All Dodger games on KCAL will be in HD this year!

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

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, which moves to Stickam this week.

Jacob Luft is changing his mind about Colorado:

But after taking a closer look at Colorado's talent corps and the moves they made this winter, I have to admit I've been selling them short. They won only 76 games last season but played five games below their run differential, so they were really more like a .500 team. The difference between a .500 team and a wild-card contender is only about five victories, and keeping Helton in the fold gives them a better chance of getting those extra five wins than if he were gone. He is coming off two injury-plagued seasons, but if he's as healthy as has been reported, then he is still the type of hitter you can build an offense around for a few years. (Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projection system has him slated for a .303-.396-.501 batting line in 2007. This mostly explains what the Red Sox were thinking in trying to acquire him.

I have to agree. If they can repeat the pitching of 2006, an offensive surge by Helton would go a long way toward making them a winning team.

My Baseball Bias links to good news on Jon Lester. He's in Florida working out and cleared to resume baseball activities. Nice to see him doing so well.

The commissioner's office negated the contract struck between Barry Bonds and the Giants:

The unusual provision could set off a legal test between the rights in an individual player's contract and rights under the union's collective bargaining agreement. The language, included in the deal that was completed Monday night, is designed by the team to protect itself in case Bonds is charged in the federal government's steroids investigation.

Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, is in a California federal prison because he has refused to testify whether Bonds committed perjury when he told a 2003 grand jury he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.

Complicating matters, the version of Bonds' contract that was sent to the commissioner's office by the Giants was not approved, Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, said late Tuesday. Borris said the team was redrafting the agreement to address the provisions in question and sending him a revised version by express mail for Bonds to review and sign. Borris wouldn't specify what was at issue.

The union says the indictment clause is unenforceable. Seems both management and the union are in agreement on this. Is it possible the Giants can't get what they want, and if so, do they go ahead with the contract? Or at this point, do they have to agree to a deal and live with the risk that Bonds may not be available to them?

Update: According to ESPN, the problem the commissioner's office has is with a personal appearance clause.

Complicating matters, Bonds' contract was not approved by the commissioner's office because it contained a personal-appearance provision, a baseball executive said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because those details had not been made public.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. We're trying Stickam for the chat this week, so there are no logins required. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air.

The Yankees pulled Melky Cabrera from finishing the winter league season:

Cabrera played the last part of the winter league season in the Dominican Republic and participated in the playoffs, said Mark Newman, the Yankees' senior vice president of baseball operations. "We've asked that he shut it down at this point. It's been a long year for him," Newman said Tuesday on a conference call to discuss the team's top prospects. "We thought he needed some rest."

I wonder if this means the Yankees are thinking of using him quite a bit this season. If his time was going to be limited to just fourth outfielder duties, you'd think New York would want him getting as much playing time as possible. The four outfielder rotation seems like a real possibility.

Baseball Think Factory is currently offline. Repoz sends this explanation:

"Currently the database server is off-line and the operations center is having difficulty getting it back online."

Let's hope the difficulty goes away soon!

Dan Fox weighs in with some more information on hit batters. He brings up the increasing size of the batter as a contributing force.

Some commenters wondered why Theo wasn't so involved in the Todd Helton negotiations. He's been busy:

The Red Sox general manager threw a shutout at the paparazzi, gossip columnists, nosy sportswriters, celebrity bloggers, and any other potential wedding crashers by sneaking off earlier this month to marry Marie Whitney, and also managed to keep their honeymoon a secret.

...

Epstein and his wife are out of the country this week, and his track record suggests that the topic of matrimony will be off-limits when spring training convenes next month in Fort Myers, Fla. -- other than perhaps a little private gloating at his coup in keeping it a secret.

They got married in front of Nathan's hot dog stand at Coney Island. No word if Nathan's also did the catering.

Update: See the comments, the Coney Island part of this story was debunked. It turns out Theo's father was making a joke, or maybe it's just another example of Professor Epstein being a jerk.

Victor Zambrano signed a minor league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Unlike the recent signings of starters John Thomson and Tomo Ohka, Zambrano won't be 100 per cent at spring training. But he could be ready by mid-season, perhaps able to give the Jays a boost should one of their starters struggle or get injured.

''We've always liked his arm,'' said general manager J.P. Ricciardi. ''We like that he's pitched in the AL East with some success. There's still some rehab that needs to go on but we sent someone to watch him throw in Venezuela and it looks like he's coming back.''

The deal includes a club option for 2008.

It's a good move by the Blue Jays. It's not costing them that much money, and if Zambrano comes back healthy, he's a good pitcher on a high scoring team. He's not going to win a Cy Young award, but he could be a solid #4 starter.

Steve Treder explores the hit by pitch explosion at The Hardball Times. To sum up the article, it's a combination of unintended consequences (rules to lower hit batters seem to have raised them) and more security leading to risky behavior (more padding makes batters more likely to lean over the plate).

However, I would like to comment on one thing:

We found it plausible to explain the steady decline in HBP rates that characterized the 1900-1935 and 1970-1985 periods as a function of steadily improving skill among pitchers. Does it therefore follow that the rapid boom in HBP rates since the late 1980s indicates suddenly declining skill in the average major league pitcher? No doubt, people who say "expansion has watered down pitching staffs" would offer that argument. But I've never found it compelling in many regards, and in this case it clearly doesn't fit the shape of the change. The expansions of 1969 and 1977 didn't correspond with HBP rate increases, and the modern HBP boom gained momentum before the 1993 expansion. So it must be something else, something that overrides the historical trend toward ever-more-competent pitchers.

However, there's another trend here that combined with expansion further dilutes pitching staffs. The idea was first suggested to me by Phil Orlins, the producer of Sunday Night Baseball at ESPN during my time there. That the dilution was coming from the expanding size of pitching staffs. When I was young, teams talked about taking whether they would take 9 or 10 pitchers north from spring training. Now they talk about taking 11 or 12. So it's not that there's just four more teams than there were in the 1980s with 40 more major league pitchers, it's that plus an extra sixty pitchers due to the the expansion of staffs. And everyone of those extra pitchers isn't as good as the first ten. It may be a small contributor, but one that should be considered.

Hat tip, Sabernomics, where you can find extensive writing on the subject.

Update:

I think there's more to the pitching dilution argument than Steve argues. Using the Day by Day Database, here's a chart from 1957 to 2006 of HBP percentage from two groups, those with "low" ERAs and those with "high" ERAs. Low in this case is under 5.00. In looking at individual groups, that seemed to be the dividing line. Click on the graph for a larger image.

It's clear that low ERA pitchers are better at missing batters than high ERA pitchers, and both have gotten worse over time. Also notice how after each expansion, the gap between the two lines widen. Then look at this chart:

High ERA pitchers are getting more and more batters faced. They're on par now with low ERA pitchers. More bad pitchers facing more and more batter and hitting them at a higher rate is one reason hit by pitches are going up.

Update: John Perricone comments.

The AP details the out clauses in Barry Bonds' contract:

As part of the agreement, if Bonds is indicted the Giants have the right to terminate it under two sections of the Uniform Player Contract, a baseball executive said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the team didn't announce that detail.

Under 7(b)(1), a team may terminate a contract if the player shall "fail, refuse or neglect to conform his personal conduct to the standards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship or to keep himself in first-class physical condition or to obey the club's training rules."

Section 7(b)(3) gives the team the right to end the deal if a player shall "fail, refuse or neglect to render his services hereunder or in any manner materially breach this contract."

In addition, the Giants have the less drastic option of converting Bonds' deal to nonguaranteed, the baseball executive said. Players with nonguaranteed contracts can be released before opening day for 30 or 45 days' termination pay, depending on the timing.

As part of the deal, Bonds gave up the right to ask the players' association to file a grievance if he is indicted and the contract is terminated. But nothing would stop the union from pursuing a grievance on its own.

It seems those apply to any player, the agreement is about Bonds not fighting the invocation of those clauses.

Chronicle of the Lads presents a very good post on how Mike Scioscia uses the bunt effectively.

The owners of the Boston Red Sox are getting involved in NASCAR racing.

For Roush Racing, before the ink so much as congeals on John Henry's John Hancock, Roush will have unlocked doors for his Nextel Cup program that have largely been sealed to NASCAR team owners, namely those blocking sponsorship opportunities and fans in the Northeast.

"The Boston Red Sox have 14 million dedicated fans to their brand alone across the country, and most of it in New England," Smith said. "Any penetration into either that fan base, or a baseball fan base in general, that aren't already NASCAR fans, would be a really huge boost to our brand.

And for the Red Sox:

"They likewise see that the sponsor-base in NASCAR is broad and might give them some access for marketing activity," Smith said. "They do marketing activity for golf, for basketball, for colleges, for private clients and so forth, there's extra access to sponsorship.

One thing you have to say for the Red Sox management team, they're always finding creative ways to increase revenue.

Athletics Nation is carrying on their yearly interview with Billy Beane. It looks like Beane is using a pitcher's walk year to his advantage (emphasis added):

Blez: You mention Joe Kennedy when you brought up the rotation. Does he go into camp as the front runner for the fifth spot in the rotation?

Beane: Oh yeah, we would like to give Joe the first opportunity. He's been groomed as a starter most of his career even though he was great in the bullpen last year. Joe is a year away from free agency. He's got a lot of talent and I think he'll be very motivated. And getting another left hander in there will be nice. We think Embree can fill in and do a similar job to what Joe did last year. I'd say going in he would be the front runner.

Does Beane think players perform better in their walk years? There's some evidence that they do, but can anyone point to a longer term study? It certainly worked for Bowden with Soriano last season.

A.J. Pierzynski appeared on the Jerry Springer show as a guest bouncer. Which is a perfect excuse link to a video:

My best wishes to the Soxaholix for a speedy recovery!

There's a bit of controversy in Kansas City over who should pay for a new video system:

On a long flight from Seattle to Kansas City, Mariners outfielder Raul Ibañez can study on his iPod every pitch thrown against him last season by the Royals' upcoming starter, Luke Hudson. All of this is thanks to state-of-the-art video and computer systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The small-market Royals are scrambling to catch up with other teams. This off-season, the team plans to install a new control room, hardware and software at a cost of $900,000.

The catch: The team expects taxpayers to foot the bill as part of the $250 million overhaul of Kauffman Stadium.

Jackson County officials say they don't begrudge the Royals getting better, but some of them question paying for the system with voter-approved bonds.

County Executive Mike Sanders said he "absolutely" questions public funds going for the project because it does not directly benefit fans. Sanders has asked county attorneys to review whether the lease with the Royals requires paying for the video and computer project with bonds.

It's my view that if the stadium is being overhauled, the bonds should pay for infrastructure (conduits, camera mounts, a room), but the Royals should pay for the actual equipment. After all, if the government is going to pay for it, they're going to need to approve it, and Royals might not get the best system.

Update: Included link.

The Rockies announced the Todd Helton deal with the Red Sox is dead:

Rockies managing general partner Charlie Monfort said Monday night the team broke off talks with the Boston Red Sox about dealing Helton to the American League team, virtually ending the possibility the franchise's all-time leader in almost every offensive category will be dealt.

Helton, who has a no-trade clause in his contract, which goes through 2011, had said if a deal weren't made this week, he would not approve one. He also indicated he is not inclined to revisit trade possibilities at a later date.

Monfort, who worked with Red Sox president Larry Lucchino in the talks the past two weeks, said the discussions ended when Boston refused to include one of the players from a list of six potential impact prospects the Rockies gave the Red Sox.

"They wouldn't give us a player compatible with what we felt we needed," Monfort said. "When you are talking a player of Todd Helton's ability, you need to get someone back who is going to make an impact."

Good for both sides. The Red Sox didn't give up their future for a long term commitment to an aging player, and the Rockies didn't trade a star just to trade him. If Helton is healthy again, why not try to use him along with a good pitching staff to bring the franchise back?

The Yankees are going to tutor the Chinese on baseball:

The New York Yankees agreed Tuesday to send coaches, scouts and trainers to China to help boost interest in baseball, furthering a push by the major leagues into one of the world's fastest-growing sports markets.

Under the agreement, the government-backed Chinese Baseball Association will send staff to the Yankees' facilities in New York and Tampa, Fla., while Yankees personnel will assist the Chinese national team and others.

Yankees president Randy Levine said he hopes to start sending coaches and other staff to China "in a few months."

It's a start. I wonder if there will be a class on buying free agents? :-)

The Dallas Morning News details Brad Wilkerson's rehabilitation from shoulder surgery:

He called Arlington-based trainer Derek Southers, who worked with Wilkerson's wife, Dana, during the season, and asked him to spend the winter in Florida. As a beefy bad dude, Southers was no match for Chuck Norris in a few episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger, but he's completely capable of inflicting pain on a mild-mannered baseball player.

Southers set up a six-day-a-week workout schedule. The plan also included the elimination of sugars, bread and dairy products from Wilkerson's life. Particularly difficult was bidding farewell to Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream. The result: Wilkerson said he dropped from 225 pounds to 212 in 60 days.

"And he's getting as strong as me," Southers said. "He's not supposed to be doing it that fast. It's not in the rules. But he came to me saying he wanted to be in better shape than ever before. He's worked hard at it."

By mid-December, Wilkerson was already beginning to hit off a tee. He joined a handful of South Florida-based players for workouts in Jupiter, Fla., after the holidays.

I for one, hope he comes back strong. In my mind, the Soriano for Wilkerson trade was a good deal. Brad seems to be committed to proving that true.

Barry Bonds signed his new contract last night, and he's losing space in the San Francisco locker room:

Bonds' one-year, $15.8 million contract was made official Monday night, and one of the contract's provisions is that the left fielder can't have his entourage -- notably his two personal trainers -- anywhere at the ballpark, including the clubhouse, trainers' room, dugout or field.

That should have been done a long time ago. And although the Giants didn't spell it out, they extracted some protection for themselves:

After the sides agreed on financial terms on Dec. 7 -- a $15.8 million base salary with performance clauses that could push it to $20 million -- it took nearly two months to complete the final language, which the Giants used to try to protect themselves in case Bonds misses time for being called to court

"It was a complex, lengthy, unconventional contract," Baer said. "We needed to get some reasonable assurances and protections in several areas, and those were achieved. We got those."

Now the question becomes, will Bonds body hold up to the chase? I was impressed at how well he performed last year. I still think he shouldn't be as feared as in the past, so once again we'll watch to see if pitchers go after him. Given the poor quality of the Giants lineup, there's not much reason to do that.

Broadcasts of 161Tigers game hit the air this season:

An announcement today brought further validation of the Tigers' return to prominence: They will play only one non-televised game this year.

FSN said in a news release that it had acquired the rights to a club-record 151 games, a significant increase over last year's 130-game package with Channel 20.

FSN will carry 134 games this season. Channel 2, the new over-the-air partner, will televise the additional 17. Play-by-play man Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen will once again form FSN's two-man team.

The Tigers will also play 10 games on national television - eight as the Fox Saturday game of the week, and twice more on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. That leaves only one game - Saturday, April 7, at Kansas City - off the air.

In a few short years, the Tigers went from jokes to hot properties. I like the broadcast team they use as well. Impemba and Allen really enjoyed the 2006 season. You could just hear it in their voice that they had a real kick broadcasting a winning team. I hope they keep that up this year.

Jeff Weaver passed his physical and is now a member of the Seattle Mariners:

The deal with the includes $1 million in performance bonuses for the 30-year-old right-hander, who helped the St. Louis win its first World Series title since 1982: $300,000 each for 180 innings or 28 starts, and 190 innings or 30 starts, and $400,000 for 200 innings or 32 starts.

Weaver also would receive $50,000 if he makes the All-Star team, $200,000 for winning the Cy Young Award and $50,000 for a Gold Glove award. Should the Mariners, who have finished last in the AL West for three consecutive seasons, have an astounding year, Weaver could get $50,000 for being the MVP of the AL championship series and $100,000 for being the World Series MVP.

That's fine, Weaver probably needs the motivation. But what is this?

"We felt that signing Jeff gave us a great opportunity to add another veteran starter to our young mix," Seattle general manger Bill Bavasi said. "Jeff has consistently pitched deep into ball games, and gives his club a chance to win. He has appeared in the postseason in four of the last five years, so he knows what it takes to get to that level, and to succeed in those situations."

Just what I expect from Bavasi, GM spin for "he's not very good, so we'll make something up." He may go deep into games, but over the last two seasons he's been a time bomb waiting to go off in the 5th through 7th. Maybe he needed a few months of Dave Duncan to turn him around. Maybe he'll finally show the promise of his youth. I think the odds are against that, however.

Art Fowler passed away:

Fowler, as pitching coach, won World Series rings with the New York Yankees in 1977 and 1978, under manager Billy Martin, his close friend.

Fowler worked as a pitching coach for 14 years. In addition to the Yankees , he was with Minnesota , Detroit , Texas and Oakland.

Fowler peaked at the end of his career, having three great seasons in relief from 1961-1963. For some reason, in 1961, he had the only high strikeout rate of his career. Do any Dodger historians know why?

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Gordon Wittenmyer points out that Glen Perkins could make the Twins rotation, but he never gives you a good reason:

Poor run support and a middle-innings wall that Perkins seemed to hit early in the season contributed to a 2-11 start at New Britain. He pitched well enough for Eastern League managers to vote him to the all-star team despite the win-loss numbers, and he rebounded to win his final two AA decisions.

So the Eastern League managers noticed something beyond his WL record. What? Take a look. Those are superb strikeout and home run numbers. And while the walks are not bad, history says the big league club will pressure him to bring those down. Pitcher like Perkins make me think that Ponson and Ortiz are just insurance policies.

DRays Bay thinks the Tampa Bay payroll is just fine this season:

Now, one thing he left out is that a player and the organization have to mutually agree to a contract that benefits both parties. Given what we have seen organization like the Blue Jays spend unwisely the past year, does spending money guarantee success? Given the quality pitchers that has come available on the free market that could help this team, do you really see Barry Zito signing on to become part of the Devil Rays who are a work in progress? It remains to be seen once the franchise is further along in there plan, what free agents this franchise will attract. But, in year one the wonder twins did a good job in collecting talent for players that they were not going to keep around. In doing so, contracts like Toby Hall's and Aubrey Huff's and several others came off the books and reducing the payroll to a figure we see today. So, I have no problem with how the Rays have spent this off-season. Give this group a chance for their plan to get further along. When the time is right, I'll accept the criticism. Like next year at this time, is more appropriate.

I agree. The Devil Rays did not spend wisely in the past. Now they have a chance to see who develops amongst their youngsters. The real question for me is, will they pay to keep their best players around?

Barry Bonds takes his physical today, meaning the Giants and the slugger worked out their contract differences.

Bonds traveled to the Bay Area from his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., for the physical. If the 42-year-old star and his oft-injured knees check out OK, he'll sign a one-year deal for $15.8 million.

He can earn another $4.2 million in performance bonuses based on how much he plays. If he matches last year's effort -- 493 plate appearances, 130 games -- he'll get the whole amount.

So we get a summer of controversy as Barry heads for the career home run record.

Google decided to make Baseball Musings disappear. Where a search for Baseball Musings used to turn up this blog as number one, it now shows my old blogger page. The home page used to own a Google rank of 7, but now it's down to zero. I guess my stance on Google and China finally caught up with me. Ask.com still works however.

I'll be writing Google to try to get my search and status restored.

Update: It looks like it may be a problem on my site, rather than a delisting by Google.

Update: My host tells me that Google was being denied access to my site due to abuses by various bots. They've been unblocked now. With luck, you'll be able to find the site again in a couple of days.

FishStripes has the e-mail address for MLB if you'd like to complain about the DirecTV deal:

If you would like to voice your opinion, you can contact MLB via email here: csmedia@website.mlb.com

If you do write them, be nice. Starting out the first sentence with "What are you morons thinking?" probably won't get the rest of your complaint read. Yeah, I know, they are morons but no one likes to be reminded of it.

Good advice for any e-mail.

Evan Brunell received an A on his paper about baseball blogging in which he interviews a number of internet writers, yours truly included.

Bernie Lincicome is about as down on the Rockies as a writer can get. He argues that Todd Helton should be traded for anything Colorado can get, just to give Todd a chance to play for a winning team.

The reality is, with Helton or without Helton, the Rockies will wobble on to unsurprising inadequacy. Mediocrity is a reach and distinction is impossible.

For Helton to think it will be otherwise would be a complete surrender to apathy and acceptance. This is not as good as it can get. Talent should have better props.

Helton may not even realize how much he needs a fresh start, needs to be in a place where the talent is in position and not in Double-A.

Root for Helton to get what he deserves. The Rockies are on their own.

I thought the Rockies made some progress with their pitching last year. That's been their downfall for a long time. If they get a staff in place, it shouldn't be tough to bring in some hitters. And it their division, a lucky season could easily push them to the top.

A reader heard Curt Schilling interviewed on WEEI this morning:

David, are you listening to Curt Schilling on WEEI, where he's announcing that he will be pitching, somewhere, again next year. He says he prefers to return to the Sox, but anything can happen for next year, though he says he'd never go to the Yankees. And he also says that he's beginning to talk contract with the Sox, which he wants done before this season.

I'll keep an eye out for a transcript.

Update: Here's a summary with extensive quotes from the Boston Globe, including a link to the audio.

