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January 31, 2006
Dueling Sandmen
Permalink Eric Mirlis notes that there will be only one theme song used for closers in New York this year. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Leftfielders
Permalink Here are the results for the left fielders.
The more I look at the two models, the more I like the visiting smoothed model. Surhoff coming in near the top of this list bothers me a bit, but it is a small sample for him. The visiting model ranks him a little lower. I also like that the visiting model puts Klesko in negative territory. I didn't expect Miguel Cabrera to be that bad. I guess it's a good thing he's moving to third base. Racetrack Ballpark
Permalink Without local funding, Fishstripes doesn't think the idea of a stadium in Hialeah will fly for the Marlins. He does, however, like the idea of building it next to the racetrack: Having to incorporate the old with the new would make for a very appealing look. Unfortunately I can't see it happening. Young Birds?
Permalink Cardinals Diaspora looks at the age of the Cardinals' hitters. He finds them young overall, but old in the wrong places: Looking at the list, it's clear that age for the overall team isn't the problem. The problem is the age of several key cogs in the team, and the lack of young talent to step in for the aging ones. The most important gray beard is Edmonds, without whom success figures to be hard fought. Old Enough to be Your Padre
Permalink Tim Sullivan of Union-Tribune makes a good point about the age and skill of the 2006 Padres: “The team's kind of built for this year,” Towers said. “There are some young players who are in the lineup, but it's not much different than San Francisco. It's a veteran ballclub. Once this year's over, hopefully we'll have some (more) of our younger players.” It didn't work for the Giants last year. We'll see if the Padres can sprinkle in enough youngsters to make it work this season. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Rightfielders
Permalink Time to look at the range of the rightfielders.
Mike Cameron's defense certainly translated well to right field. Dustin Mohr covered a lot of ground in spacious Coors Field. I'm always a bit surprised that Ichiro isn't right at the top of these lists. I wonder if he plays deep and lets some balls fall in front of him? Or maybe age caused him to lose a step. Given this data, the Athletics may not wish to move Swisher to first base. It seems a waste to move a fielder who plays the outfield well to a less important defensive position. Sammy Sosa's defense is another reason clubs are leary of signing the slugger, but if the Nationals sign him he won't be that much of a downgrade from the injured Jose Guillen. Gonzalez Needs a Physical
Permalink The Red Sox are just a physical away from signing Alex Gonzalez to a one year, $3 million deal. Compared to Renteria last season, Gonzalez neither helps nor hurts the Red Sox. He just moves the wins from the offensive side of the ledger to the defensive side. In 2005, The Hardball Times calculates that Edgar Renteria earned 11.3 wins shares with his bat, 2.7 with his glove. Gonzalez, on the other hand, earned 6.9 with his bat, 6.2 with his glove. It's clear now that when the Red Sox signed Renteria to a $10 million a year contract, they expected him to return to his mid-20's win share form. That didn't happen. So if they're going to get win shares in the low teens from their shortstop they're paying less. There will be fewer runs scored and allowed in Fenway this season. Now that all the manuvering is complete, nice job by the Red Sox this off season. The refused to over pay Damon, got rid of an another overpaid player in Renteria, and picked a centerfielder with some upside along the way. I don't think they're a better team, but they're very close to where they were last year, saved some money, and gave the farm system another year to develop while they stay competitive. And if you're competitive, a little luck can take you a long way. Update: Welcome Boston Dirt Dog readers! Batting Practice Pitcher
Permalink Roger Clemens showed up at the Astros mini-camp yesterday, and threw batting practice to his son, Koby. He also talked about returning for another season. Following the 20-minute workout, Clemens said he's still not sure if he wants to pitch again. I still think Clemens will take off until May 1, then sign with the Astros. That way, a shorter season may hold off the injuries that limited his effectiveness in the post season. Blogspot Trackbacks
Permalink I've been getting a huge amount of trackback spam from Blogspot lately. If you have a blogspot e-mail address, or want to post a link to a blogspot blog in the comments, it will no longer be accepted. Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.
January 30, 2006
Finished Testimony
Permalink Arte Moreno finished his testimony today. Moreno also testified that he was unaware of the “emotional curtain” that divides Orange County and Los Angeles when he thought about the name change. Arte just continues to endear himself to the people of Anaheim. It's too bad, because in regards to trying to win, he's a very good owner. I Hope The Broadcast in HD
Permalink ESPN is broadcasting the World Baseball Classic. That's good news. The worldwide leader in sports is great at covering multi-game tournaments like this. Fantasy Fight Roundup
Permalink Maury Brown at The Hardball Times provides a nice summary of the fight so far over the fair use of player names and statistics by fantasy baseball operators. Better On Top
Permalink I wonder if the Oakland Athletics considered this when closing the upper deck of the Coliseum: Paul Miller, 51, of Berkeley, is a season-ticket holder with seats in the lower level, section 123. Maybe they should close the back rows of all the decks instead. Of course, it's also possible they'll use the upper deck tarps as a money maker: Behind the plate, the tarps will have this message, in gold lettering: HOME OF THE OAKLAND ATHLETICS. The years of the four Oakland World Series titles will be listed above the right-field corner, and the five championship years of the old Philadelphia A's will be seen above the left-field corner. My bet is that advertising is more than a possibility. Marketing Ploy
Permalink The Pirates announced a new way to increase attendance: more mascots! The Pittsburgh Pirates will introduce a new staff member April 16. Joining the Pirate Parrot will be another team mascot. "Honey, the team has a cuddly pirate as a mascot this year! Let's buy season tickets!" They might want to try winning. Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Permalink Brian McTaggart chronicles the departure of some star Houston atheltes as Bagwell and the Astros head for a showdown over whether the first baseman is healthy enough to play. McCarthy to Relieve
Permalink Brandon McCarthy of the Chicago White Sox is working to be a 200 inning starter, but he's most likely to start in the bullpen come April. Though McCarthy, 22, is preparing this off-season as if he's going to start, he said at SoxFest over the weekend that he would adjust if relegated to relief duty. His pitching coach notes the importance of depth: Pitching coach Don Cooper said last month that McCarthy would be used in spring training as a starter and then pitch a couple of relief outings--if the rest of the staff remained healthy. It's seldom that a team can get by a full season with just five starters. With injuries and the possibility that one of the five won't perform well, McCarthy is likely to see more starts than relief appearances in 2006. All They Do is Give Out Awards
Permalink MVPs and other awards were presented last night at the 83rd annual New York baseball dinner. Ripken, Gibson and Cepeda were among the Hall of Fame talent handing out the hardware. One thing I didn't know was that Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson became friends: Mets outfielder Cliff Floyd took home the "Good Guy" award, while Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner -- forever linked by that famous groundball in the 1986 World Series -- received the "Willie, Mickey and The Duke" award.
January 29, 2006
Piazza a Padre
Permalink Mike Piazza heads back to California, and it looks like he'll be the Padres first string catcher: "The Padres told Mike that he could pretty much catch as much as he wanted to," said Piazza's agent, Dan Lozano. The one thing that hasn't disappeared from Piazza's game is his power, and he's going to a ballpark that will cut down on his long balls. I just don't see where it makes much sense for Piazza or the Padres. With PETCO being a low run field, defense becomes very important. I don't believe Mike will be a positive contributor defensively, and in that environment, I'm not sure how much he can contribute offensively. It's just $2 million however, so I guess it's worth the risk that he has one more great season in him. Death in the Family
Permalink My aunt, Sister Philomena Pinto passed away on Friday. We were down in the New Haven area for the wake today. At one point in her career she was stationed in St. Louis in the neighborhood where Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola Sr. grew up. She met both men at various times, making me very jealous. :-) So we get home, and I call my sister's house, and she asks, "Did you see Yogi's aunt?" It turns out Yogi Berra's aunt is at the convent, and no one told me! With luck, I'll run into her tomorrow at the funeral. Here's my favorite Sister story. My aunt taught elementary school for many years in The Bronx. Many years later, she hears one of my cousins talking about John Gotti. Sister pipes up with, "Don't you say anything bad about John Gotti. He's a wonderful man." It turns out that the convent hired a painter and paid him up front. He worked for one day and didn't come back, leaving the place a mess. Gotti walks in (I can't remember if he was going to church or taking his kids to school) and asks, "Sisters, what happened here." The nuns told him the story and asked Gotti to pray for them. Mr. Gotti agreed to pray for them. The next day the painter shows up, gives them back all the money and finishes the jobs. And my aunt thinks Gotti's prayers were responsible. She was a good woman and lived to a ripe old age. I'm sure she'll rest in peace. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Third Basemen and Grounders
Permalink Here's the followup to yesterday's overall numbers for third basemen. This is just how they did on ground balls.
This list doesn't look too different to me. The biggest difference is that Encarnacion moves down, and Pedro Feliz takes over the top spot. There is still a huge gap between Koskie and Glaus. The Times of Will Leitch
Permalink Congratulations to Will Leitch and Deadspin. The New York Times profiled the blogger and his site today. Beach Bum
Permalink Having been warned about strange creatures in the water, Hawaiian tourists were stunned Thursday when they spotted one on the beach. That's good news for the Dodgers. Ten Minutes with Manuel
Permalink Beer Leaguer sat down to speak with Charlie Manuel recently. You can hear the 10 minute interview here. (Hat tip to Balls, Sticks and Stuff.)
January 28, 2006
Flipping Shoppach
Permalink The blog Rotisserie Baseball Musings makes an interesting point about the Indians interest in Kelly Shoppach, especially since they have a fine offensive catcher in Victor Martinez: With Victor Martinez cemented as one of the best offensive catchers, why did the Indians get a catching prospect who looks ready for his major-league chance? Shoppach will be 26 shortly after the season starts while VMart is going to play all of the 2006 season as a 27-year-old. There is no room for Shoppach. Of course, it never hurts to be deep at catcher, since that position wears down a player rather quickly. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005,Third Basemen
Permalink It was a very good year for third basemen according to both models. Almost all performed above expectation:
It looks like Vinny Castilla can no longer make up for his poor offense with his glove, while moving Chipper Jones back to third cost the Braves some good defense at the position from Benemit. This is the highest I've seen Chone Figgins on any of the charts so far. Third base is his position. From the rankings here, the Red Sox down graded both defensively and offensively replacing Mueller with Lowell at third. And given how well Orlando Hudson ranked among second basemen, the Glaus trade was a defensive upgrade for the Diamondbacks. As always, your comments are welcome. Iron Man
Permalink Adam Dunn broke his hand twice in 2005. Reds manager Jerry Narron let it slip this week at a Dayton Agonis Club meeting when somebody criticized Dunn. I understand playing through an injury during the regular season, but it would be prudent to let the bone heal in the off season. Moreno Stumbles
Permalink Arte Moreno testified in the Angels name case, and I'm not sure he won over a lot of Anaheim residents with this: He compared Anaheim's relationship with Los Angeles to Queens or the Bronx and New York City. Anaheim is about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles in Orange County. My guess is that Anaheimites (Anaheimians?) don't think of themselves as a burrough of Los Angeles. New Lease Agreement
Permalink The Mayor of Washington, D.C. and MLB reached a new agreement yesterday, but it's not clear if it's enough. Details on cost overruns are yet to come. That seems to be the big sticking point with the D.C. Council. Crisp Day in Boston
Permalink The Red Sox and Indians completed the long rumored (and oft rumored to be dead) trade that sends Coco Crisp to the Red Sox and Andy Marte to the Indians. The Red Sox did sweeten the deal, although the actual players involved didn't change much. Mota’s physical Tuesday concerned the Indians enough that the Red Sox had to sweeten the deal with the cash considerations, believed to be in excess of $1 million. The player to be named later/further cash considerations option also seems to be the second step in assuring Cleveland that they will not be disappointed with Mota, who has some shoulder weakness. So Cleveland pried more money and possibly an extra player out of the deal. Good for them. They had a commodity the Red Sox needed, and got as much as they could for him. The Indians also made a deal for Jason Michaels, dumping Arthur Rhodes on the Phillies. This is almost the opposite of the Milton Bradley deal, where they dealt away a talented trouble maker. Michaels, however, makes his trouble off the field, so maybe the Indians are more open to that kind of player. Michaels gets on base more than Crisp. Jason posted a career .380 OBA compared to Crisp's .332. Michaels, however, is four years older, so there isn't much upside there. Still, any increase in OBA is good for the team, and Michaels should be a very good table setter. The risk with Riske for the Red Sox is the home run. David strikes out lots of batters, doesn't walk many, but has allowed 44 home runs in just 317 1/3 career innings. Shoppach showed a lot of power in the minor for a catcher. He's probably a better player than Bard, but not exactly a prospect, as Kelly will be 26 in 2006. The Indians appear to come out the best in this deal. The replaced their outfielder with a better OBA, picked up a hot prospect who's likely to replace Aaron Boone before 2006 is out, and made an even swap on relievers and catchers. The Red Sox plugged their hole in centerfield with a player who still has some room to improve offensively, and they control for four years. It's not a bad deal for the Red Sox, given their needs. However, if you look at this as Renteria for Crisp, the Sox just plugged one hole by creating another. As for the Phillies, Michaels was expendable after they picked up Rowand, but you would think they could get more for the outfielder. I guess brushes with the law made Jason less desirable, and the Phillies paid for that. Finally, the Indians may not be done. As the second link suggests, Cleveland and Cincinnati are talking about Westbrook for Kearns. Stay tuned. Update: In response to a comment, Michael's splits are here. Yes, he goes down vs. righties, but he's still much higher than Crisp.
January 27, 2006
Rhodes Show
Permalink According to Jayson Stark's sources, Arthur Rhodes is taking a physical in Philadelphia, raising the likelihood of a Crisp for Marte deal between the Indians and the Red Sox. As always, stay tuned. It could just be the Indians are dumping Rhodes. Going Dutch
Permalink Three True Outcomes wonders why Danny Haren is on the roster of the Netherlands. I'd qualify for the Italian roster, since my dad was born in Italy. I also might qualify for the Dutch roster, since my grandpa Boerum's family settled in New Amsterdam in 1649 (the original van Boerums are buried in Brooklyn in a church on Boerum Place). Haren, however, appears to have no Dutch ancestry at all. Bad Choices
Permalink National Interest analyzes Jim Bowden's moves. He doesn't paint a pretty picture. A Devil Ray By Any Other Name...
Permalink The Devil Rays are going to change their nickname for the 2007 season. For some reason, people have a negative connotation of the word, "Devil." After talking with fans in focus groups, the team learned there was a "negative association" with the terms, "Devil Rays," and "devil," Silverman said. Of course, that might be the same as your parents using your middle name when they're upset with you. :-) Of course, the team runs the risk that no one will notice. Revenue Sharing
Permalink Jeff Passan in the Kansas City Star covers all the angles on revenue sharing today. He quotes economists, small market owners, large market owners, agents and the union. Here's Andrew Zimbalist: “This was a system that’s supposed to create competitive balance,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economist who has consulted with Major League Baseball. “If all it does is take $20 million or $30 million from one team and give it to another, it might make David Glass happy, but it doesn’t do anything for competitive balance. The system right now penalizes success and rewards failure. It might sound clever, but it’s true. Scott Boras proposes something I like: And sometime, while revenue sharing is on the table, a large-market owner could make this point brought up by agent Scott Boras: If an owner purchases a small-market team at a fraction of the price of a big-market team, why should the smaller team be entitled to an equal share of revenues? Javy Be Good
Permalink I didn't know Javy Lopez's agent was Chuck Berry! Although displaced Orioles catcher Javy Lopez appreciated meeting with team officials on Wednesday, his thoughts about the coming season haven't changed. He either wants a contract extension by mid-February or he wants to be traded to a place where he can catch more often, Lopez's agent, Chuck Berry, said yesterday. Lopez wants a three-year extension from the Orioles. I don't believe that's going to happen. Dernell Stenson Plea
Permalink The second of four men alleged to be involved in the murder of Dernell Stenson reached a plea with prosecutors: Reginald Riddle dodged a possible death sentence by accepting the plea agreement to first-degree murder. Under Arizona law, he must be sentenced to life in prison, but it will be up to Judge Robert Gottsfield to decide whether Riddle, 21, will be eligible for parole after 25 years. He's expected to testify against his accomplice.
