Interesting article. My 2 cents; Stan Musial was held in higher regard than Williams during their careers - especially significant in awarding this type of honor. Musial was a well rounded player who excelled in all facets of the game - especially public relations. Williams was a great hitter, period. Other areas of his game were not outstanding and his public relation skills (spitting, bat throwing) were an embarrassment to the game. I would vote the greatest living pitcher for most of the 20th century was Satchel Paige who pitched in all conditions and eras and still had success at age 60.

A simple paragraph detailing current and past problems for each key player would suffice for me.

The Rays hitting almost certainly will be worse than 2010 and Manny will "play" about 100 games max with poor results as he drifts into his tired Manny Act. It will be fun during the first trips into Boston and NY but as the losses mount Manny will disappear. Damon can't hit enough to justify his play in LF. First base looks even worse than LF and DH. The bullpen was what saved the Rays last year and that is degraded even more than the hitting. I see the Rays at .500, being optimistic, with a strong possibility of 4th place in the division, behind the Blue Jays.

I agree that he will stay in AAA until he gets regular AB's in the majors. And I think that day will come after he is past the Super Two deadline. I don't think Jones or Posada will block Monteros bat now or in the future. Neither of these guys are in the future of the team - Montero is part of the future. Montero will be the DH sooner rather than later.

Are you referring to Posada or A Jones as the better option?

Why are the Yankees slowing Monteros bat to the bigs? After the super two deadline (late May?) will he be up to stay as DH? KC moved Myers from catcher because his bat was more advanced than his glove. Why not NYY?

Or how about asking the KC owner Glass to donate the $12 million to a local charity?

Thank you very much for soliciting your subscribers input. To answer one of your questions, I prefer the pitching percentiles reflect the hurlers skill in preventing runs. Additionally, as this exchange with us continues and develops could you keep us aware of the schedule you are working with as I hope/anticipate your projections (and all Pecota related data) will be available much earlier next year. Thanks again.

Best wishes, good luck in the future, and your insights will be missed.

excellent idea - maybe even add two previous years links?

I hope "upper management" is reading these comments. This is how to run a business - solicit customer input, respond promptly, implement where feasible. I still remember the fiasco this Spring with Pecota.

There is a great issue missed when Rose is defended by the "he only bet on his team to win" argument. That issue is the games he didn't bet on. Did he expect to lose them because he burned up his pitching on the "win" games? Or that he rested his best hitters or saved them for the "win" games? There is no forgiveness for this activity. If baseball can not be trusted to try to win games then it might as well disband.

Thank you for your fine work on this article and the many others. Your insight and commentary are refreshing.

Thanks for the explanation.

The team will play a majority (57 percent) of its remaining games at home, where it is 36-19 (compared to 26-30 on the road). I missed the math part here.... they have played 55 games at home and 56 on the road? Seems like 26 vs 25 (home/away) left on the schedule.

Maybe there is a fear factor also in this deal - namely the concern that Haren's stats have been below par for over one year and there is an injury or something else happening. Haren has typically been a better first half pitcher but this season that has not been the case. Somehow this deal reminds me, in a bad way, of the Kazmir deal last season for the Angels.

We are about 1/3 into the season, should the "BETA" designation be removed?

On April 30, Angel Salome informed the Brewers that he was "struggling mentally" and was not ready to return to action after preparing for the birth of a child. I do not think he has played since.

Would a A Gordon for B Wood trade benefit both teams and players?

An article about the Cubs, based solely on BP recommendations for this year and a couple years into the future would be interesting I think. Not only from the performance viewpoint, but player health and economics. In effect if BP were the new GM. Thanks

Forgot to add that Milton Bradley is still playing and has had several violence related issues. I think discrimination exists but it may be more related to non quantifiable performance issues ("good citizenship"?) than skin color.

I recall B Myers as having a single incident of domestic violence and Dukes has had multiple offenses. Please correct me if I am wrong.

My two cents is this has been (and still is) a major disaster that will affect the BP brand very negatively. I would make a couple of suggestions for your consideration. They have been suggested previously but not acknowledged.... 1. Get the Pecota Beta on line January 15 next year. 2. Consider getting customer input before posting. 3. Review the Pecota at basic levels so at least the math is correct. Not +60 wins in the AL and -15 in the NL. 4. Make a big public apology. 5. Offer a discounted subscription rate for renewals.

AMEN

Unless Pecota has been dramatically reengineered for this season, these issues could have been determined by a test drive in December. Appropriate reviews should have been performed before release. The original roll out last month was a disappointment and had too many obvious inconsistencies that were later "corrected". My faith has not been restored.

It too often seems to me that the revisions in the Pecota projections are due to subscriber comments.

