking when they consider bills seeking money for the projects. Lawmakers need to decide whether it's appropriate to help individual business interests when the state has other needs, he said.

``I'm not surprised that there are more people against subsidies of sports franchises than are for it. I'm surprised at the magnitude,'' Bush said.

I hope this becomes a national trend.

Baseball Info Solutions has player projections for 2005 available for download. The cost is $9.95.

Matt Clement believes that Toronto pitching coach Brad Arnsberg will help bring talent to the Blue Jays.

Matt Clement says the call to Toronto Blue Jays pitching coach Brad Arnsberg was "one of the hardest phone calls I've ever had to make."

That's the measure of respect he has for Arnsberg -- the only reason, frankly, that Clement even considered the Blue Jays before signing a three-year, $25.5-million (all figures U.S.) free-agent contract with the Boston Red Sox.

In the process, Clement has given the Blue Jays food for thought. With two more of Arnsberg's disciples -- Brad Penny and A. J. Burnett -- eligible for free agency next winter, Clement believes the club should consider dipping into its suddenly flush coffers and pursue them.

Arnsberg is the Jays' ace in the hole.

Arnsberg has his work cut out for him fixing the Toronto bullpen. But I wonder how much difference a coach can make in a player's decision about signing. Joe Torre made the difference for Carl Pavano, but Joe's the manager, not just a coach.

Studes has an excellent study at The Hardball Times on which relief pitchers are used in the toughest situations. Not surpisingly, middle relievers are being inserted when the game is on line much more often than closers. And closers aren't even used in the most important situations. Well worth the read.

Jay Jaffe at Futility Infielder links to an MP3 of Vin Scully calling the 9th inning of Sandy Koufax's perfect game.

Batgirl continues her series of pictures from an insider at the Twins' camp. I love the shot of four pitchers throwing off the long mound.

Rich Lederer went back and read all the Bill James Baseball Abstracts, then sat down with Bill for an interview. Part one is here. Bill doesn't believe there should be any tension between sabermetricians and scouts:

RL: ... On that subject, in the 1981 Baseball Abstract, you said "good sabermetrics respects the validity of all types of evidence, including that which is beyond the scope of statistical validation."

BJ: I'll be darned. I'm glad to know I wrote that back then. In the wake of Moneyball, some people have tried to set up a tension in the working baseball community between people who see the game through statistics and scouts. There is no natural tension there. There's only tension there if you think that you understand everything. If you understand that you're not really seeing the whole game through the numbers or you're not seeing the whole thing described through your eyes, there is no real basis for tension and there's no reason for scouts not to be able to talk and agree on things.

J.D. Drew and Milton Bradley have worked out their outfield assignments for the Dodgers.

"He was telling me he's not trying to step on any toes," Bradley told the Los Angeles Times. "We are in agreement that we want what's best for the team. We want everybody to fulfill his potential.

"I'm more comfortable in center field; he doesn't want me to be uncomfortable. If he can play right field without aggravating his knee, that would be great. But if his knee is acting up, he'll let me know and he can shift over for a couple of weeks."

A good compromise. I don't quite understand, however, why playing center field would be less taxing on Drew's knee than playing right. I would think that in right field you would be involved in many fewer plays. Does anyone understand the different pressure on the knee in right?

Jay Maxwell has started a new blog about the White Sox, Black Sox Blog. Jay's mixing writing about today's team with history lessons about the franchise. Stop by and say hi!

New York Magazine looks at the upcoming baseball season, profiling Omar Minaya of the Mets and speaking to three experts about the Yankees. On Minaya, I thought this paragraph the most interesting:

More intriguing, though, is that Minaya envisions a new model for building a team that’s neither purely intuitive nor coldly rooted in on-base-percentage calculations. The Mets will still draft dozens of players, but they’ll increasingly deploy Minaya as a recruiter, almost in the mold of a college coach, particularly in Latin America. There, the amateur players aren’t subject to the major-league draft, so teams with big money and connections have a sizable advantage. This winter is a vivid example of how the approach can pay off at the bottom and top of the ladder: Minaya’s signing of Martinez attracted that 16-year-old Dominican shortstop who showed up at the Mets Academy because Pedro now wore blue and orange. And it also gave the Mets credibility with Carlos Beltran.

He's two for three on the salesmanship so far, landing Pedro and Beltran, but losing out on Delgado. Turning the Mets into winners will also help recruitment a great deal.

Tim McCarver, Rob Neyer, and an unnamed scout discuss the upcoming season for the Yankees here. I like this exchange on the age of the team:

Is the high number of yankees 35 or older a problem?

MCCARVER: You could ask that question of any team. Tony Womack’s 35—so what? A lot of guys at 35 are doing very well.

SCOUT: Put it this way: They’re built to win now. They didn’t go out and get any young, promising players. Pavano’s the youngest guy they picked up. And he’s 29.

NEYER: The trap that teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees fall into is the notion that they have to be good every year. If that’s the goal you’ve set for yourself, it’s very difficult to get young. You’re going to end up with guys who make a lot of money—so much that you can’t trade them—when their skills are declining.

Barry Bonds' knees seem to be coming along quite nicely. I wonder how much this has to do with it:

While other players can relax in the afternoon, Bonds has been straining through an hour of water exercises designed to improve his strength and wind after the surgery. But that's fine with Bonds as long as his knee stays as sound as it appears.

"I keep it at a lower impact so I can push myself a little bit harder ... without having my entire body weight on it," Bonds said. "The good news is, it's coming back. The good news is, it's not progressive soreness. As the day goes on, it kind of subsides away. Hopefully, I don't have that progressive pain."

Many years ago I was on a tour of New Comiskey Park and they pointed out the water tank that had been installed for Bo Jackson to rehabilitate his hip. Ozzie Guillen had suffered an injury that season, and we were told the tank had cut his recovery time in half. Looks like it's helping Barry as well.

There's a great Jason Kendall story over at Athletics Nation.

Mark Attanasio addressed the Brewers yesterday and stressed the importance of teamwork.

As he began formulating his remarks, he hit upon the idea of talking about how teamwork helped him overcome rough times in the financial industry - the interest-rate increase in 1994, the Russian currency crisis in 1998 and the recession that hit the U.S. in 2000.

"Wall Street doesn't always go in one direction and baseball doesn't, either," he said. "In my business career, all the success I have achieved has come by being part of a team. When you're part of a team, it enhances the chances of your success. When things get tough, if you all pull together it helps you ride out the tough spots."

Attanasio got a pretty good deal on a major league team ($220 million). It will be interesting to see how he goes about building his equity in the franchise. In other words, how will he attempt to build a winner?

Ira Berkow of the NY Times notes that the Giants will have the oldest starting outfield ever.

And how do the pitchers feel with an outfield for the ages? Looking for the silver lining, that's how.

"Experience is everything," Schmidt said. "They're still in the game for a reason. Happy to have them on my team."

And Felipe Alou said, "The older guys don't have as many questions that the younger guys do."

Or, as the pitching coach Dave Righetti said about the elderly outfield: "They'll figure out a way to position themselves. They'll get to the balls."

Lots of strikeouts would help, too.

Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News sees Ryan Drese's success as a combination of attitude:

Soft pitchers do not have a mound presence. Slump-shouldered and defeated pitchers do not have a mound presence.

Mean pitchers, in the most complimentary sense of the term, have a mound presence. They are as prickly as Barry Bonds on a bad day.

Nolan Ryan was a mean pitcher. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling are mean pitchers. They let everyone know who is in charge.

Drese does not have their skills, but he was a mean pitcher last season.

The spring-training letdown fueled Drese. He turned it into the crankiness, the I'll-show-them cockiness needed to control games.

He took annoyed hitters out of their comfort zone.

And adjustment:

A year ago, the scouting report on Drese was that he would try to get by on a high fastball that lacked the needed force. He surprised opponents by changing his approach, junking the high fastball and relying on the sinker.

As the season progressed, the element of surprise lessened.

In his first start against a team, Drese was 5-5 with a 3.79 ERA. In all other starts, he was 9-5 with 4.57 ERA.

Hitters and pitchers play a version of one-upmanship. The pitcher changes, forcing the hitters to scramble. The hitters make changes, leaving the next move up to the pitcher.

"It's a cat-and-mouse game," Drese said. "Every year, you have to put in new wrinkles."

Drese had a better year than his stats indicate. He was tied for 5th in win shares among AL pitchers with 17 (tied with Pedro Martinez and Jake Westbrook). It's good to have the "want to win" attitude. My feeling is, however, the adjustments he makes now and during the season will contribute much more to a repeat of 2004.

Congratulations to Steve Rogers and Dave Stieb. Both pitchers have been selected to the Canadian Hall Of Fame.

It looks like the US House of Representatives will hold hearings on the steroid issue.

The players and owners are working toward a solution to the problem. The union has taken the unprecedented step of altering the CBA midstream. But if a few politicians can get face time on the networks, they'll have hearings. Of course, they might be a waste of time.

If the committee were to call Bonds and Giambi, the ballplayers almost certainly would invoke their Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions. "If their lawyers did allow them to testify without immunity, it would be legal incompetence," said Peter Keane, dean of the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco.

He said the danger for the two players is that they might say something before the committee that contradicted their testimony before the grand jury, opening up potential legal troubles for them.

Another circus is on the way to town.

I love this story. Someone won an auction to name the Fleet Center in Boston for a night, and wants them to call it the Derek Jeter Center.

The winning bid for Tuesday's naming rights was made by a New York attorney. Kerry Konrad bid $2,300 on eBay. He wants the arena to be known as Derek Jeter Center, in honor of the Yankees' captain and shortstop.

Not so fast, said FleetCenter spokesman Jim Delaney. Delaney said he told Konrad that his naming request might not be accepted.

The Fleet Center needs to have a sense of humor about this. It's not like the Harvard grad wants to name it something obscene. If you're going to troll for money on E-Bay, who should clearly set your parameters.