January 26, 2006
How Old Is Jamie Moyer?
Permalink Bummpo.net has the answer. (Hat tip Lookout Landing.) A New Brooks in Baltimore
Permalink Brew Crew Ball reports the latest on Brooks Kieschnick. The Rules
Permalink Via the Boston Globe, here are the rules on use and rosters for the World Baseball Classic. Here's the pitch counts: Pitchers in the first round of games, scheduled from March 3-10, will be limited to 65 pitches. The amount rises to 80 pitches for the second round, set for March 12-16, and 95 for the semifinals on March 18 and the championship March 20. Are pitchers usually throwing 95 pitches in the middle of March? That seems like a high limit. I doubt major league hurlers will come near that. Weighty Bonds
Permalink Gary Peterson in the Contra Costa Times advances his own theory for Barry Bonds withdrawing from the World Baseball Classic: Here's a real one: Is it because Bonds, "deep into my offseason workouts" according to his Web site, is something less than satisfied with the way his body is responding to the whip? Cold Coco
Permalink According to a Jayson Stark source, the probability of the Indians dealing Coco Crisp is going down. The talks go on, and it looks like the Reds are involved: The Red Sox, however, prefer not to trade away one of their top young pitching prospects, Manny Delcarmen, whom Cleveland likes. So it appears Boston has turned its attention back to Cincinnati to see if it can put together a deal for left fielder Austin Kearns. The Red Sox then would turn around and deal Kearns to Cleveland for Crisp, with several other players (yet to be determined) also switching area codes. Hal McCoy notes that a similar deal was turned down by the Reds two weeks ago, and that might be a reason O'Brien was fired: Maybe, though, the last event that sealed O'Brien's firing Monday was a deal he didn't make as late as last week. The saga continues. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Centerfielders
Permalink Without much further ado, the centerfielders.
It's nice to see Andruw Jones, Edmonds and Rowand at the top of the list for full time center fielders. I'm also not surprised to see Williams and Griffey near the bottom. Off the top of my head, it looks like Damon will save the Yankees 30 to 35 outs versus having Bernie in center for the full season. So it is time to move Griffey out of center field? The Reds play in a ballpark that is a home run haven. In that situation, it's important to keep men off base. If Griffe is allowing 40 men more to reach than expected, isn't that a huge hardship on the pitching staff and team? A poor play by Griffey, a bad pitch to the next batter, and it's two runs down for the Reds. Correction: Fixed the first caption. Berkman on the Mend
Permalink Lance Berkman underwent knee surgery today, and the reports are good: Berkman, who turns 30 on Feb. 10, does not expect to miss a lot of Spring Training. He will likely be ready to play when the Grapefruit League season begins on March 2, but he withdrew his name from the United States roster for the World Baseball Classic. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Second Basemen and Grounders
Permalink Here's a follow up to the overall ratings for second basemen, this time just looking at ground balls (minimum 500 ground balls in play when on the field):
When you only look at the ability to turn grounders into outs, Orland Hudson loses his top spot among second basemen. You can see how his ability to chase pop ups put him in the overall #1 spot:
Also, a bit disturbing for Red Sox fans who are watching the team appear to go for a bit less offense and a bit more defense in 2006, Mark Loretta ranks below both Bellhorn and Walker on ground balls. Correction: Fixed the caption on the second table. Touchy Feely Sox
Permalink Gordon Edes sums up damage control day at Fenway yesterday. Oprah could have had a field day. Fact, fiction, or to use John W. Henry's word, ''mythology," Ms. Winfrey could have advised all of Theo Epstein's adoring fans to disregard the inconsistencies of the million little pieces involved in his departure from the Red Sox and focus on the ''underlying message of redemption" in his return. That worked for America's most famous self-proclaimed crackhead author, James Frey, why not for a fractured front office? And of course, there's the hug: Sunday night, at the Brookline home of Larry Lucchino, in the presence of principal owner John Henry and chairman Tom Werner, Lucchino and Theo Epstein agreed that Epstein would reclaim his rightful role as general manager. And then they did something that photographers throughout New England would have paid a hefty sum to have captured for posterity. I remember Michael Corelone hugging people. From Edes article: Truer words were spoken by Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi, who never bought into the idea that Epstein was more bent on becoming a roadie for Pearl Jam or taking the same humanitarian path as brother Paul than he was on running the Red Sox. ''It's like a Mafia hit," Ricciardi had said after Epstein bolted. ''You don't believe it until you see the guy at the funeral." It's not in Lucchino's makeup to stay out of Epstein's way. In a month (or as soon as Theo tries to make a deal Larry doesn't like), they'll be back to the, "real, not imagined, fissures in their relationship." Defending Minaya
Permalink Omar Minaya had to defend himself against charges that he's intentionally stocking the Mets with Hispanic players. I find that as silly as the charges that Ricciardi's desire for players with high OBAs was a way to make the Blue Jays a whiter team. Joining in the defense of Omar are Bob Raissman of the Daily News and Bob Sikes of Getting Paid to Watch. Sikes has this insight: And to be sure, Minaya's style marks a departure from past regimes. The Mets are no longer an organization that fears the four dailies and WFAN. They embrace it. Where once Al Harazin snuck off to write a press release concerening Doc Gooden's shoulder instead of letting Horwitz do it, Minaya is on one the most listened to sports talk show to put a story to rest. Minaya uses his background to help recruit talented Hispanic ballplayers. It doesn't always work, as the free-agent negotiations with Carlos Delgado showed. But when the best free agents are often Spanish speaking, there's nothing wrong with having a GM that gives you an edge with those players. Omar's brought a lot of talent to New York; if he wins with it, no one will care about the makeup of the team. Posted by StatsGuru at 08:00 AM
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January 25, 2006
Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Second Basemen, Revised
Permalink The tables here correct the tables presented in this post.
Not too much of a difference in order here. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Shortstops and Grounders, Revised
Permalink The tables here correct the tables presented in this post. The minimum is 500 balls in play while in the field.
To comment on a comment I've seen, I'm presenting infielder just on ground balls to show how we classically think of infielders and range; going after ground balls. For example, Jose Reyes ranks better at going after ground balls than he does overall. You also see Furcal doing very well on grounders. If you primarily think of a shortstop as a ground ball vacuum cleaner, this gives one a better picture of that ability. Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Shortstops, Revised
Permalink The tables here correct the tables presented in this post.
Omar Infante and Clint Barmes stay at the top. The person who caused the examination that uncovered the data error, Derek Jeter, does make a nice jump, from 38th to 29th or 31st, depending on which model you prefer. He's still not great, but he's not at the bottom. Fear not, New Yorkers! He's replaced in the last spot by Jose Reyes. Someone hurt by this data change is Bobby Crosby. He looks more average under this model. He appears to have traded places with Rafael Furcal. More updates to come. The Hurt's Afoot!
Permalink The Athletics pick up a big slugger cheap, signing Frank Thomas to a one-year, $500,000 contract: Thomas, a two-time American League MVP who has been slowed by injuries in recent years, can make an additional $2.6 million in bonuses based on plate appearances and not hurting his left foot. He played his first 16 seasons with the Chicago White Sox, who won their first World Series title since 1917 last season. Thomas was deadly last season when he played, launching 12 home runs in just 105 at bats, while drawing 16 walks. He didn't hit much except for the home runs (in was a Rob Deer type season), but at $500,000, it's certainly worth the risk. The upside is that Thomas hits 30 homers with a .360 OBA. The downside is you pull someone out of the minors to be the DH. Data Problem
Permalink I really do read your comments. This one was very helpful:
This made me think to actually look at the plays on which Jeter scored poorly and Jeter scored well. I paid my $10 to MLB so I can look at their condensed games and looked at a high probability play that Jeter didn't turn. Lo and behold, Jeter made the play! It turns out the database field I was using wasn't set properly on some fielder's choices. Baseball Info Solutions promptly gave me a fix. I need to rebuild the models for fielders, although this should not effect the team model from previous posts. Also, as some in the comments to the second basemen pointed out, the actual outs for second basemen differs between the two models. I've only done a preliminary look at that, and I don't know why yet. However, when I rebuild the model I'll make sure that gets fixed as well. So for the moment, ignore the shortstop and second basemen posts. I'll be revising these. Given the nature of the data error, however, I don't expect to see a big change in the order. Update: I found the problem with the data for the second baseman. I didn't use the smoothed model, just the straight visiting model. When I fix the data, and repost, I'll take care of that. Google Gone
Permalink I've removed Google AdSense from my website due to their agreement to censor searches in China.. Shoulder Problems
Permalink Guillermo Mota's shoulder is now holding up the deal. Although some are reporting he failed his physical with the Indians, Mota's agent puts a different spin on what happened: Katz contended that Mota ''did not flunk his physical." Instead, Katz said, the acquiring club in these instances is ''allowed to have higher standards. It's their right and entitlement. So the rumored deal remains just a rumor. The trade with the Phillies is a go. The two-part trade included the Indians sending left-hander Arthur Rhodes to Philadelphia for outfielder Jason Michaels to replace Crisp. That part of the trade, according to a major league source, has been approved by both teams, but is in limbo awaiting the first part of the transaction to be completed. So why is Mota's shoulder good enough for the Red Sox but not good enough for the Indians? Boston needs this trade more than the Indians do. The leak reinforced that, as Red Sox Nation is very excited about getting Crisp, judging from the comments on this site. That puts the Indians in the driver's seat. The Indians front office appears to want a sound pitcher, not just a healthy one. Cleveland is in a position where making or not making the deal doesn't change the short term prospects of the team. They can walk away from the trade. They're holding out for the deal they want. Good for them.
January 24, 2006
Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Second Basemen
Permalink Update 1/25/2006: I discovered a data error that will likely change the values in these tables. Look for a new post with new data soon. Here are the tables for second basemen in 2005. I'll do the full model in this post, and just ground balls in another.
The Arizona Diamondbacks picked up a defensive gem in Orlando Hudson. Counsell was fine at the position, too, which is why they're comfortable moving him back to shortstop. It will be "Death to ground balls up the middle" in Phoenix next year. I'm impressed again that Rich Aurilia does well. He ranked high on the shortstop list last year. Not so in New York, where Robinson Cano ranks right near the bottom with Derek Jeter. And you can see why the Nationals would rather play Vidro at second than Soriano. Twice In a Life Time
Permalink Same as it ever was in Boston: The Boston Red Sox today announced that Theo Epstein has returned to the club with the title and responsibilities of Executive Vice President/General Manager. President/CEO Larry Lucchino made the announcement. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington, who shared the role of General Manager during much of the time Epstein was away from the club will stay on in key leadership positions within the Baseball Operations Department. Hoyer has been named Assistant General Manager, and Cherington has been named Vice President/Player Personnel. No press conference, no explanations, we don't even know if Theo got the raise he was after. What brought him back? Here's speculation from the Herald: That assumption has apparently been erroneous, however, and there is, according to sources both on and off the ballclub, a less complicated rationale for Epstein’s return. He has now become convinced that the work environment has improved to the point where there is more listening, more cooperation and more of an ability to compromise when there are differences. Sure. And in the end, Lucchino still has the final word, and will do things the way he wants. People don't change that much or that quickly. Thoughts on the Red Sox
Permalink Chad Finn offers his insights on all the latest Red Sox news at Touching all the Bases. This is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if the Theo rehiring was somehow triggered by the completion of the Cincinnati ownership change. Castellini fired O'Brien so quickly he probably made up his mind to let Dan go before he took control of the team. So, while Catellini is hobnobbing with his fellow owners, might he start inquring to John Henry about Theo? After all, these are Castellini's criteria for a new GM: Castellini listed a litany of attributes he wants in a GM: Sounds like Theo to me. It is any wonder the Red Sox issued the message from the plan on the way back from Arizona? Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Shortstops and Grounders
Permalink Update 1/25/2006: I discovered a data error that will likely change the values in these tables. Look for a new post with new data soon. Update 1/25/2006: Corrected number for this post are here. As stated in the previous post, here's the data for shortstops on ground balls only. Data with all balls in play is here.
It's interesting that Neifi Perez moves up quite a bit between the two models. Neifi Perez was the best regular last season, while Jeter is still at the bottom. Line Drive Variation
Permalink Yesterday these charts showed the variations in different types of balls in play over the last four seasons. The increase in line drive outs led many to wonder if there was some change in the scoring that's causing the difference. Baseball Info Solutions sent me this information in regards to my questions on the subject: We did some research on this for another customer, and found the difference was real. There were no changes made to our scoring practices to suggest the difference was as a result of scorer decision. So until we know better, I'm willing to trust the data. However, in presenting tables for fielders, a further breakdown in needed. Since line drives are volitile, we'll also look at tables with only the predominant type of ball in play. That's grounders for infielders, fly balls for outfielders. The shortstop data will be available soon. Expectations Brewing
Permalink Tim Gutowski reports that Milwaukee fans are looking for more than a .500 season from the team this year: Expectations also explain the wave of analysis accompanying the Corey Koskie trade. Doug Melvin acquired the veteran infielder for an unknown minor-league prospect, but fans are treating the trade as if it were a coup along the lines of Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio. Don't get me wrong -- I like the deal, which certainly seems like another solid move by the Brewers bargain-shopping GM. But the acquisition of a platoon starter who hit .249 in his last season is not usually accompanied by this much excitement.
January 23, 2006
Barry Won't Play
Permalink The World Baseball Classic lost one of the biggest stars on the program as Barry Bonds announces he won't play. "After the announcement I received a lot of criticism as well as concern from fans and my family and friends. The obvious objections were about my health and whether or not I would be ready to play. In the end, I decided that I can't take any chances that might jeopardize my season. I'm not surprised by this. In fact, I was surprised he was on the roster in the first place. Of course, there will be speculation that Barry didn't want to face the drug testing. Or that Buck Martinez wanted him to bat second. :-) Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005, Shortstops
Permalink Update 1/25/2006: I discovered a data error that will likely change the values in these tables. Look for a new post with new data soon. Update 1/25/2006: Corrected numbers for this post are here. It's time to start looking at individual players, seeing how the regulars performed in terms of range in 2005. We'll start with the most important defensive position in terms of range, shortstop. For each set of fielders, I'll present two models; the original based on all plays over the last four years, and another based on visiting players over the last four years. Players included were on the field for 1000 balls in play in 2005.
Omar Infante is the poster child for a defensive replacement. He has no offensive value, but can flash the leather. Cristian Guzman, who was near the top of the list last year, fell off in 2005. His ability to catch line drives did not hold up, indicating his good range rating was somewhat lucky. Derek Jeter is back at the bottom of the list after a better showing in 2004. Why the Yankees keep him at that position when there's a better player to his right is beyond me. These numbers also show that the Red Sox will be making a significant defensive upgrade if they end up replacing Renteria with Gonzalez. As always, comments are welcome. Bagwell Bagged
Permalink The Houston Astros filed a claim on Jeff Bagwell's insurance policy: He is disabled at this point, GM Tim Purpura said today of Bagwell's his surgically repaired right shoulder. Bagwell still wants to play. I assume if he makes the team, the claim gets withdrawn. Rocket Letter
Permalink The Texas Rangers made their first pitch to Roger Clemens today: Rangers owner Tom Hicks said Monday that he has drafted a letter on behalf of the club to Clemens' agent, Allan Hendricks, describing the reasons why Arlington would be a good professional home in 2006 for the 43-year-old future Hall of Famer. Hicks said he planned to send the letter Monday. With family issues of importance to Roger, Dallas keeps him somewhat close to home. On top of that, of course, the Rangers can offer him big money as well. Variation in Predicted DER
Permalink A reader named guy left the following comment to this post:
It appears it is that different. Here's how the aggregate for all four seasons break down:
According to this table, balls in play in 2002 and 2004 were relatively easy to field, but were not fielded well. In 2003 and 2005, balls were difficult to field, but defenders picked them just fine. My first guess is to believe it's true, but I want to study the issue more. Update: Here's a more detailed table, broken down by the type of batted ball and season.
