My good friend Alex Belth is not sold on Jeremy Lin as an NBA star. At this point, that’s an extremely reasonable position. He does point to this Wall Street Journal article, however, that speaks to Lin’s talents:
When he’s close to the basket, he starts an “in-and-out” dribble with his knees bent and his arm straight forward, creating the idea he can go inside or outside—and he does both. All of this is combined with what Jerome Jordan calls a “lethal first step.” Lin is, in short, the NBA’s undetectable star.
“He’s got these moves—he’s so fast and he’s not playing high, he’s playing so low that he’s attacking your knees with this dribble. It’s in a place where as soon as you make a move he just blows past you,” Shumpert said. “To be that low, to have it that far out with your arms, it’s pretty rare. I’ve never seen it.”
My freshman year of high school (Central HS, Bridgeport, CT) our basketball team won the state championship. Our team was small, the tallest player at 6′ 3″. They could jump, however. I remember on tip offs, the Central players would get very low, almost in a split. Opponents took a normal jump ball stance, and our players would almost always out jump them. They were coiling springs, and they came to mind when I watched Rickey Henderson hit, and now Bryce Harper. Lin seems to have discovered this trick as well.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:18 am | Other, Players | Permalink | No Comments
February 8, 2012
No Arb for Andrus
Elvis Andrus signed a three-year, $15 million contract that avoids arbitration for the Rangers and their shortstop.
The Rangers have a 19-year-old budding star shortstop in the minors, Jurickson Profar. When Elvis’s contract is up, the youngster should be ready to take over the position.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:28 am | Transactions | Permalink | No Comments
February 8, 2012
Generating Interest
The singing of Prince Fielder already paid off at the box office:
A by-product of that enthusiasm is the increase in season-ticket sales. Dombrowski said the Tigers already had eclipsed last year’s total of 15,000 full-season sales.
The Tigers winning the AL Central helped as well, but Fielder helps make a repeat more likely.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:19 am | Attendance, Tickets | Permalink | 2 Comments
February 8, 2012
MoneyCrunch
It’s seems the city of Oakland can’t play money ball:
The state take-back of redevelopment money has forced the city to abandon plans for a waterfront ballpark — the linchpin of efforts to keep the A’s in Oakland.
“We are no longer advocating for Victory Court,” Gregory Hunter, head of the soon-to-be-dissolved Oakland Redevelopment Agency, said Monday during a meeting of the Alameda County supervisors.
The city can no longer afford Victory Court without redevelopment dollars, Hunter said.
That means the focus is solely on revamping the O.co Coliseum complex with retail, restaurants, hotels and new sports facilities for the Raiders and Warriors.
Unfortunately, the city may not have the money to do the environmental impact study on the Coliseum area, due to accounting shenanigans.
Hat tip, The Hardball Times.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:01 am | Stadiums, Team Movements | Permalink | No Comments
February 7, 2012
Beane a Long Time
The Oakland Athletics extended Billy Beane’s contract through the 2019 season. That will give him 23 years as GM of the Athletics at the end of the deal. Along with Brian Sabean, the similarly named Bay Area GMs are the longest serving in their positions.
My favorite Beany:
Posted by David Pinto at 8:19 pm | Management | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 7, 2012
Naming Rights
Harvard Law School now has an interestingly named bathroom.
Harvard College uses a residential house system, similar to the residential college system at Oxford and Cambridge. I lived in Mather House, and most of the houses are named after former presidents of the university. President Hoar, however, did not get the honor. 
Posted by David Pinto at 7:54 pm | Other | Permalink | No Comments
February 7, 2012
Kershaw Ka-ching
The Dodgers avoided arbitration with Clayton Kershaw, signing him to a two-year contract:
The Los Angeles Dodgers have avoided arbitration with National League Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw by agreeing to a two-year, $19 million contract with the pitcher, the team said on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old, who became the youngest person to win Major League Baseball’s top pitching award in 26 years last November, earned $500,000 for the 2011 season and was in his first year of arbitration eligibility.