Update: They're going to call it the Jimmy Fund Center instead.

As a follow up to this theory at The Birdwatch, CurveBlog had James Click run some simulations of different Cardinals lineups. The lineup with Walker, Pujols, Edmonds and Rolen 1-2-3-4 does very well.

Throws Like a Girl wants to know what your theme song would be if you were a closer.

I guess I'd have to pick Twilight Zone by Golden Earring.

(Hat Tip: The Birdwatch)

I never realized Frank Robinson was just a prankster. He always seemed so serious to me.

Ivy Chat has some advice for the Cubs concerning Sammy Sosa:

When Sammy said, "They lie. I understand they want to move forward and they feel they have a competitive team, but I don't think nobody can replace me. They can say whatever they want to say, but it is going to be hard, my friend, to duplicate me," Kerry Wood should have smiled and said, "He's right."

When Sammy said that Lee Mazzilli is the first manager ever to be honest with Sammy, Dusty should have said, "That dude is so right!" and winked and moved away.

Instead, these Cubs are still trying to get the upper hand in the media with Sammy. What they miss is that they already have it. We know that Sosa lied. He said he left the last game of the season in the 7th inning. The truth was he left in the first inning. Sosa is a boldfaced liar. With videotape proof.

Maybe Sosa can get in on Jose's pay-per-view event. :-)

Bronx Banter has a link rich roundup of Yankees news.

The Baseball Crank looks at what a great decade the nineteen teens were for developing young talent.

A bit of fun from the NY Times on Canseco's proposed polygraph test.

I continue to be amazed that anyone bothers with lie detectors anymore. As far as I can tell, the polygraph experts read whatever they want into the results. You don't need a machine, you need an expert in micro-expressions.

Rafael Palmeiro is considering taking Jose Canseco to court over Jose's steroid charges.

Palmeiro issued a statement last month in which he denied he ever used steroids, and he emphatically backed up that assertion Thursday after his first practice of spring training. Palmeiro also said he's considered hiring the law firm of Orioles owner Peter Angelos to take legal action against Canseco.

"The one thing I can say is I have the best law firm and the best lawyer standing in the wings in Peter Angelos," he said. "I have options available for me. He stands behind me and he's ready. I will look at all my options and I'll decide."

I'd actually like to see both Canseco and Palmeiro take the stand under oath and see who the jury believes is more credible.

James Click continues his research on lineup construction. (My original comments and link here.) Interestingly, his research is showing a tendancy toward the classic lineup being the best; two table setters followed by three sluggers. The differences between the lineups are small, but this type of configuration keeps coming out on top.

Phil Allard has an interview with new Dodger radio and TV announcer Charley Steiner. Charley was always fun to chat with at ESPN. I thought this was an interesting quote from the interview:

PHIL ALLARD: You were quoted earlier this winter (and I am paraphrasing here) that you felt that the Yankees didn’t show joy when they won as much as relief. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

CHARLEY STEINER: There should be emotion of joy and euphoria, and “God, isn’t that great.” Unfortunately, with the Yanks, the prevailing attitude after a victory is one of relief, and then “God, we have to go out and do it again.’ That is the pressure that is put on them by the Steinbrenner way of doing business and you know, it’s been enormously successful for him and the Yankees. But it’s also very pressure-intensive. The Yanks were far tighter leading 3 games to 1 then the Red Sox were trailing 3 games to 1. Again, the Yanks have had an enormous amount of success doing business in that fashion for a very long time. So, to second guess them would be hypocritical.

So winning has become a chore for the Yankees. That's too bad.

Ever wonder when all those baseball card pictures get taken? Marc Lancaster has the scoop.

Are the Athletics going to play little ball this year?

Today's first full-squad workout at Papago Park will have a different slant from past springs -- one that reflects the A's relative lack of power this year.

For the next four to six days, instead of spending all their on-field hitting time taking batting practice against pitchers, the A's hitters will be concentrating on situational hitting half the time. The hitters will be split into two groups, according to manager Ken Macha. One group will hit off pitchers each day, while the other will be working on moving runners over, putting the ball in play with runners going, getting runners in from third with two strikes and bunting.

Those aren't areas in which Oakland has excelled recently. The A's attempts at hit-and-runs were disastrous last year, and just a few of their hitters can bunt well. But with Eric Chavez the only man on the team to have hit more than 23 home runs in a season, the A's are going to have to buck their old walk-and-whack ways and learn to manufacture runs.

"Guys understand this is not a team with four guys hitting 40 home runs," hitting coach Dave Hudgens said. "We've got to be more efficient. If we'd done that last year, we would have won more games."

Bill James made a study of efficiency in The Baseball Handbook 2005. Indeed, it shows the Athletics as the second worst team in terms of being efficient in scoring runs. However, they were very efficient in winning games, with only the Yankees doing better. (In other words, they scored fewer runs than they should have given their offense. But given the number of runs scored and allowed, they won more games than they should have, also.)

It also goes to show how difficult it is to pigeonhole the A's and their philosophy. It's not all about OBA and home runs. It's about what works. They've seen a deficiency, and they're taking time to correct it. I don't think they'll be bunting in the first inning too often, but when they do want to move a runner via a sacrifice or hit and run, they want it to work.

Ted Gilcrest, who creates my Robot Podcast Feed has moved the syndication to Feedburner. This will allow the tracking of downloads.

src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/BaseballMusings?bg=99CCFF&fg=444444&anim=0"
height="26" width="88" style="border:0" alt="" />

If you get the robot feed, please make the change (the old feed will still work, but I'd like to get an idea of how many people are listening to Baseball Musings).

There some discussion in the comments to this post over a reporter's question to Barry Bonds about Ruth's record. The question was:

In your pursuit of Ruth's record, how do you feel about coming to play -- with the knee surgery, getting prepared, how is that going to delay you?

And the comment that started the discussion was this:

It is infuriating that reporters are asking questions about "Ruth's record". For one, it's wrong, and blatantly so. For another, it simply supports Barry's argument that he (and Aaron, as an extension) gets different treatment from white players.

I don't totally agree with this comment. The comment implies that the reporter sees the home run record as belonging to Babe Ruth. That may be the case, but it also may be that the reporter mispoke, using "record" when he really meant "total." I think that's the most likely explanation. Also, even Barry were perfectly healthy it's unlikely he would break Aaron's record of 755 HR this season. The story in 2005 is Barry passing Ruth.

And when Barry does, he will break a record, most HR by a left-handed batter. Now, I don't think the reporter had that in mind, but it is indeed a record that Ruth holds. (The next closest lefty is Reggie Jackson at 563.) One Aaron record Bonds does have a shot at this season is 733 National League home runs.

So, in this case, I say give the reporter a break. He could have chosen his words better, but I'm sure he realizes Aaron has the home run record.

Potfry is an entertaining baseball blog. It mostly contains parodies poking fun at the Yankees and Red Sox, but there's serious content as well. Stop by and say hi!

Rich Lederer finishes up his series, Who Was Your Favorite Player Growing Up?

The Japan Times reports that Ichiro Suzuki wants to make less mistakes at the plate this season:

"I feel like I'm a player who makes a lot of mistakes," Ichiro said through a translator on Tuesday. "I make a lot of mistakes and those turn into outs because I made a mistake.

"Last year I made less mistakes than maybe the years past," he added. "I want to go out and make less mistakes at the plate. When I do that, I'll hit for a higher average and get more hits."

Most teams would be happy with the mistakes Ichiro makes. :-) I wish the reporter had pressed Suzuki on what kind of mistakes he made. I wonder if it's in pitch selection?

It appears Sosa didn't use the Limo as transporation to the Orioles spring training camp today.

Upon arriving in Baltimore three weeks ago, Sosa requested that the Orioles send him a stretch limo at the airport. On Wednesday, he found his way to camp without the aid of a limousine.

He emerged from his white Range Rover at 9:38 a.m., slipped into the clubhouse and had a quick chat with manager Lee Mazzilli before joining his new teammates on the back fields of Fort Lauderdale Stadium.

Not exactly downsizing, eh Ms. Vecsey?

Sosa impressed his teammates with his power:

As a way of introducing himself to his new teammates, Sammy Sosa slammed about two dozen baseballs far over the center-field wall during his first workout with the Baltimore Orioles.

Before he was done, nearly half the squad interrupted their tedious drills to watch the show.

And it appears that boom boxes won't be a problem:

Sosa created a stir in Chicago with a boom-box that ultimately was destroyed by a teammate. That won't be a problem in Baltimore; Mazzilli does not allow the players to listen to music before games, except through headphones.

"That's the rule and they all go by it," Mazzilli said. "If I listen to your 50 Cent, then you should be able to listen to my Dean Martin."

Now that's amore!

A nice counter point to Barry Bonds' abrasiveness is this post about Sean Casey.

I guess he's not actually in the darkroom. It sounds like they don't use that much anymore. I remember being at the World Series in the late 1990's and walking by the photography room. Rolls of film were hanging from clotheslines, there was a dark room where pictures could be developed; controlled chaos. Now, it's as simple as connecting to your computer and sending an e-mail.

The Red Sox have decided to give out the World Series rings opening day against the Yankees. Good for them, and good for the fans.

I really like this post by The BirdWatch in which the author discusses the downside of batting Larry Walker leadoff. I really like his idea, however, of batting Walker leadoff and the pitcher 7th.

If you wanted to get really cute you could put Grudz 8th and Eckstien 9th, with Walker, Pujols, Edmonds, Rolen 1-2-3-4. Each of those players gets the advantage of more at bats and after the first cycle through Walker and Pujols wouldn't be stymied by a lack of hitters in front of them.

Neither Grudzielanek nor Eckstein get on base as much as those four. I'd love to see La Russa try it out.

The Giles brothers, Brian and Marcus would like to play together.

