Outside the Box

Outside the Box - User Comments

Rasputin put together a nice display of Don Mattingly's stats that were murdered in the formatting. I'll re-present them here with the formatting improved. Note the following are not my words, but are Rasputin's (not the real one, at least I'm presuming he's not).

Before going on, let me give you two stat lines:

     G   AB    R    H  2B 3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO SB CS  Avg  OBP Slug
A 1785 7003 1007 2153 442 20 222 1099  588  444 14  9 .307 .358 .471
B 2042 6681  889 1776 270 11 339 1187 1001 1226 20 21 .266 .361 .462

Both men were first basemen. Both men were left-handed hitters.
Both men won an MVP award.
Player A won 9 Gold Glove awards. Player B won none.
Player A was an All Star 6 times. Player B was an All Star 4 times.
Player A played in the postseason once -- a divisional series.
Player B played 4 World Series and 5 League Championship Series.

The first man, clearly, is Don Mattingly, subject of much Hall of Fame discussion.

The second man played during the 1960s, an era of depressed run scoring. There's much debate about
Mattingly, but no one is debating Boog Powell's credentials. No one, not even this orange-bleeding
Orioles fan, thinks Powell is a Hall of Famer. And Powell's credentials are about as good as
Mattingly's, maybe even a bit better.

This argument is Phil Rizzuto squared. Yankee fans cannot scream for credit for playing on great teams,
as Mattingly played for the Yankees during their worst stretch of the free agent era. He's a nice guy,
so what? So's Kent Hrbek ... let's throw Hrbek in here:

     G   AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO SB CS  Avg  OBP Slug
DM 1785 7003 1007 2153 442 20 222 1099  588  444 14  9 .307 .358 .471
BP 2042 6681  889 1776 270 11 339 1187 1001 1226 20 21 .266 .361 .462
KH 1747 6192  903 1749 312 18 293 1086  838  798 37 26 .282 .367 .481

He's also a first baseman who batted left-handed. He never won an MVP award, though he did play in the
World Series twice, and he was an All-Star once. But he was very popular here in Minneapolis, and his
teammates loved him, much as Mattingly's did. Mattingly's numbers may be better, especially considering
the difference in ballparks, but they're not much better.

While we're at it, how about Cecil Cooper? Wally Joyner? Norm Cash? Keith Hernandez? Mark Grace?

     G   AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO SB CS  Avg  OBP Slug
DM 1785 7003 1007 2153 442 20 222 1099  588  444 14  9 .307 .358 .471
BP 2042 6681  889 1776 270 11 339 1187 1001 1226 20 21 .266 .361 .462
KH 1747 6192  903 1749 312 18 293 1086  838  798 37 26 .282 .367 .481
CC 1896 7349 1012 2192 415 47 241 1125  448  911 89 49 .298 .337 .466
WJ 1980 6979  959 2024 404 25 201 1092  820  807 59 38 .290 .364 .441
NC 2089 6705 1046 1820 241 41 377 1103 1043 1091 43 30 .271 .374 .488
KH 2088 7370 1124 2182 426 60 162 1071 1070 1012 98 63 .296 .384 .436
MG 1910 7156 1057 2201 456 43 148 1004  946  561 67 48 .308 .386 .445

Who is the best player out of this cadre of left-handed hitting first basemen? Easy, Norm Cash. He
played during the run-depressed 1960s and still has the highest Slugging Percentage of this group, and
the second best On Base Percentage. His credentials are clearly better than those of Mattingly, who
looks only a tiny bit better than Cecil Cooper, when not adjusting for park factors and defensive play.
And all of these men played in a World Series -- all except Don Mattingly.

So, why is Mattingly such a popular candidate?

* He played in New York.
* He hit for average as his primary skill.
* He did have four big years from 1984-1987. The rest of career may have been worthless, but he did
have four huge years.
* He had a nickname that sounds like it should be one for a Hall of Famer -- Donnie Baseball.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Blyleven for the Hall? You betcha he deserves it

It's always nice to get a plug from one of the big wigs in the field. Thanks Rob! And if you are new to the site write me and let me know what you would like to see added to the site or just shoot the breeze.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Users soundoff on Mattingly

ESPN.com polled their readers for their views on the HOF-worthiness of Don Mattingly. If he wasn't a Yankee, would we even be discussing this?

I ran a few numbers on Mattingly's peak years. The years his backers cite as a Hall of Fame worthy resume. My preconceptions are that he was a pretty good player in those years, but he doesn't strike me as the dominant player of the era. Here are his rankings during his peak years, 1984-1989.

HR - 160 (6th) - Dale Murphy 190
RBI - 684 (1st) - George Bell 625
Hits - 1219 (3rd) - Wade Boggs 1269
TB - 1978 (1st) - George Bell 1858
2B - 257 (1st) - Wade Boggs 256
BB - not in top 50
BA - .327 (3rd) - Boggs .351 (> 3000)
OBP - .376 (12th) - Boggs .447
SLG - .530 (1st) - Strawberry .521
OPS - .906 (2nd) - Boggs .929

Others in the OPS list Brett (.891), Dwight Evans! (.886), Mike Schmidt, Darryl Strawberry, Kent Hrbek, Alvin Davis, Tim Raines and Dave Winfield (.852).

Mattingly comes out a bit better here than I thought he would, but he is not head and shoulders above the field. The dominant player of the era was Wade Boggs, no question about it.

Some folks might compare Mattingly and his 1984-1989 to Koufax and his run from 1961-1966. However, Koufax led the majors in Wins, Strikeouts, ERA, Winning Percentage, and ERA+ (156 to Marichal's 135) for those years. I included the ERA+ just so you can't trot out the park effects argument. Koufax's peak was clearly much, much higher than Mattingly's.

Mattingly had some great seasons, but

1) His peak wasn't among the all-time great peaks (Did he have one of the 100 best six-season stretches of all-time? When I get PRO+ implemented we might be able to answer this.)

2) Played a defensively unimportant position (albeit very, very well)

3) Has the career totals of Hal McRae (albeit in five fewer seasons)

I could forgive one of the shortcomings and maybe even two, but the trifecta puts him on the outside of my Hall of Fame.

Hot Stove Diner

Back from North Carolina. I hate driving and waiting an hour to get over the Wilson Bridge in Washington D.C. doesn't make me any more eager to drive 500 miles.

Anyways, here is another weblog about baseball. It's worth a look and they are looking for writers.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Orioles' youth movement stalls

``There are some familiar faces and great players here,'' he said. ``It's a new look, and it's exciting in that regard. The fact of the matter is that a lot of people are counting the Orioles out. But in baseball nothing is guaranteed. Young teams have a certain fire in their eyes.''

Bordick must be talking about the opposition. I've been saving all of my Orioles moves for one day, so here goes.

Mike Bordick - He should be better than Melvin Mora, who is now being talked about as a center fielder?! Bordick looks like fast dropper to me. I think the end will come pretty quickly and be particularly unpleasant in his case. Not that he ever was any great shakes.

David Segui - A neat study would be to see if players with later peaks (30-32) are more productive from 35-40 than earlier peakers. Logic would dictate yes, but there is only one way to find out. Segui will be 34 next year and has never been a particularly good hitter for a first baseman, so I would expect some pretty brutal years out of him in the next four. He has to bat .330 just to be an average first baseman.

