sabrhead

Orioles Finalize 25-man Roster

2006-04-02T14:48:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Orioles Evaluation:

The Orioles finalized their opening day roster today with a couple of surprises.

Nick Markakis (pictured left), the organization's best prospect, made the 25-man roster and appears to be the everyday starter in LF. This will make things interesting this season as Luis Matos and Corey Patterson will now compete for one spot at centerfield. Jeff Conine, Kevin Millar and Javy Lopez will now battle for two spots, at DH and at 1B.

Sendy Rleal (pronounced Rey-ahl) made the last spot in the 'pen. He beat out other veterans such as John Halama and Eddy Rodriguez. Earlier in the week, Jim Brower was added to the 40-man roster and will work with Leo Mazzone for the second straight season.

On the bench, Raul Chavez beat out youngster Eli Whiteside as the team's third catcher. No arguments there. I'm sure Whiteside will be up later in the year following a DFA notice for Mr. Chavez.

In troubling and yet unsurprising news, David Newhan is still on our roster. He's not a very good fielder, hitter and is no longer the best pinch running option now that Patterson/Matos is on the bench. What's going on here? I think Brandon Fahey might see time once we cut ties with Newhan for good mid-season.

Verdict: 2/5 stars

I'm not a big fan of rushing prospects when it means that they will be completely skipping a level in the minors. I think it would be better for Markakis, and for Rleal, to spend two weeks in Ottawa before making it to the show. All it does is prove that they do belong in the Majors and that guys like Matos, Patterson and Halama don't.

This isn't exactly a bad decision, but I would have handled it differently. I can't exactly be annoyed to watch Markakis bat everyday for the O's.

Sendy!

2006-03-18T10:54:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I've been busy and this has been put in the back of my mind. Here's an interesting article by the AP:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- With every impressive appearance, with every day that reliever Todd Williams continues to nurse injuries, right-hander Sendy Rleal inches closer to a spot in the Baltimore Orioles' bullpen.
Rleal pitched a scoreless inning yesterday in the Orioles' 12-4 victory over the Washington Nationals, lowering his spring ERA to 1.29 in seven innings over six outings.

His performance left Sam Perlozzo again contemplating taking Rleal, a pitcher who has never pitched above Double-A, north for the April 3 opener.

"Sendy did good," Perlozzo said. "I've seen him better, but Sendy hasn't backed off and he hasn't gone down in my book."

Rleal's changeup frustrated Eastern League hitters at Bowie in 2005, when he went 4-4 with 16 saves and a 2.04 ERA in 56 games. He allowed runs in only 10 games and held opposing batters to a .181 batting average.

"I can throw it anytime, any count," Rleal said. "It doesn't matter if it's left-hander or right-hander, whether it's 2-2 or 3-2. It's my best pitch."

His changeup is also a pitch that is complemented by his total repertoire, in a guessing game designed to fool hitters.

"I try to make the batter chase it, whatever I throw," Rleal said. "When I'm throwing a fastball, I want him to think it's a changeup. When I'm throwing a changeup, I want him to think it's a fastball."

Friday's outing was Rleal's first caught by Ramon Hernandez, one of several players to rejoin the Orioles from the World Baseball Classic. Outfielder Luis Matos and catcher/first baseman Javy Lopez also returned to Fort Lauderdale after their teams were eliminated.

Rleal relieved left-hander John Halama in the fourth, gave up a bloop single to center to Daryle Ward, then promptly got out of the jam, striking out Marlon Anderson with a high fastball and getting Mike DiFelice to bounce into an inning-ending double play.

Rleal came into camp under the radar, a longshot to make the roster for the April 3 opener. But his confidence has served him well.

"I know I can pitch," he said. "All I need is confidence, and my confidence gets better all the time."

Perlozzo was counting on Williams, who appeared in 72 games last year, to anchor the right side of the bullpen. But Williams has battled a sore arm and been slowed by a tight right calf.

Williams could start throwing again by next week, but Perlozzo acknowledges that his injuries could complicate the bullpen picture.

Rleal, 25, is getting personal attention from Dennis Martinez, the former Oriole great who's in camp as a special instructor. Martinez's locker is next to Rleal's, giving the rookie an opportunity to be mentored by the winningest Latin American pitcher in major league history.

With Perlozzo impressed, I would be very surprised if Rleal (how you pronounce this, I still have no idea) doesn't make it up to Baltimore before the All-Star Break. Another possible arm in the bullpen appears to be NRI John Halama. As of now, here's my guess on how the opening day 'pen will shape up:

Chris Ray (Closer)
LaTroy Hawkins (Setup)
Tim Byrdak (Lefty)
Todd Williams (Middle Relief)
John Halama (Long Relief/6th Starter)

And one possibly two more pitchers picked out of the mix of: Ricky Bottalico, Eddy Rodriguez, Vic Darensbourg, Jim Brower, and Eric DuBose. I'm sure I'm missing someone there, but that's the general list.

Free Agency Challenge

2006-02-19T14:01:00.000-05:00

This is the 2005-2006 Free Agency Challenge, where Ben Hyman, Ben Joffe, Hank Nathan and myself will make predictions on the top free agents, and where they will end up. All submissions were due on 11/23, and cannot be changed afterwards. Possible choices for a player involve a team or announcing their retirement. If a player doesn't sign by the end of free agency (start of the season), but does not announce his retirement, then no one will receive a point. For each correct guess, each participant will receive one point. The most points wins.

This table will update throughout the off-season as top free agents sign, with a tally of the scores at the bottom of the table.

UPDATE: It appears that I've won the challenge now as no one else can get more than eleven correct and I currently sit at twelve.

WS in the table stands for Win Shares.

Player	Pos	WS	Dan	Hyman	Joffe	Hank	Actual
Brian Giles	OF	35	SLN	LAN	SDN	BOS	SDN
Rafael Furcal	SS	27	CHN	ATL	CHN	CHN	LAN
Johnny Damon	OF	25	BOS	NYA	BOS	BOS	NYA
Roger Clemens	SP	25	HOU	HOU	Retire	HOU
Paul Konerko	1B	24	CHA	CHA	ANA	CHA	CHA
Juan Encarnacion	OF	19	WAS	WAS	WAS	WAS	SLN
Mark Grudzielanek	2B	18	BOS	SLN	SLN	NYN	KCA
Kenny Rogers	SP	18	KCA	CLE	CIN	NYA	DET
Bill Mueller	3B	18	MIN	MIN	MIN	MIN	LAN
Jeromy Burnitz	OF	17	CHN	SEA	NYA	SDN	BAL
Joe Randa	3B	17	LAN	KCA	SDN	KCA	PIT
Rich Aurilia	SS	16	CIN	FLO	SEA	TOR	CIN
Kenny Lofton	OF	16	NYA	CHN	FLO	PHI	LAN
Billy Wagner	RP	16	NYN	PHI	NYN	NYN	NYN
Kevin Millwood	SP	15	CLE	BAL	CLE	ANA	TEX
Jarrod Washburn	SP	15	DET	SFN	ANA	TEX	SEA
Brad Ausmus	C	15	HOU	SDN	HOU	HOU	HOU
Bengie Molina	C	15	NYN	BAL	BAL	NYA	TOR
Jacque Jones	OF	15	SDN	SDN	SDN	SLN	CHN
Paul Byrd	SP	14	BAL	TEX	BAL	BAL	CLE
Matt Lawton	OF	14	KCA	TBA	NYN	LAN	SEA
Jeff Weaver	SP	13	ANA	BAL	ANA	SFN	ANA
Alex Gonzalez (FLO)	SS	13	ATL	CHN	FLO	ATL	BOS
Todd Jones	RP	13	FLO	DET	BOS	CLE	DET
Mike Piazza	C	13	MIN	MIN	MIN	BAL	SDN
Olmedo Saenz	1B	12	LAN	SDN	Retire	SDN	LAN
B.J. Ryan	RP	12	PHI	NYN	NYA	NYA	TOR
Abraham Nunez	3B	12	PHI	NYN	LAN	SLN	PHI
Jamie Moyer	SP	12	SEA	SEA	SEA	SEA	SEA
A.J. Burnett	SP	12	TOR	TOR	TOR	TOR	TOR
Kyle Farnsworth	RP	11	BAL	ATL	ATL	ATL	NYA
Royce Clayton	SS	11	FLO	CIN	Retire	FLO	WAS
Esteban Loaiza	SP	11	TEX	SLN	TEX	NYN	OAK
Ramon Hernandez	C	10	BAL	NYN	NYN	NYN	BAL
Bob Howry	RP	10	CHN	CHN	DET	CLE	CHN
Kevin Millar	1B	10	MIN	BAL	BOS	MIN	BAL
Mark Sweeney	1B	10	NYN	NYN	SDN	SFN	SFN
Tom Gordon	RP	10	NYN	BOS	NYA	BAL	PHI
Scott Eyre	RP	9	CHN	CHN	CHN	CHN	CHN
Jason Johnson	SP	9	SEA	SEA	DET	DET	CLE
Roberto Hernandez	RP	9	SFN	WAS	HOU	NYN	PIT
Hector Carrasco	RP	9	WAS	ATL	OAK	WAS	ANA
Trevor Hoffman	RP	8	ATL	ATL	NYN	BOS	SDN
Ugueth Urbina	RP	8	NYA	TBA	BAL	PHI
Brett Tomko	SP	8	SFN	MIN	COL	ANA	LAN
Bob Wickman	RP	8	TOR	TOR	CLE	Retire	CLE
Matt Morris	SP	7	TEX	TEX	SEA	TEX	SFN
Nomar Garciaparra	SS	5	BOS	LAN	BAL	CHN	LAN
Octavio Dotel	RP	2	SLN	NYA	SLN	SLN	NYA
Kevin Brown	SP	0	SLN	TBA	BAL	ANA	Retire
TOTAL POINTS			12	10	8	7
MAX POINTS			13	11	10	8

2006 Draft, already

2006-02-07T12:08:00.000-05:00

Over at Scout.com, they have a projected 2006 first-year player draft (it doesn't happen for real until early June). The O's have the 9th pick, and here's who they say we'll get:

Chris Marrero, 3B, R/R, 6’3, 205, Monsignor Pace HS, Opa Locka, FL

Let’s play a game. Name the last third baseman the Orioles drafted who became a regular in Baltimore's lineup for consecutive years. Give up? Would you believe it’s Cal Ripken, Jr., who was taken in the second round of the 1978 draft? And that really doesn’t even count because he wound up at shortstop. Before him you have to go back to 1970 when the Orioles took Doug DeCinces in round three. That’s a long 3B drought. This year they may have an answer in Chris Marrero, a gifted athlete with a classic ballplayer’s build and the baseball skills to match. On defense, he is quick with good hands and a strong, accurate throwing arm. At the plate he is already a disciplined hitter. He waits for his pitch and isn’t afraid of taking a walk. When he gets his pitch he can deposit it anywhere from one foul pole to the other. Before I saw him, I read several reports that compared him to Alex Rodriguez. I never saw A-Rod play as an amateur, but the physical similarities are definitely there. Marrero will be a keeper and a good bet to fill the Orioles' need for a legitimate 3B prospect.

This pick would make sense since the Orioles have almost nothing, prospect-wise, in the infield (Brandon Snyder, Brandon Fahey, and Tripper Johnson with the last two being barely anything in terms of prospects). Miguel Tejada has voiced his concern about staying with the club, Brian Roberts and Melvin Mora will likely be free agents in the semi-near future. The O's do need a hitter in the draft, especially in the infield, and with a great talent like Marrero's, this isn't one to pass up.

Williams' Charges Dropped

2006-02-06T19:52:00.000-05:00

TAMPA, Florida (AP) -- Prosecutors dropped drunken driving charges on Monday against a Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher who lives in Land O-Lakes, north of Tampa.

Todd Williams was arrested after authorities said he caused a three-car crash in November.

He was driving a 2003 Ford Escape that slammed into the back of two cars that were stopped at a traffic light on a major Tampa thoroughfare.

A Breathalyzer test showed Williams had no alcohol in his blood, but he was charged with DUI with property damage after failing a field sobriety test.

Tests showed he had legal prescription drugs in his system, and prosecutors say his attorney showed he likely failed the field sobriety test because he had injured an ankle in the crash.

Williams made his major league debut in 1995. He went five-and-five last season with a 3.3 ERA while recording one save in 76 and a third innings pitched.

Spotlight of the Week: Ben Broussard

2006-02-04T12:02:00.000-05:00

This week's spotlight will cover Indians' 1B Ben Broussard.

Background:
Broussard was drafted in the 2nd round in 1999 at 22 years of age, and quickly established himself as a solid player in the Minors with successful 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 seasons throughout the Indians' Minor League system. During his 5 Minor League seasons, he hit 62 HRs and drove in 213 runs. At 26, Broussard got his chance at the big leagues in 2002 recording 112 ABs for Cleveland. He hit poorly (.241-.292-.384), but showed enough talent to stick around. He started the 2003 season struggling at AAA Buffalo, but was recalled back to the show (thanks Crash). He struggled once again, at a position where a good bat is essentially. He hit .249-.312-.443, but knocked 16 balls over the outfield fence. That power is again what gave him another chance in 2004, which would become his breakout season. Broussard recorded 33 VORP in only 418 ABs for Cleveland in 2004 due to his good walk rate and his continued solid power. He ranked 6th among American League 1Bs as he entered his prime. Things were looking up for Broussard, and the Indians in general.

2005:
Well, the Indians kept going up, but Broussard came back down to reality. The power remained (if not slightly increased), but his OBP dropped nearly .065 points, mainly due to his lack of plate discipline. His K:BB rate raised from 1.82 in 2004 to 3.06 in 2005. Despite his struggles, the Indians' record soared. Broussard became one of the weak links on a team who could certainly hit, but a player who doesn't contribute with the bat nor with the glove (his defense is adequate at best), why keep him around?

2006 Outlook:
This is the make or break season for Broussard. If he doesn't get back to at least close to his 2004 numbers, he'll likely lose his starting spot for good and will be considered somewhat of a bust. Ryan Garko, the Indians' next version of Travis Hafner, is just about ready and with a great spring, he could steal the starting job. Interestingly, the Indians have three good hitting 1B/DH types, but none can really play defense (Broussard, Garko and Travis Hafner). Broussard projects as a role-player who can provide good power off of the bench. My guess is that he'll record about 8 VORP this season as he loses his job half-way through the year. His plate discipline won't be good enough along with his glove to make that plus-power worthwhile.

Matos Avoids Arbitration

2006-02-04T11:33:00.000-05:00

Originally posted at the Orioles Evaluation:

Luis Matos agreed to a one-year contract, worth $1.625 M, to avoid arbitration.

Matos, 27 in 2006, has had his success and his failures in Baltimore during his six seasons with the Birds. He's a career .260-.316-.379 hitter, with a very good fielding and (despite his raw stolen base numbers) above-average speed. The main problem with Matos, during his tenure in Baltimore, is health. He has never had more than 439 ABs during a season, and has never played in more than 121 Gs in one campaign. Luis can be a decent starting centerfielder or a good role player off of the bench. He'll have a shot to get the starting nod in center, or more doubtfully in left, this season. In any case, if he plays well, he will play.

Verdict: 3/5

This contract is about right for Matos, a player with a questionable past and a questionable future. He doesn't have a current starting job, but will likely rack up 200+ ABs, even with a good year by Corey Patterson. Matos, who averages 24 SBs per 162 G played, will also bring speed to the bench, which could use some beyond David Newhan.

The bottom line is that Matos won't be a great player, nor will he totally fall off the face of the Earth. A steady glove and speed will keep him at least on the Major league roster and his bat (and perhaps more importantly health) will be the key to how much more playing time he will get.

Fantasy Baseball in Question

2006-01-30T19:49:00.000-05:00

Maury Brown, once again, has written a very interesting article. This time he discusses MLB's attempt to possibly destroy small fantasy baseball leauges. That might be a bit of an extreme summary, but this is an important debate that's going on between CBC and MLB. If you're at all interested in law or in fantasy sports, then this article is worth reading. This story isn't exactly new news, as Andy Katz would put it, but I haven't read a story that goes as in-depth as this one does on the history of the subject. Also check out the cartoon (click to enlarge).

Quiz

2006-01-29T20:06:00.000-05:00

Here are a few questions to quiz yourself on and waste some time (answers at the bottom):

Before Mike Maroth in 2003, who was the last pitcher to lose 20 games in one season?
There are four players who have played for both the Orioles and Diamondbacks and played for at least one of them last season. Name them.
From Baseball's beginning to 2004, what percentage of players in MLB were born in the Dominican Republic? Either: 0.5%, 2.5%, or 5%.
Tony Bautista has hit more than 30 HRs and struck out less than 100 times in a season in how many years? Either: 0, 1 or 2 years.
True or False: You can fit, with a lot of elbow-grease, two Bernie Castros inside of one Walter Young.

Thanks for taking this mindless quiz. Here are the answers:

(1. Brian Kingman, OAK, 1980; 2. Midre Cummings, Buddy Groom, Kerry Lightenberg, Tim Worrell; 3. 2.5%; 4. 2 years; 5. True! )

Spotlight of the Week: Jason Lane

2006-01-29T17:01:00.000-05:00

This is the spotlight of the week where I will select a player at random and dissect his career and future.

This week I'll cover Jason Lane, RF for the Houston Astros:

Background:
Lane was drafted in the 6th round of the 1999 first-year player draft out of USC. He had a successful Minor League career and progressed quickly (you need to when you start out at 22) by reaching the Majors at 25 years of age in 2002. His career statline reads an impressive .295-.373-.521 through four Minor League seasons. He showed good all-around tools with the ability to hit for average (.316 at AA), get on-base (.407 at AA), hit homeruns (38 at AA), and to steal bases (20 at A+). In 69 ABs in 2002 for Houston, Lane hit .290-.375-.536, which was especially impressive since it nearly mirrored his Minor League numbers to the dot. Lane went back to the Minors in 2003 after the successful September callup, but only had 27 ABs for Houston that season. At 27, 2004 was Lane's first full-season in the Majors, platooning in the outfield with Richard Hidalgo. He was solid, but not overly impressive, hitting .272-.348-.463 in only 136 ABs.

2005:
Lane broke out in 2005, hitting 26 homers and 34 doubles for the Astros. His power was there, but his speed (only 6 steals) and ability to get on base (.316 OBP) weren't. He's proven that, given time, he can be a legit Major League player (especially important as he is about to enter arbitration).

2006 Outlook:
A starting job for Lane is probably a given, as the Astros have no one else to challenge him in right field (if Bagwell comes back and starts then he might platoon with Preston Wilson, otherwise he should start). He will probably regress towards his career averages by losing some of his power but also increasing his OBP. He has a good level swing, which lends itself well towards future seasons. In the future he projects as a starting outfielder, who will probably eventually need to move to LF or even to 1B (due to his average throwing arm and defensive ability). He's 29, so he needs to put up numbers now before it's late. If he has a lackluster 2006, it's possible that he won't reclaim his starting job in 2007 without at least a challenge (Eli Iorg, Hunter Pence take note). In all likelihood, Lane will have similar numbers and should play for the Astros for another three or so seasons, starting most of his games there.

O's Ink Gibby

2006-01-24T21:56:00.000-05:00

Originally posted at the Orioles Evaluation:

The Orioles reached an agreement on a four-year contract with 1B/RF/DH Jay Gibbons for $21.1 M. Gibbons was expected to earn about $4-5 M through his final year of arbitration this season, so essentially we signed him to a 3/$16 M extension past this year.

Gibbons was selected as a rule-5 draft selection back in 2001, easily being one of the best selections from the rule-5 process in all of Major League Baseball. A valuable lefty hitter at 29 years of age, Gibbons will be poised to follow up his best season in 2005 (.277-.317-.516) with at least equal if not greater numbers. In his five Oriole seasons, he has 102 HR, averaging 27 per 162 games played. In the same 162 game average, he also smacks 33 doubles and knocks in 89 runs while scoring 77 of his own (batting usually fifth or sixth in the lineup this number is about average). He's a career .261-.315-.466 hitter with a 106 OPS+ (100 is average) coming off of a 123 OPS+ season. The biggest knocks on Gibbons are his defense and his ability to get on base. In the future, he might be best suited to move to DH due to his average arm, bad instincts and range. He also attempts to hit the ball out of the ballpark too much, causing him to fly/ground out more than he should. He doesn't walk very much, but he also doesn't strike out a lot either, posting about a league average K:BB ratio. It's not all negative though. He's got exceptional power, even good for a corner player (LF, RF, 3B, 1B, DH). He doesn't show fear at the plate (unlike other right fielders on the 2005 Orioles) and will battle for hits. Hopefully Gibbons will be able to have more patience at the plate: drawing more walks and hitting for average, even if it costs him part of his power.

Verdict: 4/5

I like this deal. According to standard RPS, Gibbons was probably worth about $4.5 M in 2005, which is a little more than what he will be making in 2006. Assuming that he can continue his level of production for another two seasons or so and then start a traditional slow decline at 31 years of age, he should be able to earn most of his contract.

I think this sends a bigger message to the organization though. The Orioles have been notorious for not re-signing their players (think Mike Mussina, B.J. Ryan, Jason Johnson, Rafael Palmeiro, etc). If the O's decided to let Gibbons test free agency, it would be more than likely that he would leave town. It would have continued the Orioles legacy of giving up on guys and instead either going with really young or really old players. Gibbons will be in his prime, which is rare for the Orioles. Along with Miguel Tejada, Ramon Hernandez, Nick Markakis, Daniel Cabrera, Erik Bedard, Hayden Penn, Adam Loewen, Chris Ray and Brian Roberts, the Orioles have a great chance to actually have a winning team in the near future.

Wade Miller Time

2006-01-24T11:08:00.000-05:00

What happened to Wade Miller? Back in 2003 he was the next big thing, and along with Roy Oswalt, they were destined to anchor the Astros' pitching staff for years to come. He was coming off of (212 IP, 3.40 ERA) and (165 IP, 3.28 ERA) seasons and only 26. Things went downhill from there.

Miller, a 20th round draft pick in 1996, made a name for himself in 2001 when he became one of the best young pitchers in the National League. Before that, he had only a good but not great Minor League career and one pretty bad season in the Majors. Move forward 5 seasons and Miller is signed late into free agency for a 1/$1 M contract by the Cubs. This is his second-straight season with a pretty bad contract. What happened?

In 2003 Miller struggled. He wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, throwing 180 innings with an ERA just a bit over four. Compared to his 2001 and 2002 seasons however, it was quite the disappointment. His homers and walks increased while his strikeouts decreased (rates). Despite that, he managed to record a 4.01 park adjusted dERA. Those numbers, especially in the National League, are considered more of those of a third starter. Was this really one of the two headed monsters known as Miller and Oswalt, both considered aces? Was this a fluke, or had Miller already peaked in his mid-20s? It got worse from there.

This was his last season before he would enter free agency, and you need to have a big season here or else you're going to struggle to get the big contract for at least a few more years. Miller pitched about as good as he ever had pitched, recording a 3.35 ERA, and 7.51 K/9. The problem was now starting to present itself: here's a talented pitcher, but he's starting to walk way too many guys and now he's an injury risk. He only tossed 88.2 IP in 2004, following three of four seasons under 190 IP. He did all he could that season, but it still wasn't good enough as the injury bug caught up with him once again.

It's now the 2005 off-season, and Miller is a big questionmark. Your a GM, and you have the chance to sign the following pitcher:

58-39 W-L record (.597)
3.87 Career ERA
29 years old
163 IP on average the last four seasons

And he's doing all of that in what is considered a hitters park (mainly for homeruns). How much do you give him?

Well let's go back to aRPS, and more specifically the FA value calculator that uses the last six years of a pitchers' career to rate him. Going into last season, Miller was worth $5.7 M, which rates him as an above average but not spectacular pitcher (2-3 caliber starter). What did he actually get? A measily one-year $1 M contract from the Red Sox for a guy who, at 29, is likely to have one of his best seasons. Well, I was off in this case, as in 2005 Miller earned only an aRPS of $2.3 M, significantly less than his projected $5+ value, but higher than what he actually received.

Enter 2006. His FA-version of aRPS still gives him a value just slightly less than it did coming out of last season, and yet his value has plummeted. Coming off of seasons of $2.9 and $2.3 aRPS value, shouldn't he be able to at least be worth around that much? Well, once again no GM is willing to give him that much. He signed once again a one-year $1 M contract, with the Cubs this time, and they only signed him once they already had five other legit starting pitchers on their roster (Prior, Wood, Rusch, Zambrano, Maddux)

Why won't anyone give Miller a fair deal?

The future is, once again, a big question mark for the Reading-native. Baseball Reference compares him to Bartolo Colon, Russ Ortiz and Freddy Garcia through age 28. Interestingly, all three had great seasons at 29, and yet Miller fell flat on his face in Boston. He has the ability, and if he keeps his walks down (that's a big if as we can say the same thing about a lot of pitchers, Daniel Cabrera), he should surprise Cubs-nation.

What are they thinking?

2006-01-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

The Red Sox traded Edgar Renteria and $11 M for Andy Marte a few weeks ago. That seemed like an odd trade for them, but eventually it appeared justified to some degree. Now they've traded Marte and former-Marlin/Dodger Guillermo Mota for Coco "not so" Crisp. Let me get this straight. The Sox just traded:

Edgar Renteria

Guillermo Mota

$11 million

for:

Coco Crisp

Someone please explain to me what the heck the Sox are thinking. Please.

Angelos Must Go

2006-01-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

The Hardball Times rises to the top once again. All Orioles fans should read this.

Julio for Benson: Finally Swapped

2006-01-21T16:08:00.000-05:00

originally posted at the Orioles Evaluation:

Baltimore agreed on Saturday to trade RHRP Jorge Julio and RHSP John Maine for RHSP Kris Benson from the New York Mets.

Benson, 31, was the first overall pick in the 1996 first year player draft. He's been a solid Major League starting pitching, but has never lived up to the hype of other number one picks like Alex Rodriguez. He's pitched in the National League for his entire career, tallying a 57-61 mark with a 4.25 career ERA with the Pirates and Mets. He throws a four-seam fastball in the low-90s, and a two-seamer just under that range. His best pitch is his knee-buckling curveball, along with a four-seam and two-seam fastball and slider. He also throws a change-up, his weakest pitch, that needs more development. Benson has the tendency to allow the long-ball, which might become a problem in the switch from Shea to Camden Yards. His walk rate is good, and should stay in the 2.50-3.00 BB/9 range throughout his time in Baltimore. His strikeout rate declined last season for some reason, despite being very consistent throughout his career. He'll likely raise it back up slightly towards his career averages in the 5.50 K/9 range. Benson is a solid starter who won't be the next Roger Clemens, but he also won't be the next Todd Van Poppel.

