Answers to fantasy baseball questions (and much more) since 1996
I think this move means that the Braves have a suitor in line for Wickman, though it’s hard to see how starting the clock can improve trade leverage.
If they don’t, and they’re just dumping his sorry self, especially since Dotel isn’t ready to step up, it is very much a break from tradition.
Who becomes the Braves’ closer?
Rafael Soriano wins in the near term, but this sure seems like it’s tied to another move.
We shall see.
The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Major League Baseball News
My early season naysaying about Hamels was based primarily on his fairly regular injury history until last year. Those who didn’t bite, or who bit at a lower price, benefited, since until now Hamels has been an excellent starting pitcher. This injury, which has been described as minor, doesn’t vindicate my earlier call. Hamels has done too much to shame my preseason precaution, but it does go part of the way to explain why we don’t pay full value for pitchers. They do a dangerous job.
An exhaustive profile of Clay Bucholz, the Red Sox phenom who has just been staked to a five run lead in this afternoon’s makeup game. His fantasy utility, even if he makes it stand up, is limited now, since he’ll be sent back to Pawuckett after the game, but expectations are sky high for the not so long run.
Also today, Detroit phenom Cameron Maybin was promoted and stalwart struggler Craig Monroe was designated for assignment. Monroe is one of those guys who seemed to bloom at a late age, and who is now fading early. Maybin is up for good if he can get on base, as a 19 year old, which is a big deal indeed. Or will be, if it works out. He’s played just four games at Double-A (homering three times).
On August 2 I linked to a baseballmusings.com chart showing the Mike Bacsik was the pitcher who threw to contact most this year, and noted the odd spell he seemed to have over Barry Bonds (who was 1-15 against Bacsik in his career at that point–that one hit a homer).
Since then Bacsik threw the pitch which Bonds hit to break the record. What are the odds of that?
Dan Wetzel – MLB – Yahoo! Sports
I’ve written a few times about the ridiculous screeds of Dan Wetzel, but held off (for the most part) after he wrote an article about how Bonds breaking the record was “Hollow, not hallowed.” (He’s the guy who used the degree by which Bonds broke Maris’s record as proof that he was juiced.)
What’s interesting is that he comes off as a much more sensible, thoughtful and serious guy responding to people’s criticisms of that piece. He actually acknowledges all the gray areas he ignores when he puts down a column, and is clearer about what is known, not known, and why that matters.
Good for him.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6570
I haven’t actually paid much attention to Bonds breaking the record. The superficial reasons are because I’ve been busy with my family, and my life, and something has to give.
Also, big career records are the result of circumstance. Nobody broke Babe Ruth’s career record in the 50s or 60s or 70s or 80s or even 90s because people didn’t hit so many home runs then. Is that because there weren’t great home run hitters then? Or is it because fewer home runs were hit? You be the judge.
But plenty of homers were hit in the 90s and 00s, and while that was happening to many hitters Barry Bonds eventually hit more major league home runs than anyone else.
When you read the BP tales linked to here you’ll have to decide whose smart ideas are valid and whose are crap. I admired that guy Ehrhardt’s 12 Monkey’s approach, though it’s pretty much a stunt. But he’s right that the question isn’t really worth our memory.
So I offer my take: All baseball records reflect the era in which they were set. This is inevitable. The dead ball is different than the live ball. Mound heights changed, expansion happened again and again. Ballparks got bigger. Ballparks got smaller. The DH. And certainly PEDs have played a role. So when we compare records across eras we’re inevitably comparing apples to papayas.
I find it incredible that some people still offer up Cy Young’s 511 wins as baseball’s most unbreakable record. Um, yeah.
Bonds’ achievement came within a context that also created A-Rod and Junior and Slammin’ Sammy and Canseco. I read a story the other day that talked about the percentage increase in Bonds’ record over Maris’s, without talking about the intervening records of McGwire and Sosa. [Sure, they might all be tainted by ‘roids, but they happened. Bonds did not break Maris’s record.]
There will never be a Davenport Translation that eliminates PEDs from the record. Not everyone used, and no one knows how much help the drugs are. I think it suffices to look at such things in the context in which they were created. If Clay Davenport (and Will Carroll) tell me that the contextual adjustments make Ruth No. 1 Career Home Run hitter and Bonds No. . . . Whoops, I don’t recall what they tell me about Bonds. That he’s either second or third all time, and either is fine by me.