Pat Hentgen - He's a league average pitcher and is unlikely to ever be much more than that since his surgery. Someone commented that he was as good of a pickup as Appier and I would agree with that, but he isn't likely to be on the next Orioles championship team. He will however help considerably in their drive for 70 wins. I've never seen a rebuilding team get older like this.

Johnson (29) for Fordyce (31)
Hentgen (32) for Mussina (32)
Bordick for Bordick.

I don't see much of a light at the end of this tunnel.

On another note, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas (from my Christian-centric background). I will be visting the in-laws in North Carolina and won't be around till the middle of next week.

Digital City: Boston - Boston's Sports Guy

He watched the Outside the Lines on Manny Ramirez and added his own commentary. Don't drink and read at the same time.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - For Bagwell, it's not about the money

Not every potential free agent pulls an Alex Rodriguez.

This really rubs me the wrong way. Bagwell is going to make $17m/year for five years and it is not about the money? While, yes he may have made more on the free agent market he is also removing any risk involved with a poor season in 2001. See Juan Gonzalez for how much that risk can actually cost you.

Second, Rosenthal acts as if Bagwell is worth as much as Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez. He isn't. He is four years older than Ramirez and six more than Rodriguez. If anything, the Astros are overpaying him. When his next contract would have come up, he would be 34, and while I expect Bagwell to age gracefully, I don't expect him to be nearly as good at age 34-38 as he was from 29-33.

I'm still waiting for the article lauding Barry Bonds for not testing the free agent market while with the Giants.

And while I'm shooting scattershot without a thesis, I wonder where this leaves Daryle Ward or Lance Berkman, one of whom really should be traded.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - White Sox agree to $5.4 million, two-year deal with Alomar

Does anyone really believe Sandy Alomar will still be in baseball in two years?

Can you name some other recent players who have turned so little of a career (93 home runs, 993 games, .276/.315/.419) into such a grandiose reputation? I halfway expect Alomar to receive Hall of Fame votes in six years.

This move has to make Rob Neyer happy, since Alomar can no longer sign with the Royals.

ESPN.com - TVLISTINGS - Inside the Manny Ramirez Deal

Here are the transcripts to the Outside the Lines detailing Manny Ramirez's contract negotiations. This stuff absolutely rivets me to the screen. With all of the managers and players who have written books, when are we going to get a tell all book by a smart, eloquent general manager. I would lap that stuff up.

BaseballProspectus.com: December 18, 2000 - From The Mailbag

Chris Kahrl comparing Willie Hernandez's 1984 to Billy Wagner's 1999

Other factors worth remembering: the DH, and the difference between pitching in Tiger Stadium (one of the easiest places to hit a home run back then) and the final year of the Astrodome.

This comment reminded me of a bias that exists against NL relievers. When you compute things like ERA+ for NL pitchers you use the league ERA as the numerator. This ERA is typically lower than the AL's ERA due to the designated hitter. However, you can probably count on one hand the number of times Wagner faced the opposing pitcher in 1999. Therefore, he is underrated relative to the starters.

I would also wager that NL relievers face more hitters with the platoon advantage than AL closers do, because it seems to me that the NL pinch hits in late-inning situations more than the AL does, but this is nothing that I've studied in any useful way, so I'd likely be better off not even saying it, but there it is, though you could argue that tossing it out there might engage someone in a new area of research, but then again I shouldn't be so brazen as to offer an opinion without any supporting work, but on the other hand, I'm a busy guy with lots to do, so I really shouldn't beat myself up so much for such a small thing as merely tossing out an idea, a trifle in reality, that no one really cares about other than the most hardcore of hardcore baseball fanatics.

The Providence Journal/Your Turn: Dan Duquette's off-season

"Valmoose" may not be a psychologist but he plays one on fan forums. An interesting take on Dan Duquette's management style following a look at the Red Sox off-season acquisitions and what it might mean to their pythagorean win-loss record.

David Wells Statistics @ theHILL

Rumor has it that the Rangers are looking at David Wells for some minor league hitters. It makes sense from the Rangers point of view as they could use some pitching.

I went through theHILL and ran a report for Wells from 1990-2000 with his starts separated by month. His worst two months for ERA are August and September, but his best is July. I'm guessing that he pitches best in warm weather, when he isn't rundown from extended warm weather. The trouble with Texas is that he'll get rundown pretty quickly. Here are some more stats, also from theHILL. For his career, he has a 5.63 ERA at home against Texas and a 4.97 ERA at Texas, so that doesn't show much of a problem with the heat.

I wouldn't worry about the heat too much if I were Doug Melvin. I would worry if he tips the scales much over 300 pounds.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Sources: Marlins sign Johnson for $35 million

Think this story and this story are related? After pulling out his wallet and handing over the 40-year allowance Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas should have reminded John Henry not to spend it all in one place.

Charles Johnson isn't "in one place" at $35m for five years (it's actually pretty reasonable), but he is a sizeable investment for a 28-year-old catcher. Looking at his most similars, 2000 looks like the apex of Johnson's career. Here are the ten most similar and how they did in the rest of their career. The "View in Pop-up" makes this jumping around easier to do.

1) Todd Hundley - From 41 HR to 30 from 27 to 28 and then 3, 24, and 24 HR. Cubs have to hope he bounces back to more than this.

2) Del Crandall - 51 HR in five years.

3) Earl Battey - 22 HR in four years.

4) Matt Nokes - 19 HR in three years.

5) Rich Gedman - 15 HR in four years.

6) Jody Davis - 51 HR in five years.

7) Jim Pagliaroni - 12 HR in three years.

8) Mike Lieberthal - same age as Johnson.

9) Terry Kennedy - 53 HR in 7 years.

10) Randy Hundley - No he isn't on Todd's top ten list. 17 HR in seven years.

I have a feeling the Marlins fans will feel a touch shortchanged if they only get 50 home runs out of CJ over the next five years. I hadn't realized just how far out of whack his 2000 was with the rest of his career. His career line is still just .249/.333/.436 and his previous HR high was 19 (he hit 31 last year). Maybe he isn't as good of a sign as I thought.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Selig has surgery on broken kneecap

Get well, Bud! I just hope that this was an innocent slip on the ice and not an intimidation effort by a goonish owner to pressure Bud into some policy direction. Say ceasing and desisting the move for more revenue sharing. Mr. Steinbrenner, can you verify your whereabouts on Sunday? (just a joke, Mr. Steinbrenner's lawyers)

Miami Herald: Stadium Proposal must clear legislature, city leaders

It looks like the Marlins have finally gotten their sweetheart deal. Despite revenues projected at $145m, the Marlins will be required to kick in only $6m per year and some other money up front (how much wasn't clear from the article). As part of the deal, they will have to change their name to the Miami Marlins, which was once the name of the local minor league franchise. I guess that means another logo change will be in the works. I hope they'll consider changing their color scheme as well.

I'm pretty much numb by the dollars we as a society are willing to pour down the drain for our sports fetishes. I'm as guilty as anyone. To be honest, all of us (real fans) would be much better off if the game were far less popular. We would still enjoy the game, but we could get rid of the social crowd that drives so much of the pricing today. $10 box seats might return to a lot of ballparks if attendance were to be cut in half.

Imagine the game in the 60's and 70's when the game was the deal. Crowds of 17,000/game, Morgan, Aaron, Koufax and others all for peanuts. In 1965, the Dodgers lead the NL with 31,000 per game. In 2000, ten NL teams topped that amount.