Julio has electric stuff, with a four-seam fastball that can touch 99 mph. He also throws an above average slider in the high 80s. The problem with the Venezuelan is that he has below-average control of both of his pitches. He has a career 4.10 BB/9, although he was able to get that down to a manageable 3.01 in 2005. He had his worst season last year with a 5.90 ERA in 71.2 IP. The walks came down, but his strikeouts regressed back to his pre-2004 numbers and his homerun rate hit a career high. The change to Shea should help Julio, as the opposite will hurt Benson. If he can put it all together, Julio has the potential to be a top MLB closer, but until that point he might be a below-average middle reliever.

John Maine. What happened? Just a year and a half ago, Maine was considered the prized prospect of the O's organization. Now he's gone, leaving Hayden Penn and Adam Loewen as the next home-grown prospects to get a shot at the rotation. He's not a bad prospect by any stretch of the imagination, but he's no longer deemed capable of being a number one or two starter after an average 4.56 ERA for Ottawa and a horrid 6.30 ERA for the Birds in 2005. The main (pun intended) problem for Maine is, like Julio, his homerun rate. He's been good throughout his Minor League career, but once he made the bigs he's been giving them up like crazy (1.85 HR/9 in 43.2 IP). His sinking fastball usually lies in the low-mid 90s touching 95 at times. His second-option is a good sharp slider, with a curveball and change-up being other lesser-options. He will only be 25 this season, so it wouldn't be out of the question for him to head to Norfolk (AAA) for more minor-league grooming. He likely won't make the rotation for the Mets this season, but could factor into long-relief.

Verdict: 3/5 stars

Part of me likes this trade and part of me doesn't. I would have liked to have seen Julio learn from pitching coach Leo Mazzone, but in all likelihood not much would have changed. Maine has grown on me this off-season, for some reason, and I would have liked to have seen him get one last chance at the rotation, but his potential has faded to the point where I can deal with him not getting that chance with Baltimore. Benson is being overpaid, which is the biggest sticking point for me (and surprisingly not one for cash-conscious Peter Angelos). At his current age and performance, he's probably worth about $5 million a year, which means that he's making an extra $2.5 M per season that he's under contract. Not extremely high, but that money could go to other needs like a contract extension for Melvin Mora or into the bullpen for a replacement for Julio.

Brandon Webb

2006-01-16T12:44:00.000-05:00

He's a stud. He's great. He's excellent. We're talking near-Cy Young next year. Ok, calm down.

Brandon Webb is on the verge of being one of the best starting pitchers in the NL in 2006. He's proven through his brief three year career (3.35 ERA, 7.40:3.58 K/9:BB:/9) that he's the real deal, but 2006 is going to be his best accomplishment yet. Just wait.

First, let's take a look at the top candidates for the NL Cy Young this past season and their 2005 stats (removing Chad Cordero, because it's hard to compare him to Webb due to positional differences):

1. Chris Carpenter (21-5, 241.2 IP, 2.83 ERA, 213 K, 51 BB, 18 HR)
2. Dontrelle Willis (22-10, 236.1 IP, 2.63 ERA, 170 K, 55 BB, 11 HR)
3. Roger Clemens (13-8, 211.1 IP, 1.87 ERA, 185 K, 62 BB, 11 HR)
4. Roy Oswalt (20-12, 241.2 IP, 2.94 ERA, 184 K, 48 BB, 18 HR)
5. Andy Pettitte (17-9, 222.1 IP, 2.39 ERA, 171 K, 41 BB, 17 HR)

Top 5 averages: (19-9, 230.2 IP, 2.53 ERA, 185 K, 51 BB, 15 HR)

-. Brandon Webb (14-12, 229.0 IP, 3.54 ERA, 172 K, 59 BB, 21 HR)

Ignoring ERA and record since those are the two hardest things to predict on a yearly basis, Webb's pretty close to the other stats. He's right on innings pitched, and has been a workhorse throughout his career. His strikeout rate declined in 2005, but a pending a little regression towards his mean and he'll be right on par with the top 5. Walks are his biggest issue, but did a great job of managing them compared to his 2004 season. Homers are partially out of his control due to Chase Field. He's going to allow homeruns. If his career average means anything, his HR rate should drop by 2-3 homers. What makes me think that Webb will be close to those top 5 average numbers? Here's my thinking:

He's 26 and will be 27, making him right in the prime of his career. That means that he should pitch better in 2006 than he did in 2005 (on average). He also has been officially tabbed Arizona's ace with his new four-year contract. That's a lot of pressure for a team that is expected to finally get to near 81-81 after a couple of bad seasons. I expect him to take on the challenge of leading the D-Backs' young staff.
The Diamondbacks vastly improved their defense this off-season, which will be huge for Webb (I'm not backing out my DIPS-mentality, but this case is different as I will explain). He led the Majors last season in groundball to flyball ratio with roughly one more groundball than the next best guy (Derek Lowe). That means that more than most other pitchers, Webb relies on his defense to get him outs, and more specifically his infield defense. Arizona's infield defense has gotten much better this year at four of the five infield positions: Chad Tracy improves at Troy Glaus' 3B spot, Craig Counsell is much, much better than Royce Clayton at SS, Orlando Hudson is probably the best fielding secondbaseman in baseball, and Johnny Estrada should be better than the three-headed triumvirate from last season. Conor Jackson/Tony Clark should remain about the same at first-base. This will lead to Webb's H/9 decreasing to likely around 8 hits per nine.
Arizona's offense should be better this season, leading to more runs scored in games that Webb pitches (I know Wins don't make the pitcher but MVP voters seem to care). Hudson, Tracy, Jackson, Estrada and Byrnes should all do as well or better than their 2005 numbers (Tracy might regress, but should still be good). If Counsell struggles, Stephen Drew will provide a hot bat from the minors. If Shawn Green or Luis Gonzalez struggles, Carlos Quentin is waiting in the wings.

I'm not saying he's the Cy Young winner in 2006. I don't think he will be nor is it a realistic expectation. If he keeps his walks down (proving that 2004 was really abnormal as I believe it was), the defense is improved as expected and Webb improves slightly across the board, he should be better this upcoming season. In the Cy Young voting though, I think he'll be good enough to grab a vote or two (placing him fifth or sixth).

New Link

2006-01-15T20:46:00.000-05:00

http://www.oriolesevaluation.be/ now links to the aptly named Orioles Evaluation. Use either that or http://www.arzdb.be/.

Baez dealt for Jackson

2006-01-15T13:40:00.000-05:00

There was a fairly signficant trade yesterday that will get no press: Edwin Jackson, pictured, and Chuck Tiffany (to TBA) for Danys Baez and Lance Carter (to LAN). It's an interesting trade for both teams and I think it works well for the Devil Rays and for the Dodgers.

Heading into the 2005 season, Jackson was considered the 30th best prospect in baseball by Baseball America. John Sickels considered him to be the 4th best prospect in the Dodgers organization entering the season, and questions how the organization has handled his progression. Drafted in 2001, he made his Major League debut in 2003 after about 250 IP combined at A and AA. His 22 IP for the Dodgers were stellar, and that probably hurt him (doing so well). Seems to be going well so far, and at 19 years old, he looks like Felix Hernandez. In 2004 he started the year at AAA, struggled (5.86 ERA, 6.95:5.46 K/9:BB/9), and didn't go back down to AA for some reason. Instead they brought him back up to pitch 24 poor innings in LA. 2005 was slightly different. He went to AA, did pretty well, then to AAA where he was terrible (8.62 ERA with more BBs than Ks) and finally to the Majors for his third stint with the Dodgers. He was bad there too. He's still only 21 years old, but the Dodgers have really messed with his progression. What happened to letting him start at A, then AA for a year, then AAA for a year or two and finally to the Majors? They don't need Jackson anymore considering they have Chad Billingsly and Jon Broxton.

Chuck Tiffany is a young lefty, considered to be 6th entering 2005 by Sickels and 10th by Baseball America in the Dodger's organization. He is a solid prospect who has pitched well at A-ball with insane strikeout rates. Not a big loss for one of the best Minor League systems in baseball.

Baez will be a free agent after this year, but will be in the prime of his career as well. At 28, he looks to continue his 2005 success (2.86 ERA, 41 SV). He will provide LA a legit number two option in the bullpen, should Eric Gagne miss any time due to injury. One of the biggest problems with the Dodgers last time was the bullpen. They weren't ablet to find a closer: Yhency Brazoban (5.33 ERA, 21 SV), Duaner Sanchez (3.73 ERA, 8 SV), Steve Schmoll (5.01 ERA, 3 SV). After Sanchez was traded to the Mets for Jae Seo, it meant that they had to improve the bullpen and that Jackson would be expendable.

Lance Carter showed promise in previous seasons, but struggled in 2005, even being demoted to AAA [Bull] Durham mid-way through the season. He will be 31 this year, but boasts a 3.94 career MLB ERA. Moving leagues should help him and will likely be the third or fourth option in the Dodger's bullpen, especially considering he has experience closing (26 SV in 2003).

OE

2006-01-13T22:49:00.000-05:00

I managed to do a little bit of a work-around and I think I found a free webspace solution. For the time being, the Orioles Evaluation can be accessed via http://www.arzdb.be. Please do note that the website was designed for Mozilla's Firefox browser, so if the text looks a little big that's Internet Explorer's problem not mine.

Why does OPS work?

2006-01-12T19:12:00.000-05:00

The Hardball Times has a pretty interesting article on OPS, evaluating it and figuring out why it works so well. It's actually a lot more useful than I thought. I would be interested in comparing Rob Neyer's OBP2SLG (OBP+OBP+SLG) compared to normal OPS.

Corey Patterson Arrives

2006-01-09T16:48:00.000-05:00

(This is a post from the Orioles Evaluation. Until the site gets up, I'll make all posts here. You can pretty much tell it's an OE article when I rate it using an "out of 5-star" method as I have done here.)

The Orioles have traded two minor league players for Cubs OF Corey Patterson.

Patterson, a career .252 hitter, hit an awful .215 with an OPS barely over .600 in 2005 for the Cubs. He was deemed expendable following the growth of Matt Murton and Jason Dubois. He strikes out a ton, averaging nearly one K a game, but has potential. In 2003, he hit .298-.329-.511 in a half season for Chicago, and the O's hope he can regain his previous numbers. Baltimore will hope that he can, at the very least, play great defense and steal bases. With 2-years left of arbitration, the Orioles might have found a good player to take a chance on.

From the other side, the O's traded away A+ INF Nate Spears and A- RHP Carlos Perez. Neither of these players are anything to write home about, although the Cubs did get a couple of decent prospects for, in their minds, a throw away. Spears has always been able to get on base although he hasn't developed very much power since being drafted in the 5th round in 2003 out of High School. Unless Spears can develop more power, he projects more as utility player in the Majors. Perez is probably the selling point of the deal for Chicago. He has talent, compiling 8.4 K/9 throughout his Minor League career, but hasn't quite put it all together. He is a bit behind in development, never pitching more than 1.0 IP (a garbage inning at Ottawa) past A- and will be 24 years old this season. Given a bit of luck and effort, Perez could be a decent SP/MRP in 2007-2008 for the guys in the Northside.

Verdict:

Patterson will provide the O's a cheap player for the next two seasons while giving up very little in minor league talent. Even if Patterson stinks in 2006-2007, Baltimore didn't lose very much. This won't be the greatest move of all time, but certainly moves the team in a positive direction.

Orioles Evaluation

2006-01-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

I wanted to let everyone know a bit about what I've been working on recently, the Orioles Evaluation. This is a new website (separate from this one) that will have completely up-to-date O's information and analysis. You might ask how that site will differ from this one. Here are the general differences:

sabrhead is all baseball related with an O's touch while Orioles Evaluation (OE) will be O's only.
sabrhead is a blog while OE will have several different parts: a news homepage that will breakdown each transaction, a message board, an up-to-date injury list, 40-man roster information, O's player contracts and possibly more.
sabrhead occasionally discusses rumors or vague information while the OE will be strictly factual information that has happened.

Here is an example of the contracts page, followed by the homepage, with the general template (I haven't finished and I'm not sure if this will be the final design):

Comments and suggestions are welcomed. I don't have a timetable on getting this website up considering I'm also going to be working on two others eventually. I'll need to think about how to go about it.

Pro Bowlers

2006-01-01T14:11:00.000-05:00

I don't talk that much about football since I do believe that it's extremely hard to judge an NFL player's ability and performance only by his statistics. Better than anything else I've seen, Football Outsiders has some very interesting stuff. They have two main statistics, DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Above Average) which is essentially a rate statistic adjusted for who you play and set to a baseline of league average. The other is DPAR, which is player value above replacement (it's also adjusted), a.k.a VORP. I really do think that these are worthwhile metrics and it might be worthwhile reading their preamble of sorts. Using their ratings, I've compiled AFC/NFC Pro Bowl squads (players who did not make the 2005-2006 pro bowl are highlighted in red):

QB
AFC - Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer, Tom Brady
NFC - Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Brunell, Drew Bledsoe

RB
AFC - Larry Johnson, Edgerrin James, Rudi Johnson
NFC - Shaun Alexander, Tiki Barber, Warrick Dunn

WR
AFC - Chad Johnson, Keenan McCardell, Hines Ward, Rod Smith
NFC - Steve Smith, Santana Moss, Larry Fitzgerald, Joey Galloway

TE
AFC - Antonio Gates, Tony Gonzalez
NFC - Jason Witten, Chris Cooley

I have to admit that they did a pretty darn good job. 67% matching is quite good (plus Mike Vick made the pro bowl and I do wonder how much DVOA/DPAR values a running QB like Vick, so that should maybe make it a 67%+), and with the exception of the NFC TEs, they were excellent across the board.

Football Outsiders (FO) doesn't rank individual offensive linemen or individual defensive players. Here are the top from those team categories though, for reference.

OL (Run-Blocking)
AFC - IND, DEN, CIN
NFC - SEA, ATL, WAS

OL (Pass-Blocking)
AFC - IND, CIN, TEN
NFC - GB, SEA, NYG

DL (Run-Blocking)
AFC - PIT, MIA, SD
NFC - PHI, SEA, TB

DL (Pass-Blocking)
AFC - JAC, MIA, PIT
NFC - SEA, DAL, CAR

Special Teams
AFC - BUF, MIA, TEN
NFC - NYG, SF, CAR

Total Team Offense
AFC - IND, SD, CIN
NFC - SEA, NYG, ATL

Total Team Defense
AFC - PIT, JAC, IND
NFC - CHI, WAS, CAR

Free Agents

2005-12-20T23:00:00.000-05:00

This will be a constantly updated list of MLB Free Agents to the best of my knowledge. Players sorted by position and listed with their former team. Changes to the list are updated at the bottom of the post. I'll also try to bring this post to the top of the page with any significant changes.

Note: Players not on this list might not necessarily be under contract. Players will be added to this list as well as they will be removed. Current players on the list: 114

Catcher (8)
Raul Casanova, CHA
Einar Diaz, SLN
John Flaherty, NYA
Todd Greene, COL
Dave Hansen, SEA
Bengie Molina, ANA
Eduardo Perez, ATL
Mike Piazza, NYN

Firstbase (13)
Greg Colbrunn, TEX
Erubiel Durazo, OAK
Dave Hansen, SEA
Travis Lee, TBA
Tino Martinez, NYA
Kevin Millar, BOS
Jose Offerman, NYN
John Olerud, BOS
Rafael Palmeiro, BAL
Eduardo A. Perez, TBA
J.T. Snow, SFN
Frank Thomas, CHA
Daryle Ward, PIT

Secondbase (5)
Roberto Alomar, Retired
Miguel Cairo, NYN
Tony Graffanino, BOS
Luis Lopez, CIN
Fernando Vina, DET

Thirdbase (3)
Alex Gonzalez, TBA
Wes Helms, MIL
Joe Randa, SDN

Shortstop (7)
Rich Aurilia, CIN
Royce Clayton, ARI
Alex Gonzalez, FLO
Ramon Martinez, PHI
Pokey Reese, SEA
Rey Sanchez, NYA
Jose Vizcaino, HOU

Outfield (25)
Danny Bautista, Retired
Jeromy Burnitz, CHN
Jeff Conine, FLO
Jacob Cruz, CIN
Johnny Damon, BOS
Juan Encarnacion, FLO
Juan Gonzalez, CLE
Jeffrey Hammonds, WAS
Richard Hidalgo, TEX
Bobby Higginson, DET
Todd Hollandsworth, ATL
Matt Lawton, NYA
Eli Marrero, BAL
Abraham Nunez, SLN
Orlando Palmeiro, HOU
Reggie Sanders, SLN
Ruben Sierra, NYA
Sammy Sosa, BAL
B.J. Surhoff, BAL
Michael Tucker, PHI
Larry Walker, SLN
Rondell White, DET
Bernie Williams, NYA
Gerald Williams, NYN
Preston Wilson, WAS

DH/Utility (7)
Carlos Baerga, WAS
Carl Everett, CHA
Scott Hatteberg, OAK
Jose Hernandez, CLE
Denny Hocking, KCA
Damian Jackson, SDN
Mike Mordecai, FLO

Starting Pitcher (19)
Wilson Alvarez, r, LAN
Brian Anderson, l, KCA
Tony Armas Jr, r, WAS
Pedro Astacio, r, SDN
Kevin Brown, r, NYA
Roger Clemens, r, HOU
Shawn Estes, l, ARI
Jason Johnson, r, DET
Byung-Hyun Kim, r, COL
Al Leiter, l, NYA
Jose Lima, r, KCA
Joe Mays, r, MIN
Wade Miller, r, BOS
Kevin Millwood, r, CLE
Ramon Ortiz, r, CIN
Brett Tomko, r, SFN
Ismael Valdez, r, FLO
Jeff Weaver, LAN
Jamey Wright, r, COL

Middle Relievers (28)
Antonio Alfonseca, r, FLO
James Baldwin, r, BAL
Jeff Bennett, r, MIL
Jason Christiansen, l, ANA
Darren Dreifort, r, LAN
Alan Embree, l, NYA
Chad Fox, r, CHN
Buddy Groom, l, ARI
Chris Hammond, l, SDN
Shigetoshi Hasegawa, r, SEA
Felix Heredia, l, NYN
Dan Kolb, r, MIL
Matt Mantei, r, BOS
Brian Meadows, r, PIT
Jim Mecir, r, FLO
Ramiro Mendoza, r, NYA
Dan Miceli, r, COL
Terry Mulholland, l, MIN
Jeff Nelson, r, SEA
Paul Quantrill, r, FLO
Al Reyes, r, SLN
Felix Rodriguez, r, NYA
Jay Powell, r, ATL
Scott Sullivan, r, KCA
Shingo Takatsu, r, NYN
Julian Tavarez, r, SLN
Joe Valentine, r, CIN
Rick White, r, PIT

Closers/Possible Closers (2)
Octavio Dotel, r, OAK
Ugueth Urbina, r, PHI

Updates:

10/29: Lots of players added to the list.
10/31: Carl Everett was bought out by the White Sox.
10/31: Kyle Farnsworth and Rafael Furcal filed for free agency.
10/31: Joe McEwing filed for free agency.
10/31: Doug Mientkiewicz and Braden Looper were bought out by the Mets.
10/31: Jason Christiansen bought out by the Angels.
11/1: Hector Carrasco, Mike Myers, Sammy Sosa, Geoff Blum, Jose Vizcaino, Byung-Hyun Kim, Bobby Higginson, Dan Wilson, Alberto Castillo, Dave Hansen, Doug Brocail, Greg Colbrunn, Neifi Perez, Luis Lopez, Paul Bako, Jose Offerman filed for free agency.
11/1: Brad Ausmus, Ugueth Urbina, Raul Casanova, Todd Pratt, Einar Diaz, Richard Hidalgo, Scott Hatteberg, Pokey Reese, Jay Powell, Matt Mantei, Terry Adams, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Al Reyes filed for free agency.
11/2: Antonio Alfonseca's option declined by the Marlins.
11/2: Jay Witasick re-signed with the A's for 2 years and a club option for a 3rd.
11/3: Kenny Lofton, Brett Tomko, Chris Widger, and Jamey Wright filed for free agency.
11/4: Japanese player Kenji Jojima has filed for MLB free agency.
11/4: Frank Thomas bought out.
11/4: Danny Bautista and Roberto Alomar file for free agency after retiring earlier this season.
11/5: Chris Widger re-signed with the White Sox for 1 year.
11/5: Jeff Conine, John Mabry, Al Leiter, Roberto Hernandez file for free agency.
11/5: Elmer Dessens rejected his option with the Dodgers, and filed for free agency.
11/6: B.J. Surhoff and Alan Embree filed for free agency.
11/8: Mike Mordecai, Tino Martinez, Eric Young file for free agency.
11/8: Neifi Perez re-signed with the Cubs for 2 years.
11/9: Jamie Moyer filed for free agency.
11/9: Chad Fox, Jeff Cirillo, James Baldwin, Abraham Nunez file for free agency.
11/9: Dan Wilson retired.
11/10: Jim Mecir, Jeffrey Hammonds, Orlando Palmeiro, Larry Walker file for free agency.
11/11: Roger Clemens, Russ Springer file for free agency.
11/11: Shingo Takatsu, John Olerud, Tim Salmon, Wilson Alvarez, Felix Heredia, Tanyon Sturtze file for free agency.
11/15: Tanyon Sturtze's option picked up by the Yankees.
11/17: Geoff Blum signs a 1-year deal with the Padres.
11/18: Scott Eyre signs a 2-year deal with a player option with the Cubs.
11/18: Marlon Anderson signs a 2-year deal with the Nationals.
11/19: Rick Helling signs a 1-year deal with the Brewers.
11/21: Kenji Jojima signs a 3-year deal with the Mariners.
11/21: Terry Adams signs a minor league contract with the Pirates.
11/21: Eric Young signs a 1-year deal with the Padres.
11/22: Jeff Cirillo signs a 1-year deal with the Brewers.
11/22: Chad Harville signs a 1-year deal with the Devil Rays.
11/23: Bob Howry signs a 3-year deal with the Cubs.
11/25: B.J. Ryan signs a 5-year deal with the Blue Jays.
11/28: Cal Eldred retires.
11/28: Esteban Loaiza signs a 3-year deal with the A's.
11/28: Billy Wagner signs a 4-year deal with the Mets.
11/29: Abraham Nunez signs a 2-year deal with the Phillies.
11/30: Paul Konerko signs a 5-year deal with the White Sox.
12/1: Kyle Farnsworth signs a 3-year deal with the Yankees.
12/1: Brian Giles signs a 3-year deal with the Padres.
12/1: Tim Worrell signs a 2-year deal with the Giants.
12/2: Tom Gordon signs a 3-year deal with the Phillies.
12/2: Hector Carrasco signs a 2-year deal with the Angels.
12/4: Tim Salmon signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Angels.
12/4: Rafael Furcal signs a 3-year deal with the Dodgers.
12/4: Russ Springer signs a 1-year deal with the Astros.
12/4: Paul Byrd signs a 2-year deal with the Indians.
12/5: Gary Bennett signs a 1-year deal with the Cardinals.
12/5: Deivi Cruz signs a 1-year deal with the Cardinals.
12/6: A.J. Burnett signs a 5-year deal with the Blue Jays.
12/7: John Mabry signs a 1-year deal with the Cubs.
12/7: Bob Wickman signs a 1-year deal with the Indians.
12/7: Brian Moehler signs a 1-year deal with the Marlins.
12/7: Lenny Harris signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Marlins.
12/7: Olmedo Saenz signs a 2-year deal with the Dodgers.
12/7: Trevor Hoffman signs a 2-year deal with the Padres.
12/7: Jamie Moyer signs a 1-year deal with the Mariners.
12/7: John Wasdin signs a 1-year deal with the Rangers.
12/8: Elmer Dessens signs a 2-year deal with the Royals.
12/8: Jose Mesa signs a 1-year deal with the Rockies.
12/8: Todd Jones signs a 2-year deal with the Tigers.
12/8: Ramon Hernandez signs a 4-year deal with the Orioles.
12/8: Mark Sweeney signs a 2-year deal with the Giants.
12/8: Jose Valentin signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Mets.
12/9: "Super" Joe McEwing signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Royals.
12/10: Roberto Hernandez signs a 1-year deal with the Pirates.
12/10: Julio Franco signs a 2-year deal with the Mets.
12/11: Todd Pratt signs a 1-year deal with the Braves.
12/11: Sandy Alomar signs a 1-year deal with the Dodgers.
12/12: Matt Morris signs a 3-year deal with the Giants.
12/12: Lou Merloni signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Indians.
12/12: Damian Easily signs a 1-year deal with the Diamondbacks.
12/13: Jason Grimsley signs a 1-year deal with the Diamondbacks.
12/13: Brad Ausmus signs a 2-year deal with the Astros.
12/13: Mike Lamb signs a 1-year deal with the Astros.
12/13: Ricardo Rincon signs a 2-year deal with the Cardinals.
12/13: Robert Fick signs a 1-year deal with the Nationals.
12/13: Joey Eischen signs a 1-year deal with the Nationals.
12/13: Mike DiFelice signs a 1-year deal with the Nationals.
12/13: Alberto Castillo signs a 1-year deal with the Nationals.
12/14: Carl Everett signs a 1-year deal with the Mariners.
12/14: Bill Mueller signs a 2-year deal with the Dodgers.
12/15: Braden Looper signs a 3-year deal with the Cardinals.
12/15: Mike Myers signs a 2-year deal with the Yankees.
12/16: Doug Brocail signs a 1-year deal with the Padres.
12/16: Scott Elarton signs a 2-year deal with the Royals.
12/16: Mark Grudzielanek signs a 1-year deal with the Royals.
12/16: Doug Mientkiewicz signs a 1-year deal with the Royals.
12/16: Paul Bako signs a 1-year deal with the Royals.
12/18: Nomar Garciaparra signs a 1-year deal with the Dodgers.
12/18: Rudy Seanez signs a 1-year deal with the Red Sox.
12/19: Danny Graves signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Indians.
12/19: Steve Karsay signs a minor league contract w/ an invite to spring training with the Indians.
12/20: Jacque Jones signs a 3-year deal with the Cubs.
12/20: Chris Hammond signs a 1-year deal with the Reds.
12/20: Kenny Lofton signs a 1-year deal with the Dodgers.
12/20: Dan Kolb, Jeff Bennett, Wade Miller, Ramon Ortiz and Joe Valentine were non-tendered, making them free agents.
12/20: Jarrod Washburn signs a 4-year deal with the Mariners.

Esteban Loaiza and his 3-year deal

2005-12-20T14:58:00.000-05:00

I've heard a lot of people talk about how Esteban Loaiza's recent contract (3-years at 21.375 million dollars) was ridiculous. The fact is: It's not. I'm going to try to explain why I think Loaiza deserves every cent of that money.