Fielders did a really good job of catching line drives in 2005, and there were a lot more than in 2004. Update: An explanation for the increase in line drives is posted here. Swift Axe
Permalink New Reds owner Robert Castellini surprisingly fired Dan O'Brien today. In Castellini's news conference on Friday, he seemed prepared to work with O'Brien: Major-league owners approved the Reds' sale to Castellini last Thursday. In a news conference a day later, he indicated he was impatient with losing and was planning to make changes as he learned more about how the team operates. Whatever he learned about Dan O'Brien in two days, Castellini obviously didn't like it. I wonder if he'll hire DePodesta? DiMaggio For Sale
Permalink If you're a Joe DiMaggio fan, some prime memorabilia will be up for bids in May: The sale also includes DiMaggio's record-breaking 45th consecutive hit baseball from his 56-game streak in 1941 and a set of World Series rings from 1936 to 1996 presented to DiMaggio by the Yankees. Going Home
Permalink Shigetoshi Hasegawa announced his retirement today: "I had some offers from other teams, but have decided to retire," Hasegawa said. "Unless I'm in perfect shape mentally and physically, I wouldn't be able to be an important part of a team." Looking at his statistics, especially opposition batting against the reliever, he sure looks like he could contribute to a team. There are certainly worse pitchers manning major league bullpens right now.
Changing Styles
Permalink There's a good story in the New York Daily News about Tom Glavine changing his style of pitching for success in the 2nd half of 2005: He and Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson talked during bullpen sessions about what to do. Peterson recalled Glavine throwing nasty breaking balls when warming up and then not using them enough in games. "Why don't you use it?" Peterson asked. "He said, 'I don't know, I just never have.'" Crisp New News
Permalink The Boston newspapers are reporting different sets of players involved in the Marte for Crisp trade. The Globe sources say it's a six player swap, with Boston getting a reliever and a catcher, while the Herald reports: Also, the Indians, in an expanded deal, are said to be asking about Red Sox pitching prospect Manny Delcarmen. Both papers agree the trade is at the stage of physical examinations for all involved. Obviously, the deal is still in flux, so stay tuned. Update: Here's the deal from the Cleveland side: If the Indians are satisfied with Mota's physical, they may keep him and send David Riske or Arthur Rhodes to the Phillies. Riske wasn't used much down the stretch, and Rhodes took a leave of absence in August and September due to a serious illness in his family and a sore knee. Rhodes pitched for Phillies GM Pat Gillick in Baltimore and Seattle. Gas Up for the Season
Permalink Gas House Gang is a new blog devoted to the St. Louis Cardinals. In addition to Cardinals news, Jeff Matthews is going to do an historical retrospective on the 1926 team. Stop by and say hello.
January 22, 2006
Pitchers and Luck
Permalink The Probabilistic Model of Range (PMR) allows us to measure the contributions of a defense to the success of a pitcher, and the contribution of a pitcher to the sucess of the defense. We can see which pitchers had defenses turn more outs than expected (lucky pitchers), and see which pitchers were able to induce balls in the play that were easy to field. We'll start with how defense helped or hurt individual pitchers (minimum 300 balls in play in 2005).
Roger Clemens wishes he got that type of support from his offense. In general, it's good to pitch for Houston or Oakland. At the other end of the scale you have Eric Milton. Not only did he give up a ton of home runs, but his defense added to his trouble by not letting more than their share of batted balls go for hits. Mike Mussina was down at the unlucky end. So it wasn't my imagination that every ball put in play against him seemed to find a hole for a hit. Now for a look at how pitchers helped or hurt their defenses: Second to None
Permalink Barry Bonds doesn't want to bat second:
Bonds was sidelined for most of the 2005 season with a knee injury and Alou anticipates having to pull him for a defensive replacement late in games. Bonds was a good leadoff man early in his career. If he's going to be walked every time there are men on base, why not let him set up the other power hitters in the lineup? The idea makes sense to me. Wolff Speaks
Permalink Lewis Wolff sits down with the San Francisco Chronicles to discuss the Athletics' quest for a new stadium. Here's his clever idea for building a ballpark: What cities do have, especially in the area of growth, and the Bay Area, good or bad, is growing, whether it's growing right or not is not my decision totally, they have zoning rights. We call them entitlements; you're entitled to build 1,000 apartment units.
Improving the Park Model
Permalink One suggestion for improving the model for the Probabilistic Model of Range was to use just visiting players to construct the park model. The reason for this is that an everyday player can skew the values associated with a park. A really good fielder, accounting for the almost half the model, makes everyone else look worse than they are. The same is true of a very poor fielder making everyone else look better. My resistance to this idea was two-fold.
I decided to try to solve the smoothing problem today. I use the orginal park model (the first table in this post) to agument the data when the visiting team numbers are missing or sparse. What I want is the visiting team model to dominate. For a given set of parameters, if the number of ball in play against the visiting team is greater than or equal to the number of balls in play by the home team, then I just use the visiting team model. Other wise, I use a model weighted like this:
Let's say there were 100 balls in play for a particular set of parameters. If 60 of those came against visiting teams, I just use the visiting team model. But if 40 of those came against the visiting team, I weight the model 80% visiting team, 20% overall park model. The following table should be compared to the first table of this post. That's the model used for smoothing.
The first thing that strikes me is that the Yankees move up. I didn't expect that. One reason readers suggested a visiting team model was that fielders with poor range like Jeter and Williams would bring down the average and would end up being rated higher than they should be. Yet the Yankees get better with a model dominated by the opposition! Let me suggest that the original model measured something this model isn't; a player against himself as he ages. So this model is comparing the 2005 Bernie Williams vs. the 2002, 2003 and 2004 Williams. My guess is his range is going down as he ages. The same with Jeter. So instead of pulling the averages down, their younger selfs were pulling the averages up. Even with that, I don't see a big difference between the Models. Does anyone believe that one is really superior to the other? Paid to Watch
Permalink Bob Sikes, assistant trainer for the Mets during their glory years of the 1980s, is now blogging. Stop by Getting Paid to Watch and say hi. Dan Le Batard on Cuba
Permalink Dan Le Batard's Cuban roots help him pen a very emotional article: This is an emotional argument, not a rational one. I usually don't want government interfering in the great escape of sports. I usually think games ought to be a unifying symbol, transcending politics. That's my head talking, unfeeling as a calculator. House Cleaning Tickets
Permalink The Florida Marlins spring training ticket sales are up this year: The Marlins, who have slashed the payroll, will report to spring training without Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca. But the team already has sold 28,247 tickets — through group, mini-plan and season-ticket packages — for games this spring, an increase of nearly 17 percent compared to this time last year, said Rob Rabenecker, general manager of Roger Dean Stadium. The Coco Crispiest Deal
Permalink The Boston Herald reports that the Red Sox and Indians agreed to a deal for outfielder Coco Crisp. The deal, however, is contingent on the Indians finding a replacement for their left fielder: According to baseball sources, the Red Sox and Cleveland Indians have agreed in principle on a deal that will bring outfielder Crisp to the Sox in a multi-player trade. The deal was agreed upon several days ago under the condition that Cleveland be able to acquire another outfielder to replace Crisp, presumably Jason Michaels from the Philadelphia Phillies. It's unknown if Snap, Crackle and Pop are included in the deal. The Herald also notes that the Sox are about to sign Alex Gonzalez (the one from the Marlins) to play shortstop. Red Sox fans who were so excited about getting Andy Marte won't get to see him play, as he and Mota are rumored to be part of the deal for Crisp. Big caveat, this is all from unnamed sources and should be treated with skepticism. Crisp and Gonzalez should improve the Red Sox defense. However, neither is much of an offensive player. I disagree that Crisp should step into the lead off spot. His career OBA is .332, and over the last two seasons he's been in the mid .340s. That's fine for a good glove man, but it's not what you want at the top of the order. The Herald projects the lineup to be: Crisp, cf; Mark Loretta, 2b; David Ortiz, dh; Manny Ramirez, lf; Jason Varitek, c; Trot Nixon, rf; Mike Lowell, 3b; Kevin Youkilis, 1b; Gonzalez, ss. They're probably better off with some combination of Lorretta, Nixon or Youkilis leading off. If this trade is real, it appears the Red Sox are following the White Sox model of improvement through defense and pitching at the cost of some offense.
January 21, 2006
Probabilistic Model of Range, 2005
Permalink A number of readers inquired over the last two months if the Probabilistic Range number for 2005 were going to be published this off-season. I'm happy to say I've acquired the data and I'll be presenting tables this week, on teams, defenses behind pitchers, and individual pitchers. Here's last year's explanation of the model, which I won't repeat here. The idea is to look not just at the balls turned into outs, but how difficult those balls were to turn into outs. Teams or fielders who turn difficult plays into outs do well. Teams or fielders who let easy balls drop for hits (or make errors) do poorly. One of the hotly debated aspects of this model is how parks are included in the model. The biggest criticism is that home players have too much influence on the model. I'm going to present three tables for the teams that show how parks change the data. One will be the model as described in the previous work. One will be the model without parks in the model. The third will be a combination of the two, 50% of each. All models are built on data from four years, 2002-2005.
Unlike 2004, this was a very good defensive year. Seven of the top eight teams in the list made the playoffs or were in contention as late as the last week of the season. Now for the teams with no park adjustment.
You can see the big drop in the Red Sox defense if you don't include the park in the calculation of team range. Lots of balls that would be outs other places hit the wall in Fenway. Without the adjustment, the Red Sox defense looks worse than it is. Here's the smoothed model:
I'm open as always to comments on which of these you think is best, or how any of them might be improved. The best suggestions I've heard, however, involve much more complicated programming. I like this simple model. One thing is very clear, the Yankees, Royals and Reds did not help their pitching staffs in 2005, no matter how you look at the data. A hat tip to Mitchel Lichtman, who used this idea first in UZR, but has gone on to private practice. Roll Royce
Permalink Bad Altitude is living in fear of the Colorado Rockes bringing back Royce Clayton: While Clayton isn't a good enough player to be worth paying the veterans' minimum to ride the bench, what's really scary is the thought that his presence could cause a replay of the Danny Ardoin/J.D. Closser situation from last season. Why are intelligent Cubs fans scared to death of Neifi Perez? Not because he's a completely useless player, although he comes pretty close. They're scared because they know Dusty Baker deeply longs to give Neifi 600 at-bats in the two hole. Clint Hurdle's distaste for Closser's defense didn't really end up hurting Colorado last year because the switch-hitting catcher never really found his batting stroke after a tease in 2004. As far as Colorado's won-loss record was concerned, Ardoin's ascendance to the starter's job most likely had a tiny net positive effect if any. So the only cost to the Rockies really was completely obliterating any chance of J.D. Closser ever becoming a productive player for Colorado. No big deal. Royce does have great hair, however. :-) Benson to Baltimore
Permalink FoxSports.com is reporting that Kris Benson is now an Oriole: The Mets have traded right-hander Kris Benson to the Orioles for reliever Jorge Julio and a prospect, FOXSports.com has learned. Julio gives up a lot of home runs, but Shea might help that. Benson's strikeouts disappeared over time, so I'm not optimistic about his future value. I'm not really sure this trade helps either club. Update: John Maine was included in the deal, going from the Orioles to the Mets. Mariners Party
Permalink The Seattle Mariners will hold their fan fest next weekend. It will a chance to get a look at new catcher Kenji Johjima, and his battery mate Felix Hernandez will be there, too. The last fan standing triva contest sounds like a lot of fun. Will any of the Mariners bloggers be participating? Theo Happy
Permalink Contrary to Dan Shaughnessy's column yesterday, the current management of the Red Sox is happy to be working with Theo again:
"The entire department is very excited," Hoyer said Friday, a day after the team announced that former general manager Theo Epstein will return. "Not only is Theo a great friend, he is a great talent. Having him back only makes us stronger, and our goal is to have the strongest department possible." Using Anaheim
Permalink John Thorn, author of The Hidden Game of Baseball testified on Thursday in the Angels name trial. On Thursday, baseball historian John Thorn testified that Anaheim has disappeared "about 99.9 percent of the time" from public reports on the team. He said such Web sites as Yahoo Sports and ESPN.com use "Los Angeles" or "Los Angeles Angels" when reporting scores. It seems to me that Todd Theodora did not make a very compelling counter argument. I'm disappointed that on one's brought up LAnaheim yet. Rearmed
Permalink John Smoltz is recovering quickly from his late-season shoulder inflammation. He now wishes he hadn't pulled out of the World Baseball Classic so soon: Smoltz was wary about pushing his arm too hard this spring, so he pulled out of the World Baseball Classic earlier this month. Now he says he feels so good that if he had waited he might have made a different decision. Pitching Runs Created
Permalink David Gassko has a new way of looking at runs allowed by pitchers call Pitching Runs Created. The method eliminates the need for marginal runs in comparing the worth of batters and pitchers.