Word has surfaced that if Giles and the Padres can't reach contractual terms for 2006, he would look into signing with the Atlanta Braves next offseason so that he can align with his younger brother, Marcus Giles, the Atlanta second baseman and fellow Granite Hills High alum.

"He wants to come here," Marcus Giles was quoted as telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this month.

However, it looks like Marcus has changed his story. Last year it appeared he wanted to play in San Diego:

Bochy is aware that the brothers Giles would love to play for the same major league team. But could that team be the Padres? During the Japan Series in November, Bochy said Marcus Giles told him he'd play any position for the Padres, who hold the rights to a superb second baseman in Mark Loretta through 2006. While on the disabled list last season, Marcus Giles even rode the Padres' team bus in Milwaukee.

"Marcus was on me to bring him over here," Bochy said. "He wanted to play here."

After hearing that Marcus Giles envisions his brother with him in Atlanta, Bochy said, "Wait a minute, Marcus, you wore me out, you said that you'd play left field (for the Padres)."

Whichever Giles switches is likely to improve the team to which he moves.

By the way, I love this line about Brian's strength:

Appearing strong enough to hoist a Kharmann Ghia, Giles said he again lifted weights under the tutelage of his longtime trainer, Mike "Mad Dog" Douglass, the Alpine-based former San Diego State and Green Bay Packers linebacker.

My first car was a Super Beetle, but I wish it had been a Kharmann Ghia. :-)

SFGate.com has the transcript of Barry Bonds' press conference. It's worth the read, since you'll get information that's left out of the media stories. Two things struck me as very interesting:

The problem with me, my dad told me before he passed away, he said, "The biggest problem with you, Barry is that every great athlete that has gone on for great records, everyone knows their story. People have made hundreds of millions of dollars off their stories with them and protected them. Nobody knows you and they are pissed off."

It's a very insightful statement by the late Bobby Bonds. If Barry had cultivated the press over the years, this story might be going very differently. But Barry has chosen to live in a cocoon, and he keeps people out by being unlikeable.

The other interesting part was about his knee surgery:

Q. In your pursuit of Ruth's record, how do you feel about coming to play -- with the knee surgery, getting prepared, how is that going to delay you?

Bonds: That's the part that I'm afraid of more. See, my legs have always been the strongest thing on my body. The work ethics that I use with my legs, that's my power and my entire drive. It's always been my legs. This, you know, your hands are just -- use your hands to hit, but I need that drive.

And you know, I'm going to have to work a lot harder. I'm going to have to work a lot harder this year than I ever -- I had two surgeries, in three months. It's going to be really hard because, I mean, at 40, I mean, I go in the gym, I work out, but unfortunately it's not staying as long sometimes. It's like my legs don't feel as strong. I feel strong for two or three days, but it's starting to go away faster, you know what I mean. So I'm having to do some of this -- I'm having to do more of the same things constantly, but that's what I was doing last year. That's why I have a team of people around me to keep me doing those things, forcing me to do legs that I would normally want to do once, you know -- maybe once a week that they are making me do three times a week, because, "Barry, you are getting older and if you want to maintain your strength, you're going to have to do it more often."

I'm wondering how much pitchers will challenge Bonds this season. If the knees are bad, if the legs are going, maybe the power's down a bit. Bonds will still have the good eye, but will he be able to generate the power? How much will fear of what he might do (rather than what he can do) effect how teams pitch to him? If his intentional walk totals go down, we'll know teams believe they've found a weakness.

Laura Vecsey thinks Sammy Sosa should downsize his image.

Forget the black stretch limo, which is what Sosa requested the Orioles send for him at Baltimore-Washington International Airport earlier this month, when he made his Baltimore debut.

For this round of the Sosa Career and Image-Reclamation Project, the beleaguered slugger needs a far more humble set of wheels.

We're talking a Yugo. Or maybe a Plymouth Horizon, preferably a "vintage" 1989 model, one with a spark-shooting muffler dragging along Oriole Way, raising a sandstorm outside Fort Lauderdale Stadium.

Imagine that entrance!

Ms. Vecsey is missing the point. The reason the media is turning out in droves today is to see Sammy come out of the limo. When you are bigger than life, you have to make a bigger than life entrance. Fans who buy tickets, fans who watch on TV this summer like to see larger than life players. That's the draw. That's what the Orioles wanted when they brought Sammy to town. They want attention.

Sure, it's nice to have humble players who just want to win one game at a time and do their best for the team. But it's also nice sometimes to have someone who makes a splash. The Orioles are in competition with two classic franchises and a new team down I-95. This year, they need the attention getter, and Sammy fits the bill perfectly.

Rich Lederer has part two of Who Was Your Favorite Player Growing Up?

Barry Bonds spoke to the press today. Here's my favorite line from the interview, regarding Jose Canseco:

"I don't know Canseco, besides hello and goodbye. I don't put any weight into what he says," Bonds said. "Mark McGwire was a big boy in college. To me, Canseco, you've got to come with a whole lot more. ... It's to make a buck, that's all it is.

"I don't know Jose. I was better than Jose then, and I've been better than him his whole career. If he wants to go make money, go ahead. ... For somebody who brags about what he did, I don't see any of your records."

Canseco and Bonds are 22 days apart in age. Bonds is still going strong, but Canseco was not wanted despite having good averages (.366 OBA, .477 slugging) in his last season, 2001.

As for the steroids, Bonds said nothing and blamed the media.

"You guys are like re-running stories," Bonds said to more than 100 reporters in attendance. "This is old stuff. It's like watching 'Sanford and Son.' It's almost comical, basically. ... Are you guys jealous, upset, disappointed, what?"

He didn't make any friends today, but making friends isn't Barry's MO.

Randy Booth is authoring a new Red Sox blog, Over the Monster. Stop by and say hi!

The Cub Reporter is happy Chicago didn't acquire Jorge Julio, as it looks like he'll miss opening day.

Reds Spring Training reports on the breakdown of the two Reds workout groups. The morning group clearly represents the likely 25 man roster, while the afternoon group is the prospects. I wonder if any of the players in the afternoon group will make it to the opening day roster?

In reading this piece on how Todd Helton is emerging as the Rockies leader, I noticed this interesting fact.

Even as he put up potential Hall of Fame numbers, Helton has been a reluctant leader. But he can't escape the responsibility with this roster. At 31, he's the oldest starter. The young players will look to him for guidance.

It's an interesting comparison with the Yankees, who's youngest starter is Alex Rodriguez at age 29.

Still in his mid 20's, Barry Zito is the old man of the Oakland pitching staff:

In the ad, 24-year-old pitchers Joe Blanton and Dan Haren approach 2002 Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito, who is lurking in a darkened room, and ask him for pitching wisdom.

"How old is he?'' Haren whispers.

"Twenty-six,'' responds Blanton in awed tones.

"Do you think he ever pitched to The Babe?'' Haren says.

Young, cheap and good should be the motto of the Oakland staff. :-)

Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News is worried about the Rangers designated hitter.

Designated hitter, a problem all of last season, remains wide open. The Rangers used 10 players there, none more than 62 times. The club opted not to bring Brad Fullmer back, then failed to land free agent Carlos Delgado.

So, they go to camp with the possibility of a platoon. Or they could still be chumming the waters for trades.

It's always amazing to me that teams can't come up with a designated hitter. There have to be a few players kicking around the minor leagues who can tear the cover off the ball but are a liability in the field. How many years did Edgar Martinez hang around the minors until the Mariners thought, "We have a position for someone who can hit but not field! We could have had a DH!" David Delluci is not the answer. DH isn't for the leftover hitter. It should be reserved for a great batter who can't play the field.

Alex Belth points out why Joe Torre is such a good leader.

Rich Lederer and Bryan Smith have joined forces to produce a new baseball site, Baseball Analysts. With two writers of the caliber of Rich and Bryan, I'm sure the site will be a hit. Rich is starting off with a three part series titled Who Was Your Favorite Player Growing Up? My answer will be in part II, tomorrow.

Cesar Gutierrez died recently. He had seven consecutive hits in a game once, the highlight of a rather uneventful baseball career.

Cesar left behind a daughter who never got to meet him. Her mother contacted me to ask if I knew of any memorabilia of Cesar's that might be out there. I'm not a collector; the best I could do was find someone selling his 1972 Topps card (1971, it turns out, would be his last year in the majors).

If anyone ever met Cesar, or has an autograph, or a newspaper clipping, please let me know, and I'll forward the information to her mother. Thanks very much.

Update: If you have a story about Cesar, feel free to leave it in the comments here.

Peter Schmuck has the goods on Sidney Ponson's diet: grilled fish.

Bob Baum tells the story of Ramon Pena, who used his nephew's name to appear 3 years younger when he signed with the Diamondbacks. It got him sent back to the Dominican Republic.

"I know that I made errors that could put my baseball career in jeopardy," Pena said in a statement at the time. "From my heart I want to ask forgiveness from all the people or entities who were offended by my actions."

He blamed his mistake on youth and inexperience, and added, "God teaches us to forgive, and everybody deserves a second chance."

The Diamondbacks, who were cleared of any wrongdoing, had no problem forgiving a 6-foot-2, 190-pound right-hander whose fastball reaches the high 90s.

"I know he's literally the player to be named later," Arizona manager Bob Melvin joked after watching Pena's first workout.

He had visa problems this year due to the deception and got to the Diamondbacks camp late. He's really twenty three, which is still young for a pitcher. Melvin likes what he sees so far.

"He's got a nice body for a pitcher. He hides the ball well. It explodes out of his hand," Melvin said. "Amongst the organization, you hear great things about this guy. That's why we've included him in that group that we're taking a hard look at for that fifth spot" in the rotation.

Studes has an excellent article over at the Hardball Times evaluating the Doyle Alexander/John Smoltz trade from 1987. He concludes that it was a very good deal for the Tigers.