I've talked a lot in the past about RPS (Real Player Salary), which essentially takes an ERA and IP and creates a salary value for that performance. It seems to work pretty well. I've altered it slightly for individual players this off-season, creating aRPS (adjusted RPS) if you will. The adjustments are simple. Rather than taking an unreliable value such as an ERA, why not use sabermetrics instead? aRPS takes the RPS values derived from using four ERA values: DIPS ERA, FIP ERA and the park adjusted values for both of those. All four have their merits, and to settle the score I've weighted them equally, creating one final aRPS value for each season that a player has been in the league.

Now that I have an aRPS value for each year of Esteban Loaiza's (specifically him in this case, but it could be anyone) career, we can find equal market value for him. Here's a table of Loaiza's aRPS's:

Year	aRPS ($ M)
1995	3.6
1996	0.3
1997	7.8
1998	3.5
1999	5.4
2000	6.1
2001	6.0
2002	5.5
2003	14.1
2004	3.0
2005	10.9

Loaiza has had a good career, and recently he's been exceptional with the exception of the 2004 season.

My method for determining market value involves using a 6-year rule. To become a free agent, every pitcher needs to play 6 years in the Majors, so essentially for every free agent pitcher there should be at least 6 years of data to use. I'll use the last 6 years of Loaiza's contract and only those years. From here it's simple, weighting each year as 7 minus how many years ago it was, so for 2005 it would be 7-1=6, for 2004 it would be 7-2=5. We get 2005*6+2004*5+2003*4...+2000. Divide that by 21 (6+5+4+3+2+1) to get the average RPS value using those weights and then multiply the result by 1.1. A recent article at the Hardball Times suggests that contracts increase by 10% each year in free agency, roughly speaking of course.

It's as simple as that. Loaiza's market value (MV) comes out to be 9.0 using this math, but using other factors we would lower that number: he will be 34 and he wasn't very good in the AL the last time he was there in 2004. Adding all that in, I don't think it's out of the question to say that he deserves the 7.125 million he will be making annually.

Just to demonstrate this method with a few more free agents, here are some other players' MV:

A.J. Burnett: 7.6 (28 years old and future potential): received 11 per year
Matt Morris: 7.6 (31 years old and has been an ace): received 9 per year
Jarrod Washburn: 5.1 (31 years old and has post-season experience): received 9.25 per year, which I still can't understand
Kenny Rogers: 7.6 (41 years old): received 8 per year although it was 2 years

And here are some guys who have yet to sign:

Kevin Millwood: 9.0
Brett Tomko: 5.2
Jeff Weaver: 8.3 (although I still wouldn't sign him for more than 3/28, which I think is the low-end of what he would sign for)
B.K. Kim: 4.6 (please sign this guy)
Kevin Brown: 6.7 (or him for half of that)
Jason Johnson: 5.4

While not perfect, I think MV is a pretty good indictor of what someone deserves considering it can't take age, injuries, potential, etc into account. At the least it can set a baseline for any player. Plus, considering that this is a weak market, it's not surprising that many of these players will get a lot more than their MV will expect.

The Steve Phillips Watch

2005-12-18T16:38:00.000-05:00

Steve Phillips made his own top 50 list of free agents and his own predictions. Let's see how he has done (his predictions in parenthesis and the real team, if any, afterwards):

Paul Konerko (Red Sox), White Sox
Johnny Damon (Red Sox)
Roger Clemens (Retires)
Rafael Furcal (Cubs), Dodgers
Billy Wagner (Phillies), Mets
B.J. Ryan (Mets), Blue Jays
A.J. Burnett (Blue Jays), Blue Jays
Brian Giles (Cubs), Padres
Trevor Hoffman (Padres), Padres
Kyle Farnsworth (Braves), Yankees
Kevin Millwood (Indians)
Ramon Hernandez (Mets), Orioles
Bengie Molina (Padres)
Matt Morris (Orioles), Giants
Jarrod Washburn (Rangers), Mariners
Bob Wickman (Indians), Indians
Todd Jones (Marlins), Tigers
Tom Gordon (Diamondbacks), Phillies
Jeff Weaver (Angels)
Mark Grudzielanek (Cardinals), Royals
Alex Gonzalez (Braves)
Nomar Garciaparra (Dodgers), Dodgers
Preston Wilson (Orioles)
Mike Piazza (Angels)
Kenji Jojima (Mariners), Mariners
Frank Thomas (Indians)
Jacque Jones (Tigers)
Reggie Sanders (Cardinals)
Kenny Rogers (Dodgers), Tigers
Jeromy Burnitz (Padres)
Ricardo Rincon (Cardinals), Yankees
Julian Tavarez (Mets)
Bob Howry (Yankees), Cubs
Carl Everett (Nationals), Mariners
Bill Mueller (Dodgers), Dodgers
Kenny Lofton (Padres)
Brad Ausmus (Astros), Astros
John Olerud (Mets), Retired
Ray Durham (Mariners), Giants
Joe Randa (Dodgers)
Scott Elarton (Nationals), Royals
Esteban Loaiza (Nationals), A's
Jamie Moyer (Mariners), Mariners
Octavio Dotel (Mets)
Juan Encarnacion (Nationals)
Bernie Williams (Orioles)
Sammy Sosa (Devil Rays)
Kevin Millar (Twins)
Paul Byrd (Reds), Indians
Scott Eyre (Red Sox), Cubs

So out of the 50 guesses, 27 have signed so far and he's been correct 8 times (30%). For comparison in our top 50 challenge, my percentage is 36% while the Bens' and Hank's is at 25%. My question is, why is Steve Phillips getting paid and we're not if our combined percentage (28%) is basically as good as his (30%)?

Daniel Cabrera and the exception to the rule

2005-12-18T12:29:00.000-05:00

Over at the Hardball Times, David Appelman has written an article on Daniel Cabrera. It's a worthwhile read for any O's fan, although it doesn't say too much that's new. One thing that I didn't realize before is that he's always had control problems, even back in Rookie-ball. That does worry me a little bit, but I still do think that he projects well for this upcoming season. This got me thinking about what Leo Mazzone could do with a pitcher coming off of a 4.00 FIP ERA season.

From 1990-2005 (long regarded as the Cox/Mazzone era for the Braves), the Braves' pitching staff out-pitched their FIP era all but two years (essentially their team ERA was lower than their fERA all but two years). Something like that isn't just random, it's a trend and proves that Mazzone certainly has some positive effect on the pitching staff. From 1990-2005, the Braves' team ERA was 3.60 with a fERA of 3.89. On average, Mazzone lowered the Braves' team ERA by about .30 points from its FIP era. What does that mean for the O's?

In 2005, the Orioles' team ERA was 4.57 with a fERA of 4.58. Assuming that none of our pitchers actually progress and pitch better according to FIP, Mazzone will likely lower the team's ERA to 4.27, which would place us 7th in the AL in 2005 and second in the AL East. But what if the Orioles do progress, like they should? Daniel Cabrera and Erik Bedard are destined to progress, and we'll be rid of the likes of Jason Grimsley, Sidney Ponson, Steve Kline and Steve Kline. Sure, Bruce Chen will probably fall off the face of the Earth in 2006, but on average we should pitch better in 2006 than we did in 2005. We should also see the addition of another quality starting pitcher (maybe?) like Kevin Brown, Kevin Millwood, Jeff Weaver or Brett Tomko. Add in the fact that Mazzone's FIP difference was actually .46 the past 5 seasons (meaning he's been even better recently), and it's not out of the question to assume a .60 drop from that 2005 mark of 4.57 to a team ERA in 2006 of 3.97 (the difference between Erik Bedard/Chein-Ming Wang/Brandon McCarthy/C.C. Sabathia/Brad Radke in 2005 and Daniel Cabrera/Jeremy Bonderman/Matt Clement/Jason Johnson).

Top Free Agents left

2005-12-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

Here are my rankings for the top 10 free agents still out on the market, and my predictions on where they'll go:

10. Octavio Dotel, RP, RHP

Dotel is the best closer left in the free agent pool, thus making him valuable. At 30, he will still have several good years left, and could be a bargain (or a bust) because he is coming off of a 15.1 IP season due to injury. His strikeout and walk rates have been extremely consistent (2000-2004), but he needs to stop allowing the long-ball. Once prized as the best setupman in baseball (2002), Dotel should be valuable in whatever role he assumes. Until this past season, Dotel has been extremely durable, pitching in at least 84 innings each year he's been in the Majors. Expect, barring further injury, a roughly 3.50 ERA and at least 80 innings pitched.
Upside: Tons of strikeouts, proven closer, still at the end of his prime
Downside: Coming off of major surgery, numbers not overly impressive in 2005, allows too many homers
Dan's Challenge Prediction: SLN
Ben H's Challenge Prediction: NYA
Ben J's Challenge Prediction: SLN
Hank's Challenge Prediction: SLN
My Current Prediction: SLN

9. Nomar Garciaparra, Utility?

Nomar, once considered one of the big 3 at shortstop in the AL, is no longer able to play the middle of the infield. He'll likely move to third, first, or leftfield in 2006. There are major questions about Garciaparra, coming off of a modest, injury-plagued season and a half in Chicago. Durability will be his biggest concern, with fielding a close second. Garciaparra, entering 2005, had only played one game ever in the field besides shortstop, and learning a position at 32 will be difficult. What Nomar still has though is his bat. His homerun power has certainly declined, but a .450-.500 slugging from a corner-player is solid. His OBP dipped in 2005 to below league average, but that will likely increase back towards his career average of .367.
Upside: All-around hitter, should have the potential to play four or five positions, should be fairly cheap
Downside: Durability concerns, has never played any position beyond the leftside of the infield (beyond one game at secondbase), possible problem in the clubhouse
Dan's Challenge Prediction: BOS
Ben H's Challenge Prediction: TBA
Ben J's Challenge Prediction: BAL
Hank's Challenge Prediction: ANA
My Current Prediction: BAL

8. Bengie Molina, C

Molina set career highs in AVG, OBP, and SLG in 2005, and at 30, those will likely be his career highs for the rest of his career. Bengie has solid power, but in any non-HR park, most of it will turn into doubles. His numbers are slightly above average for a catcher, and any team still needing one should enjoy a solid steady player. He should fit in nicely as a sixth hitter in a lot of lineups. Molina might be overvalued though, looking at his previous numbers. He barely walks (23 being a career high before his 27 this season), which might lead to an OBP dip next season and beyond. The biggest thing that Molina will have to do is to put the ball in play more, and worry less about power, because it simply won't be there like it was in 2005.
Upside: Solid hitter, who won't break the bank, solid fielder, still young at 30 years of age
Downside: Peaked in 2005, lack of pure HR power, doesn't walk
Dan's Challenge Prediction: NYN
Ben H's Challenge Prediction: BAL
Ben J's Challenge Prediction: BAL
Hank's Challenge Prediction: NYA
My Current Prediction: TOR

7. Jeromy Burnitz, OF

Burnitz can't seem to stay anywhere. The past three seasons he's been with the Mets, Dodgers, Rockies and Cubs. In 2006, he might add a fifth team to that list. What does Burnitz do? He just seems to hit, a lot, and well. He's hit at least 19 HRs since 1997 and at least 31 HRs in 6 of those seasons. Ignoring his abnormal 2002 season with the Mets, Burnitz's slugging percentage is typically around .450-.500, although it did shrink in 2005 to .435. His OBP does have its problems, only topping .322 in the past four seasons once. He's not young, and at 37, he will likely only be a one, possibly a two year option at the right price. Any team looking for pop in the lineup as a fifth hitter should look for Burnitz.
Upside: Lots of HRs and above-average power, extremely durable, only one "off" season in his past nine
Downside: Will be 37 years old next year, doesn't get on base as much as you'd like, questionable in the field
Dan's Challenge Prediction: CHN
Ben H's Challenge Prediction: SEA
Ben J's Challenge Prediction: NYA
Hank's Challenge Prediction: SDN
My Current Prediction: SEA

6. Bill Mueller, 3B/2B

Mueller might be flying under-the-radar this off-season. He is a pure hitter who knows how to make contact and drive the ball. He also has a good eye, having a high OBP anually as well a solid slugging. His power will mostly come in the form of doubles, where he's had 34, 27, and 45 the past three seasons. Mueller might have some questions about staying healthy, with never playing more than 150 games (although it did come in 2005), and seemingly every other season he misses about 40 games for various reasons. He doesn't have any speed, or drive in many runs (even in Boston), but he'll get on base and hit a good amount of doubles.
Upside: Good fielder, versatile in the lineup, good contact and good eye
Downside: Not exactly young in his mid-30s, doesn't knock in many runs
Dan's Challenge Prediction: MIN
Ben H's Challenge Prediction: MIN
Ben J's Challenge Prediction: MIN
Hank's Challenge Prediction: MIN
My Current Prediction: LAN

Stay tuned for a follow-up with my top 5 free agents remaining...

FIP Predictions

2005-12-08T21:40:00.000-05:00

As introduced by Dave Studeman over at the Hardball Times, I'm going to do a little predicting. Using 70 IP for 2005 as a guideline, which pitchers in 2006 are most likely to lower their ERA according to FIP:

Player	Actual ERA	FIP ERA
Kevin Brown	6.50	3.51
Doug Brocail	5.52	3.28
Curt Schilling	5.69	3.70
Hideo Nomo	7.24	5.64
Chan Ho Park	5.74	4.25
Ryan Drese	5.78	4.36
Zack Greinke	5.80	4.44
Sir Sidney Ponson	6.21	4.85
Jose Lima	6.99	5.69
J.P. Howell	6.19	4.91

All of these guys had high 2005 ERAs, so it isn't too surprising that they're going to lower their ERA (regression towards the mean, as Studeman studiously points out). Who are some other guys likely to lower their ERA, with already decent numbers?

Player	Actual ERA	FIP ERA
John Thomson	4.47	3.61
Chris Reitsma	3.93	3.16
Sunny Kim	4.90	4.15
Corey Lidle	4.53	3.80
Brian Lawrence	4.83	4.20
Matt Clement	4.57	3.95
David Wells	4.45	3.85
Mark Redman	4.90	4.33
Jeremy Bonderman	4.57	4.03
Daniel Cabrera	4.52	4.00

What about the guys most likely to raise their ERA in 2006?

Player	Actual ERA	FIP ERA
Chad Cordero	1.82	3.82
Jorge Sosa	2.55	4.54
Jesse Crain	2.71	4.63
Hector Carrasco	2.04	3.68
Aaron Fultz	2.24	3.74
Chris Spurling	3.44	4.91
Danys Baez	2.86	4.30
Salomon Torres	2.76	4.15
David Riske	3.10	4.49
Julio Mateo	3.06	4.40

Note that Tom Gordon, Jarrod Washburn, Huston Street, Billy Wagner and Bruce Chen appear soon after the top 10.

Making the transition

2005-11-23T11:43:00.000-05:00

Aaron Gleeman has written an interesting article over at the Hardball Times regarding Kenji Jojima. As always, I suggest reading it, but for the concise version, here it is:

Using data from Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Kazuo Matsui, Tsuyoshi Shinjo and Tadahito Iguchi, Gleeman predicted the following dropoffs in statistics from the last season for a player in Japan and his first season in the Majors: 10.9% dropoff in AVG, 12.8% dropoff in OBP, 23.6% dropoff in SLG. Using these as a predictor for Jojima, he came up with these numbers for the 2006 season: .275 avg, .333 obp, .425 slg, which would have placed him 11th among catchers in 2005 for OPS.

If Jojima's reputation as a quality defensive catcher is true (Matsui's reputation as a quality defensive shortstop was about as accurate as my reputation as a concise writer), he is certainly in the same class as Bengie Molina and Ramon Hernandez, and a significant step up from Brad Ausmus. Toss in the fact that the Mariners only had to commit to him for three years, while Hernandez and Molina figure to get longer deals for quite a bit more money, and I think Jojima may prove to be one of the offseason's biggest bargains.

Drew Bledsoe

2005-11-20T21:54:00.000-05:00

I know this isn't baseball, but I figured this was worth posting. Back on August 17th, this guy RamZ wrote this on his website (I don't go there, I just found the quote):

I was just watching NFL Live on ESPN. Sean Salisbury said at the end of the show that the Dallas Cowboys may win 10 games this year. What kind of crack is he smoking? I think Drew Bledsoe will have an extremely tough time with the division opponents’ defenses. We may see Tony Romo before the end of the season, IMHO. I don’t think Drew can handle much more slamming to the turf. BTW, if you are playing against me in fantasy football this year, please draft Drew Bledsoe and start his sorry ass against me.

Note that the Dallas Cowboys are tied atop the NFC East, with a 7-3 record, which means they're on pace to be 11-5. Drew Bledsoe is also having the best season of his career so far, with 14 TDs and 7 INTs and a 96.8 QB Rating. He is also 6th on ESPN's Player Rater among QBs. Can anyone say dethroned?

Fielding Independent Pitching

2005-11-20T20:01:00.000-05:00

I've recently discovered FIP, Fielding Independent Pitching, which was developed by Tangotiger. Essentially it's the same idea as DIPS, but in a much shorter formula. It also gives very similar numbers to those of DIPS. The equation is: 3.2 + (13HR+3BB-2K)/IP. Here is a comparison of DIPS ERA and FIP ERA, using our good friend Rodrigo Lopez as the example:

Year	IP	ERA	dERA	fERA
2000	24.2	8.76	5.66	6.09
2002	196.2	3.57	4.28	4.29
2003	147.0	5.82	4.68	4.80
2004	170.2	3.59	4.29	4.33
2005	209.1	4.90	4.72	4.72
Career	746.7	4.57	4.54	4.58

Yes, they really are that close. That's pretty amazing, and I have to give Tango some credit on this one bigtime. So, if you're ever interested in calculating ERA sans the fielding, there's a much easier equation to use now.

Big Rob

2005-11-20T19:32:00.000-05:00

Rob Neyer is officially the man. If you have 10 minutes free, I suggest reading this regarding this review of a book at Amazon.com (if you know who Rob Neyer is of course).

Top 5 FA Catchers

2005-11-19T12:39:00.000-05:00

Here is my list for the top 5 free agent Catchers:

#5: Mike Piazza (37)

2004 stats: .266-.362-.444, 20 HR, 54 RBI, .982 fielding % at C, 79% successful steal rate
2005 stats: .251-.326-.452, 19 HR, 62 RBI, .997 fielding % at C, 86% successful steal rate
Piazza is barely a catcher anymore. His fielding percentage this season is a bit misleading considering how well players could steal off of Piazza. He'll likely play mostly DH for an American League team and perhaps play 30 games as a Catcher and a few at First Base if necessary. Piazza still has a solid bat though, and will be helped by the move to the AL where he won't have to worry about playing defense. He's got a solid on-base percentage with some pop, which will probably make him a sixth hitter in most lineups.

#4: Brad Ausmus (37)

2004 stats: .248-.306-.325, 5 HR, 31 RBI, .995 fielding % at C, 74% successful steal rate
2005 stats: .258-.351-.331, 3 HR, 47 RBI, .999 fielding % at C, 68% successful steal rate
Ausmus is a solid player with more glove than bat. He has never hit 10 homeruns in a season, and never knocked in more than 54 RBI. A team looking for a more defensive-oriented catcher should look to Ausmus. He has a career 65% successful steal rate against and a .994 fielding percentage behind the plate. At this point Ausmus is probably not any better than a seventh hitter in an NL lineup or an eighth hitter in an AL lineup.

#3: Kenji Jojima (30)

2004 stats: .338 avg, .655 slg, 36 HRs, 91 RBI, 49 BB
2005 stats: I can't find them
Jojima has probably the highest upside of any of the catchers in this year's pool, but there are still some important things to remember. First, he's coming from Japan, which means that his stats will need to be adjusted. In Japan though, he was great. There have only been a few good Japanese players to make it to the Majors including Ichiro and Hideki Matsui (no other Japanese hitters have done that well). Both Matsui and Ichiro saw significant dips in their numbers once coming to the U.S., especially in slugging. Jojima will also have to work on dealing with American pitchers and dealing with a language barrier (even if his agent thinks his English is very good, there will still be some growing pains). Jojima is a mystery, and will likely end up in New York or Seattle. A team that signs him will likely have to have a back-up plan in case this turns into the second-coming of Kazuo Matsui.

#2: Bengie Molina (32)

2004 stats: .276-.313-.404, 10 HR, 54 RBI, .995 fielding % at C, 74% successful steal rate
2005 stats: .295-.336-.446, 15 HR, 69 RBI, .996 fielding % at C, 69% successful steal rate
Molina had a very good season, improving from his solid 2004 numbers. Molina set career highs in AVG, OBP, and SLG, which worries me based on value. He's past his prime and was in a contract season, putting up the best numbers of his career. It's possible that he's "turned the corner" and is suddenly showing more power, but more likely he'll revert back towards his career averages of .273-.309-.397. Given the right ballpark, Arizona perhaps, Molina's power could remain as it is or perhaps slightly increase. More likely though, especially if he signs with the Mets, he might see his homeruns dip below double-digits.

#1: Ramon Hernandez (30)

2004 stats: .276-.341-.477, 18 HR, 63 RBI, .992 fielding % at C, 72% successful steal rate
2005 stats: .290-.322-.450, 12 HR, 58 RBI, .988 fielding % at C, 74% successful steal rate
Ramon Hernandez can hit, and there's little question about that. He's young, in his prime and has only played in San Diego and Oakland, considered to be Pitcher's ballparks. His defense is less-than-stellar, but still solid. Injury questions remain his biggest concern, having played in 99 games in 2005 and 111 in 2004. If he had been able to stay healthy though, he has at least 20, possibly 25-HR potential in an average home-run ballpark. Hernandez has proven throughout his six full MLB seasons that he'll put up numbers every year. Unlike Jojima, Hernandez won't implode, although his upside might be slightly lower. Hernandez will probably be a fifth or sixth hitter in most lineups.

Baseball Almanac

2005-11-19T10:10:00.000-05:00

Of course as I tell you about the three sites that I got to first for statistics data, I start using another website that same day. The Baseball Almanac is great. I've used it in the past for fast facts and going back into baseball history (such is with an almanac), but I've just recently started going to its player pages. They have all of the data that you'll need in a better format than MLB.com can offer. For example, calculating DIPS only needs a few statistics from a player, but one of them is intentional walks. Luckily, the Almanac has me covered. I used to have to go to MLB.com just for IBB data, but now I don't have to (I try to avoid going deep into MLB.com because it is just so slow sometimes). Salary data, hitting rates, pitching ratios, baserunning stats, and even zone rating. Yes they have zone rating, a defensive metric created by Bill James. The only problem I have with the site is that there isn't a nice big player search box on the top of the page. Not a big deal, but it can save me a second or two each search, and I might do ten or twenty searches in a day.

Also, I've put up Google Ads, which I'm sure you've started to see on the top and the right side of the page. I hope they don't look too bad, but I'd like to see exactly how much money I can make from Ads on a Blog. Maybe it's $5, maybe it's $100. I'm just testing the waters. The one problem I've had so far is that I've had a bunch of ads about 'roids after my article on the Steroid Era. I wish they'd put stuff on about baseball hats, baseball bats, baseball cards, baseballs, that sort of thing (get my drift Google?). Anyway, now that you do know that they are my ads, please don't click like 10 times a day, because that could be considered fraud. Any questions on this, please feel free to leave a comment.

As I'm talking about the display of the page, I might as well mention my top logo. It looks crappy in IE, I know, I don't know why and I don't really care to be honest. Go switch to Firefox and it will look perfect.

Baseball Statistics

2005-11-18T19:04:00.000-05:00

There are three main websites that I use to get MLB statistics from (aside from VORP or Win Shares, which can be found at Baseball Prospectus and the Hardball Times respectively). Since I expect most people go to ESPN or Yahoo! for their stats, I figured that I'd lay out my sources. I'll also include screenshots of each, with Rodrigo Lopez as the star of each:

First there is Baseball Reference. The first plays I look, 90% of the time. This site is a great and fast, with a ton of different statistics from player stats, league stats, award data, and postseason data all the way back to the start of organized baseball. A clean design and all of the basic player statistics you'll need, this site is hard to beat. There are also a few hall of fame predictor stats, which are interesting to look at (check the bottom of each player's individual page). They also provide players who are similar. For Rodrigo, those include Adam Eaton, Joel Pineiro, Kyle Lohse and Brett Myers. This site does not update during the season, which is the only major drawback.

Next I go to the Baseball Cube. Despite a ton of ads (probably some popups as well), this site is very similar to Baseball Reference. The main difference is the lack of extensive league data, but it makes up for it. For pitchers it has h/9, hr/9, bb/9, k/9 and whip data for each year. In some other websites it isn't listed or not in a very obvious place. The Cube has minor league data for all players, going down all the way from AAA to Rookie leagues. It also has college data and usually stats from other countries like Mexico, or Japan. This site also does not update during the season, but is still useful for checking out players who have just made it to the Majors (or haven't yet) and his minor league statistics are important.

Last is the official Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball websites (you can figure out which one is more applicable for which situation, I would hope). The great part about these sites is that they update during the season, and regarding Major League Baseball's site, they have a ton of extra stats that other sites don't have. These include IBB, SLGA, OBA, and P/IP. Just a great resource if you need to find stats that you can't find anywhere else. The MLB site is a bit slow and it's not always easy to find exactly what you want, but it's a pretty good website.

Anyway, there you have it. Those are my top resources when it comes to baseball information.

Bill James was right!

2005-11-18T15:55:00.000-05:00

Back in 2001, Rob Neyer posted an article about DIPS over at ESPN.com. Bill James (whose projected statistics are sort of the anti-DIPS), e-mailed Rob. Here's an excerpt from that e-mail:

(note that Bill James introduces a statistic called PICBA, which is basically BABIP, and he is saying that a pitcher's hits allowed is important.)

I very strongly suspect that you would find that PICBA is not random, but that it "follows" pitchers. I actually figured this for Tommy John throughout his career. He has a career PICBA of 129.05, which is +.008 -- a fairly high figure if PICBA is random, but not, in itself, clear proof that it is not random.
But while I suspect that PICBA is not random, the research really should be done, for several reasons. First, if McCracken turns out to be correct, this has important consequences, even allowing us, to a certain extent, to predict movements in pitcher's records. (If a pitcher has a very high PICBA, and if PICBA is random, then that pitcher's performance can be expected to improve significantly in the following season.) Beyond that, however -- even assuming that McCracken is wrong -- in the Tommy John study the data does not appear random, but there are patterns in the data that I don't understand. From 1967 through 1970, for example, Tommy John's PICBA was negative every year. From 1971 through 1978, it was positive every year. In 1978, his last year with the Dodgers, his PICBA was very high -- +.029.
With the Yankees, however, John's PICBA was negative every year -- just a few points, but still negative. Why? Once he left the Yankees, his PICBA again was positive every year. Why? Why were the Yankees able to get more outs for Tommy John than they did for other pitchers, when other teams were able to get fewer?
Well, one can suggest several theories. One theory is that John, as a lefty and a ground-ball pitcher, had very high numbers of hard ground balls toward third base, which was at that time was manned by the Incredible Leaping Octopus, Graig Nettles. Another theory is that it may have had to do with composition pitching staff -- in other words, that the team hit percentage was determined by the pitchers on the staff (the exact opposite of McCracken's thesis), and that John bore a particular relationship to that pitching staff. A third theory is that it may have something to do with Yankee Stadium, with the foul territory or the eagerness of opposing teams to get left-handed hitters in the lineup in Yankee Stadium. Another theory is that it might have something to do with pitching patterns which are favored by different teams or different catchers.
And that's why the issue that really should be studied -- because if it isn't random, then what is it? We should be able to gain some understanding of the game of baseball by studying this issue. We might find, for example, that when a team has an outstanding defensive third baseman, the PICBA of left-handers on the staff will be negative, while if a team has a poor defensive third baseman, the PICBA of lefties will be positive. That would be very useful if it turned out to be true.