January 20, 2006
Castellini Wants to Win
Permalink I'm listening to Robert Castellini, and he just said, "We're buying the Reds to win." He says they will be making changes to the structure of the front office, but it's structural, not personnel (yet). He's also talking about spending the buget better, using Cleveland, the White Sox and Astros as examples. Correction: Robert Castellini is the Reds owner, not Ned Colletti. Cuba to Play
Permalink The U.S. Treasury Department issued Cuba a license to play in the World Baseball Classic today: "Working closely with World Baseball Inc. and the State Department, we were able to reach a licensable agreement that upholds both the legal scope and the spirit of the sanctions," Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said. So basically, once MLB figured out there were laws that needed to be followed, they got the license. Maybe reading the law in the first place could have avoided the whole mess. I wonder now, how the Cubans will do? Puerto Rico is their only real competition in the first round, but in round two they'll likely face both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. I'll bet they don't survive that challenge. Reds Conference
Permalink MLB Radio will carry Robert Castellini's news conference as he takes control of the Reds at 4 PM EST. Find the Center
Permalink Humbug Journal finds the geographic center of MLB, the leagues, divisions and rivals. The best one: Mets/Yankees: On Rikers Island. Sad Story
Permalink An 83-year-old man passed away on Jan. 2, 2006. He lived alone in a house full of trash. But he had a sports card collection worth $1 million dollars: Police were called to guard the condemned home of a reclusive man whose death led to the discovery of a valuable collection of vintage sports cards. The collection, stored in 400 to 500 boxes in John F. Hessian's home in Boston's Roslindale section, included cards of such long-ago baseball stars as Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente. I wonder if he ever realized what he possessed? The collection was under bags of trash: "This is like Fort Knox inside," said Michael Wiseman of Aftermath Cleaning Co., which was hired to tear through piles of trash 6-feet high to reach the cards. The Theo Views
Permalink Dan Shaughnessey is not kind to Theo Epstein in his analysis of the comeback: Unfortunately, there wasn't much honor or glory in Theo's comportment after he left Fenway in that gorilla suit Oct. 31. Rather, he undermined the credibility of the entire Boston front office by straddling the fence regarding his place in the organization. He repeatedly refused offers to return, but would not rule out coming back. He revealed himself to be every bit the cutthroat politician Lucchino is. He's been at best, immature and at worst, duplicitous. Tony Massarotti in the Boston Herald (in my opinion, the definitive voice on this story from the beginning) also sees the downside for Theo: On the surface, it would be easy to celebrate Epstein’s return as a glorious reconciliation, but it would be foolish to do so. We already know too much. When Epstein walked away from the Red Sox on Oct. 31, his departure was looked upon nobly. In part because Lucchino diddled around during contract negotiations, Epstein thumbed his nose at the Sox and walked out the door. He had his whole life in front of him. Who needed the Red Sox? Now, Epstein is returning, and we cannot help but wonder: Why? Epstein is young and smart, and he (along with Lucchino and Henry) built the Red Sox into champions generally by making shrewd decisions. The Red Sox played the percentages during their run to the world title, yet it certainly seems now — for Epstein, in particular — the chances of failure are much greater than chances of success. The Red Sox keep turning into the Yankees. This is the Billy Martin saga in the front office. Here's Shaughnessy on John Henry (emphasis added): Henry and Lucchino were in Phoenix yesterday at the owners' meetings. I spoke with Henry late in the afternoon before he boarded a jet to fly home to Boston. I told him the same thing I had told him in December. I thought it looked as if he could not make a decision. I thought he should either fire Lucchino or tell Epstein to get lost. Nobody was going to buy the idea of Theo walking back into the same situation he walked away from in October. Why was Theo still hanging around, talking to co-GMs Ben Cherington and Jed Hoyer? Why was the light still on if there was so much friction between Epstein and Lucchino? Steinbrenner and Martin. I hate you you're fired. I love you come back. Boston's front office is a soap opera. New York's front office is the calmest and quietest I've seen it since George took over. Who'd have thunk it? Young Padre
Permalink I don't understand why the San Diego Padres picked up Walter Young from the waiver wire. Young, a big, heavy, power hitting first baseman is ill suited to the Padres. His strength, hitting for power, would be mitigated by PETCO Park. His weaknesses, speed and defense, are what the Padres need in their low-run environment. Of all the teams that could benefit from Young, San Diego would be near the bottom of the list. Tejada Talks
Permalink Mike Flanagan and Jim Duquette met with Miguel Tejada as part of a trip to the Dominican Republic. Flanagan made it clear that Miguel is going to start for the Orioles: It was Flanagan's first trip to the Dominican as an Orioles official. And it was the first time Duquette had met Tejada. Most important, though, the trip seemingly closed this chapter of the Tejada saga - if not the book altogether. Stadium Test Drive
Permalink The St. Louis Cardinals will test out the new Busch Stadium with an exhibition game between their AAA and AA affiliates: Cardinals president Mark Lamping said in a statement the game "will serve as a dress rehearsal for everyone - the stadium operations staff, concessionaires, vendors, ushers, grounds crew, broadcasters, umpires, news media and even our fans." If you don't have opening day tickets, here's your chance to be one of the first fans in the stadium.
January 19, 2006
The Return of the Rolling Roof
Permalink It looks like the rolling roof is in the plans for improvements to the Truman Sports Complex. A roof at the Truman Sports Complex has been revived thanks to an 11th-hour curveball from some Jackson County legislators. Of course, taxing out-of-state companies might cause them to take their business elsewhere. New Citizen
Permalink Ozzie Guillen is about to take the citizenship oath: Ozzie Guillen, the Venezuelan-born manager of the World Series champion Chicago White Sox, will celebrate his 42nd birthday Friday by becoming a U.S. citizen. Congratulations to Ozzie, and welcome to the club! If You Win, They Will Come
Permalink The White Sox are setting a record for season ticket sales: Team officials say the season-ticket holder base will exceed 20,000 this year for the first time in franchise history, and although full- and partial-season tickets are still being sold, they will not include the right to buy post-season game seats at U.S. Cellular Field. Theo Returns!
Permalink The Boston Herald reports that Theo Epstein is rejoining the Red Sox as a full time employee. Epstein, the ballclub’s former general manager who escaped the zoo that was Fenway Park on Halloween by donning his now-famous costume and strolling across Yawkey Way, last night issued a joint statement along with Red Sox principal owner John Henry, team chairman Tom Werner and club president/CEO Larry Lucchino announcing that he was rejoining the Red Sox. So is he going to be somewhere between Lucchino and the co-GM's? Will he get a seven-figure salary? Are the differences smoothed over? Join us next week for another episode of As the Sox Turn. :-) New Owners in Cincinnati
Permalink It's official, Robert Castellini is the new owner of the Cincinnati Reds. We'll learn more tomorrow: Castellini chose not to discuss his acquisition of the team on Thursday. He saved his comments for a news conference at Great American Ballpark on Friday. More on Hialeah
Permalink Yesterday there was a rumor about the Marlins possibly moving to Hialeah City. The two parties are indeed talking, but everything is very preliminary. Reds Tag Sale
Permalink MLB owners are set to approve the sale of the Cincinnati Reds to Robert Castellini today. Hal McCoy at the Dayton Daily News offers background. Home Town Discount
Permalink There's an interesting story in the Boston Globe concerning Bronson Arroyo: Bronson Arroyo, in an apparent show of allegiance to the Red Sox, is extremely close to overriding the advice of his agent, Gregg Clifton, and agreeing to a three-year contract that will pay him between $11.5 million and $12.5 million, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the negotiations. Reports are that Arroyo is not getting a no-trade clause in his contract. Does he have a verbal agreement that he won't be traded? He's making himself cost effective; is that enough to keep him in town? Update: It's a done deal. Blue Jay Dollars
Permalink Richard Griffin looks at the Blue Jays payroll and sees Toronto is still underbudget. His advice to the Jays: It's a manageable conundrum, but here's some advice for Mr. Rogers. Instead of signing another catcher to get to $75 million, the Jays might be better served to save the cash and spend it in July if they're in the wild-card hunt. It's also possible that if the Blue Jays are in the pennant race come July, attendance and revenue will be up. And that may allow them to spend money at the deadline, even if they sign Bengie Molina now.
January 18, 2006
Marlins Move?
Permalink Fishstripes heard a rumor about the City of Hialeah coming up with the money to build a stadium for the Marlins. I find nothing on Google News. Did anyone else hear this? When my sister was born, my mother wanted to give her a name that didn't lend itself to a silly nickname. She named her Leah. When she brought her home from the hospital, she put her in a cradle in the living room. My two cousins and I gathered around the cradle, waved and chanted, "Hiya Leah, Hiya Leah, Hiya Leah!" One of my parent's best friends, who likes to play the ponies says, "Hiya Leah, how are things at the race track?" whenever he sees her. Needless to say my mother failed in her quest. Charting Pitches
Permalink David Appleman at The Hardball Times puts Baseball Info Solutions pitch charting to good use. He creates graphs telling us where balls are put into play for hits, and compares Albert Pujols' plate coverage to Corey Patterson. Let's hope he publishes these for every MLB player. Update: It's interesting to note that batters have better luck on pitches above the strikezone than with pitches to the left or the right. That makes me think that the old strike zone was indeed the correct strike zone, and batters shouldn't complain about the high strike. It's a hittable pitch. Knowning the Numbers
Permalink Here's a list of the numbers the Padres will be wearing in 2006, and how the new players got those designations. Royals' Prospects
Permalink When you have too many third basemen, it's time to switch positions: Of the Royals’ two top prospects, only one will be at major-league camp next month in Surprise, Ariz. And of course, young Mark Teahen is the current third baseman on the team. Again, having too many good third basemen is a much better problem than having too many first basemen. You can move these players to the outfield or first base (or even second if they're good fielders), or trade them for what you need. Correction: Fixed spelling of Teahen. Bud's Family
Permalink A Large Regular finds a reason to hold the owners meeting is in Arizona. Too Much Baseball?
Permalink Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com raises some valid concerns about the length of the baseball season: The commissioner wants it all — inter-league play and an unbalanced schedule, the WBC in March, an expanded postseason in October, all crammed into one overstuffed, eight-month package. Never mind the scheduling inequities or increased risk of injuries. At Bud's Diner, the buffet never ends. There's no way the season is going to get any shorter. There is, of course, another way to reduce stress on players; expand the roster. I don't know when the roster was set in stone at 25 players, but I believe it's now too small. Teams keep growing their pitching staffs, reducing flexibility when it comes to position players. No one carries three catchers anymore. People like Rusty Staub, who stayed on teams as professional pinch hitters no longer exist in the NL (they go to the AL as DHs). Position players need to stay on the field more, because there are less players to replace them. Wouldn't it be great if the Reds could carry a defensive centerfielder to replace Griffey in blowouts? Mike Piazza could stay with the Mets as the top right-handed bat off the bench. Here's an idea. People would like to see the DH go the way of the Dodo. One reason it hasn't is that DH is a high paying job, and the union doesn't want to see 14 high paying jobs disappear. Why not trade the DH for one or two more roster spots? Tigerfest
Permalink The Detroit Tigers are holding their annual Tigerfest this weekend, and the big names will be there: But there seems to be a new commitment to both TigerFest and the caravan. Plus there's an interesting idea the Tigers are incorporating into the tour to give it a new twist. Added together, the combined events have a chance to make a better impression than in the past.
Ryan on Belle
Permalink Bob Ryan expands on Teddy Greenstein's column from the other day on why few voted for Albert Belle for the Hall of Fame. ''He just liked to bully people," maintains Ocker, who says he was happy to vote for Rice. ''He wanted to scare people, just for sport. And he got about 10 percent worse every year. In the end, he only had two teammates who'd talk to him. But Kenny Lofton gave up on him and began blasting him to the press. And Wayne Kirby gave up about halfway through his last season." It's interesting that a couple of the writers quoted said they didn't vote for him because of the length of his career, which is a perfectly good reason not to vote for Albert. Albert, however, made it easy for writers to find the negatives in his career. Nationals Mediator
Permalink They've selected a mediator to try to seal the stadium deal between MLB and the Washington, D.C. government. Mayor Williams must be overjoyed with the pick: Former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer, a longtime political ally of D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams's, was selected yesterday to mediate a dispute between the District government and Major League Baseball over the stalled agreement to build a new stadium. Archer sports an impressive resume: Archer, who served eight years as an associate justice on the Michigan Supreme Court, has a long, distinguished résumé. He is chairman of Dickinson Wright, a Detroit-based law firm. He's only a mediator, however. He'll use whatever skills it takes to move the sides to an agreement, but if MLB believes it's case will sway an arbitrator, they may not budge. Again, I wonder how much the owners will push Selig to get a deal so they can get their money back. And if the whole thing falls apart, what's next? A move to another city? I understand MLB wants a deal in place that makes the Washington franchise as viable as possible. Unfortunately, they want the city to make sure that happens. Why not agree that the new owner will cover cost overruns for the stadium, and take $100 million off the purchase price? The clubs still get a good return on their investment, and the new owner has an economic reason to work against toward keeping the stadium on budget. Seems everyone wins in that scenario. Heads Put Heads Together
Permalink The Arizona Republic posts the agenda of the owner's meeting starting in Scottsdale. In addition to hearing about the classic, owners will get a detailed briefing on the Western operations center that opened in Phoenix last summer. The office works with teams in the western divisions of both the National and American leagues as well as the Cactus League, and it houses the West Coast operations of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which, among other things, runs baseball's Internet site, MLB.com. I wonder if the owners are going to be asking "Where is my money?" when Washington is discussed. It seems to me some clubs are already committed to using the money they'll get from the sale of that team. Will someone ask Selig why the team can't be sold to someone who is willing to absorb cost overruns on a stadium? Diamondbacks Done
Permalink The Diamondbacks agreed with their last two arbitration eligible players, taking them out of the hearings for this year. The signings push the Diamondbacks' projected payroll a little over $60 million. A-Rod With the US
Permalink As it turns out, this report was a sketchy. Alex Rodriguez now says he will play for the United States in the World Baseball Classic. Can he beat out Chipper Jones for the spot at third base? At some point, will he be put on the roster of all 16 teams? You can view all the rosters here. It looks like the Netherlands can use a third baseman (and everyone else, for that matter). Giles vs. Teixeira
Permalink Talking Baseball looks at the difference in salary between Marcus Giles and Mark Teixeira and concludes Giles is underpaid. Ben blames the agents.
January 17, 2006
Finishing the Beane
Permalink Part three of Athletics Nation's interview with Billy Beane is up. Gillick Still Looking to Phill Spots
Permalink Pat Gillick discusses where he'd like to improve the Phillies: The biggest questions surround the starting rotation. Gillick has tried to get a No. 1 or No. 2 starter since his arrival in Philadelphia, but hasn't been able to finalize a deal. The Phillies reportedly offered Bobby Abreu to several teams, though they may have overvalued the All-Star right fielder. Schneider Signs
Permalink Brian Schneider of the Washington Nationals sealed a deal today to keep him in town for another four seasons. He'll get 16 million over the life of the contract. Schneider led NL catchers by throwing out 38 percent of would-be base stealers last season; he topped the majors in that category the previous two seasons. He's a solid defensive catcher. It's a good deal for both parties. Marquis Salary
Permalink Jason Marquis gets a nice raise and the Cardinals take their only arbitration case off the table. Pitcher Jason Marquis and the St. Louis Cardinals agreed Tuesday to a $5.15 million, one-year contract, a raise of $2.1 million. A-Rod a Dominican?
Permalink According to this report,Alex Rodriguez is on the Dominican roster for the World Baseball Classic. What's not clear from the report is if Rodriguez agreed to be put on the roster or if the Dominican team placed him there in case Alex changes his mind. Up until this point, Rodriguez has made it clear he isn't going to play in the tournament. With the way the story changes on Alex, t some point, I expect him to show up on the Chinese team. :-) New Lahman Version
Permalink I had almost given up hope that the Lahman database would be updated, but the new version is now available for download. A big thanks to Sean Lahman for putting this together every year. Mark Makes his Marks
Permalink The Texas Rangers recognized Mark Teixeira's MVP type season, awarding him a two year contract worth over $15 million. He'll still have a chance to go to arbitration at the start of 2008. This contract confirms my belief that Marcus Giles is underpaid. Teixeira put up better numbers in 2005, but is he really worth twice as much? Rolen on the Mend
Permalink Scott Rolen is working his way back from shoulder surgery. "Huge difference - there is no doubt - from where I finished playing to where I am right now," Rolen said Monday at the Winter Warm-Up, his first public appearance since October. "When I was playing at the end of (my) season, I'd take a swing and it felt like my whole shoulder capsule was bouncing around in there. And now, the tightness ... that's a good feeling to me. Hardy Shortstop
Permalink Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts is very high on Milwaukee shortstop J.J. Hardy. Longer term, Hardy profiles a bit like Chris Speier. He has a similar body type with medium speed, a good knowledge of the strike zone, and above-average power for a SS. Speier had better range than what Hardy showed in his rookie year, but the former was eventually hampered by a bad back despite enjoying a 19-year career in the majors. For what it's worth, the former Giant was one of the best players in the league during his second season. Now all we need is to find second basemen named Laurel and Hope. :-) Awards Dinner
Permalink The baseball writers gave out the National League hardware last night, with St. Louis figuring prominently with both the MVP and the Cy Young. Jim Edmonds had the best quote after being presented with the Gold Glove: "I don't know if I'm supposed to thank Tony for yelling at me to back up," Edmonds said, "or thank our pitchers for getting the ball up in the zone and keeping me in the highlights." Why He's the Captain
Permalink I love this quote from Jason Varitek on the changes in the Red Sox roster (emphasis added): “It’s tough to swallow when you win a championship with people,” he said. “It’s tough because you learn how to win with certain people, and you get to know them over time as you play with them. I’m going to miss those guys a tremendous amount because a lot of them were irreplaceable in my mind. But we have new people now, and I’m going to spend a lot of time getting to know them and understand what those new people have to offer and how to properly draw the best out of them.” It's the perfect combination of positive attitude, team spirit and leadership. Perez Gets His Million
Permalink Oliver Perez signed with the Pirates yesterday, a one-year, $1.9 million contract. It's too bad his poor English led him to have a sub-par 2005; he could be getting Dontrelle Willis money. World Baseball Classic Roster
Permalink The preliminary US Roster was named yesterday. With Barry Bonds on the list, the Arizona Republic notes the drug testing provision: As part of their commitment to play, all 42 big leaguers agreed to submit to Olympic-style drug testing, including pre-competition screening. The problem is, positive tests will only keep a player off the final roster: Major leaguers wouldn't face professional penalties if caught. An agreement with the players union prevents their names from being released.. So does MLB get to test the player officially if he comes back positive for the WBC? If someone test positive and MLB doesn't start scrutinizing that player, there's something wrong with the system. Looking at the roster, even the second string team should be very good. The outfield is interesting. You can have the slow but powerful outfield (Bonds, Griffey, Berkman), but my guess is a lot of ball would be falling between the fielders. Do you start Crawford for his defense, or just let those three bomb the competition? Marcus' Deal
Permalink The Braves signed Marcus Giles to a one-year contract, avoiding arbitration. He'll get 3.85 million for the year. That money seems low to me. Giles is a good offensive player and a five year veteran (a little over 4 years of service time). He's one of the top players in the league at his position. Somehow, I think his agent could have gotten more out of the arbitration process.