S P O R T S J O N E S: The Head Game by Roger Kahn

Tim Morris of SportsJones reviews Roger Kahn's new book on pitchers.

Tour of Cuba for Baseball Fans

This was posted to the SABR mailing list and I think there may be some interested folks who read this as well. It is for a tour of Cuba (baseball-style). This isn't the Bill Lee outfit that I mentioned earlier, but still might be fun.

Date:    Sat, 16 Dec 2000 20:03:58 -0800
From:    Kit Krieger 
Subject: Baseball Tour of Cuba

Thanks to the many members of the List-serve who responded to my earlier
message regarding the February tour of Cuba.  To date, a dozen people are
confirmed on the trip, including Peter Bjarkman, author of "Smoke" and one
of the foremost authorities on Cuban baseball.

The positive response by SABR members has resulted in a change to the
program, which will have a substantially increased historical content.  We
have plans for attendance at the Pena, the Cuban SABR, visits to the grave
of Martin Dihigo, and more.  The program als features attendance at four
games, meetings with current and former Cuban baseball players, and a visit
to the elite training institutions for Cuban athletes.

This is a last call for SABR members interested in taking the trip.
Departures are February 19th from Vancouver or Toronto with return on
February 26th. The price is $1799 US (plus $59 tax), inclusive of everything
but most lunches, a $20 departure tax from Havana, drinks and cigars.  There
is a $150 single supplement.  Accommodation is at the four-star Havana Libre
Tryp, formerly the Hilton, and Fidel's headquarters in 1959!

I am off to Cuba on Wednesday to teach and to do the groundwork for the
February trip.  Interested parties should contact Skyway Travel at
604-585-4848 or by e-mail at friendship@home.com.

Kit Krieger




Kit Krieger
Cubaball Tours
4772 Narvaez Drive
Vancouver, BC
V6L 2J2

tel: 604-266-4664
fax: 604-266-2153

HoustonChronicle.com: Why $252 million for a shortstop makes sense

Andrew Zimbalist (who knows more about baseball economics than nearly anyone else) weighs in on A-Rod's contract.

Most Popular Pages - Baseball-Reference.com

I finally got the script fixed and the most popular players and teams should be updated every day (or week). I'm not sure how the 1986 Mets became so wildly popular. I'm guessing there is a lot of interest in that Series as the 1986 Red Sox are the highest rated non-WS winner.

I enjoy seeing how the interest in various players runs from those who played in the 1980's, but are retired to those who are all-time greats. For instance, Greg Luzinski (173) is just a couple of hits behind Hall of Famers Lefty Grove (171) and George Sisler (172) and a couple of hits above Cap Anson and Hack Wilson. Babe Ruth, though, is still the king.

Boston Globe Online / Sports / Simply Manny

Manny Ramirez's apartment in Florida costs less than my two bedroom apartment here in Philly.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Bottalico agrees to $1.5 million, one-year contract

Remember the saying about "the cure being worse than the disease"? I'm sure I'll have a queasy feeling next summer whenever Larry Bowa walks to the mound. At least they waited till after the arbitration date on this one.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Red Sox agree to $4.5 million, one-year deal with Nomo

Dan Duquette is on a winning streak. Nomo at a single year for less than Dustin Hermansen money. The best part is that Tomo Ohka and Trot Nixon haven't been traded. Plus, they still have a couple of bullets (albeit plastic ones) to fire on the trade front with Troy O'Leary and Scott Hatteberg (though I would keep Hatteberg).

I've liked Nomo for awhile now, and he is a major league average starter. I was a little worried that American League batters were going to adjust to him in his second year and hurt him, but his best two months last year were August and September, so that doesn't appear to be the case.

The Sox have about 18 potential starters. Martinez, Arrojo and Nomo will start. Castillo, Wakefield, Schourek, Saberhagen, Pena, Cho, Kim and the two guys I was expecting in the rotation, Crawford and Ohka are the other possibilities. Given this depth, I wouldn't mind trading some pitching for a hitter. I wonder what it would take to get a Lance Berkman or Daryle Ward from Houston.

This move was a bit of a surprise for me, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Boston ship off some pitchers and a surplus hitter for one more big bat, preferably a first baseman.

Measuring cost vs. value

Nick Roman is my new favorite sports writer. He talks about how Tom Hicks hopes to receive value back from A-Rod's signing and likely will.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Rangers send Clayton to White Sox for two pitchers

Here's a surprise. Myette has a good arm and who knows about Schmack. I like the name.

I wonder if the White Sox know Jose Valentin and Royce Clayton happen to play the same position? If Herbert Perry or Clayton batted lefty, they could do a neat litte platoon with Valentin playing SS or 3B depending on the handedness of the starter, but that doesn't appear like it would work here. I'm guessing that the White Sox are focussing on Valentin's 36 errors and thinking, "That's too many errors. We must get a better defensive shortstop." I don't like that logic. You have to accentuate what your players can do and not what they can't. Valentin is a net plus thanks to his bat. A much bigger net plus than Clayton is.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Cardinals trade Tatis and Reames to Montreal for Hermanson and Kline

Jim Beattie called last to thank me for encouraging him to make this deal. Here are the stats for principals.

Dustin Hermansen
Steve Kline
Fernando Tatis
Britt Reames

It will be interesting to see how much Hermansen and Kline improve given an actual defense behind them. A better defense will help their numbers, but they are also moving from a pretty good pitcher's park. I tend to take talent over performance with youngish pitchers and Kline and Hermansen are relatively young and highly thought of.

I still much prefer the Expos side of the deal. In what was considered a disappointing year, Tatis's numbers would have been third best on the Expos behind Vidro and Guerrero. Reames looked really tough in the playoffs--I was reminded of Ken Dayley in the 1985 playoffs. I'd like their offense a lot more with Fullmer at first base, but they've got the start of a decent offense.

Chris Widger could be dealt to someone for a shortstop. Barrett would slide in at catcher and Milton Bradley moves into center field. They might score 800 runs next season.

St. Louis postnet.com | Sports | Cards try to make a trade with Expos

Hermansen and Steve Kline for Fernando Tatis and Britt Reames. My first inclination is to bop Jim Beattie about the head for not doing this deal yesterday, but Reames is already 27 much older than I had thought. Still Tatis is a clearly a potential stud and the Expos desperately need a good third baseman.

Still with the relievers you take it as a wash and then look at Hermansen vs. Tatis. I take Tatis just because I like the consistency of offensive players, but you could make a case for the pitcher as well. I'd do the deal if I owned the Expos.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - IFs Brogna, Abbott agree to terms with Braves

Watch Rico scoop, watch Rico throw... I just don't have the heart to continue running Rico down. He stinks, I know it, you know it, the Braves probably know it, and Rico probably suspects it. It sounds like Abbott got the minor league deal and Brogna's was a major league offer. That implies it will be Brogna and Martinez playing first base. I wonder how many National League first basemen have batted eighth in the last decade?

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - 'If he were poor, I'd return it'

``Make no mistake,'' San Diego Padres president Larry Lucchino warned, ``these obscene salaries are paid for by taxing the fans.'' Seattle Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln, whose team lost Rodriguez, labeled Hicks ``a fool.''

Were any of these English and Journalism majors paying attention in Intro to Economics? If we all kick in a few bucks, we can send them to a remedial offering at their local community college.