James' argument is that pitchers do seem to have an effect on balls in play, and that the good pitchers have a positive effect, whereas the bad pitchers have a negative effect. Well actually calculating PICBA for all major-league pitchers would be very difficult, so I did the next best thing. I calculated career DIPS ERA (although like my calculations in the past I did not account for knuckleballers and lefties, because it would be too labor intensive to enter the data for all pitchers for a very small adjustment) and compared that to the career ERA for all major league pitchers with at least 1000 BFP (roughly 270 IP) thru 2004, which came out to 2752 pitchers. I then graphed ERA vs. dERA (note that this is not the adjusted version of this stat that I introduced a while ago, and this is also not park/league adjusted, because plain era won't be adjusted) for all of these pitchers. My graph looked like this:

The dark box attempts to demonstrate the domain and range of this data (thanks Arnaldo). Essentially the range of ERA appears to be roughly 2.50-5.25, whereas the range of dERA appears to be 3.50-5.50. What does that mean? By nature, dERA will almost always be higher than its corresponding ERA, so trying to test James' method with ERA-dERA (aka DIFF as I will call it) won't work, because it will always be negative.

This isn't a dead-end though, as the relationship between these two variables is pretty linear. To actually test James' theory, I created a stat called DIFF2. I found the average of DIFF, which was 0.45, and set that as the baseline for the new stat, so the new formula is now ERA-dERA+0.45 for DIFF2. This basically says that on average ERA is a little less than a half of a run less than its corresponding dERA. Now taking the DIFF2 for all Major League pitchers, the average is 0.00, where a negative number means that the pitcher outplayed his DIPS, and a positive number meaning that he didn't pitch as well as his DIPS indicated.

So, getting back to the specific point: James asserts that better pitchers will outpitch their DIPS, essentially. That means that their career DIFF2 will be negative. Because DIPS can project career wins based on their performance, we'll use that data to assume pitcher quality (this is unaffected by runs support, so it's actually a good metric).

CAREER WINS	AVERAGE DIFF2	# of PITCHERS
300+	-0.22	21
250-299	-0.15	19
200-249	-0.19	55
150-299	-0.16	116
100-149	-0.08	314
50-99	-0.04	659
49-	0.06	1568

So, as James does suspect, better pitchers do appear to control their ERA more than bad pitchers over the course of their career.

I wouldn't proclaim this as the end of DIPS though as I still think that it has a better predictive value than pure ERA or WHIP. The one thing though that I would change in how I view dERA is that I would give better pitchers (guys like Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, John Smoltz, Mariano Rivera) a little bump, and I would raise concerns over pitchers who struggle (Sidney Ponson anyone?).

While I mention Sir Sid, I would like to say though that he pitched better than his ERA would indicate, but his dERA might also be overestimating him. For those that missed my prior comments on him, Ponson's 2005 dERA (not adjusted, this is pure DIPS) is 4.81 compared to a real ERA of 6.21. For reference as well, Ponson's career ERA is 4.81 (ironic? I think not) and his career dERA is 4.65. Essentially, all this means is that Ponson isn't a good pitcher, but if he pitches in 2006, he'll likely lower his ERA from 6.21, at least slightly.

EDIT: Let me make sure that no one thinks that I'm arguing against DIPS on its year-to-year basis, as I've been using it. Here's a Rob Neyer article from 2001? where he talks about Voros McCracken's influence on statistics.

The Steroid Era

2005-11-17T14:33:00.000-05:00

With Baseball's new steroid policy, it's pretty safe to say that steroids will be out of the game (not including HGH, etc), ending the "steroid era." I graphed Isolated Power for the National League (the AL implemented the DH in 1976, which would skew results) since 1886. The American League data for the recent years is almost exactly the same, surprisingly similar actually. Here is my graph, with the steroid era marked with the grey box, lasting from 1992-2004.

Something happened between 1992 and 1993 that jump-started the boom. What might that have been? I don't really know, but here are some observations that I made. Draw your own conclusions:

Jose Canseco was traded to Texas from Oakland during the 1992 season. He indicted several players from Texas as steroid users in his book.
Ivan Rodriguez's SLG jumped from .360 to .412 between 1992 and 1993.
Rafael Palmeiro's SLG jumped from .434 to .554 between 1992 and 1993. Note though that this was Palmeiro's career high at the time, but he had two similar SLG totals in previous years.
Juan Gonzalez's SLG jumped from .529 to .632 between 1992 and 1993.
AL R/G increased from 4.32 to 4.71, while NL R/G increased from 3.88 to 4.49 R/G.
There were 298 more HRs in 1993 in the AL, and 694 HRs in the NL.
Several good sluggers debuted in 1993 including Brad Ausmus, Jeromy Burnitz, Carlos Delgado, Jim Edmonds, Carl Everett, Cliff Floyd, Shawn Green, Chipper Jones, Raul Mondesi, Troy O'Leary, Manny Ramirez, and Rondell White.
Paul O'Neil was traded to the Yankees following the 1992 season, and then had his best season of his career at that point at age 30.
Colorado and Florida are added as expansion teams in 1993. The Coors effect began.
Paul Molitor signed with the Blue Jays for 1993 at age 36 and posted his best SLG in 6 seasons.
Barry Bonds signed with the Giants for 1993 and had the best season of his career up to that point. He won the MVP in 1992 and 1993 in the NL in both years.
Sammy Sosa's 1992 line: .260/.317/.393 in 262 ABs.
Sammy Sosa's 1993 line: .261/.309/.485 in 598 ABs. His SLG never dropped below .480 until 2005.
Mark McGwire was injured and had less than 100 ABs.
Chris Hoiles raised his SLG .079 points, finishing 5th in the AL, the best of his entire career.
John Olerud raised his SLG .149 points, finishing 4th in the AL, the best of his entire career.
Matt Williams' SLG increased from .384 to .561, finishing 3rd in the NL.
Tony Gwynn's SLG increased .080 points at age 33. His SLG would never fall below .441 for the rest of his career, better than 8 of his previous seasons.

What does all of this mean? Maybe nothing, but I just think it's an interesting read.

AZL Ends

2005-11-13T18:15:00.000-05:00

The Arizona Fall League ended, and here is a wrap-up, courtesy of Daren Smith at mlb.com:

SS Brandon Fahey -- Fahey saw no action after Oct. 31. The 24-year-old Texan hit .288 with nine RBIs in 17 games, seeing action at shortstop and second base.

3B Tripper Johnson III -- The 23-year-old corner infielder went 3-for-15 this week as his batting average slid to .333. On Nov. 7 against Grand Canyon, Johnson was 2-for-4 with two RBIs. He ended the campaign with two homers and 13 RBIs in 18 games.

LHP Adam Loewen -- The big Canadian left-hander made his final start of the campaign Nov. 5 against Mesa and gave up three runs on seven hits over four innings. He walked three and matched a season high with six strikeouts. Five days later, Loewen pitched a hitless inning in his lone bullpen appearance of the year. He ended up 2-1 with a stellar 1.67 ERA in seven games.

OF Nick Markakis -- Markakis sandwiched a pair of 0-for-3 performances around a three-game hitting streak this week. The highlight was a 2-for-4 effort in which he drove in two runs Nov. 5 against Mesa. The former member of the Greek Olympic team finished with a .326 average, one homer and 12 RBIs in 26 games. With the help of 11 walks, he ranked seventh in the AFL with a .421 on-base percentage.

OF Val Majewski -- The 24-year-old outfield prospect struggled at home and thrived on the road in the AFL, a trend that continued in the final week of the season. He was 0-for-7 in home games against Grand Canyon and Surprise, but he went 2-for-4 in road contests against the Rafters and Phoenix. Majewski ended up hitting .349 with a homer and four RBIs on the road and .167 with a homer and six RBIs in the friendly confines of the Peoria Sports Complex.

RHP Andy Mitchell -- The 6-foot-3 right-hander ended his AFL season on a high note, making three appearances and tossing four scoreless innings. On Nov. 5 against Mesa, Mitchell allowed one hit and struck out three in two frames to pick up his second straight win. He finished 2-0 with a solid 2.82 ERA in 17 relief outings.

RHP Cory Morris -- Morris was shut down on Oct. 28 due to a shoulder injury. He went 1-0 with a 3.86 ERA in four relief appearances, yielding five hits and six walks in seven innings with six strikeouts.

LHP David Haehnel -- Haehnel surrendered five runs on three hits and two walks in one inning on Nov. 8 against Grand Canyon. A late addition to the roster of the Solar Sox, the 23-year-old left-hander bounced back in the season finale on Nov. 10 and struck out two in a scoreless frame against the Peoria Saguaros.

Orioles Recap from BP

2005-11-13T17:17:00.000-05:00

Over at Baseball Prospectus, the guys are discussing off-season changes for each team. They just released the Orioles (along with the Yankees), and you can check it out here. Paul Swydan makes a pretty good assessment, in my opinion.

Insider Roundup

2005-11-13T16:16:00.000-05:00

From now on I'll sort of just write some notes rather than use actual quotes unless necessary, and next to the player's name I'll post any teams that are listed as interested:

Lyle Overbay (Dodgers, Pirates, Twins, Mets, Red Sox) is drawing a lot of attention in the trade market.
Johnny Damon (Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs) was likely made an offer by the Sox, and he's looking for a 4-year deal.
Carlos Delgado (Orioles, Mets, Mariners) is being pursued in the trade market by three teams. He's owed 3/$48.
Hideki Matsui was offered 4/$50 from the Yankees.
Javier Vazquez wants to be traded east of the Mountain time zone.
Bernie Williams may return to the Yankees as a DH/4th OF.
Bengie Molina (Mets, Yankees)
Kenji Jojima (Yankees, Padres, Mets, Mariners) is looking at 3/$16-$18 contract.
Rafael Furcal (Cubs, Mets) is being courted by Neifi Perez of the Cubs, and is looking for a 5/$50 contract.
David Wells (Padres) wants to be traded to California and the Sox are interested in trading him for reliever Akinori Otsuka
B.J. Ryan (Yankees)
Ramon Hernandez (Mets, Diamondbacks) is not expected to return to San Diego.
Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano will not be traded.
Tom Gordon wants a 3/$15+ contract.
Manny Ramirez (Mets, Angels) is still trying to get a trade.
Alfonso Soriano (Dodgers, Mets) might be traded before his contract expires at the end of the 2006 season.
Nomar Garciaparra (Dodgers)
A.J. Burnett (Mets, Mariners, Blue Jays, Rangers, Red Sox, Orioles)
Billy Wagner (Phillies, Mets, Cubs) received a "low" offer from the Phillies
Paul Konerko (Angels, Red Sox, White Sox) received a 4/$52 offer from the White Sox.
Bob Howry (Phillies, Tigers, Brewers, Indians, Mets, Rangers) wants a 3/$10.5-$12 contract.
Milton Bradley is being offered by the Dodgers to any team willing, but no one wants him.
Trevor Hoffman (Mets) is unlikely to return to San Diego.
Possible trade between the Indians and Rangers: David Riske and Coco Crisp for Adrian Gonzalez.
Odalis Perez is being shopped by the Dodgers.
Bret Boone (Cardinals)
Danys Baez (Mets) is being pursued along with Aubrey Huff in a trade.
Kevin Mench (Royals) might be traded.
Jacque Jones (Padres)
Tim Worrell (Diamondbacks) didn't like the team's offer of 1/$1 to re-sign him.
Kevin Millwood wants a 5-year deal, and the Indians won't offer him one.

RPS

2005-11-12T14:21:00.000-05:00

I've derived RPS values now from ERA and IP rather than VORP totals. It's pretty good. Here's my formula for anyone interested:

A stat: IP * 0.635 - (ER/9*IP)

If the A stat is greater than 2.5, the RPS value will be A/18.1*2931701.5,
If the A stat is less than 2.5, the RPS value will be 316000 (or whatever the league minimum is)

Here's a list of the most underrated F.A. Ps based off of RPS(adjERA)-RPS(ERA), and how much money they're likely to be underrated by using RPS:

Doug Brocail, RP, TEX: $3.5 M
Kevin Brown, SP, NYA: $3.4 M
Joe Mays, SP, MIN: $1.8 M
Paul Quantrill, RP, SDN: $1.2 M
Jason Johnson, SP, DET: $0.8 M
Brian Moehler, RP, FLO: $0.8 M

Here's a list of the most overrated, and how much they're likely to be overrated by:

Roger Clemens, SP, HOU: $4.4 M
Jarrod Washburn, SP, ANA: $3.5 M
Kevin Millwood, SP, CLE: $3.1 M
Hector Carrasco, SP/RP, WAS: $2.8 M
Bob Wickman, RP, CLE: $2.4 M

This doesn't take into account what a player's actual salary is, their age, their potential. It just looks at what their salary should be with their real 2005 ERA and their 2005 adjusted dips ERA, and checks the difference.

All things being equal (and closers not being vastly overrated), the dollar amount is how much each player will be paid +/- what they deserved based off of last year.

Ranking Pitchers (1-10)

2005-11-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

Here is my list for the top 10 free agent starting pitchers:

#10: Jamie Moyer, l, SEA (43)

2005 stats: 13-7, 200 IP, 4.28 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 102 K, 52 BB
2005 dips: 12-10, 202 IP, 4.35 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 104 K, 60 BB
Yeah he's really old, but for a one year need, Moyer will fit the bill. He's pitched at least 200 innings for the last five seasons, so durability shouldn't be a major question. He also gets the W, a lot. I know, it's not sabermetric to say something like that, but when you've had a winning record for 10 of the last 11 seasons, you're doing something right. His strikeout rate has slightly declined recently, but his walks have not increased. He'll rely more on his defense than he has in the past to get outs. He does have the tendency to allow the long-ball, so I would be hesistent to sign him if I owned a fly-ball ballpark (a la Russ Ortiz in Arizona). You'll probably be able to grab Moyer for a 1-year roughly five million dollar deal, which is a bargin for someone who has plenty of experience and wins.

#9: Jason Johnson, r, DET (32)

2005 stats: 8-13, 210 IP, 4.54 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 93 K, 49 BB
2005 dips: 13-11, 209 IP, 4.32 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 94 K, 56 BB
Johnson won't be great for you, but he'll be solid. I'm questioning myself a little bit in placing him this high on the list. He's coming off of a career low K/9 rate, and yet he's still getting the job done. He posted his lowest WHIP of his career, which is due to throwing more strikes and decreasing his walk rate. The strikeout rate worries me, but he pitched better than his 2005 stats might indicate. His dips were friendly, giving him a positive record, and a lower ERA. Johnson could be a little underrated due to his lackluster 2005 numbers on paper, and might come cheaper than other similar guys like Jeff Weaver.

#8: Jarrod Washburn, l, ANA (31)

2005 stats: 8-8, 177.3 IP, 3.20 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 94 K, 51 BB
2005 dips: 11-9, 175 IP, 4.31 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 95 K, 57 BB
When looking at just his 2005 ERA, Washburn is at the cream of the crop of the free agent market. Looking past that though, he's not that much better than a number four starter. Washburn got lucky in 2005, recording his best ERA since 2002, but also posting the worst K/9 of his career and the worst BB/9 since 2000. There is no question in my mind that Washburn's ERA will increase, and likely significantly, in 2006. I think that it's hard for me to imagine signing Washburn due to his inflated 2005 ERA: he'll likely get more money than he deserves. One thing that I did like though was that his dips pythagorian record gave him three more wins and one more loss. Like Moyer, he does win games, having posted a .500 or better W-L record since 1999.

#7: Matt Morris, r, SLN (31)

2005 stats: 14-10, 192.7 IP, 4.11 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 117 K, 37 BB
2005 dips: 12-10, 194 IP, 4.27 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 119 K, 44 BB
Morris' best days are behind him. He won't ever put up a 2.53 ERA like he did in 1998 again. He did prove though, that his 4.72 ERA from 2004 was a fluke. His walk rate reached a career best, while his strikeout rate reached a career worst. Morris is losing velocity, and relies on more balls in play to get outs. My guess is that Morris can put up a 4.00-4.50 ERA, and that's about it. He's also averaged 199 IP over the last 5 seasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of GMs jump on the 101-62 (.619) career record bandwagon and offer Morris a 3-year 20-million dollar deal.

#6: Kenny Rogers, l, TEX (41)

2005 stats: 14-8, 195.3 IP, 3.46 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 87 K, 53 BB
2005 dips: 13-9, 190 IP, 3.92 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 83 K, 57 BB
Despite pitching in Texas, Rogers' numbers are still better than they really are. He's not striking out anyone anymore, and coming off of a controversial season and a second-consecutive second-half collapse. At this pace, he might end up with a 1:1 K:BB ratio next season. I don't think that many teams will want Rogers, when they can look to younger pitchers like Jarrod Washburn. Rogers posted his lowest ERA since 1998, even in Texas, but there's no doubt that it won't stay that low next year. Only guys like Roger Clemens can keep lowering their ERA at this age. Still though, there might be one or two teams who are looking to catch lightning in a bottle and offer him 6-8 million per year on a one-year deal with a second-year option.

#5: Esteban Loaiza, r, WAS (34)

2005 stats: 12-10, 217 IP, 3.77 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 173 K, 55 BB
2005 dips: 15-9, 221 IP, 3.60 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 172 K, 61 BB
Loaiza had a great 2005, and his dips back that up. He also got his walk rate back down to his career average, proving that his time in New York was just a fluke (5.53 BB/9). Loaiza does have a reputation though that he'll be good one year and then struggle the next. Perhaps he's finally found a good place in the National League, or he really is a good pitcher. I don't know the exact answer. I wouldn't go after Loaiza if I was an AL team (maybe if I was Seattle or Anaheim), but I really do think that a NL team will have a middle to top of the rotation type of pitcher when they sign Loaiza.

#4: Paul Byrd, r, ANA (35)

2005 stats: 12-11, 204.3 IP, 3.74 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 102 K, 28 BB
2005 dips: 14-9, 202 IP, 3.84 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 103 K, 35 BB
Byrd is one of my favorite pitchers in this year's class for several reasons: First, he'll be cheaper by a lot compared to the pitchers ahead of him on this list. He has posted a sub 4.05 ERA the past 4 seasons (he missed 2002, and take out his joke 10 IP in Philly). He's pitched well in both leagues. He's posted a .500 or better W-L record in 7 of his 10 MLB seasons. His BB/9 has decreased each of the last 4 seasons. You also know what you're going to get with Byrd. At worst, he'll be a fourth starter with a roughly 4.25 ERA. At best, he'll be a third starter with a 3.60 ERA. He won't kill you, and he doesn't have the amazing potential, which will lower his price tag. My guess is that Byrd will go for three years at roughly 5-7 million per season.

#3: Kevin Millwood, r, CLE (31)

2005 stats: 9-11, 192 IP, 2.86 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 146 K, 52 BB
2005 dips: 13-8, 190 IP, 3.76 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 147 K, 58 BB
Millwood had a very good season, but let's not overrate it. He switched leagues, and posted his best ERA since 1999. During that span, his average ERA was 4.15, in the NL. I don't think that Millwood has suddenly gotten through the hump and is a staff ace. He's still a middle of the rotation guy, and will likely go for top of the rotation money. During his major league career, he's had three very good seasons, and six slightly better than average seasons. At 31, can you expect him to suddenly break out of that mold? Possibly, but I wouldn't bet on it personally. It's not all negative though. He's been keeping his homerun rate low recently, which would allow a team in a homerun park to sign him. He also significantly out-performed his 9-11 record, and is 32 games over .500 for his career. Millwood is not consistent, but he won't be terrible. As long as you realize that you're not going to get a sub-3.00 ERA from him, then he'll be a good signing. I'm always a little weary of guys posting career-type years in their contract year.

#2: A.J. Burnett, r, FLO (29)

2005 stats: 12-12, 209 IP, 3.44 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 198 K, 79 BB
2005 dips: 16-8, 211 IP, 3.33 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 203 K, 87 BB
Burnett is the real deal. He finally showed what he can do in 2005, despite a lackluster September. He pitched in one of the best pitcher's parks and in the National League, yet his dips ERA was still lower than his actual ERA. His walks were up in 2005, but I wouldn't worry too much as long as he continues to strike guys out at nearly one every inning. The biggest question for Burnett will be staying healthy; I don't have any doubts that he can anchor any rotation. He missed almost all of 2003, and half of the 2004 season. He has averaged only 121 IP per mlb season (although part of that includes his Rookie year when he was called up part-way through). He'll probably end up with about 12-million per season, perhaps more, in a 4+ year contract.

#1: Roger Clemens, r, HOU (43)

2005 stats: 13-8, 211.3 IP, 1.87 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 185 K, 62 BB
2005 dips: 16-7, 201 IP, 3.09 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 182 K, 67 BB
If you were looking for an explanation as to why he's #1, you're not going to get one.

Ranking Pitchers (11-20)

2005-11-11T18:33:00.000-05:00

I'd like to do a pretty quick explanation of a system, which I'm sure some of you are already aware of (and that I'm a big fan of), called DIPS (defensive independent pitching statistics). Essentially, the DIPS system takes IP, HR, BB, IBB, HR, K and HBP, and is able to calculate peripheral statistics such as ERA, WHIP, W, L, etc. The advantage of using the DIPS system is that it is more accurate when attempting to project year to year. It uses K/9, BB/9, HR/9, and K/BB to calculate exactly how well a pitcher as pitched, rather than how lucky he has been. I've already created my own adjusted DIPS ERA value (for which I will call adjERA), which is park adjusted and league adjusted (.31 was added for NL pitchers). All other values calculated with the DIPS system will be prefaced with a lowercase "d".

Here are my F.A. starting pitcher rankings, starting with the bottom of the list and with the pitcher's age for the 2006 season in parenthesis:

#20: Scott Elarton, r, CLE (30)

2005 stats: 11-9, 181.7 IP, 4.61 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 103 K, 48 BB
2005 dips: 9-11, 177 IP, 5.25 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 104 K, 54 BB
Elarton had a solid season for the Cleveland Indians this year, putting together a roughly league average ERA. He's in his prime, so there exists the possibility that he has finally gotten himself together, and his 2005 season is more accurate than let's say his 2004 season. If you've forgotten, he pitched mostly in Cleveland two years ago, with a 8.21 ERA in 117.3 IP. Elarton probably had his peak season, at the age where most pitchers usually peak, so I wouldn't expect very much. He's an average/questionable end of the rotation guy at best.

#19: Shawn Estes, l, ARI (33)

2005 stats: 7-8, 123.7 IP, 4.80 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 63 K, 45 BB
2005 dips: 6-7, 121 IP, 5.12 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 61 K, 48 BB
Despite a higher ERA in an easier league, I'd feel a bit more comfortable with Estes as my fifth starter than I would with Elarton. Estes has a career 4.71 ERA, all pitching in the NL. He's had some less-than stellar seasons recently, but for an NL team he could be worthwhile for a couple million dollars to complete a rotation. Estes won't blow you away, but he'll work out of jams and he won't kill you.

#18: Joe Mays, r, MIN (30)

2005 stats: 6-10, 156 IP, 5.65 ERA, 1.56 WHIP, 59 K, 41 BB
2005 dips: 9-9, 159 IP, 4.98 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 58 K, 45 BB
Call me crazy, but something makes me like Mays. He's never gotten back to his stellar 2001 numbers (17-13, 3.16 ERA), but I still have hope he can get at least part of the way back to those. Mays pitched better than his numbers indicated last year, which might make him more of a bargin than Estes or Elarton will be. Perhaps just over a million in salary could net you Mays. For that price he might be worth the chance.

#17: Rick Helling, r, MIL (35)

2005 stats: 3-1, 49 IP, 2.39 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 42 K, 18 BB
2005 dips: 4-2, 48 IP, 3.20 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 42 K, 19 BB
Helling had a great 2005, although it was in limited time. He has a career ERA of 4.69, but hadn't pitched in the Majors in 2004. He's got the potential to be a solid pitcher, although staying consistent will be a major issue for Helling. Because he hasn't logged very many innings recently, Helling should go cheap and might even take the role of a 6th starter, like Wade Miller did in Boston last year. Low risk and the possible reward of a league average pitcher might be great. Helling pitched well, and you can't deny that. He's worth a chance.

#16: Pedro Astacio, r, SDN/TEX (36)

2005 stats: 6-10, 126.7 IP, 4.69 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 78 K, 37 BB
2005 dips: 7-7, 126 IP, 4.96 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 81 K, 44 BB
Astacio is a journey man, for good reason, but put up good numbers once he got to San Diego (3.17 era/1.34 whip) this year. He's been a league average pitcher during his career, and could continue with those numbers in the right situation. He started the year in Texas, which is not a great idea for any questionable pitcher. Astacio can eat innings, average 150 IP per season. He won't hurt your team too badly (unless you play for the Rangers or Rockies).

#15: Elmer Dessens, r, LAN (34)

2005 stats: 1-2, 65.7 IP, 3.56 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 37 K, 19 BB
2005 dips: 4-3, 64 IP, 4.38 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 38 K, 21 BB
Like Helling, Dessens had a good season, although he only pitched in 65 innings. Dessens has put up a 4.75+ ERA only once in a season and that came in 2003. Every other year he's been solid. Dessens is a major injury risk, but he will give you some quality numbers while in the rotation. His career MLB average reads 4-5, 108 IP, 4.40 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 65 K, 31 BB. If your team has a solid 6th starter then why not grab Dessens? He'll miss time, but he'll give your team solid outings.

#14: Byung-Hyun Kim, r, COL (27)

2005 stats: 5-12, 148 IP, 4.86 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 115 K, 71 BB
2005 dips: 8-8, 147 IP, 4.84 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 108 K, 71 BB
What you see is what you got with Kim in 2005. He was slightly below average, although he did pitch at Coors. He's got great potential, which is why he's this high on this list considering his career ERA of 3.76. Most of that came in bullpen though, and he wants to be a starter. He's also coming off of 4.86 and 6.23 ERA seasons. If he can throw more strikes and keep those walks down, Kim could surprise a lot of people in 2006. His best seasons, 2001 and 2002, came when he got his walk rate down along with increasing upon his stellar career 9.04 K/9.