The New York Times offers a nice history of the Molina brothers. The headline is terriffic:

3 Weeks to Pitchers and Molinas

In terms of championships, they're the most successful brothers of all time:

The three DiMaggio brothers had superb careers and featured one of the most famous Joes to ever hit or throw a ball. The three Alou brothers combined for strong careers during a collective 47 seasons. But only the three Molinas all ended up behind the plate and only they, of all those 18 other groups of brothers, can each claim a World Series championship. "To see your other two brothers in the major leagues with you, it's an amazing feeling," Bengie Molina said. "It's unbelievable. It's something you can't put into words."

It's the middle of January, and Marlins pitchers are going down with arm injuries:

I hope this isn't becoming a precursor for the 2007 season, though it wouldn't be a complete surprise if it were. The young starters were extended last season and the repercussions could be felt this year. If Johnson and Sanchez aren't ready to go at the start of the season, and most likely they won't, it completely nixes the Nolasco as the closer experiment. Luckily, I think either Owens, Lindstorm or Gregg will fit the bill.

The team will be forced into bringing up one or two of the young arms from Triple-A or Double-A, ready or not. It also probably means that any possible trade for a center fielder is off the table. Especially since the Marlins can't spare the arms at the moment.

If the starters arm injuries become a persistent problem throughout the season, it's going to be a long one. Hopefully, that won't happen.

At the moment, none of these seem serious. And, due to good trading, the Marlins are stocked with arms in the minors, so they might be able to sustain a couple of injuries.

Babes That Love Baseball changed its location and its name. Check out the new site at Babes Love Baseball.

6-4-2 Argues against the idea that strikeouts are positive to neutral for young power hitters. I've been fascinated by the strikeout paradox for a number of years. High strikeouts are a positive sign of pitching ability, but not a negative for hitters. The reason, I believe, is that the truly high strikeout batters never make it to the majors. So when we saw Mickey Mantle or Reggie Jackson or Sammy Sosa or Adam Dunn strike out a lot, we're seeing the edge of what's acceptable, just as when we see a pitcher post a 4.7 K per 9, we're seeing the edge of acceptability.

Here's my latest video, a quick look at Todd Helton and Kevin Youkilis fielding grounders.

Here's the full set of charts for Helton and Youkilis.

Todd Helton confirms to the Denver post that he will waive his no trade clause to go to the Red Sox. However, he appears to want this resolved quickly:

Helton was asked Saturday night whether he has provided the Rockies a deadline or - as major-league sources indicated - was prepared to veto any deal in the future if this trade was not consummated soon.

"That's between me and the Rockies," Helton said. "But they know how I feel."

To the question of whether he would have interest in going to Boston, Helton answered: "Yes."

This is a difficult trade to analyse since the players involved are so fluid. It could turn out to be a good deal for Boston. However, trading for a highly paid, declining first baseman doesn't sound like the best way to spend your money, even if the Rockies are picking up half the tab. I'm tending to the negative on this deal based on that point.

Roto Authority is selling a spreadsheet of projections for baseball fantasy players to help them with the 2007 draft. If you buy through the above link, Baseball Musings gets a commission. From the site:

Every year, you buy three eight dollar magazines to give you an edge in your fantasy baseball draft. These things go to press in mid-December and are terribly outdated by the time your draft day arrives in March. And if your magazine missed an important player who comes up in June? Too bad.

It doesn't have to be that way - the 2007 RotoAuthority Fantasy Baseball Guide is now available for just $9.99. This robust downloadable spreadsheet is packed with features that will help you dominate your league.

If you're interested in fantasy games, check it out.

Joe Mauer talks about his off-season. It involved a trip to Japan, commericals, a new workout, the flu, and two breakups:

Q: Your pal Morneau is trying to adjust to all the attention after winning the AL MVP. Have you given him any advice?

A: I'm not too worried about him. I think he's handled the MVP about as good as you can.

Q: He won't be your roommate this season.

A: No, he got his own place. But he's still pretty close to my (townhouse in St. Paul), across the river in Mendota.

Q: Will you miss him?

A: I don't know if I will. (laughs) I won't have to clean up after him.

Q: Oh, one last thing. You still dating Miss USA?

A: No, that's over. That ended in, I think, November. I'm single. I'm young.

Geoff at Ducksnorts attended FriarFest yesterday, where fans actually got to play on the field at PETCO Park. He documented his trip with photos.

Jon Weisman asks at his blog:

Do you need major leaguers to play in order to enjoy watching a baseball game?

My answer is no, but I certainly notice the difference in quality of play. I go to a number of AA games a year and probably a couple of independent games. The place I notice the biggest difference is in the fielding. AA players make errors you seldom see in the big leagues. Watching AA ball is akin to taking a time machine back to the level of play (at least in fielding) seen at the start of the 20th century.

The Cub Reporter takes the case of the theft of Bob Brenly's Emmy:

This demands a serious investigation.

First of all, how did Bob Brenly win an Emmy?

Gil Grissom would be proud.

Bing Devine passed away today. He made one of the most famous trades in baseball history:

Vaughan P. "Bing" Devine, was general manager of the Cardinals from 1957 to 1964 and again in 1967-68, and helped acquire Hall of Fame players Bob Gibson and Lou Brock. The Brock trade with the Cubs is considered one of the most lopsided deals in major league history.

I suppose he'll be mourned a bit less in Chicago. :-) My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

My friends' son Grayson celebrated his second birthday today. Grayson's favorite book is Casey at the Bat, and when you ask him what the umpires says, he goes, "Strike one." If you continue to ask, you get, "Strike two," then, "Strike three, you're out." He'll also say, "Ball four, take your base." Obviously, the young man is being brought up right.

Grayson's sister Lilly is also extremely cute.

Rollie Fingers talks to the media about his tax situation:

"I'm not a tax dodger," Fingers said Friday in a telephone interview from his Las Vegas home. "I pay my taxes."

The state Department of Revenue has a different view and says Fingers, who last lived in Wisconsin in 1985, owes the state $1,433,609 in back taxes.

But Fingers says that can't possibly be right and says the recent unearthing of some old W-2 forms shows he paid $190,000 in state taxes and more than $1.1 million in federal taxes in the years he worked in Wisconsin.

That might not be enough evidence, however. As a result, Fingers said he and his new tax attorney were doing all they could to find more tax records that will vindicate him.

Some of Rollie's tax records were lost in a hurricane, so that might be tough.

It seems there's a rumor going around that the Red Sox and Rockies are working a trade for Todd Helton. Firebrand of the American League doesn't like the idea of the deal:

1) Not a fan. $90.1 million over six years? Edit: That's only if the option is picked up. Otherwise, it's five years and $45 million. That's more palatable, but it's still far from convenient. Yeah, he's got three Gold Gloves. Yeah, he's a great guy with plate discipline. HE'S THIRTY-THREE AND JUST HAD A SEASON CONSIDERED A FALL-OFF.

2) Where does Mike Lowell or Kevin Youkilis fit into the lineup with Helton? If we acquire Helton, Lowell simply has to go. With Lowell's contract, easier said than done.

3) Where was all this money when we could have had Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu? One may say that Beckett, Crisp, Drew and Helton is superior to Helton and Abreu, but still. What's going on with the Red Sox? All of a sudden they're acting like the Yankees. I don't like it. Don't burn your farm system for a 33-year old owed $19.1 million in 2011 (club option 2012).

I'd also remind people of this for Todd's ten-year career:

• Home line: .371 BA, .465 OBA, .676 Slug.


• Road line: .294 BA, .393 OBA, .507 Slug

He's still was a great hitter away from Coors, just not so amazing. However, unless they move Youkilis back to third, I'm pretty sure it's more cost effective to keep Kevin at first.

Frank Thomas speaks about his health and other matters to the Toronto Star:

Dressed head-to-toe in black, he looks like he's carved from the stuff they made the tabletop out of. Two hours a day in the gym, every day but Sunday, will have that effect. And he looks happy.

"I'm feeling great," Thomas says. "I'm feeling normal. It's taken three years to get to this point, where I don't ache when I get up in the morning."

And Thomas weighs in on steriods:

"Ten years into (my career), my goal was to get into the hall of fame. It's a rough road. It takes a lot of big games," Thomas says. "I want to play another three or four years to cement my hall chances."

Another legacy will be how he goes in. Thomas is the one of the few big bats of his generation never linked with steroids.

"I'm proud of that. To be honest, I think I'm one of the guys that made a lot of these guys do (steroids), because I came in with the big football build. It was my advantage," Thomas says.

Steroids use was well underway when Thomas arrived in the big leagues, but he has a point. It's perfectly fine to be born Frank Thomas, but it's somehow immoral to make yourself into Frank Thomas. (I'm not arguing safety of steroids here. If there was a perfectly safe way to change you body through drugs, people would still object.) Yet, it's fine for someone like Adam LaRoche to change his body chemistry to improve performance. Why is someone's lack of attention okay to cure, but not their relative lack of testosterone?

It seems to do with how we perceive normal. People see the drugs LaRoche takes as moving him toward normal. Taking steroids moves you away from the norm instead of towards it. Still, if what we're interested in watching natural talent, we shouldn't be watching LaRoche, either.

Nolan Ryan went into the hospital yesterday. Details are very sketchy, but this report in the Dallas Morning News offers the most insight:

Nolan Ryan, 59, checked into Round Rock Medical Center for treatment of recurring symptoms of a pre-existing medical condition, Reid Ryan said. Reid Ryan declined to specify the condition but said it was discovered when his father had double-bypass heart surgery in 2000.

"He takes medication for it," Reid Ryan said. "From time to time, he has episodes that require him to get checked out when he has pain or something. He's feeling good. This is more about taking precautions."

Here's best wishes for a quick recovery.

Here's what J.D. Drew said about his shoulder yesterday:

"Extremely confident," the 31-year-old said about his shoulder during a teleconference yesterday. "The thing that was really beneficial was to see where it was at the end of last season [with the Dodgers], to see the swing and everything kind of come back around as far as the strength and power numbers go. Those were telltale signs for me. This offseason's been a great chance for me to catch up on the strength gains and get a lot of work in."

This seems to confirm the thoughts that he did go through a weak period in the middle of the season in 2006 as he recovered from labrum surgery.

While the Yankees head for China, Omar Minaya leads a contingent of former players to Africa for baseball clinics:

Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, former San Francisco and Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker also will be on the trip along with Dave Stewart, Bob Watson and Reggie Smith, Minaya said Friday. The group is scheduled to leave New York on Feb. 1, spend four days in Ghana and return Feb. 6.

"Children around the world dream of becoming major league superstars. With the help from programs like this one, the children of Africa are one step closer to making this dream a reality," George Ntim, the president of the African Development Foundation, said in a statement.

That's a pretty impressive group of teachers.

Lisa Gray notes the Astros avoided arbitration battles for the 12th year in a row.

Jason Lane - 1.05 mill (up from 454K last year.) Amazing that a player can perform so badly and yet receive double his salary. Of course, if he is cut in ST, he will only receive a small pro-rated portion of the salary.

Adam Everett - 2.8 mill (up from 1.9 mill last year. He can't make much for being a defensive genius - the bucks come from the bat, and Adam is not on the field for his bat.) He can also earn another 150K in incentives.

Morgan Ensberg - 4.35 mill (up from 3.95 mill last year. I guess he must feel pretty guilty about not being honest about his injured shoulder last year, as he didn't ask for much of a raise.)

It is, what, a dozen years since an Astros player last went to arbitration. This is a very good thing, because all arbitration accomplishes is really establishing bad feelings between team and player. Compromise is a MUCH better solution.

Indeed.

Dan Fox wonders why the number of mid-season managerial changes fell off in the last 15 years. Do managers get guaranteed contracts, like players? That would be a good reason not to fire someone. Or, it could be that managerial salaries are so high now, you don't want to be paying two people for half a season.

The good people at Fangraphs are offering sortable projections from various sources. Just what's needed to help build your fantasy roster! There's projections on an individual basis as well.

WasWatching notes that Carl Pavano throws from a mound today. Despite this, he's still down on Carl:

The upshot of what I started to write last night was around what was a reasonable expectation for a season's innings pitched total from Pavano - based on his big league career to date.

Getting more than 137 big league IP from Carl Pavano in a season is a rare thing. Sure, he posted 200+ IP in 2003 and 2004. However, it's a much safer bet to expect less than 140 IP (in a season) from the Duke of the D.L, the Rajah of Rehab, the Prince of the Paycheck-Cashers, or whatever you want to call him.

My problem with this line of thinking is how many pitchers post numerous 200 inning seasons anyway? Last year, 45 pitchers reached that mark or 1.5 per team. For example, through age 30, Schilling only pitched three 200 inning seasons. Someone wanting to hire Curt at that point might have thought he wasn't worth the injury risk, but he ended up having a very productive decade.

I'd say the probability is high that Pavano doesn't pitch tons of innings this year. But at this point, New York would be very happy to get 140 productive innings out of Carl.

The DA dropped charges against Jake Peavy after he issued an apology for his actions parking his truck at the airport.

"The decision comes after both private and public apologies by Mr. Peavy to the officers and to the court," said Mobile District Attorney John Tyson Jr., according to the Union-Tribune. "I personally believe his apology was sincere. I believe Mr. Peavy will never be in such a hurry in an airport again. I believe Mr. Peavy will be attentive to police officer requests in the future. I think that his conduct is forever changed, and he certainly understands the need for airport security these days."

I'm sure everyone is happy this was resolved so quickly and easily.

The Day by Day Database is running again after upgrading to MySQL 5. I'm hoping to take advantage of features to make things run more efficiently.

At least Joe Girardi was on time for spring training! Hats off to Fredi Gonzalez, however, for doing his civic duty.

6-4-2's Rob McMillin heard Jered Weaver give a speech last night in which he said brother Jeff was a Mariner. That's more definitive than we've been hearing in the press.

Bill Madden remembers Jack Lang.

There will be an empty chair on the dais at the Baseball Writers' Association of America's annual dinner Sunday at the New York Hilton, a tribute to our intrepid leader, Jack Lang, who died at 85 of liver disease yesterday morning at the Carillon Rehabilitation Center in Huntington, L.I.

We called him "Captain Jack" for his tireless work as secretary-treasurer of the writers' association from 1966-88 - which, for years, included organizing the charter flights that took the writers to and from the middle three games of the World Series. We came to call them "Air Langus."

Lang made the congratulatory call each year to the players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

The Red Sox worked out their contract with J.D. Drew, according to Boras:

There was no official acknowledgment from the Sox yesterday, club spokesman John Blake saying the team had no comment.

But sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations said all parties have signed off on an agreement that allows the Sox to achieve their goal of making Drew their right fielder and No. 5 hitter, while giving the team the right to void either of the last two years of the deal, or both, should Drew's right shoulder render him unable to play.

Drew is not expected to be in Boston for today's announcement.

Under the terms of the contract, if Drew goes on the disabled list in his third year for issues related to the shoulder for a proscribed length of time, the Sox have the option to void the final two years. If he winds up on the disabled list in his fourth year, the Sox have the option of voiding the final year.

So it's a three year guarantee. I don't know if insurers have changed, but a few years ago that was the maximum length of insurance you could get on a player. It seems the Red Sox are self-insuring.

Still, a healthy Drew was the best hitter on the market. The Red Sox heart of the order just became more formidable.

The Good Phight suggests five possible trades for Jon Lieber.

Felix Hernandez is a new man:

The new Felix Hernandez -- "a leaner, better version than we've seen in the past," gushed manager Mike Hargrove -- unveiled himself Wednesday.

For Mariners officials, the first sight of Hernandez after his arrival this week from Venezuela bordered on a religious experience.

"When I saw him today, I was stunned," general manager Bill Bavasi said.

"I just saw him," added Hargrove. "Last year, he looked like a baby. He looked like a kid -- from the look in his eye, the way he carried himself, the composition of his body. All that is different. When you see him, you'll know. You'll see a difference in his face, in his eyes."

Numbers back up the change:

The raw numbers tell the story. According to trainer Rick Griffin, Hernandez weighed in Tuesday at 226 pounds. Last February, he reported to camp at 246 pounds -- 16 pounds over his target weight.

"I will admit I did not come in that good shape last year," Hernandez said, and then added with a wink, "Not this year.

There's not much that happened over the winter to excite Mariners fans, but this should do it.

Update: The Mariners may negate the Felix buzz by signing Jeff Weaver.

For those who don't like the DirecTV deal, here's a poem to keep in mind.

Frontier just started flying out of Hartford and is offering low fares to Denver. This talk sounds like it might be worth the trip. If they have wireless internet at the pub, I hope someone live blogs the talk.

The Cleveland Indians are taking a proactive approach to the left side of their infield:

At the urging of manager Eric Wedge and general manager Mark Shapiro, Marte, shortstop Jhonny Peralta and utility infielder Hector Luna skipped winter ball and have worked out at the Indians' academy in the Dominican Republic. Marte also spent time in Tampa, Fla., with hitting coach Derek Shelton. He and Peralta returned to Cleveland recently to spend more time with the big-league staff, and in the coming weeks infield coach Luis Rivera will join them in the Dominican Republic for more work on their defense.

Marte is expected to start at third base and Peralta at shortstop, and Luna is the leading candidate to be the utility infielder. Team officials have high hopes for all three but first wanted to see a stronger commitment to physical fitness.

"They've been working hard, Jhonny in particular," Wedge said. "Andy still needs to keep going to get into the kind of shape we want him to be in, but Jhonny looks great. He did what we wanted him to do toward the end of last year, and I think he has taken that mentality into the offseason. Hopefully he'll bring it right into spring training and opening day."

Peralta's defense nose-dived last year. It looks like the Indians spent the winter making sure he's in top physical shape, and now they'll drill him on defense. Good to see they're not waiting for the problem to solve itself. And Marte appears to be an important part of this:

It was no coincidence that Peralta's play improved -- however slightly -- when Marte was promoted from triple-A in late July and replaced Aaron Boone at third base. The outgoing, oft-smiling Marte was a good complement to the introverted Peralta. They became fast friends, and they have strengthened the bond this winter as they strengthen their bodies.

Japanese major league baseball may be going the way of the Negro Leagues:

Losing star players like Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Matsuzaka -- whether through posting or free agency -- is taking its toll on Japanese baseball. TV ratings for Matsui's former team, the Yomiuri Giants, are way down. Attendance at many stadiums in Japan is also lagging in recent years.

The Giants, Japan's most popular team, often took a sink-or-swim attitude toward the weaker teams in the league, but there are signs the team is taking a more cooperative stance in the face of competition from the majors.

"I don't think we can eliminate the posting system," said Yomiuri GM Hidetoshi Kiyotake. "But we may be able to find ways to put limits on it."

This is a sure way to ruin. Japanese players will find ways around the system. The best youngsters will start signing with MLB clubs out of high school to avoid the nine-year free agency wait.

Japan needs to start competing with the North American major leagues for talent. They don't need to go after major stars, but they could scrape the barrel of available free agents (like Cliff Floyd or Jeff Weaver) and still improve their teams. Why not start trading stars for American prospects? Instead of isolating themselves, they should expand their horizons to try to bring stars to their teams.

The Negro Leagues disappeared because their star players went to the majors, and the fans started watching those games (and unlike Japan, the Negro League owners received little compensation). It would be a shame to see Japanese baseball suffer a similar fate. If Japan needs star players, there are plenty here. They just need to change the way they do business with MLB.

The Mets are about to lift Willie Randolph's lame duck status:

Randolph and the Mets agreed to a three-year deal yesterday that is expected to lift the manager's salary to $2 million for the 2008 season, sources familiar with the pact told the Daily News.

The deal will take effect immediately. That means Randolph will get a raise from the money he was due this year under the terms of a three-year contract that was set to expire after this season - double that $700,000 sum, in fact.

Another good move by the Mets. Minaya recognizes that taking care of the good people on your team, whether players or staff, is well worth the money.

It looks like Bud Selig is still stuck in the 1980s.

Lerner said that last week at the owners' quarterly meetings, Selig "lectured us" for 90 minutes about the dangers of spending too much in free agency. Lerner said he shared that concern following an offseason that paid off both for stars -- such as former National Alfonso Soriano, who received $136 million over eight years from the Chicago Cubs -- and mid-level performers such as new Kansas City pitcher Gil Meche, who will make $55 million over the next five years. Such deals, Lerner said, have been a surprising introduction to baseball.

"In the real estate business and in some of our other businesses, there seems to be some sanity to it," Lerner said. "People continue asking me the question, 'Are you having fun?' The answer is, 'On occasion.' "

Spending money on free agents creates buzz in the game. It's good for the game (although it may not work out for each individual team). Selig, after 35 years in the business ought to know that. And I guess all this spending irks Lerner because part of it is his money from the purchase of the Nationals.

But the Nationals have a plan that's been proven to work:

Mark Lerner said that while he didn't believe it made sense for the Nationals to invest heavily in a free agent market that he called "shocking," the club plans on raising payroll beginning with the 2008 season.

"There's no question in our mind that it's going to happen," Mark Lerner said. "I can't tell you the exact amounts, but that's always the plan. So hopefully everything works out with the new stadium, and we're going to back up what we've been saying all along.

"But you have to remember with free agency, you have to use it selectively. You can't go crazy. And if we get to the point where one or two quality free agents takes us to the next level, that's when you dip into it. I think that's always been Stan's plan with the Braves [for whom he served as president for 17 seasons], and that's going to be our plan."

And that should work for any team, regardless of revenue.

