I am so proud to have collaborated with Kevin over many wonderful years. I learned a great deal from him and still value his counsel. There will be many times in the future I will pick up the phone and ask his advice about something, and I feel for the rest of you who will not have the privilege of doing so and will no longer to be able to read his work. I recently told an audience that Kevin always makes you prove your assumptions, a most valuable quality in a friend and colleague, and I know that is going to be of huge benefit to the Astros--now a team to watch with interest. Many congratulations on finding this new world to conquer, and here's to Otto getting some Texas bbq-flavored chew toys.

Excellent stuff, Brad, and the lounge conversation tragic. But I wonder if she misremembered or Billy was just freelancing his loyalty to the Yankees that October, because he hadn't been with the Yankees for a few years at that point. He was with the Reds in 1960. Looking forward to more. Love, the Ghost of Baseball Past

This is a pre-edited version. The book edition is a different animal. We were working with different versions for this post because of file conversion difficulties.

This Ghost of Christmas Past could not be happier to be followed by Ben Lindbergh. Time will show I was merely the opening act for the main event.

Thank you, Joe, this was very kind. And everyone else, I am humbled by all the nice things that have been said. As for the comments on Bleacher, I hope you will take my signing as an indication of the direction they plan on pursuing in the future.

Great post, Hoot. I disagree about one thing, though. I think XTC's "Skylarking" is a classic. I am spinning it now, in your honor. :)

The intention was to have the feeling of a friendly talk over a couple of mugs of the beverage of your choice--a fine root beer, perhaps, if such a thing exists. We weren't trying to be super-hardcore here, but just to kick some issues around. Elsewhere around the site, we have PECOTA projections for these teams, injury analysis, trade reactions, and, of course, everyone else on the web with two nostrils does the standard boilerplate season preview with lineups (again, with the PECOTA stuff) and so on. I would rather give you something different than just duplicate other efforts. It bores us and I suspect it might bore you. We all came here to be different, and I figure you want to read something different as well. But heck, I could be wrong. Tell me what you felt was missing.

I didn't say he WOULD be, I said that were I a GM, this is the guy I would covet more than the pitchers.

Very nice of you to say. Thank you.

Thank you so very much. I really, really do.

I checked a couple of sources on that--the piece came together quickly so I didn't have time to go to primary sources as I often do, but I do have a contemporaneous book of profiles on the Yankees and it came down half between your version and half between what's on BB-Ref, which called it the Rule 5. It seems clear he was eligible to be drafted, being out of options, and there was a statement from the Yankees that it would just be so unfair to keep him behind Gehrig anymore. It's pretty clear he wasn't traded, he was just sent--the Yankees didn't even get that bag of balls. Also, there have always been winter drafts of various kinds, and I admit to always having to refresh my memory as to which was which. It is possible either I or BB-Ref have the nomenclature wrong, but there definitely was an opportunity to pick off players from other organizations.

I live in central Jersey, so if you care to coordinate an event wherever, I'm happy to wrangle BP guys. More likely they'll be wrangling me, actually, but that's another story.

Link is fixed. I went with straight WARP. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1086567

That only comes after the first six-pack.

Again, I don't want to turn this discussion to politics, and it wasn't my intention to do so. However, I cannot resist taking issue with "once someone crosses our borders we owe [them] a lifestyle commensurate with a citizen of this country." I'm not even sure what that lifestyle is anymore given the thinning of the middle class over the last few decades, and I have been fortunate enough in my life that I have had no encounters to date with the social safety net. However, my understanding of it is hardly that it gives its beneficiaries a life of luxury, or even of comfort. The other day I saw a reference to one in six Americans living below the poverty line having experienced "low food security" ie starvation. That's hardly generous.

It's not politics at all. If you read the discussions of the census numbers I quote, which I spent much of last night doing, they all talk about those numbers in the context of immigration, both legal and illegal, since it is a major component driving the rise in the Hispanic/Latino population. It is theorized that this dramatic rise may stabilize somewhat due to these efforts. Thus it is entirely relevant to the baseball issue at hand. As for my one gentle reference to Arizona's efforts, (A) that was hardly a political digression, and (B) given Arizona's current stance on all things Hispanic, I think it's entirely fair to ask how Guillen's comments might have been received there.

