Rob

Isn't the reported twins asking price Kemp, LaRoche, and Kershaw? No need to add Hu or upgrade from Kershaw to Billingsley to get it done. And the dodgers aren't willing to do that. I'm guessing Kershaw will be the sticking point for both teams. This would have been a whole lot easier if Elbert didn't have shoulder surgery. Upgrade from Kershaw to Billingsley? I've heard a lot of talk that teams prefer Kershaw.

First ballot? Really? He was solid for a long time and still put up great numbers into his 40's (steroids, anyone) but imo first ballot is really stretching it. Raines has more career value than McGwire, according to WARP3... and not by a slim margin. Rock is a first ballot HoF, even if nobody noticed it. He never finished higher than fifth in the mvp voting. He led his league once in batting average, twice in runs, but never led the league in hits, ops, hr's, or rbi. He wasn't particularly good in the postseason. The only hall of fame statistic he really has is his stolen bases. You also can't ignore his off-field problems as integrity and character are components of the vote. Combine all of that and he's a hall-of-famer maybe, but definitely not on his first try. MVP votes mean absolutely nothing, first off. Let's face it, the voters never get it right... hell, they've made a mess out of the vote pretty much every year in recent memory. As for the rest of Rock's accomplishments... 7 time all star Led the league in OBP once, placed in the top six an additional six times. Top ten in OPS four times, including a 2nd place finish. Top ten in runs 9 times, including two first place finishes, and two second place finishes. Ranked 46th all-time in his career for runs. Ranked 68th all-time in his career for hits. Ranked 100th all-time for total bases. Top ten finish in triples 9 times. Ranked 33rd all-time in walks. Ranked 5th all-time in steals. Top ten finish 11 times, including four times leading the league. Ranked 51st all-time in runs created. People always compare Rock to Rickey, since they were direct contemporaries. That's really not fair, seeing as how Rickey is a slam-dunk HoF player. Only a handful of players in history are gonna hold up to his standard. But when you compare Rock to all the other players in history, he definately belongs in the Hall. You're criticizing me for using mvp voting and then you use all-star game appearances. I guess I have a higher standard for guys getting in on their first try. You said yourself that Rickey is a slam dunk and Rock doesn't even compare, yet they're going into the same hall. I think the way to separate the "levels" of players is whether or not they got in on their first ballot. Rock scores lower than the average hall of famer using Bill James' HOF Standards and his HOF Monitor, couple that with his propensity to use blow and I just don't see any validation for him getting in this year. Fair enough on the All Star thing... but take a look at this. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=684 Rock's JAWS score - 102.1 Avg HoF LF - 86.8 And that's not just his longevity speaking... he's got a better peak than the average HoF left fielder too. My personal philosophy, if he's in the top 10 at his position, he should be voted in first ballot. Rock falls in that top ten.

First ballot? Really? He was solid for a long time and still put up great numbers into his 40's (steroids, anyone) but imo first ballot is really stretching it. Raines has more career value than McGwire, according to WARP3... and not by a slim margin. Rock is a first ballot HoF, even if nobody noticed it. He never finished higher than fifth in the mvp voting. He led his league once in batting average, twice in runs, but never led the league in hits, ops, hr's, or rbi. He wasn't particularly good in the postseason. The only hall of fame statistic he really has is his stolen bases. You also can't ignore his off-field problems as integrity and character are components of the vote. Combine all of that and he's a hall-of-famer maybe, but definitely not on his first try. MVP votes mean absolutely nothing, first off. Let's face it, the voters never get it right... hell, they've made a mess out of the vote pretty much every year in recent memory. As for the rest of Rock's accomplishments... 7 time all star Led the league in OBP once, placed in the top six an additional six times. Top ten in OPS four times, including a 2nd place finish. Top ten in runs 9 times, including two first place finishes, and two second place finishes. Ranked 46th all-time in his career for runs. Ranked 68th all-time in his career for hits. Ranked 100th all-time for total bases. Top ten finish in triples 9 times. Ranked 33rd all-time in walks. Ranked 5th all-time in steals. Top ten finish 11 times, including four times leading the league. Ranked 51st all-time in runs created. People always compare Rock to Rickey, since they were direct contemporaries. That's really not fair, seeing as how Rickey is a slam-dunk HoF player. Only a handful of players in history are gonna hold up to his standard. But when you compare Rock to all the other players in history, he definately belongs in the Hall.

First ballot? Really? He was solid for a long time and still put up great numbers into his 40's (steroids, anyone) but imo first ballot is really stretching it. Raines has more career value than McGwire, according to WARP3... and not by a slim margin. Rock is a first ballot HoF, even if nobody noticed it.

The way I'm reading this also indicates to me you're quite confident a deal will get done. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. That's up to Matsui. He's the one who has to sign. All I'm saying is the Cubs are going hard after him. Bruce, why do you gotta make me cry?