WasWatching links to an article on the Yankees heading to China to establish contacts and working relationships:

They are not expected to bring back any signed players. China hasn't developed any players who would be capable of playing in the major leagues or even the minor leagues. The Chinese clearly demonstrated their shortcomings in losing all three of their games in the inaugural World Baseball Classic last March by a combined score of 40-6.

So why are they going? They will explore opportunities, both baseball and business. They will establish contacts. They will determine the most likely source of future talent and very likely initiate conversations about future working agreements, like the one they have with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.

My daughter spent two weeks in China last year and found there was very little knowledge of baseball in the country (basketball is much more popular). But with a huge population, it conceivable that China could easily fill every MLB team's roster in the future if it develops an interest in the game. It looks like the Yankees are trying to get a jump on those prospects.

The trip will also help baseball in general:

By enhancing their brand in China, the Yankees won't directly benefit financially because revenue from any merchandise sold in any country goes to baseball's central fund, whose proceeds are divided among all 30 teams. But chances are that more Yankees merchandise will be sold in China than caps and shirts of the Devil Rays or the Royals.

In other words, all teams will benefit from the Yankees' trip.

It's a good, forward thinking move by the club, something that might pay off 10 to 15 years down the road.

Update: Of course, it may prove very costly to deal with that country, given the level of corruption in China.

It's official, Cliff Floyd joined the Cubs today:

Floyd, a Chicago native, could split time in left field with Matt Murton and also give the Cubs a left-handed bat off the bench. "It gives us a a lot depth. It will enable us to survive if we have an injury by having an extra quality, quality player on the club, which obviously our depth was a problem last year when D-Lee (Derek Lee) went down," Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said.

Floyd, who spent the previous four years with the New York Mets, can make an additional $4.5 million this year in bonuses based on plate appearances and time on the active 25-man roster. The deal includes a mutual option for 2008 that could become guaranteed if he has 100 games started or 425 plate appearances this year.

He could earn $17.5 million over two years if he has 550 plate appearances each season and $15.5 million if he has 500 each season.

When healthy, Floyd is a good player. But he's also 34, and on top of the injuries, he's also facing a decline due to age. I'd rather see Murton get a full shot, but it's not a lot of money to spend for a chance at one or two good years from Cliff.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

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.

6-4-2 Links to a Joe Sheehan piece at Baseball Prospectus (subcription only) putting a positive spin on the DirecTV deal for MLB Extra Innings.

Let me put in my two cents on the matter.

First, it I agree the move is anti-fan. But I also agree with Joe,

It is a niche product for extreme users, not a gateway drug.

I buy the package so I can see all the games. But I'm a pretty special case, as I don't root for a particular team. As ESPN found out when they started broadcasting six games a week in 1990, given a choice, fans will watch their local team. So a Red Sox fanatic living in Boston really has no reason to buy MLB EI. They get the games on NESN, and cable or satellite brings them the games at no extra cost. In fact, given that DirecTV doesn't broadcast NESN at the moment in high def, they're better off with the cable package.

I've also been hearing a lot of negative commentary about DirecTV, from poor customer service to not providing local channels and such. While some of that is true, compared to cable companies DirecTV is a dream. My big problem is that when I call customer service, it takes 5 minutes to get to a person, even though I know I need to speak with a human being. (In other words, I know to try rebooting the box before I call.) And often, the first person I speak to is just reading off a script, rather than being someone who can actually think about and debug the problem. However, I've found that I can get by these people pretty quickly by asking for a manager. It's not that they aren't trying to be helpful, they just don't know how the hardware works. But they're always extremely nice and try to be helpful.

As for over the air programming, the two reasons I installed DirecTV was that at the time, my cable company offered 0 HD channels, and DirecTV had an exclusive on MLB Extra Innings. Yes, I had to install and over the air antenna, and it works great. When DirecTV gets HD over the air channels (and they've told me they're working on it), I'll have two sources for those programs. Since the antenna integrates directly into my HD box, I it's very easy to use.

And my guess is that people who really wanted the baseball package installed DirecTV back in 2001. I would not be surprised if most of the subscribers came from that time, and so it's not that big a deal (to MLB) if they go back to the exclusive. In fact, having used both cable and DirecTV in my house at the same time, I would never, never, ever go back to cable. Not even for the local forecast on the Weather Channel.

So if you really want MLB EI, and you have that clear view of the southern sky, I'd recommend DirecTV. The negatives of that provider, in my opinion, are much less than the negatives of cable.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can 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.

Last week I received a number of excellent questions, which really help during a slow news season, so please ask away!

Billy Butler, hitting prospect for the Kansas City Royals, blitzes the home town media as a AA player. Butler's agent wants his future star to be comfortable with the off-field aspects of the game:

Rogalski has never heard of a Class AA prospect doing a media tour like this. He knows it looks awfully presumptuous for several reasons.

He says the motivation was to get a lot of this media stuff "out of the way," that past clients at their first big-league camps have complained of being overwhelmed by non-baseball stuff.

He wants to keep that from happening to Butler.

"He's a little bit shy the first time he gets in certain social settings with people he hasn't met before," Rogalski says. "His ability to establish a comfort level, once he does that, he becomes much more open and more himself. Just like he has to work on his defense, he has to work on his exchanges."

It also creates a buzz. Royals fans will now know Billy Butler's name, and be looking for him if the major leaguers ahead of him falter.

Caitlin A. LaGrotte of Temple University asked me to post a link to a survey she's conducting. Here's the description:

Here is an opportunity to share your experiences at baseball games when the Yankees are playing the Red Sox.

This survey hopes to better understand the environment created in baseball stadiums when rivals are playing. The study will not ask for any personal information and will allow for better understanding of the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox. If you have attended a Yankee versus Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park please click the link below to take the survey. Thank you.

You can take the survey here.

We have our first owner complaining about high salaries:

"What concerns us the most at the moment is the free agency signings that have been occurring the last 90 days and could take baseball out of control", said Lerner, whose family took ownership of the Nationals last July.

Welcome to the big leagues, Mr. Lerner. That's what happens when the game does well, players reap the benefits.

Earlier today I wrote about Darin Erstad:

If he really wants to win, he'll go with the White Sox. If he wants to play everyday, he'll take the Marlins. Miami is warmer, too, which might be nice for someone who played his career in southern California.

He's gone with the winner, opting for a contract with the Chicago White Sox.

Erstad, who underwent surgery in October to repair an injured right ankle that limited him to 40 games last season, is expected to challenge youngster Brian Anderson for the center-field job in Chicago.

But with news that White Sox left fielder Scot Podsednik underwent groin surgery today and will be sidelined for the next six weeks, Erstad could also play some left field. Erstad, 32, and Anderson could also platoon in center.

So he'll get some playing time. The Chicago centerfielders hit poorly last season, so if Erstad can just get back to his career averages he'll improve the offense at the position.

The Athletics traded Kirk Saarloos to Cincinnati today for a minor leaguer and a player to be determined. Saarloos is a very low strikeout pitcher who walked more batters than he K'd over the last three seasons and saw his home run jump dramatically last year (granted, he was injured). The A's get in return a 24-year-old relief pitcher with great minor league K, BB and HR numbers, and one other body in the future.

Update: Redleg Nation doesn't like the deal.
If I'm a Reds fan, given the bullpen problems of last year, I'm not very happy with the deal.

Update: C. Trent Rosecrans likes the move better than his commenters do. I like this one:

Considering Oakland's knack for knowing pitching, I'd say we're in deep crap here.

The Blue Jays brought Toma Ohka back to Canada.

Ohka is 41-41 since becoming a full-time starter in 2002. Of the 102 pitchers with at least 600 innings pitches since 2002, only nine received less run support per game (4.61 runs/nine innings).

Toronto, in need of another starting pitcher, was attractive to Ohka because of the possibility of getting run support from one of the best lineups in baseball.

Of course, Ohka was playing in the National League where run support should be lower, anyway. It's an interesting way to spin the signing, however. The Blue Jays are basically saying his record does not reflect his value. I'd be more concerned that his strikeouts were down and his walks were up in 2006.

WasWatching notes a sign that Roger Clemens is coming to the Yankees. Actually, the change of numbers can happen anytime. Plenty of players give up numbers when a star joins the team mid-season. Maybe the Yankees are on the verge of a deal to bring in Roger for all of 2007.

Midway Chat wonders if the Cubs are really paying more attention to on-base average.

Bryan Smith lists his top 75 prospects. Good news for the Royals and Diamondbacks is each owns two in the top ten. What's poor is that Pittsburgh, a team that's been dreadful for a long time, only has two in the top 75!

Ken Rosenthal notes the Marlins are offering Darin Erstad a chance to be their regular centerfielder.

Erstad, 32, is expected to make his decision this week, Genske told FOXSports.com. The 11-year veteran, who has spent his entire career with the Angels, is seeking both an opportunity to win and chance to play every day.

The Marlins, who have failed in their attempts to land a young center fielder this off-season, want Erstad to be their regular in center.

The White Sox could use Erstad, a left-handed hitter, in a center-field platoon with Brian Anderson and also as a backup to Paul Konerko at first base.

If he really wants to win, he'll go with the White Sox. If he wants to play everyday, he'll take the Marlins. Miami is warmer, too, which might be nice for someone who played his career in southern California.

Marlins centerfielders hit poorly in aggregate last seasons (228/.298/.344). However, that was better than Darin hit in 2006 in a very small sample size. If Erstad, healthy, can come close to his 2005 numbers, it will be a nice improvement at the position for the Marlins. His numbers are very poor for a first baseman, but as a centerfielder they're okay.

You can now order the Cooperstown Cookie Company chocolate caps online (reviewed here).

Cliff Corcoran takes an indepth look at the signing of Miguel Cairo:

Of course the big concern over the Cairo signing is, "what if Jeter or Cano get hurt and he has to start." Well, Jeter missed almost a month and a half at the beginning of the 2003 season, the Yankees replaced him with Erick Almonte, who has since fallen all the way to the independent leagues at age 28, and went 26-11 in his absence, building up a three-game lead in the AL East. In 2000, Chuck Knoblauch missed more than a month and the Yankees went 25-15 with Luis Sojo and Jose Vizcaino filling in, doubling their three game lead in the East over that stretch. Last Year, Robinson Cano missed a similar amount of time and the Yankees went 23-11 with Cairo and Green at the keystone and turned a 2.5 game deficit in the division to a 2 game lead. That's not to say that those players aren't valuable, but that, as the above attempted to illustrate, it's not a disaster to field a replacement level player in the middle infield for a while.

Besides which, the Yankees happen to have one of the best keystone combinations in baseball. Derek Jeter was a legitimate MVP candidate last year and is a sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famer and Robinson Cano is the best second baseman in the American League and likely second only to Chase Utley in all of baseball. The Yankees are not going to be able to properly replace either of those players regardless of the quality of their backup. The best they can do is hope to maintain some baseline level of ability in their absence. Miguel Cairo is the definition of that baseline.

My only comment is that Cliff left Alberto Gonzalez off the list of possible farm hands that could move up. He came over in the Randy Johnson deal.

Metsblog.com notes that compared to Utley, the Mets locked up Reyes and Wright for a very good price. However, note that both of the Mets infielders are four years younger than Utley. So they're going to hit the free-agent market very close to their peak (age 28) while Utley would be in his early 30s. Reyes and Wright are going to be much more valuable as free agents than Utley would have been, simply because of age.

Both Dayn Perry and Phil Rogers rank the baseball GMs today. I thought I'd combine the two to get a consensus. Rogers doesn't rank everyone, so I'll just give you the top 10. I combined the ranking by adding together the place on each list. Here's the resulting order:

Rank	GM
1-T	John Schuerholz
1-T	Terry Ryan
3	Billy Beane
4	Walt Jocketty
5	Dave Dombrowski
6	Brian Cashman
7	Kenny Williams
8	Pat Gillick
9	Larry Beinfest
10	Theo Epstein

Beane would be at the top of my list. Does anyone think there should be another GM in the top ten here?

The near term success of the Pirates organization is discussed today at Pittsburgh Pirates Roundtable. Yours truly contributes one of the articles.

Al Bethke speculated that Doug Davis' arm isn't healthy, and now there's a story that lends credence to that thought.

Yanksfan vs. Soxfan follows up their Red Sox projections with a look at the Yankees. It looks like a dead heat in the AL East.

How can I ignore a post titled, "Pinto coming into his own?"

Tim Placher explains why he's now happy his wife named their son after Cal Ripken.

Correction: Fixed link.

WasWatching interviews Michael Morrissey about his new book, The Pride and the Pressure: A Season Inside the New York Yankee Fishbowl. Michael is also blogging in support of the book here.

Jeff Albert offers video scouting of Jeff Samardzija.

Off topic a bit, but my good friend Jim Storer and I were discussing the gyro ball last week, and it came to mind that the best gyro ball pitcher might be Dan Marino. He was a good baseball player, and his football throwing motion was unusual in that his mechanics were similar to baseball pitchers. Since he already knows how to throw a tight sprial, the gyro ball would be perfect for him. Maybe someone should teach him how to throw it and see if they can start him in a new career. After all, he is at his playing weight. :-)

Over the weekend, Alfonso Soriano agreed to play centerfield, opening up a spot for Cliff Floyd on the Cubs roster.

The Floyd deal, which might be completed this week, has been in the works since the winter meetings, but the Cubs weren't sure whether they would add Floyd or a veteran center fielder to hold down the fort until prospect Felix Pie is ready at midseason. Floyd, a former Thornwood star, is expected to serve as a fourth outfielder, giving left fielder Matt Murton and right fielder Jacque Jones regular rest.

So does this push Pie back in the depth chart? Or will the Cubs look to make a trade once Pie is ready to play?

There's a addition to the Day by Day Database. You can now see team records with different players in a game. For example, here's the won-lost records for each Mets player during the 2006 season. I'm not sure how useful this will be, but it's not something that's easy to find other places, so I'm sure you'll make use of the information.

Update: Just to be clear, if a player appears in a game at any time, the player gets credited with the result for the team that day.

The Colorado Rockies signed Brian Lawrence to a one-year contract:

Lawrence, who did not pitch last season due to surgery to repair his labrum and rotator cuff, also had drawn strong interest from the Mariners, with the Pirates and Padres also involved in the bidding.

Lawrence's strength as a pitcher is his control. He's never struck out that many batters. However, he does have a history of giving up the long ball, which won't go over well in Coors.

Darnell Coles is optimistic the changes at the top of the Nationals' organization will lead to winning at the bottom. He's the manager of their A affiliate in Burlington, VT.

Coles said Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten, who was president of the Atlanta Braves for 17 years, is committed to rebuilding the organization into a respectable franchise from top to bottom.

"As far as staff goes, he has made some major changes. He has made changes as far as the draft and how they go about looking at the players they want to get and go out and get," Coles said.

"This organization is going to turn around in a hurry. They did it in Atlanta and they're going to do it again here."

We'll keep our eye on the Washington low minors to see if they improve this year.

The Seattle Times catches up with short lived Mariners sensation Bucky Jacobsen.

The Phillies just locked up Chase Utley through the 2013 season, at a very reasonable price:

All-Star second baseman Chase Utley signed an $85 million, seven-year contract extension with the Phillies on Sunday through the 2013 season.

Utley hit .309 last season with 40 doubles, 32 home runs, 102 RBIs and 131 runs. He also had a 35-game hitting streak that tied for the 10th-longest in major league history and longest by a second baseman.

"We view Chase as not only a great second baseman but also one of the top 10-15 players in the game," Philadelphia assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said. "He's a hard-nosed, full-throttle player who exemplifies the spirit of Philadelphia. He is tailor-made for this city and we couldn't be happier to lock him up for years to come."

I love contracts like this. Utley wouldn't be eligible for free agency for a few years, so he gets big money now. And he's old enough that he'd be hitting his declining years when that option became available. With the rise in salaries, $12 million a year is a steal, even for a declining great player. So the Phillies will get Utley's best years at a steal, and his declining years at a reasonable cost (especially if you believe salaries will continue to increase). Sees like both sides come out ahead on the deal.

Update: I wasn't sure before how many years of arbitratrion/free agency Utley was giving up, but it's three years of arbitration and four years of free agency.

Vern Ruhle passes away Saturday night. Ruhle wasn't much of a strikeout pitcher, but he showed good control and had a solid 13-year career. His best season was 1980 when he posted a 12-4 make for the Astros with a 2.37 ERA.

My thought go out to his family and friends.

Nick and Nick are not happy about the shape of the back of the Twins rotation:

It's unclear at this point what the Twins are going to do with these new players they've signed. Perhaps a bad showing in spring training will keep them out of the 2007 rotation. Whatever the case, I know this much: the thought of Silva, Ponson and Ortiz in the same rotation is extremely painful. It could be a lonnng year.

It appears Ned Yost is going to make his fifth starter a swing man this season:

It's more advantageous to be the fourth starter than fifth because days off in April will prompt Yost to skip No. 5 a few times. That was avoided last year because, with Sheets on the DL, Yost used days off to get by with four starters for a couple of weeks.

Assuming all five starters are healthy this April, the guy at the back of the rotation probably will be skipped a couple of times.

"He has to have some durability to be able to go to the (bullpen) and be a long guy," said Yost. "So, there might be some decision between No. 4 and 5."

This is a strategy that would work past April. It's a great way to go back to a four-man rotation without calling it that.

Jay's Giants Blog notes the passing of William James, long time Giants fan and friend to SABR:

James's love of the game did not end when he passed away. He bequested a sum of over $30,000 to SABR. The Board of Directors is considering ways to use the gift. One possibility would be to establish funding for research into the history of fans.

Another thing that would be useful is combining with Retrosheet to make available a fully relational, publicly assessable database of the retrosheet data. The data, in it's current format is clumsy to use. For $30,000 you could get a nice server and some volunteers to transform the data into nice SQL tables. SABR could then publish the structure of the tables and allow an interface for SQL queries to the data. That would open up research to many more people.

Ducksnorts finishes listing projections for the 2007 Padres hitters. Geoff averages four systems together. Here's how the lineups would score according to the Lineup Analysis tool.

Those particular eight players (and last year's pitching numbers) look to score between 4.5 and 5.0 runs a game. Since the team scored 4.5 runs per game last year, the Padres have a good chance of beating that mark with this group of hitters.

The Baltimore Sun notes the Sporting News heaped insult on injury when it named the Orioles to the "Feeble Foursome" of the worst franchises in each sport:

And how disrespectful is this? The pieces at sportingnews.com on the other three members of what Sporting News calls the "Feeble Foursome" at least are real articles. The Orioles get only a chronology - lists of dates with short summaries of what happened.

Is the ranking fair to the Orioles? Why not Kansas City or Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh? In my opinion, it's resources. A rich organization, the Orioles just waste money. That puts them at the bottom.

6-4-2 Notes the 44th birthday of Cecil Espy, probably the only player with a .301 career OBA with an award named after him. :-)

The post also notes that the Angels farm system is ranked #4 by Baseball America:

making the Angels the only team rated in the top five for five straight years.

I often wonder about the validity of these rankings. Certainly, if the farm system was that well ranked for five seasons, you'd expect a team of home grown talent to rival any in baseball. Since the start of the 2002 season, the Angels certainly had their share of winners come off the farm (K-Rod, Lackey, Jered Weaver, Figgins), but also a few duds on the hitting side (McPherson, Kotchman, Mathis). Is this what Angels fans really expected from a top five farm system?

Update: Dallas McPherson goes on the DL for most of 2007 with a herniated disk that requires surgery.

Peter Friberg writes:

No Wells post?

I actually did link to the Wells story in the DirecTV post last night. But here's a direct link:

The Padres and Wells' agent reached preliminary agreement Friday on a one-year, $3 million contract plus incentives that will give the 43-year-old left-hander the chance to earn a maximum of $7 million if he makes 27 starts, sources told FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal.

Padres general manager Kevin Towers said the two sides need to finalize some contract language and Wells must pass a physical. He expects the deal to be finalized by Monday or Tuesday.

The physical is going to say Wells is fine, but remember he spent half of last season on the DL, and he's another year older. He won't walk many batters and may strike out fewer. He's going to say things that are both funny and controversial. I suspect he'll have a few beers. I hope the Padres have a good young pitcher waiting in the wings if David goes down with another back problem.

To be serious for a moment, Wells does not go deep in games anymore. Neither does Maddux. Over the last two years, the Padres strained their very good bullpen by trotting out poor starters. Now, they're going to strain their very good bullpen by trotting out old starters. They may win more games, because the old starters are good, but the strain on the bullpen will be real nonetheless. It's a good rotation, but only because they can afford to receive short outings from 40% of the starters.

Phillip Scott asks if baseball needs saving. He's worried that a small number of teams are buying up all the good players and wants MLB to be more like the NFL.

Baseball needs to be fair. Baseball needs parity. The best way to do this without changing the system to much is to institute a hard-cap, similar to that of the NFL. If that happens, we might be able to see a day when the Yankees do not make the playoffs. What a beautiful day that will be.

Since 1978, there have only been three years in which the World Series winner repeated. (1993, 1999 and 2000). In the same time period, there were five Super Bowl repeats. And while there were 20 different baseball teams winning championships in that time, only 13 different NFL franchises did. When has an NFL expansion team made it to the Superbowl championship quickly? The Jets won in 1969 after being created in 1960, but they were not a traditional expansion team. The Mets, Diamondbacks and Marlins all won a World Series in less time.

