davearm2

He should have given Boston a vote of confidence.

That's true, but overall the Yankees would be a better team with Tex(LF)+Fielder than Tex(1B)+Swisher/whomever. And cost doesn't often stop the Yankees from upgrading.

Sounds about right to me. Yep. There's really not much to debate about him. He's got 2500+ professional PA with very uninspiring production. he may be able to improve upon his lackluster major league numbers going forward, but that just means 4th or 5th OF. An OF that can OPS in the mid .700s is closer to a league average starter than a 4th/5th OF. Just looking at bbprospectus: MLB LFs are collectively OPSing .726; CFs .738; and RFs .783

Because there hasn't been any reason for him to. Do you think he wouldn't be capable of doing it? Because he's a really, really good 1B. He's probably capable sure, but it makes no sense to do so. Their OF is doing really well as a group, and with their aging left side of the IF he covers everyone's ass at 1B for the Yankees. Their OF may be doing well, but they're going to have a vacant spot out there next season. Swisher and Jones are both FA's after 2011 (as are guys like Chavez and Posada, their main DHs). The defensive value Teixeira provides at 1B would be more than covered by the offense Fielder or Pujols would add. Hey maybe they'll re-up Swisher and spend on pitching. But going this other route is totally feasible, and also totally Yankee-ish.

FWIW... normalizing Colvin's 2011 BABIP with all singles pushes his OPS to .717 (.250/.301/.417) normalizing Colvin's 2011 BABIP with a proportionate mix of singles doubles and triples pushes his OPS to .762 (.250/.301/.461) You could arguably tweak those numbers some more to normalize for HR/FB, and push the adjusted OPS a bit higher. Do the same normalization exercise on his career stats, and you get an OPS of .773 with all singles, or .785 with a mix of singles and XBH. Bottom line, with normal BABIP and HR/FB, the guy is probably a mid/high-700s hitter.

Because there hasn't been any reason for him to. Do you think he wouldn't be capable of doing it?

They're not going to give Prince Fielder the kind of money he'll be getting to play DH/part time 1B. He's a 1B, and those teams that don't need 1B will be in rumors simply to raise the price. Neither of these guys will sign to DH, but that doesn't necessarily eliminate teams like the NYY. Teixeira could be moved to the OF.

The obvious problem with all this is, the scout's "grade" is hugely dependent upon the player development system he's sending kids into. That's not to say it's an impossible evaluation to conduct, only that it's got a gigantic complicating factor that would have to be dealt with for the findings to be valuable. You would have to account for injuries as well. look at the Cubs '02 draft with Brownlie, Hagerty, Jones, Blasko, etc. But the larger tenure the scout has, the larger the sample and likely the more organizations has around him. If you have 10 years of data, you also have the other scouts to compare with within the organization as well as scouts in general. If the Cubs have Scout X who has been here for 7 years and Scout Y who has been here for 8 years and scout x has 6 guys in the majors and most doing well in the minors and scout y has 2 with many cut before AA, if both have had similar amount of signed players mixed in throughout the draft, it's an accurate assumption that scout X has been more successful and deserves a higher grade. What round were each scout's players taken in? Were they HS or college guys? What positions do they play? Etc. etc. In other words, if scout Y got two late-round HS pitchers to the bigleagues, that might be more impressive than Scout X getting 6 highly-drafted college kids there. Bottom line, you can't draw the conclusion you're suggesting with such limited information.

The obvious problem with all this is, the scout's "grade" is hugely dependent upon the player development system he's sending kids into. That's not to say it's an impossible evaluation to conduct, only that it's got a gigantic complicating factor that would have to be dealt with for the findings to be valuable. As long as you've got scouts who can be measured from other systems plus your own, you can account for that just like you would do so for a park factor for hitters. That's true in theory, but in practice you'd never have anywhere close to enough datapoints to make that sort of analysis meaningful.

The obvious problem with all this is, the scout's "grade" is hugely dependent upon the player development system he's sending kids into. That's not to say it's an impossible evaluation to conduct, only that it's got a gigantic complicating factor that would have to be dealt with for the findings to be valuable.

They'll have to raise payroll then, because they don't have any payroll of significance available. Possible, especially since they'll have playoff revenue in some quantity, but far from a guarantee. And even then, you're talking about replacing someone of Fielder's quality just to get back to square one. How do we explain the fact that they've been trying to extend Fielder (or at least have publicly stated as much)? The notion that Fielder's money is already spent surely doesn't jive with that part. Maybe they'll up the payroll to keep him. Maybe they are/were trying to get a hometown discount and would have pared back elsewhere if they succeeded. I don't know. Their payroll is about 83 million this year, and without bringing back any of their free agents(which, to be fair, Fielder is the only one of consequence) it'll be about 75 million for about 16 players next year. The point is that something has to give in order for Fielder to come back, or for them to add any major contractural commitment. That could be the payroll going up, it could be trading guys like Hart and Wolf, it could be non-tendering a bunch of guys like Parra, Loe, or Gomez. But something would have to change. Correct. And their (reported) interest in keeping Fielder indicates they're prepared to make the changes necessary to accomodate a major contractual commitment. I think of it more that they are prepared to make the changes necessary to remain a contender, now that they are one, and still have a lot of good young core players in place. If Fielder bolts, grabbing up a guy like Wright to replace him in the lineup would be pretty close to the best case, no?

a) Wilken only drafts. He has nothing to do with the development side. b) Wilken's job isn't to draft power hitters. His job is to draft guys that will become bigleaguers. Obviously he would have selected differently if the emphasis was on power hitters. Your entire premise here relies on an assumption that the next GM won't like Wilken, or want to retain him. Why are you assuming that? Heck it's not crazy to think having Wilken onboard makes the Cubs' job more attractive to candidates. After all, the guy does have a pretty strong reputation in the industry.