I could see so viciously criticizing the players if they were failing to honor their contracts. If they were holding out in their first six years refusing to abide by the collective bargaining agreement, I would join the baseball writers in their contempt over player salaries. But as it is now, the players and owners are negotiating in good faith, and the owners are cheerfully paying these salaries.

As for Mr. Lucchino, how big do your cojones have to be, to talk about "taxing fans" when your team extorts $275 million from fans and non-fans alike for a new stadium you don't even have the decency (or perhaps wherewithal) to pay more than half of? That one quote sums up perfectly how duplicitous and downright deceitful these men are. And the media is completely unable to separate the cow from its byproducts and give us the straight poop on the business of baseball.

This crap has been going on for 25 years and we still have to read articles from every corner heralding impending doom. Has one team come even remotely close to missing their payroll or missing a debt payment since all of these "crazy/insane/moronic/stupefying/game-destroying" contracts have been signed? ONE?! P.T. Barnum was right, though he may have underestimated the rate.

ESPN.com Hit Chart - Manny Ramirez

How many times do you have to read about Manny's right center power being hurt in Fenway Park before you wonder if it's true. You can select out home runs on this tool. I counted half to left and half to right for 2000. To be honest, I don't care if he loses three or four home runs because of a big right field, he's still the best hitter in the AL at this moment.

Internal Revenue Service

If you want to blame someone for the high price of going to see a game, blame the tax code. Any system that allows corporations or private individuals to deduct the expense of season tickets, luxury boxes, parking, concessions, etc. is causing the high salaries we are seeing today. Taxpayers are essentially subsidizing the salaries of major league players and owners and certain fans. It's a dirty little secret and the main problem, in my mind, with baseball today.

Now Dubya is never going to change this in a million years, after all commissioner of baseball is the only job he has really, really dreamed about, but if you could get some senator from a small market area to push for this something could happen.

I'm not a tax attorney, so please set me straight if I'm wrong, but this is something that gets zero mention in the press.

Art's Notebook - December 12

I've been checking projo.com half hourly to see when Art would post a note on the Ramirez signing. He didn't disappoint, with one of his best articles of the year.

By the way, the comments on Ramirez being a "DH" and one dimensional are pretty preposterous. Hitting is far, far more important than baserunning and defense for an outfielder. Probably 80% of their job is what they do at the plate. Babe Ruth was a lousy baserunner. He was 110 out 227 stealing bases once he joined the Yankees. Ted Williams was always criticized for his defense or baserunning and Mark McGwire is no prize in the field. Who cares? Ramirez has led the AL in OPS the last two years. He is ninth in career OPS behind only Frank Thomas and Todd Helton among active players. Ninth in slugging and 44th in OBP. Manny is a phenomenal offensive player about as good as Alex Rodriguez. Manny can't play shortstop, which is why A-Rod is likely (not possibly, but likely) to be one of the top five players of all-time, but he can hit and hit and hit, and is in my mind a likely hall of famer.

The Red Sox now have three players with pretty good Hall of Fame aspirations, a great closer, a pretty good center fielder and decent supporting parts. Boston had a higher Pythagorean W-L% than the Yankees last year (with far more injuries) and Boston did more to improve themselves than the Yankees did. I think they will win the East and I don't think it will be all that close (five or six games). With some luck in the rotation, they could win 100 games next year.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Cedeno goes to Tigers in six-player deal

Going into the offseason our priority was to improve our pitching staff," Astros general manager Gerry Hunsicker said. "We feel we took significant strides to do that with this trade. Brad Ausmus helped us win two divisions in Houston. Reacquiring him adds to our pitching immediately. He is one of the best catchers in baseball."

You might think that picking up some good pitchers would be the best way to help your pitching staff, but the Astros managed to do it with just a catcher. There is little evidence that Ausmus has much if any impact on the staff he is managing. In 1999, the Astros went from second to third in team ERA, and the Tigers dropped from 10th to 12th in ERA. I don't see Ausmus being the prime mover in that regard. Doug Brocail has been a pretty good pitcher the last four years, but he is essentially a spot reliever, while Nelson Cruz is an OK pitcher, but nothing to get all that excited over.

For this they gave up a probable top five (in the league) center fielder and a probable top five catcher (at least offensively) both on the correct side of 30 and relatively cheap.

I don't see the risk for the Tigers and a team dealing vets for youngsters should have to assume some risk. Randy Smith oscillates between brilliant and not so brilliant, so I tend to believe he is largely taking a random walk approach to management. This move is brilliant and really helps their team out. This will give them a much longer sequence offense and all it cost them was a little bullpen depth. I'd do that every day and twice on Sunday.

The only risk here is that it causes them to fritter away some of their catching talent. Catcher is the one position the Tigers have young talent: Fick, Munson, Cardona, Inge, and now Meluskey all have some sort of question mark, but all have value and need to be utilized in some way.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - A-Rod's signing puts baseball on road to disaster

In the latest monetary jolt to a sports landscape which constantly one-ups itself in the race to financial ruin, prized free agent Alex Rodriguez agreed to a quarter-billion dollar deal with the Rangers in a contract that spans the next decade.

Three players and a half a billion dollars later, the worry warts are out in force. Attendance is high, the best decade ever, the television contract is the largest ever. Cities are falling over themselves to build new stadiums for teams. Minor league baseball is wildly popular.

Does this look to you like baseball is in bad shape? On a scale of -100 to 100, I'd put baseball's health at about 65. Revenue sharing would be a good addition, but overall the game has a lot going for it.

Critics are unable to give the owners credit for knowing something about their business. Tom Hicks is almost positive Alex Rodriguez will make him a truckload of money. The Boston Red Sox know that they will now sell out Fenway (at the highest prices in the league) almost every night. In a Boston Globe poll, 75% of the respondents, felt Manny was worth the money, 75%!

Revenues drive the player salaries and not the other way around. The next time you feel like complaining about the price of a ticket look first at yourself and then the other 30,000 people willing to shell out $30 for the privilege of watching the most talented baseball players in the world.

Boston.com / Red Sox sign Manny

:-)

:-)

:-)

:-)

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Rodriguez deal a bad move all the way around

Ken Rosenthal employs an army of straw men to prop up the latest diatribe against escalating salaries.

Ken, the fan's love it. Absolutely yuck this stuff up. Did you look at attendance marks lately? The AL is at an all-time high, twice as many people attend games now as did in the idyllic 1950's. Same with the NL. Teams pay these salaries because they want to make more money not less.

I'm not saying that it will work, but I'm betting the ticket manager's phone is ringing off the hook at the Ballpark in Arlington.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Report: Rangers on verge of signing A-Rod

But the Mariners would need offense if they lost Rodriguez, and Damon, Suzuki and Mike Cameron would form the best outfield in the majors.

Where are the editors? Why aren't sportswriters held to the same standard as every other journalist? It would be quite a feat to have an outfield where no one has made the all-star team and still have the best outfield in the league. The Angels have a better outfield, the Yankees and Royals might. I'd prefer Toronto's and definitely Houston's. The Cardinals are better, I'd take the Reds over those three, and if the Dodgers stick me in center they have a better group.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Braves agree to terms with OF Dave Martinez on two-year deal

I'd put the early over/under on the OPS of Braves first basemen at about .740. That is assuming a Surhoff/Martinez platoon. I don't see much else out there for them to use.