And I'd say the reason is a lack of forced parity. Baseball teams, if they decide they want to win, can take any avenue they choose, including buying a team. While any NFL team may be able to beat any other NFL team on any Sunday, very few win the Superbowl. Baseball teams, with their freedoms of choice, can build long term or short term, and both can lead to winning.

The deal is done, MLB Extra-Innings will be shown exclusively on DirecTV.

Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel.

Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly.

I brought DirecTV into the house in 2001 because at that time it was the only carrier for MLB Extra Innings. So this is no big deal for me, except that I assume they'll raise the subscription fee (no competition does that). I do hope, however, that they greatly expand the games available in high definition.

And, to the benefit of baseball, that's another 3.3 million in the pocket of each team for the next seven seasons. That's enough to sign a very old fifth starter.

The Krispy Kreme promotion in Kansas City is no more, and it may be a good thing:

First off, the bad, sad news from this afternoon's 15th Annual Baseball Forecast Luncheon: Krispy Kreme's 12-hits-gets-you-a-dozen-dough nuts promotion is no more, says Royals president Dan Glass.

He said the dough-nut maker's corporate philosophy had changed and the company no longer wanted to continue the promotion. But Glass quipped the good news is, "We will all lose a lot of weight." And he joked Krispy Kreme execs were so startled by the team's improvements in the second half of last season that they were worried about the frequency of this year's giveway if the hit total wasn't raised to 24 for a dozen.

(Catcher John Buck talked about the pressure put on a player coming up to bat when the Royals had 11 hits and the score of up 10 runs or down 10 runs didn't matter, it changed the feel of the whole at-bat.)

It must be tough having all that sugary goodness riding on your shoulders. :-)

The Cooperstown Cookie Company just sent me their latest treat, peanut butter filled chocolate baseball caps. I'm not a big fan of peanut butter, but this was fresh and delicious, complementing the milk chocolate perfectly. From the picture, it looks like they'll be promoting them for Valentine's Day. A perfect gift for someone you love who loves baseball!

Jerry Crasnick examines possible candidates to replace Bud Selig when the current commissioner retires in 2009. That is, if he retires. Somehow, I get the feeling that before Bud dies he's going to suspend his brain in a life support tank and keep running the game.

Rich Braasch sends this story:

Jeff Samardzija, whom the Cubs selected in the fifth round of the 2006 First-Year Player Draft, will forgo the National Football League Draft and commit to a baseball career.

"I am pleased to announce that today I have reached an agreement on a five-year Major League contract with the Chicago Cubs," Samardzija said in a statement. "Consequently, I will devote my full time and attention to professional baseball and forgo a potential career in the National Football League."

It's my bias that baseball is always the right choice in these situations. A star in baseball is likely to have a longer, higher paying career than one in football. However, I don't find his strikeout rate at Notre Dame very compelling.

The Indians signed Trot Nixon to a one-year deal:

Nixon, 32, will be the Indians' right fielder against right-handed pitching, a role that was originally intended for Shin-Soo Choo. Against left-handers, the Indians will move Casey Blake from first to right, with Kelly Shoppach playing catcher and Victor Martinez first base.

Choo, 24, still looms as the Indians' right fielder in 2008, but the Indians opted for Nixon's experience in '07, knowing they need to compete with the Twins, White Sox and A.L. champion Tigers.

If you're 24 and still not ready for a full-time major league job, are you ever going to be ready?

MetsBlog.com notes that you can still make up a complete NL team from the available free agents.

...i always wonder how one of these teams would do in a regular season...a team of refugees like this, who are motivated, could certainly perform better than the Nationals, which unfortunately says a lot about the strategy in D.C...

Well, the lineup is pretty bad. Using Marcel projections, a lineup of those eight position players and league average pitcher hitting yields a best lineup that scores 670 runs. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays were last in runs scored in 2006 with 689 runs. So this would be a really bad team, which is probably why these players are still available.

The Rockies are charging extra for tickets when the Yankees come to town this season:

But those games at Coors Field June 19-21 carry a cachet unlike any others on the Rockies' schedule and, as a result, stand alone when it comes to ticket prices.

Single-game tickets for the series - outside the Coors Clubhouse and corporate suite tickets and the $4 Rockpile seats - range from $15 to $75.

"It's like every team in major league baseball has a personal rivalry with the Yankees," said Becky Wallace, executive editor of Chicago-based Team Marketing Report, "and they show that by raising their ticket prices. And I think the reason why is, so many fans react because the Yankees are the team with the legacy, the team with the dynasty. They're the team everyone wants to beat, whether or not they're the previous World Series winner."

The Yankees have visited Coors one other time, in 2002, and the two- night, one-day series (same as this year) drew a Rockies franchise- record 146,530.

Good for the Rockies. Teams should do more of this pricing to try to match prices to the demand for particular games, even lowering prices when opponents don't draw.

Baseball Crank notes the signing of Craig Wilson by the Braves. So, for less money than they'd pay LaRoche, the Braves put together a left-right platoon at first. Wilson in his career hits lefties much better than righties, while Thorman showed more power last year against righties. That seems like a low cost, high value solution to a problem at first base.

The Detroit Tigers Weblog excerpts Jim Leyland being extremely candid about Neifi Perez. In fact, Jim's brutally honest.

The Arizona Diamondbacks signed Doug Davis to a three year deal, terms undisclosed so far. The two sides were over $2 million apart in their arbitration figures.

Update: CBSSportsLine offers more details on the deal. Davis will around the DBacks offer this year, his asking price next year, and a raise in 2009 for about $22 million total.

Congress is asking the prosecutors in the BALCO case to drop their prosecution of two reporters.

"The issuance of these subpoenas appears to run directly counter to the protections afforded to the press under the First Amendment," Rep. John D. Conyers, D-Mich. said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

Conyers sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking him to withdraw the subpoenas. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., also signed the letter.

"Like most Americans, we have watched with great concern as the Department of Justice issued grand jury subpoenas to the reporters and their newspaper to learn the identities of their confidential sources on some of the most significant reporting in the history of professional sports," Conyers and Davis wrote. "We write to you now to express my deep concern over the issuance of these subpoenas and to urge you to withdraw them."

The leaks justify the persecution of ballplayers by Congress, so they're okay.

The mess that is the Barry Bonds contract negotiations keep getting more tangled. Via Deadspin, it seems there's ample opportunity for a dispute if the Giants end the negotiations.

According to multiple industry sources, the Giants cannot use the failed drug test to walk away from the contract because legally they should not have received the confidential information. Even if the Giants decided to nullify the deal for other reasons, Bonds could argue in a grievance that the drug test was the real cause and win a judgment.

Moreover, one lawyer who works in the industry but is not connected to Bonds or the Giants said if the deal crumbles, Bonds might have a strong case against MLB or the union for sabotaging it if he can prove one or the other leaked the positive amphetamine test.

On the other hand, Bonds' case might be weakened because he and the Giants did not submit a letter of agreement to MLB and the union when they reached financial terms, which would have made it binding. The Giants say that was Bonds' choice, because he wanted certain contract issues settled first.

The Giants and Bonds struck their tentative agreement Dec. 7. Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, who declined comment Wednesday, had predicted it would take weeks to complete the language.

I'm guessing this is a negotiating tactic by the Giants. They knew all the dirt. If they didn't want Barry, all they had to do was say no to a new contract. My bet is they're using a new leak of their intentions to walk away from the deal to force Bonds to accept their version of the contract. My guess is the entourage disappears.

Tony Womack's career refuses to die:

Tony Womack and the Washington Nationals have agreed to a minor league deal that would pay the veteran infielder $600,000 if he makes the 40-man roster.

...

The 36-year-old Womack has a .273 career batting average over 13 major league seasons. He started 2006 with the Cincinnati Reds, who released him in May after 18 at-bats. He then signed with the Chicago Cubs, who designated him for assignment in June after 50 at-bats.

With the Nationals, he might just break 50 at bats.

Baseballgirl notes that MLB is thinking of adding a travel day before the fifth game of the LDS. That would make it easier if teams need to travel cross country for the fifth game.

I never quite understood what was wrong with the 2-3 format used before. Yes, teams with the better record complained that starting with two games on the road hurt their home field advantage. So why not do this. Go back to a 2-3, but the team with the better record gets the first two games at home. If they really think that's the advantage, it shouldn't matter. And teams will save some travel expenses and fuel.

Both Sabernomics and Baseball Crank don't like this deal from the Braves side.

The Crank:

But it's still trading a guy who his 32 home runs and slugged .561 with a .354 OBP as a 26-year-old regular last season for a short reliever, one who has spent more than a month on the DL each of the past two seasons, including missing the end of 2006 with elbow tendinitis, and issued 5.02 walks/9 IP (excluding intentional walks) over those two seasons. The only way this makes sense is if the Braves are really certain that LaRoche not only had a career year last year (which I suspect he did) but that he will not come especially close to those numbers again. Otherwise, they are drastically overrating the value of a single reliever compared to an everyday player.

Crank dwells on the negative (walks) without looking at the positive (Ks, HR).

From Sabernomics:

In 2006, I estimate the Gonzalez's play generated $5.12 million, which is $4.67 less than LaRoche's $9.79 million. Granted that 2006 was a career year for Adam--and steady sailing for Gonzalez--but I think LaRoche's break-out is for real. PrOPS has him right at what he actually produced, which is a good sign.

...

So, straight up, I don't like this deal, even if LaRoche falls back to an .850 OPS player. However, this isn't a straight-up deal. Brent Lillibridge, the prospect coming to Atlanta, is intriguing. He's a college product who has put up good numbers in the minors, and he plays a difficult defensive position. His minor league performance is a bit difficult to judge since he's never been past high-A ball even though he's 22. He certainly makes the deal better for the Braves, but I don't know if it's enough.

WasWatching suggests a way to handle Bernie Williams:

At this point, the Yankees should consider bringing Bernie to Spring Training as a non-roster invite. Let him go about his business the way that Al Leiter did last season - get your work in, have one last fun stay in sunny FLA on the Yankees tab, and have a chance to mingle (and say good-bye?) with some of the diehard fans.

It's a good idea, and then sometime during the season you hold Bernie Williams day and retire his number. That will give the Yankees sixteen retired numbers. The Yankees also lose 42 when Rivera retires, whether or not they retire it for Mo due to the Jackie Robinson rule. Number 2 goes when Jeter leaves, and six gets retired with Torre, so that leaves no single digits.

That's two bad. A single digit was a sign of a good player. Number were originally assigned based on your spot in the batting order (that's why so many catchers wore 8). That quickly changed, but a low number used to mean something good. Maybe the Yankees should implement other numbering systems to signify their good players. Maybe famous constants! I'd want to be Avogadro's number (N_A) but I'm sure there would be a lot of competition for Pi. Fast runners would compete for c, but my guess is pinch runners would avoid i. That's just too intangible.

Barry Bonds spoke up for Rose and McGwire:

"I congratulate Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn for their induction. But I also think McGwire and Pete Rose should be in Cooperstown," said Bonds, who was in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for the Juan Marichal Golf Classic.

I'm sure that's going to change minds. It's like Michael Myers endorsing Jason Voorhees for the camp counselor hall of fame.

It looks like Brent Lillibridge heads to Atlanta and Jamie Romak winds up in the Pittsburgh system as part of the LaRoche-Gonzalez trade. Romak is young, 21 in 2007 and put up decent numbers at A ball after three seasons in rookie league. That seems like a long time in rookie ball, but he started when he was 17. Lillibridge put up .400+ OBAs in 2006 at both levels of A ball. Why didn't he advance more? As someone drafted out of college, as someone who was playing very well at A ball, shouldn't the Pirates be moving him along faster? One of the reasons to draft a college player is less minor league development time. I wonder if the Braves will move him to second as a possible replacement for Giles? Or let him develop for a couple of more years, then replace Renteria?

The Brewers and Chris Capuano split the difference between the bid and the ask.

It seems appropriate that a team from Ohio would train in a town called Goodyear.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

The Mariners locked up J.J. Putz today for three years:

J.J. Putz cashed in on his breakout debut season as the Seattle Mariners closer, agreeing Wednesday to a $13.1 million, three-year contract.

Putz gets a $1.5 million signing bonus plus base salaries of $2.2 million this season, $3.4 million in 2008 and $5 million in 2009. The Mariners have an $8.6 million option for 2010, with a $1 million buyout.

Putz had 36 saves - the fourth-highest total in a Mariners season - in 2006, his second full season in the major leagues. The hard-throwing, 29-year-old right-hander entered the year as setup man to Eddie Guardado, before Guardado taught Putz how to grip a split-fingered fastball for better movement during spring training.

It took Putz a long time to catch on in the majors, but his big league numbers are even better than his minor league stats, especially in walks and strikeouts. He's not young, but it's not a lot of money for a good pitcher these days. It's less than what Lidge is getting, and right now Putz is the better pitcher.

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. I'm going to give the video feed a try tonight as well.

The Pirates finally landed the player they covented, Adam LaRoche.

The Pittsburgh Pirates' two-month wait to try to swing a deal for Atlanta power hitter Adam LaRoche ended Wednesday when they agreed to acquire the first baseman for left-handed closer Mike Gonzalez and another player.

The trade is subject to physicals for the players required by the two teams, according to a baseball official familiar with the negotiations who requested anonymity because the deal was still being finalized. The identify of the other player was not immediately known.

I assume that means it's not Chris Duffy. I'm not a huge LaRoche fan. He had a great year at age 26 after not reaching the majors until age 24, and then being platooned with someone older than me. I don't think he's going to have a long and productive career. However, the Pirates are getting him at his peak, so if he can at least repeat his 2006 performance, he'll improve the team. But he's by no means a savior.

Mike Gonzalez, on the other hand, does two things really well that you like to see in a closer. He strikes out lots of batters and doesn't allow many long balls. He walks a lot of batters, about one every other inning. But he's so tough to hit he can live with that. It looks to me like a very good move for the Braves. They trade someone who should be fairly easy to replace, using his career season to hype his value for a pitcher who possesses two important skills. And John Schuerholz even picks up another player in the bargain! A classic Braves deal.

From the Baseball Primer Newsblog:

USA Kevin Ryan, who had been the lead Balco prosecutor is apparently one of several federal prosecutors that have been pushed out by the Justice Dept. using a provision of the USA Patriot Act.

Except that's not exactly what the article says. While other federal prosecutors are being pushed out, when the article gets around to quoting people who know something about the situation:

But another legal observer said he doubts Ryan is being removed for political reasons.

"I don't see Ryan doing anything that doesn't comport with the ideological line out of Washington,'' said Peter Keane, a Golden Gate University law professor and former dean. He said other prosecutors who reportedly are under pressure to leave have been those who "don't meet the general conservative litmus test.''

"I don't think this was in response to a White House request'' aimed at Ryan, said Rory Little, a law professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and a former prosecutor in the office under one of Ryan's predecessors.

Little said he'd known that Ryan had been thinking of leaving for about six months. He said he didn't know all of Ryan's reasons but that one must have been the need for a more lucrative job to pay the education costs of two college-bound sons.

Anyway, I doubt it will change anything. These prosecutions are usually run by the staff.

The Padres are getting in trouble all over the place. First Jake Peavy runs into trouble at the airport, and now Marcus Giles gets into a fight at the Patriots-Chargers game. San Diego fans have to hope the team is as aggressive on the field. :-)

Yanksfan vs. Soxfan uses both PECOTA and Bill James projections for 2007 to evaluate the Red Sox.

Using James' Pythagorean theorum and PECOTA's seemingly more realistic projections, 964 runs scored and 710 runs allowed would project roughly (I used the power of two instead of the power of 1.83) to a 105-57 record. Um, wow.

Indeed.

Phil Sheridan likes the attitude of the Phillies this year:

There isn't much chance the Phillies deliberately attempted to add energy and attitude to their roster by emulating the Eagles' mid-season resurgence.

So it's mere coincidence the Phillies traded for Freddy Garcia, claimed Anderson Garcia off waivers and signed Karim Garcia to a minor-league contract during the same one-month span Jeff Garcia was pumping up the local football fans with his fiery presence.

What is not a coincidence, though, is the continuing transformation of the personality of this baseball team. That jumped out at you yesterday, when the Phillies held one of their off-season meet-and-greets for the media at Citizens Bank Park.

From their 2006 everyday lineup, the Phillies last year traded away Bobby Abreu and David Bell. Going into 2007, their replacements will be Shane Victorino in right field and Wes Helms at third base.

Subtract poker-faced, major-league-cool players.

Add high-motor, high-energy, hustling players.

Phil then goes on to bash the number guys who like Abreu.

This issue is best understood by looking at last year's trade of Abreu to the New York Yankees. Well into October, many e-mailers complained that the Phillies would have won the extra couple games needed to reach the playoffs if they hadn't foolishly given Abreu away. But the fact is, the team didn't really start playing well together and winning until Abreu was gone.

You want numbers? The Phillies' record before the deal: 49-54. After the deal: 36-23.

Abreu is, by any measure, a very talented and productive player. He's a perfectly decent guy. And yet the Phillies were a better team without him (or Bell or Cory Lidle) on the roster.

This reminded me of something from early Bill James Baseball Abstracts. Bill published numbers of team records when players appeared in a game. At the time, he thought they were interesting, so I thought I'd look up the Phillies numbers. Abreu's record actually gives more ammunition to Sheridan. In that 49-54 stretch, the Phillies were 44-54 with Abreu in a game, 5-0 without him. Now, I and you should take this with a big grain of salt. For example:

• On May 13th, without Abreu, the Phillies won a 2-0 game.
• On May 14th, without Abreu, the Phillies won a 2-1 game.

The other three games were blowouts right before the trade happened. So, what difference would Bobby make in those games? The team didn't hit in two of them, and everybody hit in three of them!

Bobby is a good player. Having him in a game should make the team better. The fact that it didn't seems to be more a factor of luck than Bobby not being a hustling player.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can 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.

Here's the full list of players exchanging figures for arbitration. Eight teams avoided the process all together, with six teams keeping the number down to one. The upper mid-west must be arbitration heaven, since the Twins lead the majors with six players exchanging figures while the Brewers post five. A loss of all six case by the Twins would raise their payroll another 4.8 million dollars.

The Crawfish Boxes explains why Brad Lidge's salary is reasonable.

Here's FishStripes take on the Miguel Cabrera arbitration situation:

The Marlins can negotiate with Miguel right up to the hearing, but if history is any indicator, they won't. Not that it matters that much. Cabrera will be with the Marlins one way or the other.

Now that Cabrera has reached his arbitration years expect that he and the club will go before the panel every year. That is assuming he keeps putting up similar numbers. Also expect him to break the "record" every year for years of service.

Here's an idea. Why not throw Cabrera into the negotiations for a new stadium? The government supplying the money should demand a long term contract for the third baseman as part of the deal. We'll build you a stadium, but you need to give us a star.

I was actually thinking of this over night in regards to the Twins and Johan Santana. The Twins are about to get a new ballpark thanks to the good taxpayers of the Twins Cities. In exchange, maybe Carl Pohlad should infuse some capital into the club so they can sign Santana, Mauer and Morneau long term, say the next five years. Give Santana a three-year extension at $25 million each. Offer Mauer and Morneau $12 million a year for five years. That way, the Twins get all of their best seasons, they still get to cash in on free agency, and the ballclub gets a chance to win a World Championship with this core. And the ownership can spin it as a thanks for the new stadium! Seems everyone wins.

The Cubs don't.

It's tough to negotiate a contract in two languages:

The source described the talks as, "Combine medical language and legal language into one, and that's what you're up against. Every time there's medical language proposed, it takes a couple of days to decipher it. And then there are discussions back and forth and revisions are made. Both sides are looking for precise language to protect their assets."

They need to find a doctor who speaks lawyer.

Royals Authority goes outside the box to find a positive in the Gil Meche deal:

Signing Gil Meche to a 55 million dollar deal immediately put an end to the 'we can't compete in an unfair market' melodrama that has played behind the scenes out at Kaufmann Stadium. Inking a 28 year old just entering his prime as opposed to a 36 year old just leaving it, changed the mindset of the organization from 'hoping to compete' to 'planning to win'. More than anything else, Dayton Moore, put the Royals back in the game.

This year, Barry Zito and Jason Schmidt would not return
Moore's calls, next year the big name guys might at least listen to the voice mail. The year after that, they probably even return the call. That will happen even if Gil Meche never posts an ERA under 4.00 and Octavio Dotel's arm flies off.

It will happen even more if he Gil proves successful.

Nick and Nick see a Johan Santana trade as inevitable. They scour the Yankees farm system to see who'd they'd like to get in a trade.

They're assuming, of course, that the team that trades for Santana keeps Santana. That's not always true. Carlos Beltran and Alfonso Soriano come to mind. The Twins might do better renting Santana for a couple of very good prospects than taking a bunch from the Yankees.

I also don't believe it's inevitable the Yankees land Johan. The Mets will be out of Pedro's contract by then, so they'll have cash to chase the superstar as they go into their new ballpark. Lord knows Texas has the money and the need for a great starter. And of course the Marlins with their measly payroll can expand it generously and still keep it low. If Santana hits the market, the bidding will be intense.

The Texas Rangers offered Sammy Sosa a minor league contract.

"Sammy came across as hungry and humble, just looking for an opportunity," Daniels said. "We're not placing any expectations on the situation. It's a second chance for him."

Sosa's agent, Adam Katz, could not be reached for comment.

Sosa worked out for the Rangers in the Dominican Republic this off-season and most recently in the batting cages at Ameriquest Field on Monday. The 38-year-old had dinner with Daniels and several other Rangers' personnel before flying out later that evening.