I find it interesting that the Dodgers did not buy out the rest of his arbitration years. I suspect they will leave that to the new owner. The Dodgers did a good job of keeping Kershaw in the minors long enough that they effectively received four seasons from him before he became eligible for arbitration.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:45 pm | Pitchers, Transactions | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 7, 2012
Changes, Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles finished in fifth place in the AL East in 2011. The highlight of the season may have been the last game of the year. They came back to beat the Red Sox 4-3, ending Boston’s bid for a wild card. The Orioles only saw four outstanding seasons in 2011, Matt Wieters and J.J. Hardy posting bWARs around four wins, and reliever Jim Johnson and the departed Jeremy Guthrie coming in at about three wins above replacement. Neither the offense nor the pitching was all that great.
Jason Hammel hopes to be an innings eater for the Orioles in 2012. Photo: Icon SMI
The Orioles acquired the following players during the off season:
- Matt Antonelli, inf
- Wilson Betemit, inf
- Endy Chavez, of
- Wei-Yin Chen, p
- Dan Duquette, GM
- Dana Eveland, p
- Jason Hammel, p
- Matt Lindstrom, p
- Jai Miller, of
- Darren O’Day, p
- Taylor Teagarden, c
- Tsuyoshi Wada, p
These are not exactly star-studded acquisitions. If you look through the list of players, however, you start to notice that they do some things well.
- Matt Antonelli gets on base.
- Wilson Betemit can hit for power.
- Endy Chavez is above average defensively.
- Wei-Yin Chen owned a high K/BB in Japan.
- Dana Eveland keeps he ball in the park.
- Jason Hammel has good control.
- Matt Lindstrom owns great walk and home run numbers.
- Jai Miller showed some pop in his bat in the minors, although some of that came in the old PCL.
- Darren O’Day has great control.
- 37 of Taylor Teagarden’s 77 hits have gone for extra bases.
- Tsuyoshi Wada showed an excellent K/BB in Japan.
So what Dan Duquette did with his limited resources is bring in players who do something well. Buck Showalter‘s history shows that the manager is very good at putting players in situations where they can succeed. It’s much more work to manage a team like this, and I doubt it will be a great team. With enough players put in the right spots, however, the Orioles might turn in a .500 season. I like these moves.
Posted by David Pinto at 6:20 pm | Team Evaluation | Permalink | No Comments
February 7, 2012
Kid Sleuth
MLB posts a story about Cam Perron, a 17-year-old Negro League expert who is finding and documenting lost players, helping some of them collect pension money. It’s a great read.
Posted by David Pinto at 1:28 pm | History | Permalink | No Comments
February 7, 2012
Clyburn Killed
Danny Clyburn succumbed to a gunshot wound:
Danny Clyburn Jr., a former baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, died in a Lancaster shooting early Tuesday morning, police say.
Clyburn, 37, was shot at about 2 a.m. at a home at 618 N. Market Street, Lancaster police said.
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
Clyburn played a very short time in the majors, amassing just 118 plate appearances. He actually had a bit of pop, with eight of his 23 hits going for extra bases.
Hat tip, Hardball Talk.
Posted by David Pinto at 1:20 pm | Deaths | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 7, 2012
Lin Starts
Jeremy Lin, NBA starter.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:06 am | Other | Permalink | No Comments
February 7, 2012
The Next Hamilton Contract
Baseball Time in Arlington doesn’t see Josh Hamilton losing all that much leverage due to his alcohol relapse:
The Rangers are bargaining from a position where they are forced by necessity to include the risk of a relapse — or more than one relapse — into their overall risk assessment and offer sheets to the Hamilton camp. You could make the case that last week’s incident gave them cause to ratchet up that risk a little bit higher, but you could also make the case that what happened last week was a function of seemingly exigent circumstances, with whatever stress was being created by the contract talks being compounded by his unspecified family situation, a lack of baseball to keep him preoccupied, and the lack of a team-appointed accountability partner.
You could, then, make the argument that these were unusual circumstances that may not arise to such an extreme degree again during his time spent in the Rangers organization, and that the greatest concern should still lie with his expected production/health, as opposed to a greatly enhanced concern that his sobriety will falter altogether over the next 4-5 years.