If they don't get A-Rod, their offense could take a bit of a dip next year and probably won't finish in the top half of the league in runs scored. They were only 18 runs out of tenth place last year.

Add to that the second oldest staff in the league (behind Arizona, see everyone does retire to the South) and the Braves' hold on the East is tenuous. We might see a repeat of the AL East's race for 90 wins in the NL next year as everyone looks weaker....so far.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Rockies sign Gant

"he plays a solid left field"

If this is in comparison to a boulder, then Buddy Bell in fact made an accurate statement. Gant certainly won't hurt the Rockies and he is a lot cheaper than Jeffrey Hammonds and might produce about as much.

Jim Furtado and I have talked about this some and I'm starting to agree with him that outfield defense is of paramount importance to the Rockies. I would really like to see how they would do with the Braves three center fielder defense, Sanders, Jones and Jordan.

Speaking of Sanders, he probably would have been a whole lot better fit for the Rockies.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Pirates sign free agent OF Derek Bell to a two-year contract

Good Grief! How long is it going to take for someone (Kevin McClatchy) to find out that Cam Bonifay doesn't exactly know what he is doing.

I wonder how long before the Indians want to trade for Bell?

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Rumblings and Grumblings

Matt Lawton: Kind of a poor man's Johnny Damon, Lawton has been rumored to be heading to Detroit (for Tony Clark) or Seattle (for young pitching). Toronto also is interested.

I'm not sure why Lawton is a "poor man's Johnny Damon". He has played six years like Damon, though has 700 fewer at bats. For his career, he has hit .274/.377/.426 to Damon's .292/.351/.438. In addition, Lawton can play RF, while Damon has been largely a LF, though he can play CF as well. I believe Lawton is nearly as valuable as Damon is.

2000 Colorado Rockies Statistics - Baseball-Reference

I hadn't realized just how good the Rockies were last year. An 87-75 pythagorean win-loss record is a pretty good single-season improvement. To be honest, their offense was their main problem, not their pitching. Using ERA+, which takes park effects into account, every one of their starters (except Brian Rose) was above league average. And their bullpen was remarkable. White - 2.17 ERA, Jimenez - 3.18 ERA, Myers - 1.99 ERA, DeJean - 4.89 ERA, Tavarez - 4.43 ERA.

As for their offense, only one regular had an OBP above .400 and only two had slugging percentages above .500. This offense was not very good, and it showed on the road as they hit just .252/.320/.368 on the road.

If they add a Roberto Alomar and get 550 at bats from Larry Walker this could be a very tough team to beat in the NL West. But it will be because of their pitching not their offense.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Rumor Central

Dec. 10: One rumor out of Dallas had the Astros and Tigers discussing an 8-for-2 trade involving Bagwell. However, Bagwell can veto any deal and it's unlikely he would go to trade. The Red Sox, if they fail to get Ramirez, are expected to go after Bagwell or Sammy Sosa via trade.

This is a deal that I was proposing last year for the Astros. Lance Berkman and Daryle Ward can both play if Bagwell is gone, and they could fill a whole lot of holes with the players they would get from the other team. The advantage last off-season was that Bagwell was not a 10-5 player at the time and could not veto any deal.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Cubs have tentative $23.5 million, four-year deal with Todd Hundley

Cubs have been active, which is good to see. They, historically, have seemed awfully timid for a team with so many resources, sort of like the Phillies.

The Cubs should get Hundley about 50 games at catcher against teams that can't run (Mets, Giants, Expos, Brewers) and then 90 games at first base. I wouldn't be opposed to more games behind the plate, but people seem hung up on opponent's stolen bases.

The pitching moves the Cubs made getting Fassero and Gordon don't do a whole lot for me. Gordon is going to take some time to get going and the Cubs are paying $5m for the honor of rehabbing him and taking all of the risk. Jeff Fassero's ERA was league average last year, but they were high maintenance innings in every sense. He had 23 starts and 113 innings in the rotation, about 5 innings a start. He might be worth $2.5m as a reliever, but it seems like an awful risk to take.

The Cubs have a ways to go till they're competitive, so why not try to find a long-term lefthanded reliever.

Yahoo! Sports: Report: Rangers agree to terms with 3B Caminiti

Caminiti can hit, when he's in the lineup. If the Rangers can limit him to 300 at bats, this could be a really good pickup. Overall, though, the Rangers appear to be adding a whole lot of "if's" to their roster. If Andres Galarraga has something left in the tank, if Ken Caminiti is healthy, if they can find a closer, if Ruben Mateo develops. Even if they do pick up Alex Rodriguez, you are talking about a 13 or 14 win pickup which gets them to 85 wins, and all of these current moves are designed to win in the short-term.

I'm not sure that Doug Melvin has noticed, but they allowed more than six runs a game last year. Offensively, they were ninth in runs scored, but a healthy Ivan Rodriguez probably vaults them to the fifth spot.

Even with Rodriguez, they are the third maybe second best team in the division.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Rumor Central

Terry Mulholland is close to signing with the Pirates, in the neighborhood of two years $6 million. (Dec. 7)

After letting Sojo and Ozzie Guillen slip through his fingers, Cam Bonifay makes a bold move. Oh, and the Phillies are picking up Ricky Bottalico. Yeah, it really is the revenue disparity.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Rumblings and Grumblings

How will Denny Neagle survive in the semi-weightless confines of Coors Field? Well, he'll earn those 51.5 million bucks. Put it that way.

Neagle was one of only four pitchers in the big leagues to give up more than 300 fly ball this past season. (Rick Helling, Robert Person and El Duque Hernandez were the others.) And no pitcher allowed more fly balls than Neagle, who gave up 346 of them.

Pedro Astacio gave up almost half as many fly balls (175), had the best ground-ball/fly-ball ratio on the Rockies' staff and still served up 32 homers. Phew.

Coors. It's not a home field. It's an adventure.

Bert Blyleven could have a good year next year. Hall Of Fame? No longer the only pitcher to allow 50 home runs in a season? I wonder if the Rockies studied the relative success of ground ball/fly ball pitchers in Coors before making this signing.

Jayson Stark always gives you a lot to chew on. He is essentially what Gammons once was.

The Providence Journal - Art's Notebook (Dec. 8, 2000)

(And one more quick aside: All we hear -- in certain circles, at least -- is how badly the bumbling Red Sox compare to the innovative geniuses in the Bronx. Well, suppose the Sox had traded four prospects, including Drew Henson and Jackson Melian, for a pitcher who went 7-7 with a 5.81 ERA, couldn't be trusted [in the opinion of the manager] to be placed in the postseason rotation, and then left via free agency at the end of the year? The outcry would make the words "Bagwell" and "Andersen" forgotten names in Red Sox lore. And yet do you hear anything --and I mean anything -- about this?)

If there is a better baseball writer than Art Martone out there, I haven't read him. Somebody pay this guy a truckload of money to write a book on Red Sox managers, GM's, whatever.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Red Sox sign RHP Wakefield to two-year contract

Duquette is essentially getting as many potential starters as possible into the fold. Wakefield, Frank Castillo, Pete Schourek, Bret Saberhagen and several minor league options like JinHo Cho, Sunny Kim, and Juan Pena.

Given the big dollars chasing so-so starters like Kevin Appier, Darren Dreifort and others, this may not be a bad move. It would be a challenging study, but you could certainly look at the chances of one of these lower tier guys breaking out a la Kent Bottenfield or Garrett Stephenson. It may turn out much more cost effective to sign four to five of these guys and let the middling free agent pitchers go.

