Monthly Archives: December 2010

December 31, 2010

DLee to the Birds

Leave a reply

The Orioles reached a verbal agreement with Derrek Lee:

The signing will become official once Lee passes a physical.

Various reports have placed the Orioles’ offer at one year for around $8 million.

Lee was willing to accept a one-year deal, while Adam LaRoche continued to seek three guaranteed years. The Orioles decided recently to move on without LaRoche and intensified talks with Lee’s agent, Casey Close.

So the Orioles are looking for a shot term solution at first base, and Lee fits the bill. The $8 million mark is where FanGraphs pegged him for 2010. There’s a decent chance Lee bounces back and the Orioles get a nice one-year bargain.

Update: It appears the Nationals are trying to take advantage of Adam LaRoche’s new lack of suitors as they’ve offered him a two-year deal.

December 31, 2010 December 31, 2010 December 31, 2010

Fearing Edgar

Leave a reply

Chad Dotson fears that the Cincinnati Reds will sign Edgar Renteria:

Signing Renteria wouldn’t be a very big deal if, as Jocketty stated, he were just a backup infielder. Those aren’t the signings I get worked up about (even if I’m not certain he’d be any better than Zack Cozart at this point in his career). Raise your hand, however, if you think Dusty Baker will start Paul Janish over Renteria on a regular basis. Anyone?

Looking at Edgar’s value over the last few years, if the Reds can get him for $3 million a season, it would be a good deal. I agree, however, that Renteria doesn’t really address the problem at shortstop. Janish is better defensively than offensively, so the Reds would be better off getting either a backup who can hit some, or one who is a super glove man. At this point, Renteria is neither.

December 30, 2010

Bud and Bud Buds

Leave a reply

Anheuser-Busch and Major League Baseball settled their advertising contract dispute:

The two sides agreed to drop their pending litigation in federal court, where M.L.B. contended that the two sides had signed only a nonbinding letter of intent in April to renew their sponsorship deal. Anheuser-Busch claimed that M.L.B. tried to renegotiate a deal that was completed.

The announcement of the sponsorship, which was set to expire this year, did not include any financial terms or details on what compromises were made. Budweiser will remain the official beer sponsor of Major League Baseball as well as a sponsor of 26 of the 30 M.L.B. teams.

I think I’ll have a drink. 🙂

December 30, 2010

Hip to the Injury

Leave a reply

David Aardsma‘s season ending injury turned out to be a torn labrum in his hip:

Seattle’s closer will undergo surgery Monday to repair a torn labrum in his left hip, the real cause of the pain in Aardsma’s side that shut him down in September.

Aardsma is expected to be throwing again a month later and should have no trouble being up to full speed by Opening Day, according to the Mariners.

David turned in another good season for Seattle in 2010. He’s a high walk pitcher who mitigates that problems with high strikeouts. If he should lose the ability to K batters due to the surgery, he might not be as impressive.

December 30, 2010

Two Deaths

1 Reply

Tom Vandergriff passed away. He brought the Washington Senators to Texas where the team became the Rangers.

The former Arlington mayor’s son, Victor Vandergriff, said his father died of natural causes at a Fort Worth hospital Thursday. Tom Vandergriff had Alzheimer’s disease in recent years.

Vandergriff brought the Rangers to the city halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth in 1972. It took the Rangers almost 25 years to reach the playoffs, and another 14 to win a postseason series.

Former manager Steve Boros also died. Boros played a short time in the majors, posting a good career OBP. He managed 368 games, posting a .457 winning percentage.

My thoughts go out to the family and friends of both men.

December 30, 2010

Honest Man

1 Reply

Murray Chass remembers the late Tigers GM Bill Lajoie.

For Lynn to be eligible to play in the post-season should the Tigers make it, he had to be in Detroit by midnight that night. The Players Association later challenged the rule, but in the end the matter became moot because the Tigers finished a game behind the Red Sox.

But in the immediate aftermath of the trade, when the Tigers were still in first place, Lajoie had a decision to make.

He knew that Lynn technically had not arrived in Chicago on his chartered jet from Anaheim, where the Orioles were playing, by midnight.

