Reports that the Yankees were about to sign Gary Sheffield appear to be premature.
Despite the urge to respond to Boston’s acquisition of Curt Schilling, the Yankees are holding firm in their negotiations with Sheffield, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney has learned. The Yankees are offering the free-agent outfielder a three-year deal with an annual salary of $11 [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 12:12 pm | Free Agents | Permalink | No Comments
November 29, 2003
SABR Meeting
I attended the meeting of the Southern New England chapter of SABR today. They had two interesting guests; Joe Morgan, the former manager of the Red Sox, and Art Johnson, a lefty pitcher for the Braves in the early 40’s.
Joe Morgan gave a presentation that was part recollections, part trivia. Two questions he [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:33 pm | Other | Permalink | No Comments
November 29, 2003
Significance
I must be tired lately, because it’s taken me a few days to get a handle on what’s bothering me about productive outs. Here’s the line that’s bothering me:
Base on balls are a fundamental piece of the Athletics’ offensive philosophy, but statistically, they have shown to have slightly less significance than Productive Outs in [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:43 am | Statistics | Permalink | No Comments
November 29, 2003
SABR Meeting
I will be attending the meeting of the Southern New England Chapter of SABR with my good friend Jim Storer today. If you are there, be sure to say hi. Joe Morgan, the former manager of the Red Sox will be the guest speaker at 11 AM.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:36 am | Other | Permalink | No Comments
November 29, 2003
Thrilling Trade
The Red Sox pulled it off, and worked a deal to bring Curt Schilling to Boston. It’s a trade that helps both clubs; the Diamondbacks cut their payroll without decimating their roster and the Red Sox dramatically improve their rotation.
Ed Zipper points out to me that Schilling was interested in more than money:
Schilling also [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 7:23 am | Trades | Permalink | No Comments
November 27, 2003
Productive Outs Definition
Yesterday I started discussing productive outs. I’m starting to look at data, and the definition they published yesterday isn’t quite accurate. It appears they do not count double plays that advance runners as productive outs, at least in the case where a there are men on first and second and the DP advances [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 7:23 am | Statistics | Permalink | No Comments
November 27, 2003
Happy Thanksgiving
I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, and hope you get to enjoy time with your family and friends today. I especially wish to thank our armed forces for their service in difficult times. I appreciate all you do.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:10 am | Other | Permalink | No Comments
November 26, 2003
Kots-A
The A’s and Padres have finally consumated this deal. Long and Hernandez move to the Padres, and Mark Kotsay joins the A’s. I haven’t seen any speculation about who the new cather will be, although I suspect he will come from the farm system.
Posted by David Pinto at 2:16 pm | Trades | Permalink | No Comments
November 26, 2003
Outs, Productive Outs and the Unproductive People Who Write about Them
J Lentner writes:
I guess one could applaud ESPN for giving equal time to the traditionalists with , the first in a promised series on productive outs. What really makes his case for the productive out laughable is the accompanying box. Florida won the PO battle 9-5 yet was outscored 21-17. So the [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:04 am | Statistics | Permalink | 1 Comment
November 25, 2003
Nothern-Lee
The Cubs and Marlins made an excellent trade, swapping first basemen Hee Seop Choi and Derrek Lee. Lee will bring some much needed OBA to the Cubs lineup, and I suspect Wrigley will help his power numbers. In return, the Marlins are getting a younger first basemen who has had great minor league [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:11 pm | Trades | Permalink | 2 Comments
November 25, 2003
Neyer on Steroids
Rob Neyer has a very sane piece on the steroid problem at ESPN.com.
I wish somebody could wave a magic wand and eliminate all illegal and/or dangerous performance-enhancing substances from professional sports. Who knows, maybe we’ll get there someday. But today, right now, steroids and Human Growth Hormone and all the rest are a part of [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:16 am | Cheating | Permalink | No Comments
November 24, 2003
Warren Spahn Passes
Warren Spahn died today at the age of 82. He was part of the famous rhyme of the Boston Braves, “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” My deepest sympathy goes out to his family and friends.
Spahn was my standard trivia answer when I could narrow the question to pitching in the 1950s. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 6:54 pm | All-Time Greats | Permalink | 4 Comments
November 24, 2003
Schilling a Red Sox?
There’s a report that Curt Schilling has been traded to the Red Sox. ESPN.com has it has breaking news on their baseball page, but nothing official. Nothing on Google News yet, either.
Update: Here’s a link to an actual story. And according to this on The Sports Network, Schilling has a no-trade clause [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:23 pm | Trades | Permalink | No Comments
November 24, 2003
Yankees Plans
This Daily News article sketches out the Yankees plans for the off-season. The big idea now is to corner the Matsui market and put Kaz at second, move Soriano to the outfield, move Bernie Williams to DH, Hideki to center and Sheffield to right. The odd man out in this scenario is Nick [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 2:37 pm | Management | Permalink | No Comments
November 24, 2003
Steroid Find?
ESPN.com is reporting that substances retrieved from Greg Anderson’s home may be anabolic steroids. Of course, it’s from an unnamed source, so take that for what it’s worth. Anderson is Barry Bonds trainer, and the raid was part of the investigation of BALCO.