I've never understood why people don't like this trade for the Tigers. (I've heard negative statements about this deal for at least 10 years.) There's always a balance between the now and the future when making a deal. The Tigers wanted to win now, and traded a prospect for a pitcher who brought them the AL East title. Yes, Smoltz worked out well long term for the Braves. It's not clear to me that John would have been so good for the Tigers. He was a bit of a head case when he was young, and who knows if he would have fared was well through his injuries if he hadn't had Leo Mazzone.

The Tigers made the deal they needed to make to win that year. I bet there are any number of Cubs, Indians and Giants fans who wish their teams had made such lopsided deals. It's not Anderson for Bagwell, after all.

Murray Chass does a great impression of a blogger and Fisks the media who are drumming up the Boston vs. A-Rod story.

In this new version of "Get the good guy," the Red Sox are blameless. One player, Trot Nixon, ignited the game with negative comments about Rodriguez last week and a torrent of teammates have followed. But the teammates' comments have not been unsolicited. They were at the urging of reporters eager to inflame the game to incendiary levels. They were all but handed a script.

Athletes have long accused reporters of creating stories, and, sadly, this is one of those instances. It has become one of the most distasteful instances I have witnessed in 45 years of covering baseball.

Via both Will Carroll and The Birdwatch, Mike Davidson tries to look at Jose Canseco's face to see if he's lying during his 60 Minutes interview. This technique is discussed extensively in Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

I first saw this technique discussed in The Human Face, the John Cleese documentary. They have a discussion of micro expressions, and the one for lying appears to be a brief vertical line forming between the two eyebrows (I'm doing this from memory right now; I'll go home and watch the DVD later). It then shows this forming on Clinton when he made his infamous quote about not having sex with that woman.

I may try to track down the experts profiled in Blink and see what they think of the Canseco interview.

Update: It's not a vertical line, it is a furrowed brow that lasts for about 1/5 of a second. Having rewatched that portion of the DVD, The Human Face uses the same expert Gladwell used, Paul Ekman.

Roger Clemens is looking for a replacement for Vioxx.

What was Clemens's youth dew of choice? A miracle lotion in the form of a steroid called "the cream"? A droplet of the steroid known as THG? Or an injection of a good old-fashioned steroid in the rumpus?

Actually, it was Vioxx, the prescription pain reliever withdrawn from the market in September because of a study that showed the drug doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Vioxx could return to the market, but Clemens has been worried about the risk. Flush from opening spring training workouts with the Houston Astros yesterday, he admitted that his decision to return for Retirement Comeback Redux was made uncertain because of the Vioxx flap.

"To be honest, my thoughts were: 'O.K., how's my body going to hold up? I can't take Vioxx anymore,' " Clemens said. "I know I'm going to have inflammation. At the rate of speed and what I do to my body, I know I'm going to have swelling in my joints. And I'm going to be hurting many times when I'm out there on the mound, and I can't show it. I hope there is something out there that's good for me and that I can take for my inflammation. Health is always a concern when I try to push my body to stay up with the next guy."

Of course, the question this raises for me is was Clemens cheating? Vioxx, in this case, was a performance enhancer. It allowed Clemens to recover faster and workout more. It probably allowed him to pitch every five days.

One argument against steroids is that they do long term damage. It looks like Vioxx does long term damage as well. And I have to think it's worse for a young person like Clemens rather than the elderly who are nearing the ends of their lives anyway.

So where do we draw the line? Does the drug have to encourage muscle mass development to be cheating? Or does it just have to allow you to exercise more (which also encourages muscle mass development)? Or does it just need to allow you to perform on a day you otherwise could not?

Roger Clemens isn't a physical marvel. He uses drugs to stay in the game and collect millions of dollars. He didn't do it illegally, just like Jose Canseco didn't use steroids illegally in the 1980's. Is one okay and not the other? I look forward to your comments on this issue.

The Homerun Guys produced a cartoon that lampoons the steroid scandal. Not quite "This Land is Your Land," but amusing nonetheless.

Warning, they're using it to sell tee-shirts.

Batgirl has exclusive spring training photos.

Brad Ausmus liked the way Andy Pettitte threw in his first spring workout.

Catcher Brad Ausmus wondered if the veteran pitcher's delivery had been affected by his surgically repaired left elbow.

During the Astros first spring workout for pitchers and catchers, Pettitte showed the same solid delivery he had before his elbow problems began in April. For the first time since Aug. 12, Pettitte threw curveballs and fastballs off a mound on Friday.

"Pettitte looked good," Ausmus said. "A lot of times when guys have surgery, they alter their motion when they come back, but he didn't. That tells you he's fine."

There wasn't a lot of good news for the Astros in the off-season. At least they're starting spring training on a positive note.

John Perricone continues his excellent coverage of the steroid issue.

Ugueth Urbina's mother has been freed from her kidnappers.

The raid Friday left at least one of the abductors dead, but 54-year-old Maura Villarreal was unharmed, police said.

Urbina was reunited with his mother late Friday at a police station in Caracas, where he hurriedly slipped past reporters to go inside, saying only: "I'm happy. Excuse me, but now I just want to see her."

It's nice to see a happy ending to this story. I had been assuming the worst about his mother's fate.

I'm keeping an eye on the reporter blogs to see how they work. This is a nice example of a story you'll seldom see in the paper, but it gives you a nice clue as to what goes on behind the scenes. It's about Ryan Freel signing autographs, and how he's bothered by people who send him cards just to resell same.

"This is what I do -- if you've got four in there, I sign one and keep three."

He puts the three cards on top of a quickly growing stack on the clubhouse table.

"I'd do this all day if I knew they were all going to people who'd put them on the wall in their bedroom and appreciate it."

Wille Randolph is one of my favorite players from my youth. George Vecsey is there as Willie takes command of the Mets. I have no idea how good a manager he'll be. My gut is that he'll be a strong leader for the players. I don't know how he'll do strategically. Having Pedro and Beltran should make this first year easier, however.

Like Blez at Atheltics Nation, I visited a bookstore yesterday. I thought about buying Canseco's book, when Testosterone Dreams caught my eye. I bought that instead, and so far it's a very interesting read. While you might want to read Jose's book for the controversy, Testosterone Dreams may teach you a lot more of the history of these drugs. I hope to post a review when I'm done.

Sabernomics posts on the new book, Scouts Honor. It's being touted as the anti-Moneyball. The book's web page states that "SCOUT'S HONOR has the support of upper management in 80% of the MLB teams in the country." My guess is that the six teams that don't support the book are the Red Sox, Athletics, Dodgers, Padres, Blue Jays and one of (Indians/Yankees/Rangers/Cardinals). It should be a very interesting read.

A trial attorney with extensive experience in federal and state courts as both prosecutor and defense counsel writes in response to this post:

You wrote this:

"Folks, the only people who deserved to have fingers pointed at them are the players who illegally used steroids. These were grown ups who know the difference between right and wrong, and certainly know what's legal and illegal. In a way it's too bad the FBI investigation didn't go after the players as hard as the pushers. If the FBI had put a couple of big name baseball players in jail in the mid 1990's maybe we wouldn't be here."

Use of controlled substances is not a federal crime. The DOJ has no jurisdiction over it. Federal law enforcement has jurisdiction over possession and trafficking but not use. In fact, check the state laws on illegal drugs and I think you'll find that most -- if not all -- do not criminalize use. In the states, possession for personal use is such a low level misdemeanor that prosecution of an even smaller offense -- use -- wouldn't be worth the resources (and it might meet with very stiff public resistance).

There is an argument that if one used drugs then one necessarily possessed them, if not in hand then at least in the body, at least for a short period. In a legal sense that's a weak argument, but the argument has been made. But let's assume the theory is good enough to bring use under the jurisdiction of the federal courts. No US Attorney's office would pursue such a case. The amount involved would be so small as to be de minimus, and even if the case was proved it would be a very low level misdemeanor. It's simply not worth the resources, even if you can sustain the legal argument. States feel the same way. (Note: the feds do have jurisdiction over drug use if it occurs in a federal context, e.g., an airport or in the military. Airport cases are referred to the states. The military is unique for reasons that are probably obvious and the military keeps jurisdiction over drug use cases.)

Going after the pushers and manufacturers and profiteers is the only legal and practical way to address the problem.

Thanks for the clarification.

Soccer Dad notes the Washington Post has also started a spring training blog. Barry Svrluga is writing Nationals Journal. This could be interesting as Barry doesn't know the team at all, so we'll learn what he learns. Yesterday he learned Frank Robinson's idea of fun:

Frank Robinson said yesterday, before the first workout, that he wanted it to be "fun."

Apparently, the manager's idea of "fun" is sneaking up behind his guys, already worn down a bit from a three-hour workout, and barking, "Come on! This is what you've been waiting for! This is fun! Have fun!"

Sounds like it's fun for Frank!

Via Darren Viola, the minor leagues will be experimenting with a rule to speed up the pace of games.

The Playing Rules Committee announced the adoption of an experimental rule for use throughout the 2005 season in all of the Minor Leagues affiliated with Major League Baseball. The experimental rule, designed to encourage an improved pace of play, requires a batter to keep one foot in the batter's box throughout an at-bat, unless certain exceptions apply, in which case the batter must remain within the dirt area surrounding home plate.

An umpire will be able to award an automatic strike or strikes, without the pitcher having to deliver a pitch, if a batter intentionally leaves the batter's box and delays play. A similar rule applies in National Collegiate Athletic Association play.

There are a number of exceptions to this rule, but as Darren points out, players like Mike Hargrove and Nomar Garciaparra won't be able to go through their rituals between each pitch.

Also, it reminds me of an old rule at Wellesley College where you had to keep one foot on the floor if you had a gentleman over. I understand people became very creative getting around that rule. :-) I assume ballplayers will be equally as creative.