#13: Brett Tomko, r, SFN (33)

2005 stats: 8-15, 190.7 IP, 4.48 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 114 K, 57 BB
2005 dips: 11-10, 190 IP, 4.49 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 113 K, 62 BB
Similarly to Kim, Tomko is straightforward: You'll get a 4.50 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, and he'll win about 9 games a year. He's never been great, but he's also never been terrible. Beyond putting him solid numbers, Tomko will also eat innings for you, totalling over 190 innings pitched the last four seasons. Tomko's walk rate and strikeout rate have also been almost completely static the last four seasons as well (2.64/5.55, 2.53/5.06, 2.97/5.01, 2.69/5.38). If you know that you don't need anyone great, go sign Tomko. You won't be disappointed.

#12: Jeff Weaver, r, LAN (29)

2005 stats: 14-11, 224 IP, 4.22 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 157 K, 43 BB
2005 dips: 12-12, 219 IP, 4.82 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 160 K, 51 BB
Weaver's best quality is that he'll eat innings, averaging just under 200 IP per season. His ERA will be slightly up and down each season, and has been known to have problems under pressure (see 2003 and the New York Yankees), but he has been steady recently. I think the changes in ERA are more due to random chance, rather than erratic pitching. Other analysts seem to really love Weaver's potential, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. In the meantime, I'll take a 4.50 ERA and a .500 record in 200 innings from my 4th-5th starter. Watch out though, he may be vastly overpaid. I just have a feeling on that one.

#11: Kevin Brown, r, NYA (41)

2005 stats: 4-7, 73.3 IP, 6.50 ERA, 1.72 WHIP, 50 K, 19 BB
2005 dips: 6-3, 82 IP, 3.22 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 50 K, 22 BB
For as bad as his final 2005 numbers looked, Brown didn't pitch badly. In fact, he pitched well, and just fell into bad luck. His rate stats have been solid throughout all of his MLB career, and he's destined to pitch better in 2006 than he did in 2005. Take out his "fluke" 2005 season, and Brown had a sub-4.09 ERA in 9 of the previous 10 seasons. If he does come back for another season, I'll go on record predicting at the worst a 4.50 ERA. He's a good pitcher who just got unlucky.

Check back soon for the top 10 free agent SPs.

What type of Digg user are you?

2005-11-11T13:44:00.000-05:00

I've been over at Digg.com for a while now, and have been wondering, what type of Digg user am I? Digg has many different categories that stories fall under. I always thought of myself as a Linux or programming type of user, but I wasn't quite sure. Searching through other users' profiles, it's not always easy to tell what people are interested in compared to other users beyond the obvious fanboys. Where do I fit in compared to the Digg masses?

First I looked at the percentage of articles on Digg compared to the total amount. I just took the numbers on the left-side of the page when you're digging for stories and then did some quick math:

Category	# of Stories in section	% of all Stories submitted
all	686	100%
apple	32	5%
deals	34	5%
design	28	4%
gaming	55	8%
hardware	29	4%
links	107	16%
Linux/Unix	15	2%
mods	1	0%
movies	26	4%
music	19	3%
programming	25	4%
robots	5	1%
science	56	8%
security	19	3%
software	72	10%
technology	163	24%

I don't think these numbers are too surprising. Technology had easily the most amount of stories (are you really surprised? It is a technology news website after all), with links and software rounding out the top three. Assuming that the average digg user will digg stories in these proportions (which probably isn't exactly true, but it can't be too far off), I decided to get the percentages for the stories that I've dugg:

Category	# of Stories Dugg	% of all Stories I've Dugg
all	256	100%
apple	8	3%
deals	6	2%
design	11	4%
gaming	16	6%
hardware	8	3%
links	80	31%
Linux/Unix	8	3%
mods	3	1%
movies	8	3%
music	4	2%
programming	6	2%
robots	0	0%
science	32	13%
security	5	2%
software	20	8%
technology	41	16%

It looks as though I'm pretty similar to the digg masses with Technology and Links in my top two as well. When I first saw these numbers I was surprised that I wasn't more interested in programming or Linux, but I have noticed that I'm pretty well rounded (except for Robots and Links of course). Now I'll compare my percentages directly to the ones I found for all digg stories:

Category	Average Digger	Me	Difference
apple	5%	3%	-2
deals	5%	2%	-3
design	4%	4%	0
gaming	8%	6%	-2
hardware	4%	3%	-1
links	16%	31%	16
Linux/Unix	2%	3%	1
mods	0%	1%	1
movies	4%	3%	-1
music	3%	2%	-1
programming	4%	2%	-2
robots	1%	0%	-1
science	8%	13%	5
security	3%	2%	-1
software	10%	8%	-2
technology	24%	16%	-8

So, what does this all mean? Compared to the average Digg user, as I've defined it, I really like links and science. Link stories, as I've seen it, aren't really news related usually, but rather are just cool websites such as this Scarface poster or this Firefox Extension for adding Internet Explorer tabs. Despite my beliefs to the contrary, I guess I'm a science guy as well. Come on though, stopping light for over a second? That's cool.

This study was simple and got me thinking about what I'm really interested in rather than what I think I'm interested in. If you're a digg user like me, I think this is worth the five or ten minutes it takes. A little excel or a calculator is all you need.

Insider Roundup

2005-11-08T19:01:00.000-05:00

"According to the Boston Herald, a source said the Mets have received indications that Manny Ramirez may indeed want to play close to his hometown and that any reports to the contrary were merely a "smokescreen."

A deal for Manny would reportedly include center fielder Mike Cameron and two of three prospects: outfielder Lastings Milledge and right-handed pitchers Aaron Heilman and Yusmeiro Petit. The Herald says such deal would rule out the possibility of re-signing free agent center fielder Johnny Damon."

"[Hideki] Matsui reportedly wants a four-year deal, like his countryman Ichiro Suzuki, while the Yankees would rather offer a three-year contract. If the two sides can't come to an agreement by next Tuesday, Matsui will become a free agent, and the Yankees won't be able to sign him until May 1."

"There's been speculation that [Brian] Giles, a California native, wants to stay on the West Coast, but agent Joe Bick said the outfielder's main objective is signing with a team that has a chance to be a postseason contender for the duration of his next contract.

We have said if the right deal can be done with the Padres, Brian would like to stay there,' Bick told ESPN.com Insider Jerry Crasnick. 'But at this point in time there's nothing to make us believe that's the case.'

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the Padres offered Giles a three-year deal for more than $21 million. Bick said the dollar figure was higher than the newspaper's report, but added that the Padres rescinded their offer a few days after the World Series."

"According to the Kansas City Star, the Royals are looking at [Matt] Morris, as are the Rockies and the Mariners, who have apparently already made inquiries about him."

"The New York Post reported that the Yankees, in search of a center fielder, are mulling a trade for the Dodgers' Milton Bradley."

"[Ramon] Hernandez is expected to depart San Diego through free agency, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Teams likely to pursue Hernandez include Arizona and the NY Mets."

"The Twins are expected to court the free agent third baseman (Bill Mueller), according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune."

"The New York Post reports that the Yankees are focusing on free-agent reliever B.J. Ryan. Yankees GM Brian Cashman is expected to be in contact with Ryan's agent, John Courtright, during this week's GM meetings."

"Agent Darek Braunecker told ESPN Insider Jerry Crasnick that A.J. Burnett is looking for a five-year contract. Braunecker and his partner, Mark Rodgers, plan to travel to the general managers' meetings in Indian Wells, Calif., next week to meet with prospective suitors.

Burnett went 0-4 with a 5.93 ERA in September on the way to a 12-12 finish with Florida this past season, but interest remains high in a weak market for free-agent starters. 'I can tell you, 70 percent of the teams in baseball have contacted us about A.J.,' Braunecker said. 'It's certainly nice to be him right now.'

Burnett came away impressed after a visit to Toronto, during which he met with Blue Jays officials and ace starter Roy Halladay. Former Jays pitcher Pat Hentgen even drove up from Michigan to help with the recruiting effort. But Braunecker said the process is 'wide open,' and it's too early to label Toronto the frontrunner.

Burnett plans to visit selected cities where there's an interest -- Seattle, for instance. But he expects to take a more low-key approach to free-agency than former teammate Carl Pavano, who parlayed a nationwide tour into a four-year, $40 million deal with the Yankees last winter."

"There will be no shortage of suitors for Billy Wagner this winter. Re-signing the left-handed closer remains the Phillies' top priority, and they can offer him a three-year deal in the neighborhood of $30 million, Comcast SportsNet.com reports.

The Mets also have begun their recruitment of the veteran reliever. According to the New York Post, several Met executives (including GM Omar Minaya) traveled to Virginia on Nov. 2 to meet with Wagner at his home."

A Star in the Making

2005-11-06T17:38:00.000-05:00

Stephen Drew barely signed with the Diamondbacks, before being forced to go through the First Year Player draft again. Thank god he made the deadline.

Drew's combined stats, from A and AA this year were quite good: 250 ABs with 14 HRs, 52 RBI, 44 Runs and 21 Doubles. Toss in a .569 slugging, and it's possible that Drew will make it to the big leagues before June next year. The only thing holding him back will be the possible re-signing of Royce Clayton to a multi-year contract, but that seems unlikely coming off of a .270-.320-.351 season, and that he'll be 36 on opening day. My guess would be that Alex Cintron starts the year at short until Drew is ready.

Currently he's also tearing up the Arizona Fall League. In 78 ABs with the Phoenix Desert Dogs, Drew has 5 HRs, 13 RBI, 23 R, with a .333-.442-.667 line.

Plain and simple: this guy can rake.

Newspaper Rundown

2005-11-05T10:38:00.000-05:00

Newsday: "The Mets are ready to beat any offer for Billy Wagner. And with the Phillies already preparing contingency plans in case they lose their free-agent closer, there is a sense that the whole process will be wrapped up quickly... Should Wagner remain in Philadelphia, the Mets already have had preliminary discussions with the agents for Trevor Hoffman and B.J. Ryan, and both appear willing to bolt their former clubs."

Palm Beach Post: "Expect the Marlins — who likely will trim the payroll — to begin shopping first baseman Carlos Delgado and third baseman Mike Lowell next week at the annual general managers' meetings in Palm Springs, Calif."

New York Daily News: "Gerry Hunsicker's appointment to Tampa Bay's front office could have positive ramifications if Minaya can't lure a premium free-agent closer or Rafael Furcal as a second baseman. The Mets tried to land Devil Rays closer Danys Baez and infielder Julio Lugo in July, but had difficultly negotiating with since-fired GM Chuck LaMar."

Philadelphia Daily News: "It's true that, if the Phillies trade Thome to an American League team, Minnesota and Baltimore are among clubs that would seem to have the most interest."

Los Angeles Times: "The Angels plan to make a strong bid to sign free-agent slugger Paul Konerko, who is expected to command a four- or five-year deal in the $12-million-a-year range, and if they can't land the White Sox first baseman, they could pursue a trade for Boston slugger Manny Ramirez, who is guaranteed $19 million a year through 2008. That may not leave room in the budget for Molina, who is expected to receive three-year offers in the $6-million-a-year range."

Orange County Register: "Meanwhile, General Manager Bill Stoneman indicated it is unlikely catcher Bengie Molina or pitcher Jarrod Washburn will return in 2006."

Seattle Times: "And the Mariners, even more desperate for pitching help than they were a year ago, are interested. They're not alone; Burnett's agent, Darek Braunecker, said that 70 percent of the teams in baseball have contacted him, which works out to 21 of the 30."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The Cardinals haven't given up on the idea of re-signing Matt Morris. If they can't get Morris, they may make a strong run at Kevin Milwood or A.J. Burnett. And relievers Rudy Seanez and Braden Looper may be targeted."

Newsday: "Officially announced as the Yankees' pitching coach Friday, Guidry said he'd like to take part in the team's pursuit of free-agent reliever B.J. Ryan. Like Guidry, the lefthander forever known as 'Louisiana Lightning,' Ryan pitched for Southwestern Louisiana State... In addition to Ryan, the Yankees could pursue lefthander Scott Eyre and righthanders Todd Jones, Kyle Farnsworth, Julian Tavarez and Rick White."

Arizona Republic: "Bengie Molina is available but won't come cheaply. Ramon Hernandez or Brad Ausmus also might be a good fit... The Diamondbacks also may make a run at center fielder and steady leadoff man Johnny Damon, who's one of the best in the business."

San Francisco Chronicle: "More likely, the Giants will try to deal for an arbitration-eligible pitcher who has become too expensive for another team. That list could include Pittsburgh's Kip Wells, Colorado's Jason Jennings, Minnesota's Kyle Lohse and Boston's Bronson Arroyo."

Post-Season Rankings

2005-11-04T22:23:00.000-05:00

Here are my rankings for next season. I'm going to factor in how the team projects to next season, who a team might lose to free agency (if a team has five key guys in F.A., they're bound to lose one or two), and other variables. This will be one of the least sabermetric things I write about.

Los Angeles Angels: The only thing that they were missing this season was a big bat in the lineup, and they're likely to get that in the form of Manny Ramirez. Likely upgrade in LF and 1B if Casey Kotchman pans out. The big questionmarks revolve around whether or not they re-sign Bengie Molina, Jarrod Washburn and Paul Byrd.
New York Yankees: Like it or not, but they're going to spend money and they're going to be good next season. Their lineup will be stellar regardless of who they sign, and their rotation should be improved. Randy Johnson will be solid at worst, and pitched well this year for the most part. Toss in Mussina, Pavano, Wright and Wang, and they have a pretty good staff. They have a lot of dead weight who won't be missed in F.A., plus Hideki Matsui and Tom Gordon. Matsui will likely re-sign, and if Gordon goes for the money then he will as well.
Philadelphia Phillies: I know that this is probably stupid, considering the Atlanta Braves' success, but why not? The Phillies will need to secure their bullpen with the possible losses of Ugueth Urbina and Billy Wagner, but if they do lose one or both, they have Ryan Madson to step in. Their lineup is young, featuring Bobby Abreu, Pat Burrell, Chase Utley and the combination of Ryan Howard and Jim Thome at firstbase. The biggest questions might come from the starting pitching. If they can see improvement from Gavin Floyd and Vicente Padilla, and a healthy season from Randy Wolf then they could be good enough to get the Braves the NL East.
Cleveland Indians: They played better than the Chicago White Sox during the regular season in 2005, so it's not hard to think a young team will just keep getting better. They've already locked up Ronnie Belliard, ensuring that their hitting will remain intact. The offseason questions include the rotation and bullpen with key free agents being Kevin Millwood, Scott Elarton, Bob Wickman, Scott Sauerbeck and Bob Howry. As long as Cleveland can re-sign one of the relievers their 'pen should be fine, consdering their great depth (Rhodes, Cabrera, Miller, Betancourt, Riske, Tadano?). Millwood will be important, and they will need to find an alternative such as Jason Johnson or Esteban Loaiza to help out the starting staff.
St. Louis Cardinals: They won the Central by July, even without Scott Rolen. They will have significant holes to patch up in F.A. including making decisions on Mark Mulder, Matt Morris, Reggie Sanders, Julian Tavarez, Al Reyes and Jeff Suppan. They're bound to get at least one of their starting pitchers back to compliment Chris Carpenter and Jason Marquis (and possibly Anthony Reyes, a top prospect in the minors). The bullpen could become a problem if Tavarez and Reyes are let go, but I'm sure the Cardinals front office will find an alternative. Sanders won't be a big loss considering the up and coming outfielders in the Cardinals' system including So Taguchi, John Rodriguez and Skip Schumaker.
Atlanta Braves: No Mazzone, and the possible losses of Kyle Farnsworth, Rafael Furcal and Jorge Sosa could be a problem. This team is young though, and the core team should remain together. Especially without Mazzone, the Braves will have to find an alternative to Chris Reitsma as a closer in the bullpen. The Braves will be good, but it remains to be seen whether or not the Mazzone-factor leaves them second in the NL East. Jeff Francoeur can hit, but was his start more like his reality or his cool finish? Can Marcus Giles and Chipper Jones stay healthy? Will Brian McCann or Johnny Estrada be behind the plate on opening day? Many questions, like always, revolve around the Braves and they usually answer all of them. We'll see if they can do it for a 16th straight year.
Oakland A's: The Anti-Braves, and yet they're still successful. Much of the very young team will return next year with the only questions revolving around DH and in the bullpen. The rotation will feature Zito, Harden, Blanton, Haren and possibly Saarloos. No doubts that they will be great again. The bullpen remains a bit of a mystery to me: Huston Street was stellar, but realistically, can he do that again? Ricardo Rincon and Octavio Dotel are free agents, and Joe Kennedy might be traded. As long as the A's can get a good closer (Street will likely be good), and have guys like Dan Johnson and Nick Swisher continue their progression, this team will be feared come playoff time with that rotation.
Los Angeles Dodgers: They were burned by injuries in 2005, leading to the departure of GM Paul DePodesta. The only key free agent will be Jeff Weaver, who quite frankly, is not much of a key free agent. This team should easily win the West assuming health, which is by no means a given. A lineup featuring Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Milton Bradley, and Cesar Izturis should be solid. The return of Eric Gagne will dramatically help the bullpen, taking pressure off of guys like Yhency Brazoban and Duaner Sanchez. The starting pitching should pretty much be set, pending the return of Weaver: Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, Odalis Perez and Edwin Jackson. This team is solid all around, without any major flaws. Add in a soft NL West (well, they won't be as soft next year) and the Dodgers should have at least 87-95 wins (again, pending injuries).
Chicago White Sox: Defending Champs with really only firstbasemen leaving in the offseason, why would they be 9th? This team, like the Red Sox in 2004, had career years, especially from the starting pitching. This team will still be good, but expect a lot of these guys to return back to Earth. The possible loss of Paul Konerko and Frank Thomas will be significant, especially with a weak firstbase market for alternatives. I don't really see how this team will be able to manufacture runs, where they already struggled at times. The starting pitching will be very good, although probably not as good as it was this season. The bullpen might have its problems at times, with teams starting to realize that Bobby Jenks throws hard and down the middle. Remember Armando Benitez in Baltimore? He was good for a while, then teams figured him out.
Milwaukee Brewers: Yes those Milwaukee Brewers. With more experience, this lineup should be very good, featuring great speed and power. Ricky Weeks and Brady Clark at the top of the lineup, followed by a combination of Carlos Lee, Geoff Jenkins and Lyle Overbay/Prince Fielder. Two important offseason issues for the lineup include 1B and SS. The Brewers need to pick a firstbaseman and they need to stick with him. In such a weak market, it would be great to trade an established player such as Lyle Overbay. At shortstop, Milwaukee has J.J. Hardy pushing Bill Hall for playing time. I imagine that Hall might move to thirdbase, but that's for their GM to decide. Ben Sheets will be back healthy, along with Doug Davis and Chris Capuano, it should be above average at the worst. Derrick Turnbow was a nice surprise in the bullpen in 2005, and Jose Capellan might be able to help out in 2006 if he gets his control, under control.
Toronto Blue Jays: Money to spend and lots of young talent to build around is a very very good thing. Their only likely loss will be Gregg Zaun during the off-season, and he should easily be replaced by Guillermo Quiroz. Add in the courting of A.J. Burnett to an already potent staff (Halladay, Chacin, Towers and Bush) , and the Jays might have one of the best in Baseball. The bullpen should be solid in 2006, featuring Miguel Batista, Jason Frasor, Justin Speier and the up and coming Brandon League. The lineup might have a hole at the four spot, but assuming they can see improvement from Alexis Rios and Russ Adams, they can make a run at the playoffs. One or two F.A. signees like Burnett might put this team near the top of the AL.
New York Mets: Like the other New York team, the only thing they're going to lose will be dead weight. Braden Looper, Roberto Hernandez, Doug Mientkiewicz and Mike Pizza can all be replaced. The bullpen will be the biggest questionmark, and the Mets will have to find a good free agent to replace Looper as the closer. Possibilities will include B.J. Ryan, Billy Wagner and Tom Gordon. The starting staff should be good in 2006, although it is getting a little bit old. Jae Seo might be a stud in the making, but we'll have to see. The bats should be good, with David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Cliff Floyd leading the team. There will definitely be a lot of home runs in New York this year.
Houston Astros: Clemens, Clemens and more Clemens. That will be the difference between being a solid-good team or being a good-great team. Roger Clemens will have to make a big decision on whether to retire or to return for another season. The starting pitching should still be good, but regardless, Clemens would be a huge loss. Chris Burke and Jason Lane will have to improve if this team wants to score runs. They struggled in 2005, and might in 2006 as well if someone doesn't step up. Another key offseason issue includes Jeff Bagwell. He plans on returning and starting at first next year, but it is not a given that he can play 140 games. The bullpen will be great, and won't lose anyone.
Florida Marlins: Not a lot of money to spend means they'll likely lose the majority of A.J. Burnett, Todd Jones, Juan Encarnacion, and Brian Moehler. Beckett, Willis and Vargas should keep the rotation solid, but will it be dominant like it was this season? Will Willis keep up his great pace? Delgado might be traded, leaving me to wonder how this offense will do without him. Miguel Cabrera, Luis Castillo, Juan Pierre, Paul Lo Duca and Mike Lowell might not be enough. The bullpen will also be questionable, without a viable closer on the team right now (Maybe Guillermo Mota, but he's struggled in the role before).
Baltimore Orioles: Mazzone-factor and like other teams the removal of dead weight: Sosa, Palmeiro, Grimsley will help the team. B.J. Ryan will hopefully be re-signed, but will likely leave for Boston, New York or Philadelphia. The lineup does not have great depth, and really could use another lead-off hitter like Kenny Lofton, who can fill-in at the top of the order with Brian Roberts injured. The O's will need to sign a firstbaseman and at least one outfielder. Will Roberts return to April 2005 or 2004 numbers? We'll have to wait and see. The pitching should be the strong-point of the team, with good young pitchers including Daniel Cabrera, Erik Bedard, Bruce Chen, and Rodrigo Lopez. The bullpen also needs an addition to help out Jorge Julio and Chris Ray.
Chicago Cubs: This team is an enigma. It all depends on health, like the Dodgers. They could challenge for the Central title, if healthy. Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano, and Greg Maddux will be great as usual, if the top 3 can get at least 25 starts each. Nomar Garciaparra is a free agent, and will be an important decision for the Cubs this off-season. Their lineup is solid, with Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Jeremy Burnitz. Beyond that though, not much is there. The Cubs will have to find a leadoff hitter to get on base for the power hitters (Corey Patterson?), or else this team will struggle to score runs like the other Chicago team. The bullpen should also be addressed this offseason, with really only Ryan Dempster as a viable top option.
San Francisco Giants: Bonds will be back, which will make a huge difference. Toss in a Moises Alou (a healthy one?), a Ray Durham, and Edgardo Alfonzo, and this team will actually have a decent offense at least. First base will be an off-season discussion. Lance Niekro will likely get the job, but what about Pedro Feliz, or a free agent? Niekro has potential, but this offense might struggle without a viable option at first. The starting pitching should be pretty good with Jason Schmidt, Noah Lowry, Brad Hennessey and Matt Cain returning. The bullpen will have to address the possible loss of Scott Eyre, because they need someone else besides the risky LaTroy Hawkins if Armando Benitez struggles or goes down to injury, again.
Boston Red Sox: I know, I know, I don't like the Red Sox, but I really do think they might fall in 2006, especially if Manny Ramirez is traded to the Angels. They might also lose Bill Mueller, Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar, John Olerud and David Wells. Regardless, the offense will still be good, although not as stellar as it has been in the past. Ortiz, Nixon, Glaus?, Erstad?, Renteria and Varitek should still be near the top of the league, but it won't be as feared without the Ortiz/Ramirez connection. The starting pitching might be a huge problem. Curt Schilling is old and was awful in 2005. Will he come back to his old self in 2006? Maybe, but not extremely likely. David Wells will also be traded, likely leaving Matt Clement and Tim Wakefield as the possible anchors to the staff. That won't be enough to stay near the top of the AL East, no matter how good that hitting is. The bullpen also has significant questions: Will Keith Foulke come back healthy, and good? Will Mike Timlin keep up with his 2005 numbers? Will Jon Papelbon start, and come back to reality (WHIP is important, look at Rodrigo Lopez)? There are just so many questions with this team that it is hard for me to believe they finish above the Blue Jays and Yankees, and possibly the O's.
Minnesota Twins: This one worries me as well. Teams who can't hit, won't win, and the Twins cannot hit. They will likely lose Jacque Jones, leaving Torii Hunter, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau as the big hitters. Except for Mauer, that won't cut it. Jason Bartlett will have to hit like Derek Jeter and Mike Cuddyer will have to follow the mold of Chase Utley for this team to hit even as good as the league average. Perhaps Morneau will come around, but even still, this team won't hit well. The pitching will keep the team around with Santana, Radke, Lohse, Silva and probably Scott Baker. The bullpen will be one of the best in the league, featuring Nathan, Romero, Crain and Rincon. If the team can hit, they can challenge the White Sox for the second spot in the Central. If they don't, they might finish in third or fourth.
Arizona Diamondbacks: They're not really losing much in the form of Royce Clayton or Shawn Estes, so expect most of the team to remain next year. Troy Glaus might be in Boston, which will allow Chad Tracy to move back to third, and will give Conor Jackson or Carlos Quentin an everyday spot in the outfield. Assuming Jackson/Quentin has a good season, this team should be average on offense featuring Tony Clark, Tracy, Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez. The pitching staff should be good, at least with a little luck. Brandon Webb is a bonafide ace, and will be great. After that, there is talent but the execution is a question. Javier Vazquez, Brad Halsey, Russ Ortiz, and Dustin Nippert all have the potential to pitch very well, but whether they do it is not certain. Nippet will have his rookie struggles, but will hopefully turn in a Chacin-type of season. Russ Ortiz hopefully will land on the DL, which will keep some balls in the park. The bullpen could use another arm or two. Jose Valverde is a stud as a closer, finally putting it all together in 2005. Beyond him though, there isn't very much available if he gets injured.
Detroit Tigers: Jason Johnson and Rondell White will be missed if they are lost. The Tigers will likely have the money to get a free agent or two though, including possibly A.J. Burnett. Their rotation is young and good, and a player like Burnett could put them over the top for the next few years. Bonderman, Robertson and Maroth should all be good next year. The rotation won't be a huge problem, especially if they can land one of the better free agent starters. Magglio Ordonez's health is a big concern. With him, the Tigers have a legitiment offense with Dmitri Young, Chris Shelton, Ivan Rodriguez and Carlos Guillen. The biggest weakness of the Tigers will be the bullpen, if left as-is. Fernando Rodney is a thrower, not a pitcher, and will likely struggle. With the possible retirement of Troy Percival, the Tigers will have big troubles (and even if he returns, he might struggle).
Washington Nationals: Better than your average 5th place team, but they're in a tough division. They've decided to get younger with the addition of Brian Lawrence and the apparent playing time of Ryan Zimmerman, who will be great in a few years, but might struggle right away. The Nats will struggle to create runs, considering their results last year and their projected payroll this season. Guillen, Wilkerson, Vidro and Nick Johnson will give this team potential in the lineup, but won't be enough to win a ton of games in the NL East. Esteban Loaiza and Tony Armas may not return, but the rotation should be solid with Livan Hernandez, John Patterson and Lawrence returning. Beyond that though, the rotation is a mystery. The bullpen should be good, especially if they re-sign Hector Carrasco, who was stellar in 2005. Chad Cordero is one of the best closers in the league, and Luis Ayala and Gary Majewski are underrated as setupmen.
Pittsburgh Pirates: Daryle Ward, Rick White, and Jose Mesa will likely be gone at the start of 2006, but the Pirates have a ton of potential. Jason Bay is one of the best hitters in the league, and will continue to get better. Brad Eldred will have a surpringly good season at firstbase, assuming the Pirates decide not to re-sign Ward. Jack Wilson shouldn't be as bad as he was this year and Freddy Sanchez should hopefully develop into a capable leadoff hitter. Chris Duffy might also have a 2006 like Jason Lane did in 2005: good, and under the radar. The rotation should be extremely good: Zach Duke, Oliver Perez, Josh Fogg, Mark Redman and Dave Williams will be likely starters with Paul Maholm, Kip Wells also in the mix. With some health, this might be one of the top 10 starting staffs in the Majors. The bullpen will need a closer. Torres and Gonzalez are good in setup, but the Pirates should look to someone like Kyle Farnsworth to close. This team might be very surprising if guys like Eldred and Duffy break out.
Texas Rangers: This offense will be too good to finish dead last, but they won't be very good. Alfonso Soriano, Mark Teixeira, Mike Young, and Hank Blalock are all great, but the starting pitching will be awful. Kenny Rogers won't return, leaving them without their ace from 2005. Chris Young, Juan Dominguez, and Edison Volquez will factor into the rotation in 2006. That won't cut it in any division, especially the top heavy AL West. The 'pen should be good, featuring Francisco Cordero in the back end, but it won't matter if the starting pitching is as bad as it will be.
San Diego Padres: I don't really know where this team is going. Ramon Hernandez, Rudy Seanez, Chris Hammond, Robert Fick, Trevor Hoffman Mark Sweeney, and Joe Randa are all free agents. Brian Giles will likely be back at 3/$30 (which is easily overpriced). Giles should provide stability for the lineup, assuming he returns, and will keep the offense at least mediocre. Beyond that, there really isn't that much to be proud of. Mark Loretta, Ryan Klesko, Dave Roberts, Khalil Greene and Xavier Nady are all basically average. The Vinny Castilla trade makes no sense, and will struggle in San Diego. The starting pitching will be decent, and that's only because of Jake Peavy. Adam Eaton is a huge injury question, and he might have to be moved into the bullpen (where the Pads don't need any help). Woody Williams has done all he can, and is about done in the Majors. Pedro Astacio is a free agent, and I doubt the Padres will be in a rush to re-sign him. The bullpen will be good, with or without Hoffman. Otsuka and Linebrink will be good, and either Seanez or Hammond should be back, providing a good three man combo at the worst.
Cincinnati Reds: The only major loss will be Rich Aurilia in the off-season. The team will hit, especially in home-run friendly Great American ballpark. Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey, Austin Kearns, Edwin Encarnacion, Felipe Lopez, and Sean Casey will provide a lot of pop all season. Like the Rangers, though, this team doesn't have much pitching, at all. Their rotation for 2006 looks like it did in 2005: Luke Hudson, Ramon Ortiz, Aaron Harang, Eric Milton and Brandon Claussen. They will struggle a lot, although Harang and Claussen may be bright spots. Paul Wilson will also be in the mix, but that's not really helping. The bullpen isn't much better with really no great established arms. Ryan Wagner, Todd Coffey and David Weathers is really it.
Seattle Mariners: Jamie Moyer and Shigetoshi Hasegawa are the key free agents for the M's. Their hitting might be average, with Richie Sexson and perhaps a 2004.5 version of Adrian Beltre, and a declining Ichiro. Jeremy Reed will have to start hitting or this team won't have anyone in base. Ichiro is no longer a great leadoff hitter, and Reed will have to help out in that regard. Without Moyer, the Mariners don't have much in the rotation beyond Felix Hernandez, who will have a sophmore setback. He'll be good, but can he really be that great? I don't think so. Gil Meche and Joel Pineiro are back of the rotation guys, and nothing special. Ryan Franklin probably is as well, especially once he gets off of steroids. The bullpen should be pretty good with the return of Eddie Guardado, and solid setup men with J.J. Putz and Julio Mateo.
Colorado Rockies: B.K. Kim and Todd Greene are the key F.A.'s for the Rockies. This team is young, and will be bad all year. There's really no question of that. Todd Helton will anchor a good hitting team (they do play at Coors field after all) that includes Matt Holliday and Clint Barmes. CF and RF will be key off-season issues for Colorado: Will Larry Bigbie occupy one of those spots? What about Corey Sullivan? Brad Hawpe? Jorge Piedra? 1B could also become an issue with the emergance of Ryan Shealy. Todd Helton, if the Rockies were smart, should be traded in this weak market to a team like the Mets or O's who need a firstbasemen. Shealy is a stud and deserves playing time. The rotation has Jeff Francis and Aaron Cook, but questions beyond that. Kim probably won't return, and Sunny Kim was less than stellar but will probably grab a spot rather than head to the bullpen. Zach Day and Jason Jennings will also be in the rotation mix. The bullpen will be surprisingly solid for the Rockies. Brian Fuentes is young and had a good 2005. He'll continue his success in 2006. Mike DeJean, Marcos Caravajal, and Ryan Speier should all be solid in setup.
Tampa Bay Devil Rays: This team is young and has talent, but they won't win very many games, similarly to the Rangers and Reds. Crawford, Huff, Cantu, Lugo, Baldelli and the likely call-up of Delmon Young and B.J. Upton should provide solid offense all season. Huff will likely be traded after the all-star break to a contender. The rotation has Scott Kazmir, and Casey Fossum, but they're still young and will struggle at times. Kazmir has the potential to break out, but I wouldn't bet on it (as soon as I say that he'll probably break out of course). The rest of the rotation (Hendrickson, McClung, Waechter) is garbage, and worthless. The bullpen will have its moments getting to Baez, who is a good closer. They don't have much in terms of setup though. Travis Miller, Joe Borowski, and Lance Carter are less than stellar options. This team might be good in 2008, but not in 2006.
Kansas City Royals: This team is terrible. Mike Sweeney, Matt Stairs, Emil Brown and David DeJesus might keep this offense out of the gutter, but guys like Chip Ambres, John Buck and Mark Teahen will have to start playing well or they could be gone soon. Jose Lima probably won't be back, meaning Zack Greinke will have to step up or he will be in hot water. His 2005 was terrible, and people are starting to wonder whether or not he's capable of making the jump from AAA to the Majors. Runelvys Hernandez, Mike Wood and D.J. Carrasco will have their bright moments and their rough spots. Mostly the latter. In the bullpen, there is a little bit of hope. Sisco and Burgos are very good in setup, and MacDougal might be a decent closer. Jeremy Affeldt also has some success closing if MacDougal struggles. The Royals have no chance though. Not for a while.