This is a hilarious contract. Just to illustrate the closer thing, I thought I'd bring up the one aspect of Billy Beane's tenure that nobody can argue with... he's done a pretty good job finding closers for pennies on the dollar. Beane took over in 1997. Billy Taylor was his closer. In 1999 he flipped Taylor to the Mets for Jason Isringhausen. He let Isringhausen walk before the 2002 season, pocketed the draft picks, and traded Eric Hinske (meh) and Justin Miller to the Blue Jays for Billy Koch. Koch became the new closer (after posting an ERA above league average the year before). He let Koch's value get pumped back up, and then traded him to the White Sox with a couple minor leaguers for Keith Foulke, a former first round catcher, and a couple other minor names. Again, Beane threw Foulke in the closer role (after he had lost it the year before), pumped his value way up, and pocketed the draft picks. Even when he's failed, like with Octavio Dotel, he didn't give up too much. He gave up a couple prospects with limited ceilings in Mark Teahen and Mike Wood, aiming to hold onto Dotel until he got a good trade offer or could get the draft picks. Dotel got injured, but Wood is never gonna be missed, and Teahen had no place on the A's. It was certainly worth the risk. And recently, he drafted a guy and put him in as the closer. Street is costing them basically nothing. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that a good general manager will know better than to sink a good chunk of his payroll into a guy who pitches maybe 70 innings a year. In fact, closers are extremely easy to find, either from other systems or within your own. There's no reason you should ever sink that kind of money into a reliever, unless they're one of the extremely few that exhibit little to no variance in year-to-year performance and the club having enough already in their payroll that it's just a splash in the bucket (Rivera being one of the few).

We should always look at any offers on any of our players. It doesn't mean we should accept them, but Hendry wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't listen.

That had occured to me. Fukudome will be 30 this season, IIRC... while Matsui will be 32. A 2 year age gap in high school can lead to some degree of hazing... especially if the older kid is a star athlete.

Torn ACL and meniscus. I don't know medicine, but I don't believe the meniscus is the same thing as the MCL. The meniscus is just cartilage, though it's fairly important. Tearing that would cause your joint to lock up and making running fairly painful. The MCL is the medial collateral ligament, one of four ligaments (including the ACL-- anterior cruciate ligament) responsible for stablizing the knee. Injuring those is what causes the sensation of giving out, as well as causing pain.

According to an old article on Baseball Prospectus, that's the case.

We don't even have five shortstops. The only one who can really play there right now is Cedeno... Matsui would need to be healthy to play there.

I knew there was a reason I got drunk... my subconscious must have known that it was time for Hendry to do something this stupid.

I read it as "Fook U Doe May" I caught the joke.

His music sucks. The album title isn't gonna be enough to get me interested.

Offense is more important than defense, typically. Nobody is going to argue that. The question is whether the difference in defensive value between the best defensive SS in the league and an historically bad defensive season from a 3B is enough to cover the gap on their offensive values. If you can translate their defensive plays directly into runs saved/allowed, you can compare that directly to what they did with their bats. For this one, I'm gonna take a look at BRAA and FRAA. Braun cost his team 25 runs on defense compared to the average 3B, while adding 36 runs with his bat. Tulowitzki saved his team 24 runs on defense compared to the average SS, and added 10 runs with his bat. Offensively speaking, Tulo isn't in Braun's class. But in this rare case, his defense was certainly enough to cover the gap.

I know these numbers (especially FRAR) aren't exatly the best that can be found, but I'm feeling somewhat lazy. Batting Runs Above Replacement (BRAR) and Fielding Runs Above Replacement (FRAR) Tulowitzki: 30 BRAR 46 FRAR Braun: 50 BRAR -15 FRAR Tulo got absolutely screwed. In terms of overall value, Tulo was more than twice as valuable. Even giving Braun an equal amount of playing time, Tulo would have easily been the best choice.

Kaz Matsui is a pretty bad baseball player.

Hanley is getting absolutely robbed. I see absolutely no chance he stays with the Marlins a day longer than he has to. He's got to realize he needs some real media coverage.

I'm still gonna call them the DRays.

Dempster's one good year as a starter was back in 2000. If we're using Hendry's logic then we better sign Darin Erstad since he was also good in 2000. Don't even joke about that.

You're missing the meaning. The idea isn't to be removing those factors, it's to be able to properly see how much they help or hurt players. Wouldn't it be real nice if a GM knew what taking a player like Dante Bichette out of Coors Field would do before signing him to a nice contract? Or how about what would happen if you took Chan Ho Park out of Dodger Stadium and put him in Arlington? We already know which players are good and bad. Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez are good no matter what numbers you're trying to use. Neifi Perez and Jose Macias aren't. The metrics are more designed at trying to separate those guys in the middle of the pack, where ballparks and other things the players have no control over can make a much bigger difference. Ok, let's run with this. Jamie Moyer has 230 career wins. Sandy Koufax had 165. Now I'm not going to insult you and try to say that your logic would mean that Moyer is a better pitcher than Koufax. I know you wouldn't buy that. But you know Koufax is a better pitcher because you look past just the wins. You take a look at the ERA, you take a look at the difference in games pitched. That's all these metrics are doing. They're grabbing all the pertinent information and putting them into nicer numbers. They certainly aren't ridiculous. They're just how you separate guys like Juan Pierre (career .301 batting average and not a very useful player) from Joe Cronin (career .301 batting average and an extremely useful player). What is it you "old school" guys like to talk about? The "little things"? Well the little things like ballparks, league scoring environment, etc... all add up to be pretty important when valuing a player correctly. It's how you know Yaz was fantastic in 1968, and how you know Three Finger Brown isn't exactly Pedro Martinez, despite the 2.06 career ERA to Pedro's 2.80. I think it's time to start giving a little more credit to these metrics than you currently do.

Ya know, I was drunk all weekend, but I was pretty sure something was different when I got on here. Kudos Tim, it looks great!

No fisk? I have a weird love of Lombardi. Honestly, he shouldn't be on the list and Fisk should probably slide in at ten... but I stand by my decision.

1. Bench 2. Berra 3. Campanella 4. Piazza 5. Cochrane 6. Simmons 7. Carter 8. Lombardi 9. Rodriguez 10. Hartnett

The Cubs last year?