This may be a case in which the guaranteed contracts of MLB may hurt the player. If the Rangers were allowed to write a drug and alcohol clause into the contract in which Hamilton would lose his salary if a drug or alcohol relapse prevented him playing, the Rangers would have some security in offering him more money, and Hamilton would have a giant incentive to stay sober. Given the high rate of relapse among addicts, I wonder if it is in the interest of any team to offer a long term deal. The right compromise might be a two-year deal with a series of team options, so Hamilton always has something to play for.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:36 am | Management, Players | Permalink | 4 Comments
February 6, 2012
Changes, Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves finished second in the NL East in 2011, losing the wild card spot on the last day of the season, the most exciting evening of baseball ever. The offense lacked for a star, as 39-year-old Chipper Jones produced the highest bWAR at 2.8 wins in 2011. On the other hand, five pitchers produced bWARs of at least three wins. Three of those were relievers, however. A combination of a lack of offense and not so great starting pitching put pressure on the pen to hold leads.
The Braves did not add any players from other teams to their major league roster over the winter. The did let go of the following major contributors:
- Brooks Conrad, inf
- Alex Gonzalez, ss
- Derek Lowe, p
- Scott Linebrink, p
- Nate McLouth, of
- George Sherrill
Most of these players were in the mid 30s, McLouth the youngest would play 2012 as a 30 year old. There have been rumors of a Braves trade for a shortstop all winter, but the right deal never came along. Chipper Jones feels good, and will return for one more try, but he is not the superstar of his youth. For all intents and purposes, the Braves have moved into rebuilding mode. They’ll sport a younger team, with Michael Bourn, Brian McCann and Jones at the heart of the offense. Jason Heyward is still very young, and Atlanta hopes he’ll fully recover from an injury plagued 2011 season. There’s a very good chance the Braves offense will be better in 2012.
I do worry about the bullpen, however. Craig Kimbrel, Jonny Venters, and Eric O’Flaherty worked very hard in 2012, with great success. The problem with relief pitchers is that any amount of work represents a small sample size. All three of them could turn in poor performances in 2012, either from Fredi Gonzalez working them too much, or just regression to the mean. With Tim Hudson undergoing back surgery this winter, the team really doesn’t have a proven innings eater on the staff. If the Braves depend on the pen as they did in 2011, they could be in real trouble.
It looks to me like the Braves will test out youngsters this season, see who can play, then build from there. For the last 20 years, this organization allowed veterans to leave and youngsters to play, and reaped the rewards for efficient use of the team’s money. This may not be a playoff year for Atlanta, but the turnaround likely won’t take long.
Posted by David Pinto at 5:09 pm | Team Evaluation | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 6, 2012
Sanchez Gets a February Win
Anibal Sanchez won his arbitration case with the Marlins and will make $8 million this year.
The Miami Marlins and starting pitcher Anibal Sanchez went to arbitration this weekend to decide between a salary of $6.9 million (Marlins) and $8 million (Sanchez), and in this case, Sanchez won his offer (H/T MLB Daily Dish). It turns out that this deal is actually the largest that a pitcher has ever received when going to arbitration, though obviously pitchers have earned much more during their arbitration years due to extensions and such.
Read the whole thing, as FishStripes expects the Marlins to treat Sanchez like Carl Pavano and A.J. Burnett and let someone else pay Anibal the really big money.
Posted by David Pinto at 4:27 pm | Pitchers | Permalink | No Comments
February 6, 2012
Rockies Get an Ace
The Rockies acquired Jeremy Guthrie from the Orioles for starter Jason Hammel and reliever Matt Lindstrom:
The final piece came together when Guthrie agreed to a contract before his arbitration hearing today. After submitting a $10.25 million request, the right-hander settled on a one-year contract close to the $8.5 million combined salaries of Hammel and Lindstrom to push the trade to the finish line. Guthrie has a home in Salt Lake City and attended Stanford.
Guthrie gets to pitch closer to home. Guthrie pitches to contract, with low walk and strikeout rates. He is not a ground ball pitcher, however, so I’m wondering how many home runs he will allow in Colorado. The Rockies will need a good defense behind him.