James Click has an excellent article at Baseball Prospectus in which he tests different theories on how to construct a lineup (subscription required). One caveat; his charts don't match the data in the tables. (I don't know if that makes a difference, but I'm waiting to hear from Click to see why there's a discrepancy).

Interestingly, the data he has shows that descending OBA is about the best lineup you can construct:

Now it’s time to start mixing things up and having a little fun. In an effort to generate an optimal lineup structure, the first step is to verify some of the basic underlying principles. First, the idea that players with higher AVG, OBP or SLG should be higher in the lineup can easily be tested. To avoid tainting the results, each player will have the same stats except for the stat being tested. For example, when testing AVG, each player will have the same OBP and SLG. The program will be given six different lineups, two for each of three “teams." Each of the three teams will have one statistic in which they all differ and the other two will remain the same. These three teams will be analyzed twice, one with the variant statistic in descending order and once in ascending order. Further, the range of the difference in the variant statistic will be closely mapped to actual major league distribution. So despite the occasional Bonds, the program won’t have anyone with a .605 OBP.

After running each lineup, the program produced the following results. Below are the minimum number of runs, the mean, the maximum, and the 25th and 75th quartiles. From the numbers, a fair idea of the curve of each lineup can be gathered.

Lineup    Min  Quartile  Mean   Quartile   Max

Avg Desc  672    752      780     806      923
Avg Asc   662    755      782     808      919

Obp Desc  705    790      818     846      947
Obp Asc   660    762      792     821      926

Slg Desc  676    762      790     816      912
Slg Asc   656    747      777     805      926

Great work here, and one more positive for OBA.

It appears that a number of vendors have agreed to the MLBAM package. You can find the list here.

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Phil Allard sent me this article on the Ying and Yang of Derek Lowe, and how Derek fits into the Dodgers rotation. Enjoy!

Mike Greenwell thinks he should be the 1988 MVP.

"Where's my MVP?" Greenwell told the Fort Myers News-Press. "(Canseco's) an admitted steroid user. I was clean. If they're going to start putting asterisks by things, let's put one by the MVP."

Mike finished second to Jose in the voting in 1988. Of course, Kirby Puckett was 2nd in win shares that year (Greenwell wasn't even first on his team; Boggs beat him 31 to 30), so maybe we should just revote and give it to the Teddy Bear.

I'm sorry I haven't linked to this sooner. Michael Humphreys Defenisve Regression Analysis has been published as a single article at The Harball Times. It's well worth the read.

Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald tells the story of three Marlins pitchers joined by their similar struggles to make the majors despite birth defects.

It was the first day of spring traing for the Washington Nationals on Tuesday. Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post has the story.

For nearly five months, ever since Major League Baseball announced the Montreal Expos would be relocated to the District this season, the Nationals, at least as viewed locally, had been a team in concept only -- made up, as best anyone could ascertain, of a business staff, a front office staff, a couple of trailers, a logo, a roster of "players." But no faces or voices or stories to tell.

That all changed Tuesday, as the Nationals opened their first spring training camp on a glorious Florida morning. On the day pitchers and catchers reported to camp, players entered the home clubhouse at Space Coast Stadium with huge duffel bags slung over their shoulders (many of them emblazoned with the old Expos logo) and greeted each other with handshakes and hugs.

Reds Spring Training is a new blog by Marc Lancaster of the Cincinnati Post. It's nice to see a reporter blogging; we'll possibly get more background than will fit in a newspaper story. (Hat tip, Red Reporter.)

Balls, Sticks and Stuff has highlights of Jose Canseco's interview on XM radio this afternoon.

MLB Advance Media is acquiring Tickets.com. I wonder if they'll use this to implement the double auction system referred to here?

There's an awful lot of finger pointing going on right now regarding steroids. Jose Canseco, of course, has his book and 60 Minutes interview. Murray Chass is pointing fingers at Yankees management for not heeding a signal that Giambi was using steroids. John Perricone is pointing fingers at the press for not being on the story 10 years ago. And the FBI is now pointing fingers at MLB for not heeding warnings (although MLB denies the FBI talked to them).

Folks, the only people who deserved to have fingers pointed at them are the players who illegally used steroids. These were grown ups who know the difference between right and wrong, and certainly know what's legal and illegal. In a way it's too bad the FBI investigation didn't go after the players as hard as the pushers. If the FBI had put a couple of big name baseball players in jail in the mid 1990's maybe we wouldn't be here.

Jay Jaffe has much more.

Update: U.S.S. Mariner also has an excellent post on the subject.

Rickey Henderson is looking to play one more season.

Henderson plans to return to organized ball this summer. According to the report, Henderson was hoping for a spring training invitation from a major league club, in particular the A’s. With none forthcoming, he is willing to play inMexico or an independent league.

I just love Rickey. I hope he ends up in Newark again so I catch him playing in Bridgeport.

Via Dodger Thoughts, Paul DePodesta will be chatting on MLB.com at 3 PM EST, 12 PM PST. I'm not going to be around to ask a question. I hope someone asks how he quantifies defensive ability.

Update: A reader points out this will be happening next Tuesday, the 22nd.

Happy first day of Spring Training! Given that the temperature is going to be close to 50 today here in New England, it actually might be a nice day to go to a ball game. :-)

Sometimes I wonder how people get to be general managers of clubs:

Minaya figures first base is undervalued in the market place and in the minds of the average fan. "People take the position for granted," he said. He looks at a guy like J.T. Snow of the Giants, a smooth, graceful glove who "saves the Giants 10 games a year," and he anticipates something similar for his club with Mientkiewicz.

When I hear something like that, my first reaction is that first basemen are just not that involved defensively that they could save the number of runs needed to make a ten game difference. To do that, a first sacker would need to save 100 runs. That's a lot of doubles stopped from going down the line, and a lot of possible throwing errors scooped. Given that Helton earned 4.1 win shares with his glove (the best in the NL in 2004), and that equals about 1.4 wins, first basemen can't do that just with the glove.

However, it's possible that Omar isn't talking about overall performace, but actual clutch fielding performance. In other words, Omar is saying that Snow makes 10 plays a year that prevent wins from becoming losses. Is that possible? Do first basemen get enough balls hit to them in game situations that they can save 10 games? Do they catch enough errant throws in those situations to save 10 games? Can this actually be measured?

I decided to see if the Probabilistic Model of Range (PMR) can help. I envisioned a clutch situation where the first baseman turning a ball into an out might make a difference.

• The score has to be real close, with the fielding team tied or leading by 1.
• It has to be late in the game, otherwise other factors have time to work to determine the outcome of the game. I chose the 8th inning or later.
• It has to be a difficult ball to field, but it also has to have some probability of being fielded by the first baseman. So I chose balls with a probability of being turned into an out by the first baseman greater than 0.0 but less than 0.5.

So, how did firstbasemen do in this siutation? The person with the most tough balls in play against him was Lyle Overbay with 14. His expected outs on those balls was 2.05. He turned 2 of them into outs. Nice work, Lyle! Jim Thome did very well. He had 7 tough balls put into play against him in those situations and turned three into outs, as did Shea Hillenbrand. Thome's were tougher to handle, however, as we expected only 0.93 outs for Jim, 1.55 for Shea.

What about Snow? He had 5 such tough balls in play, and turned none of them into outs (expected 0.64). And Doug Mientkiewicz? Like Snow, he had 5 in play, 0 outs (expected 0.93).

Yes, maybe they turned 10 bad throws into outs in those situations. Maybe not. But no one is coming close to turning really tough plays into outs at the rate of ten games a year, and few are even getting the opportunity.

Will Carroll has read Jose Canseco's book and seen the 60-minutes interview (I have done neither). Will has some good questions for Jose, especially this one:

2. How did you get access to hGH in 1985, just as it became available to the public as Humatrope? At an estimated cost of $30,000 for a therapeutic dose (presumably much smaller than used for performance enhancement), why would he share it?

Also, check out Will's article on Yes where he fact checks the book as much as he's able.

The Angels have lost a 106-year-old fan.

In her 106 years, Florence Carlton never drank or smoked or had a cup of coffee. But she loved her Anaheim Angels.

Carlton was an avid fan for more than 30 years and kept careful track of player statistics as she caught every game on TV, surrounded by team caps, shirt and, of course, a rally monkey.

She was a widow for 66 years, but her marriage brought her to baseball:

Her husband Leslie worked nights and slept days. So he had his wife listen to Brooklyn Dodger games and recount them to him play by play when he got home.

My grandmother used to do that for my dad and his brothers. She'd listen to the Yankees games while they were at work so she could tell them what Yogi Berra did that day.

CBS Sportsline is reporting the four-year deal between Johan Santana and the Minnesota Twins is worth about $40 million dollars. Sounds like a great deal for the Twins. They get a great young pitcher locked up through his prime. Given the price others have been getting this off season, $10 million a year is extremely reasonable. They would have saved money whatever the arbitration result, but now they have their ace locked up for a few years. Twins fans couldn't have asked for a better Valentine's Day present.

Lynne Kiesling is one of my favorite bloggers on economic and energy issues. She has a great post wondering why tickets still have face value.

Teams make money from attendance in two ways; the money they glean from the ticket sale, and the money the fans spend at the park. If teams could put more fannies in the seats with a double auction system, why not? Maybe they make back the money lost in ticket prices with increased parking and hot dog revenues. For teams that do sell out, they would make even more money, since they haven't hit the price point where people are unwilling to attend games. (Just look at a ticket broker sometime for the price of Red Sox tickets.)

It will be interesting to see if one of the Moneyball GMs figures this out and starts selling all their tickets on E-Bay.

Jeff Passan profiles Allard Baird, the Royals GM, in the Kansas City Star.

For the next few years, Allard Baird hopes, this scene won't replay itself.

Last year, in the same Starbucks, a man bought his coffee and waited by the door. He waited for Baird to slink by, then stopped him, then begged for the Royals to keep Carlos Beltran. Baird assured him the Royals would try to do everything they could, which was simultaneously disingenuous and truthful. They wanted to; they wouldn't.