January 16, 2006
Dontrelle Gets a Raise
Permalink Dontrelle Willis signed a one-year deal today, avoiding salary arbitration: The Marlins and pitcher Dontrelle Willis have avoided arbitration, agreeing to a one-year contract that will pay the left-hander $4.35 million in 2006. It's a victory for agent Matt Sosnick, the subject of License to Deal. His players tend to leave when it's time to negotiate a big contract. It's disappointing that the Marlins only gave Willis a one-year deal. It's my opinion that Florida fans would feel better about the fire sale if they knew the Marlins were committed to Dontrelle and Cabrera for a few years. Ground and Air Averages
Permalink A little over a week ago this site looked at who was responsible for getting ground balls. A reader wondered if we could plug batting stats into this method, so here it is. Let me remind you of the methodology:
Let's start with batting average. First here are the overall averages for the quartiles:
Remember, this study is looking at regulars on both sides of the ball, therefore we expect these groups to be better than average, hence the differences in batting average between batters and pitchers. Next, I pitted each pitcher quartile vs. each batter quartile. The 1-1 cell are pits pitchers and batters who tend to get lots of balls in the air vs. each other, while the 4-4 cell are pitchers and batters who keep the ball on the ground:
It looks like quartile two hitters (slightly fewer ground balls), are the best for generating hits, while the quartile 1 pitchers (fewer ground balls) are best for preventing hits. Maybe these type 2 hitters represent a more versatile group, one that can adjust to the type of pitcher on the mound. Now let's take a look at slugging percentage. First the average for the quartiles:
Here, slugging percentage appears to have a lot more to do with the tendancies of the batter than the pitcher. Now let's look at quartile vs. quartile:
Again, slugging averages go down as you go from low grounder to high grounder batters. What's really fascinating is pitching quartile 3, which has the highest slugging percentages of all the pitchers in three of the four batting groups. Why is this? It might be that this group are the ground ball pitchers who make mistakes. Bruce Hurst comes to mind. If he hung a pitch, it just got hammered. Pitching quartiles 1 & 2 are successful with balls in the air. Pitchers in quartile 4 don't hang pitches. But quartile three is where you find pitchers who make mistakes. I'll have to figure out what pitchers are in each quartile and see if that idea holds up. Correction: Fixed the caption on the last table. The Ray Lankford Wing
Permalink Beyond the Boxscore uses Jay Jaffe's JAWS system to create a Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame. These are players who had fine careers but just haven't qualified for the Hall of Fame. Nice to see Mickey Tettleton listed among the catchers. Batting Luck
Permalink Jeff at Brew Crew Ball looks at the luckiest hitters by batting average on balls in play and finds that luck does not hold up from year to year. The Reds and the Redbirds
Permalink The new owners set to take over the Cincinnati Reds have ties to the St. Louis Cardinals organization. Brian at Redleg Nation starts a four part series on how ties to St. Louis helped Cincinnati win in the past. Three former Reds owner’s names mentioned, a brief flash that touches the memory of the best times in the long history of baseball in Cincinnati, great column filler for the local writers, rehashing the Crosley era and the Big Red Machine never gets old in Cincinnati. The Williams Brothers’ father and uncle both owned a piece of the Reds in the Big Red Machine era and Bill DeWitt Jr. the current Cardinals owner is a Cincinnati resident and got his start in baseball when his father owned the Reds in the early 60’s. Since the DeWitt group purchased the Cardinals in 1996, they have had the second best winning percentage in the National League. The Reds on the other hand in that time frame ranked 11th. Wrigley Renovations
Permalink Cubs executives spoke publicly yesterday about the blecher renovations at Wrigley Field: McGuire said 253 stadium seats with backs on them will be built in the far right-field bleachers and sold on a reserved basis as "bleacher box seats." McGuire said the seats are targeted toward "aging Baby Boomers who want the bleacher experience but can't handle the bench seats, or maybe some of the language they might hear." Like the premium "dugout box seats" behind home plate and the "bullpen boxes" between the visitors' dugout and bullpen, the new "bleacher boxes" will be sold separately from the individual seats, which go on sale Feb. 24. No date was given, but Maloney said it's expected to be sometime in March. No price was given, but they're expected to cost significantly more than a regular bleacher ticket. I guess the fans buying these seats will be known as the "bleacher swells." A Pair of Pirates
Permalink Josh Sharlpess is a local son trying to make good with the home town team: Sharpless, a strapping right-hander at 6-foot-5, 230 pounds, was no token local-boy pick by the Pirates when they selected him on the 24th round in the 2003 amateur draft. And even if he was, he certainly hasn't pitched like it -- going a combined 4-0 with a 0.74 earned-run-average and five saves in 24 appearances between Class A Lynchburg and Class AA Altoona last season. His minor league strikeout and hit numbers are incredibly good, and he finally got his walks under control last year before his injury. If Sharpless can sharpen his control, I suspect he'll be a very good closer for the Pirates. Meanwhile, Oliver Perez is claiming that part of his problem last year stemmed from a lack of English skills: Following a 2004 season in which Perez went 12-10 with a 2.98 ERA in 30 starts and led the major leagues with 10.97 strikeouts per nine innings as he fanned 239 in 196 innings, the Pirates told Perez to rest during the winter rather than pitch winter ball in Mexico. This year he's pitched winter ball and worked out, adding muscle. I've heard winter ball stories like this before. Has anyone seen a study of the relation to pitching winter ball to success in the majors? Venting at Belle
Permalink Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune reminds us of Albert Belle's shortcomings: So why do I still believe that Albert Belle got way more Hall of Fame support than he deserved? Oh, yeah. Because I covered him in 1998 when he played for the White Sox. With 40 votes in his first year, I don't think there's much of a chance to Albert getting in any time soon. Call Him Curly
Permalink Sidney Ponson is sporting a new hairdo: Sidney Ponson has a new look to go with his fresh start: a full head of hair. The right-hander, who signed a free-agent deal with the St. Louis Cardinals last month, showed up at the team's Winter Warmup on Sunday with dark brown, curly locks. In the past he shaved his head. He also says he's stopped drinking: Ponson said he hasn't had any alcohol since the arrest. He spent time in rehab, and is regularly seeing a counselor in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who specializes in dealing with addictions. This begs the question; how much was his performance in Baltimore a result of drinking too much, and how much was it Ponson just not being very good? I'm glad for Sidney that he's sober, but it's too bad the Orioles had to suffer for it. Paying the Astros
Permalink Lisa Gray calculates the money flowing from the Houston organization to its players and finds that even without an insurance payment on Bagwell, the Astros are right in line with 2005.
January 15, 2006
The Price of Stats
Permalink CBC Distribution and Marketing is taking legal action to free them from needing a license to use baseball players statistics to run their fantasy games. CBC, which has run the CDM Fantasy Sports leagues since 1992, sued baseball last year after it took over the rights to the statistics and profiles from the Major League Baseball Players Association and declined to grant the company a new license. When MLBAM took over the licenses from the MLBPA, I wrote the following:
It's my opinion that MLBAM should have kept the fees low and encouraged more fantasy games. Fantasy games are a growth industry; they create fans for major league baseball, and those fans spend money in the MLB.com store, attend MLB games and watch the advertising during broadcasts that keeps the teams running. They should be encouraging the growth of the industry with low license fees. If a court finds that the MLBAM has no right to license the stats, they'll end up with nothing. So now MLBAM faces a dilemma. Precedent is on the side of CBC (see the previous link). If CBC wins, MLB gets nothing and loses total control of how players names are used in conjuction with their stats. At this point, MLBAM may be better off giving CBC a sweet deal rather that taking the chance of losing in court. But that's what happens when you get greedy. The Return of Baseball Widow
Permalink Baseball Widow acquired internet access again will be back blogging soon. Paise for Tracy
Permalink Jim Tracy gets rave reviews from the Pirates attending the team's mini-camp. The new manager runs things very differently than Lloyd McClendon and the players like it. Here's Zach Duke: "(This staff is) making sure that the personal relationships are established," Duke said on a special edition of "The Tim Benz Show." "When I came to the Pirates last year, it kind of felt like I didn't want to step on any toes or ruffle any feathers. Here, it's an open door policy and it really feels that way. Ryan Vogelsong had this to say: "It was great," pitcher Ryan Vogelsong said of mini-camp. "It was more structured than in the past. There was more detail. The workouts were definitely a little more intense than normal. And John Grabow: "Not to rag too much on the last manager, but in the past, if something was wrong, you didn't necessarily find out about it right away. With these guys, you hear about it immediately. It's like they instantly detect something that's wrong and let you know how to go about fixing it. We'll see if this leads to better results on the field. Shapiro on the Red Sox
Permalink Cleveland's Mark Shapiro on the Boston Red Sox: "Boston is positioned extremely well for the future," Shapiro said. "They have a good farm system with upper-level players and a depth of pitching talent. They've rebuilt the farm system from a dilapidated system to a productive one. If they take a small step backward this year, at some point they will go on a run that will be an impressive run. They're a short period away." Wagner, a Life
Permalink Billy Wagner's tough childhood is detailed in the Daily News. Billy Wagner is 34, and has lived a lot of life. He dealt with hunger and shame and abandonment as a kid, and cold-blooded murder as a young adult. And people wonder if he can handle the heat of playing in the big city.
Royals Caravan
Permalink A Kansas City Star reporter travels with the Royals caravan through the state of Kansas. On the trip, he hears some good stories and finds a lot of support for the team in the heartland: It’s a nice night and a good meal, and everyone seems to feel good. There is a lot of laughter. There’s something about the Royals caravan that makes you feel good. Sure, the Royals are a city team, with talk radio and Internet chatboards and all that. No Change
Permalink Theo Epstein is hanging on in his valiant effort to stay unemployed by the Red Sox. Figgin's Payday
Permalink Chone Figgins saw his versatility pay off as the LAnaheim Angels signed the multi-position player through his arbitration years. Figgins will earn 10.5 million over the three years of the contract. It's a good deal for the Angels, given Chone's production the last two years. Figgins, about to turn 28 next week, is in his prime. This move insulates the Angels from any big salary run ups over the next couple of years. By the time the contract is up, Figgins will likely by starting to decline, and a big free agent contract at that point can be another team's risk. Cactus League Baseball
Permalink There's a new web site, Cactus League, that's designed to help you plan a trip to Arizona for spring training. There's a trip planner that allows you to select dates and teams and see what games are scheduled for that time period. Correction: Fixed a spelling error. Trading for a Blue Box
Permalink The Dodgers and Devil Rays swapped a pair of pitchers yesterday. The trade to me looks like Danys Baez for Chuck Tiffany. Baez gives the Dodgers a good closer until Gagne returns. Tiffany is about to turn 21, and he's blowing people away in the minor leagues, averaging over 10 strikeouts per 9 innings. He does have a problem keeping the ball in the park, however. The other two pitchers involved in the trade are less impressive, with Lance Cater going to the Dodgers and Edwin Jackson joining the Devil Rays. I'm guessing this part of the deal was a salary dump by Tampa Bay. The Dodgers strengthen their bullpen, and the Devil Rays get a hot prospect. On the Tampa side, this trade will be measured in years.
January 14, 2006
Strat-o-Matic
Permalink The New York Times posts an article on Strat-o-Matic baseball as the world championships of the game get underway in Las Vegas. Dustin' Dusty
Permalink Chris DeLuca of the Chicago Sun-Times takes Dusty Baker to task for the failure of Corey Patterson to develop as a ball player. With each boo fired at Patterson last season, it was tough not to wonder how Baker was going to rescue a player he had compared to a Hall of Famer just months before. Keep in mind, before starting his managerial career with the Giants in 1993, Baker was a respected hitting coach. Why couldn't he get through to Patterson? The answer to all these questions depend on how well Patterson does with the Orioles. Arbitration Time
Permalink The Boston Globe provides a list of players who filed for arbitration. Kudos to the Dodgers, Padres and Giants for avoiding arbitration altogether. Webb's Deal
Permalink Brandon Webb gets $19.5 million over the four years of his contract, and can earn another $8.5 million in 2010 if the Diamondbacks exersice their option. I didn't realize that Webb was already locked up though 2007: Webb had two years remaining on his previous extension worth $2.5 million in 2006 and between $3.3 million and $4.8 million in 2007, depending on innings pitched. It's good to see the Diamondbacks recognizing talent and taking care of that talent early. That's the sort of thing that earns a home town discount when the players become free agents. Hill and Dale
Permalink There's a good discussion going on in the comments of this post on Dale Murphy's credentials to be in the hall of fame. One of the points of contention is Murphy's ranking during his career peak, 1980 through 1987. One view is that Mike Schmidt was the only player better during that time (NL). Others counter that there were many better players during those years. From looking at the numbers, there were a few players who were better than Murphy during that time. From 1980 to 1987, Dale Murphy ranked 20th in the majors in on-base average among players with 2000 plate appearances. His .374 mark is very good, but it's not outstanding. During the same period, he ranked sixth in slugging percentage. Of the five players ahead of him, four also had better OBAs. That's a good handful of players who were better than Murph during his prime. Now we'll level the playing field by looking at road games only, 1500 plate appearances. Murphy drops to 10th in slugging percentage. His OBA drops to .355 which pales in comparision to Guerrero, Schmidt, Mattingly, Murray, Brett and Jack Clark. Pedro Guerrero was easily the best hitter of the era. If you look at OBA on the road in that time, Murphy drops to 28, sandwiched between Hall of Famers Yount and Winfield, each of whom had much longer careers. There were a number of players who were better hitters than Dale Murphy, especially when you consider park effects.