He knew that the plane had not entered Chicago air space until 10 minutes after midnight.

Lajoie could have said that Lynn had beaten the deadline and, an official in the commissioner’s office said, the office would have accepted his word. But Lajoie chose to be honest.

“He didn’t get there,” Lajoie admitted the next day. “They were over the city limits about 10 after 12.” Asked why he didn’t fudge the time, Lajoie said, “I just felt a rule’s a rule. There’s no sense playing with it. That’s the rule and we’ll live by it.”

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

December 30, 2010 December 30, 2010 December 29, 2010 December 29, 2010 December 29, 2010

Denials

5 Replies

Via Hardball Talk, Jeff Bagwell once again denies steroid use.

“I never used [steroids], and I’ll tell you exactly why: If I could hit between 30 and 40 home runs every year and drive in 120 runs, why did I need to do anything else? I was pretty happy with what I was doing, and that’s the God’s honest truth. All of a sudden guys were starting to hit 60 or 70 home runs and people were like, ‘Dude, if you took [PEDs], you could do it too.’ And I was like, ‘I’m good where I’m at. I just want to do what I can do.’

“I wasn’t trying to do anything crazy. I hit six homers in the minor leagues. Six home runs. I hit 15, 18 and 21 in Houston, and then I hit 39 in 1994 when I started working with Rudy Jaramillo and he helped me to understand my swing and I actually learned how to hit. And I was like, ‘I don’t need anything more. I’m good.’ When I walked on the field I thought I was the best player on the field, and I didn’t need anything more than that. It was never an ego thing with me, and I think at some point, it became ego to some people.

“I know a lot of people are saying, ‘His body got bigger.’ Well, if you’re eating 30 pounds of meat every single day and you’re working out and bench pressing, you’re going to get bigger. You can go to every single trainer and they’ll say, ‘He was the first here and last to leave, and that dude worked his ass off.'”

The whole interview is well worth the read.

There is, of course, a problem with denials in a political process like a Hall of Fame election. It rightly or wrongly associates the denier with the accusation. If it should come out at some point that Jeff did use something, even for a day, he’s going to look bad. Compare Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. McGwire never denied using PEDs, but he didn’t confirm it either for a long time. He just took the no comment route. Palmeiro denied usage, then got caught. For that reason, I don’t think Palmeiro will ever get into the Hall, while McGwire has a chance. I’d rather see Bagwell say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Denials, for some reason, have a way of making you look guilty.

Update: Rafael Palmeiro still denies using steroids.

December 29, 2010

Collusion and the Hall

3 Replies

Larry Granillo makes the case that Jack Morris‘s reputation as the pitcher of the 1980s comes more from the owners colluding to hold down free agents than from Jack’s performance during the decade.

Morris’ reputation as a winning pitcher – “the winningest pitcher” – was really set in that 1987 season, not four or five years later. That’s four more years than anyone realized contemporary writers had to watch Morris and write about (and, more importantly, internalize) his “winning nature.” Ignore that his 1988 and 1989 seasons were forgettable; all that’s important is that he finished the decade with the title that he held for five years. Winning 18 and 21 games, respectively, in 1991 and 1992 were just icing on the cake.

Jack Morris can be on the Hall of Fame ballot all the way through the year 2014. By that time, Hall of Fame voters who covered the game during the 1980s will have had nearly 30 years of the “Jack Morris is a winner” line of thinking. That, more than anything, may be responsible for Morris’ eventual enshrinement in Cooperstown. If only the owners had not colluded in that winter of ‘86…

I don’t have a problem with Jack Morris going into the Hall of Fame. People get upset that Morris might be elected and Blyleven not, but that’s not Jack’s problem. His won’t be the most deserving election, but it won’t be the worst either.

Morris pitched a lot, and that durability led to the one really positive stat I’ll cite in Jack’s defense. In the decade from 1980 through 1989, Jack faced 1256 batters in close and late situations. Those are situations where the batting team is up by one run, tied, or has the tying run on deck (save situation) from the seventh inning on. These are situations today most starters don’t face. Jack held batters to a .238/.296/.369 slash line. Those numbers are all slightly better than his overall slash line; he didn’t fade with the game on the line late. He averaged 126 batters faced per year (without weighting the 1981 strike season) in this situation. Felix Hernandez faced 122 batters in that situation this season to lead starters. Roy Halladay was the only other starter to break 100. Morris stayed in tight games and pitched well, which also helped his win total.