After a year off, and at seasonal age 38, I don't expect a big comeback from Sammy. But there's not a lot of downside for the Rangers, and at least they get to try to fix the mistake they made back in 1989.

Nico at Athletics Nation wonders what the value of a 6th starter is these days:

Teams are way overspending for pitching this off-season, so you might assume that if someone is willing to pay Barry Zito what nobody used to get, and someone is willing to pay Gil Meche what aces used to get, and someone is willing to pay Jeff Suppan (career: 106-101, 4.60 ERA) what good pitchers used to get, and someone is willing to pay Mark Mulder what Mark Mulder used to be worth, then certainly teams will give you some useful returns if they can snatch a Saarloos, Halsey, or Kennedy to fill out their rotation.

Sadly, I don't think that's the case. I think that starting pitching has gone the way of the "haves" and the "have nots," where there is little in between. There are very few outstanding--or even decent--pitchers available and so teams are paying #1-2 starter money to #3-4 starters and hoping those guys can "step up" a notch or two (good luck with that, San Francisco, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and St. Louis). But there are always plenty of #5-#6 starters to go around. If you're available and you're not good, then you're simply not good enough to excite anybody about adding you to their rotation.

Of course, if a couple of those pitchers step up for the Athletics, they could be suddenly worth a nice trade.

Carlos Zambrano is trying to take advantage of the big contracts handed out to pitchers this year:

Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano asked for a raise to $15.5 million while batting champions Joe Mauer and Freddy Sanchez also sought big hikes in salary arbitration Tuesday.

AL MVP Justin Morneau and Florida star Miguel Cabrera looked to cash in, too, as 56 players exchanged figures with their teams.
Zambrano, who went 16-7 for the Cubs last year and made $6.65 million, was offered $11,025,000 by Chicago. Both his request and the club's offer were the highest numbers traded this year.

I wouldn't be surprised if Carlos loses the case. That's the kind of money that goes out to free agents. And while Zambrano is certainly good enough, he's not a free agent yet. That also would be a huge jump from Soriano's award last season, and a 2 1/2 times increase over Carlos' 2006 salary. We'll see if the Cubs split the difference, or try to give him a multi-year deal.

The Tigers settled with their remaining arbitration eligible players today.

The crisp pace of the club's winter business continued Tuesday, as Detroit announced it had agreed to one-year contracts with its remaining arbitration-eligible players: outfielder Craig Monroe ($4.775 million), left-handed starter Nate Robertson ($3.26 million), infielder Omar Infante ($1.3 million), and right-handed reliever Fernando Rodney ($1.05 million).

John Westhoff, the club's baseball legal counsel, had arrived at work Tuesday - the day on which players and clubs formally exchange contract numbers - anticipating that one or two cases might go to arbitration. By noon, though, he'd reached an agreement with representatives for all four players, thus checking off another task from a melting to-do list.

As so often happened in 2006, matters were settled in an orderly, successful fashion.

"It's such a difference dealing with players and agents this off-season, than when I got here five years ago," Westhoff said. "Back then, it was hard to get an agent to return a call, or to convince a player to truly give Detroit a chance.

"Now, here you are, signing players in a free-agent environment, and locking up your own guys long-term. You even see it with the one-year deals. Guys are excited to be here. They want to play for the manager. They think we can win. All those things have helped me do what I do."

Winning helps clubs in so many ways.

A question for someone who might keep track of these things. Are arbitration cases down? It seems that as time goes on, both management and agents get better at pricing players arbitration values. That means in general, the two sides should be submitting figures that are closer as time goes on. The closer the two numbers, the easier it is to split the difference and just settle without the hearing. Does anyone have stats on this?

6-4-2 Links to Bill James' argument for Bobby Grich in the Hall of Fame. When my college roommates and I played the 1979 strat-o-matic season, I drafted Grich and Bob Watson. I traded Grich to a National League team, where he won the MVP, while Watson won the AL award. So Bobby's a favorite of mine.

His name also sounds like something you pull out of a sink trap, so he gets extra points for that. :-)

The Athletics are no longer interested in Darin Erstad.

Rays of Light posts on the latest trouble for Elijah Dukes.

The Chicago White Sox signed Joe Crede to a one year deal and will not go to arbitration with any players. Crede's salary nearly doubles. However, I wonder how he would have done in arbitration, especially coming off the best year of his career?

C.C. Sabathia looks like he's recovered from knee surgery:

Sabathia said the Sept. 29 arthroscopic procedure, which repaired a torn meniscus, went well. He will begin a running program next week and should be ready for a full workout regimen when spring training opens Feb. 15.

The Cleveland lefty is also looking forward to a big payday after the 2008 season:

A few transactions caught Sabathia's attention this winter, however. Left-hander Barry Zito's free-agent contract with San Francisco pays him $18.5 million per season. Right-hander Jason Schmidt signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $15.6 million per year.

"I was excited," Sabathia said Friday. "It's a good market for pitchers. Hopefully, if I can stay healthy and have some good years, I'll be in the position those guys were in."

Cleveland's 26-year-old left-hander will be in that position -- free agency -- following the 2008 season. His 81-56 record and 3.95 career ERA would seem to put him in at least the same neighborhood as Schmidt and Zito. It's a neighborhood that Sabathia and his bosses realize might be a little too posh for middle-market teams such as the Indians.

"People have tough decisions to make coming up the next couple years," Sabathia said.

The article gives the impression that C.C. would take a hometown discount. Still, even a discount means tens of millions of dollars and a long term contract. That would be easier to award if the Tribe wins and the fans ate up tickets as they did in the 1990s.

It turns out Rollie Fingers blogs. However, he posted on his tax problems, then took the post down.

"The Brewers went through [archives] and found that every paycheck issued to Rollie Fingers while he was a member of the Brewers had state income taxes withheld," read an entry dated Jan. 8 on RollieFingersSportsBlog.com.

Fingers confirmed to a Madison TV station by phone that he operates the Web site, but he declined to discuss the post with WKOW.

Minutes after the interview ended, the entry was removed from Fingers' blog. But WKOW kept a printout of the post, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press.

Did he take it down because it wasn't true, or because lawyers told him to due to the investigation? Decide for yourself as Google cached the page. I actually like this line about Wisconsin tax collectors:

I would say that those in charge are in more s..t than a Wisconsin cow walks through in a year.

You go Rollie!

Gary Sheffield's autobiography is due out soon. Sheffield recounts his dealings with Bonds and BALCO, but there's not much new in that regard. It does shed some light on Sheffield's relationship with Joe Torre:

Sheffield called Manager Joe Torre "an enigma" and recalled how, in 2004, his first season in with the Yankees, he grew infuriated that Torre had said he wished the team had signed the slugger Vladimir Guerrero.

During a meeting in Torre's office before a May game in Baltimore, Sheffield told him: "I'm tired of hearing you talk about how much you love Guerrero. That disrespects me."

The next season, Sheffield recounted, he and Torre had an argument in St. Louis the day after Torre called him out during a team meeting for his uneven defensive play.

Sheffield said they quickly patched things up once Torre explained how he viewed him as a team leader and as someone who could handle the pressure.

PECOTA projections (subscription only) are out and 6-4-2 sees what they mean for the Angels and Dodgers.

If you look at the lineup analysis of the Angels projected nine using these projections, you find a very small spread between the best and worst lineups. It a very balanced order, and should score 5.0 runs a game. So any pitcher on that team posting an ERA under 4.00 should do very well.

The St. Louis Cardinals get to host the 2009 All-Star game. Amazingly, improvements need to be made to the new ballpark:

One of the conditions of getting the All-Star Game was making improvements to certain areas of Busch Stadium, specifically the press box. Those improvements have begun and are expected to be in place by opening day. An escalator has been added down the right-field line, and some standing room areas have been removed that led to obstructed views for some season-ticket holders. The Cardinals also have made what was temporary premium seating at field level in the playoffs into permanent seats and are adding women's restrooms.

You would think that a team would ask MLB about this when they are designing the stadium in the first place. St. Louis last hosted the event in 1966, so they are way overdue. The other interesting piece of news is that the 2008 venue hasn't been decided:

In 2005, Major League Baseball awarded the 2007 All-Star Game to San Francisco, setting the table for a National League team to get the 2009 game. The 2008 game is expected to be played at Yankee Stadium, in what may be the final year for that ballpark.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The All-Star game now is a showcase for new ballparks. With New York installing two new stadiums in the near future, it seems the city will be seeing more than their share of All-Star games over the next decade. Either that, or the new Yankee Stadium won't be so new the next time the Bronx Bombers host.

Sammy Sosa worked out for the Rangers in Texas.

Sammy Sosa worked out again Monday for the Texas Rangers, the team he began his career with, before meeting general manager Jon Daniels and other club officials.

"The workouts and subsequent conversations have been positive. He seems committed to proving himself again -- made it clear he wants to contribute to a winning environment," Daniels wrote in an e-mail late Monday night. "We had good baseball discussion about our club, where he's at in his career, and whether there's a fit."

Baseballistic thinks bringing Sammy back as the right-handed DH is a low risk option. However, if Sosa is coming back to reach the 600 home run plateau, a right-handed platoon situation likely won't give him enough at bats. A younger Sosa could easily hit 12 homers in 150 plate appearances, but I'm not sure the current version can come close to that.

Dontrelle Willis and the Florida Marlins avoided arbitration today:

The Florida Marlins ace agreed Monday to a one-year contract for $6.45 million, a hefty salary for the team with the lowest payroll in the major leagues by far last year.

Which means, of course, they can afford the raise.

The Marlins' payroll of $15 million last year figures to rise considerably if they keep Willis and slugger Miguel Cabrera, who is eligible for arbitration for the first time. Cabrera's pay could climb to the $6 million range after he made $472,000 last year.

If a stadium deal gets worked out, I wonder if they try to sign both these players to long term deals?

Here's some good news for Nationals fans:

The Washington Nationals and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network announced Monday that Hall-of-Fame pitcher Don Sutton will be the new color analyst for Washington Nationals telecasts in 2007. He will join play-by-play broadcaster Bob Carpenter in the booth for over 150 regular season Nationals games carried over the team's regional sports network, MASN.

The brothers Judd worry that the Reds will wear out Homer Bailey.

With the Cubs making a splash in the free agent market this winter, let's take a look at how the offense looks with the Marcel projections. Last year, the Cubs scored 716 runs, 4.4 per game. With the addition of Soriano and DeRosa, and the return of a healthy Derrek Lee, it looks like a decent Cubs lineup will score about 5.0 runs per game, or almost 100 runs more than 2006. That's about a 10 game improvement on the batting side.

It's an impressive accomplishment if these stats bear out, but it still only brings the Cubs up by about 10 wins. If they are going to be competitive, the pitching needs to reduce run scoring by at least the same amount. We can calculate runs allowed in a round about manner, since the Marcel projections just give us innings and ERA. If you take the top six starters and top six relievers from this depth chart, and then pro-rate the runs out to 1439 innings (same as last year), you get 782 runs allowed, 52 less than 2006. That's another five wins.

So on paper, it looks like the Cubs improved themselves by about 15 games this year. If you use the Pythagorean relationship (810 runs scored, 782 allowed), that may be as high as 18 games. Either total is impressive. With a little luck (a healthy Prior? Soriano repeats 2006? Murton has a breakout year?) the Cubs do even better. It was costly, but Hendry looks like he's put the Cubs close to contention in 2007.

I'm very grateful that because of people like Dr. King and Jackie Robinson, I've been able to enjoy a game where talent comes from all walks of life and from all over the world.

The St. Louis Cardinals are interested in bringing back Jeff Weaver, but the two sides differ in the length of the contract.

With Weaver reportedly seeking a four-year deal worth about $10 million annually, the Redbirds all but excused themselves from the Weaver chase until La Russa contacted the righthander shortly after New Year's Day. Weaver voiced a desire to return but also a need for stability after shuttling from Detroit to New York to Los Angeles to Anaheim and then St. Louis in his career.

"I made it clear to Jeff that we'd like to have him back," La Russa said. "I think his concerns are about finding some stability -- staying in one place for a while."

The Cardinals are more interested in offering a two-year deal. I like the way the article describes the market for Jeff:

The market for Weaver remains difficult to define but apparently falls shy of initial reports. The New York Mets have expressed persistent but undefined interest.

Weaver is a very tough pitcher to value. At his best, a four-year, $40 million deal makes sense. But at his lows are so frequent teams shy away from offering him a long term deal. Maybe an incentive laden contract is the best deal for Weaver.

Doug Melvin recognizes it's time for the Brewers to win:

If there was any doubt about the Milwaukee Brewers' expectations for the upcoming season, general manager Doug Melvin set everyone straight Thursday night at the Brewers' Winter Warm-Up event at Miller Park.

After introducing right-handed pitcher Jeff Suppan, the first major free-agent signing since Melvin became general manager in 2002, Melvin said the move signaled the end of the Brewers' rebuilding.

"We want to talk about winning, not just getting to the .500 mark," Melvin said. "We feel that next year we want to win ballgames at a much better pace than we have in the past."

Suppan, the 2006 National League Championship Series MVP, signed a four-year $42-million deal with a club option for a fifth year Dec. 24. That signing sent a distinct winning message to the team, which finished 75-87 last season for fourth place in the NL Central.

"It has taken the Brewers awhile to get to that point, but I think when you sign a player like Jeff Suppan not only are you adding a good player, but that's the statement that you are making - that we think we have a team here that can win," said Brewers infielder Craig Counsell, who was re-acquired over the winter. "If we add a big piece like this, we feel that it's right there. It sends a message to the players that there is an expectation."

It also means Milwaukee should stop thinking of itself as a young team that can afford to learn on the job.

"We are starting to come to the point where we should be hitting our prime," Brewers left-hander Chris Capuano said. "The being young thing isn't flying anymore now that we are coming of age."

Good. Melvin's had his five years to rebuild. It's time to deliver.

John Beamer takes a close look at the Astros season and concludes that a full season of Roger Clemens wouldn't have made a difference.

Looking back at all this one of the more revealing insights was Garner's decision to demote Nieve to the pen. In all, Nieve's record as a starter was an unimpressive 2-3, but the fact remains that Buchholz was worse. It is amazing to think that a pitcher as good as Roger Clemens would have been lucky to win the Astros even one extra game. It just goes to show why pitcher won-loss records are rightly vilified in the analytical community. Who knows, but had the Rocket replaced another pitcher such as Buchholz or even his great friend, Andy Pettitte, then the outcome may have been different. Fortunately for the Cardinals that didn't happen.

Rays of Light sheds light on the disapperance of Dewon Brazelton.

Baseball Primer Newsblog links to an excellent four part series on the Gyroball, including a movie of a computer generated simulation of airflow over the ball.

The Good Phight is unhappy with the Phillies signing Antonio Alfonseca:

The Ed Wade Regime should have taught us that pouring former closers onto the bullpen fire will solve nothing. Another in a long line of PVMRs (Proven Veteran Middle Relievers) brought in and given crucial late-inning roles. Shades of Roberto Hernandez, Mike Williams, Turk Wendell, Arthur Rhodes... and as a former closer, you just know he's going to have the Set-up Guy mantle handed to him. It's enough to make you barf. Why was I born here?

He's only thrown 43 1/3 innings over the last two seasons. This strikes me as more of a flyer on a once good pitcher. If he works out at all, he's a steal.

I'll be on Lehigh Valley Yankee Fan Club Radio tonight between 6 and 7 PM EST.

The Hardball Times publishes the Marcel projections. It's a little unwieldy to find a player you like, but you can then play with the Lineup Analysis tool to see how your team stacks up for next year. Here's the Yankees. You'll notice, in looking at this lineup, why they can afford to play a glove man at first base. Their worst lineup is predicted to score 952 runs on the season.

Aaron Laffey, an Indians prospect, is this year's winner of the Dapper Dan award.

The Dapper Dan Club of Allegany County is hopeful Laffey will be back in Cumberland before the final Sunday of this month as the club will honor him with its top award, the George W. Stevenson-Nicholas A. Perlozzo Memorial Award, annually presented to the person who brings the most national recognition to the Cumberland area through athletics.

The 59th annual Dapper Dan Awards Banquet is Sunday, Jan. 28, 5 p.m., at the Ali Ghan Shrine Club and when Laffey receives this year's top honor he will be following in the footsteps of some very select company from the baseball world, including Sam Perlozzo, manager of the Baltimore Orioles, who last year was the recipient of the club's top honor for the fifth time.

The Indians are taking a long look at Laffey after putting him on the 40-man roster. His strength as a pitcher is keeping the ball in the park.

Via Baseball Primer Newsblog, the Indians Chris Antonetti talks about ability and luck:

Q: Are all the statistics discovered now in baseball or are there still some things that need to be quantified that aren't?

A: There are still a lot of areas in which to better evaluate players. A lot of the end results - doubles, triples, singles - those types of results are outcome-based. They are not just the evaluation of how did that batter do in that batter-pitcher performance.
In other words, say Travis Hafner hits a line-drive double into the left-center field gap. One time, hitting that exact same ball off the exact same pitcher, one time there is (the Twins') Torii Hunter in center field, and one time there is a center fielder who is not nearly Torii Hunter's defensive equal. Torii Hunter happens to make a great diving catch in left-center field. That other center fielder, the less capable defensive center fielder, doesn't make that play. Travis Hafner did the exact same thing. He hit the ball in the exact same spot off the exact same pitcher. But one time it's Torii Hunter. He makes the catch, and it's an out. The other time its the not-quite-as-good center fielder, and it's a double. But Travis Hafner didn't do anything differently.
So to the extent that we can measure those kinds of things more precisely and take more luck out of the equation, I think we have the opportunity to develop better methods for evaluating actual performance on what guys did.

Albert Pujols took an extra two weeks rest this off-season, and his injuries appear to be a thing of the past:

Insisting the body that betrayed him for much of his productive 2006 no longer bothers him, the Cardinals first baseman made it through a two-hour autograph session at the downtown Millennium Hotel on Saturday. Before, he casually engaged the media that became a thorn to him at times in the 83-win team's World Series run.

"I feel real good," said Pujols, who took six weeks rather than a month off following the team's Series clincher Oct. 27. "I'd rather be greedy later on than early on when I'm working out. I feel real good. So far I haven't felt any of those injuries I suffered during the season. That's a good sign."

Pujols put up unbelievable numbers in 2006 with the injuries. If he's healthy, we could see a record setting season.

A former Harvard baseball player remembers facing Ross Olendorf in an Ivy Championship game.

The Toronto Blue Jays signed Lyle Overbay to a very reasonable four-year contract yesterday:

Overbay, who made $2.525-million in 2006, will earn $4.2-million in 2007, with $3.8-million being paid out as a signing bonus. He will earn $5.8-million in 2008 and make $7-million in 2009 and 2010.

Lyle would be eligible for free agency after the 2008 season. Overbay isn't the prototypical power first baseman, but he gets on base at a very good clip and hits lots of doubles. This may be one of the sanest contracts issued this winter.

Jon Morosi talks to Tigers pitching prospects about being traded, since they're stuck behind a very good rotation:

"We wondered about it," Tata acknowledged in a telephone interview last week. "The rumors were swirling. It's impossible not to think about it."

A trade would likely mean a better opportunity to pitch in the big leagues, away from a top-heavy organizational depth chart that includes Jeremy Bonderman, Justin Verlander and Andrew Miller, supremely talented starters of similar age.

Then again, a trade would also involve leaving the only professional organization that either player has ever known.

"Neither of us really wanted to get traded," said Tata, the 25-year-old right-hander who appeared in eight games with the Tigers last year. "It's such a good situation in Detroit, with the winning environment, the personnel and the general attitude there.

That didn't take long to change. A few years ago Detroit was a joke. Now, pitchers would rather stay in the minors of this organization than be traded for a shot at the bigs.

Via Baseball Think Factory Newsblog, Mark McGwire comments on the Hall of Fame vote.

"I had an absolutely wonderful career that I am very proud of," McGwire said as he signed autographs at a charity event benefiting the Orange County Abuse Prevention Center. "I'm not in control of what happens -- I was in control of hitting the ball."

Anaheim Angels All the Way links to an article on The Book on why DIPS may not work for Barry Zito. Basically, it comes down to Zito inducing pop ups and his effectiveness vs. right-handed batters. Barry owns a reverse platoon advantage.

I've often seen this in successful lefties, especially the soft-tossing kind. When Glavine was at his peak it was pretty extreme. These lefties throw a pitch which batters described to me as a "dead fish." It moves away from righties, making it difficult to hit, but in on lefties.

I asked both Ray Knight and Greg Olson (separately) about this, and each gave the above explanation (Olson caught Glavine in Atlanta). In was in fact, obvious to both these batters that Glavine should be better against RHB. But then I asked why don't managers start more lefties against Glavine, each also gave the same response. The manager wouldn't want to take the heat for going against convention.

So, given Zito's career success versus RHB as opposed to LHB, should NL managers start a lefty lineup against him?

6-4-2 Is not impressed that Billy Beane made an offer to Darin Erstad. Maybe it's a fake; if Beane shows interest in Erstad, maybe an AL West opponent will think he's good and spend too much money on Darin. :-)

It seems like Erstad's been around forever, but his seasonal age will be just 33 in 2007. If Darin can post a .340 OBA again, he'll be valuable to the A's.

