Bobby Jenks has gone from failed starter to playoff closer, and Ozzie Guillen deserves much of the credit.
No, let's try that again. I loathe the White Sox. Despise them. Can't stand them. It's a hatred that was forged in the late '80s and early '90s, when Hawk Harrelson divided the baseball world into good guys and bad guys (and I rooted for the bad guys), when a team named for the color of snow decided to make their dominant color the color of pitch. Everyone needs a rival to hate, and for me that was the team in Chicago that played in a ballpark named after a skinflint, a ballpark they replaced with a new one that was hopelessly outdated barely a year after it opened.
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Rany returns with a look at the value of high-school hitters drafted between 1984 and 1999.
Using the technique described in the last part of this draft series, here's a breakdown of draft pick value for college and high school players, separated into pitchers and regulars, from 1984 through 1999:
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Having established that there is no longer any difference between high schoolers and collegians in the draft, the question now is, "why not?"
Reader after reader responded with their own theory as to what could cause teams to do a significantly better job of drafting high-school talent, even as they drafted more high-school players. And each response looked frighteningly liked the last: it's the signing bonuses, stupid.
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What pool of players to emphasize at the draft table--college or high-school--is one of the game's ongoing debates. The data indicates that one group has a decisive edge in value.
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In the first of a series, Rany examines 15 years' worth of draft data to establish some basic rules.
Sexy, it's not. Neither is it all that telegenic, although it certainly could be if MLB ditched the conference call for an amphitheatre with good lighting and tried to make a production out of it. There's no denying its importance, though. There is no source of talent that comes close to matching what's available in what is officially called the Rule 4 Draft. Moreover, there is almost no way to build a successful ballclub without some measure of success in the draft. (The Yankees are trying to prove that last sentence incorrect. They are not succeeding.)
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Five players who could follow in the footsteps of 2004's biggest surprises.
As Bill James wrote 20 years ago--I'm obligated by contract to quote James in at least one-third of my articles--"A chart of numbers that would put an actuary to sleep can be made to dance if you put it on one side of a card and Bombo Rivera's picture on the other."
We recognize the tale that the numbers tell because while the specific numbers may be unique from player to player, the patterns tend to become recognizable. We look at Miguel Cabrera's two rows of numbers and hear in our minds the echoes of numbers we've seen before next to names like Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson. A stroll down Randy Johnson's lines conjures memories of other pitchers who found greatness after taming their wild heat, from Nolan Ryan to Sandy Koufax.
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He's more than just underrated; Bobby Abreu is on his way to the Hall of Fame.
This might be one of the reasons (admittedly down the list) for why Barry Bonds is so disliked by the media. He has rendered one of the greatest of all barstool arguments--"who is the best player in baseball?"--utterly irrelevant for the past half-decade.
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Having embarrassed the meek, the good doctor now celebrates the strong by counting down the best-hitting pitchers in baseball.
While a pitcher's career numbers are weighed most heavily on this list, recent performance counts as well. So you rabid Chris Hammond fans out there, chill.
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Doctoring The Numbers: When the Rains Come
Surprise Me!