So there you have it. Enjoy.

Insider Roundup

2005-11-04T18:22:00.000-05:00

"Agent Darek Braunecker told ESPN Insider Jerry Crasnick that A.J. Burnett is looking for a five-year contract. Braunecker and his partner, Mark Rodgers, plan to travel to the general managers' meetings in Indian Wells, Calif., next week to meet with prospective suitors."

"Astros GM Tim Purpura spoke with Roger Clemens' agents on Thursday, The Houston Chronicle reports. But Clemens has yet to decide if he's coming back."

"There will be no shortage of suitors for Billy Wagner this winter. Re-signing the left-handed closer remains the Phillies' top priority, and they can offer him a three-year deal in the neighborhood of $30 million, Comcast SportsNet.com reports."

"Looking for an affordable complement to rookie Mike Jacobs at first base, the Mets are mulling a pursuit of Julio Franco, the New York Daily News reports."

"Here's one tidbit from this week's Yankee organizational meetings: They're considering giving Bubba Crosby the center fielder's job, the Newark Star-Ledger reports."

Insider Roundup

2005-11-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

"According to the Los Angeles Times, the Angels are exploring ways to land Manny Ramirez, and trade talks could expand to include the Diamondbacks. Boston would get third baseman Troy Glaus from Arizona and first baseman/center fielder Darin Erstad from L.A. The D-Backs also would receive additional players and prospects in a three-team deal.

Ramirez has indicated his preference is to go to the Halos. As a 10-5 player, he has the veteran right to block a trade to a team he doesn't want to join. The Red Sox slugger is due $57 million from his $160 million, eight-year contract ($19M in 2006, $18M in 2007 and $20M in 2008), with team options for two additional seasons at $20 million annually."

"The Mets have expressed interest in bringing Octavio Dotel back in a setup role, the New York Daily News reports."

"A.J. Burnett is high on the Blue Jays' list of free-agent pitchers to sign, the Toronto Sun reports. Burnett got a tour of the city, attended a Raptors' game and met with team brass Nov. 2. GM J.P. Ricciardi also brought Roy Halladay, manager John Gibbons and pitching coach Brad Arnsberg to sit down with the right-hander.

Arnsberg helped Burnett develop when the two were together in the Marlins organization in 2002 and '03. 'He knows me more than anybody knows me," Burnett told the newspaper. "It's great for them, it's great for me.'"

"According to the Boston Globe, it's possible former Red Sox GM Theo Epstein could end up with the Nationals once a new ownership group is selected, which could happen as soon as the owners' meeting in Milwaukee later this month."

NL Gold Glovers Announced

2005-11-02T18:22:00.000-05:00

Again, here are my predictions, this time for the NL:

C: Mike Matheny
1B: Derrek Lee
2B: Craig Counsell (Luis Castillo)
3B: David Wright
SS: Rafael Furcal
OF: Carlos Beltran
OF: Brady Clark (Andruw Jones)
OF: Willy Taveras (Jim Edmonds)

Here are the results:

P: Greg Maddux
C: Mike Matheny

Check.

1B: Derrek Lee

Check.

2B: Luis Castillo

Check. Not surprising since Castillo is the bigger name here and there aren't too many candidates at 2B.

3B: Mike Lowell

Lowell is 4th among NL 3B for defensive WS, but it's close. Not a great pick here, but again like Castillo there weren't any big names that are known for their defense. Someone like A-Rod might have stolen this one.

SS: Omar Vizquel

Vizquel was pretty good, but he was not great. This was won off of reputation, considering he's won almost all of them in the AL the last 10 years.

OF: Andruw Jones

Check. 4th on the list for OF fielding WS and a big name who makes big catches... this was easy.

OF: Jim Edmonds

Check. See Jones but he's 5th on the list.

OF: Bobby Abreu

This one is a bit questionable considering he's 15th on the list. I'm very surprised he made the list over Beltran.

NL Score: 5/8

Total Score: 9.5/16 = 59%, which isn't too bad considering the voters pull some of these names out of their you know whats sometimes. Jason Varitek? Come on, a guy who played in 34 games is more deserving!

AL Gold Glovers Announced

2005-11-01T17:57:00.000-05:00

I made my picks, now let's see how good they were. If you didn't read my first post, here is what I said, with the deserving players on the left and the likely winner, if different, on the right in parenthesis:

"C: Joe Mauer (Ivan Rodriguez)
1B: Mark Teixeira
2B: Orlando Hudson
3B: Chone Figgins (Joe Crede if the voting occured after the World Series)
SS: Juan Uribe (Derek Jeter)
OF: Aaron Rowand
OF: Vernon Wells
OF: Grady Sizemore (Johnny Damon)"

Real Winners:

P: Kenny Rogers
C: Jason Varitek

Very stupid selection, considering he's the 10th best AL Catcher in terms of Win Share defense. He's even behind two backups: Alberto Castillo and Jose Molina.

1B: Mark Teixeira

Check.

2B: Orlando Hudson

Check.

3B: Eric Chavez

I actually had to re-write the original post, because my browser crashed and I originally had Chavez as the likely winner. I didn't want to use him and Crede the second time though, and I opted for Crede. Chavez is a fine selection here.

SS: Derek Jeter

As predicted, Jeter won. He's 6th on the list for fielding WS for AL SS though, behind Marco Scutaro who played in 118 games. Bad pick for a good but overrated defender.

OF: Vernon Wells

Check.

OF: Torii Hunter

He would have made my top 3 probably had he played the full season. I was surprised that he could win this award in only 98 games. He won mostly off of reputation and a fine defensive half season.

OF: Ichiro Suzuki

Overrated, but still pretty good. He's 9th among AL OF for fielding WS. People see his great arm and his speed and automatically assume he's a great fielder. Aaron Rowand deserves his due.

So out of 8 possible points, I got 4.5 (counting Chavez as half of one).

Insider Roundup

2005-11-01T16:09:00.000-05:00

"According to the Boston Globe, one possible successor to Theo Epstein as Red Sox GM could be the Padres' Kevin Towers.

In 1995, when Red Sox president Larry Lucchino was running the Padres, he promoted Towers from scouting director to GM, a job he's held ever since."

Phillies GM Position:
"Apparently, Phillies president David Montgomery has narrowed his search to two candidates -- Pat Gillick and Gerry Hunsicker. Gillick is reportedly considered the front-runner."

"The St. Petersburg Times reported that the Devil Rays appear to be closing in on Gerry Hunsicker as their next GM."

"The Mets have already shown interest in free-agent-to-be Bengie Molina as a successor to Mike Piazza, according to the New York Post."

"[Rafael] Furcal's agent told the New York Daily News that free agent shortstop would be interested in playing second base for the Mets alongside shortstop Jose Reyes."

"If the Yankees can't reach a deal with [Hideki] Matsui before midnight on Nov. 15, he will become a free agent, and the Yankees will be unable to negotiate with him until May."

"According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Hoffman and the San Diego Padres are far apart in their initial talks regarding a new contract.

While the Padres offered a two-year, $10M deal, the veteran closer is expected to counter with a three-year deal worth around $25M."

Quick Sabr: 2005 Gold Gloves

2005-10-31T18:34:00.000-05:00

I'll use defensive Win Shares to find out who deserves a gold glove. Pitchers don't get defensive WS so I will exclude them. If I think another player is likely to win the award, I'll put the likely winner in parenthesis.

AL:

C: Joe Mauer (Ivan Rodriguez)
1B: Mark Teixeira
2B: Orlando Hudson
3B: Chone Figgins (Joe Crede if the voting occured after the World Series)
SS: Juan Uribe (Derek Jeter)
OF: Aaron Rowand
OF: Vernon Wells
OF: Grady Sizemore (Johnny Damon)

NL:

C: Mike Matheny
1B: Derrek Lee
2B: Craig Counsell (Luis Castillo)
3B: David Wright
SS: Rafael Furcal
OF: Carlos Beltran
OF: Brady Clark (Andruw Jones)
OF: Willy Taveras (Jim Edmonds)

Theo Epstein out

2005-10-31T17:34:00.000-05:00

Breaking News: Theo Epstein has resigned as the General Manager of the Boston Red Sox, according to the Boston Herald. This is shocking news considering recent reports said that he had reached a deal.

"Just hours before his deal was set to expire at midnight, Epstein told his bosses and associates at the Red Sox’ Yawkey Way offices that he had decided not to accept a three-year deal worth $1.5 million a year, an extension for the contract he signed on Nov. 25, 2002."

Timlin signs

2005-10-31T11:12:00.000-05:00

Mike Timlin has re-signed with the Boston Red Sox, according to mlb.com. From other sources that I've seen, the deal is believed to be between $3-3.5 million for one year. This is a great deal for the Sox, considering Timlin's RPS value from 2005 is $4.6 million. He's one of the best setup men in the league, and could close (although I would avoid it) if necessary.

Here are Timlin's stats from the last 3 seasons:

YEAR	AGE	TEAM	G	IP	W	L	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	BB/9
2003	37	BOS	72	83.7	6	4	2	3.55	1.03	6.99	0.97
2004	38	BOS	76	76.3	5	4	1	4.13	1.23	6.61	2.24
2005	39	BOS	81	80.3	7	3	13	2.24	1.32	6.61	2.24
TOTAL	15	Years	893	1035.7	63	62	130	3.50	1.27	6.77	2.84

Insider Roundup

2005-10-30T14:13:00.000-05:00

Here's another new segment called Insider Roundup, where I'll update what's going in the Majors via ESPN Insider's Rumor Central.

Frank Thomas: "According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the ChiSox will likely buy out the Big Hurt's final year for $3.5 million."

Todd Walker: "The Cubs are expected to pick up Todd Walker's $2.5 million option for 2006, ESPN Insider Jerry Crasnick reports."

David Wells: "David Wells intends to return for a 20th season next year, but it likely won't be with the Red Sox. According to the Boston Globe, he wants to finish his career on the West Coast and has requested a trade. The Sox say they will try to honor his request."

Tom Gordon: "While his first choice would be to re-sign with the Yankees, Tom Gordon sounds like he's tossed his last pitch in pinstripes, The New York Post reports."

Toronto will be after Burnett

2005-10-30T11:41:00.000-05:00

According to SLAM, the Blue Jays will be going hard after A.J. Burnett this off-season.

"Burnett is the best of the free-agent starters on the market this off-season and has a strong relationship with current Jays pitching coach Brad Arnsberg, from when the two were together with the Marlins.

"Unlike most free agents, Burnett, of North Little Rock, Ark., isn't drawn to the large-market eastern teams, such as the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox, or the sun of California, either with the Los Angeles Angels or the now headless Dodgers."

Paul DePodesta: He Gone

2005-10-29T13:13:00.000-04:00

Rumors have it that Paul DePodesta is about to get the axe from the Dodgers:

"Los Angeles Dodgers executive vice president and general manager Paul DePodesta will reportedly be fired.

According to The Los Angeles Times, DePodesta will likely be relieved of his duties as early as this weekend."

I don't love DePodesta, but he's only been given two years in LA, including a successful 93 win season in 2004. Last year his moves weren't stellar, but they weren't terrible. Let's look at the off-season moves for the Dodgers before the 2005 season:

Signed Jeff Kent, who had a very good season.
Signed Jose Valentin, who had a bad season.
Signed J.D. Drew, who was great while he was healthy. He only played in 72 games, and managed 31.0 VORP. Not worth the money though.
Traded Shawn Green and cash to the Diamondbacks, and received Dioner Navarro and three other prospects, which might be good in the long-run.
Signed Derek Lowe, who had a very good season.
Re-signed Odalis Perez who had a rough year.
Decided not to resign Steve Finley, who had a pretty bad year.
Decided not to resign Jose Hernandez, who had a much worse 2005 than 2004.
Decided not to resign Alex Cora: see Jose Hernandez.
Decided not to resign Jose Lima who imploded in KC.
Decided not to resign Adrian Beltre who reverted to his pre-2004 numbers.

Taking it all into account, was this Dodgers season DePodesta's fault? Probably not. The moves he did make helped his team, especially not resigning Finley or Beltre. While he does deserve some of the blame, I don't understand why he deserves to be relieved of his duties.

Must Read

2005-10-28T18:33:00.000-04:00

Read this collection of snippets from Jay Marrioti articles from this year. It's an absolute must read.

New Diamondbacks GM

2005-10-28T18:14:00.000-04:00

Josh Byrnes was officially hired today as the Diamondbacks' new General Manager.

"The 35-year-old Byrnes is respected in baseball for being able to blend statistical analysis with more traditional baseball scouting. At 27, he was the Indians scouting director before moving onto the Rockies where he served as assistant GM for three years.

"When Theo Epstein was hired as general manager of the Red Sox in 2002, one of the first things he did was hire Byrnes as his assistant."

I really like this hiring. He's not well known, but he's the type of small name GM who I can actually get excited about.

Here's an old article probably written in 1996 for his alma mater, Haverford College.
Here's an article from Baseball America written in 2003 listing the next big GM prospects. Byrnes is the 3rd on the new list to make to the top, following Paul DePodesta and Jon Daniels (not in the top 10, but just missed out).
Lastly, here's a blog entry from a Nationals fan from earlier this year.

World Series WPA

2005-10-28T15:40:00.000-04:00

At the Hardball Times, Dave Studeman has compiled a list of the total WPA numbers for the World Series. Guess who was the top player overall? That's right. Lance Berkman...

"Early prediction: Lance Berkman will be the World Series MVP (at least based off of WPA). As soon as he came up with 2 on and 2 out, it was obvious he was going to get the hit to knock the runs in. He's locked in right now."

Just had to point that out.

Quick Sabr: Old Players Tiring?

2005-10-24T21:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a new segment on the blog called Quick Sabr, where I'll look extremely quickly at a certain topic. Today's topic involves players tiring throughout the season. I will look at a player's first half VORP (defined as the start of the season until July 15), and second half VORP, the change in those two values and average age. It's quick so I will only list the players that fall under the top 15 spots for a certain category and the average age for that category. Note that I'm ignoring guys like Zach Duke or Dan Johnson who only played half a year.

Let's start with the most VORP among Pitchers in the First Half:

Roger Clemens, 43, 56.1 VORP
Roy Halladay, 28, 52.8 VORP
Roy Oswalt, 28, 46.9 VORP
Dontrelle Willis, 23, 46 VORP
Chris Carpenter, 30, 42.8 VORP
Pedro Martinez, 33, 42.6 VORP
John Smoltz, 38, 42.6 VORP
Kenny Rogers, 40, 39.4 VORP
Mark Buehrle, 26, 39.1 VORP
Jarrod Washburn, 31, 33.8 VORP
Freddy Garcia, 29, 33.5 VORP
Livan Hernandez, 30, 33.2 VORP
Jon Garland, 26, 31.7 VORP
John Patterson, 27, 31.3 VORP
Brett Myers, 25, 30.7 VORP

Average Age: 30.5

Next is VORP among Pitchers in the Second Half:

Johan Santana, 26, 40.5 VORP
John Patterson, 27, 36.8 VORP
Chris Carpenter, 30, 30.2 VORP
Joe Blanton, 24, 30.1 VORP
Noah Lowry, 25, 30.1 VORP
Carlos Zambrano, 24, 30 VORP
Dontrelle Willis, 23, 26.4 VORP
Pedro Martinez, 33, 25.8 VORP
Andy Pettitte, 33, 24.8 VORP
Tim Hudson, 30, 24.6 VORP
Roger Clemens, 43, 24.5 VORP
Jake Peavy, 24, 24.2 VORP
Barry Zito, 27, 23.6 VORP
John Lackey, 27, 23.2 VORP
Bartolo Colon, 32, 23 VORP

Average Age: 28.5

I've decided to skip posting the greatest change for pitchers since there are some guys who were just awful in the first half, and not good but decent in the second (Hideo Nomo), and I just wasn't pleased on how the data would look. Regardless though, there is definitely a distinct difference in age between the first half and the second half. Older pitchers do tire out a little bit.

First Half VORP among Hitters:

Derrek Lee, 30, 74.1 VORP
Albert Pujols, 25, 55.6 VORP
Miguel Tejada, 29, 51.9 VORP
Brian Roberts, 28, 50.5 VORP
Alex Rodriguez, 30, 50 VORP
Miguel Cabrera, 22, 48.2 VORP
David Ortiz, 29, 44.1 VORP
Bobby Abreu, 31, 43.6 VORP
Travis Hafner, 28, 42.3 VORP
Mike Young, 28, 41 VORP
Gary Sheffield, 36, 40.2 VORP
Morgan Ensberg, 29, 39.1 VORP
Brian Giles, 34, 38.5 VORP
Jason Bay, 26, 38.4 VORP
Carlos Delgado, 33, 37.5 VORP

Average Age: 29.2

Next Second Half VORP for Hitters:

Alex Rodriguez, 30, 50.9 VORP
Albert Pujols, 25, 46.2 VORP
Jason Bay, 36, 44.8 VORP
Ken Griffey Jr., 35, 42.7 VORP
Victor Martinez, 26, 40.8 VORP
David Wright, 22, 38.6 VORP
Miguel Cabrera, 22, 36.8 VORP
Manny Ramirez, 33, 36.5 VORP
Jason Giambi, 34, 36 VORP
Jhonny Peralta, 23, 33.9 VORP
David Ortiz, 29, 32.5 VORP
Geoff Jenkins, 30, 31.7 VORP
Derek Jeter, 31, 31.5 VORP
Andruw Jones, 28, 30.2 VORP
Vladimir Guerrero, 29, 30.2 VORP

Average Age: 28.9

Lastly we'll look at the largest difference between second half and first half for hitters:

Victor Martinez, 26, 29.5 VORP
Cristian Guzman, 27, 25.7 VORP
Carlos Pena, 27, 22 VORP
Mark Ellis, 28, 21.3 VORP
Miguel Olivo, 26, 21 VORP
Travis Lee, 30, 20.1 VORP
Casey Blake, 31, 18.9 VORP
Magglio Ordonez, 31, 18.8 VORP
Gary Matthews Jr., 30, 18.1 VORP
Rich Aurilia, 33, 16.5 VORP
Aaron Boone, 32, 16 VORP
Geoff Jenkins, 30, 15.8 VORP
Tony Womack, 35, 15.2 VORP
Javier Valentin, 29, 14.7 VORP
Adam Melhuse, 33, 14.7 VORP

Average Age: 29.9

For hitters I don't think that there is a large pattern there. There were a bunch of veterans who got a lot better as the year went on including Jason Giambi, Nomar Garciaparra, Sean Casey and Royce Clayton who were close to being on that last list. Hitters are more consistent than pitchers so I didn't expect a large change here.

Final Results:
Younger pitchers do better in the second half than the older pitchers do, on average.
Hitters hit no matter what time of year, regardless of age. There is no signficant difference.

World Series Game 2 (Preview)

2005-10-23T17:29:00.000-04:00

Later tonight we'll see the Astros and the White Sox play game 2 of the World Series.