With Hammel, the Orioles get a bit younger in the rotation, as Jason is four years younger than Jeremy. His strikeout rate suffered a big dip in 2011, however, so he may be heading to the downside early. The pitcher to watch his Lindstrom, who improved his control in each of the last two seasons and does a good job of keeping the ball in the park. Basically, this looks to me like a short term rotation fix for the Rockies, and getting two players for the price of one for the Orioles, making their spending a little more efficient.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:44 am | Uncategorized | Permalink | No Comments
February 6, 2012
Kidnap Story
Via Hardball Talk, Sports Illustrated details the kidnapping of Wilson Ramos, including the conspiracy theories making the rounds in Venezuela.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:13 am | Crime | Permalink | No Comments
February 6, 2012
The One Hit
Chris Jaffe tells you everything you wanted to know about the players who recorded he only hit in game.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:25 am | Feats | Permalink | No Comments
February 6, 2012
He Must Have ESPN
Justin Verlander called the Super Bowl.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:21 am | Predictions | Permalink | No Comments
February 6, 2012
Win Probabilities
The Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective argue that Bill Belichick made the right call allowing the Giants to score with a minute left in the game.
But no one knew that his score would decide the game. Before he ran the ball in, the Giants had 0.94 win probability (per Advanced NFL Stats). After the play, the Giants’ win probability dropped to 0.85. Had he instead taken a Brian Westbrook or Maurice Jones-Drew-esque knee on the goal line, the Giants would have had a 0.96 win probability. Assuming the Patriots used their final time out, the Giants would have had 3rd and Goal from the 1-yard line with around 1:04 left to play. At this point, the Giants could either attempt to score a touchdown or take a knee. Assuming the touchdown try was unsuccessful or that Eli Manning kneeled, the Giants could have let the clock run all the way down to 0:25 before using the Giants’ final time out. With 4th and Goal from the 2 with 25 seconds left to play, the Giants would have a 0.92 win probability, 0.07 higher than after Bradshaw scored the touchdown of his life.
I respectfully disagree. First, I assume those probabilities are based on every 20-yard field goal kicked, most of which are probably made in no pressure situations. With the championship on the line, the Patriots would have to assume that three players would hold up under pressure; the snapper, the holder and the kicker. We saw a bad snap by the Giants earlier in the game, but NY recovered and just made the field goal.
Second, the analysis doesn’t take into account defending the touchdown play. If the Pats went after Bradshaw, he might have fumbled. The Giants might have fumbled a snap when trying to take a knee. Given that Eli could not manage the play clock, there could have been a penalty that pushed the ball back and made the field goal more difficult.
Finally, I would rather defend a lead and force the other team to beat me. When the Patriots allowed the Giants to score, they put all the pressure on themselves in a low probability win scenario. I’m sorry, Belichick gave this game away. He should have had the Pats defense fight to the end.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:06 am | Strategy | Permalink | 8 Comments
February 5, 2012
Tweet of the Night
Update: I didn’t do as well as this guy.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:18 pm | Other | Permalink | No Comments
February 5, 2012
Spring Training Deal
The Orange County Register finds a great hotel deal for those of you traveling to Arizona for Spring Training.
Posted by David Pinto at 2:30 pm | Spring Training | Permalink | No Comments
February 5, 2012
Changes, Arizona Diamondbacks
Trevor Cahill looks to improve an already strong Arizona rotation. Photo: Icon SMI
The Arizona Diamondbacks finished 2011 as the NL West Champions, losing to the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS. Arizona’s pitching served as the strength of the team, with five pitchers providing a bWAR in excess of two wins, 13.2 total for those five pitchers. The offensive strength concentrated in four position players, all producing bWARs over 3.0, a total of 12.8.
The team added the following players over the winter:
- Jonathan Albaladejo, p
- Craig Breslow, p
- Trevor Cahill, p
- Jason Kubel, of
- Joe Martinez, p
- Takashi Saito, p
- Craig Tatum, c
- Mike Zagurski, p
Once again, the team concentrated mostly on pitching. Trevor Cahill gives them four starters capable of throwing 200 innings. Arizona starters threw 1004 innings in 2011, sixth most in the majors. That’s 60 innings fewer than the first place Phillies, and Cahill may help move them past that in 2012. In addition, this is a very young rotation, with Joe Saunders possibly the only starter over 30. Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Josh Collmenter, and Cahill are all 27 or younger. That means most of the rotation will be in their prime years for the next three or four seasons.
A deep starting staff means the bullpen becomes less important, but after a total relief breakdown in 2010, the Diamondbacks made a number of moves to deepen the relieve corps in 2012. Craig Breslow will likely see the most action of the relievers acquired in the off season.