December 28, 2010 December 28, 2010

To Bet or Not to Bet?

10 Replies

Steve Landsburg posted an ambiguous question at his blog, and people disagree on the answer. That has led to betting on the right answer to the question. Here is the question:

There’s a certain country where everybody wants to have a son. Therefore each couple keeps having children until they have a boy; then they stop. What fraction of the population is female?

This is supposed to be expressed as an expectation. Phil Birnbaum does a good job of explaining where the difference in interpretation lies, although Phil puts it in terms of countries, where it really should be in terms of families.

I wrote a simulation of the problem here, a Python script. Feel free to download and play with it (Python is free). Here are a few sample runs of the program:

Girls=998007. Boys=1000000.
Average Fraction: 0.306338134795
Girls=1000045. Boys=1000000.
Average Fraction: 0.306774090892
Girls=1001524. Boys=1000000.
Average Fraction: 0.307199395218
Girls=998957. Boys=1000000.
Average Fraction: 0.306736128952

The first line of each runs shows the actual number of boys and girls produced by one million families. As you can see, the families produce an even number of boys and girls, so the expected fraction of the population that is female is 1/2.

Landsburg, however, says what he wants is the second answer, which is the average fraction of girls in a family. According to this simulation, the expected fraction of girls in a family is 3/10.

So do you bet against Landsburg? He stated his problem poorly. His statement of the problem clearly asks for the fraction of the population of the country, not a family in the country.

Steve has done this before, presented a problem with incomplete information. (At the link, he does not say if you play the game once or as many times as you like.) He should have stated the question, “What is the expectation for the fraction of girls in a family in such a country.” He should lose the bet.

December 28, 2010

Snow Job

Leave a reply

Mac Thomason read The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven: How a Ragtag Group of Fans Took the Fall for Major League Baseball and shares some thoughts on the book:

The baseball lifestyle was made for a cocaine epidemic. Lots of travel, irregular hours with many “night shifts”, disposable income, right in the cocaine target demographic of 20-35. In addition to making you feel really good (let’s face it, it does) cocaine also provides an energy boost, often desirable to baseball players. The line between recreational and performance-enhancing drug is blurry.

It sounds like an interesting read.

December 27, 2010

WAR on the Hall

Leave a reply

Beyond the Boxscore extends WAR in two ways to account for peak performance and MVP caliber seasons, and comes up with an interesting ranking of the current Hall of Fame members and the players on this season’s ballot.

Meanwhile, Peter Gammons makes the case for Jeff Bagwell’s election to the Hall of Fame. Peter and Jeff actually played a pivotal role in the success of STATS, Inc. At the end of the 1990 season, STATS published their second Major League Handbook, the first to have an actual player on the cover. In the back were batter projections for the 1991 season. Under “These Guys Can Play Too and Might Get a Shot,” Jeff Bagwell‘s projection was .318/.400/.436. That was very optimistic for a rookie. Reviewing that book in Novemember of 1990, Gammons wrote that STATS, Inc. picked Jeff Bagwell to win the NL batting title. Now, STATS didn’t do that, but Jeff’s .318 BA was the highest predicted for any NL player that year.

Bill James later told me that Peter’s statement put STATS reputation on the line. In retrospect, Bagwell’s projection should not have been that high. Jeff came through, however, with a .294/.387/.437 slash line and a win in the rookie of the year voting. That vindicated the James projection and helped put STATS, Inc. on the map.

December 27, 2010

Players A to Z, Jeremy Hermida

1 Reply

Jeremy Hermida played outfield for the Red Sox and Athletics in 2010, and currently seeks work via free agency. Hermida showed a great deal of promise young, posting a .296/.369/.501 slash line at the age of 23. His two full season following that, however, were a major disappointment. In 2010, his ability to draw a walk, his one remaining strength, disappeared. He’s going into his age 27 season trying to hang on instead of hitting a peak that showed such promise in 2007.