And what the hell has happened to Ismael Valdes? He hasn't been great lately, but he is certainly worth a look. I'm guessing that teams were waiting till after arbitration to take a look at him.

If the Sox pick up one of Cone, Ramon Martinez or Valdes, I'll like their rotation a lot more than I do right now. Let's say they get Cone, the Sox would have Pedro, Arrojo, Ohka, and then two of

Paxton Crawford
Pete Schourek
Frank Castillo
Tim Wakefield
Bret Saberhagen
David Cone

My preference would then be to pitch Crawford and Wakefield in middle to long relief and then start whichever two of the other guys win a job. Then you've got more options like Kim, Cho and Pena in AAA.

That is seven slots and then you have Lowe, Beck, Pichardo, Garces and Sang Lee for the bullpen. The Sox are due for some luck this year, so they could end up with an abundance of decent arms. Or it could be Pedro and the five-inning gang.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Cone to leave Yankees

Cone is on the market now. I think he would be well worth the risk of a $2m deal with heavy incentives. I would rather have him than someone like Mesa or Cormier.

I'll admit that Cone was worse than bad last year, but from 1997-1999 he started thirty games a year and had an ERA below 3.60 each of those seasons. Not many starters have been good for that long. When Frank Castillo gets two years for a good second half of 2000, I think Cone is worth a fair investment.

A team like the Giants or A's should be all over this guy. He isn't a long-term option, but he could help in a playoff run this season and maybe next. He might be done, but his collapse was so sudden, that I wouldn't be surprised to see him bounce back some.

Here's a look at his ERA and K/9 rates over the last four years from theHILL.

Garvey and Carter deserve places in Cooperstown

Found another HOF article in the Philly paper today. I don't believe Claire Smith has a vote, but she has an opinion. She is pushing hard for Gary Carter (good, so far) and Steve Garvey (oops, she lost me there). She stresses the batting average and all-star appearances and seems extremely impressed by his post-season performance.

I don't agree. Garvey's walk rates are way too low for the HOF. For the postseason performance, that is a nice bonus, but Barry Bonds won't be kept out for his lack of postseason success, so I don't think people should be allowed in just because of it. It has value, but to some degree those types of performances are random.

Yahoo! Sports: Pitching-rich Mariners wouldn't sink without A-Rod

It's sort of breathtaking how fast the Mariners have gone from all-hit/no-pitch to all-pitch/no-hit. And it is pretty much a misreading of the numbers that has caused this misperception.

Look at these last three years of home and road ERA's and OPS's.

Year	Lg_ERA	Home_ERA	Road_ERA	Lg_OPS	Home_OPS	Road_OPS
2000	4.91	3.84	5.20	.789	.760	.842
1999	4.86	5.28	5.18	.783	.814	.783
1998	4.65	5.28	5.18	.769	.831	.794

The Mariner offense was better than ever, if anything, this year. A-Rod, E-Mar, and J-Ole are fantastic offensive players, sprinkle in some OBP guys like Henderson and McLemore and this is a pretty good offense. Add a Charles Johnson and Ichiro Suzuki to the mix and this is a great offense. The pitching was improved this year, but their road ERA was worse than league average. I'm not sure that qualifies as a pitching rich team. Sounds like the Dodgers to me.

The Mariners weren't an all-time offensive team, but they were among the AL's top three, and you can't say the same about their pitching staff.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Now, about that lineup ...

New column by Neyer on the Phillies' acquisitions. Too bad Mr. Gammons can't take a queue from his more analytic colleague and harp on the Phillies for awhile.

Here is my plan for the Phillies. Break the freaking bank for Alex Rodriguez. Philadelphia is a big market (with a new stadium in three years), so start acting like one. Alex could be to Philly what Barry Bonds is to San Francisco. Move Jimmy Rollins to second and then trade Doug Glanville, Marlon Anderson, and Travis Lee for a reliever and someone who can play center field. Call Billy Beane, "Hey buddy, can you spare a first baseman?" You then have a lineup with Bobby Abreu, a center fielder, Pat Burrell, Scott Rolen, A-Rod, Jimmy Rollins, Jason Hart or T.R. Marffjlsfjalzyk, and Mike Lieberthal. Your pitching is just so-so, but you've got a lot of young arms to fill in the gaps.

You then win 90 games next year and with that money sign Abreu and Rolen to extensions. The new park opens in two years and you sign Burrell, Chen and Wolf to extensions. There is a nice four to six year run for you. A-Rod is a big investment, but he would mean more to the Philies than he would to any other team.

2000-12-06/Peter Gammons

Dan Duquette took a great deal of heat in New England for not going after Mike Mussina with any personal resources, which is what landed him with the Yankees, although the Red Sox were willing to outbid New York.

Of course, much of it was from you, Peter.

I wonder my Angelos and Thrift from the Orioles have escaped Peter's wrath on the Mussina front. It wasn't like Gammons went after the Yankees for failing to sign Mo Vaughn. Mussina was their player and not signing him is far, far more damaging than it is for the Red Sox.

Peter, you might also want to check out the stellar signings made by the Phillies. It is at least worth a mention in your column. Not only that, but they lose the draft picks for them as well.

Yahoo! Sports: Major League Baseball - Manny's choices

Mike Mussina is likely to have a very big year for the Yankees next season. For one reason, Mussina suffered from the worst run support in the AL last season. That's largely a result of happenstance -- it's not exactly his fault, right? -- and the odds are remarkable that the same pitcher would get such poor run support two years in a row. After ERA, run support can be a very helpful indicator of a pitcher's won-lost record. (See Mike Hampton, 1999.)

I'm not really quibbling with what Tom Verducci wrote here. I'm quibbling with the mindset that says Mussina didn't have a big year in 2000. He had a good ERA, lots of innings and an 11-15 record. I think Verducci is focusing on the last item, when it is the first two that he should be worried about. He even says that run support dramatically affects win-loss records, but isn't able to take the next step that says, "Run support isn't in the pitcher's control, so we shouldn't evaluate him based on his win-loss record." And that isn't even that far of a leap to make.

One of the challenges of baseball analysts is breaking folks of their slavish dependence on win-loss records. They just aren't a good indicator of pitcher ability or performance. Just like team win-loss records aren't a good indicator of batting ability and shouldn't be used in MVP award voting.

Later in the section, he comments that the Orioles were 7-11 following losses started by Mussina and 8-8 after wins started by Mussina. I'm still trying to piece together what information that provides me with.

Boston Globe Online - Dan Shaughnessy - Magnificent 7

One of many people entrusted with an HOF ballot, Shaughnessy includes, Puckett, Winfield, Gossage, Rice, Carter, Tiant, and Blyleven on his ballot. This certainly sounds reasonable, though Sutter gets a lot of support. Was Bruce Sutter significantly better than his most similar Doug Jones?

Say, if you see some other writers writing about their HOF ballots online or in your local paper, e-mail me and I'll point to it here, or you can just post it as a comment to this or another message.

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Devil Rays sign IF Guillen to minor league contract

The first sign of just how bad the Devil Rays intend to be this year. BTW, do you think the fact that Ozzie was with the Braves had anything to do with the D'Rays picking him up?