On offense, there was only one major move, the acquistion of Jason Kubel. This move was met with some dismay, as Kubel is entering the down phase of his career, while Geraldo Parra posted a decent season in 2011 as a 24-year-old. Kubel’s bWAR for the last two seasons combined does not equal Parra’s bWAR for 2011. The deal for Kubel suggests the Diamonbacks don’t believe Parra’s 2011 season was for real. I will note that the Diamondbacks were weak at first base in 2011. If internal solutions such as Paul Goldschmidt don’t work out, it could be possible to move Kubel to first base. Carrying four outfielders capable of starting also gives the Diamondbacks insurance against a major injury in the outfield. I remember people thinking the Yankees went into the 1975 season with too many outfielders (Eliot Maddux, Bobby Bonds, Roy White, and Lou Piniella), but injuries forced them to use both Thurman Munson and Rick Dempsey in the outfield in the same game.
While the Diamondbacks didn’t stand pat, they did not address two points of weakness, the middle infield and first base. The got away with injuries and poor play there in 2011. Maybe that will work again. The team should be in contention in 2012.
Posted by David Pinto at 11:48 am | Team Evaluation | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 5, 2012
Harvard Man Makes Good
Congratulations to Jeremy Lin on a career game last night for the Knicks. It looks like he’ll stick in the NBA for a while.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:54 am | Other | Permalink | No Comments
February 5, 2012
Masked Man
Buster Posey will experiment with a traditional catcher’s mask this year to see if the mask/helmet combination feels better when he takes a foul tip off the head.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:54 am | Injuries, Players | Permalink | 3 Comments
February 4, 2012
The $2 Billion Team
Bill Madden notes that Frank McCourt is suddenly well liked in baseball circles:
Ever so gradually, Frank McCourt has gone from the most villified owner in baseball to everyone’s guardian angel; from Bud Selig’s worst nightmare to the commissioner’s fondest dream.
Such is the stunning fallout from McCourt plunging the Los Angeles Dodgers into bankruptcy court and the subsequent forced auction in which seven or eight of the richest men in America are all bidding against each other for the right to own one of baseball’s signature franchises. The first elimination round was completed last week with those advancing all committed to paying a minimum of $1.5 billion for the team. When you consider the previous highest price a baseball team fetched was the $845 million from Tom Ricketts for the Chicago Cubs in 2009, this is staggering, especially when you also consider the substantial wealth of all the remaining bidders will surely drive the ultimate sale price to $2 billion.
Imagine what the team would be worth if McCourt was a proper proprietor! Madden also notes this is very good news for the Mets, since the New York franchise should be worth quite a bit of money as well.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:02 pm | Owners | Permalink | 2 Comments
February 4, 2012
Weighty Issue
Pablo Sandoval worked on his weight again this winter. He thanked Brian Sabean:
Sandoval told several reporters that part of his extra weight is muscle from his winter workouts in Arizona. He did not look hefty as he sat in a suite at AT&T Park, and Sandoval insisted he has learned his lesson after struggling through the 2010 season, when he was his heaviest.
“I say, ‘Thank you’ every time I can to Brian Sabean for being tough with me,” Sandoval said.
It certainly paid off, given his contract extension.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:55 am | Players | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 4, 2012
Estranged Family
Cecil Fielder didn’t do much to patch things up with his son Prince Fielder at Cecil’s induction to the Ted Williams Hitting Hall of Fame. I hope they figure this out someday.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:46 am | Players | Permalink | No Comments
February 4, 2012
Open Mind
Davey Johnson convinced Mike Rizzo to keep an open mind about starting the season with Bryce Harper on the Nationals big league roster. I’m guessing there will be a compromise where Harper goes down long enough that the Nationals get seven years of control out of him, similar to what the Rays did with Evan Longoria. I also expect if Harper hits well in the big leagues that the Nationals sign him long term fairly early.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:22 am | Management, Players | Permalink | 4 Comments
February 4, 2012
Bad Week Continues
Brian Cashman’s wife served him with divorce papers. This whole mess keeps sounding like a bad movie of the week.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:18 am | Management | Permalink | 2 Comments
February 3, 2012
Owners Two for Two
The Rays won their arbitration case against Jeff Niemann.
Posted by David Pinto at 4:25 pm | Pitchers | Permalink | No Comments
Bad Behavior has blocked 2333 access attempts in the last 7 days.