A search of Greg Anderson’s house also discovered information that detailed [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 11:30 am | Cheating | Permalink | No Comments
November 23, 2003
The Business of Baseball
Excellent column by Peter Gammons on the challenges facing baseball.
But whether or not they are colluding is part of a larger issue — that after the 10 months of aborted contraction and messy labor negotiations (on both sides) when they finally did reach an agreement, they had an opportunity to move forward and try to [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 5:44 pm | Management | Permalink | No Comments
November 23, 2003
Stenson Investigation
Arizona detectives have searched the home of Jennifer Gaddis and questioned her in Indiana.
Arizona detectives served a search warrant and spent much of Friday questioning an Indiana woman they consider to be “an investigative lead” in the execution-style killing of Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson.
The woman, Stenson’s ex-girlfriend, sent a series of threatening and [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:56 am | Crime | Permalink | No Comments
November 22, 2003
Defense At Third
I wanted to look at individual third basemen next. One reader wondered about Eric Chavez; he had been rated very high by other systems over the last few years, but the Oakland third basemen in total did not do well under this probabilistic system. Chavez comes out about average under this method, but [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 2:05 pm | Defense | Permalink | No Comments
November 22, 2003
Deals
Tino Martinez was traded to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for a minor league pitcher. The reality of this deal is that the Cardinals gave Tino away. They are picking up most of his contract for next year, so he’s only going to cost the DRays about $1,000,000. Of course, if the [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 1:41 pm | Transactions | Permalink | No Comments
November 22, 2003
Musings Interview
Rich Lederer interviewed me for his blog, Rich’s Weekend Baseball Beat. Enjoy.
Posted by David Pinto at 1:25 pm | Interviews | Permalink | No Comments
November 21, 2003
Defensive Regression
Part three of Michael Humphreys defensive regression analysis is up on Baseball Primer.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:30 pm | Defense | Permalink | No Comments
November 21, 2003
First Base Range
It’s time to start looking at the range of individual players. I’m starting with first basemen, since people have noticed the wide disparity between the A’s and Devil Rays. This table contains data for all first basemen who were on the field for at least 50 balls in play.
Team
Expected Outs
Expected DER
Actual Outs
Actual DER
DER [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:23 pm | Defense | Permalink | No Comments
November 21, 2003
Stenson Murder
Still more background on Jennifer R. Gaddis and the men who are accused of murdering Dernell Stenson. Seems the men were stopped in Missouri on a drug bust:
The Arizona Republic has learned that a day after Stenson alerted police about the threat, two men later charged in his death were stopped by authorities in [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 7:37 am | Crime | Permalink | No Comments
November 20, 2003
Stenson Murder
Here’s more on the woman that allegedly was threatening to kill Dernell Stenson:
Stenson, who was found slain on Nov. 5, told police that Jennifer Gaddis sent threatening and harassing text messages to his cell phone for nearly six months, records showed.
“U better pray I never see you again, I swear Dernell U R worth a [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:19 pm | Crime | Permalink | No Comments
November 20, 2003
Selling Himself
I had not heard of Lee Seung-Yeop, a Korean first baseman and slugger, but he’s a free agent and he’s in the US trying to drum up interest.
The reason why Lee Seung-yeop is moving fast is to heat up the frozen free agent (FA) market. Lee has been worried because he currently does not have [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:12 pm | Free Agents | Permalink | No Comments
November 20, 2003
Terry Town?
Through Bambino’s Curse and Boston Dirt Dogs I found this article about a Terry Francona interview. It’s from a couple of weeks ago, but it looks like Francona is going to get the job. I found a couple of quotes impressive.
Francona touched on many of the key points stressed by Red Sox ownership. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:55 am | Management | Permalink | No Comments
November 20, 2003
Steroid Hysteria?
Charles P. Pierce writes in Slate about the media obsession with steroids. My position is evolving on this. On one hand, I’m concerned about illegal drug use. On the other, steriods are a lot less harmful than alcohol or crack, especially if used properly. By penalizing steriod use, it’s pushed underground, [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:21 am | Cheating | Permalink | 2 Comments
November 20, 2003
Goodbye, Ken Brett
Ken Brett has passed away from brain cancer. I remember him as a great hitting pitcher and the guy who set the record (since broken) of playing for the most teams. I believe he did a light beer commerical based on that once. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:06 am | Other | Permalink | No Comments
November 19, 2003
Returning Raul
Raul Ibanez has signed with the Seattle Mariners, returning to his original team. I don’t quite understand this deal. In one scenario, Cameron goes and either Winn or Ichiro plays center. In another scenario, Winn goes. However, Winn and Cameron both posted 21 win share seasons in 2003 (Ichiro 23, making [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 2:42 pm | Free Agents | Permalink | No Comments
November 19, 2003
Jays Pitching In
The Blue Jays made two moves yesterday to improve their pitching rotation, signing former Jay Pat Hentgen to a one year contract and trading Bobby Kielty to the A’s for Ted Lilly. This should improve the Toronto rotation. The Blue Jays won 86 games last year; they have to improve by about 7 [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:58 am | Trades | Permalink | No Comments
Bad Behavior has blocked 1928 access attempts in the last 7 days.