haltz

I'm not saying they're innocent. Disregarding the stupid one-time arguments, I'm making a distinction between HGH and steroids and why players take them. Taking HGH because someone mentioned that it helps you recover from injuries seems to be the prevailing sentiment from players. This falls in line with some stuff that we already know about how the drug is marketed to adults. The only other reason players take it seems to be because it's undetectable by MLB's testing, so why not? Just like people take steroids for the same reasons, and/or because they think it makes them hit homers or is a shortcut in their workout routine, I can buy that plenty of athletes take HGH because they think it will help them heal. Players who use human growth hormone apparently believe that it assists in their ability to recover from injuries and fatigue during the long baseball season; this also is a major reason why players used steroids. - p 10, Mitchell Report

Not even with HGH? Seems to me like that's how the snake oil salesmen got these dudes to buy it. As far as Roberts and this "one time" stuff, I'd like to believe it too, but it's just too obvious an explanation. I think he comes off looking better than he did before in some ways. "I tried it once, I'm a scrappy white guy, but I knew it was wrong and now I'm being honest by admitting something that doesn't make me look all that bad, after the Mitchell Report came out."

In that case, he couldn't be signed by another team.

If they want to. The arbitration thing is done, however.

He's already declined arbitration.

His K-rate (23.8%) from last year (and it was in line with his AAA K-rate), would rank him 22nd among qualified players, between Andruw Jones and Josh Willingham. For players with a 20% K-rate or higher, his BB-rate (of 7%) would put him in the minority among players on that page. Only above or right at, Khalil Greene, Alfonso Soriano, Juan Uribe, Craig Biggio, Ty Wigginton, Alex Gordon, and Chris Young. The question is if he has legit power (the 43 taters he hit last year suggests that he does), will he be able to develop plate discipline or if he will start to get pitched around some? It's also up for debate whether he'll be a plus outfielder. He obviously is fast and has a cannon, but from watching him last year the reports from Memphis as their center fielder overstated his route-running and hands. He's altogether unique and a hell of an athlete, so while I share the exact same concerns as CubinNY, actually, I think it's overstated (the "no future in baseball" stuff) and the things he needs to improve are old man's skills that can be learned. He already has the stuff that you can't teach. I wouldn't make a bet either way.

And that he might've thrown 75 pitches, and regardless of how many runs he's given up hitters have a career .798 OPS against him at that point in the game. Prior's splits make it look like he's a guy that needs a little time to settle in, but once a pitch count starts to get up there, I'd say very few pitchers are going to be more effective on average. Also: Just more numbers to back up the urge I feel to punch someone when a fan calls a pitcher (who's having a rough night) a headcase from his couch.

He'd have to have a monster year defensively to salvage another .599 OPS (-38 runs prorated to 600 PA), but FWIW he's only done that once and it's a 236 PA sample. Being a career .656 hitter, it's easy to see that it's within the realm of possibility especially in that amount of plate appearances (I'm sure he's had 200 PA that bad in a row before). It is somewhat hard to post an OPS that low though over the course of a season, I'd think, unless you just just stopped putting balls in play. 14 guys have pulled it off in the last decade, and Everett is a terrible hitter, but it'd be tough to project that, and a projection is the only reasonable statistical basis for decisions of this nature. As far as the metrics go, they destroy conventional fielding stats. Even if you don't trust their accuracy completely, they consistently point to these guys being on the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, and we know that a hit prevented is worth about three-fourths of a run. Logically, the spread of talent among MLB shortstops being a hit prevented every couple of games isn't that far-fetched, at least not to me. We know that most MLB teams discount this sort of thing, probably precisely because they don't trust the metrics and offense is easy to quantify. If ever there was a opportunity for a fantastic underpayment, this seems to be it (without going back to look, MGL says this better than I can in the link that's posted).

No surprise, but FRAA blows it with Everett. The fielding gap is probably on the order of 40-50 runs as we're talking about the very best and worst among ML shortstops here. You can go to BRef and see that their lwts offensive gap has been something similar in recent years. It's pretty much that simple, and we don't need [expletive] replacement levels or f'd up fielding numbers here.

Yeah, all McGwire did was the best thing you can possibly do as an offensive player.

He's not close in the slightest and this sort of thing where the answer is patently obvious just gives an observer a chance to make a mistake. If Everett is hurt or something that is an entirely different matter and doesn't have anything to do with a competition. Theriot has a career 69 OPS+ and Theriot posted a 72 last year. That's a handful of runs a year. Or to put it another way, Theriot was -22 by BRef's lwts last year in 597 PA and Everett is -26 per 600 PA for his career. The difference is that Everett posts gaudy UZRs like a +48 in 2006.

UZR likes him, and his career EqA is .278. The years suck, but it's the FA market. This isn't a horrible signing in a vacuum.

Use the tags. It still might be messy if it isn't originally formatted correctly. You can use something like TextEdit or whatever it's called in Windows that has set spacing to format it, but that doesn't always work for me either.

Only if you care about the runs they make happen, which is mean if you ask me.

I just ordered some stuff from Amazon and now that I read this thread I'm mad that I forgot to include Weaver's book. That's been on my list for a while. Same with The Book, which will be arriving Wednesday. Apparently the new THT annual didn't ship, but I got that too and I'll report back if I remember. I read BBTN and THT 2007 around the same time and remember liking THT book quite a bit more. Some of BBTN seemed fairly uninteresting and didn't really pass the smell test if you ask me, though I'm no statistician.

Whoops, that's a stat.

I don't know, I try to only read one team's idiot reporters on a regular basis.

If I remember correctly, the first was a frayed labrum, and lately it was bone spurs and then an impingement and then the UCL. Prior's last surgery was labrum and some other stuff in his shoulder. Who knows, anyway, she's got her facts wrong. What's funnier to me is that she says, "you can't compare Prior's surgery to any pitcher's."

Why would you say that if you wanted to get out of Baltimore? I do agree that it's all talk though. If you are a pitcher (especially one like Bedard that's never thrown 200 innings), you'd be pretty stupid to not listen to reasonable extension offers when you are still a year or two away from free agency. There's a reason these guys don't hit the market.

Joe Strauss said this so there's close to a zero percent chance that it happens. Not to mention that I have no clue what the Orioles would want with Anderson, and that I find it hard to believe Perez is a really great trade chip.

That's great. I would say that he's a better than average player, in clutch and non-clutch situations. If you want to call Albert Pujols a clutch hitter because he's a monster in all situations, go for it. No one's going to dispute that because it's obvious. We can make up all sorts of definitions for whatever we want, but that is not what the clutch debate is over.

The Cubs should absolutely try DeRosa as the SS if they acquire Roberts. He's actually been good there according to a small sample UZR. He has the arm to play 3B and RF and the range to play 2B. Just because the Cubs management thinks Theriot is a better defensive SS doesn't mean he is.

Or his agent has been reading Tangotiger's blog. League average is a 2 win player, and Tango estimates marginal wins are worth $4.40M or something on the free agent market this year. It's the years more than the money that's the problem. He still had an above average .267 EqA last year, it's just that his fielding dropped off considerably, which the metrics supported. That could be an aberration, but it's also probably a red flag and the team will regret the end of the deal (or the whole thing). Of course, plenty of teams sign deals knowing they'll regret them later, so who knows. I'll be really surprised if he gets 4/36, but not as surprised as I am that the Cardinals didn't offer him arbitration. It's absolutely mind-boggling that they'd run out and lock down .223 EqA Cesar Izturis instead.

Cross him off then.