January 13, 2006
Youngster Gone
Permalink This is really poor. Not only did the Orioles sign Millar when they already have Conine, they're getting rid of the young lefty slugger who might compliment either player. To make room for newly signed first baseman-outfielder Kevin Millar on the 40-man roster, the Orioles designated first baseman Walter Young for assignment Friday, a club spokesman said. Tampa Bay should pick him up cheap and use him as a DH. I bet he'd hit a ton in that ballpark. Webb Slinger
Permalink To follow up the report on Brandon Webb signing a contract extension, we don't know the money, but it's a four year deal with a team option for the fifth year. That will prevent the Diamondbacks from taking Webb to arbitration and may even keep Brandon off the free agent market for a year. I like the deal, as Webb's posted three good ERAs in a tough ballpark. He's amazingly good at home over his career. I wonder what kind of money they're paying him? Dale Murphy and the Hall of Fame
Permalink Baseball Widow writes (she says she'll be blogging again soon) to point out a number of good articles about Dale Murphy at Braves Journal. The consensus opinion there is that Murphy's peak makes him Hall of Fame material, but his longevity does not. That argument hits the nail on the head. Both are important. Sometimes you can get by on one of those (Koufax comes to mind) if the peak is mind boggling, or like Griffey Jr., you come up at such a young age you can decline greatly in your thirties and still have awesome career numbers. It's the lack of building on the foundation that's keeping both Murphy and Rice out of the Hall. Webb Spinner
Permalink It looks like the Arizona Diamondbacks avoided going to arbitration with Brandon Webb over the next few seasons. Compromise Proposal
Permalink The Washington D.C. Council gave the mayor terms that will get a yes vote on the stadium deal. The main goal of the council is to push cost overruns onto the new owners or Major League Baseball: Council members Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) and Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large), who have opposed the lease deal, said they would consider supporting it if the city's project costs were capped. There are nine bidders, I believe, for the team. Why not ask which ones are willing to cover cost overruns? The sign the compromise, sell the team, and get on with the business of building a competitive franchise. Whoever buys the team, even covering cost overruns, is getting a pretty sweet deal on the stadium. Voting Conflicts
Permalink Ken Rosenthal believes conflicts of interest in voting for baseball awards are overblown: Here's the rub: The media and sports worlds are full of conflicts, many far greater than the ones described above. FOX and ESPN both broadcast and cover Major League Baseball. The Tribune Co., owns both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Cubs. The New York Times owns a 17 percent stake in the company that controls the Boston Red Sox. But good golly, Times writers can't vote for Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame. (Hat tip David Gerstman). Money on the Shoulder
Permalink The trip was at the request of the Astros, who are trying to get a better idea on the status of Bagwell's shoulder. Bagwell underwent capsular release surgery in June and missed 115 games last season. There's a Jan. 31 deadline on filing the claim. If Bagwell can't play anymore, the Astros would like him to retire to free up that $15 million dollars. Bagwell, however, wants to play and doesn't want to be rushed into a decision: "It didn't look great, but then again for three years-plus at this point during the offseason I couldn't throw the ball five feet," he said. "That's not what I was trying to gear up to do. I was trying to gear up to play on April 1 or whenever opening day was. I would guess the insurance company wants strong evidence that Bagwell can't play because of the injury. I wonder how bad Bagwell has to be for the Astros to collect? If he can't throw, but can pinch hit, do the Astros get the money? Update: At least one person is confused by this. Bagwell is owed $17 million if he plays or not. If the Astros believe he can play, and don't file a claim by Jan. 31, the money comes out of the Astros pockets. If they believe he can't play, they have a stronger case if Bagwell retires due to the injury. If the claim is found to be valid, $15 million of Bagwell's salary comes out of the pocket of the insurance company. The Astros then have $15 million to spend somewhere else. For example, they can sign Roger Clemens on May 1. Or maybe make a trade for Manny Ramirez. You can do a lot with $15 million. What's the Man's Name on Second?
Permalink Hal McCoy looks at the log jam at second base for the Cincinnati Reds. There is Ryan Freel, Tony Womack, Rich Aurilia, Ray Olmedo and William Bergolla all going to sleep at night dreaming of turning double plays on a steady basis with shortstop Felipe Lopez. The question in my mind, are any of these players the soluion. Aurilia and Womack are not every day players anymore. Freel gets on base well, but has off-field problems. That gives Narron three fairly young players to battle it out for the spot. Why not go into camp telling them it belongs to one of the three? With luck, the Reds will wind up with a long term solution to second base. Disappointed in Flanagan
Permalink With the Orioles signing Kevin Millar, Mike Flanagan takes another step toward an old team weighted toward the offensive side of the defensive spectrum. Millar said he's not sure exactly what his role with the Orioles will be, but he'll likely play a combination of left field, first base and designated hitter -- sharing time with newly acquired Jeff Conine and displaced starting catcher Javy Lopez. And what asset does Millar bring to the team? The Orioles were intrigued not only by Millar's past successes and playoff experience, but also by his off-the-field reputation. That's a coaches or manager's job. A player's job is to put wins on the board. Why don't the Orioles have a young lefty first baseman in the minors who they can pay league minimum? That and Millar or Conine would be a more cost effective and likely productive way to go. Flanagan's off to a very poor start as a solo GM.
January 12, 2006
Revenue Sharing
Permalink Dayn Perry at FoxSports.com pens a common sense piece on revenue sharing. The goal of the Yankees, Dodgers or Red Sox — unlike, say, the goal of Wal-Mart or IBM — isn't to drive the competition out of business. The Yankees want to pummel the Royals on the field of play, but they need them to at least otherwise stick around. At a base level, baseball, or any sports league, is a collaborative business, and teams should be compensated for any native market disadvantages they endure. So, next time around, owners should abandon the bid to re-establish payroll luxury taxes, completely forgo any pointless notions of a salary cap and instead focus on bringing revenue-sharing opponents to heel. What baseball needs is to share 50 percent of all local revenues. However, that alone won't be enough. Salaries are driven up or down by the revenue of the teams. As we saw this year, with revenue back up, players are pulling in bigger contracts. Dayn's ideas are good ones; I hope someone is listening. Correction: Fixed the spelling of Dayn. Update: Dan Lewis had a similar column a few years ago at NRO. I've discussed the idea of competitive revenue sharing before as well. Don't' just spilt the gate, but split the local TV and Radio money based on game ratings. The viewership for every game is calculated. Instead of just dividing 40 or 50% of local revenue equally, give more to the teams that bring in more fans. Softer
Permalink I wish I could write like this. I will take a bit of a contrary position, however. It's not that less is more (as one commenter describes it), it's that less is different. Throwing softer works because no one sees it that much. If the slow ball was the standard pitch, Alex would be writing about how smart Maddux is by throwing a blazing fast ball in tough situations. If singing softly were the standard, we'd be awed at how Al Green belts out a tune. But there are reasons pitcher throw hard and singers up the volume. A fastball leaves a batter less room for error than a slow pitch. Singers want to be heard. There are certain things in life that are best used sparingly and appropriately. The change up is one of them. Phillies-Red Sox Rumor
Permalink Evan Brunell at Firebrand of the American League sees a tip from a reliable scout: A Philadelphia Phillies scout has reported that Bobby Abreu (RF), Jason Michaels (CF), and Robinson Tejeda/Gavin Floyd (both SP) will be traded to the Red Sox for Manny Ramirez, Matt Clement, Kelly Shoppach/Andy Marte/Kevin Youkilis. Remember, this is a rumor. We'll see what happens as the week progresses. Update: Read Nate's comment below. This is starting to look pretty unfounded. Update: The more I look into this rumor, the less I believe it's true. Sorry to have bothered you with it. Speed Takes a Holiday
Permalink Jerry Crasnick at ESPN.com looks forward to a baseball season without amphetamines: So what will the stimulant ban mean for the product on the field? According to one popular theory, the "iron man" will become obsolete and bench players will assume a more important role. A total of 19 major-leaguers appeared in 160 or more games last season, and 45 players topped 155. Those who derived a lift from their neighborhood pharmacist will have to do it sans help in 2006. Maybe teams will find they need to carry fewer pitchers and more position players as fatigue keeps more players out of the lineup. Update: I left out the link earlier. Dollar Store
Permalink Lookout Landing wonders why teams are passing on picking up Russell Branyan for $1: Maybe someone will pay the $1 it'll take to claim Branyan off the wire, but I doubt it; it's not like $20,000 would've scared off potential suitors. He's probably going to clear waivers, and I'm going to sit here all confused - not because I don't know the reasons why everyone passed on Branyan, but because I don't know why those reasons are still considered so important. I have to disagree a bit. If you look at longer term splits for Branyan (since 2000), his lefty-righty difference isn't that great. His strength is hitting for power; more than 50% of his career hits are for extra bases. But he doesn't get a hit that often, and although he draws a good deal of walk, his overall OBA is pretty poor. The problem with Branyan is more of a demographic one. With teams carrying more and more relievers, bench players need to be more versatile. If you send Russ up against a righty, the opposing manager brings a lefty out of the bullpen. You either have to eat the plate appearance by letting Branyan hit, or waste a player sending a righty to the plate. If you have 15 position players, you can afford the luxury of Russell Branyan. With 13, he's not worth the dollar. More Beanes
Permalink Part two of Athletics Nation interview with Billy Beane is up. Might we see Nick Swisher at first base in the near future? Blez: That was something I was thinking about. When you acquired Milton Bradley, then you have three guys who can play center field in the outfield and almost a fourth because Nick (Swisher) played center coming up through the system. How appealing was that to you in thinking about getting Bradley in terms of depth? And not only that, the improvement in the defense and likely the pitching staff because of it. Lowell's Comebacks
Permalink Gordon Edes pens a nice piece on Mike Lowell in the Boston Globe. I didn't realize Mike's father has a lot in common with Jim Longborg: There's a dentist in town, whose office is right here on US 1 in Coral Gables, Fla., whose phone has been ringing off the hook lately, mostly with calls from Puerto Rico. A sudden urge for root canals in San Juan? Lowell won't be playing in the World Baseball Classic. He's working too much on being ready for the Red Sox. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what led to his decline last year: ''One big difference I noticed last year is that the last 10 days of spring training, I always get in synch and am ready to go," he said. ''I usually have very good Aprils and Mays. But last year, for reasons I wish I knew, I didn't feel in synch at the end of spring training and the first 10 days of the season. Blogging from the Top
Permalink JD Arney notes that the new owners of the Reds take over in a couple of weeks, and he has a suggestion: No, my suggestion is something else entirely. Something that would have the power to make you beloved by Reds fans, despite the losing, despite all the broken promises of the past ten or eleven seasons. Something that would immediately mark you as one of the most forward thinking owners in the sport, in all of sports actually. He notes that Mark Cuban blogs. I'll also point out that John Henry, while not blogging, does post on Red Sox bulletin boards. I hope Robert Castellini hears the suggestion and takes it seriously.
January 11, 2006
Splitting Up
Permalink Milton Bradley is getting divorced: Last summer, Redondo Beach police went to Bradley's home on domestic violence calls three times but neither he nor his then-pregnant wife were arrested. I'm not going to jump to conclusions here about what was going on between the couple. With Milton's history it would be easy to blame him. We just don't know what happened. Update: Not all bad news for Milton as he signs a $3 million contract with the Athletics. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio. Tigers Sign Two
Permalink The Tigers avoided arbitration with two players today, signing Mike Maroth to a two year deal and Brandon Inge to a single season. Both are good examples of how much money you can make just by sticking around for 3 or 4 seasons. Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. Tonight I'm featuring an interview with Bob Sikes, assistant trainer for the Mets from 1985 through 1991. The 2006 Vote
Permalink Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch interviews the current and former presidents of the BBWAA about what might happen with the Hall of Fame Voting next season: "The one thing that argues against (McGwire being elected) is this clear-cut alternative. You have Mr. Clean from Baltimore and Mr. Happy from San Diego," said Baltimore Sun columnist and current BBWAA president Peter Schmuck. "Your last image of McGwire is a guy shrinking in front of your eyes at the hearings. I'm sure it will affect the percentage but I believe all three still get elected. I'm sure some people will want to knock McGwire back a year. Will it be enough to knock him below 75 percent? I don't know. But you're giving it another year also." Next year's vote on McGwire is going to cause a lot of controversy, no matter which way it goes. Tavarez to the Red Sox?
Permalink Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com is reporting that Julian Tavarez is about to sign with the Red Sox. The Red Sox, making another move to bolster their late-inning relief, have reached terms free-agent right-hander Julian Tavarez on a two-year contract with a vesting option, FOXSports.com has learned. Tavarez keeps the ball in the park, allowing just two home runs over 128 innings in 2003 and 2004. For his career he's allowed just 83 home runs in 1081 1/3 innings pitched, a rate of 0.69 home runs per nine innings. Gossage Vents
Permalink Goose Gossage released his anger toward the Hall of Fame Voters: "I just don't get it," a frustrated Gossage told The Post from Colorado on Tuesday. "I'm at a loss for words." Sosa Rumor
Permalink There's a report at ESPNdeportes.com that Sammy Sosa is in discussions with the Washington Nationals. Signing Sammy would cause a logjam, however. If he were to sign with the Nationals, Sosa would probably move to left field, with Jose Guillen most likely in right field and Ryan Church in center. Complicating matters would be Alfonso Soriano, who the Nats have wanted to move to the outfield, but who has also resisted a change from second base. Washington also signed veteran outfielder Michael Tucker this week. What's interesting to me is that Washington is one of the worst places to play if you want to reach a home run milestone. If Sosa really wants to reach 600 home runs, why not offer your services to the Rockies? Or go back to the Texas Rangers where he could DH? Baseball Musings Radio Show
Permalink The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EDT. Check out their other sports programming as well. You can also call in at 888-985-0555 and leave a question for the show, or stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air. Commentary On Cuba
Permalink Roberto González Echevarría comes down against Cuba playing in the World Baseball Classic in the op-ed pages of the New York Times (hat tip, Amar). Dr. Andrews Ill
Permalink Deadspin notices that Dr. James Andrews suffered a heart attack over the weekend (hat tip John Ptacek). Here's wishing the surgeon a speedy recovery. Rethinking Quiz
Permalink With the election of Bruce Sutter to the Hall of Fame, Joe Posnanski remembers the closer from the Western side of Missouri. The Name Game
Permalink The Angels and the city of Anaheim are going to court over the name of the team. The city wants the name changed back to the Anaheim Angels. Arte Moreno wants to market the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Filed shortly after the name change became official last January, the suit claims the team violated a 1996 contract that required "Anaheim" be featured prominently in all team-related merchandise and advertisements. The city spent $20 million fixing up the stadium and leased valuable land to the team with the understanding Anaheim would get international name recognition out of the deal, said Andrew Guildford, the city's co-counsel. The city wants the name change reversed and is seeking damages, arguing that lost income from the leased land and publicity the city would otherwise get each time the Angels play - so-called "impressions" - is worth at least $100 million. The court should see the obvious compromise and change the name to the LAanaheim Angels! Change the Voting?
Permalink Devon Young writes: I think this says a lot.... He follows up with another letter: Instead of going by exactly the years of Sutter's career, I altered it to reflect those years plus a little bit, in order to have the stats of both pitchers be equal in the amount of games they appeared in. I figure this would be a more accurate showing of what was what... Just one factual correction. Gossage wasn't a spot starter. In 1976, he was a starter. Except for 15 complete games, he was unimpressive as a starter, as his K per 9 went way down. I guess he was pacing himself. What I want to focus on is the voting. Ben Kabak at Talking Baseball also suggests the voting be changed: It doesn’t make sense, and something has to give. Yesterday’s voting shows an institution stuck in its ways. The Hall of Fame voters had to elect someone. So they opted for a reliever who couldn’t garner 25 percent of the vote seven years ago while omitting players whose careers were nearly identical. Other comments in various posts yesterday express the same feeling. Yet no one seems to be suggesting an alternative. I'll give it a try. Normally, I like a Borda count for elections. Voters would rank players 1-10. Players then gets points, (10-rank) + 1. You set a point threshold (80% of possible points), and anyone over that amount gets in. However, this has the same problem as the current system. It encourages writers to vote someone in, even if no one is really deserving. Instead of voting, a ratings system might be better. Instead of voting for 10, each player on the ballot is given a rating of 1-10, where 10 means one of the all-time greats, and 1 means on the ballot due to service time. You then set a threshold (an average score of 8? 8.5?) and if you are above the threshold, you get in. The only players who stay on the ballot are players near the threshold (average score of 6). If you're not elected after three seasons, you're off the ballot. So here's how this might work. Someone like Rickey Henderson would gets nines and tens and get in right away. Someone like Jim Rice would get sixes, sevens and eights, and not get in on the first try. He'd stay on the ballot, and voters would get to rethink their ratings. If you rate Rice a five, but his average score is seven, you might take a second look at his stats and re-evaluate your rating. You talk to other sports writers about why they rated Rice so high. Maybe you raise your rating to a seven. Maybe the arguments become so good that Rice goes up on lots of ballots, and he reaches the magic 8 spot within the three year time frame. If not, nothing is going to change minds, and he's off the ballot. What we had this season was a bunch of sixes and sevens on the ballot. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, this type of voting would be useful for rating players all time. The average rating of the final ballot for the player becomes part of his record, and would be a useful tool for historians ranking the best players of all time. Notice, too, this would do away with the friendship votes, such as the one for Walt Weiss. Walt might get rated a two or three for being rookie of the year, winning a World Series, and playing a tough defensive position. Maybe the guys who really like him rate him a four. But no one is going to say, "who's the idiot who rated Weiss a four?" As always, your criticisms of the system are welcome in the comments. Update: The URLs were causing the site to display strangely, so I changed the links to "click here." The URLs appeared in the original e-mail. Average Salary
Permalink There's been a revision to the 2005 average salary. The baseball players' association revised its 2005 salary average on Tuesday, lowering it by about $2,500 to $2,476,589. Even players not eligible for arbitration do pretty well, but if you can stick around four years, you're pretty much set for life. Nice work if you can get it.
