Players

Mitchell Report to Name Names

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Newsvine

This post is mostly to express my weariness about the forthcoming Mitchell report. Since everybody else in the world seems to have an opinion, why not me? Mine is that all discussion before the report is released, including leaks of tantalizing tidbits that don’t actually include information, should be taken in the form of PR people spinning, since at this point none of us know anything real about the report.

My ears did perk up when someone leaked that there would be surprises. I’ll be surprised (but hardly shocked) if that’s the case.

Yardbarker: Dontrelle Willis

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welcome

I’m eternally dubious of enterprises like Yardbarker, simply because when I get there I can’t figure out what it is I want. But reading Dontrelle’s take on the trade, well, Nuthing Compares 2 It.

And I think there’s no doubt that Dontrelle wrote his stuff (no PR guy wrote it, though it was probably vetted), which changes the whole idea of news. Which, I think, is a good thing.

I say that as if news wasn’t already a version of PR.

Good stuff, Dontrelle, keep it up.

Walt Jocketty and the Search for Golden Arms

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Squawking Baseball

This somewhat rambling analysis of how to stock your pitching staff (if you’re a major league GM) strikes me as very smart. Don’t pay a lot because you need a lot. Pay a little because if you take enough small chances you can find a lot in the pool.

I think we need some real studies of what happens (namely, where the good pitchers on good teams came from) to buy into this fully, but given Rany’s survey of drafts it makes total sense to me that the best investment is in hitters.

And certainly major league teams are going this way now.

Barry Bonds – A guide to help you cut through the noise

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The Hardball Times

I’m a little skeptical about these grand jury cases where the prosecution offers someone immunity from prosecution in return for testimony, then asks questions for which the honest answers would be personally damaging, then prosecutes for perjury.  As you can imagine, I’m thinking Barry Bonds, Scooter Libby, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton.

It isn’t that perjury isn’t a crime, but that somehow the immunity grant seems to be a special sort of torture for public figures whose reputations will be damaged by truthful testimony. The right answer, obviously, is for them to testify truthfully, but I certainly understand their decisions to try and save their asses by lying.

Keith Scherer’s informative walk through the issues in the Barry Bonds case at Hardball Times doesn’t get into that, but instead walks us through the hard issues of what happens when federal prosecuters decide to indict someone. The answers can’t be comforting to the Bonds defense team, which no doubt knows all this.

If there is real evidence I don’t know why Bonds isn’t copping a plea, and I suppose there is still time for that. But it looks like if he defends himself this thing is going to be going on for a long time. (thanks baseballmusings.com)

Web based PITCHf/x tool

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The Hardball Times

Josh Kalk has taken the first big step toward taming the PITCHf/x data that MLB collects and allows researchers access to. MLB’s freeness with the data promises to be a boon for sabermetrics and Kalk’s database front end, which allows you to compare how pitchers throw to different hitters and vice versa, with results displayed graphically is an inspiring beginning.

Kalk is talking about having splits ready by Christmas, and non-graphical data sometime soon, too.

I don’t have time right now to sift through all of this, but it’s potential importance makes me give thanks.

Thanks, Josh. Keep up the good work.

Dawson’s Freak

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Joe Posnanski

I’m always awed by Joe Posnanski’s enthusiasm, which drives his stories. Is Andre Dawson in 1987 the worst MVP pick of all time? Could be, but the Hawk was winning me Rotisserie League money back in those days, and he was a gas to watch play the game. That arm, those arms! Dawson was no fraud. Enjoy and discuss.

Brewers’ Braun are top rookies – MLB

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ESPN

Ryan Braun deserves the Rookie of the Year award, though you can make a case for Troy Tulowitsky, too. The problem looking forward is Braun’s defense. He says: “Everybody has things they need to work on.”

This is true, but kind of irrelevant. It seems unlikely that Braun is going to be able to fix his defensive problems at third base, and in the outfield he will be playing in a totally different context. He may end up being a prodigious performer there. Or he may end up hanging at third for a while despite his deficiencies. Miguel Cabrera has held the fort at third base, though he’s really not suited for it.

But that’s the issue. These guys can hit. Can they find a position (and will their team commit to it) that does their skills justice? And as fantasy players how long will we be able to exploit this inefficiency (since we don’t count defense)?

Players changing positions are always a risk, and I would think doubly so when coming off such an unconscious season as Braun’s. That’s a little reason to doubt, and to not push him up the extra dollar when someone else is.

Unfiltered Nate Silver

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Baseball Prospectus

Nate appears to have uncovered something really interesting. Platoon differentials are based on the pitcher, not the hitter (mostly).

This is a reason to pay attention to platoon splits again, if they’re based on lefty hitters (righties don’t show no bias).

Nate finds some specific uses for this data in his article, but I’m not sure it’s going to matter as much in the real world as it might in roto. Any time it’s better not to play than to play, fantasy owners take notice.

Yankees, A-Rod, and Game Theory

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Sabernomics

JC Bradbury explains quite credibly why the Yankees won’t be signing A-Rod (it has something to do with beer at kids birthday parties), but doesn’t get into why A-Rod (led, no doubt, by Scott Boras) opted out so quickly. I think I have a good idea.

Given the 10 day window for opting out (and negotiating) with the Yankees, Boras/A-Rod were looking at intense scrutiny and no leverage. Sure, the Yankees bid would be subsidized by the Rangers, but Boras would be unable to counter it with other offers he was receiving. He won’t know how high the Yankees would have gone, but given the overall numbers he’s seeking, $21M is a rounding error (nearly). And if they didn’t go high enough he’d be looking at an offer that would surely have been made public and would be seen (probably) as something of an upper limit in his negotiations with other teams.

So, Boras/A-Rod rejected the Yanks before they had a chance to define the negotiations (and possibly reject A-Rod), and thus opened up a competition among all the other teams for A-Rod’s services. I think this surely means that Rodriguez wasn’t serious when he said how much he wanted to play in NY, and I will be surprised when some team signs him for more than it appears the Yankees were offering (a bump up in the final three years of his current agreement to $31M or so, and an extension for five more after that, or $248M, is what I heard). [link thanks to baseballmusings.com]