Pitching for Houston will be Andy Pettitte:

10 G, 3-4, 3.90 ERA, 60.0 IP, 66 H, 18 BB, 42 K in previous World Series play
17-9, 2.39 ERA, 222.1 IP, 188 H, 41 BB, 171 K in 2005

He will face Mark Buehrle for Chicago:

No previous appearances in the World Series
16-8, 3.12 ERA, 236.2 IP, 240 H, 40 BB, 149 K in 2005

Projected lineups (previous World Series statistics):

Houston:
2B - Craig Biggio
CF - Willy Taveras
LF - Lance Berkman
3B - Morgan Ensberg
1B - Mike Lamb
DH - Jeff Bagwell
RF - Jason Lane
C - Brad Ausmus
SS - Adam Everett

Chicago:
LF - Scott Podsednik
2B - Tadahito Iguchi
RF - Jermaine Dye (17 AB, 2 H, RBI, K, BB, .118 AVG, .167 OBP, .118 SLG, SH)
1B - Paul Konerko
DH - Carl Everett
CF - Aaron Rowand
C - A.J. Pierzynski
3B - Joe Crede
SS - Juan Uribe

In only 3 of the past 5 World Series have the home team won the first two games in the series. The last time the White Sox played in the World Series, in 1919, they lost the first two games on the road, and before that in 1917, they won the first two games at home against the New York Giants.

World Series Game 1 (Recap)

2005-10-22T23:21:00.000-04:00

I've already pretty much described the game, and if you didn't see it, you can refer to my earlier blog post here.

Here's the graph of Win Probability of the White Sox as the game progressed:

Here's a graph of WPA for each player in the game:

Player	Off	Pitch	Field	WPA
Berkman	0.265	0.000	0.003	0.267
Taveras	0.179	0.000	0.000	0.179
Qualls	0.000	0.117	0.000	0.117
Ausmus	0.039	0.000	-0.004	0.035
Rodriguez	0.000	0.012	0.000	0.012
Burke	0.000	0.000	0.002	0.002
Bagwell	-0.051	0.000	0.000	-0.051
Springer	0.000	-0.058	0.000	-0.058
Biggio	-0.093	0.000	0.011	-0.082
Lamb	-0.137	0.000	-0.001	-0.139
Everett	-0.143	0.000	0.000	-0.143
Lane	-0.171	0.000	0.006	-0.165
Clemens	0.000	-0.204	0.000	-0.204
Ensberg	-0.275	0.000	0.009	-0.266
TOT	-0.388	-0.132	0.024	-0.496
Jenks	0.000	0.197	0.000	0.197
Dye	0.178	0.000	0.007	0.185
Cotts	0.000	0.147	0.000	0.147
Uribe	0.117	0.000	0.017	0.133
Crede	0.065	0.000	0.042	0.107
Konerko	0.048	0.000	0.009	0.056
Podsednik	0.049	0.000	-0.002	0.046
Rowand	0.014	0.000	0.000	0.014
Contreras	0.000	-0.042	0.008	-0.034
Everett	-0.039	0.000	0.000	-0.039
Pierzynski	-0.148	0.000	0.000	-0.148
Iguchi	-0.171	0.000	0.006	-0.165
TOT	0.112	0.302	0.086	0.500
GAME	-0.276	0.169	0.111	0.004

(Yes I know I messed up a .004 on the Astros somewhere, big deal.)

Player of the Game: Lance Berkman (2-4, 2 2-out RBI, K, 2B, 0 LOB, .267 WPA)
Goat of the Game: Morgan Ensberg (0-4, K, 4 LOB, -.266 WPA)
Surprise of the Game: Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell combined for (1-6, R, K, 4 LOB, 2 HBP, -.134). They waited a long time and didn't come through for their team in the clutch, especially Bagwell in the 8th inning.

World Series Game 1

2005-10-22T19:49:00.000-04:00

Finally, the World Series has arrived. I will be calculating WPA for all (or as many as possible) WS games. I'm going to do something slightly different and update this post as this game goes on with any interesting comments or observations I have. My recap should be posted about 15 minutes after the game ends.

7:50: The game is about to start. Here are the career World Series statistics for Roger Clemens (7 G, 3-0, 1.90 ERA, 47.1 IP, 33 H, 12 BB, 48 K) and Jose Contreras (4 G, 0-1, 5.68 ERA, 6.1 IP, 5 H, 5 BB, 10 K).
8:11: The top of the first just ended with Contreras retiring the Astros 1-2-3. It appeared to me that Jose has great movement on his pitches, but I'm a little worried about his control. It seemed as though he's missed significantly on 4-5 of his pitches so far, but we'll see.
8:21: Jermaine Dye just had a heck of an at-bat against Clemens, ending up with a solo homer to right field. Clemens, like Contreras, has had location problems so far. Of the two, I'd be more worried with Clemens. The White Sox's WPA is now 60.6%.
8:29: More early action with Mike Lamb tying the game with a solo shot of his own. The White Sox's WPA is now down to 52.4%. Joe Buck needs to stop talking about small ball.
8:53: As I thought, Clemens is struggling (54 pitches through 2 IP). I wouldn't be surprised to see Wandy Rodriguez come into the game if Clemens struggles to start the 3rd, which would allow Roger to come back in Game 4. On another note, Penn State is beating Illinois right now 56-3... at the half.
9:04: Early prediction: Lance Berkman will be the World Series MVP (at least based off of WPA). As soon as he came up with 2 on and 2 out, it was obvious he was going to get the hit to knock the runs in. He's locked in right now. White Sox's WPA is 55.7%.
9:43: Halfway through the game it's still close in score, but the White Sox's WPA is now up to 70.2%. Player of the game so far: Lance Berkman (1-2, 2B, 2 RBI, K, .165 WPA). Goat of the game so far: Roger Clemens (2.0 IP, 3 ER, 4 H, 0 BB, K, HR, -.204 WPA)
10:37: Starting the 8th now, the White Sox's WPA has only slightly risen to 73.4%. The Astros are going to have to do something fast consdering the middle of their lineup is up. We'll see how the Sox's bullpen is considering their long layoff.
10:57: Very interesting 8th inning for the Astros. I was very surprised that Phil Garner let Mike Lamb hit against Neal Cotts instead of bringing in Chris Burke against the lefty. Then, after Lamb strikes out, Garner brings in Burke to pinch run for the Astros best hitter, Lance Berkman. Why didn't Burke come into the game before that, even to pinch run while Ensberg or Lamb hit? White Sox's WPA is now at 86.1%.
11:13: Starting the 9th the White Sox's WPA is at 91.9%. I bet Everett gets pinch hit for (I'm looking at you Orlando Palmeiro or Jose Vizcaino), but I think Lane and Ausmus will get to hit.
11:19: Game over after the quick 9th inning by Jenks. I'm not sure why Everett was allowed to hit in the 9th (another odd job by Garner), but it probably wouldn't have made a difference.

This was a good game, which I'll give a 7.5/10. My recap should be up soon.

Luis Matos and Eric Byrnes: Be Very Afraid

2005-10-22T16:09:00.000-04:00

In one of the better and more worthwhile articles you can read, Kevin T. Czerwinski discusses the O's farm system:

Nick Markakis:

"Markakis started the season at Frederick but after proving he was more than capable of handling the Carolina League -- 12 homers, 62 RBIs, .300 in 91 games -- he was bumped up to Bowie and fueled their run at an Eastern League playoff berth that lasted through the final weekend of the regular season. He hit .339 in 33 games and though he had only three homers, he drove in 30 runs, proving that the Double-A pitching wasn't any more of a problem than the hurlers he faced in Class A. Odds are he'll begin next season in Ottawa, but don't be surprised if he's in Baltimore by midseason."

Jeff Fiorentino:

"He spent the bulk of the season in Frederick, where he hit .286 with 22 homers and 66 RBIs. He also had a 13-game audition in May with Baltimore and held his own, hitting .250 with a homer and five RBIs. His 12 stolen bases suggest some speed and could lead to him being a top-of-the-order guy. He batted either first or second 65 times this year for the Keys and did well enough, posting a .346 on-base percentage."

From reading that, I got the sense that we might see the end of Eric Byrnes or Luis Matos in the O's lineup soon unless they start to produce more regularly. Fiorentino has proven that he can be at least decent at the Major Leaguge level, and if he continues his success in Bowie next year, he might get a call-up. Markakis is a bit unknown at this point at the Majors, considering he's never played past AA. It might be a bit of a stretch for him to get called up to the O's before August, but if Byrnes struggles it is quite possible.

Luis Matos:

YEAR	AGE	TEAM	RCAA	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	SB	CS
2000	21	BAL	-11.3	72	0.225	0.281	0.308	1	17	13	4
2001	22	BAL	-1.1	31	0.214	0.30	0.408	4	12	7	0
2002	23	BAL	-3.5	17	0.129	0.16	0.161	0	1	1	0
2003	24	BAL	10.8	109	0.303	0.353	0.458	13	45	15	7
2004	25	BAL	-20.0	89	0.224	0.275	0.333	6	28	12	4
2005	26	BAL	-2.7	121	0.280	0.340	0.373	4	32	17	9
TOTAL	6	Years	-27.7	439	0.26	0.316	0.379	28	135	65	24

Eric Byrnes:

YEAR	AGE	TEAM	RCAA	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	SB	CS
2000	24	OAK	-0.4	10	0.300	0.364	0.300	0	0	2	1
2001	25	OAK	0.9	19	0.237	0.33	0.500	3	5	1	0
2002	26	OAK	-2.0	90	0.245	0.29	0.426	3	11	3	0
2003	27	OAK	7.6	121	0.263	0.333	0.459	12	51	10	2
2004	28	OAK	7.9	143	0.283	0.347	0.467	20	73	17	1
2005	29	OAK	2.9	59	0.266	0.336	0.474	7	24	2	2
2005	29	COL	-5.1	15	0.189	0.283	0.226	0	5	2	0
2005	29	BAL	-10.0	52	0.192	0.246	0.299	3	11	3	0
TOTAL	6	Years	1.7	509	0.259	0.325	0.437	48	180	40	6

Bye Moises Hernandez

2005-10-21T13:36:00.000-04:00

According to the AP:

"The Atlanta Braves on Friday acquired right-handed pitcher Moises Hernandez from the Baltimore Orioles as compensation for Baltimore signing pitching coach Leo Mazzone."

Here are Hernandez's career stats:

Year	Team	Level	W	L	IP	ERA	WHIP	SO	BB
2003	GCL Orioles	Rookie	2	1	21.2	4.15	1.48	22	13
2004	Bluefield	Rookie	2	5	60.1	5.07	1.49	43	27
2005	Aberdeen	Short A	0	4	52.2	3.08	1.27	56	24

Hernandez is apparently the brother of "King" Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners. I don't think though that he'll be nearly as good. He seemed to put it all together in Aberdeen last year, having a good season. It does worry me though (not anymore since he's a Brave) that his WHIP is still a little on the high side and he'll be 22 next season without any experience past short-season A ball. The Braves got a player back for basically nothing since Mazzone was leaving anyway, and the Orioles got the man they wanted without giving up anyone too good.

Leo Mazzone, Part 2

2005-10-19T19:37:00.000-04:00

Fox Sports is reporting that Mazzone has agreed to join the O's.

"FOXSports.com has learned that Mazzone likely will join the Orioles as the team's pitching coach after his talks with the Yankees broke down Wednesday.

Mazzone is expected to receive a three-year contract with the Orioles, matching the length of new manager Sam Perlozzo's deal. Mazzone and Perlozzo are long-time friends, having grown up together in Cumberland, Md."

Leo Mazzone

2005-10-19T15:45:00.000-04:00

With the Orioles apparently interested in signing Leo Mazzone, the current pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves, I got to thinking exactly what would this mean for Baltimore? Work by other sabermetricians says that Mazzone generally will lower a team's ERA by half a run. How valuable is that, and is there an easy way to understand exactly what that means?

Last season the Orioles as a team had an ERA of 4.56. I did some quick math and got the following:

Replace B.J. Ryan (2.43 ERA, 70.1 IP) with Mariano Rivera (1.38 ERA, 78.1 IP)
Replace Rodrigo Lopez (4.90 ERA, 209.1 IP) with Roger Clemens (1.87 ERA, 211.1 IP)

These adjustments would make our team ERA 4.04 (close enough to 4.06). Imagine our roster this season with a rotation of Clemens, Chen, Bedard, Cabrera and our combination of Ponson/DuBose/Maine, plus a virtually perfect ninth inning. Tell me that doesn't sound great.

To quantify it even further, the O's would have 78.2 more VORP, which is about the same as replacing Sammy Sosa (.221-.295-.376) with Miguel Cabrera (.323-.385-.561). We'd also have 21 more Win Shares, which means we would have the production of Andy Pettitte (2.39 ERA) instead of Sir Sidney Ponson (6.21 ERA). It also means 7 more wins last year (21/3=7), which pushes us into third in the AL East with a record of 81-81. Again, I don't really believe it's worth only 7 wins, but that's what the Win Shares data tells us.

Bottom Line: Give Mazzone anything under $12,666,246.26 per season and it's a bargain (I used my VORP salary projecting data and that's the difference between Rivera and Clemens' performance with that from Ryan and Lopez).

Luckiest teams in 2005

2005-10-19T13:27:00.000-04:00

I've compiled a list of all of the teams in the Major Leagues with the following data: Winning Percentage, Winning % in one-run ball games, and Expected Winning % (this is based off of Pythagorean Wins and Losses created by Bill James, which basically estimates your record based off of runs scored and runs allowed and has been very accurate). I've also added two other categories I call Luck A and Luck B. Luck A is (Real Winning % - Expected Winning %)*162. The higher your Luck A value is, the luckier you are. 1 unit stands for each win that you didn't really deserve. Luck B is similar: (Winning % in one-run games - Expected Winning %)*162, which demonstrates how lucky you were in one-run games. This has been adjusted to assume that if all of your ball games in a season were one-run games, then this is how many wins you would not deserve. Here is the table, sorted by Luck A (the luckiest teams over the course of the season):

Team	Real %	1-Run %	Exp %	Luck A	Luck B
ARI	0.475	0.609	0.407	11	33
CHA	0.611	0.648	0.562	8	14
NYA	0.586	0.628	0.556	5	12
BOS	0.586	0.643	0.556	5	14
SDN	0.506	0.592	0.475	5	19
FLO	0.512	0.465	0.488	4	-4
WAS	0.500	0.492	0.475	4	3
SFN	0.463	0.519	0.438	4	13
TBA	0.414	0.537	0.401	2	22
ANA	0.586	0.559	0.574	2	-2
SLN	0.617	0.457	0.605	2	-24
BAL	0.457	0.359	0.457	0	-16
MIN	0.512	0.474	0.519	-1	-7
ATL	0.556	0.535	0.562	-1	-4
PHI	0.543	0.477	0.549	-1	-12
HOU	0.549	0.543	0.556	-1	-2
CHN	0.488	0.565	0.494	-1	12
CIN	0.451	0.538	0.463	-2	12
CLE	0.574	0.379	0.593	-3	-35
TEX	0.488	0.453	0.506	-3	-9
MIL	0.500	0.500	0.519	-3	-3
LAN	0.438	0.465	0.457	-3	1
COL	0.414	0.510	0.432	-3	13
DET	0.438	0.458	0.463	-4	-1
KCA	0.346	0.375	0.370	-4	1
OAK	0.543	0.520	0.574	-5	-9
PIT	0.414	0.349	0.444	-5	-15
NYN	0.512	0.467	0.549	-6	-13
SEA	0.426	0.531	0.469	-7	10
TOR	0.494	0.340	0.543	-8	-33

Interesting how the White Sox were way up at the top, and yet they are in the World Series. Why is this true? Simple, just look at the next table. It's the same as above, except sorted by Luck B (luckiest in one-run games). Essentially my theory is that the ChiSox are playing over themselves now and during the regular season, and I'll explain fully in a moment:

Team	Real %	1-Run %	Exp %	Luck A	Luck B
ARI	0.475	0.609	0.407	11	33
TBA	0.414	0.537	0.401	2	22
SDN	0.506	0.592	0.475	5	19
BOS	0.586	0.643	0.556	5	14
CHA	0.611	0.648	0.562	8	14
SFN	0.463	0.519	0.438	4	13
COL	0.414	0.510	0.432	-3	13
CIN	0.451	0.538	0.463	-2	12
NYA	0.586	0.628	0.556	5	12
CHN	0.488	0.565	0.494	-1	12
SEA	0.426	0.531	0.469	-7	10
WAS	0.500	0.492	0.475	4	3
LAN	0.438	0.465	0.457	-3	1
KCA	0.346	0.375	0.370	-4	1
DET	0.438	0.458	0.463	-4	-1
HOU	0.549	0.543	0.556	-1	-2
ANA	0.586	0.559	0.574	2	-2
MIL	0.500	0.500	0.519	-3	-3
FLO	0.512	0.465	0.488	4	-4
ATL	0.556	0.535	0.562	-1	-4
MIN	0.512	0.474	0.519	-1	-7
TEX	0.488	0.453	0.506	-3	-9
OAK	0.543	0.520	0.574	-5	-9
PHI	0.543	0.477	0.549	-1	-12
NYN	0.512	0.467	0.549	-6	-13
PIT	0.414	0.349	0.444	-5	-15
BAL	0.457	0.359	0.457	0	-16
SLN	0.617	0.457	0.605	2	-24
TOR	0.494	0.340	0.543	-8	-33
CLE	0.574	0.379	0.593	-3	-35

Why are teams good in one-run games? It could be for several reasons:

The Manager makes a big difference on the game. I don't really believe this though since the Cardinals were pretty bad in one-run games this year (.457) and yet they have a hall-of-fame manager. The Braves are also low on this list (.535). I'm sure managers make a difference in these tight games, but not as much as you might expect.
The Bullpens are usually the key in these games. Once again I'm not so sure. Cleveland had one of the better bullpens in the AL, and yet they're last and Boston, who had 'pen troubles all year, is near the top.
Luck, pure and simple luck (why else would I have called these stat categories Luck A and Luck B?). This is most likely. Teams who win a lot in one-run games just get lucky. That's one reason why you'll see the Indians win the AL Central next year (or at the very least, they'll finish ahead of the White Sox, and you can put that one on the board). The Indians, if they had played as well in one-run games as they did during their year on the whole, would have had 11 more wins this season. ELEVEN more wins. They would have been up on the White Sox by 5.0 games at the end of the year despite getting swept, and not even factoring in the White Sox's luck in one-run games. The Indians got very very unlucky, or else they might be in the World Series.

I think this table is useful in predicting the future. Which teams will likely get lucky next year? The Indians, the Blue Jays and the Mets are my early picks for big improvements in 2006. I'm also predicting declines in the White Sox and the Red Sox. Why am I avoiding the Diamondbacks and the Devil Rays, despite having high Luck B values? Simple: they can't really get worse. They're both young, didn't play well, and finished under .500, but I think due to competition these teams will be high on this list next year. I don't think that they're in for direct improvement necessarily, but I don't think things will get a lot worse like it might for Chicago and Boston.

Cardinals 9th inning in Game 5

2005-10-19T10:03:00.000-04:00

If the Cardinals reach the World Series, could this be the greatest comeback in Major League History? Using win expectency and assuming that teams probably have an equal chance to win each game, regardless of where the games are being played, we'll take a look at the numbers.

The Cardinals started their rally with 2 outs in the top of the 9th, down 2 runs and no one on base. At that point of the game, their WE was 0.9% (16 of 1813 major league games recorded had the away team winning in this situation). Assuming that they would then have to win game 6, their WE for winning games 5 and 6 would be 0.45% (in that 0.9% there is a 50-50 chance of the Cards will win or lose game 6). Now let's toss in game 7, which they'd also have to win in order to reach the World Series. That means that when David Eckstein (shown left) came to the plate in the 9th, the Cardinals had a 0.225% chance of going to the World Series.

Now let's compare this to the Red Sox last season. Many people believe that this was the greatest comeback in Major League history. In game 4, the Red Sox's worst chance of winning was when they started the 9th, down a run and with no one on base. During this time their WE was at 18.9%. They still had a decent chance to win. Now let's toss in the fact that they had to win game 5: 9.45%, game 6: 4.725%, game 7: 2.3625%.

Sure the Red Sox had to go on the road to Yankee stadium for their last 2 games, and they had to face Mariano Rivera in that 9th inning, but the numbers are interesting. I'm not stating that the Red Sox had it easy in comparison, but what the Cardinals might do is just as impressive. The WE has to count for something in the argument, and 0.225% and 2.3625% are dramatically different. Regardless, I'm still rooting for the Astros.

Preliminary 2006 Orioles

2005-10-16T20:57:00.000-04:00

Here is what our current 25-man roster looks like, with people in bold being locked up for next season, italics being arbitration eligible and regular font being free agents (I'm projecting here considering I'm going off of a 40-man roster, not 25 due to September call-ups):

Pitchers:
James Baldwin
Erik Bedard
Tim Byrdak
Daniel Cabrera
Bruce Chen
Jason Grimsley
Jorge Julio
Steve Kline
Rodrigo Lopez
Chris Ray
B.J. Ryan
Todd Williams

Catchers:
Sal Fasano
Javy Lopez

Infielders:
Chris Gomez
Melvin Mora
Rafael Palmeiro
Miguel Tejada
Brian Roberts

Outfielders:
Eric Byrnes
Jay Gibbons
Eli Marrero
Luis Matos
Sammy Sosa
B.J. Surhoff

I tried to compile that list to the best of my ability, and the information that's available online. Here's who I think the Orioles will have from that list, and their minor league system on the team next year:

Pitchers:
Erik Bedard
Tim Byrdak
Daniel Cabrera
Bruce Chen
Steve Kline
Rodrigo Lopez
Chris Ray
Todd Williams
F.A.
F.A.
F.A.
F.A.

Catchers:
Javy Lopez
F.A.

Infielders:
Bernie Castro
Chris Gomez
Melvin Mora
Miguel Tejada
Brian Roberts
F.A.

Outfielders:
Eric Byrnes
Jay Gibbons
Luis Matos
F.A.
F.A.

The Orioles will likely have about $20 million (a rough estimate, but it's fair considering we're going to lose a bunch of players in my opinion) to spend on Free Agents, and they need a first-baseman, two outfielders, a backup catcher, a starting pitcher and three free agent relievers. With that in mind, and projecting what I think a player will actually sign for and what he's worth, here's what the Orioles should do:

Sign Brad Ausmus (C, HOU) for 2-years at $2,000,000 per season, remaining money: $18,000,000

Why sign Ausmus? We don't need a stellar catcher, or even a guy to play there everyday. Ausmus is solid, and he's going to give you a pretty solid OBP and AVG. Plus, look what he's done for the Astros' pitching staff this year. 2 mil is cheap, and he should take that deal considering it's a 2-year contract and he'll be 37 next April.

Sign Kevin Millar (1B/OF/DH, BOS) for 2-years at $3,500,000 per season, remaining money: $14,500,000

As a person, I don't care for Millar. As a baseball player, he'll be fine for that money. He's able to play multiple positions, and I don't think that many teams will be interested in him. He's going to go .275-.350-.380. Without many free agents at first base I don't think we can expect much. Plus, if Walter Young or Alejandre Freiere gets promoted, Millar can move to the outfield or to DH.

Sign Bernie Williams (CF/DH, NYA) for 1-year at $2,000,000, remaining money: $12,500,000:

He's a leader and a good guy to have in the club house. He'll be solid coming off of the bench and playing DH two times a week. Not expensive, and has a lot of playoff experience.

Sign Orlando Palmeiro (OF/DH, HOU) for 2-years at $2,000,000 per season, remaining money: $10,500,000

Underrated, and all he does is hit. .284-.341-.431 for a fourth or fifth outfielder would be great. I'm not sure if the O's could get him, especially at this price, but it's worth a shot.

Sign Paul Byrd (SP, ANA) for 3-years (2-years with a team option) at $4,500,000 per season, remaining money: $6,000,000

Had a good and quiet season. Another veteran who should go for cheap, especially if the Orioles tack on a 3rd year option. I don't think that the Angels will look to re-sign him, so the Orioles should move in right away.

Sign Scott Eyre (Lefty Specialist, SFN) for 3-years at $2,250,000 per season, remaining money: $3,750,000

The O's need help against lefties, especially with the probable departure of B.J. Ryan. Steve Kline couldn't get lefty hitters out, so they'll need to spend some money on a good one.

Sign Byung-Hyun Kim (Long Relief, COL) for 1-year at $750,000, remaining money: $3,000,000

Kim needs to get out of Colorado, for multiple reasons, and without many teams offering him spots in the rotation, he'll have to go back to the bullpen. This is more of a Steve Reed type gamble, but it won't be too expensive.

Sign Tom Gordon (Closer, NYA) for 2-years at $3,000,000 per season:

Why would Gordon come here, and for less money than he's currently being paid? Simple: He wants to close. He's recently stated that he likes being with Mariano Rivera, but his first choice would be to close. There are only a few teams that will likely offer him $6,000,000, and the Orioles might get lucky here considering the lack of other possible closers in the bullpen. I don't think Ray will be ready for next season, and Gordon for that price would be stellar.

So there you have it. Note that I had to go pretty much with old guys considering all of the young talent is arbitration eligible, so I can't bank on them being free agents. I'm pretty sure that all of these players are. If I could have any one of these players guarenteed to be on my team, it would be, surprisingly Brad Ausmus. He would give the Orioles a lot of flexibility, and I just think the guy goes out there and plays. Bengie Molina would be nice, but I think the Angels will likely re-sign him considering the lack of immediate talent at C for them.

Finally

2005-10-11T22:46:00.000-04:00

Socom III has arrived, and it is as good as predicted. If you own a Playstation 2, you need to own this game.

Angels vs. Yankees, ALDS, Gm 4

2005-10-10T19:38:00.000-04:00

Here is a recap of the Angels vs. Yankees last night, with the graph showing the win probability of the Yankees:

(Click to Enlarge, the red area is when Scot Sheilds was pitching, and the white area is when Mariano Rivera was pitching)

Player	Off	Pitch	Field	WPA
J Lackey	0.000	0.157	0.009	0.166
K Escobar	0.000	0.099	0.000	0.099
O Cabrera	0.032	0.000	0.000	0.032
C Figgins	0.032	0.000	-0.011	0.020
B Molina	-0.013	0.000	0.000	-0.012
J Rivera	-0.032	0.000	0.000	-0.032
D Erstad	-0.086	0.000	0.021	-0.065
S Finley	-0.082	0.000	0.011	-0.071
A Kennedy	-0.084	0.000	0.009	-0.075
G Anderson	-0.080	0.000	0.003	-0.078
V Guerrero	-0.089	0.000	0.000	-0.089
S Sheilds	0.000	-0.395	0.000	-0.395
	-0.402	-0.140	0.042	-0.500
M Rivera	0.000	0.275	0.006	0.281
R Sierra	0.257	0.000	0.000	0.257
J Posada	0.147	0.000	0.067	0.214
R Cano	0.053	0.000	0.016	0.070
A Leiter	0.000	0.054	0.000	0.054
A Rodriguez	0.026	0.000	0.005	0.031
D Jeter	0.016	0.000	0.010	0.026
G Sheffield	-0.001	0.000	0.003	0.001
S Chacon	0.000	-0.015	0.000	-0.015
T Martinez	-0.035	0.000	0.000	-0.035
J Giambi	-0.042	0.000	0.005	-0.037
B Crosby	-0.063	0.000	0.006	-0.056
B Williams	-0.119	0.000	0.000	-0.119
H Matsui	-0.141	0.000	-0.030	-0.171
	0.098	0.314	0.088	0.500
	-0.305	0.175	0.130	0.000

Player of the Game: Mariano Rivera (2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 2 K), he also pitched in the highest pressure situations and got the job done.
Goat of the Game: Scot Shields (0.2 IP, 2 ER, 2 H, 1 BB), as I suspected all year the Angels' bullpen isn't always perfect. I prefer the Yankees bullpen in the playoffs actually.
Surprise of the Game: Vladimir Guerrero (1-4, 2 K, LOB), where is this guy? He's an MVP and he hasn't been playing like it in the clutch.