January 10, 2006
GM Comparison
Permalink Dodger Thoughts looks at DePodesta and Colletti and decides they aren't that different. One of the arguments I've been making this offseason is that the biggest difference between former Dodger general manager Paul DePodesta and his successor, Ned Colletti, is not in philosophy, but how the media has covered them. Despite the perception that Colletti is a 180-degree reversal from DePodesta, my belief has been that in reality, the two are much closer in approach than we've been led to believe. Both prize the Dodger farm system. Both relied on veterans from other organizations - including veterans with considerable injury histories - to carry the Dodgers until the farm system matured. Blez and Beane
Permalink Blez at Athletics Nation sits down with Billy Beane. I thought this bit on minor league philosophy was interesting: Blez: Talk about the A's minor league clubs for a few minutes. The Rockhounds wound up Texas League champs. The Sacramento team ran away with the division and made the playoffs again. Stockton also had a great first season as an affiliate. How important is winning as a part of the organization in your estimation?. A winning minor league organization is often a sign of an improving major league club. The Good Gooden
Permalink I'm a little disappointed that Dwight Gooden didn't receive enough votes ro stay on the ballot for next year. His career, even with the drug abuse was very good. When I looked back for my research, I found it better than I remembered. He's a lot better than the others who didn't get the votes. I guess it doesn't matter since he wouldn't make the hall anyway. Moving Up Next Year
Permalink I want to disagree with some conventional wisdom: Sutter was on the ballot for the 13th time, the first player elected so late since Ralph Kiner in 1975. Rice was appearing for the 12th time and has three years remaining on the writers' ballot. Gossage was on the ballot for the seventh time. There's plenty of room for Rice and Gossage to move up. With 520 ballots cast, there were a maximum of 5200 votes possible. Only 2933 votes were cast. That's more than enough room to vote for the first timers and Rice and Gossage. Facial Hair
Permalink It looks like Jamie Mottram lost his bet. I hope to be posting a picture of the mustache in a month. Gaining Ground
Permalink Dan Lewis writes: In 2005, there were 516 votes. In '06, there were 520. Here's how those who _didn't_ get the call in 2005 fared, comparing last year to this (min 100 votes in both years), in order of their 2005 finish. Gossage vs. Sutter
Permalink I don't understand how someone votes for Sutter and not Gossage. Gossage had a longer career, and a longer productive portion of his career. Win share shows Gossage with a productive length of 11 years, with 8 of those seasons with at least 15 win shares. Sutter was productive for 9 seasons, with 15 wins shares or more in 6 of those seasons. Sutter's top three seasons were 27, 23 and 22 win shares. Gossage's were 26, 23 and 20. Is Sutter getting credit for being revolutionary? So was Goose. I could see voting for Gossage but not Sutter. I can't see the reverse. Update: Here's a table of win shares showing what I mean. I only went through age 37, but Gossage kept pitching.
Hall of Fame Inductees
Permalink Bruce Sutter is the only player elected. More to follow. Update: Here's the story and voting from MLB.com. ESPN Ballots
Permalink ESPN writers submit their Hall of Fame ballots. Goose Gossage is a unanimous choice among that group. Snow Melts Away
Permalink Jack Snow, former NFL player and broadcaster and father of first baseman J.T. Snow, died yesterday. My thoughts go out to J.T., his family and friends. First Date Goes Badly
Permalink David Samson described his meeting with Portland mayor Tom Potter as a first date. If so, I don't think Samson will be getting another: Mayor Tom Potter said Monday he has a "very strong sense" that most Portlanders don't care about landing a major league baseball team and reiterated his position that the city will not help finance a ballpark for the Florida Marlins. Maybe Samson thinks Potter is just playing hard to get. :-) Diamonds in the Rough
Permalink Bob McManaman reviews the off-season moves of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I'm a little surprised that Brad Halsey is not projected into the starting rotation. The Book on the Padres
Permalink Geoff Young of Ducksnorts offers a 281 page book on the Padres 2005 season for download. It's free, but if you like it consider making a donation.
January 09, 2006
Hall of Fame Picks
Permalink Eric Mirlis at The Writers asked 18 internet writers to vote for the Hall of Fame candidates, with reasons why and why not (includiing yours truly). No one was on 75% of the ballots, which I believe is likely to happen tomorrow. Twins in Court
Permalink The Twins are in court over whether or not they have a long term deal to stay in the Metrodome. The Twins contend they have no long-term agreement to play in the 24-year-old Metrodome and have operated there on a year-to-year basis since the 2004 season. I'm not sure I understand Ayling's argument. Acting like a long term tenant when you're really just a tenant at will seems to me to be a nice gesture. But since there's no details about the agreement, it's very difficult to judge what's going on. Can any Twins fans shed light on the argument? Taking a Knee
Permalink Rafael Furcal needs minor knee surgery. Shortstop Rafael Furcal, who signed a $39 million, three-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers last month, will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. It doesn't sound like a big deal. Phone Entry
Permalink This is a test of blogging from my new cell phone. Posted by StatsGuru at 07:47 PM
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Patterson to the Orioles
Permalink The Orioles finally acquire a Cubs outfieler, trading two minor leaguers for Corey Patterson today. For the Orioles, Patterson adds depth to a depleted outfield and could challenge Luis Matos for the starting center field job. Baltimore declined to offer left fielder Eric Byrnes a contract and saw a tentative agreement with Jeromy Burnitz fall through when he decided to sign with Pittsburgh. Burnitz likely would have started in left. The Cubs get a very young shortstop who appears to be a triples threat and a minor league pitcher with very good strikeout and home run numbers. Given that Patterson never had a good OBA, even when he showed power, I suspect this will be a very good deal for the Cubs down the road. Armstrong and the Sacrifice
Permalink USS Mariner points to an interesting interview with Chuck Armstrong, president of the Mariners. We both like his view of the bunt: He (Tal Smith) taught me that in games, teams shouldn’t sacrifice as much. I’m one of these guys, if I had a criticism of most major league managers, I think they sacrifice too often and too early in the game. The out is the most precious thing in baseball. You only get 27 of them, and if you give one up, even when you try to sacrifice, over time at best, you’re only successful somewhere between 65% and 70% of the time. Given that statement, I'm amazed that Hargrove was second in the AL behind Guillen in calling for a sacrifice bunt in 2005. NFL Tickets
Permalink Tickets for week two of the NFL playoffs are available at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store. Remember, use promotional code nflplayoff at check out to save 5%. Phence Lipht in Philly
Permalink Phillies Nation brings you a picture of the new left field wall at Citizen's Bank Ballpark. That blog will be keeping track to see if home runs really do get reduced with the new configuration. Extensions
Permalink With the Red Sox and David Ortiz talking about a contract extension, Talking Baseball looks at how much money and how long an extension David Ortiz should receive. It can't make Boston fans too comfortable to see that the most similar player is Mo Vaughn. :-) Getting Their Wings
Permalink Doug Padilla looks at the talent in the Angels pipeline as a reason for no big moves this off season: General manager Bill Stoneman admitted that his No. 1 off-season priority was signing free-agent Paul Konerko, and there was disappointment when the first baseman returned to the Chicago White Sox. Plan B does not involve spending the $60 million-plus earmarked for Konerko on somebody else. Maybe the Steve Finley signing caused them to re-think signing veterans. Free Weaver
Permalink Jeff Weaver and the Los Angeles Dodgers failed to reach an agreement last night, and Weaver will likely be pitching for one of the other 29 clubs come spring training. He cannot sign with his current team until May 1. Weaver is a tough pitcher to figure out. I look at his stats and think he should be a better pitcher than he actually is. His strikeouts are fine, his walks allowed are very good and until this year he kept the ball in the park. He does have a huge flaw, however, giving up power to lefties. The splits in the Day by Day Database go back to 2000, so we miss the first year of Weaver's career, but look at his huge platoon difference. Another flaw with Weaver is how he's done with ducks on the pond. Look at this numbers with the bases empty vs. runners in scoring position over the last six seasons. A 50 point jump in OBA and a 40 point jump in slugging percentage. And he's just been creamed with runners on third base and < 2 out. If a team has a opportunity to score against Weaver, the run finds a way to cross the plate.
January 08, 2006
Who Gets the Grounders
Permalink I've wondered for a while if pitchers or hitters had more of an effect on balls in play being in the air or on the ground. What if pitchers were the only cause of the ball being lifted in the air or not? Then, we wouldn't expect the probabilities to change no matter what type of batter he was facing. If the batter was responsible, then changing the type of pitcher wouldn't matter. To study this, I selected a group of pitchers that gathered 400 IP from 2002-2004. There were 101 pitchers in the group, and I divided them into quartiles on the probability of a ground ball. Quartile 1 is the group with the lowest probability of a ground ball, quartile 4 the highest. I also selected batters with 1000 plate appearances in that time frame. There were 243 batters in the study, also divided into quartiles on the same statistic. Here's a table representing the probabilities of the four quartiles.
Next, I pitted each pitcher quartile vs. each batter quartile:
As you can see, the type of pitcher and the type of batter both matter. So if you really need a ground ball, get your best ground ball pitcher in against a ground ball hitter. On the Radio
Permalink I'll be on the Lehigh Valley Yankee Fan Club Radio show at 8:00 tonight if you care to tune in. Follow the link and click on "Click to Listen." Wrigley Shots
Permalink More pictures of the Wrigley reconstruction are available at Bleed Cubbie Blue.
January 07, 2006
Tejada Staying Put
Permalink Miguel Tejada finally called the Orioles management, and now wants to stay. "This is the first time we heard this directly from him," Duquette said. "We're elated that he's chosen to stay. We're all committed to improving the team, and it's easier to do it with Miguel than without him." He couldn't do that two weeks ago? It's looking more and more that Manny and Miguel play for their current teams when the 2006 season starts. Back to No
Permalink Alex Rodriguez is not going to play in the World Baseball Classic (if there is one). The third baseman insists the tidal wave of headlines was not only premature, but entirely false. He's saying no to Dominicans, no to the Americans and better-luck-next-time to the Players Association, which his handlers believe is responsible for prematurely leaking the story. It looks like the stories putting Alex in the tournament were wishful thinking. Afternoon Reading
Permalink Via Primery Numbers, a six part walk through with criticism of the Win Shares formula. House Hunters
Permalink The Florida Marlins will visit Portland, Oregon Monday as they look for a new home. Upon hearing of Florida's relocation interest a month ago, baseball proponents in Portland sent the team a copy of the presentation they made to Major League Baseball during the Expos' relocation process. I've been to one game in Portland. It was on a Monday night, and the game was very poorly attended. The current stadium was recently renovated, and some nice astethics, and was easy to reach by public transportation. The game was very exciting, but despite all that only a handful of people showed. There are a lot of minor league cities that do better than Portland. Why not put a team in Louisville, KY? They've had great attendance for years. IBAF Threats
Permalink The World Baseball Classic keeps going through tough times. The IBAF will not sanction the tournament unless Cuba is allowed to play. Now, international baseball is not my forte. Can someone tell me why, then, I should care about the IBAF? What can they do that Major League Baseball and the MLBPA can't? Or are they just another bunch of bureaucrats looking for a piece of the pie? What are the ramifications if they pull the sanction? This tournament should be, as the Pythons often said, "a bit of fun." It's too bad everyone's getting in a hissy fit about it. Jays Dump Koskie
Permalink The Toronto Blue Jays relieved their infield corner log jam last night by trading Corey Koskie to the Brewers for minor league pitcher Brian Wolfe (also a former member of the Twins organization). The Blue Jays are saving a few million dollars and picking up a mature minor league pitcher with good walk and home run numbers. The Brewers are getting a third baseman to compete with Bill Hall. It's not clear who is the better choice right now. Hall took a leap forward in offense last year and is much younger. Koskie took a leap backward in offense last year. Both could be flukes, but Hall is entering his peak years while Koskie is well past his. All the Brewers need, however, is for one of them to work out.
January 06, 2006
You Can Never Have Too Many Shortstops
Permalink The Arizona Diamondbacks reached an agreement with their #1 pick today. Justin Upton sets the bonus record for a drafted player: Justin Upton, the 18-year-old shortstop who was the top pick in the 2005 major league amateur draft, agreed to a minor league contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks that includes a $6.1 million signing bonus payable over five years. Justin is the younger brother of B.J. Upton. Both received tremendous paydays without ever stepping onto a major league field. This is the second big shortstop prospect the Diamondbacks drafted recently: Upton follows another top young shortstop, Stephen Drew, who is expected to play for Triple-A Tucson in his second season in the Arizona organization. No one is ever stuck at shortstop. Given that the position is at the high skill end of the defensive spectrum, you can always leave the better fielder at short and move the better hitter to another position. A team has a lot more options with too many shortstops than they have with too many first basemen. Snow Ball
Permalink The Boston Red Sox filled an important hole today, picking up a top defensive first baseman. Free agent first baseman J.T. Snow has agreed to terms on a one-year, $2 million contract with the Boston Red Sox. The deal will become official later Friday, pending a physical exam. There's no word if he can play short or center. Actually, Snow is not a bad pickup as a backup. He's not a loss offensively as he does a good job of getting on base. And he'll certainly prevent any late-inning Bill Buckner moments. Minor Yankees
Permalink Pending Pinstripes is a new blog at MVN. It chronicles the exploits of the Yankees minor leaguers. Stop by and say hi. Rhymes With Frogger
Permalink Sports Bloggers Live just posted their Best of 2005 review. Jamie also sent me this clip, in which he tries to explain to Reggie Jackson the definition of blogger as Reggie prepares to voice a promo for the show. Playing With Truth
Permalink Batgirl wrote a short play. I must quote Bill Murray. I don't like when somebody comes up to me the next day and says, "Hey, man, I saw your play. It touched me; I cried." I like it when a guy comes up to me a week later and says, "Hey, man, I saw your play... what happened?" Batgirl, what happened? Rumors Galore
Permalink Tom Gage of the Detroit News uses a no comment as confirmation of trade interest: When asked if he wished to deny the Tigers had interest in Tejeda, Dombrowski wouldn't even acknowledge that. "It's just something I don't wish to comment on at this time," he said. Meanwhile, Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com talked to Manny Ramirez's agent: The latest intrigue over Ramirez comes after he told ESPNDeportes.com, "There will be no trade. I'm staying in Boston, where I'm familiar with the system and where I have a lot of friends, especially David Ortiz." He also reports on another suitor for Tejada: The Phillies have proposed an Abreu-for-Tejada exchange with the intention of playing Tejada at third base. The Orioles want pitching in addition to Abreu, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations. Tejada for Abreu is pretty even talent wise, and the Orioles save a lot of money. If they want to get rid of Tejada, it's a good move without the pitching. The Times They Are a Changin'
Permalink ESPN is causing the St. Louis Cardinals a bit of a problem by moving their April 9th game in Chicago to the evening: "We just learned about this today," team spokesman Brian Bartow said. "The guys won't know where the clubhouse is, or where to park." Really? The Cardinals players are incapable of reading directions? The switch means the Cardinals will have almost no time to work out on the stadium's field before the first game, which comes after the Redbirds spend the spring in Florida and the first week of the regular season on the road in Philadelphia and Chicago. I remember other teams playing exhibition games in their new parks before the season opens. I guess the construction schedule is so tight that there's no room for a game before opening day. It seems to me the Cardinals should appeal this decision. It was my experience that ESPN tended to choose warm weather stadiums early in the year. That same night, the Yankees are playing the Angels in Anaheim. Why not broadcast that game instead? Update: The Yankees have Monday off as they travel home for their opener on Tuesday. Rebuilding Spring Training
Permalink The Orioles spring home in Fort Lauderdale was severly damaged by hurricane Wilma. Rick Maese reports on the process of rebuilding: "We took such a big hit," says Laura Williams, the team's Fort Lauderdale operations manager. "I don't think we've seen anything like this before."