Imagine how they'll feel reading it.

Update: Just added a few notes on new PECOTA vs. the Marcels from Mr. Rob McQwown.

Apologies... We're working on this.

He was the Baseball America minor league player of the year like four years running--the hype started well before he made the majors.

I was tempted to use Kevin Maas, but I wasn't all that fooled. It was fun, but knew it wasn't going to last. Parenthetically, interviewed Maas once, seemed like a good guy.

I'm pretty sure Bret Saberhagen is up there as well.

We counted interleague games as taking place in whatever league the home team was in.

I am told the book will be in ALL e-book formats. These will be available on the same date as the corporeal book.

I think "Cobb" is a terrible, terrible film.

Corrected in the above. Would you believe I've never watched either series?

It has always been second base, never shortstop in my experience. According to Dickson's Baseball Dictionary, the description may have evolved simply because if you're standing at home plate, second base looks like the keystone of an arch. That explanation is good enough for me.

There will be e-books--trying to get specificity on formats now.

That just wasn't my favorite Prince album; felt like it pales next to other stuff he did during the decade. I haven't listened to the R. Cash record, but it's on my list of things to get to... Someone else asked about U2. Just never clicked with me, totally idiosyncratic. I can hear why people like them, but mostly it doesn't move me.

I'll take requests if anyone wants more.

Our replacement level is set at a different place than theirs. It would be nice if someday there was a grand conference that agreed on a universal definition of replacement level, but we're not there yet.

There are two chapters that revise and expand material that appeared on the web site. Everything else is original for the book.

There is actually a third one--he's covered from the 30s to the 90s, basically.

Daniel writes ahead of all of our other writers, giving a first take (which can also be read as "quick take") on the news of the day. This was designed to be accessed through our newsletter as a complement to both the material on the site and the newsletter's contents listings. People liked it enough that we decided to post it on the site as well. It risks redundancy, but I'd rather over-serve a few readers than under-serve one.

No, I was purely tongue-in-cheek there. It WAS a rabbit ball. Or El Nino. Or something.

Ordering through the site does help us a bit and is always welcome. And yes, Amazon hedges its bets. We have this discussion every year. Your eager anticipation is greatly appreciated.

She is very busy in her new digs at ESPN. However, you will see contributions from her in both Extra Innings, the Baseball Between the Numbers sequel, and this year's annual.

Ken has been a busy guy this past year, but if he wants to spot an article my door is always open.

I can't claim to have known Greg well--his time of being closely associated with BP were coming to an end around the time my own began. However, we had a few cordial meetings or email/telephone conversations. As researchers interested in history, Greg was very excited about both the digitization of old newspapers and the getting of access to them--not everyone's local library has a subscription to the correct services. Every time I want to look up an article that is in some old periodical that is not yet on line, I think of my conversations with Greg about that, how we still couldn't get to (say) the New York Herald Tribune without going for the microfilm in person, and wish whoever was in charge of these things would GO FASTER. Alas, they did not go fast enough for Greg to see it happen.

This is a VERY good point, and one that Christina Kahrl grapples with, albeit indirectly, in a chapter in our forthcoming sequel to Baseball Between the Numbers.

You do realize that there is a very large difference between four percent and 18 percent, right?

But, ironically, not any less anonymous! I thank you, though.

No soapbox intended, just drawing lessons from the real world in terms of my own experience. Every situation requires a certain set of tools to analyze. Sometimes statistics are the right way, sometimes there are other ways to go. In any case, I wasn't talking about morality, I was talking about self-preservation. Manny's ingestion of one substance or another is less important to me than that the decision to do so meant he might remove himself from the lineup--which come to think about it, IS a moral issue, not one about PEDs, but rather about being part of a larger community.

Coming this spring to a theater near you.

Would anyone like a best-of for the annual, going back to 1996?

For now, though I would consider moving it in the future.