Now the Royals boast of a new core, a younger nucleus, a rehash of the youth movement that twice in recent Royals history has been stunted. This time, Baird thinks the Royals got it right. A handful of top prospects emerged concurrently, giving the Royals a four- to six-year window to win before the best players seek riches elsewhere.

Or, he can use this season to determine who is going to be good long term and see if he can sign those players to six or seven year contracts, as the the Indians did in the early 1990's. The Royals would then insulate themselves against inflation due to both arbitration and free agency. What's more, the contracts will make those players tradeable, since their costs are fixed. They could actually trade talent for talent rather than dumping for prospects.

It's nice to see that Ben Sheets and the Milwaukee Brewers have reached an agreement on a contract rather than go through an adversarial arbitration hearing. The two sides were only $1 million apart, so it was easy to split the difference. I wonder if Sheets would have gone for two years at that price? That would have allowed both teams to avoid arbitration for the remainder of Ben's reserve term and still allowed Sheets to seek free agency at the earliest time. Of course, with the price of pitcher's rapidly exapnding, maybe the Brewers should have offered Sheets five years, $50 million. That money could prove to be a bargain.

Barry Larkin has retired. He'll be joining the Washington Nationals front office, which is looking like a home for old Reds:

In the Nationals' front office, Larkin is joining a former Reds' manager, Bob Boone, and teammate, pitcher Jose Rijo, as special assistants to Bowden.

Just how bad was the winter for the Astros?

KEY ADDITIONS: Left-handed pitcher John Franco, right-handed pitcher Dave Burba

NO LONGER AROUND: Center fielder Carlos Beltran, second baseman Jeff Kent, right-handed pitcher Wade Miller.

That's a huge negative as far as the sums go. Burba and Franco bring a lot of experience, but not a lot of ability.

Mark Shapiro told Indians fans that Cleveland would compete again by 2005. Paul Hoynes takes a look at what good thing can happen to bring the Tribe back to the playoffs, as well as the things that can go wrong to keep them in the 2nd division. One point with which I disagree:

What will probably happen: After being nursed through spring training and the early part of the regular season, Boone regains his form to become the Tribe's regular third baseman and No. 2 hitter.

When Boone was at the top of his game in 2000 and 2001 he posted OBAs in the .350s. Not surprisingly, that was at ages 27 and 28. Boone is more likely to get on base in the .330 range, which would put him much lower in the batting order. After all, he's had a year-off from the game; he's going to have to relearn his batting reactions.

Dave van Dyck looks at the what-ifs of the Chicago White Sox.

Ken Williams/Ozzie Guillen: Architects of the new-design White Sox. Never one afraid to take a chance, Williams rebuilt this team on speed and defense after first-year manager Guillen convinced him that dialing home run was not the way to win, even though U.S. Cellular Field plays like it's a phone booth.

Everytime I hear a team trade power for speed, my mind races back to the 1982 signing of Dave Collins. The Yankees had just lost the World Series to the Dodgers. George Steinbrenner signs Collins declaring that this was the speed era. This was the start of the era of bad Yankees management that would keep them out of the playoffs for 13 years. My gut feeling is that the White Sox are in for a disappointing season.

Despite the loss of Sammy Sosa by trade and Barry Bonds by injury, ticket sales are ahead of last year in the Cactus League.

Reservations at Scottsdale's famed Don & Charlie's restaurant are "unbelievable," said co-owner Don Carson, whose walls are decorated with an array of baseball memorabilia.

"We accept reservations up to 30 days in advance, and we're getting calls at midnight," Carson said.

With all the teams so close together, taking a vacation to spend a week in Arizona during spring training sounds like a baseball fan's dream.

I find it interesting that running Sammy Sosa out of town on a rail wasn't enough for Chicago. The Tribune is still writing negative stories just in case the Cubs fans didn't know what an awful person Sammy had become. In the latest, they travel to Sosa's home island to try to find people that might have a negative view of the home town slugger.

Folks, you've made your point. Sammy has nothing to do with the Cubs anymore. You traded him for nothing, and no amount of negative publicity is going to change that or make the Cubs any better. Cubs fans aren't going to be loyal because the scourge of Sosa has been removed. They'll be loyal because you win. And if they see Sosa having a great year in Baltimore and the Cubs struggling to stay above .500, they're going to start wondering if the wrong person was run out of town.

As we head into spring training with camps officially opening on Tuesday, here's a nice review of the big off-season moves by Ron Blum.

After reading this story, I believe the Seattle Mariners will write a new rule into the team guide: No Sexson in the champagne room!

Lisa Gray is back from her hiatus at The Dugout. Welcome back, Lisa!

Heath Shaffer sends along this article from Roto Times. To sum up the story the best I can:

MLB Advanced Media (part of MLB.com) has gained exclusive rights from the MLBPA "to fantasy games using Major League Baseball players for the next five years." Fantasy operators figured they could get a sub-license from MLBAM, but the price has been set very high. MLBAM appears to be trying to drive out large competitors and prevent mom and pop operations from ever getting large.

Okay, so run the games without the logos and so forth. MLBAM believes the demand for its sub-licenses is going to be great. Don't buy them, and the price will drop. All you need is the stats.

While no court has ever ruled specifically that sports statistics are public information that cannot be owned by anyone, courts have allowed use of player names and likenesses by the public without compensation to the sports figures or their trade associations and have also ruled that mere data is public information.

In the 1990's, I was one of the principal programmers for STATS, Inc. on the first real-time scoring software. This software prompted a lawsuit by the NBA against STATS and Motorola, who were distributing the information through pagers. Alan Schwarz recounts the result on page 192 of his book, The Numbers Game.

It meant that STATS had won. The Circuit Court confirmed the original decision holding that no copyright laws had been broken, and reversed -- strongly -- the holding that STATS had taken NBA property by broadcasting scores and statistics. The NBA was not a news-gathering service on which STATS was free riding, and therefore did not warrant INS-type protection. And while the video and audio broadcasts of sports events are protected under copyright law, the facts contained in them are not.

Sports statistics are not copyrighted. So I don't really see what's the big deal. So you can't use images and logos without paying through the nose? Don't use them!

And of course, it's not a bright move by MBLAM, either.

Shortly after news of the licensing agreement broke, MLB Advanced Media chief executive Bob Bowman said "Our goal is to increase the number of people who participate in fantasy leagues and the number of games for fantasy players." He added "We also want to listen to licensees as to how they can make this a greater game." Unfortunately, it's very difficult to reconcile those statements with the facts at hand. The companies still on the sidelines represent millions of fantasy players who will, at best, have fewer choices for their gaming needs if these companies decline to offer games in 2005.

So give out inexpensive licenses. Here's the price structure as reported in the article.

If they have fewer than 5,000 customers, they can have a license for $10,000 for the 2005 season. If they have more than 5,000 customers, the price jumps to $500,000.

That's not encouraging growth. The license cost per customer should drop as subscribership increases; that's how you encourage growth. It's obvious that MLBAM is trying to shut down large competitors.

My advice to fantasy operators is do without the logos. Operate your games with stats only. And band together in case someone comes after you about the stats. The case law that exists is on your side.

As an aside, I find this very disappointing. Major League Baseball has a history of being on the wrong side of technology. They did not embrace radio or television because they thought it would keep people out of the ballparks. Instead, both created many more fans for the game, which led to great revenues. When MLB.com came around, I thought the lessons had been learned. MLB appeared to embrace the internet, creating good content, real time information and game broadcasts. But this is a step back to the old days. Fantasy baseball helps build fan interest in the game. And it builds fan interest in all teams and players, not just the local boys of summer. If anything, MLBAM should be giving away the licenses to encourage as many fantasy games as possible! Eventually, they can ask for a percentage of the take. If the growth is high, MLBAM would do just fine.

I'm even more disappointed in the MLBPA. I still believe they are the best union in the world, but they need to understand that the value of their players comes from fans wanting to watch them perform. More people playing fantasy games means more eyeballs to watch them pitch and hit. It would be nice if the MLBPA stepped in and said, "This wasn't what we had in mind when we gave you the exclusive."

I see Jose Canseco is going to be on 60 Minutes this weekend. I hope he doesn't try to sell Dan Rather any documents. :-)

ESPN.com has the details of Giambi's press conference. He didn't say much. I guess he has to treat his grand jury testimony as if it never leaked.

DRays Bay is a new web log about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Stop by and say hello. Also check out the round table discussion on the upcoming season.

Although range is probably the least important aspect of a catcher's job, we can measure it with this system as well. So for the sake of completeness, here's the rankings for catchers.

The main problem using this data to seriously measure catchers is the foul pop data. Foul balls that are not caught and not errors are not recorded. So the probability of catching a foul pop is bascially the probability of not making an error on the play.

With all the steroid talk lately, it's nice to see that some players still do some good in the world.

In December, the Comers came to the attention of Clemens and the people who run his foundation. Clemens' charitable organization learned that Chris — a former Odessa Permian football player recently portrayed in the movie Friday Night Lights — had lost his wife to breast cancer in December 2003. They heard that Chad received a liver transplant in January 2003 and that the Comers' financial situation made it difficult to make ends meet.

The people who make the TLC room-redecorating series While You Were Out contacted the foundation, and a plan was hatched. On Wednesday, Clemens and show personalities Evan Farmer, John Bruce, Leslie Segrete, Andrew Dan-Jumbo and Jason Cameron turned over the keys to the remodeled condo.

The Comers get the condo mortgage free, thanks to the foundation.

Bronx Banter has the details as Jason Giambi will hold two press conferences today, neither televised. It looks like it's going to be highly controlled by the Yankees; I take it Giambi's been practing his answers and won't stray to much from a script. At least he's finally talking.