They'll have to raise payroll then, because they don't have any payroll of significance available. Possible, especially since they'll have playoff revenue in some quantity, but far from a guarantee. And even then, you're talking about replacing someone of Fielder's quality just to get back to square one. How do we explain the fact that they've been trying to extend Fielder (or at least have publicly stated as much)? The notion that Fielder's money is already spent surely doesn't jive with that part.

The Brewers are probably not going to do nothing to replace Fielder, if he leaves. They're young and have good pitching, so they're primed to make a run here. Not saying they'll land Wright, but they'll be aggressive finding some sort of replacement.

It's starting to become a joke. He openly harshly criticizes Szczur, then he attacks people who ask questions about him. Quite frankly, Law is starting to become a real dick in my book. Complete lack of professionalism. Seems like instead of engaging in a hopeless stats-vs-scouting debate with Law, somebody ought to ask the guy why his comp for Szczur is Pierre, and not, say, Ichiro. There are a lot of guys in between Juan Pierre and Ichiro that would be a much more realistic comp than either. I was considering guys that have extreme "slappy" swings, as apparently Law thinks Szczur has. That's not a real huge pool of guys.

"The voters are too dumb to figure it out" seems like a poor rationale for deciding unilaterally that the most valuable player in any given year can never be a pitcher.

That ended worse than Seinfeld

It's starting to become a joke. He openly harshly criticizes Szczur, then he attacks people who ask questions about him. Quite frankly, Law is starting to become a real dick in my book. Complete lack of professionalism. Seems like instead of engaging in a hopeless stats-vs-scouting debate with Law, somebody ought to ask the guy why his comp for Szczur is Pierre, and not, say, Ichiro.

Busch Light, Old Style, PBR and Keystone are all battling it out for dominance in the shallow gene pool market. You can go straight to hell for lumping PBR in there Hipster? I can't wait for the day that hipsters either: 1. Find another beer to ironically drink 2. Discover the actual meaning of irony and stop drinking PBR Then I'll have my beer back from those douches. Your beer back? They running out?

For the most part, Lee didn't seem to have an issue. Or Marlon Byrd. Mark Prior, however, did. I think the scapegoats tend to originate from players that aren't open with the media, as the beat writers and columnists are often the ones who start these crusades. I totally agree. But there does seem to be a recent and growing anti-Latino bent. I think it's a pale reflection of the general mood of the country. For all the fun and games we have making fun of the anti-Latino thing, there are pretty obvious reasons why these guys are targets. I love Ramirez. I love what he's done with the Cubs. But he really doesn't look like much of a tryer, and it has nothing to do with skin color. Milton Bradley was an unproductive surly prick. People freak out about body language and how athletes look. Jay Cutler gets dumped on for his body language. Reed Johnson isn't very good, but somehow he keeps producing and he looks like he tries really hard, and people love that. Todd Hundley didn't produce worth a crap and he looked like he as constantly waking up in strange hallways, which was probably the case. And people hated him. Some people still insist Ryan Dempster sucks because of some blown saves. Nobody can stand John Grabow. On the fringes there are definitely racial overtones to many statements about certain players. But by and large the perception comes from the reality of how the player acts, and that is the case in every city in America. It's hardly a Chicago thing. Amen! The theory that players are being unfairly scrutinized by the media, or booed by fans because of their race is just flat out misguided. Race has almost nothing to do with it. Play hard, produce, and play nice with fans/media/teammates etc., and a guy will be fine. Heck just look at Sammy Sosa -- when he was raking and happy-go-lucky, he was the King of Chicago. When he got surly and combative, people turned on him.

NO THEY DONT HES TEH WORTS!!!11 Haha I read that and thought, the Kenney bashers are gonna go bonkers.

The downside is your relationship with other GM's It's courtesy to not claim players that you don't have serious interest in (or in some cases that you are blocking from other teams). Losing that courtesy with another GM hurts both sides with very little upside. This. Weigh that .00005% against the vastly more likely outcome of pissing off a colleague you'll need/want to work with in the future.

True, but what hurt can it do to claim him and spend a few minutes on the phone? Who knows, with the Mets terrible financial situation, maybe the cost would be a lot less than you would think. Perhaps interested teams spent those few minutes on the phone BEFORE deciding whether to put in a claim, and found out it would be a waste of time.

You do realize that by the time the Cubs can actually talk with Fielder or Pujols, the Cubs' exclusive window to negotiate with Pena will have ended, and Pena will be a FA as well. Hard to imagine anyone falling for that "ploy".

You go, weis