Hermida didn’t show much power in the minors until 2005, when his slugging percentage jumped above .500. He was still young at that point, and was developing as a hitter. He was drawing a ton of walks, but striking out about 20% of the time. Unlike a Rob Deer or Adam Dunn, Jeremy maintained a high batting average, as his Ks were not in the stratosphere. His 2005-2007 track shows a developing power hitter.

It looks to me like he fell in love with the home run, however, and pitchers exploited that. According to FanGraphs, in 2007, he only hit 35.7% fly balls, but 15.7% of those left the park and only 1.7% of those were pop ups. He fly ball percentage went up every year, but a lower percentage left the park and more and more stayed on the infield. Instead of the nice solid contact of 2007, he was getting under the ball.

At 27, it’s not too late for Hermida if he can fix his mechanics at the plate. He needs to get back to judging the strike zone and driving the ball, rather than trying to loft it out of the park.

December 26, 2010

Webb Spinner

Leave a reply

ESPN reports that Brandon Webb agreed to a one-year contract with the Rangers. No terms are available yet, but it’s likely an incentive laden contract. The Rangers tried this with Rich Harden last season, and that didn’t work out too well. Still, if Webb can get back to 80% of his Cy Young form, he’ll be a good addition to this staff and take some of the sting away from losing Cliff Lee.

Webb is an extreme ground ball pitcher, so he’s less dependent on strikeouts than someone like Rich Harden (even though Brandon did strike out a good number of batters). If Webb makes the rotation, the Rangers would be a lot better off with Adrian Beltre at third than Michael Young.

December 26, 2010

Prior Experience

Leave a reply

The New York Daily News talks to Mark Prior and the Yankees about turning the oft-injured pitcher into a reliever:

The Yankees were watching the whole time. They have followed his rehab for years, says Billy Eppler, the Yanks’ director of pro personnel. Last summer, their scouts saw Prior’s velocity and arm speed tick upward. “Small indicators,” Eppler says, “but nonetheless indicators that he was getting better.

“He was getting up to 92 (miles per hour) and was averaging 90,” Eppler adds. “With his pitching IQ, he’s going to be able to get hitters out if he’s able to throw at that velocity. He’s got a chance to make the club.”

We’ll see. The interesting thing to me is that if Prior makes a successful transition to relief, he could become another Jason Isringhausen and give the Yankees a closer to replace Mariano Rivera when the legend retires.

December 25, 2010 December 24, 2010 December 24, 2010

Tampa Tax Opposition

Leave a reply

Tampa Bay residents don’t want to pay to build a new stadium for the Rays:

A recent St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 telephone survey showed that two-thirds of Tampa Bay area residents oppose paying taxes for a new stadium — even if that means the team would leave the area. Only a quarter of residents would open their wallets to keep the Rays in town.

This antitax sentiment, coming on the heels of light rail flameout in Hillsborough, presents a stiff challenge to the Rays, who want to replace the Trop, and to business leaders and politicians looking for ways to finance a new venue.

Good. Nice to see the public starting to wake up to the losses new stadiums put on a community.

December 24, 2010

Hawpe to Pops

Leave a reply

The New York Times reports the Padres signed Brad Hawpe to a one-year deal to replace Adrian Gonzalez.

Hawpe’s offense fell off a cliff in 2010 at the age of 31. He injured his left quadriceps early in the season, and I wonder how much that contributed to his trouble. He was always a pretty good road hitter, so if he bounces back, the Padres will look pretty good at first. If he doesn’t, they’re only into him for one year and with luck Kyle Blanks will be ready to take over in 2012.

December 24, 2010 December 24, 2010 December 24, 2010

Broadcasters to Return

Leave a reply

The Giants plan to bring back their broadcasting duo:

The Giants are close to bringing back two of their most prized free agents: television broadcasters Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow.

The club has reached tentative agreements on six-year extensions for the well-regarded duo. Both ended their playing careers with the Giants and have called their games for a generation.

One of the great things about the Extra Innings package is hearing announcers from all over the country. Kuiper and Krukow are one of the best duos out there. It’s good to see they’ll continue in the booth.

December 23, 2010 December 23, 2010