Bronx Banter has the details as Jason Giambi will hold two press conferences today, neither televised. It looks like it's going to be highly controlled by the Yankees; I take it Giambi's been practing his answers and won't stray to much from a script. At least he's finally talking.

Athletics Nation is no longer dreading the 8th inning.

No more white knuckle endings...suddenly, A's fans can stop asking their doctors for blood pressure medicine.

Yes, there will likely be someone who doesn't work out in the pen, be it Juan Cruz or Kiko Calero or even Dotel, but the truth is that now the A's have depth in the organization and can reach down into the system to pluck someone like Huston Street to take the role. Or even Jairo Garcia.

Of course, the reality of the situation isn't as bad as you might think from that post. The A's allowed 75 runs in the 8th inning last year, tied for 20th (1 is most) in the majors. Only three AL teams allowed fewer runs in the 8th, with the Yankees allowing the fewest (63).

In fact, the 8th was one of their best innings. They allowed 97 runs in the 5th inning, and 94 in the 3rd. The 8th ranked 7th among the 9 innings. And if you look at runs per 9 IP, the 8th is actually better than the 9th! (4.17 allowed in the 8th, 4.32 allowed in the 9th.) The Oakland fans are looking for improvement in a place that wasn't a problem.

The Cubs traded Kyle Farmsworth to the Detroit Tigers today. Farnsworth might do well in Detroit. He has a great K per 9 but tends to give up the long ball. Comerica is a tough HR park, so I could see Kyle doing well at home this season.

Update: More here from the Cub Reporter.

I am looking to generate new sources of income from Baseball Musings. One thought that came to mind was sponsored posts. There are any number of topics I write about on a daily or weekly basis. The picture to the left would fit perfectly in a regular post about relief pitchers. Almost any product would work for Games of the Day. The Rawlings Fielding Analysis would be a great weekly topic. I feel any branded product would work well sponsoring a post directly.

I don't know how many of you look at the ads on the sidebar. But my guess is that if you like the regular features here at Baseball Musings, you wouldn't mind reading alongside a can of soda or an automobile. I'd love to get any feedback you have to offer.

Baseball Musings has a Google rank of 6, an Alexa rank of about 310,000 and is ranked 175th in traffic among blogs in the Ecosystem. If you'd like to advertise, just write.

Not too many people have tried to measure the range of pitchers. One nice thing about this model is that it builds in the handedness of the pitcher. So the model should automatically account for the fact that righties fall off the mound in one direction and lefties in the other. Since pitchers are not in the field as much as other position players, I've lowered the minimum to 500 balls in play.

Other than Greg Maddux having won many gold gloves, I don't know enough about the fielding reputation of pitchers to know if these numbers look good. If there are any experts in the field, please let me know.

Obviously, fielding ability should not weigh very much in evaluating a pitcher. Still, it's nice to see who is a cat around the mound.

Without further ado, the range rankings for leftfielders.

Our eyes often deceive us when it comes to defense, but not in the case of Ryan Klesko. He's just as brutal as he looks. It's also interesting to note that some of the older players (Bonds, Alou, Luis Gonzalez) are right where they should be, getting the balls at the expected rate. Sig Mejdal wrote the injury prediction section of The Bill James Handbook 2005 and one thing he's looking at is how aging and experience effect skills in the game. For example, he's found that the physical process of aging hurts HR production, but experience helps HR production. I'm wondering if that is going on here; these left fielders have so much experience in the outfield that they can make up for their old legs with positioning.

I haven't been able to think that much about the Tigers signing of Magglio Ordonez, but Joe Sheehan has (link requires registration). He doesn't like the deal.

There are so many things wrong with this deal that it's hard to structure a column about it. For one thing, Ordonez gets a longer, more lucrative deal than Vladimir Guerrero got last winter. He'll make just $2 million a year less than Carlos Beltran--younger, comparable hitter, more defensive value, not coming off a broken season--will over the course of his contract.

Neither of those two players hit the market not having played baseball since June of the previous season. Ordonez, who suffered an injury to his left knee on May 19 in a collision with Willie Harris, has played in just a couple of games since then. He underwent two operations on the knee, then was diagnosed with bone marrow edema in the knee, which isn't something that typically shows up in "Under the Knife." Ordonez didn't play any winter ball; the Tigers have signed him based largely on doctors' reports and faith in mankind.

On top of that, Ordonez just has not had that impressive a career. His win shares peaked at 26 when Mags was twenty eight years old, and he had five straight 20 win share seasons before he was hurt this year. Compare that to Giambi, who also was a free agent at the same age. Giambi was coming off two consectutive 38 win share seasons. Fifteen million a year for Mags is just two much, even if he stays healthy throughout the contract.

I believe the Tigers were caught when the supply of free agents dwindled. While all the other teams were willingly to wait and see, Detroit jumped in with an offer that couldn't be refused. Ordonez will likely improve the team, but it's at a very high cost.

In the previous post, I noticed a big difference in range between Doug Mientkiewicz and Kevin Millar at first base. Millar did much better, which was a surprise. The first thing I wanted to see was the difference in batted ball types. If the difference is in pop-ups, that might be the answer right there. (Remember, this is full year data, not just with the Red Sox.)

It's not popups. Kevin is outperforming Doug on grounders and line drives. Now, Millar is getting a big boost from the liners; that can be great positioning or pure luck. But he's also doing very well on the grounders. Let's break the grounders down by direction for both fielders.

It looks like Millar is doing a better job than Mientkiewicz at fielding balls hit right at the normal first base position. I'm stumped for an explanation. Maybe the Red Sox make such good use of batted ball data that they positioned Kevin perfectly. Maybe, for some reason, the model does not value the balls hit at Millar as highly as the balls hit at Mientkiewicz. If either were true, then moving Doug to the Red Sox should have helped his range. In fact, it did. With the Red Sox, Mientkiewicz recorded 73 outs on 62.44 expected outs, a DER difference of 0.01278, a big improvement in his overall number of 0.00248. Given that the Red Sox are very carefully studying ball in play data, I bet the positioning has a lot to do with it.

I would normally run left fielders here, being the next position in the defensive spectrum, but I've fallen behind and have a request for first basemen.

I'm not surprised that a good centerfielder also fields well at first base, although my gut feeling is the Angels needed his glove in center more than at first. Other converts didn't work out so well as Green and Piazza finished at the bottom of the list. Green also did poorly when he was in right field. If you're going to have poor range, better at first than in right.

A big surprise on the list will be the relative positions of Kevin Millar and Doug Mientkiewicz. It's worth breaking those two down further. I'll do that in the next post.

I'm feeling better today and was able to think through the problem a little more clearly. Thanks for all the comments on the last post.

I did a simple calculation using the latest Bill James runs created formula for teams, found in The Bill James Handbook 2005. I first imagined a team that had 6000 plate appearances and got 1500 singles as a result (no walks, extra-base hits, etc). The RC formula would estimate that the team would score 422 runs. I then added 44 singles, giving the new team 6044 plate appearances. The run estimate for this team was 444 runs, or 22 more. So estimates from 18 to 30 do appear to be in the correct range.

I would offer one caveat, however. Because Eckstein is getting 44 fewer outs doesn't mean those outs aren't being picked up by other fielders. Some have pointed out that there is noise in the popup data; pretty much every popup is caught by a fielder. There is noise in the groundball data as well. There are going to grounders where both the third baseman and the shortstop have non-zero probabilities of fielding the ball. If the third baseman, due to superior range, cuts in front of the shortstop often he'll take outs away from the middleman. In most cases these should even out, but in some situations the shortstop will appear not to get to balls that indeed are outs.

Curveblog has a couple of post up on David Eckstein's range and what it's costing in terms of runs. I have to disagree with something:

re the cost of dave eckstein’s poor range, a poster calling him/herself "anolis" asks an intelligent question:

"If I read this correctly, Eckstein made 44 less outs than might have been expected, and the analysis suggests that this translated into allowing 33 more runs that expected. Can this be correct? Since the outs that Eckstein missed almost surely turned into singles, is the expected value of turning an out into a single 3/4 of a run? Seems high to me."

That seems real high to me, also. Unfortunately, I can't think too well right now (as I write this I find I wish I hadn't started, it's very difficult to concentrate). But 44 outs means that Eckstein is adding less than two extra games of offense to his opponents. If the opponents score about 4.5 runs per game, than Eckstein should cost his team 4.5*(44/27) runs, or a little over 7 runs.

Bill James showed over 20 years ago that the difference between the best and worst fielding shortstops couldn't be more than 25 runs a season. So I don't think David's fielding cost his team anywhere near 33 runs.

I'm still very ill. Blogging will remain light or non-existent.

Please visit the insightful writers listed on my blog roll.

It looks like Magglio Ordonez will be on the Detroit Tigers early next week. If the contract is being reported correctly, Ordonez is assuming most of the risk. If his injury reoccurs, the Tigers can void the contract after one year.

More on this when I'm over this bout of the flu.

ESPN is reporting that there has been a tiny bit of progress on a new home for the Marlins. I like the idea that the city can seize the team if the ownership can't handle cost overruns. Financing, in that case, would not be a total loss for the government.

Congratulations to The Soxaholix, who has been nominated for two blog awards! (Warning, language not approved by the FCC if you follow the link.)

Yesterday's Probabilistic Model of Range post on rightfielders showed Sammy Sosa doing better than Ichiro Suzuki. I wanted to investigate further why that might be true. The next two tables show the two outfielders broken down by the direction the ball was hit. Lower numbers are toward the third base lines, higher numbers are are toward the first base line. Seven and eight make up straight-away center field.

We have an interesting paradox here. If you define range as the ability to cover more ground, Suzuki is clearly your man. But I'm defining range as the ability to turn a batted ball into an out, and Sosa wins on that count. Why? My speculation from the data is that Sosa stays in one place. There's a reason outfielders are positioned a certain way; that's where most of the balls are hit. Sosa, by staying in straight-away right, gets to all the easy balls. My guess is that Ichrio (due to his great speed), cheats toward center or the line when he thinks a batter might go that way. So he gets to more balls in the alleys and down the line, but he loses a few easy balls straight away.