But that’s what our statistical evaluation can do. If Bonds were the only steroid user his advantage would be incalculable. He would soar over everyone else. But we know others used, and we have no evidence that he used more than them. We know that many of them (at least half) were pitchers. In any case, all of that comes out within the context. Bonds setting the record looks more like Bonds establishing that he’s the best home run hitter of his era. That he set the career mark as well is trivia.
Of all the BP essays in this package, the one I admired most is Christina Kahrl’s. She’s an ambitious stylist, but in this case I think she also gets the race thing right. Maris beating the Babe (in baseball’s first expansion year) was the triumph of man over legend. Feh, the traditionalists said! Legends don’t fall to flawed men. Asterisk, please.
Aaron has always been derided for his lack of flash, for the duration of his career, for never hitting lots of homers in one season. But now, illuminated by Bonds’ strange light, he’s the paragon of self-esteem and integrity, the wounded party when Barry Bonds’ nouveau race man comes to town. Christina says it much more elegantly than I am here. How much hatred accrues to Bonds because he’s (probably) used steroids? How much because he’s broken the record? How much because he’s uppity?
None of us knows the exact answer, but I agree with Christina that the issue still bites and is still in play here.
I’m here to say that in my book Ruth is the greatest home run hitter, based on 1921 and 1927, but that Bonds deserves all the respect you can stomach giving him. And if that’s not a lot, then a lot more. He’s clearly a driven talent with both skills and dedication enough to set gargantuan records. If you think it’s the drugs that put him over the top, you still have to admire all that he accomplished without drugs. And it makes more sense to devalue the record than to decry Bonds’ achievement besting an arbitrary number into some sort of symbol of moral decay.
At least I do.
Allan Barra profiles Mike Long, the Yankees hitting coach. And he does a great job, as usual, of telling the story. Except for those pretentious WSJ style issues. [thanks to sportsfrog.com].
It looks like I failed to sign one of the questions in today’s Ask Rotoman column, and my editor ditched it because the column was running long and without a witty sig what use was it?
But you shouldn’t suffer because I missed a stroke. So here it is:
TRADE
Rotoman:
Making a trade. If I have my choice of Cole Hamels or Erik Bedard (K and K/BB) make 6 categories; who do I go for?
“Starting Switchâ€
Dear Switch:
How many times am I going to pick someone over Hamels this year? This time, at least, I’m going with a guy who is already a Cy Young candidate after being named the AL’s Pitcher of the Month in July. That is Bedard, of course, who is older and more experienced and has bettered the impressive Hamels in every category this year. But not by that much.
Bashfully,
Rotoman
I’m trying to think how I would have worded my statement, if I were the commissioner. I can’t imagine a situation in which I, the exalted commish with excellent knowledge, would have released Bud’s weak-assed document.
I think something along the lines of: “Barry Bonds has hit as many major league home runs as any player ever has. I will be traveling with the Giants to make sure tha t I see the record breaking homer when he achieves what no other hitter has done.”
That’s it. Sometime soon Barry Bonds is going to break the record. Those of us who follow and track baseball stats know that Bonds’ total homers don’t equal the achievement of Babe Ruth. Not when the stats are equalized. But that’s background for argument and bar rooms and sabermetrics. If the question is who hit the most homers in mlb history, why would the commissioner shrink from declaring Bonds the one?
The Official Site of Major League Baseball
I only bring this up because despite the awesome resources MLB and ESPN and CBS and YAHOO and other bring to the mix, and the changes it has made to the way we play fantasy baseball, I’ve seen scant attention to two players who have been added by subtraction, as it were.
Alexi Casillia is the new Twins second baseman. If his bat can keep him in the lineup his legs will help fantasy owners.
The early line on the Teixeira trade was that Brad Wilkerson would benefit, but in fact he’ll just keep limping on. Jason Botts is the guy who was promoted after an impressive Triple-A run and will get as many or more at bats than Wilkerson.
Both Casillia and Botts have had problems actually hitting the ball, which could be a major league problem, but they do take walks. And they’re not known quantities, which make each a golden ticket at this late date.
(That I happen to have both on reserve in my AL only 4×4 ADL league is merely coincidence. Well, and maybe keen scouting.)