This was a pretty good game, and the best that I've tracked so far. It was almost perfectly even for the first part of the game, then went for the Angels and then for the Yankees. Hopefully tonight's game will be just as entertaining.

Braves vs. Astros, NLDS, Gm 3

2005-10-08T23:11:00.000-04:00

Here is my recap of game 3 of the NLDS between the Braves and Astros. The graph below shows the WPA (essentially win expectancy) of the Astros as the game continued:

(Click to Enlarge, "Ensberg RBI Double," "McCann RBI Single, followed by Sosa RBI Single," "Start of 7th Inning," "Ensberg RBI Double.")

Here is also a table of how each player affected the game, sorted by team and then WPA. The more WPA, the better he played:

Team	Player	Off	Pitch	Field	WPA
Braves	A Jones	0.053	0.000	0.018	0.071
	J Sosa	0.051	-0.021	0.009	0.038
	B McCann	0.034	0.000	0.000	0.034
	A LaRoche	0.023	0.000	0.008	0.031
	J Franco	0.009	0.000	0.000	0.009
	J Brower	0.000	0.009	0.000	0.009
	B Jordan	-0.022	0.000	0.000	-0.022
	K Johnson	-0.033	0.000	0.000	-0.033
	J Foster	0.000	-0.039	0.000	-0.039
	M Giles	-0.050	0.000	0.003	-0.048
	J Devine	0.000	-0.066	0.000	-0.066
	C Jones	-0.080	0.000	-0.001	-0.081
	R Langerhans	-0.079	0.000	-0.010	-0.089
	C Reitsma	0.000	-0.096	0.000	-0.096
	J Francoeur	-0.098	0.000	0.002	-0.096
	R Furcal	-0.122	0.000	0.000	-0.122
Braves Total		-0.315	-0.213	0.028	-0.500
Astros	M Ensberg	0.125	0.000	0.025	0.150
	R Oswalt	-0.110	0.238	0.000	0.128
	C Biggio	0.105	0.000	0.013	0.118
	M Lamb	0.100	0.000	-0.005	0.096
	J Lane	0.050	0.000	0.008	0.058
	W Taveras	0.011	0.000	0.008	0.018
	M Gallo	0.000	0.018	0.000	0.018
	B Lidge	0.000	0.016	0.000	0.016
	O Palmeiro	-0.001	0.000	0.000	-0.001
	L Berkman	-0.003	0.000	-0.001	-0.004
	D Wheeler	0.000	-0.009	0.000	-0.009
	A Everett	-0.038	0.000	-0.004	-0.042
	B Ausmus	-0.054	0.000	0.006	-0.047
Astros Total		0.185	0.263	0.051	0.500
Grand Total		-0.129	0.051	0.079	0.000

Player of the Game: Morgan Ensberg (.150 WPA, 2-4, 2 2b, r, 2 rbi, lob), I also want to give Oswalt a thumbs up who got hurt by the fact that he had to hit. He'd easily have the most WPA if this was the AL (and his pitching statistics stayed roughly the same).
Goat of the Game: Rafael Furcal (-.122 WPA, 0-5, 3 lob), with a special consideration also going to Steve "Psycho" Lyons and his hair.
Surprise of the Game: Craig Biggio (.118 WPA, 3-5, 3 2b, 2 R, k), a day after I said that Biggio shouldn't be leading off he has three doubles. I still don't think he should be leading off, but hey he is performing.

This game looked like it was going to be a great game from the start. Eventually however, Oswalt settled down and the Braves bullpen absolutely stunk. I think at this point it would be extremely hard to pick against the Astros to win this series.

Projected starters for game 4: Tim Hudson (14-9, 3.52 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, .265 BAA)* vs. Andy Pettitte (17-9, 2.39 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, .230 BAA)*

* does not include post-season statistics, only 2005 season stats.

WPA

2005-10-08T18:27:00.000-04:00

I'll be changing around how I do Win Expectancy. Instead, I will be using a very similar statistic called Winning Percentage A-Something. The basic difference is that with the WPA system I can assign how much each player on a team actually contributes towards getting their team the win. This will include Offensive, Pitching and Defensive estimates for WPA. Everything should be obvious once it gets posted (I'll start this sytem with the Braves vs. Astros tonight).

Astros vs. Braves, NLDS, Gm 2

2005-10-07T19:52:00.000-04:00

Here is another graph, this time of the Braves vs. Astros game, the 2nd of their NLDS matchup. I did the exact same thing that I did for the White Sox vs. Red Sox game yesterday, so it should look basically the same. This is a graph of the WE of the Braves throughout the game (to calculate the WE of the Astros, take 100% then subtract the Braves' WE at a given point in the game).

(Click the graph to make it original size, "Lane RBI Single," "McCann 3-R HR," "LaRoche 2-R 2B")

On this graph I also put a little black dot on the line, right before the McCann game-changing homerun. This dot doesn't really signify an important play, just an observation I had. At that point in the game, the Braves were losing 1-0 with runners on base, yet they were at that point favored to win the game (their WE was at 54%). This is just interesting to note how a team, while they are the home team, could be favored in a game they are losing based on baseball historical performances.

This was really a one-sided game to say the least. After Jason Lane's RBI single off of John Smoltz, the Astros never had any more control: the Braves took it to them slowly until the Brian McCann homerun. Adam LaRoche's 2-run double sealed the deal, and the Braves never looked back.

Player of the Game: John Smoltz (7 IP, 1 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 5 K)
Goat of the Game: Roger Clemens (5 IP, 5 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 2 K, HR)
Surprise of the Game: Craig Biggio leading off, followed by Willy Taveras for the Astros. If there ever was a lead-off hitter that would be Taveras, who is all speed and singles. Biggio has some pop, who would actually be better suited for 6th and moving Orlando Palmeiro up to the 2 slot, but I would accept Taveras then Biggio.

Sox vs. Sox, ALDS, Gm 2

2005-10-06T19:07:00.000-04:00

Last night I watched the entire White Sox vs. Red Sox game 2 of the ALDS. I tracked it in a way that most people wouldn't (what else would you expect from me). By no means did I create this method of tracking games, but I do like it a lot. Essentially, I took Win Expectancy after each play in the Sox vs. Sox game and graphed it, showing what % chance the White Sox had of winning as the game went on; I also tossed in a few key moments in the game. WE is basically looking at 1000+ ML games that have occured with these situations (Bottom 4, 2 on, 2 out in a tie game) and what % of games has the home team (the White Sox) won that game? It's not perfect but it's looking into the past to see what percentage of teams have won a game being in that situation.

If you can't read it, from left to right the comments read: "Ramirez 2-R Single," "Varitek RBI Single," "RBI 2B, RBI 1B," "Iguchi 3-R HR"

What does this graph show?

The Red Sox blew it. They had a 90% chance to win the game at one point, and they lost it.
The Red Sox didn't just blow it, but they didn't really put up a fight. Sure they had a man on second in the 9th inning with a chance to tie it, but even once that happened they didn't even have a 20% chance of winning the game at that point. They needed a base hit (and a good one, it couldn't just be a slap or a hard hit ball to an outfielder) to score Graffanino from second, then they needed to get another run and hold the White Sox's offense down. That's not easy to do.
The fifth inning explains why the White Sox have had success this year. A couple hits, a couple RBIs, then they finish it off with the longball, which totally changed the game (see if you can find where that homer occured, hard isn't it?). Then, afer the fifth inning, they basically shut the Red Sox down. They never got in a really bad position and always had control of the game after that point.

Player of the game: Tadahito Iguchi (2-4, R, HR, 3 RBI)
Goat of the game: Tony Graffanino (1-4, 2B, E), and that error allowed the 5th inning to continue where Iguchi promptly hit a 3-run shot to take control of the game
Surprise of the game: Scott Podsednik (0-4), the White Sox thrive off of Scott Podsednik, and it's surprisng that they could score 5 runs without him even getting on base

I plan on trying out these WE graphs during more playoff games. I think that they really reshape how you watch baseball. Melvin Mora just hit a grandslam, what exactly does that do to the Orioles chances of winning? B.J. Ryan is in the game with a 1 run lead in the 9th and the bases loaded and no outs, are the Orioles still in decent shape?

Yanks, A's, White Sox, and Braves

2005-10-04T16:07:00.000-04:00

Per request (and I tossed in the White Sox and the Braves), here are some more teams and their RPS salaries:

Yankees:

PLAYER	TEAM	VORP	REAL SALARY	RPS	DIFF.
Robinson Cano	NYA	28.5	$316,000.00	$4,616,215.07	$ 4,300,215.07
Aaron Small	NYA	22.1	$316,000.00	$3,579,591.33	$ 3,263,591.33
Chien-Ming Wang	NYA	17.3	$316,000.00	$2,802,123.53	$ 2,486,123.53
Hideki Matsui	NYA	54.7	$7,000,000.00	$8,859,893.48	$ 1,859,893.48
Shawn Chacon	NYA	25.1	$2,350,000.00	$4,065,508.71	$ 1,715,508.71
Tom Gordon	NYA	26.8	$3,500,000.00	$4,340,861.89	$ 840,861.89
Tanyon Sturtze	NYA	7.1	$850,000.00	$1,150,004.46	$ 300,004.46
Felix Escalona	NYA	0.7	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Colter Bean	NYA	0.3	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Kevin Reese	NYA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Mike Vento	NYA	-0.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Wil Nieves	NYA	-1.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Jason Anderson	NYA	-1.4	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Ramiro Mendoza	NYA	-1.4	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Melky Cabrera	NYA	-1.6	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Andy Phillips	NYA	-3.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Scott Proctor	NYA	-3.3	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Sean Henn	NYA	-8.7	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Bubba Crosby	NYA	-0.6	$317,400.00	$316,000.00	$ -1,400.00
Jorge De Paula	NYA	0.0	$318,550.00	$316,000.00	$ -2,550.00
Wayne Franklin	NYA	-3.9	$380,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -64,000.00
Rey Sanchez	NYA	-0.5	$600,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -284,000.00
John Flaherty	NYA	-9.4	$800,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -484,000.00
Ruben Sierra	NYA	-2.2	$1,500,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -1,184,000.00
Tino Martinez	NYA	11.1	$3,000,000.00	$1,797,894.29	$ -1,202,105.71
Tony Womack	NYA	-8.2	$2,000,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -1,684,000.00
Mark Bellhorn	NYA	3.2	$2,750,000.00	$518,311.87	$ -2,231,688.13
Felix Rodriguez	NYA	2.8	$3,050,000.00	$453,522.88	$ -2,596,477.12
Gary Sheffield	NYA	58.1	$12,029,131.00	$9,410,599.84	$ -2,618,531.16
Alan Embree	NYA	-4.8	$3,000,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -2,684,000.00
Jorge Posada	NYA	33.8	$9,000,000.00	$5,474,669.10	$ -3,525,330.90
Matt Lawton	NYA	18.5	$7,250,000.00	$2,996,490.48	$ -4,253,509.52
Mariano Rivera	NYA	32.3	$10,890,000.00	$5,231,710.41	$ -5,658,289.59
Jaret Wright	NYA	-9.8	$7,000,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -6,684,000.00
Jason Giambi	NYA	59.7	$17,142,857.00	$9,669,755.78	$ -7,473,101.22
Al Leiter	NYA	-1.7	$8,000,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -7,684,000.00
Derek Jeter	NYA	68.2	$18,900,000.00	$11,046,521.67	$ -7,853,478.33
Alex Rodriguez	NYA	101.8	$25,200,000.00	$16,488,796.28	$ -8,711,203.72
Randy Johnson	NYA	44.1	$16,000,000.00	$7,142,985.42	$ -8,857,014.58
Carl Pavano	NYA	-1.3	$9,987,500.00	$316,000.00	$ -9,671,500.00
Bernie Williams	NYA	8.6	$12,357,143.00	$1,392,963.14	$ -10,964,179.86
Mike Mussina	NYA	23.3	$16,000,000.00	$3,773,958.28	$ -12,226,041.72
Kevin Brown	NYA	-9.5	$15,714,286.00	$316,000.00	$ -15,398,286.00

Yankees' 2005 Salary: $221,310,867.00
Yankees' RPS: $112,080,377.94
Yankees' Difference: $-109,230,489.06

A's:

PLAYER	TEAM	VORP	REAL SALARY	RPS	DIFF.
Joe Blanton	OAK	44.3	$316,000.00	$7,175,379.91	$ 6,859,379.91
Rich Harden	OAK	40.8	$316,000.00	$6,608,476.31	$ 6,292,476.31
Mark Ellis	OAK	40.8	$323,500.00	$6,608,476.31	$ 6,284,976.31
Dan Haren	OAK	39.5	$316,000.00	$6,397,912.11	$ 6,081,912.11
Huston Street	OAK	33.3	$316,000.00	$5,393,682.87	$ 5,077,682.87
Justin Duchscherer	OAK	30.0	$318,500.00	$4,859,173.76	$ 4,540,673.76
Kirk Saarloos	OAK	28.3	$316,000.00	$4,583,820.58	$ 4,267,820.58
Barry Zito	OAK	41.8	$3,000,000.00	$6,770,448.77	$ 3,770,448.77
Bobby Crosby	OAK	24.6	$316,000.00	$3,984,522.48	$ 3,668,522.48
Daniel Johnson	OAK	20.2	$316,000.00	$3,271,843.66	$ 2,955,843.66
Kiko Calero	OAK	15.7	$321,000.00	$2,542,967.60	$ 2,221,967.60
Jay Witasick	OAK	14.0	$316,000.00	$2,267,614.42	$ 1,951,614.42
Nicholas Swisher	OAK	13.1	$316,000.00	$2,121,839.21	$ 1,805,839.21
Marco Scutaro	OAK	10.0	$317,500.00	$1,619,724.59	$ 1,302,224.59
Bobby Kielty	OAK	12.1	$875,000.00	$1,959,866.75	$ 1,084,866.75
Ron Flores	OAK	4.6	$316,000.00	$745,073.31	$ 429,073.31
Eric Chavez	OAK	34.0	$5,325,000.00	$5,507,063.59	$ 182,063.59
Jairo Garcia	OAK	0.9	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Freddie Bynum	OAK	0.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
John Baker	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Jeremy Brown	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Chris Mabeus	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Dan Meyer	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Jason Perry	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
John Rheinecker	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Mike Rouse	OAK	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Alberto Castillo	OAK	-1.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Hiram Bocachica	OAK	-3.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Matt Watson	OAK	-4.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Charles Thomas	OAK	-6.7	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Adam Melhuse	OAK	1.2	$357,500.00	$316,000.00	$ -41,500.00
Keith Ginter	OAK	-10.4	$383,333.00	$316,000.00	$ -67,333.00
Jay Payton	OAK	7.8	$1,500,000.00	$1,263,385.18	$ -236,614.82
Juan Cruz	OAK	-12.0	$600,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -284,000.00
Keichi Yabu	OAK	3.2	$1,000,000.00	$518,311.87	$ -481,688.13
Ricardo Rincon	OAK	5.0	$1,750,000.00	$809,862.29	$ -940,137.71
Scott Hatteberg	OAK	3.1	$2,300,000.00	$502,114.62	$ -1,797,885.38
Joe Kennedy	OAK	-15.9	$2,200,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -1,884,000.00
Mark Kotsay	OAK	21.8	$6,500,000.00	$3,530,999.60	$ -2,969,000.40
Octavio Dotel	OAK	3.8	$4,750,000.00	$615,495.34	$ -4,134,504.66
Erubiel Durazo	OAK	1.1	$4,700,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -4,384,000.00
Jason Kendall	OAK	16.8	$8,571,429.00	$2,721,137.30	$ -5,850,291.70

A's 2005 Salary: $52,360,762.00
A's RPS: $88,067,192.43
A's Difference: $35,706,430.43

White Sox:

PLAYER	TEAM	VORP	REAL SALARY	RPS	DIFF.
Jon Garland	CHA	50.1	$2,300,000.00	$8,114,820.17	$ 5,814,820.17
Mark Buehrle	CHA	54.2	$3,500,000.00	$8,778,907.25	$ 5,278,907.25
Cliff Politte	CHA	28.2	$800,000.00	$4,567,623.33	$ 3,767,623.33
Neal Cotts	CHA	23.7	$317,000.00	$3,838,747.27	$ 3,521,747.27
Tadahito Iguchi	CHA	28.0	$2,300,000.00	$4,535,228.84	$ 2,235,228.84
Brandon McCarthy	CHA	13.3	$316,000.00	$2,154,233.70	$ 1,838,233.70
Joe Crede	CHA	11.7	$340,000.00	$1,895,077.77	$ 1,555,077.77
Scott Podsednik	CHA	11.0	$400,000.00	$1,781,697.04	$ 1,381,697.04
Bobby Jenks	CHA	10.3	$316,000.00	$1,668,316.32	$ 1,352,316.32
Aaron Rowand	CHA	19.6	$2,000,000.00	$3,174,660.19	$ 1,174,660.19
Luis Vizcaino	CHA	14.9	$1,300,000.00	$2,413,389.63	$ 1,113,389.63
Damaso Marte	CHA	8.1	$500,000.00	$1,311,976.91	$ 811,976.91
Paul Konerko	CHA	52.8	$8,000,000.00	$8,552,145.81	$ 552,145.81
Dustin Hermanson	CHA	19.8	$2,750,000.00	$3,207,054.68	$ 457,054.68
A.J. Pierzynski	CHA	15.4	$2,250,000.00	$2,494,375.86	$ 244,375.86
Jermaine Dye	CHA	32.8	$5,075,000.00	$5,312,696.64	$ 237,696.64
Joe Borchard	CHA	1.4	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Chris Widger	CHA	0.8	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Felix Diaz	CHA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Arnie Munoz	CHA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Paulino Reynoso	CHA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Casey Rogowski	CHA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Sean Tracey	CHA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Ryan Wing	CHA	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Jeff Bajenaru	CHA	-0.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Pedro Lopez	CHA	-0.3	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Raul Casanova	CHA	-0.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Pablo Ozuna	CHA	-1.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
David Sanders	CHA	-1.7	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Brian Anderson	CHA	-1.8	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Geoff Blum	CHA	-6.9	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Jon Adkins	CHA	-2.6	$317,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -1,000.00
Ross Gload	CHA	-4.6	$318,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -2,000.00
Willie Harris	CHA	1.6	$318,500.00	$316,000.00	$ -2,500.00
Kevin Walker	CHA	-2.5	$450,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -134,000.00
Timo Perez	CHA	-10.1	$850,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -534,000.00
Freddy Garcia	CHA	45.6	$8,000,000.00	$7,385,944.11	$ -614,055.89
Carl Everett	CHA	11.8	$3,000,000.00	$1,911,275.01	$ -1,088,724.99
Juan Uribe	CHA	10.7	$3,250,000.00	$1,733,105.31	$ -1,516,894.69
Jose Contreras	CHA	41.5	$8,500,000.00	$6,721,857.03	$ -1,778,142.97
Orlando Hernandez	CHA	6.1	$4,000,000.00	$988,032.00	$ -3,011,968.00
Frank Thomas	CHA	8.4	$6,000,000.00	$1,360,568.65	$ -4,639,431.35

White Sox's 2005 Salary: $72,207,500.00
White Sox's RPS: $90,221,733.54
White Sox's Difference: $18,014,233.54

Braves:

PLAYER	TEAM	VORP	REAL SALARY	RPS	DIFF.
Jorge Sosa	ATL	41.1	$650,000.00	$6,657,068.05	$ 6,007,068.05
Marcus Giles	ATL	49.3	$2,500,000.00	$7,985,242.21	$ 5,485,242.21
Jeffrey Francoeur	ATL	21.7	$316,000.00	$3,514,802.35	$ 3,198,802.35
Horacio Ramirez	ATL	17.9	$330,000.00	$2,899,307.01	$ 2,569,307.01
Rafael Furcal	ATL	50.1	$5,600,000.00	$8,114,820.17	$ 2,514,820.17
Wilson Betemit	ATL	16.0	$316,000.00	$2,591,559.34	$ 2,275,559.34
Kyle Farnsworth	ATL	26.2	$1,975,000.00	$4,243,678.41	$ 2,268,678.41
Adam LaRoche	ATL	15.6	$316,000.00	$2,526,770.35	$ 2,210,770.35
Ryan Langerhans	ATL	12.9	$316,000.00	$2,089,444.72	$ 1,773,444.72
Blaine Boyer	ATL	11.0	$316,000.00	$1,781,697.04	$ 1,465,697.04
Julio Franco	ATL	14.4	$1,000,000.00	$2,332,403.40	$ 1,332,403.40
Brian McCann	ATL	9.2	$316,000.00	$1,490,146.62	$ 1,174,146.62
Johnny Estrada	ATL	7.9	$328,500.00	$1,279,582.42	$ 951,082.42
Pete Orr	ATL	7.3	$316,000.00	$1,182,398.95	$ 866,398.95
Kelly Johnson	ATL	6.4	$316,000.00	$1,036,623.73	$ 720,623.73
Chris Reitsma	ATL	12.8	$1,500,000.00	$2,073,247.47	$ 573,247.47
John Foster	ATL	4.2	$316,000.00	$680,284.33	$ 364,284.33
Kyle Davies	ATL	3.4	$316,000.00	$550,706.36	$ 234,706.36
Chuck James	ATL	2.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Frank Brooks	ATL	0.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Luis Hernandez	ATL	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Onil Joseph	ATL	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Bill McCarthy	ATL	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Tony Pena	ATL	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Scott Thorman	ATL	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Anthony Lerew	ATL	-0.1	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Macay McBride	ATL	-2.4	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Brayan Pena	ATL	-3.1	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Andy Marte	ATL	-6.4	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Tim Hudson	ATL	40.5	$6,750,000.00	$6,559,884.57	$ -190,115.43
Jay Powell	ATL	2.0	$600,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -284,000.00
Brian Jordan	ATL	-2.5	$600,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -284,000.00
Eddie Perez	ATL	0.1	$625,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -309,000.00
Todd Hollandsworth	ATL	-3.0	$900,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -584,000.00
John Thomson	ATL	9.4	$2,250,000.00	$1,522,541.11	$ -727,458.89
John Smoltz	ATL	60.0	$11,666,667.00	$9,718,347.51	$ -1,948,319.49
Andruw Jones	ATL	61.4	$12,500,000.00	$9,945,108.96	$ -2,554,891.04
Danny Kolb	ATL	-4.8	$3,500,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -3,184,000.00
Chipper Jones	ATL	48.9	$15,333,333.00	$7,920,453.22	$ -7,412,879.78
Mike Hampton	ATL	15.2	$12,975,288.00	$2,461,981.37	$ -10,513,306.63

Braves' 2005 Salary: $88,219,788.00
Braves' RPS: $96,214,099.68
Braves' Difference: $7,994,311.68

Well, how about the Diamondbacks while we're at it:

PLAYER	TEAM	VORP	REAL SALARY	RPS	DIFF.
Chad Tracy	ARI	47.2	$316,000.00	$7,645,100.04	$ 7,329,100.04
Brandon Webb	ARI	44.6	$335,000.00	$7,223,971.65	$ 6,888,971.65
Tony Clark	ARI	44.8	$750,000.00	$7,256,366.14	$ 6,506,366.14
Jose Valverde	ARI	21.5	$320,000.00	$3,482,407.86	$ 3,162,407.86
Craig Counsell	ARI	23.6	$1,550,000.00	$3,822,550.02	$ 2,272,550.02
Brandon Medders	ARI	12.5	$316,000.00	$2,024,655.73	$ 1,708,655.73
Alex Cintron	ARI	8.3	$335,000.00	$1,344,371.41	$ 1,009,371.41
Royce Clayton	ARI	12.3	$1,350,000.00	$1,992,261.24	$ 642,261.24
Kelly Stinnett	ARI	5.2	$316,000.00	$842,256.78	$ 526,256.78
Jason Bulger	ARI	0.1	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Dustin Nippert	ARI	0.1	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Mike Gosling	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Jerry Gil	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Enrique Gonzalez	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Josh Kroeger	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Bill Murphy	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Ramon Pena	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Marland Williams	ARI	0.0	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Andy Green	ARI	-0.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Luis Terrero	ARI	-0.4	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Brad Halsey	ARI	-1.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Lance Cormier	ARI	-1.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Koyie Hill	ARI	-1.8	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Conor Jackson	ARI	-2.5	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Scott Hairston	ARI	-3.2	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Edgar Gonzalez	ARI	-3.8	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Chris Snyder	ARI	-5.6	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Greg Aquino	ARI	-9.8	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Brian Bruney	ARI	-10.9	$316,000.00	$316,000.00	$ 0.00
Claudio Vargas	ARI	1.7	$323,500.00	$316,000.00	$ -7,500.00
Oscar Villarreal	ARI	0.4	$325,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -9,000.00
Brandon Lyon	ARI	-7.1	$330,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -14,000.00
Quinton McCracken	ARI	-2.4	$750,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -434,000.00
Buddy Groom	ARI	1.4	$850,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -534,000.00
Shawn Estes	ARI	7.0	$2,500,000.00	$1,133,807.21	$ -1,366,192.79
Tim Worrell	ARI	6.4	$2,750,000.00	$1,036,623.73	$ -1,713,376.27
Luis Gonzalez	ARI	35.5	$8,250,000.00	$5,750,022.28	$ -2,499,977.72
Troy Glaus	ARI	45.3	$11,250,000.00	$7,337,352.37	$ -3,912,647.63
Shawn Green	ARI	37.9	$10,500,000.00	$6,138,756.18	$ -4,361,243.82
Javier Vazquez	ARI	22.3	$9,000,000.00	$3,611,985.83	$ -5,388,014.17
Russ Ortiz	ARI	-20.4	$8,250,000.00	$316,000.00	$ -7,934,000.00

Diamondbacks' 2005 Salary: $66,986,500.00
Diamondbacks' RPS: $68,858,488.49
Diamondbacks' Difference: $1,871,988.49