With both Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau filing for arbitration, the Twins are going to see quite an increase in payroll this season. Even if the Twins feel they can't keep both long term, it would be wise to at least lock these two up through their arbitration years. Baseball appears to be in the sweet spot right now in terms of revenue growth, so it's likely that those two will get significant raises the next two years as well. While the best thing would be to lock in their stars for a long time, a three-year deal at least gives the front office some certainty as to payroll, and avoids these arbitration conflicts.

Also, just how old are the Giants?

The San Francisco Giants were the only team that did not have a player file for arbitration.

Robert Nutting officially took over as owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates yesterday, although it doesn't appear that much changed. Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke responds to the letter:

Still, I'm a reasonable person and I think I'm a pretty fair guy. In fact, a lot of Pirate fans will read this letter I'm writing and tell me I'm too fair. I read the stuff you say to Dejan Kovacevic in the Post Gazette and I want to believe you. "It's my expectation to win." That's what you said. As a fan, I hope you'll forgive me if I say I have ample reason to think otherwise. Still, there's no way around the statement you've made. It's not open ended like "We Will." It says pretty clearly what you want to do with the team and it's hard for me to argue with that, because I want to see the Pirates win and I should hope that you do too. But you know what? Words don't mean anything anymore. I don't care if you say you want to win or expect to win every day. I want you to show me that you want to win. Fire Dave Littlefield. Talk to any reasonable baseball person and they'll tell you that Littlefield is an awful GM. Guess who's helped turn us into a punchline? Littlefield. If you want to win, I'd suggest you start by firing him. Next up, fire Ed Creech and Brian Graham. You profess to want a strong farm system to operate like Oakland and Minnesota. We don't have that and no one is more responsible for it than Creech and Graham.

As noted yesterday, the Pirates are doing a poor job of fixing the team this off-season, giving some justiication to the above desires.

Mark Sweeney spoke up yesterday about the allegations that amphetamines came from his locker:

The New York Daily News reported Thursday that Bonds failed an amphetamines test last season and initially attributed it to a substance he took from Sweeney's locker.

"There was nothing I had for him to take or for me to give to him," Sweeney told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday night.

Sweeney moved forward after being told by Gene Orza, the union's chief operating officer, that his name had come up with a failed test for the stimulants. He wasn't informed of the player's name or any other details.

"That was kind of a shock," Sweeney said. "I heard my name was mentioned. I didn't know who mentioned it. I didn't know how or why. I was angered and hurt a little bit that however it came out someone didn't know the facts. That happens in all walks of life. ... It's more frustrating for my family. That's who I'm frustrated for. I've learned to deal with certain situations."

Sweeney said he was tested several times for amphetamines last season and has never failed any drug tests.

Sweeney also appreciated Bonds' apology:

"From my side, I was hoping that (would happen). I understood that's what needed to happen," Sweeney said. "It's over and done with for now and we can move on. We can start talking about baseball. It's something that's said and it's unbelievable. You shake it off. ...

"I treat everyone the same way. I respect Barry just as much as I respect Noah Lowry and Matt Cain and the rest of the guys. Did I have a good relationship with him? Yes. Was it cordial? Yes. Did I hang out with him? No."

By the way, I love the way the reporter sets up the story:

Sweeney, respected around baseball for his candor win or lose, minding his own business and being a good teammate, expressed shock at learning that Bonds apparently mentioned his name in connection with the slugger's failed amphetamines test last summer.

Here's a good guy, so we should believe him. No opinion or bias there. Why not just get a couple of quotes from teammates or reporters who cover Sweeney?

Jeff Nelson wanted to retire as a Yankee, and the Yankees were happy to oblige.

Jeff Nelson wanted to retire as a member of the New York Yankees, so he agreed yesterday to a minor league contract and then said he wouldn't play anymore.

"I enjoyed a fulfilling 15-year major league career, and each season brought experiences and friends that I will cherish forever," the 40-year-old relief pitcher said in a statement released by the Yankees, for whom he played from 1996 to 2000.

It wasn't that long ago that people didn't want to play for the Bronx Bombers. I remember Greg Maddux turning down a better offer from New York to pitch in a better environment in 1993. The team was bad, and you had to put up with Steinbrenner. Luckily for the team, Steinbrenner was suspended over the Dave Winfield scandal, allowing Gene Michael a free hand to rebuild. That led once again to players wanting to be associated with the Yankees and winning.

Mark just isn't the giving kind.

By the way, we use Silpat in our house and they work great.

MetsBlog.com links to a story about Pedro's 19-year-old son, Pedro E. Martinez. He looks just like his uncle Ramon. It would be very cool in Pedro 2.0 got to pitch with his dad in the Mets rotation. You could then guess Pedro Martinez for the Mets starter and be right 40% of the time!

Dave Littlefield is still looking for a first baseman:

From accounts on both sides, the Pirates and Atlanta never have gotten as close to a deal as they did Dec. 6, when Braves general manager John Schuerholz backed away from a proposal to swap LaRoche for closer Mike Gonzalez.

Since then, the sides have exchanged other proposals, with Atlanta's wish being Gonzalez plus another player, possibly center fielder Chris Duffy. The Pirates' position on that, as one team official put it, was that "we'd be creating two holes to fill one." The Braves also might entertain taking a starter for LaRoche, but the Pirates are highly reluctant to part with any of their top four: Zach Duke, Ian Snell, Paul Maholm and Tom Gorzelanny.

As someone inside the industry but outside either organization put it, "Doesn't look like there's a match."

And that seems to be the problem with all Pittsburgh's possible trading partners. There's not good match of talent. I'm sorry, this problem shouldn't be that difficult to solve. Littlefield is spending much too much time on an easy to fix position (first base) when the rest of his club isn't very good. It's like spending days trying to fix a leaky faucet when there's a hole in the roof. Why not give someone like Adam Boeve a shot? Or instead of going after a 27 year old major leaguer with an iffy career, scour the minors for someone stuck behind an established veteran (think Ryan Howard two years ago). Putting the organization on hold because you need to land a first basemen is a very poor strategy for running a team.

Update: Ross Hooten writes:

Indianapolis Indians fans would also remind Mr. Littlefield that one of our own is still available to play regularly in PNC Park: Brad Eldred Unfortunately for the Indians, Eldred was lost for the 2006 season in April with a wrist injury. The Pirates might recall that Eldred hit 12 homers in 55 major league games in 2005. http://pittsburgh.pirates.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/team/player.jsp?player_id=434660 I'm a Reds fan so I guess the Pirates are thinking with Eldred that they'd rather not have an Adam Dunn style player in the middle of their lineup.

Here's a link with Eldred's complete minor league stats. There's lots of things you can do to fill a first base hole. Sometimes even in your own system.

Al Doyle pens an interesting essay on one of my favorite subjects, the double. He writes extensively on Earl Webb's single season record, but neglects Tris Speaker's career mark of 792. Back in his 1983 Abstract, Bill James talked about soft records:

Any time performance levels in a given category rise to where the record represents less than 18 seasons of outstanding performance, the record becomes soft; less than 15, very soft.

If you take the average of the MLB leaders in doubles over the last 10 seasons, you get 53.8 as the level of outstanding performance. That 14.72 years of outstanding performance to break the record. This record should be really soft, like the home run record was in the 1960s and the stolen base record was in the 1980s. But looking at Career Assessments in the latest Bill James Baseball Handbook only Miguel Cabrera owns better than a 10% chance of breaking the record (15%), and the only other person whose career path may take him there is Albert Pujols, and he's at 7%. (In comparison, there are four players with a better than 10% chance of breaking Aaron's home run record.) No one's been able to sustain a number of outstanding double seasons.

The other fascinating point of Doyle's article is how doubles are a leading indicator of declining batting skills.

Using a sharp fall in doubles as a warning indicator, Frank Thomas is the player to watch in 2007. The Big Hurt has seven seasons of 35 or more doubles on his resume, including an American League-best 46 in 1992. The 2006 AL Comeback Player of the Year had just 11 doubles in 466 ABs with the A's to go with his 39 HR and 114 RBI. Will Thomas continue his impressive run production with the Blue Jays, or will he decline rapidly as he approaches age 39?

We'll keep an eye on the Big Hurt's stats this year.

Gary Peterson notes the Giants addiction:

Interestingly, this news occurs even as the Giants and Bonds' legal team are wrangling over the terms of the one-year, $16 million to $20 million contract that was announced last month. One of the hang-ups is said to be the size of, and privileges granted to, Bonds' posse. It doesn't take the dreamer long to connect those dots and come up with the delicious possibility of Bonds' return to the team being scuttled before it begins.

Don't hold your breath. Although Magowan may have talked bravely at the end of last season, the Giants never have demonstrated by their actions that they are interested in anything other than prostrating themselves before the great Bonds, accepting whatever public relations atrocities he commits off the field for whatever he can give them on the field.

In fact, they offered him far more money than was necessary to secure his return to the team, given his declining skills and the industrywide lack of interest in his services. Magowan explained he didn't want to "humiliate" Bonds. The feeling, clearly, is not mutual.

On top of that, one Bay Area talk show host notices a shift in attitude by the fans.

Gary Radnich, who hosts the station's 9 a.m.-noon slot, said the tone of callers and e-mails shows that Bonds may have few defenders left.

"In the past, the calls and e-mails would say we are all picking on Bonds, and everyone else does steroids, anyway," Radnich said. "Now you can just tell the way this stuff is going, Bonds' defenders are few and far between. They're not saying he's the worst guy in the world. They're just shrugging their shoulders and saying that they are tired of this."

Barry Bonds took the blame off Mark Sweeney this evening:

Barry Bonds said he did not get amphetamines from teammate Mark Sweeney, but did not deny a report Thursday saying he tested positive for the drugs last season.

According to a story in the New York Daily News, the San Francisco slugger failed an amphetamines test in 2006. The newspaper reported that when first informed of the positive result, Bonds attributed it to a substance he had taken from Sweeney's locker.

"He is both my teammate and my friend," Bonds said in a statement. "He did not give me anything whatsoever and has nothing to do with this matter, contrary to recent reports.

"I want to express my deepest apologies especially to Mark and his family as well as my other teammates, the San Francisco Giants organization and the fans," he said.

Interestingly, the Giants did not know about the positive test until this story leaked.

"Last night was the first time we heard of this recent accusation against Barry Bonds," the Giants said in the statement. "Under Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association, clubs are not notified after a player receives a first positive test for amphetamines."

So I wonder how much this will play into the stalled contract negotiations? I doubt they can put a drug test failure clause into the contract since testing punishments are spelled out in the CBA. Maybe they'll take some money off the table.

Bleed Cubbie Blue notices that MLB Extra Innings may be exclusive again:

MLB Extra Innings, run by MLB Advanced Media, is apparently in serious negotiations to make an exclusive deal with DirecTV beginning this season, thus cutting off those of us who watched via digital cable.

I first put DirecTV in my house in 2001 to get that package. A couple of years later, it went to cable, which would have saved me the price of switching, but since DTV provides better service at a lower price, I stuck with it. If MLB does do such a deal, I hope they insist that all HD broadcasts are shown in HD. Right now, we're lucky to get one a night.

MLBAM thinks they can get away with this because of the spread of MLB.TV As BCB says:

But I don't WANT to buy MLB.TV -- I want the package of games available on my TV, my plasma screen, not on my computer.

But that line is blurring, as new boxes are coming out that network your TV with your computer. So, maybe not this season, but soon, it won't matter if the signal is coming off your satellite or your broadband. However, I do agree that more distribution channels are better for building a bigger fan base. That's what MLB is missing when they consider an exclusive offer; more money now vs. more fans later. I'd rather have the later.

The Dodgers are offering "All You can Eat" Tickets in 2007. That would be very dangerous for someone like me. My family bought four tickets in the Fenway Budweiser roof seats last year, and included in the four tickets was $100 worth of food. I thought it was well worth it.

Will Leitch remembers the things about McGwire's 62nd home run.

ON a September night in 1998, Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run of the season, breaking Roger Maris's record in front of a frenzied crowd in St. Louis. The moment was perfect.

People forget now, but much of the joy of that night revolved around not McGwire, but Maris's family. When Maris had broken Babe Ruth's record in 1961, he had been showered with scorn and derision. The fanfare McGwire received 37 years later was, indirectly, an affirmation of Maris: his children, who were in Busch Stadium that night, were able to finally receive the accolades that had been denied their father. When McGwire hugged his rival Sammy Sosa and hoisted his cherubic son to the heavens, it wasn't just a celebration; it felt as if something had been healed, a mistake corrected.

Yes, it was a glorious moment. I'll never forget how fast the ball left the park. A friend of mine was vacationing in England at the time and I remember e-mailing a description the moment the event happened.

But while fans got it wrong on Maris and made up for it, sports writers believe they got it wrong on McGwire and are now making up for it. The response to Maris in 1998 was correct. I'm not going to argue that the response of the Hall of Fame voters is any less correct.

Update: Daniel Drezner points out this contrasting article by Jon Heyman.

The New York Daily News reports that Barry Bonds tested positive for amphetamines.

Barry Bonds, already under investigation for lying under oath about his steroid use, failed a test under Major League Baseball's amphetamine policy last season and then initially blamed it on a teammate, the Daily News has learned.

Under the policy, which went into effect only last season, players are not publicly identified for a first positive test.

But according to several sources, when first informed by the MLB Players Association of the positive test, Bonds attributed it to a substance he had taken from the locker of teammate Mark Sweeney. Sources did not identify the drug in question but characterized it as a serious stimulant.

Sweeney denies he had anything in his locker:

Sources said Sweeney, a first baseman/outfielder, first heard about the test when Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players association, called to say the player's name had been dragged into the controversy.

Orza told Sweeney that if he had anything troublesome in his locker, he should remove it and that he should not be sharing substances with other players. Sweeney told Orza that there was nothing in his locker that would be of concern, sources said.

Axelrod would not comment on the conversation between Orza and Sweeney. Orza also refused to comment on what he said to Sweeney or about Bonds' failed test, but added, "I can say unequivocally in my 22 years I've known Barry Bonds he has never blamed anyone for anything."

Sweeney apparently confronted Bonds, and Bonds told him that Orza had misunderstood, that he had not intended to implicate his teammate.

Barry Bonds continues to be a paragon of virtue. No wonder it's taking so long to work out the language in his new contract. At least he didn't get caught again. I'm not sure Barry could take a 25 game suspension and still break Aaron's record.

Update: This makes me wonder if the program really worked. Since no one was suspended for amphetamine use in the major leagues last year, it seems that either people stayed away from the serious stimulants, or one failed test got the message across. Does anyone know if the follow up tests are really random? I take it the player doesn't get a few days notice.

Update: Bonds' posse is also holding up the contract signing.

Two old friends post about the Hall of Fame election. Christian Ruzich looks at the election from his new blog, The Dilettante's Dilemma. John Perricone takes the writers to task over McGwire at Only Baseball Matters.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

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. I'm going to give the video feed a try tonight as well.

John Thomson doesn't like Paul Lo Duca:

Thomson agreed to a $500,000, one-year contract with the Blue Jays on Tuesday and will get a chance to win a spot in their rotation during spring training. The right-hander said the Mets also offered a major league deal, but he wasn't interested.

"As far as just looking at Paul Lo Duca across the field, I'm not really into how he acts behind the plate," Thomson said on a conference call. "I know a bit about [Toronto catcher] Gregg Zaun and I know he wants to win and he's not going to let anything get in his way to do that, and I like that.

There's no other reasons given in the article. Does anyone know of a spat between Thomson and Lo Duca? Paul is 4 for 10 against John with two home runs. I wonder if Lo Duca show boated after one of the dingers?

Bobby Murcer learned that the tumor removed from his brain was malignant. My best wishes on his fight with cancer.

Ryan at Cardinals Diaspora writes:

Local sports radio here in MO is reporting that Mulder has resigned with the Cards. I don't mind him coming back; in fact, I think it might help to save some face on the Haren/Barton trade. However, I think the second year could really bite us given the probability he'll be league average at best. If management wants or needs to upgrade during this season or for the 2008 season, that will be a heavy load to bear on the bottom line. Ah, the free agent pitching market, could Adam Smith himself have ever visualized it?

It's a great example of supply and demand at work. Over the last two years, Mulder's K per 9 is just above acceptable, 4.9 per 9 IP. That's doesn't give the impression of much upside.

Update: Here's more information on Mulder's contract. It's very incentive laden. He'll get $13 million over two years, but it could be worth $45 million over three seasons if he pitches often and well.

It seems Sammy Sosa may go the Spinal Tap route and end up playing in Japan. It's not quite going after North American star free agents, but if Sosa were to be wildly successful, might that cause Japanese teams to consider other American players? If so, it might be a way for American teams to dump aging stars without having to go through the posting system. Why not direct trades? Would a Japanese team be willing to part with a young prospect for a year of Luis Gonzalez? When Jason Giambi gets too old for his contract, he might be a big hit in Korea. The Asian teams get the draw of a North American star, and the MLB teams have a new source of talent.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can 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.

Ken Rosenthal suggests Mark McGwire confesses to get into the Hall of Fame:

A confession would end the talk that McGwire is hiding something, forcing voters to view him for what he is -- a product of his era, the Steroid Era, and hardly the only star player suspected of using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

But a confession, if it is indeed warranted, is not coming anytime soon; the risk for McGwire, at a time when federal investigators are still trying to crack the steroids scandal, would be too great.

But there's another reason a confession shouldn't be coming, Pete Rose. Four years ago the problem of a Rose confession was clear. If he admitted to betting on baseball, people who supported him might change their minds, and that's exactly what happened three years ago. So if McGwire comes out and says everything in Canseco's book and the FBI investigation was true, how does that help him? Right now, supporters can offer the, "He used andro, which was legal at the time," argument. What happens if he confesses to using banned substances? Like Rose, I think the supporters disappear.

Update: Just to illustrate the dangers of confessions:

Via FishStripes, Gaslamp Ball posts an excellent interview with Tony Gwynn. After all these years, Gwynn realizes the value of a walk:

Do you think another player will hit .400 again?

Yeah there will be and again he needs to be open, he needs to be disciplined and be consistent.

Do you know anybody playing today that could do it?

Sure, Barry Bonds could do it. He walks a lot. He's brought another facet that I hadn't thought about. I had never thought about a guy that would walk 200 times a season and it makes it a whole lot easier. You know what for a long time I thought you had to be like Ichiro. You had to break the hit record and walk a little bit so that you could do it. Barry Bonds comes along and he hits .380 and walks 200 times. Not being healthy works in your favor, it doesn't hurt you it helps you. You play in 5 games a week you walk whatever times a week and get 6 hits in 14 at bats you are gonna qualify for a batting title. There are different ways to get there, and his way I hadn't thought about. You flat out get there. The guy who does it is going to have to be media savvy because the scrutiny that will come from making a run like that is gonna be unbelievable.

I'm surprised Gwynn didn't get this until now. He was very close to Ted Williams, and Ted drew a ton of walks to help him hit for a high average.

Mark Mulder is going to get a two-year, $18 million dollar contract, despite a torn rotator cuff:

Mulder would not become available to pitch until July at the earliest, club officials believe. Either Wainwright or Looper could be used to hold his spot until then.

And it's not just the Cardinals making the offer. Texas and Cleveland proposed similar contracts. Not bad for a pitcher with a big question mark.

Jim Emonds underwent surgery to fix his hammer toe on Friday.

Slowed by post-concussion syndrome as well as his sore right shoulder for much of the regular season's final weeks, Edmonds took daily cortisone injections to deaden pain from what Paletta described as a "hammer toe."

Edmonds had a pin inserted in the toe during a procedure performed Friday in Charlotte, N.C., by Dr. Bob Anderson.

The foot rehab is expected to coincide with that prescribed for his surgically repaired right shoulder.

"The shoulder is the main issue," Paletta said. "The toe was still bothering him and had not settled down, so he was left with two choices -- the pain would continue or have this procedure. The timing of (the foot surgery) made sense. His (foot rehab) should jibe with his shoulder rehab, which will take him late into spring training. Ideally (opening day) will be the time frame."

A press release issued by the Cardinals on Tuesday said Edmonds is expected to be ready for opening day.

2006 Was so bad injury-wise for Edmonds, 2007 almost has to be better.

As of tonight, the Retrosheet daily logs back to 1957 are part of the Day by Day Database. This completes the data that is available via retrosheet. If you'd like, you can see what the batters hit in the last game the Brooklyn Dodgers played against the New York Giants.

Retrosheet keeps moving their data back in time, and I'll try to keep up. The next big thing will be their completion of play by play data for the 1999 season. At that point, we'll be able to push the splits data back to 1974, giving us a complete record of all active players. If you make use of the pre-2002 data extensively, think about visiting the Retrosheet site and hitting the tip jar. Or better still, see if you or a relative has a score sheet from a game they are missing.

Enjoy the data!

The full voting is here. Jay Buhner got a vote!

One question now is how many of 417 who didn't vote for McGwire can be swung over the next 14 years. If there is a hard-core 25% against Mark, his election will never happen.

By the way, how does Ripken get five more votes than Gwynn? If I think about it, I can make a case against Ripken, but it's really tough to make a case against Gwynn. The only negative I can apply to Gwynn is that some of his high season batting averages came in shortened seasons. He never had 600 AB in a season after the age of 30. Given he didn't walk much, the short seasons didn't give his BA a chance to drop. But that's a really weak argument against Gwynn. I don't see how you vote for Cal and not for Tony.