Yahoo! Sports: Dodgers agree to three-year deal with RHP Andy Ashby

A solid move for the Dodgers. Ashby's Defense Independent ERA was 4.57 with the Braves after stinking up the joint in Philadelphia. He should manage a 4.0-4.3 ERA for the Dodgers and can be counted on to miss one or two starts a year with a sore arm. Actually, that may be misleading. He's made 30 or more starts each of the last four years. Along with whoever gets David Cone, this could be one of the more cost effective moves out there.

FOX Fantasy Baseball - Complete breakdown of major league baseball signings

Foxsports.com has a breakout of all the main free agents and news about them. I like ESPN's set up better as the freshest news is always at the top. On a side note. Foxsports.com wastes more bandwidth than anyone else I've ever seen. Take a look at the Career SB leaders for the Braves Franchise. Rank, name, years and bases are good, but look at how much unrelated material has to flow through your pipe in order to read a list of twenty names. The data itself takes about 3KB of bandwidth, but the entire page holds (with graphics) is 88KB. A 1:30 info to crap ratio is pretty poor.

ESPN.com - Page2 - Don't damn the Yankees

Nice piece by David Schoenfield on the Yankees and money. While I agree that money is not the main reason for the Yankees success, it is certainly a huge factor. They are a well-managed team, but they aren't that much smarter than anyone else. As Schoenfield notes, their money gives them remarkable flexible to eat David Cone's bad season, to get Denny Neagle, David Justice and Glenallen Hill and to sign 75% of the foreign free agents of note. When Schoenfield comments on El Duque's salary ($6.6m/4yr) that is a bit disingenuous as you should count Hideki Irabu ($12.8m/4yr + $3m to Padres), Jackson Melian ($1.6m), Adrian Hernandez ($4m/4yr), WilyMo Pena ($3.7m/4yr), Ricardo Aramboles ($1.52m) and Kat Maeda($1.85m). I'm sure I missed a couple as well.

Only one of these guys have made it really big in the majors, so I don't think you can necessarily say that El Duque was without risk. The Yankees took a lot of risks and he's the one that turned out well. Their money let them take so many risks.

CNNSI.com - Chat Reel: Bill Lee - Friday August 18, 2000 06:25 PM

I surfed over to CNNSI.com and didn't find a whole lot of comment on free agency, but I did find a great chat with Bill Lee. He even accused Carlton Fisk of being a less than riveting public speaker.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Rumor Central

ESPN's Rumor Central really rocks, but there are a couple of improvements they could make that would really be cool. One, update it every two or three hours. At the moment, the most recent update was yesterday. I've already read this six times, so give me the scoop sooner and more often. Two, send out e-mail alerts when something happens. I'd be one of their first ten subscribers. ESPN.com does a poor job of using e-mail to drive more traffic.

I generally use Yahoo!Sports and ESPN.com for my baseball news, so I'm going to look at the other major sites and report what I can find there on the Free Agent front.

SatireWire | George W. Bush's Weblog

Outside the Box is a weblog, which is generally characterized by someone linking to and commenting on news, or spilling their guts to the world. Anyways, Dubya now has a weblog (at least satirically), and it's made me chuckle more than once. I list pretty strongly to the left politically, and being a college professor I'm sure Rush would characterize me as a member of the "liberal intelligentsia". I would certainly agree with the first label, but other might quibble with the second. And if you instead swing from the right side (I mean only handedness), "goreblog.com" is still available at Network Solutions. Mega Dittos!

Mel Kiper - ESPN.com

Just a really silly thing (related to webdesign and not to baseball), but I wonder what Mel and ESPN have against colorblind readers. Of course, they probably don't have any in their user testing pool, if they do user testing. Their front page leads me to believe that they don't. That red link on the puke green background has to show up real well for someone with red-green color blindedness.

ESPN.com - Major League Baseball - Winfield, Puckett ... Deshaies? Hey, you never know

Jim Caple is good for a laugh this week as he puts the Jim Deshaies HOF case before his readers.

Yahoo! Sports: Ramirez interested in Red Sox

Talk about exciting. Red Sox fans have to be bonkers with this talk. Back up the truck Duqe because that is what it is going to take. Some Red Sox conspiracy theorists believe Duqe orchestrated the unsuccessful Mussina flirtation to keep the Yankees off their real target, Ramirez. Given the way the Bernie Williams and Mussina signings went down, that might be a good move.

The Red Sox desperately need Ramirez. Manny was worth nearly 122 xRuns in just 118 games or about 165 for a full season. Troy O'Leary was worth about 78 for the whole season. A 77 run bump is a pretty big one and would elevate their offense right next to the Yankees in the league batting totals. Add to that any production from first base or third base and a bit of a rebound from Varitek, Nixon and Offerman and the Sox could score 900 runs. Of course it took me six "what ifs" to make it happen, but Boston won 85 games with four spaghetti bats. Ninety five wins with Ramirez is a lock. ;-)

Yahoo! Sports: MLB - Safeco fences won't move for A-Rod

Gillick, manager Lou Piniella and other team officials are scheduled to meet with Rodriguez and Boras on Thursday in Miami. Mariners chairman Howard Lincoln won't be there because he will be vacationing in Hawaii. Also missing from the meeting will be team president Chuck Armstrong.

Hey, Gammons, since you hammered Duqe (it is my goal in life to make this the standard abbreviation for Duquette's name) for not carrrying Mussina's luggage at the airport (though I hear Dan did meet Mike and his agent at the gate with two dozen fresh orchids; of course, Tellem is allergic to most flowers, but only someone like Cashman would know that), I can't wait what you have to say about the moronic Mariners. The president and owner can't be bothered to meet with the best player ever? Don't they realize they have great jobs?

I was pretty hard on Peter Gammons last week. Not that he's reading as his latest piece goes after the Red Sox ticket hike. He does have a good line in there about the "age of aquarius". Peter, you can write about all of this stuff with the Phillies as well. For instance, one of the local TV channels did a big expose showing bird crapping, nose picking and finger licking going on around the cotton candy machines along with dozens of health code violations.

A word about the ticket prices at Fenway. I went to Boston last summer with the sole purpose of seeing the Red Sox. It was around August 1st, it was a Friday night, and they were playing the Royals. The game was sold out before we got there. We then found a scalpers offering box seats for $110 apiece. We then found a scalper offering grandstand seats for $65. We then settled for bleachers at $40 a pop. Bleachers! Of course, somebody (*cough* furtado *cough*) didn't notice that they were for Saturday's game, but we got in anyway and made it to our seats in the very top row of the very long set of stairs. Of course the rightful owners came a day earlier than we were supposed to be there, so we moved about six times and got to see most of the game without incident.

My point is this, don't let Jim Furtado or his friend Gary deal with scalpers and, second, if a scalper even has the audacity to ask $40 for a bleacher seat for a Friday game with the Royals in early August, the team is undercharging by a country mile.

Keep in mind, as well, that even with the most expensive tickets in the game, the Red Sox still set an attendance record. I'm not sure what the upper bound on the ticket prices in Boston is, but they haven't reached it yet. Like every other business, they ain't stopping till they do.

Oh, and one other thing, Peter's got pretty good taste in music. Dar Williams rulez!

Yahoo! Sports - Seattle signs New York Yankees reliever

It's pretty clear what the going rate for a decent setup man is. $3m per year for two to three years. Seems a little high to me given number of young arms kicking around the minors, but the team's got it so they are spending it.