This is where incorporating a weighting by type of hit will improve this model. A commentor on the original post stated:

Interestingly, Tom Ruane at Diamond Mind has written in his "Gold Glove" review for 2001-03 that Ichiro is noticeably good at keeping doubles to singles.

What we may have here is an OBA vs. Slugging argument in reverse. Ichiro is catching balls that would be doubles or triples. He's lowering the opposition's slugging percentage. Sosa is making all the easy plays. He's lowering the opposition's on-base average. More research will be needed to ascertain if the trade-off is worth while.

John Perricone of Only Baseball Matters takes a look at the moves Brian Sabean has made and is none to happy. I, for one, am always a bit surprised at how good the Giants play every year. The Giants should have a .558 winning percentage since 1997; instead, they have a .586 winning percentage. When a team has that much luck over a long period of time, you have to wonder if someone is doing a good job of organizing the group. I don't like Sabean's moves this off-season, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and will wait to see how the 2005 season plays out.

Update: Alex Lash writes:

I'm the guy who wrote the post that touched off Perricone's rant on Brian Sabean. If an OBM reader only read what John excerpted from me, and didn't bother to click over to my post, said OBM reader would get the impression that I was praising Sabean's tenure to sweet heaven based solely on his trading record (roughly put: first six years = excellent, last two years = crap).

What John fails to mention is that my trade-record examination is only part one of a total evaluation of Sabean. Parts 2 and 3, which will examine his free agent choices and more, are still to come. I'm on the fence about Sabean -- which is why I've embarked on what I hope will be a more level-headed evaluation of his tenure. If you don't mind, please post this note as an addendum to your note about John. And here's a direct link to my post:

http://leftymalo.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_leftymalo_archive.html#110739425928468635

The Detroit Tigers Weblog ponders the makeup of the Tigers outfield if the team signs Magglio Ordonez.

Alex Belth posts an interview with one of my favorite writers, Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink.

In the continuing series, here's the table for 2004 rightfielders. The results were certainly surprising to me.

The conventional wisdom about Sammy Sosa is summed up nicely in a comment to this post:

Sosa is past his prime as a baserunner, is in serious decline as a fielder, and is losing it as a hitter.

The other thing I find very troubling about this list is the position of Ichiro Suzuki. If I could name one right fielder who I would think had extraordinary range, it would be Ichiro.

The model I'm presenting is very simple, and I'm aware of it's flaws and limitations. All of your comments have been very helpful in that regard. I'm going to push forward with the model as is for the rest of the postions before I start trying to improve the calculation, however. This way, we'll have a good baseline for comparison.

Of course, it could be that Sosa isn't as bad as we believe and Ichiro is positioning himself to make great plays at the expense of easy ones. I'll probably present a more detailed breakdown of the two shortly.

Rogers Communications, the owners of the Blue Jays, have purchased Skydome and are renaming it the Rogers Center. There will be a number of renovations, including new turf and a new scoreboard.

More importantly, Rogers is upping the three-year budget to $210 million US dollars. That's what I like to see; owners willing to invest in winning. Ricciardi should have enough money now to build a decent team.

It's official; Sammy Sosa is now an Oriole. In addition to Hairston, the Cubs also receive Mike Fontenot and Dave Crouthers.

Fontenot is not bad, but at age 25 he should be stepping into a starting role somewhere, not backing up Todd Walker. Crouthers is a pitcher and the same age as Fontenot. He's had good strikeout and walk numbers in the minors even though his walks are high. His ERAs seem to be moving in the wrong direction, however, as he heads through the minors.

The Orioles got one sweet deal.

Mike's Baseball Rants publishes an interview with a QuesTec operator. Here's a sample:

Q: Umpire crew chief Randy Marsh once made these comments regarding QuesTec: “In the past, there have been pitches that are a little off the plate that are hittable pitches that we’d call strikes. If we call them strikes now, we’re wrong. You have QuesTec looking over your shoulder every single pitch.” Any comments?

A: If the rule book says those are balls, what difference does it make if they are hittable? Who defines “hittable”? What is hittable to Vlad Guerrero is not hittable to a lot of other players. These pitches (the outside ones especially) are ones that I’ve noticed produce the majority of mistakes as judged by the system. If they were called strikes before, then those calls were wrong. The point of the system is to help umpires call the strike zone as the rule book defines it. We should only judge it on how well it accomplishes that goal.

Will Carroll links to a story about a new designer steroid.

"We believe this was developed for the sole purpose of doping in sport," Rabin said. "We now have proof that THG was not a unique case. We now have proof that there are other designer drugs."

Ayotte said DMT consisted of a dangerous mixture of potentially toxic substances. Tests are continuing to identify the drug's properties and determine how it enhances athletic performance.

This is another reason I'd rather see transparent use. The doping police got lucky and found a designer drug, one that might be dangerous. But there's probably 10 others being worked on. They're not going to be FDA approved, their not going to be tested properly, and athletes are going to take them to get strong and earn more money because they can't be detected. Then you'll see really bad side effects. Make them legal, and make players disclose their use.

The Cub Reporter takes a look at what to expect from the Cubs outfield corners this year after the departure of Alou and Sosa.

Jon Weisman notes a story about an MIT undergraduate mocking Paul DePodesta because Paul attended Harvard. Typical of a #2 school. There's a bridge that connects Cambridge to Boston over the Charles River on Massachusetts Avenue. It's the Harvard Bridge. As you can see from this picture, the bridge bisects MIT (top of picture). This so annoys the MIT students that they call it the MIT Bridge, or make jokes about the real name.

Besides, don't these engineers know anything about numbers? I would have expected a great sabermetric article from a techie, but instead we get the typical reporter rant about how money is ruining the game! Somebody from Yale could have written that one. :-)

For your perusal, the 2004 third basemen.

The Greek God of Walks might also be "death to flying things" at third base. Kevin Youkilis did a great job filling in at third base for the Red Sox this season. I'm not surprised to see Scott Rolen as the top everyday third baseman, but I am surprised to see Chipper Jones rate that highly. And A-Rod aquitted himself well in the move to a new position.

Overall, you'll notice that the third basmen are as positive as the shortstops are negative. I wonder if shifts have become so prevalent that third basemen are picking up a lot of balls that shortstops usually field. I've certainly scored games this season where the third baseman caught the ball at the bag at 2nd base. If the shift was being use a lot more than in 2002 and 2003, that might account for us seeing third basemen positive and shortstops negative.

Oleanders and Morning Glories is wondering about the Nationals new uniforms. Looks like they're for sale at MLB.com.

Michael Humphreys writes:

Thanks so much for posting your results.

I may have mentioned this to you last year--

UZR (and regular ZR) only counts ground balls for infielders, but I think PMR includes all BIP. Is it possible (and easy for you) to separate them out? I'm on record as believing it's very hard to determine whether infielder putouts (even for fly ball BIP) reflect skill, as so many of them are discretionary plays that could be made by one or more other fielders. For this reason, Tom Duane at Diamond Mind takes this approach as well.

There has also been discussion about UZR showing David Eckstein doing well and while my system shows him doing badly. Let's break Eckstein down by ball in play type:

As you can see, fly balls and liners are hurting Eckstein. He's not great on grounders, but his inability to chase down pop ups is hurting him. This makes me wonder if catching pops is helping Jeter, since we all remember his great dive into the stands from last season.

Jeter is much better at balls in the air than balls on the ground. (Maybe the Yankees should move Jeter to centerfield and find a shortstop who can field grounders.) In fact, if you want a shortstop who fields grounders, you'd pick Eckstein over Jeter. Let's just finish this up with a high ranking shortstop in PMR, Cristian Guzman.

It's clear that Guzman's high ranking comes from his catching line drives in 2004, although he's also better than both Jeter and Eckstein at fielding grounders. But these examples bring me back to the title of this post, "What is Range?"

We like to think of range as the ability of a fielder to cover ground. That's really difficult to measure, since as far as I know, no one is keeping track of where each fielder is located on a pitch, or how far the fielder moved to catch a ball. What we can measure is the ability of a fielder to turn a batted ball into an out. Fielders can turn balls into outs because:

• They can move quickly to where the ball is hit.
• They position themselves well so they start near where the ball is hit.
• They have soft hands and accurate arms.

I'm sure readers can suggest other things. But basically, if you move well, your positioning becomes less important. Guzman appears to be positioned well, since he's often in the way of line drives. Jeter appears to move well when the ball is in the air, not so much on the ground. I'd guess Jeter's position is poor, also. There's no evidence that Eckstein moves well, but I bet he's positioned better than Derek. Remember, this is me hypothesizing, I don't have any facts to back this up.

But should we really just look at ground balls for shortstops as the measure of ability at the position? There's a reason that shortstops and second basemen field a lot of popups, especially behind first and third; they're easier plays for the middle infielders. They have a better angle to the ball. And if one of those popups falls in, a speedy runner will turn it into a double. It's a weakness for Eckstein, and should be noted as such. It's a strength for Jeter, and should be noted as such.

As for Guzman's positioning, I'll have to look at multiple years fo data. It easily could be dumb luck. It could be that the Twins staff told him where to go, and it won't carry over to Washington. But it could also be that Guzman can read the batter, and knowing the pitch can make a very good guess at where the ball will go. That would be a strength that should be reflected in the numbers.

So to me, range is the ability to get an out on a ball, and good range comes from getting more of these than expected. I don't care how you get to them; the model adjusts for that.

Batgirl publishes an editorial aimed directly at the Twins marketing problems, using her usual colorful language. :-)

JD Arney has changed his blog from Reds Daily to Red Reporter. Time to update your links! I love the logo, by the way.