What You Missed: Week of 2/21-2/25

Here at Baseball Prospectus, we are dedicated to providing you with oodles of cutting-edge sabermetric analysis and keeping our finger on the pulse of the baseball world. With a slew of daily articles, it’s easy for one piece to get lost in the shuffle or for you to overlook a post while you’re busy hiding your monitor from your boss. Just in case this happens to be your situation, here’s what you might have missed this week at BP.

—

Monday

• Spring training games kick off tomorrow, which will keep many of us glued to our television screens. Teams will finally have a chance to evaluate their players and start setting their sights on long-term goals. Christina Kahrl took us on a tour of the NL West action, discussing potential surprises and disappointments, as well as why each team may or may not win.
• The Miguel Cabrera saga took another turn when the Tigers first baseman was arrested for driving under the influence on February 19. Steven Goldman wrote about potential implications of Cabrera’s actions and took a quick spin through history to find players whose careers were altered by alcohol.
• While Jason Hammel has been a source of disappointment for fantasy owners and actual team owners alike, Jason Collette saw reason to believe that 2011 might be Hammel’s breakout year.

Tuesday

• Feel like going to Vegas? Ken Funck brought the action to you, as he started an over/under contest for the American League and chose the baseline odds for selected players’ performance.
• Injury-prone players can have a difficult time hooking on to ballclubs, and teams that have signed players to big-money deals almost always look for ways to ensure that the investment is protected. Eric Seidman covered how teams choose to insure players and how injury history plays a role in it.

Wednesday

The big news of the day came when the St. Louis Cardinals confirmed that starter Adam Wainwright will need to undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the 2011 season. Christina, Marc Normandin, and Corey Dawkins provided an excellent take on the situation, but for Cardinals fans who were too delirious to read the rest of the site content, here’s a peek at what you might have missed.

• Francisco Liriano played a crucial role in helping the Minnesota Twins to the playoffs last year, yet his name cropped up in trade rumors over the winter. Jay Jaffe explored Liriano’s value and what sort of trade package the Twins might expect if they dealt him.
• It was a great winter to be a free agent, as several $100 million-plus contracts were handed out to the prime talent. As teams start to settle in for the season, Jeff Euston laid out the projected 2011 payrolls for the NL East.

Thursday

• Fans always want to see their team win, but sometimes evaluating a team on won-loss record alone isn’t fair. R.J. Anderson argued that this is the case for the Cleveland Indians.
• Many players accept invitations to spring training in hopes of breaking camp with the major-league team. Christina ran through some of the notable non-roster invitees in the National League and looked at how the players might fill a team need.
• Regardless of the many advancements we have in projection systems, Jeremy Greenhouse explained that projecting playing time is notoriously difficult.  

Friday

• What makes a player tick? How does he decide that it’s time to take action in a game instead of trying to talk it out? David Laurila delved into these questions with former Red Sox outfielder Coco Crisp, who discussed what set him off in 2008 and led him to start a brawl against the Tampa Bay Rays.
• Our resident beat man, John Perrotto, is Johnny-on-the-spot in Tampa, taking us behind the scenes of camp with the New York Yankees and discussing pitchers who have impressed the team so far and who might head north next month. 

 Have a great weekend, and we'll see you back here on Monday to whet your baseball appetite!