Look at these signings. Do you honestly believe that any more than a couple of teams (if that) are actually losing money? Not when they are getting $25m/year in television booty they aren't.

ESPN.com - Rob Neyer - Rodriguez to M's: Move in the fences

It's good to have baseball's leading sabermetric voice back after a fortnight off. Rob's got a new book in the works and it should be interesting. Today, he deals with A-Rod and the whole Free Agent hitting-pitching thing. One of the things that he doesn't mention, but I've heard elsewhere and is very important is the following.

Batters get paid for home runs and pitchers get paid for wins. This has a dramatic effect in arbitration, especially when offensive levels are so high. Batters' salaries get jacked up due to the high offensive levels and pitcher's are taken along for the ride since they only have to win games not prevent runs.

This means that teams in pitcher's parks may have some advantages in the arbitration front. Their hitters won't do as well, so you will catch some slack on their salaries the first few years. Of course, as Rob points out, this means they may be out the door after six.

Group tries to right a wrong: Omission of scouts from Hall

A nice article on the missing scouts in the Hall. One minor nitpick, no writers or broadcasters are inducted in the HOF. They are merely given an award and recognized by the HOF. They are, however, members of the Hall of Fame as much as you and I are.

Yahoo! Sports - Report: LHP Neagle set to accept five-year deal with Rockies

It's officially Christmas in the Forman house! My wife and I got our first Christmas tree and also did a good deal of shopping last weekend. It is a bit easier when you are no longer a student and have a real job.

That said, I'm guessing the Neagle household will have a few more gifts under the tree than the Forman household. But then again the Forman's can't throw a ball past hulking batters.

Here is an output from theHILL showing Denny's record at various parks and his running 20 game ERA chart. As you can see, Denny had a rough end of 2000, though in normal situations he appears a good bet to be between 3.00 and 4.00.

Seven starts in Coors and 7.30 ERA. Not real good. I haven't got a clue what type of pitcher thrives at altitude (relatively thrives that is). I would have to guess a fastball/changeup guy because speed seems to me the only thing that will still work at altitude, but I don't know.

The Rockies are also hot after Hampton. Here is his theHILL report.

I'm really proud of what you can do with theHILL, but it just doesn't get a whole lot of play for some reason. I think that most folks aren't interested in doing really complicated queries on the data. I'm not saying they want to be spoonfed, but most folks just don't have the time to care that much. It's a nice research tool if you have a specific need though.

It's due for a retooling, and I have some nice prototypes, that I just haven't been able to get done yet. Maybe next summer.

ZDNet: Yahoo! Internet Life | Find Baseball Stats

Nothing like a little good press to start your morning off right. I've taken the "liberty" of doing a screen shot of the kind words in question. You can read them below.

Yahoo! Sports: Rodriguez wants shorter fences at Safeco

Mr. Rodriguez displays a deft touch with public relations.

I'm sure the pitchers would be real happy about this. The pitchers complain, but I don't recall any pitchers demanding that the walls be moved out. The article states that the Mariners hit 92 dingers at home and 106 on the road. That looks like noise to me.

You want to know a batter with a beef. Check out Nomar's Home/Road HR totals. He is such a line drive hitter that he loses a lot of balls that would be home runs elsewhere. Of course, he makes it up in doubles.

Boston Globe Online / Sports / Musing on Mussina

Maybe Mr. Gammons's view isn't as universal as I had thought.

The Providence Journal

The only thing we KNOW is that the Yankees have engaged in a much more public campaign than the Red Sox. Frankly, I prefer a private approach. Sure, from a fan's perspective it is frustrating to be shut off from the details, but can you really blame Duquette for wanting to avoid another public bidding war with the Yankees?

Given my earlier heated words for Mr. Gammons, here is another point of view. I find the statement that Mussina has visited Boston and New York probably 40 times already as a player interesting. Do you really think that a guy as smart as Mussina is going to be swayed just because the Yankees gave him the names of some good realtors?

Peter Gammons

But president Randy Levine, GM Brian Cashman and Joe Torre, in the midst of winning a World Series, figured and planned it all out. Mike Mussina is a Yankee because those Yankees people do great jobs; he is not a Red Sox because the people who run that franchise have great jobs.

Look, Peter, we are sorry that Dan Duquette ran over your dog, that his family members routinely egg and teepee your house, that he wrote in his Christmas card, "Peter, Bite me! Dan," that he doesn't get every damn free agent in existence to play for the Red Sox, that he fired all your sources in the front office, and, most of all, that he doesn't return your calls anymore. We feel bad that you've been hurt so deeply. But grow up for goodness sakes!

The Red Sox have won a good number of games over the last six years. Dan Duquette's trade and signing of Pedro Martinez is possibly the best GM move of the last five years. If Cashman is so smart why is Jeter going to make about three times, what Nomar does over the next four years. Is Duquette perfect, NO, but he isn't the Anti-Rickey either.

Why take the Sox to task when the Mets failed just as badly (their best pitcher is likely gone as well)? Good Grief, the Mets have just as much crap going on as anyone else. What about Tom Kelly and his inability to win anything other than "moral" victories? What about LaRussa's idiocy in the playoffs or the Orioles lawn bowling brigade? What about an Angels team that can't win 80 games and gave away their best outfielder because he was "too laid back." What about John Hart in Cleveland? Do you even realize that the Red Sox have won only five fewer games over the last three years? Let's make a friendly wager on whether the Sox make up that difference in 2001.

Pick on the Phillies, who are in the fifth largest market and whose big off-season moves are to waste $15m on two mediocre 34-year-old relievers? Write about the Phillies for awhile, and tell us about the inbred mess their management has become. Dallas Green, Greg Gross, John Kruk, and Larry Bowa. I hear Bake McBride is fine tuning his resume. (You can even use that line if you like.)

Peter, just leave the Sox alone till opening day. Make the Phillies or Twins your whipping boys, they deserve your spleen a whole lot more than the Red Sox do.

Yahoo! Sports: Cone next on Yankees' agenda

``We just seem to be able to pick up quality players to take us to the highest level and reach our goal,'' Bernie Williams said. ``With Mike now joining our team, we have the chance to do something very special. We have four aces in a five-man rotation, and it's comforting to know that we have a special pitcher taking the mound for us every day.''

"seem to be able" ?! It's called money, Bernie. Before you write in accusing me of anti-Yankee bias, I'll come clean. I hate the Yankees. I don't hate many things, but I do hate the Yankees, excuse me,HATE the Yankees. If that means you stop reading me, good!, we don't need any more Yankee backers here than we have already. ;-) And I'm not so wild about the Mets, either.

Back to the main topic of the article. I think Cone is a great gamble for a half milion. For a one-year deal, I might go at least up to $1.5m or $2.5m on him, and I wouldn't be surprised if some teams are telling him just that. In 1997-1999, the guy was very, very good, and I doubt he has lost it that quickly. Part of what could be happening here is that Cone's signability drops like a rock if the Yankees offer him arbitration, so we've got a game of chicken.

The Yanks don't want to pay him arbitration dollars. You would have a hard time convincing me he is only worth a $1m. On the flip side, Cone wants to make as much as he can and it looks like the Yanks are really low balling him. From his ten age-based comps, Key, Welch, Buhl, Stewart, Lemon, Langston, and Sutcliffe were all done at age 37, but Finley, Hershiser, and Tiant had another few years in them. For $2-3m, I would sign David Cone in a heartbeat.