Increasingly odd, the Twins will also be cutting payroll despite the new ballpark: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/08/twins-cutting-payroll-by-15-million-in-third-year-at-target-field/

Man, it's good to know that there are people older than me! Sometimes I'm not so sure. I definitely buy the argument on Murtaugh. Not being a Pittsburgh guy, I have to judge by how much play these guys made nationally, and I feel like you hear less about Murtaugh than you do about, say, Chuck Tanner. Not that that's how it should be.

More like sleepless. I'll fix 'er up, and thanks.

Casey Stengel once called for a relief pitcher with a railroad lantern, the point being to suggest to the ump that the game should be called on account of darkness. He got run.

I played about two seasons of games in Statis-Pro altogether and somehow I don't remember that. I remember the general platoon factor you were supposed to use and a few other quirky rules, but not that one...

Parenthetically, we have also had requests for some in-game chats with the staff as we have done with other key games in the past. This is something we plan to do beginning with the next round, when fewer overlapping games makes scheduling a bit more rational.

Hi, everyone. I just posted this in Jay's thread from yesterday and I'll include it here as well. We will have coverage of all the series beginning tonight, with Ben and Derek taking on the NL series to go with Jay and R.J. on the AL series. I agree with much of the criticism here. This has purely been my error. I'm currently preoccupied with deadlines for our next book, Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers (we call it BBTN II around here) so I while I did think about assignments for division series previews, I didn't think through continuing those beats into the series themselves. Moreover, and I think this is the real lesson of what has happened here, is that I am the first BP editor to have more than one BBWAA member on staff, giving us the possibility of having the kind of on-sight coverage Jay has been giving us. Normally, BP writers are self-directed and our coverage hasn't been so systematic, but Jay's dispatches have been so well done that it pointed up our lack of analytic coverage of the other series. That will change immediately. Finally, both Jay and I will have home park credentials should the Yankees or Phillies make it to the next round (and if either makes it to the World Series as well) and so we will definitely continue to have detailed on-site coverage throughout the end of the postseason. As always, I appreciate your feedback and I hope that you continue to throw both bouquets and brickbats as our work merits them. --Steve, Editor-in-Chief

Hi, everyone. We will have coverage of all the series beginning tonight, with Ben and Derek taking on the NL series to go with Jay and R.J. on the AL series. I agree with much of the criticism here. This has purely been my error. I'm currently preoccupied with deadlines for our next book, Extra Innings: More Baseball Between the Numbers (we call it BBTN II around here) so I while I did think about assignments for division series previews, I didn't think through continuing those beats into the series themselves. Moreover, and I think this is the real lesson of what has happened here, is that I am the first BP editor to have more than one BBWAA member on staff, giving us the possibility of having the kind of on-sight coverage Jay has been giving us. Normally, BP writers are self-directed and our coverage hasn't been so systematic, but Jay's dispatches have been so well done that it pointed up our lack of analytic coverage of the other series. That will change immediately. Finally, both Jay and I will have home park credentials should the Yankees or Phillies make it to the next round (and if either makes it to the World Series as well) and so we will definitely continue to have detailed on-site coverage throughout the end of the postseason. As always, I appreciate your feedback and I hope that you continue to throw both bouquets and brickbats as our work merits them. --Steve, Editor-in-Chief

I felt like those 16.1 Ks per nine deserved some recognition in the form of a third-place vote. Does a tip of the hat deserve a "really?"

Changed it to "choices." We weren't trying to predict anything. This is just our POV.

I hope the bastard went to prison for a good long time.

We're good, CRP13.