My guess is with a weak class next year, Goose Gossage probably gets in next season. I'd like to see that. Steve Garvey is gone. I never liked him.

I thought the vote was coming out at 2 PM, but this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Gwynn and Ripken are in. However, it doesn't report totals.

Update: I think the paper released the story early. The embargo was until 1 PM Central, and somebody probably thought it was 1 PM Eastern.

Update: Just saw the announcement. Ripken received 98.5% of the vote, Gwynn, 97.6%. I thought Gwynn would get the higher amount. McGwire received 23.5%. Gossage was third at 71.2%.

The Seibu Lions signed Jason Johnson. You'd think they could find someone better with the $51 million they obtained from the Red Sox.

And while I know this isn't the plan, why not go after a big name North American star next year? Imagine if the Lions signed Andruw Jones, for example. I'd hope at some point the Japanese major leagues would merge with MLB, at least for a playoff. Bringing the best players in from all over the world would move that along quicker.

Dan McLaughlin looks at the prime value of middle infielders and finds Ripken is an easy selection to the Hall of Fame:

Cal Ripken: Yes, from 1982 to 1991, he really was that good, his only weakness being the double-play ball. How much a guy plays is so underrated as a measure of value: When you consider the average offensive production of the average backup shortstop in the '80s, Ripken's refusal to come out of the lineup even for an inning in those years becomes all the more valuable.

Jay Buhner holds very low expectations for the Hall of Fame vote:

Jay Buhner has no delusions of grandeur, no pretensions of Cooperstown.

Ask him if he expects to get a Hall of Fame vote when the results are announced today -- a single vote, mind you; not actual election -- and he snorts.

"No. Come on. Let's be serious. You've got to be realistic. The chances of me getting a vote are slim and none."

Buhner, who retired from the Mariners after the 2001 season, is on the ballot this year for the first time, but virtually all of the focus will be on three other first-timers.

Specifically, the burning issues are how close Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. will come to unanimity, never achieved by any inductee, and how much the steroids cloud over Mark McGwire will hurt his candidacy.

Buhner considers it a major victory just to be on the ballot. To do so, a player must have been retired five years, played in at least 10 seasons, and pass the muster of a six-member screening committee.

"I didn't even know I was on the ballot until someone sent it to me on an e-mail two weeks ago," he said. "Truthfully, it's flattering to be even mentioned with the names on there, for God's sakes."

Now I can't wait to see if Buhner actually got a vote!

Baseball Prospectus points out that the optimistic Florida Marlins stadium story might have been a little too optimistic.

Randy Johnson passed his physical and returns to the Diamondbacks today:

Randy Johnson passed a physical with the Diamondbacks, as expected, and the team will formally announce during a 1 p.m. news conference today at Chase Field that he has been reacquired from the New York Yankees.

"I just spoke to Randy and Lisa (Johnson's wife), and they're thrilled," said Barry Meister, one of Johnson's agents. "They're so happy to be back in Arizona and are so looking forward to being with the Diamondbacks.

"We're looking for a long relationship and Randy finishing his career there with a World Series patch on his sleeve."

I've seen more negative than positive comments about the trade from the point of view of the Diamondbacks. I don't agree. Sean Smith points out that all the projections for Johnson are pretty good. And if Randy's problems in 2006 were back related, that problem is fixed now. I could see Johnson posting a 4.00 ERA easily in 2007. Given that the starters with Brandon Webb had a 4.55 team ERA in 2006, a season like that from Johnson would be an improvement. Remember, despite the bad back, he still struck out batters and walked few. If a healthy back causes him to hang fewer pitches, Diamondbacks fans will be very happy with his performance.

Arizona sees a window of opportunity here to win the division. Johnson will bring in fans, and if the team wins consistently, that will bring in even more. More fans equal more money equals the ability to build a better team in the future. Think of it as a high risk, high reward move, with decent confidence that the risk pays off.

An attorney for the shooting victim who accused Juan Uribe says the investigation will take about two months, making Uribe's chances of training with the White Sox slim.

Whether or not the case is an issue throughout the season, general manager Kenny Williams has said the Sox are comfortable with Alex Cintron assuming Uribe's starting role at short.

Offensively, the White Sox lose some power but pick up some OBA with Cintron, but neither is a good offensive player.

At 2 PM EST the Hall of Fame announces the results of this year's election. I was just looking at Cal Ripken's stats. I had forgotten how low he finished in OBA for his career, just .340. Part of that tainted memory is the odd way Ripken's career unfolded. He peaked very early in his career, ages 22 and 23. And while he continued to put up great season throughout his 20s, he only reached that peak one more time, at age 30 in 1991. After that, he spent 10 seasons having a useful but unspectacular career.

Part of it, too, is the way baseball evolved in his career. During the 1980s, his OBAs were very good compared to the league average. But the wave of offense that hit in the 1990s didn't catch Cal. He was declining while offense in the game was shooting up. His likely partner in induction, Tony Gwynn, was able to catch that wave, hitting better in his 30s than he did in his 20s.

And looking at all this again makes me wonder if the streak should have stopped in 1984. When Ripken put up consecutive .370+ OBA, .510+ Slugging at ages 22 and 23, he should have had serious upside in front of him. Maybe a .420 OBA, 40 home season when he peaked in his mid to late 20s. I really wonder how many injuries he played through that took a toll on his batting stats.

Still, I'll put him in the Hall. He was a great offensive player for a shortstop, especially in the day when no one expected offense from the position. Along with Trammell, he helped change the mindset that a shortstop was a small, light hitting player with a great glove. He showed that you can be big and powerful, and still play the position extremely well. He wasn't as good as I remember him being, but he certainly deserves induction.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1958, the year the Dodgers and Giants moved their rivalry to the west coast. Here's how the Dodgers pitched against the Giants that year, and how the Giants pitchers fared against the Dodgers. I assume Ruben Gomez earned some fans that season.

Via Red Reporter, a baseball fan meets Ken Griffey, Jr. on vacation.

Griffey also discussed pitchers and how to distinguish between if the pitcher is going to throw a curve ball or fast ball. He said Pedro cuts his sleeves in a way so that the flap on his sleeve hides his hand which makes it more difficult to determine what he is about to throw. he also advised if I go to a high speed batting cage, not to move my feet to much but swing a short swing if I wanted to try to make contact with the ball.

Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts provides a nice graphic example of why it's good to have pitchers who excel at striking out batters or inducing ground balls. And the ability to do both appears to define an elite pitcher.

I'm hoping a physicist/engineer can answer a question for me. Let's say you have two identical cars (same mass, same engine) traveling at a steady100 km/hour one six car lengths behind the other. Both will use about same amount of fuel to travel a given distance. But if the trailing car tucks right in behind the lead car, the trailing car uses a lot less fuel, because the first car is doing all the work of over coming wind resistance. (I believe this is called "drafting). If you then took the distance between the two cars to 0, that is, physically attached the trailing car to the lead car, would both cars then be able to split the fuel savings (both engines keep running)? Or does it not matter if the cars are connected? (By connected I mean a stiff connection, as opposed to a chain, so the two cars always move as one.)

Ducksnorts is excited about the Hall of Fame voting for the first time, because Tony Gwynn is on the ballot. He rounds up coverage of Gwynn, and praises the voter who left his ballot blank.

My initial reaction was one of shock, wondering what the heck this guy is trying to prove by not voting for Gwynn and Cal Ripken. The more I thought about it, however, the more I came to respect Ladewski's stance. His is the perfect response to anyone who has complained that a select few are being punished for an entire generation's legacy, and I respect the guy for voting his conscience and trying to uphold standards.

So for those of you hoping to see a unanimous election, it's not going to happen.

Update: The Big Lead is for banning the voter who left his ballot blank.

Royals Authority disputes the claim that David Riske is a consistent pitcher.

FishStripes is optimistic about a stadium deal for the Florida Marlins.

The deal would be a 60-40 split between public funds and the Marlins/MLB. If you read the article, and you should, in order for the deal to take place it doesn't require any money from the state or a new county or citywide tax. It is the first time that a possible funding agreement didn't include mentioning a financial gap or at least it is the first that I can remember.

It's good to see the Marlins kicking in a good chunk of the money, although I'd prefer to see a much higher percentage from the club. And while there is no direct tax on residents, there is an indirect tax:

The ballpark is projected to be funded in a 60-40 percent public-private partnership between the city of Miami-Dade County and the Marlins, DuPuy said, with the public funding coming from hotel-motel, facility and redevelopment district taxes. A sales or income tax that would directly affect Miami-Dade County citizens is not contemplated nor is state money at the moment.

So it's the visitors to Miami who are footing the bill. And of course, there's no way that more expensive hotel rooms might cause tourists to travel elsewhere.

Kei Igawa arrives in New York today after submitting to the traditional Yankees haircut.

I wondered why the Diamondbacks were so willing to give Johnson big money without a physical:

Though Johnson is 43, has been bothered by knee and back problems in the past and in October, underwent back surgery to repair a herniated disk, the Diamondbacks seem convinced he will pass a full physical and a review of his medical history today with flying colors.

That's because Johnson, who won four consecutive Cy Young Awards and a World Series for the Diamondbacks during his earlier six-year stint in the Valley, apparently has been consulting with the club's head physician for months, primarily about the pitcher's back.

Dr. Michael Lee wouldn't advise the Diamondbacks to continue their pursuit of Johnson if he had significant doubts about Johnson's health. Lee, entering his seventh full season as the team's chief physician, is expected to conduct most of Johnson's physical today in the Valley.

"Everything should check out OK," a source familiar with the situation told The Republic.

Nothing like inside information.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1959, the year the White Sox won the pennant. The big strength of the pitching staff was keeping the ball in the park. And for fans of the Cubs, you can now research Billy Williams' career.

The Arizona Republic reports that the Randy Johnson contract extension is as good as done:

The Diamondbacks will reach an agreement with pitcher Randy Johnson by today's 3 p.m. (Arizona time) window that completes a trade with the New York Yankees to re-acquire the future Hall of Fame left-hander, The Arizona Republic has learned.

The deal won't become official until Monday after Johnson, 43, completes and passes a full physical in the Valley. But there is strong reason to believe that won't be an issue and that Johnson will then by introduced during a news conference on Tuesday at Chase Field.

Johnson and his representatives agreed to a contract extension for the 2008 season, which could pay him anywhere from $10 to $14 million or more. The Yankees will pick up $2 million of his $16 million salary for this season, and some of that base pay may be deferred into next year's contract.

So far, so good. I assume, even without a physical, that the Diamondbacks believe Johnson is healthy.

Update: It's been confirmed by Josh Byrnes that a deal is in place. Now, just the physical can stop the deal. It also looks like a good chunk of Johnson's 2007 salary will come in a bonus payable over four years.

Lee Panas combines four measures of range into one by treating them as four voting systems and averaging the ranks. We used to do this sort of combination when I worked in information retrieval and we wanted to combine the results from multiple search engines. In general, it's a good way to combine various opinions.

I'd like to announce improvements to the Batter Comparison and Pitcher Comparison functions in the Day by Day Database. You can now set the minimum for any counting category. So, if you want to sort by strikeouts, you can use something other than plate appearances to limit the number of players who show up on the list.

You can also do a "club" list, looking for players with 300 doubles, 50 triples and 400 home runs since 1960, for example.

The Arizona Republic reports that there are just language issues to work out in the new Randy Johnson contract. The sides have until 5 PM EST, 3 PM MST to work out the deal and complete the trade.

On another note, the article mentioned that Mike Swanson is leaving the Diamondbacks for a job with the K.C. Royals. I worked with Mike for a year at ESPN and want to wish him best of luck in his new position!

Evan Grant talks to Hank Blalock about his career and how he's planning on turning around his offensive decline:

"Are you going to ask if I'm at a crossroads?" says Blalock, who is only six weeks past his 26th birthday. "Yeah, I am. I've just been so stubborn that I put a shield up on a lot of things. I've been a little uncoachable. I've looked in the mirror. I'm at a fork in the road. I can be the same guy I've been and just keep going down the same path, or I can take full advantage of opportunities and give myself the best chance to be the player I can be."

I came away from the full article with the impression that Blalock is/was a somewhat immature person who needs to be told in plain language every so often to shape up. He's finally starting to realize that. Unfortunately, he's already wasted some of the best years of his career, and now he's recovering from surgery on a torn rotator cuff. He's on the edge of having an extremely promising career fizzle to nothing.

With the Day by Day Database now pushed back to 1960, all baseball game played in my lifetime are included. And while I know who had the most hits, runs, home runs and even wins in my life, I wondered who hit the most triples. None other than Willie Wilson.

Update: There were complaints about the amount of data returned by the above query. So I bit the bullet, and now you can specify a minimum for any counting category for batters. I'll work on this for the other comparison programs as well.

U.S.S. Mariner continues it's barrage against the Seattle management team with this chart of Chris Reitsma's makeup. The commenters join in the fun and games by picking up on the pun.

Brandon Webb lost his father-in-law. From the article, he sounded like a fine person. My condolences to the family.

Athletics Nation discusses why Joel Piniero is so bad, but the one table they offer sort of mixes apples and oranges. They break Piniero's ERA down by pitch count, which to me doesn't make a lot of sense. However, if you break opposition batting down by inning, you see the same thing a little more clearly.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1961. You can re-live Roger Maris' chase of Babe Ruth's single season home run record. Looking at it, Maris suffered some pretty long stretches with few home runs. From 7/26 to 8/10 he hit just one, a total of 16 games, and at the beginning of the season, he also hit just one home run in his first 16 games.

The other thing we now have is a complete game by game record for all batters and pitcher who played for expansion teams. That's 14 of the current 30 MLB franchises.

Bobby Murcer is home from the hospital after brain surgery. Here's best wishes for a continuing recovery.

My daughter passed her driving test today. :-)

This is great, because I don't need to drive her around anymore! And actually, she's a very good driver.

Jon Heyman at SI.com pens a love letter to Bud Selig:

Stern and Tagliabue have been accepting bouquets and taking bows for years, but the reality of their sports may finally be catching up to them, too late in Tagliabue's case. With Selig, it's the opposite. He got slammed hard for a few years, and now it's his turn to receive well-deserved congratulations. The awards are coming in at such a rate that Red Sox chairman Tom Werner recently commented to Selig, "When does the victory tour end?''

When Selig was announcing the cancellation of the remainder of the 1994 season, no one could have envisioned this. Back then, some folks would have given anything for Selig to step aside. Now it's the opposite. Now the small-market commissioner can do no wrong. Selig's famous for getting unanimous votes to support all his baseball causes, and the support for him within the game is about that now. Outside the game, it's growing, too.

"In the '90s, when we were really trying to change things, a lot of things, particularly the economic landscape, it was painful,'' Selig said in an interview this week with SI.com. "With change, there frankly was a lot of frustration. Baseball is a social institution, and social institutions are especially resistant to change.''

I doubt I'll ever be a fan of Bud. The whole "let's break the union" gambit of the early 1990's which eventually ended in the 1994 World Series cancellation was wrong headed and unproductive. His lying about the inability to small market franchises to win when Oakland had hit upon the formula and Minnesota was about to showed me his lack of imagination.

I will credit Bud, however, with learning from his mistakes. Over a decade of relative labor peace brought fans back. Instead of trying to destroy the union, the teams learned to live with it and realize that both can survive just fine. Baseball also embraced the Internet, reversing the trend of rejecting new media (radio, TV) because they thought it would reduce attendance. Instead, these media create a bigger fan base. Good for Bud on that.

So to me, Bud's record is mixed. Right now he's on a high, but the NBA and NFL went through their highs as well. Baseball might not have reached the low if Bud had convinced the owners that growth through labor peace was more important than breaking the union.

The Giants kick Felipe Alou upstairs, making him special assistant to the GM:

"There will come a day I put that suitcase on a shelf," the 71-year-old manager said in September.

That day hasn't come yet. The Giants replaced Alou with manager Bruce Bochy, but they officially welcomed back their former All-Star player and skipper as a special assistant to general manager Brian Sabean.

The title is not ceremonial. Sabean said Alou would assist with scouting and player development while traveling extensively. Alou will have a voice in trades and other player acquisitions. And he might even wear a uniform in spring training.

"He's going to spend a lot more time on the West Coast than the East Coast," Sabean said. "We're going to have a lot of fun with the working relationship. It's going to be very unique after working together in the other capacity."

Alou joins the front office when Sabean most needs his experienced eye. Club officials are still reeling from the sudden loss of special assistant Pat Dobson, who died Nov. 22.

If you're going to be old on the field, why not have a crotchety old man in the front office as well? Of course, relieved of the stress of managing, Alou might turn into a nice guy.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1962. Where else can you get the end of Vinegar Bend Mizell's career? Or look at the complete list of career Astros home runs?

Juan Uribe was accused in taking part in a shooting in the Dominican Republic, and that may cost him his 2007 season:

Chicago White Sox shortstop Juan Uribe may sit out the 2007 season after a judge ordered him to make twice-monthly court appearances in a Dominican Republic shooting case.

"I am going to decide if I am playing in the major leagues or not this year," Uribe said Friday. "It looks very ugly to be accused of something. But first I am going to resolve this and then I will go to the major leagues."

I'm not sure I understand this. The article says Uribe has to be in court on the 15th and 30th of every month. So why can't he miss a few days at a time from the season? Or does his visa prevent him from traveling back and forth between the US and DR too often?

Correction: Juan, not Jose Uribe.

I'd like to explore positioning as part of the Probabilistic Model of Range. One thing that I believe would be easy to record is the direction and distance the fielder moved to get to a ball. The direction could be coded using the digits 1-9 as follows:

1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9

Where 5 would be straight at the fielder, 8 would be in front, 4 to the fielder's right, etc. What I'd like to get opinions on is if the X and Y axis should be fixed for all fielders or float depending on the position. For centerfielder and pitchers, the X axis would be a line that went through home plate and second base, while the Y axis would go through third and first. But for a shortstop, the X axis could go through second and third base, with the Y axis perpendicular to that. In the case of a fixed axes through 2nd-home and 3rd-first, a ball in the hole that's fielded by the short stop would be coded a 7. In the second case, where we adjust the axes to the fielder, it would be a 4, since the fielder moved to his right. My feeling is the second way is superior. However, with so many shifts being employed now, which often put the shortstop on the second base side of the bag, the fixed axes approach might be more accurate. I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter.

With all the Joe Blanton trade rumors, Nico at Athletics Nation wonders just how good Joe can be.

So what kind of a career path is Joe Blanton most likely to have? Who should baseball-reference.com be listing as Blanton's most comparable match? In pondering this question, it occurs to me that in many ways, Blanton does remind me of a specific pitcher: Kirk Rueter. Maybe it's because both are left-handed (except Blanton). Or perhaps it's because both pitched in the American League (except Rueter). OK, stay with me here...

Rueter was not overpowering, but he was an innings eater and he usually got the job done. He was one of those pitchers against whom hitters often went "a comfortable 0-for-4". Hitters also often went 2-for-4 against Rueter, but he would still hang in there and get the win. Fans often forget how often Kirk Rueter won--or at least how seldom he lost. From 1997 to 2003, Rueter's record was 93-59, a winning percentage of .612. However, when Rueter wasn't on he really wasn't on. He would occasionally get lambasted to the tune of about 8 ER in about 2.2 innings, sending his ERA soaring. But a baseball game is like your virginity--you can only lose it once--and as a result those horrid outings did not take a big toll on Rueter's won-lost percentage, just on his ERA.

A pitcher can do a lot worse than a 130-92 career record. Pitchers like this are much more valuable on good offensive teams than bad offensive teams, however, since run support helps their success greatly.

Jon Weisman is not optimistic about the Dodgers solving the parking flow problem at Chavez Ravine:

As for the traffic flow, I hope it improves, though I have found over the past couple of years that the more proactive the organization has been, the worse the flow has gotten - principally in terms of limiting routes out of the numbered parking lots toward the freeways.

That's because the Dodgers are trying to impose a physical solution to a temporal problem. The best way to fix traffic flow is to spread out the arrival of cars more evenly. Why not try an economic solution? Any cars arriving before 5 PM park for a dollar. Between five and six, two dollars. Between six and 6:30, five dollars. After 6:30, $10. (I'm just using these numbers as an example. I have no idea what the cost trade offs are in LA. I just remember visiting Dodger Stadium in the late 80's and being amazed at how cheap it was to park.)

They could also charge indirectly for leaving the ball park quickly. Set up lots that are allowed to leave before other lots. The fans can pay a premium to get out quickly.

I've talked about doing the same kind of thing with concessions at the end of this post.

I don't like missing the action. I'd pay extra to be able to get a hot dog and back to my seat between innings without missing a pitch. Real time price information on an electronic display in the food court, including wait times, would be great. Let the markets work!

U.S.S. Mariner looks at how much moving to DH might help Jose Vidro's offense, and finds very little evidence that it will. I'd like to add one more thing to the discussion. Players tend to move from the field to DH when they are older. We'd expect them to be in an offensive decline. When DMZ does his full study, it might be useful to factor that in. Do players that move from the field to DH decline more slowly than players who stay in the field?

Futon Report fixes the Detroit Tigers team calendar.

The New York Daily News profiles Ross Ohlendorf, the prize of the Randy Johnson trade:

One scout at the Princeton-Old Dominion game clocked the ball that struck Ross Ohlendorf above the right elbow as traveling 106 mph coming off the bat. Ohlendorf, pitching a few years ago in a marquee game against ODU star Justin Verlander that attracted more than 100 talent evaluators, reached down, picked up the ball that had just stung him and threw out the runner at first.

