It seems the Mets, not the Yankees are the team that’s bidding up Boston for Pedro’s services.
The Red Sox reportedly have offered Martinez a two-year, $25.5 million contract with a vesting option for 2007 that would kick in if the right-hander remains healthy. The Mets countered late Sunday with a three-year guaranteed contract worth approximately [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:28 pm | Free Agents | Permalink | 2 Comments
November 29, 2004
Real Estate Bust
The price of Skydome keeps falling.
The Toronto Blue Jays agreed to buy SkyDome, the team’s ballpark, for about $21.2 million.
The 50,000-seat stadium, which opened in 1989, cost about $375 million to construct and was mostly funded by taxpayers. The Blue Jays, who are owned by Rogers Communications, will acquire the ballpark from Sportsco International LP, [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 7:41 pm | Stadiums | Permalink | 5 Comments
November 29, 2004
Nothing to Do With Baseball
Yale pulled a pretty good prank at The Game this year. I wish HD Net had shown it during their broadcast, but I think all of their cameras were on the Harvard side of the field. Of course, it still doesn’t beat the MIT balloon.
And it just goes to show the Yale 2nd [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:26 am | Other | Permalink | 5 Comments
November 29, 2004
Cranking Out the Shares
The Baseball Crank presents a study on how well Established Win Share Levels did in predicting win shares this year. He was most interested in seeing how win shares need to be adjusted for age. In looking at his chart, it’s interesting to note that the boundary for going from adjusting up to [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:04 am | Statistics | Permalink | No Comments
November 29, 2004
Blaming the Fans
Nick Peters talks to a few Giants players about the recent fights with the fans. The players think they are in a no-win situation, and decry the abuse they’ve been hearing.
Snow said when fans get personal, that crosses the line. And in this age of the Internet, there’s more information out there for people [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:39 am | Baseball Jerks | Permalink | 4 Comments
November 27, 2004
Back East
Hideki Matsui returned to Japan and tells the press he was disappointed in his season.
Matsui returned to Japan for the first time in eight months Friday and said he considers his second season in the major leagues a “big minus” because the Yankees missed the World Series.
“I think about it now and it’s still heartbreaking,” [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:17 pm | Players | Permalink | 2 Comments
November 27, 2004
Athletic Catcher
The Pirates and Athletics have completed the deal that sends catcher Jason Kendall to Oakland. I was very surprised by this trade. It’s not that the A’s didn’t make a good deal; Kendall has a career .387 OBA and hit .399 in both 2003 and 2004. He’ll be someone the A’s sluggers [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:22 pm | Trades | Permalink | 11 Comments
November 25, 2004
Happy Thanksgiving!
Have a safe and festive day with your family and friends. As Baseball Musings approaches its 1,000,000th unique visit, I’m thankful for all the readers who made this site successful. Enjoy the day!
Posted by David Pinto at 8:16 am | Other | Permalink | 5 Comments
November 24, 2004
Draining the Fens
There are lots of renovations underway at Fenway. The field is being dug up and replaced with state of the art drainage and heating.
“It’s going to be a drier, safer and better-looking field next year as a result of these changes,” said Red Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino. “The approximate cost is between $1.5 million [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:09 am | Stadiums | Permalink | 3 Comments
November 23, 2004
Tip of the Hat
Bill Young writes that the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame is looking for votes for their 2004 Tip O’Neill Award. You can see the candidates and a link for voting here.
The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum is asking the public to voice their opinions through their website, www.baseballhalloffame.ca, which will help determine [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 1:16 pm | Awards | Permalink | No Comments
November 23, 2004
Paying for Control
The Twins are not going to be able to sign Brad Radke for $7 million a year. As the article points out:
Radke’s agent, Ron Simon, wouldn’t discuss the terms he’s seeking from the Twins, but the market for Radke figures to start on the high side of the $22.5 million, three-year deal Kris Benson, [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:33 am | Free Agents | Permalink | 6 Comments
November 22, 2004
Washington ????????
There is going to be a press conference at noon today to announce the name of the Washington franchise. I don’t think the Expos?s is going to make it.
Update: Here’s the story. It’s the Nationals.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:58 am | Team Movements | Permalink | 23 Comments
November 22, 2004
Royal Return
Do you ever wonder why the Kansas City team is called the Royals? This Christmas story provides a clue.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:53 am | History | Permalink | 1 Comment
November 21, 2004
Advice?
I had doubted the existence of collusion over the last couple of seasons. I assumed that smarter management and a flood of free agents had worked to help fix the value of players. So I was surprised to see this article and this form.
But there sure were a lot of agents who thought [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:13 am | Free Agents | Permalink | 9 Comments
November 20, 2004
Guillen Goes East
The Anaheim Angels have rid themselves of Jose Guillen, trading him to the Montreal/Washington team for Juan Rivera and Maicer Izturis. The Angels get a couple of younger players and Bowden gets a good power hitter for the middle of the lineup. Guillen is younger than I thought; he’ll be 29 in 2005. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:40 pm | Trades | Permalink | 6 Comments
November 19, 2004
More On Contact
Steve Lombardi takes a swipe at the contact vs. non-contact argument. I haven’t had time to digest the article, but it strikes me that Steve isn’t quite measuring the correct thing. Let me know in the comments what you think.