January 05, 2006
Keeing His Sox?
Permalink Jeremy sends this article in a comment: According to a report on ESPNdeportes.com (English translation here), it appears that Manny Ramirez has apparently changed his mind again and would like to remain with the Red Sox. Could someone who reads Spanish look at the original and see if it's an accurate translation? It could still be the Red Sox will try to trade the slugger if the right deal comes along. Manny has the right to reject any deal, however. Talking About the Hall
Permalink If you missed Sports Bloggers Live today, you can hear my clip at this link. Trammell and the Hall
Permalink The Detroit Tigers Weblog points to a discussion of Alan Trammell's hall credentials. I agree with this point from the discussion: It’s truly amazing to me on how asleep a majority of the voters could be on these two players, considering their all-time ranking. Trammell was a good hitter and a good shortstop at a time when you seldom saw both. He deserves a lot more consideration than he's getting.
Phillies Add Durability
Permalink Of course, it would help if Ryan Franklin could pitch: The Phillies were attracted to Franklin in part by his durability. He has averaged 31 starts and 201 innings over the past three seasons. He also posts a very low strikeout rate while allowing a good number of home runs. That doesn't strike me as the type of pitcher you want twirling in Philadelphia. On the Radio
Permalink I'll be on Sports Bloggers Live in a few minutes talking about the Hall of Fame. Trade Demands
Permalink Tony Massarotti is fed up with Manny Ramirez. There's nothing new in that, but Tony does throw out this tidbit on page 2. Yesterday, when discussing the latest Ramirez adventure, one high-ranking baseball executive said he expects the issue of trade requests to come up during the next labor talks, which will begin this year. In the interim, star players continue to sign contracts they may have no intention of honoring, whether they know it or not. Part of the problem here is that Manny is demanding a trade, but still using his 10/5 status to block deals. My guess is that owners want a clause that if a player demands a trade, the 10/5 goes out the window. NFL Tickets
Permalink Just a reminder, don't miss the special on NFL Tickets at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store. Use promtional code nflplayoff and save 5%. Undoing Myths
Permalink Christina Pazzanese of the Boston Globe reviews The Baseball Uncyclopedia, a humorous attempt to debunk the myths of baseball.
January 04, 2006
Prior Knowledge
Permalink Mark Prior exercised a clause in his contract which lets him void the final year and go to salary arbitration instead: Prior's deal, agreed to in 2001 after he was drafted, allowed him to void the contract after 2004 or 2005, but only if he had accumulated enough service time to be eligible for arbitration. He just missed having enough service time after 2004. It was a great deal for Prior. If he turns out to be a flop, he still gets a few million dollars. If he's great, he files for arbitration and gets even more. Maybe the Cubs will sign him to a three year deal at a higher rate to avoid a fight. 2,000,000
Permalink Michael Martin writes: Hey David – I think I did it! Here is the screen dump of the digit counter. I was feeling like Dave Concepcion for a while! J I thought I should sprint around the bases? Just call me the Bob Watson of Baseball Musings. I was watching a Yankees game when Bob Watson scored the 1,000,000th run in MLB history. Chris Chambliss was thrown out at the plate a few minutes earlier, or it might have been him. Thanks to all my readers for making this milestone possible! I never thought the blog would grow this quickly. Seoing Up the Deal
Permalink The Mets and Dodgers compelete the trade rumored earlier: The Los Angeles Dodgers, in search of starting pitching, acquired right-hander Jae Seo and left-handed reliever Tim Hamulack from the New York Mets on Wednesday for right-handed relievers Duaner Sanchez and Steve Schmoll. It looks like a good deal for the Dodgers. Jon Weisman has more. Approaching Two Million
Permalink If you scroll down to the Digits.com counter, you'll see it's fast approaching 2,000,000 unique visits. If you happen to be the person who turns it over to that nice round number, please let me know. I don't have a prize, but I'd like to give you a mention. A-Rod In?
Permalink There's a report via Baseball Think Factory that Alex Rodriguez will play in the World Baseball Classic. It looks like he decided the Dominican Republic wouldn't be that offended if he played for the United States. Too bad Jeter's on the team, too, otherwise we could see Alex play short again. Seo West, Young Man
Permalink New York Newsday has the latest trade rumor concerning the Mets, with Jae Seo going to the Dodgers for reliever Duaner Sanchez. Both pitcher showed great progress last season; Sanchez greatly upped his strikeout rate and Seo found his control, cutting his walks allowed way down. It seems to me the trade favors the Dodgers, as they're getting someone who will likely give them many more innings as a starter than Sanchez will give the Mets. Then again, given Seo's previous performances, 2005 might be a fluke season. We'll see if this trade pans out. Update: The deal's done. Burnitz and the Orioles
Permalink There seems to be conflicting reasons for Jeromy Burnitz breaking his verbal agreement with the Orioles. From the agent: "It definitely was us more than the Orioles," said Simon on the decision to break the verbal agreement, quashing speculation that the Orioles had pulled out of the deal because they were about to land Ramirez. "We didn't want to do it, but it had to do with some language that was unacceptable to us concerning medical examinations. From Burnitz: The Orioles made some revisions to the contract in an attempt to appease Simon, but they were not enough. They also spoke directly to Burnitz, who told the club that he backed out of the deal for family reasons. The Pirates make more trips to California, where Burnitz was born and where his family is. The Long Life of a Lefty
Permalink The Arizona Republic reports that Terry Mulholland is likely to be the Arizona Diamondbacks lefty specialist in 2006: But the Diamondbacks needed a left-handed reliever, and they think they may have found one Tuesday in journeyman Terry Mulholland, a longtime Valley resident who has been rumored to be joining the team for several weeks. And last season was one of Mulholland's better ones in recent history. One reason may be that he pitched a lot less. He certainly was great against lefties last year (in 84 at bats, he induced lefties to hit into six GDPs), but for some reason, the Twins used him a lot against righties. If the DBacks can limit Terry's exposure to right-handed batters, this could work for them. Littlefield's Genius
Permalink Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke claims Dave Littlefield is the smartest GM in the National League, comparing him to Michael Corleone. He's going to explain why he believes this over the next few days, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be Fredo.
January 03, 2006
Open a Busch
Permalink The Bird Watch posts photos of the new ballpark in St. Louis. Sounding it Out
Permalink Who would have thought Scott Dunn is the new Kent Hrbek. Bleacher Builders
Permalink Bleed Cubbie Blue posts new pictures of the Wrigley Field bleacher reconstruction. Projected Starters
Permalink A little easier to read than depth charts, ESPN gives us projected starters for American and National League squads. Make sure you get a look at the Marlins outfield. Morris for the Hall?
Permalink This article has a nice summary of the case for and against Jack Morris. The dichotomy between a high win total and a high ERA raised the question: Did Morris win because his teams were so good, or was his ERA uncharacteristically high for a great pitcher because he pitched to the score? The fact that he tossed a complete game in nearly one out of every three starts would help suggest the latter. The fact that he had more games with five or more runs of support than most of his peers in the American League argued the former. Morris was very good at his peak, 1979-1987. The only other pure American League pitcher with a better ERA over that time was Dave Stieb. I'm very torn over Morris going into the Hall of Fame. I remember him as the guy who started every opening day, the one pitcher on the Tigers a team didn't want to face. He played in a tough ballpark for pitchers, but for a very good team. And not only a good offensive team, but a good defensive one as well. Morris had a low strikeout rate. My guess is the excellent defense the Tigers had in the 1980s scooped up a lot of balls and kept Morris' ERA low. He wouldn't be a bad choice for election, but I understand why voters are hesitant to check his name. Line Drives
Permalink In regards to this post on Ground/Air ratios for pitchers, a commenter suggested checking (Ground + Fly)/Line Drives to see if that was more significant. Indeed it is. The above ration has a correlation of -0.31 with ERA. As the ratio goes down (more line drives) ERA goes up. It's still not a great correlation, but teams should probably look at line drive rates more than G/F ratio when choosing pitchers. This, of course, begs the question, who is responsible for the type of ball hit, the batter or the pitcher? Does the type of pitch thrown determine the type of ball in play, or is the batter's swing more important? I hope to look at this issue more closely soon. Burnitz a Buc
Permalink It's official, the Pittsburgh Pirates inked Burnitz. Update: The article linked above changed from the one I read earlier today. That article indicated it was a done deal. This one goes back on that. Sorry for the confusion. Depth Charge
Permalink CBSSportsLine.com updated their depth charts. It's a nice way of seeing how the moves made so far this winter affect each team. A Minor Career
Permalink Seth Stohs interviews career minor leaguer Chris Coste at Seth Speaks. Center of Attention
Permalink Jose de Jesus Ortiz reports that the Astros are on the verge of signing Preston Wilson: He has played center field most of his career. It remains to be seen what would happen with Willy Taveras, the center fielder who was second in Rookie of the Year balloting in 2005. Wilson brings a lot more power to the position than Taveras, but he's not that much better at getting on base (and Taveras plays for much less money). In 2005, Wilson earned 14 win shares to Taveras' 13. The Astros appear to be filling a hole they don't need to fill, unless there's a trade in the works. Rumors are Sometimes Wrong
Permalink Last week, it appeared the Orioles were going to sign Jeromy Burnitz. Some even speculated that acquiring the right fielder would lessen the team's need for Manny Ramirez. Now it comes out that the anonymous source was wrong: The Pittsburgh Pirates are close to a deal to sign free-agent outfielder Jeromy Burnitz, who had been close to signing with the Orioles, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today. It makes you wonder if Burnitz looked at the Orioles situation with Tejada and decided he rather play in Pittsburgh. Here's more on the Pirates end of the deal: Most of Burnitz's production for the Cubs came out of the cleanup spot, which is where the Pirates would use him, with Jason Bay and Sean Casey batting around him -- one in the third spot, the other fifth -- and Joe Randa at sixth. Burnitz has topped 100 strikeouts in each of his nine full seasons of Major League Baseball, including 109 last year, but management says it believes it can minimize that by surrounding him with good contact men such as Casey and Randa. What I don't understand is why Littlefield thought he needed to upgrade in right field. Craig Wilson is as good a hitter as Burnitz, probably better at this point. Right field was one of the few offensive bright spots for the Pirates last year. How does Burnitz help the team? It seems the Pirates are spending the money just to spend the money.
January 02, 2006
Marlins Song
Permalink FishStripes is trying to decide on a song that represents the 2005 Florida Marlins. Maybe he should just try to write one: (Since they play in the Dolphins home, sung to the tune of "Flipper")
Bunting Early
Permalink Dan Agonistes presents a few bunting charts to tie in with his articles on The Hardball Times. The thing that shocked me was his chart on bunting by inning. Over the last three seasons, teams attempted 512 sacrifice bunts in the first inning! From 2003 through 2005, the majors played 7289 games, or 14578 first innings. Let's say that the leadoff man reached in about 35% of those. That's about 5100 innings when there's the possibility of a sacrifice. So 10% of the time, managers are bunting in the first inning! I thought first inning bunts went the way of the dinosaur, disappearing when Gene Mauch retired. I'll need to watch for these more closely next season. On the Ground and In the Air
Permalink Update 1/3/2006: Read through for a correction. Cardinals Diaspora posts on the ground ball/fly ball ratios of the St. Louis starters and relievers. He finds the Cardinals like to hire pitchers who induce ground balls. For a long time I've been bothered by ground ball/fly ball ratios, and since nothing is happening in major league baseball today, I thought I'd do a bit of research. I don't believe there is a consistent view on what to measure when you're comparing ground balls and fly balls. STATS, Inc. would publish the ratio of all fly balls to all ground balls, leaving out line drives. Elias used to publish ground outs vs. fly outs, but I don't know if they included line outs in the fly outs. While the Ground/Fly ratio for the majors is around 1.2, the ratio of those on outs is close to 1. Here's a chart showing the percentage of each type of ball given up between 2002 and 2004 (bunts are not included, since a pitcher can't induce a bunt):
So it really matters if you include line drives. Pitchers in general get more balls in the air than on the ground. Notice two, that a fly ball is more likely to be turned into an out than a ground ball. About 35% of balls in play are fly balls, but about 45% of a pitcher's outs come on those same cans of corn. So do ground ball/fly ball ratios really tell us anything? The data set is from 2002 to 2004, so I looked at all pitchers in that time frame with 400 innings pitched, and correlated their ERAs with the various ratios:
There are three things you can glean from this chart:
I can certainly imagine that certain parks and certain defenses can change this calculation. But in general, we shouldn't worry about how balls are put into play against pitchers. The data used in the correlation study is included in the extended entry. Correction: I fixed point 2 above from lower to higher. Thanks to the people in the comments who pointed this out. Football Tickets
Permalink The Baseball Musings Ticket Store is offering a special deal this January, a 5% discount on tickets in honor of the NFL Playoffs. Wild Card weekend is fast approaching, and if you want to see the Giants, Patriots, Buccaneers or Bengels host a post-season game, use promotional code nflplayoff and get a great seat at a discount. Check out the other events available, also. The discount is good for any sporting event, concert or show. Updating the Majors
Permalink MLB Update is a new blog covering major league baseball. Stop by and say hi.
January 01, 2006
Welcome To Fantasy Island
Permalink Steve Lombardi reviews Fantasyland, by Sam Walker. Steve loved the book: Fantasyland is Sam Walker’s chronicle of his first rotisserie baseball experience. However, this is not your everyday fantasy baseball rookie tale. Walker is a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal who talked his way into joining “Tout Wars” (which is a prominent rotisserie “experts” league) for their 2004 season. Additionally, Sam was armed with a substantial budget – he spent nearly $20,000 traveling and preparing for the league’s player auction – and he decided to employ both a Sabermetrician, Sig Mejdal, and someone who was more focused on the qualitative-side of scouting, Ferdinando (Nando) Di Fino, to assist him through his rotisserie expedition. As such, the debate of Sabermetrics versus traditional scouting (and the balancing of the two schools) is a prevailing thread throughout the book – and in many ways Fantasyland is akin to a good buddy-movie in the way that these three characters (Sam, Sig and Nando) play off each other. It seems Sam got to play fantasy baseball like it was the real thing. He also used his position as a sports writer to influence real life managers to help his team. Sounds like it will be an interesting read. Webb Goes Home
Permalink Brandon Webb ran a baseball clinic in his home town of Ashland, Kentucky: But, the camp participants weren't the only ones who benefited. Webb didn't learn any more baseball skills, but he was reminded of some other important things.
Happy New Year!
Permalink I'd like to wish all my readers a happy and prosperous new year! Thanks so much for making Baseball Musings so successful in 2005. According to Site Meter, there were about 900,000 unique visits to the site in 2005. Thanks to all who made that possible! |
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