I am also, but I am afraid we subscribers are now suffering from the premature release of an under reviewed or poorly prepared product. This has been a black eye for Pecota this season.

Thanks for the patience. Not being as sophisticated mathematically (or intellectually) as others I have to occasionally depend on non scientific smell tests. The original projections failed for me (and many other subscribers)in numerous cases. I guess I am more satisfied with the projections now that some of them have changed substantially, such as Nats from 82 to 76 wins.

I like what you are suggesting. Although I mentioned NL team wins and losses in an earlier post (and I now notice the revised projections for several teams have changed significantly) I am much more interested in individual performances - especially as discussed above. My interest is in the probability of a significant change or a bold projection. I appreciated the Weiters projection from last year even though it was not matched by his performance. A quick review of the player projections this season seems to have few "surprises" on the up side and most of the established players below prior levels of production. I understand these may be the most likely outcomes but if there are few surprises then the Pecota service losses some value for me. I don't mind a wrong projection at the end of the season but if there is no "wow" or startling projections to cause me to do more research then I feel I am wasting time and energy. If possible I would like to have access to a spreadsheet that could be manipulated by the subscriber to show Percota projections with a spread of scenarios. I think that would be helpful to a lot of fans. Also, I have been a subscriber for many years and enjoy the site content. Please consider these as suggestions and not personal criticisms.

Thanks for your explanation. I (partially) understand your methodology and margin for error. I have several concerns about your projections but everyone can have differences of opinions. In searching for an answer to my question about team wins and losses I found: http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/ I believe that in a full season of 162 games there has never been a year where there was a league leading win total of 86 or less and never a season where the worst team lost 94 or fewer. I think "good" teams like Philadelphia are under projected and "poor" teams like Washington are over projected. Did each project member review each team or were there individuals researching the various clubs? You are suggesting a historic, competitive season and I will try to be the first to congratulate you after 2010 season if you are correct on either count.

mahalo nui loa (thank you very much)

Regarding the Player Forecast Manager: There seems to be a recurring issue from prior years in that the league positional parameters are not reflected in the player report. As an example; in a 7 team AL league with one catcher per team only 3 catchers show up on the report. Similar issues with other positions. This quirk causes an incomplete player list and also affects the dollar allocations as some positions wind up with too much $$ allocated and some positions (catcher for example)get too little $$.

Second attempt at posting.... You predict no NL team will win more than 86 games. You also predict no team will lose more than 94. Has either of these events ever happened before in a full season? Your predictions suggest the closest, most competitive season I can remember with no "great" or "miserable" teams.

You are predicting no NL team will win more than 86 games this season. Has this ever happened before in a full season?

What advice would you give to a young pitcher seeking to gain a reputation for consistency? Short and simple - learn to throw strike one on the first pitch to each batter.

Good stuff. Perhaps a more powerful correlation could be made with low payroll to high "profitability"; if the writer could somehow get sufficient data to determine what clubs like the Marlins really make at the bottom line. Forbes Magazine tries on an annual basis and the Marlins, Pirates, Rays are often near the top of the list of moneymakers.

I think another consideration is teams want to be seen spending money and not get the notoriety of the Marlins (and Union involvement). This deal makes more sense to me as an "investment" with the return being a young player or two rather than an attempt to win a division.

Regarding the Dodgers not offering arbitration; another thought might be they simply did not want to pay for the high draft choices under the current unslotted bonus system. There are many rumors of a hard slotting system being an item for negotiation in the next bargaining agreement. I think other teams have seen that offering arbitration (Braves/R Soriano this year and Blue Jays/Burnett last year) does not always turn out as expected. Sometimes the draft choices are not as high as expected and sometimes they don't appear at all.

I am afraid that unless there is new ownership, management, or stadium in the next two years; 2011 will look a lot like the recent past records - about 76-86, with some touted prospects in the minors and very few major league players in Oakland.

$14,185,000

Also worth noting was the original decision to promote Lincecum to the majors early enough to allow him to become a "Super Two" in arbitration this year. I think the ripple effect of Zito is well stated, as is the ripple effect of continual poor decision making by the GM.

I believe Charles O Finley, former owner of the A's, strongly urged that all players should be free agents when their contracts expired and felt that the additional players on the market every year would significantly decrease salary costs for the owners.

Perhaps there is another point here... if everyone thinks the price of something will go down tomorrow, then why buy it today? Last season the GM's who waited got some "bargains". Maybe most GM's now realize this (as well as the players agents) and a few contrarians (Figgins, Polanco) see this and are giving the "bargains" early in exchange for job security.

Jim Hendry has signed numerous, back-loaded, expensive contracts to poorly performing and aging veterans and his performance this off season was horrible. If he was "handcuffed" financially it is because he caused it himself.