"I went out there to get him out of there," Princeton coach Scott Bradley recalled. "You could see the welt. But he said, 'You gotta let me stay in. I'm fine.' He got the next guy out with a 94 mile-an-hour fastball. He pitched the sixth inning, too.

"He's a guy who was one of the brightest we had at Princeton, got high honors out of the engineering program and couldn't be any nicer. But that doesn't mean he isn't some kind of tough hombre, too."

I keep hearing the Yankees are going after Clemens, but it strikes me they have two or three rookies now who might break into the rotation. Why spend all the extra money on another old pitcher who can just pitch part time?

Jake Peavy found out what happens when you double park:

San Diego Padres pitcher Jake Peavy was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct Thursday at Mobile Regional Airport.

The 25-year-old Mobile native was taken to the Mobile County Metro Jail shortly before 7 a.m. and was released on a $350 bond, according to the jail log.

His crime? Double parking at the airport.

Padres general manager Kevin Towers told The Associated Press he was told that Peavy was headed for a goodwill tour of the Dominican Republic with other major league players when he double-parked to drop off his bags and was told by airport police to move his car.

"The airport police told him he couldn't park his car there and he said, 'Write me up a ticket and I'll pay for it,"' Towers said. "He was arrested."

I guess no one ever told Peavy parking laws at airports aren't about fines vs. no fines. They're about car bombs. It's not like parking in Boston where it's worth the fine every so often. This gets taken seriously.

Teepee Talk is very happy Keith Foulke passed his physical.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1963. That was the last year of the Polo Grounds. Now my sister can see who knocked out the most hits on her birthday. Of course, he became more famous for his managing talents.

It looks like Randy Johnson is on his way back to Arizona:

The Yankees reached a tentative agreement with Arizona on Thursday to trade Johnson to Arizona for reliever Luis Vizcaino and three minor leaguers, a move that allows the Big Unit's agents to get him a contract extension.

Arizona general manager Josh Byrnes confirmed what he called "an agreement in principle" but did not identify the players that would go to the Yankees.

New York would receive Vizcaino and minor league right-handers Ross Ohlendorf and Steven Jackson, and shortstop Alberto Gonzalez, a baseball official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Yankees also would pay $2 million of Johnson's $16 million salary this year.

Teams are granted a 72-hour window by the commissioner's office to close tentative deals, and the Yankees and Diamondbacks must finalize the trade by 5 p.m. ET Sunday.

On last night's podcast, I looked at the three starters the Yankees might get, and rated Ohlendorf number two. I thought the Yankees would hold out for Owings, but Ohlendorf is still pretty good. Owings had moved up so fast through the Arizona system, I thought it was more likely he could move into the Yankees rotation right away.

I'm not overly excited about Luis Vizcaino. He fills a need, but he's not the centerpiece of the deal. Jackson's not a bad prospect. His home runs and walks allowed are very good, but his strikeouts are just okay. Still that makes two more starting prospects in the Yankees system. They're pretty flush with young arms right now.

The DBacks were pretty deep at shortstop, and so they could afford to send Gonzalez to the Yankees. He's posted pretty good OBA his last two seasons. The Yankees could certainly use a better defensive shortstop as Jeter ages.

For all this, the Diamondbacks get a questionable Randy Johnson.

Newsday reported Thursday that Johnson had agreed in principle through "back-channel conversations" to a $10 million contract extension for 2008.

"We're going to start talking tomorrow," said Alan Nero, who represents Johnson along with Barry Meister. "We have a conference call set up."

I like the deal for the Yankees. If Johnson is healthy, he'll improve the DBacks rotation. If Ownings can continue to advance quickly, a Webb-Johnson-Owings front of the rotation may not be that far away. Both teams should be happy with this deal.

ESPN surveyed a sample of Hall of Fame voters. Not surprisingly, McGwire does not garner much support, but more than enough to keep him on the ballot. The question that's really interesting was the second:

If no, will you vote for him in succeeding years?

• Yes -- 5 (5.0 percent)
• No -- 31 (30.7 percent)
• Undecided -- 43 (42.6 percent)
• No opinion given -- 22 (21.8 percent)

So 31 of the 138 voters polled say they will not vote for McGwire. That's 22.5%. That's very close to the number (>25%) than keeps a player out of the Hall. If this is a representative sample of voters, that does not bode well for McGwire making it in the future.

Amy Nelson reports that Mark Loretta is poised to sign with Houston:

Craig Biggio has long been entrenched as the starting second baseman for the Astros. But Garber said Loretta, who has also played first, third and shortstop during his career, will play "all over the infield" for Houston.

"We wanted to wait until the second-base market got better. The market is great for everyone but second basemen," Garber said.

Sounds like he'll be the super-utility player. Garner moves Berkman between the infield and outfield, which should create opportunities for Mark, and you never know which Morgan Ensberg is going to show up.

Loretta played briefly for Houston in 2002, and put up excellent numbers. He's also an interesting player because he peaked late in his career, having his best seasons at age 30-32. He'll be 35 in 2007, and appears to have lost something off his OBA, which was always his strong point.

Wow. A team is actually interested enough in Jeff Weaver to leak that notion to the press.

Studes posts a great article at The Hardball Times on using regression analysis to predict future performance of players. I was a bit surprised Soriano wasn't on the list of players to fall off the most. The Marcel projections give him a .275 BA, a .515 slugging percentage and a .333 OBA in 2007. That's a falloff of just two points in batting average, but over 50 points in OPS.

Brad Wilkerson, by the way, projects to a .249 BA, .446 slugging percentage and a .347 OBA.

I find it strange that the weakest offensive position for the Yankees next year will be at first base.

It seems more teams than just the Padres and Diamondbacks are interested in Randy Johnson.

And a person with direct knowledge of the talks said that while Arizona and San Diego have been the most likely landing places for Johnson, other clubs have called to discuss potential trades, too. The person refused to identify the clubs, but added that other teams have been involved since the Yankees first began discussing trading Johnson.

The more clubs that are involved, the more likely Cashman is going to get what he wants from this deal. My guess is he's waiting to see if Arizona budges on the money.

Billy Beane's success as a GM earned him a place on a software company board:

NetSuite says it's changing traditions in the way software is being sold and likes the philosophical link.

"Billy's outrageously successful approach in changing the game of baseball by using facts to supplement instinct is very similar to the transformation our customers undergo when they move their business to NetSuite," said Evan Goldberg, chairman, co-founder and chief technology officer of NetSuite. "We are all excited about the insight Billy will bring to NetSuite and our customers."

But picking Beane isn't all about star power. The company already has some of that. It's majority-owned by software mogul Larry Ellison, the chief and co-founder of Redwood Shores-based Oracle Corp.

Beane said he was attracted to NetSuite because of Ellison, as well as the company's nonconforming approach of selling software as a service delivered via the Web instead of on software disks installed on company computers.

I understand Python is undervalued in the market place today, so expect NetSuite programmers to start writing in that language! :-)

One reasons the Yankees and Diamondbacks are a good fit for a trade is that neither team offers incentives in player contracts:

Because they are so concerned with "cost certainty" after the franchise rang up a tab of $270 million in deferred contracts under the direction of former managing partner Jerry Colangelo, the Diamondbacks, as an organizational philosophy, do not include contract incentive clauses for such things as winning a Cy Young or MVP award.

Most clubs -- but not all -- do.

"I know our awards bonus policy is modeled after the Yankees'," said Jeffrey Moorad, a managing partner in Arizona's ownership group. "Neither of us believes philosophically in awards bonuses.

"The no-incentive approach is a byproduct of a policy that stems from our desire to have certainty of payroll from the expense side. We've found that at times it has cost us a little more money because we're not in the incentive business."

The policy was "crafted" by Moorad and former general manager Joe Garagiola Jr. shortly after Moorad's arrival in 2004, according to Moorad, "and Josh Byrnes and his staff furthered it."

So because Johnson's contract does not contain incentives, the Diamondbacks are willing to assume it, if the Yankees help.

A company that specializes in imaging claims that 1998 balls were juiced, including the ball McGwire hit for home run #70.

"Examining the CT images of Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball one can clearly see the synthetic ring around the core - or 'pill' - of the baseball," UMS president David Zavagno said. "While Mark McGwire may or may not have used illegal steroids, the evidence shows his ball - under the governing body of the league - was juiced."

But Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, said the core of the ball has been unchanged for decades. Rawlings has been the exclusive supplier of baseballs to the major leagues since 1977.

"All of our balls are subject to rigorous quality control standards and testing conducted by Rawlings," DuPuy said. "No changes have been made to the core of the ball through the entire time they have manufactured it."

Universal Medical Systems make veterinary scanners. If they have comparative pictures of 1998 and other baseballs, they should post them on the web so everyone can see.

Update: John Costello sent me an e-mail about this earlier today but it got dumped in my junk mail folder. He sends a link with images. However, there are no non-1998 balls for comparison.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

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. I'm going to give the video feed a try tonight as well.

According to Rotowire, San Diego is making a last attempt to win Randy Johnson. This is a perfect strategy by the Yankees, getting two teams to bid against each other.

It looks like the Red Sox are close to signing Joel Pineiro as a closer option. In his career, Pineiro faced just 295 batters as a reliever, but did very well, allowing a .205 batting average, a .301 OBA and a .309 slugging percentage. If he comes anywhere close to that for the Red Sox, he'll do just fine.

Sidney Ponson signed an incentive laden, minor league deal with the Twins. That's the right way to get Sidney on your team. Give him a big incentive to do well for you. If he doesn't work out, nothing lost. If he turns himself around, you've earned wins cheaply. I wonder if this is it for the Twins, or if they'll go after someone else for insurance?

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can 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. I can really use some topics this week, as there's not much news.

Rollie Fingers appears to owe the state of Wisconsin a good chunk of money:

The state Department of Revenue lists Roland G. Fingers as owing $1,433,609. Fingers' listed address is in Las Vegas, and the birth date in public records there matches the baseball player.

The only salary listed for Fingers at BaseballReference.com is his $1 million in 1985, for the Milwaukee Brewers. If in his four season with Milwaukee he ran up about $350 in back taxes, I can see where that might grow to $1.4 million 20 years later, although that's assuming a rather high rate of interest.

Rays of Light discusses the Devil Rays acquistion of Brendan Harris, and throws in some physics just for fun.

In fact, this move is so difficult to understand that I fear criticizing it. If I'm so smart, why don't I just criticize Bernoulli's Equation while I'm at it? If you tell me that in an irrotational fluid, the sum of the static pressure, the weight of the fluid per unit mass times the height, and half the density times the velocity squared is constant throughout the field; I will believe you. And at this point if you tell me acquiring Harris is a brilliant move, I really want to believe you also.

Nick Johnson is making slow progress with his broken femur:

Shortly after Johnson fractured his right femur in a violent collision with right fielder Austin Kearns on Sept. 23 in New York, Ben Shaffer, the team's orthopedist, was optimistic that Johnson would be ready by the start of the 2007 season. But Shaffer said yesterday that Johnson was slow to regain flexibility in his leg. Shaffer said that although Johnson has shown significant progress recently and that the bone is healing as expected, he would not predict Johnson would be ready by the opener.

"I'd love to see him back in April," Shaffer said. "I'd love to see him back on Opening Day. But even if the bone heals completely and his gait is back to normal, how conditioned is he going to be?

Nick seems to be a slow healer with brittle bones. Can any doctors out there comment on this?

Compete looks at the internet traffic patterns of the four major sports. Football and Baseball are leaving the other two way behind. Also of interest is that while baseball and football peaks are about the same height, baseball does better in the off season.

John Walsh at the Hardball Times looks back at the deal of Soriano for Wilkerson and tries to determine why so many of us got it wrong. (My original post on the subject is here. Dan from New Haven should be gloating right now.)

John goes into a lengthy discussion about park factors, and how we might have used those to overestimate this trade in favor of Wilkerson:

Soriano's new park in Washington, RFK Stadium, had a park adjustment of 93 in 2005, the only year of data available for that park. I'm using Baseball Reference as a source for park adjustments, because I'm guessing that many people do the same. That's a good pitcher's park, but it's only based on one year of data, and hence is "polluted" by statistical noise. In fact, the park adjustment for RFK in 2006 was much higher, at 97. Where the number settles down is anybody's guess, but the point is that putting too much faith in a one year park factor is rather dangerous.

The problem is, if you go back and look at RFK in the 1960's, it was also a pitcher's park. So there's more history there that just one year. No matter how you slice it, Soriano was moving from a more friendly hitting environment to a less friendly hitting enviornment.

The two things we missed were what people like to call intangibles. The influence of Frank Robinson and the fact that Soriano was playing for a contract. Somehow, Robinson got Soriano to show some plate discipline. That made a huge difference.

I still stand by what I wrote over a year ago. This was a good move for Texas that didn't work out due to injury. And it's not like Washington has a lot to show for it at this point. Maybe after 2007, we'll again change our minds about this deal.

The Boston Globe notes the passing of Kathryn Gemme at 112 years. Not only did she attend Fenway Park the year it opened, but was one of the few people alive who was old enough to remember all of the Red Sox championship seasons.

Long before any of today's players were alive, Mrs. Gemme used to sit next to a crystal radio set summer after summer and listen to the games, filling page after page with notes about each at-bat.

"She always had a yellow legal pad in her lap and she would write every play -- runs, hits, errors, she kept everything," her daughter said. "She knew all the team members, she knew their batting averages. She'd yell at them, 'Do it, do it! You can do it!' "

When her husband, Ovella, returned home from work, "we'd sit down at the table and she would read it to him," her daughter said.

My grandmother Pinto didn't score the games, but she used to listen and tell my father and brothers the details when they came home from work. I suspect that was pretty common in the era of day games. My condolences to her family and friends. What a great age, however.

Congratulations to Batgirl on the birth of her son!

RD and Sweet-n-Sassy had the thrill of visiting with Mom, Dad and DJ Snazzy Bat-Baby this afternoon and the earliest observations from our well-trained eyes determined that young Dash will be batting lefthanded, playing second base and hitting leadoff when Luis Castillo decides to retire in 2027.

USA Today reports that the Diamondbacks and Yankees have agreed on players to be traded in the Randy Johnson deal, but there are still details to hammer out:

The deal has not been completed because of money issues, including how much the Yankees will pay toward Johnson's $16 million contract in 2007.

The Diamondbacks official also said they would like to sign Johnson to a one-year extension that would be a pay cut from his '07 salary, as well as restructure the $40 million deferred payments the left-hander is owed from his 1999-2004 stint with the team.

I've been skeptical of this deal getting done, but at this point it looks like the odds are on the side consummation. We don't know the names of the pitchers yet, so it's impossible to evaluate at this point. However, The Big Lead suggests this strategy:

So perhaps the rumors are true - the Yankees are stockpiling prospects to ship to Minnesota when it becomes inevitable the Twins cannot resign ace Johan Santana in a year or two.

Or, the Yankees are just tired of old pitchers trying to stay ahead of a great offense. Depending on the pitchers in this deal, the Yankees will end up picking up quality pitching prospects like the Marlins did last year while still remaining a playoff contender.

The details of Barry Zito's contract are now available, including his staying in a suite on the road. He'll start with a $10 million salary in 2007:

The 28-year-old Zito, represented by superagent Scott Boras, will make $14.5 million in 2008, $18.5 million each in '09, 2010 and 2011. In 2012, the sixth year of his contract, Zito will receive $19 million and then $20 million the following season. He has a full no-trade clause.

Zito's option will become guaranteed if he pitches 600 innings between 2011 and 2013, 400 innings from 2012-2013 or 200 innings in 2013, with 180 innings pitched in 2011 or 2012. If his option becomes guaranteed, Zito can void the contract and receive a $3.5 million buyout.

So the Giants don't shell out the $18 million a year right away. If they do dump Bonds after/if he breaks Aaron's home run record, that will give them more money to pay the rest of Zito's contract.

Nick and Nick take a look at how the Twins might fill out their rotation for 2007. They don't think Terry Ryan wants to go with another pitcher straight out of the minors:

The more likely outcome remains a veteran acquisition. As was noted above, many possible targets are no longer available, but there are still a few guys out there that Ryan might take a look at. One such pitcher is free agent Sidney Ponson, who posted a 6.25 ERA in 85 innings between the Cardinals and Yankees last season. Ponson has intrigued scouts because he can throw hard and he had a few solid years with the Orioles. Ponson is still only 29, but he has poor control and his numbers over the past three seasons have been exceptionally ugly. At this point, it's unrealistic to expect him to put up better numbers than Silva did last year. Another free agent the Twins have reportedly spoken to is Ramon Ortiz, a 33-year-old right-hander who pitched for the Nationals last season. Like Ponson, Ortiz has not pitched well over the past several seasons, although his numbers have not been quite as bad. Having either of these pitchers in the same rotation as Silva could be a recipe for disaster, and might be a stretch to expect pitching coach Rick Anderson to work his magic and orchestrate a career revival for any of them.

I find it hard to believe that the Twins would consider Ponson over Jeff Weaver. I'm not crazy about the elder Weaver, but he's a better pitcher than Sidney, and may have already undergone a revival with the Cardinals. He seems like a much better risk to me. And given the total lack of interest, he shouldn't cost that much either.

Still, I bet the Twins can do better in their own system than either of those starters.

The Day by Day Database now runs back to 1964. That was the year the St. Louis Cardinals pitchers did a great job of keeping the ball in the park on their way to a World Championship. Do you think Ray Sadecki received more run support than Bob Gibson that season?

Keith Foulke arrived in Cleveland for a physical:

Free agent reliever Keith Foulke arrived Tuesday to take his physical for the Cleveland Indians, the final step before the club can complete a one-year deal with the right-hander.

Foulke and his agent, Dan Horwits, have been in talks for several weeks with the club, which is believed to be offering a mutual option for 2008.

If he passes his physical -- the team may not have complete results for a few days -- Foulke would give the Indians another option at closer.

I assume Foulke isn't going to get a huge amount of money from the Indians. This sounds like a contract that's going to allow Keith to prove he can pitch again.

The Bloggies are now accepting nominations for your favorite web logs.

Red Reporter notes that Wayne Krivsky's words and actions don't match.

SG at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog uses Chone projections and Diamond Mind Baseball to simulate 100 seasons using known 2007 rosters. It looks like the Cubs moves are going to pay off, as the simulation gives them the wild card. Also, fairly amazing to me is that the Giants run away with the NL West.

Of course, SG's point is this:

Hmm, interesting to see the Yankees projecting as the best team in baseball, with Randy Johnson.

The best team, but not the best pitching staff. In the AL, that goes to Minnesota, and in the NL, to St. Louis. Actually, with Marquis and Suppan gone, I wasn't St. Louis had a pitching staff.

Why have scalping laws if they are not going to be enforced?

The state's antiscalping law, which dates to 1924, doesn't prohibit ticket purchases above face value, but it requires anyone in the business of reselling tickets in Massachusetts to obtain a license from Public Safety and limits markups to $2 above face value plus certain service charges.

Nantel has said Public Safety has never disciplined or audited the books of any of the ticket resellers it licenses.

It seems to me it's time to take the scalping laws off the books.

Tom at Redleg Nation breaks down the rotation slots for both the American and National League in 2006. What's interesting to me is that the NL front line starters have ERA better than their AL counterparts, but the back of the rotation is better in the junior circuit (That result does not hold for XERA.) The other thing is that #5 starters are so bad, why don't more teams do something to avoid using them? I'm not talking about going to a four man rotation, but at least skipping the fifth starter if the team gets a day off.

Ernie Koy played for a short time in the major leagues, but was involved in a bit of history. He passed away on New Year's day.

He hit a three-run homer in his first at-bat in the majors and finished his career average with a .279 average, 36 home runs and 260 RBIs. He played in the first televised baseball game and the first night game at Ebbets Field.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Daniel J. Erickson writes that his book about the 1986 Mets, 1986 Mets Memories - A Fan's View of The World Champions is available from Amazon and also as an E-Book.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1965. That means it includes games before I started grammar school. I'm getting old. It also has the stats for the last year the Braves were in Milwaukee.

The Day by Day Database now goes back to 1966. That means you can look at a game log of Bob Watson's entire career. You can also take a gander at Sandy Koufax's finale.

6-4-2 Provides evidence of a Jackie Robinson Walter Alston feud over Sandy Koufax. However, I'd like to comment on this statement:

I should also close by mentioning that it was a good bit of an overstatement to call Koufax's early career "ineffective"; "erratic" would be more apt.

In the first edition of The POLITICS OF GLORY, HOW BASEBALL HALL OF FAME REALLY WORKS (reissued as Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame), Bill James points out that Koufax was actually a very consistent pitcher throughout his career. What changed was that in 1962 he moved into a ballpark that enhanced his stats. Koufax was not erratic. He pitched in a great hitter's park his first few years in Los Angeles.

The Crawfish Boxes are sorry to see Aubrey Huff leave Houston.

Actually, I was kind of hoping it was YOU who wouldn't be bitter. Pretty apparent now that you were brought in for one reason and for one reason only: to light a fire under our flaky incumbent third baseman. Well, we'll see how well that works, but I might not even blame you if you started telling the Baltimore media you felt a little bit used by the Astros.

Given the class with which you carried yourself as an Astro , though, you probably won't be going that route.

I hope everyone had a safe and festive new year's celebration. Thanks for making 2006 a successful one for Baseball Musings!