Posted by David Pinto at 10:52 am | Statistics | Permalink | 9 Comments
November 18, 2004
Cape Fame
The Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame had its induction ceremony on Saturday. Will Clark and Eric Milton were among the inductees.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:31 pm | Awards | Permalink | 1 Comment
November 18, 2004
Slain Player Remembered
Mark Teahen wins the first annual MLB.com Dernell Stenson AFL Sportsmanship Award. The award is in memory of Dernell Stenson, who was killed during a car-jacking last year while playing in the Arizona Fall League. Congratulations to Mark. It’s a nice way to remember Dernell. (You can read about the Stenson [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 2:55 pm | Awards | Permalink | 1 Comment
November 18, 2004
Minor Development
Joanna Hicks e-mails:
I wanted to let you know that there is an interview with Ben Cherington at Red Sox Nation here that I thought you might find interesting. http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12293
Any idea how internal player ranking systems that Ben alludes to but declines to describe in detail work?
I don’t know anything about their internal ranking system. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 1:17 pm | Interviews | Permalink | No Comments
November 18, 2004
Doing Something Right
The Tigers must be doing something right. Troy Percival met with the team management, looked around the city and signed on the dotted line.
The whirlwind courtship caught even Dombrowski by surprise. Percival stayed Monday night at Birmingham’s Townsend Hotel, ate breakfast with manager Alan Trammell, Hall of Famer Al Kaline and owner Mike Ilitch [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:16 am | Management | Permalink | 6 Comments
November 17, 2004
More Productive Outs
Repoz at Baseball Primer has a discussion going on about this article on how the Angels are encouraging their players to advance runners, even with productive outs. I’m not impressed.
As one of the commentors at Primer says:
Mikael is right that there is a good point buried under all the junk. Too bad there’s SO [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 4:12 pm | Statistics | Permalink | 3 Comments
November 17, 2004
Catching Up
Tony Massarotti looks at the Red Sox positioning in their bid to sign a catcher for 2005. It seems their top choice after Varitek is Damian Miller.
Should the Sox fail to sign Varitek, it remains unclear what their options are beyond Miller. Among the possibilities are free agents Mike Matheny, who played in St. [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:56 am | Free Agents | Permalink | 18 Comments
November 17, 2004
Infield Shift
If yesterday’s signings by the Expos?s are an indication of the direction of the franchise, Peter Angelos doesn’t need to worry about the competition. The Montreal/Washington franchise inked third baseman Vinny Castilla and shortstop Christian Guzman to play the left side of the infield.
“Guzman and Castilla will be above-average defensively on the left side [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:18 am | Free Agents | Permalink | 11 Comments
November 16, 2004
Most Vladuable Player
Congratulations to Vlad Guerrero who won the AL Most Valuable Player award today.
Guerrero, who batted .337 with 39 home runs and 126 runs batted in and led the league in runs scored (124) and total bases (366), was a vital factor in the Angels’ winning the AL West by hitting .371 with 10 home runs [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 2:23 pm | Awards | Permalink | 11 Comments
November 16, 2004
Building the Nest
Jorge Arangure Jr. of the Washington Post looks at the free agents the Orioles are persuing this winter.
Beattie was reluctant to say whether the Orioles would ask Sexson to work out, saying the Orioles haven’t made a decision on whether they would pursue Sexson. But should they enter the bidding, Beattie said Baltimore would need [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 12:15 pm | Free Agents | Permalink | 6 Comments
November 15, 2004
No-Hit Bids
There’s an excellent study at Sabernomics on which pitchers are most likely to throw no-hitters.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:04 pm | Pitchers | Permalink | No Comments
November 15, 2004
Rolling a 7
Congratulations to Barry Bonds who won his 7th NL MVP award today. It was an easy win for Barry as he out pointed Adrian Beltre 407-311.
Bonds had 53 win shares this season, making him responsible for 17 of the Giants 91 wins, or nearly 1/5 of the team’s total. Just how amazing is [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:00 pm | Awards | Permalink | 9 Comments
November 15, 2004
Yankees Pitching
Joe Torre happened to run into Carl Pavano in Florida over the weekend, and it seems Carl is very interested in joining the Bronx Bombers. The article also list the Yankees offseason priorities for pitching acquistions:
The Yankees have prioritized Pavano, Al Leiter, Eric Milton, Brad Radke and Jaret Wright as the free-agent pitchers who [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:53 am | Free Agents | Permalink | 2 Comments
November 15, 2004
Three Way Deal
Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel explores the possibilities of a Florida-Arizona-Anaheim deal for Randy Johnson and Jose Guillen. In Juan’s version, the Diamondbacks get some young arms, the Marlins get a troubled outfielder and a prime reliever, and the Angels acquire the Big Unit. The deal makes sense to me. Arizona saves [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:32 am | Trades | Permalink | 1 Comment
November 15, 2004
Sharing the Wealth
It seems the Red Sox players were very generous in distributing their World Series money. Good to see. There was a time when the World Series shares could be a major part of the money a player earned during the season. Now, it’s more like a nice bonus. I’m glad they’re [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:20 am | World Series | Permalink | 3 Comments
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