I don't mind hecklers, I really don't, because all a writer can really ask for is your attention. That said, this is just utter bull and I'm getting really tired of it. Since July 1, I have written 18 Broadside columns. There have been three inspired by the Yankees, one on A.J. Burnett and bad pitchers on good teams (with a lot of non-Yankee examples), one on closer usage, which started with Joe Girardi but was addressed more generally, and today's, which also had a lot of non-Yankee examples and happened to be on one of the big news stories of the day. The others, in order: 1. Multiple topics 2. A story from my youth inspired by the death of Dick Williams 3. The hubris of writers 4. Mariners 5. Beltran Trade 6. Trade Deadline Winners 7. Mets and Daniel Murphy 8. Jim Thome's HOF case 9. The Angels 10. Choosing MVPs 11. Orioles defense 12. Braves and Heyward 13. Astros changing divisions 14. Mets 9-11 caps 15. Brewers/Prince Fielder As for mentions, if there is a point to make relevant to my thesis that involves the Yankees I'll bring it up, and if it involves the St. Louis Browns I'll do that, too. You might have noticed, though, that the Yankees have been involved with a lot more history than the Browns, so it is often convenient to use them. I'm not going to censor myself because of someone else's anality. I have spent 12 years writing about the Yankees professionally. I came here to do something DIFFERENT, and yet I have this stuff thrown in my face. It's not accurate, it's not funny, and I would appreciate it if you would go find some other writer to troll.

It's right here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/hitlist/?thisdate=2011-09-19

That's a wonderful thing for you to say. Thank you.

Because my degree is in baseball, not history and political science. Right.

For you Jay Jaffe fans, he'll be joining us at midnight.

He hit .274/.334/.444 in a league that hit .268/.338/.415 during those years while spending a good chunk of his time at shortstop. He was a decent hitter as a third baseman, but hardly franchise-best material.

Corrected.

The proscription on "Centerfield" wasn't because we don't appreciate Fogerty's jolly classic, but because we wanted to avoid the obvious. We have nothing against the Baseball Project either, and several of their songs are favorites of mine, but our job isn't to tell you the obvious but give you the breadth of our knowledge. The good news is that there are still enough great baseball songs remaining that at some point we'll do a sequel.

And another satisfied customer!

Thanks! It's great to know what people want to hear.

Coming up!

We touched on it very briefly, but are going to come back to it shortly.

Fixed.

I put the note in bold, so even the fatigued will not miss it!

The Luis Castillo CONTRACT was as miserable a deal as any team has signed in recent years. The acquisition cost them Drew Butera, who isn't a major leaguer even if the Twins insist on pretending he is, and a now-journeyman OF named Dustin Martin. As much as I'd like to, I can't blame Minaya for having a manager too afraid of his own players to tell them not to bunt at inappropriate times. I can fault him for employing that managers. Minaya's supposed pro-Latin bias has been much-discussed, but there has always been something about it that seemed too facile to me. Lacking a complete set of facts, I decided to leave it alone.

There are so many to choose from and only so many of us. No doubt that we could do a second list just as compelling as the first.

You're right. Another reader corrected me on this as well, and I apologize for the oversight. Fortunately, it doesn't change anything about the Mariners' situation. They go for #18 today, and with Phil Hughes vs. King Felix, have a good chance to break the streak.

I intentionally didn't mention them. The Spiders basically have no application to modern ball. What happened to them was the result of syndicate baseball and I can't see any analogy to today.

Just added two more with a third coming.

Richard, I think Dave Pease's response further down this thread will answer some of your questions with regards to the timing. As Dave says, we had intended to retire the statistic all along. That was true when Matt was still here, as suggested by my striking it from the BP annual. If we moved too slowly to do so, it was because the discussion of what to replace it with--if anything--was long and involved.

If we were talking about SIERA on the show, you'd be commenting...

Feelings should not enter into it. As Sonny says in "The Godfather," it's business, not personal. While no author likes to see his work criticized, criticism comes with the territory when you start performing in public. You receive your bouquets and your brickbats and you move on. I believe it was Evelyn Waugh who said that he sometimes let a bad review spoil his breakfast but never his lunch. In any case, it is product, not people, under discussion here.

It was not a focus in the last annual. It was not in the book at all. That began a process that culminated with this discussion.

Several commenters have seized on our discussion of complexity. Complexity is a symptom here, not the disease. We are not against complexity in and of itself; heck, build us a Rube Goldberg device if it gets us closer to understanding the truth of something. The issue here is one of utility compared to a much more basic process like FIP. Our argument is that in this case the added bits just add difficulty at the expense of accessibility and without a proportional return in improved results. Nothing wrong with throwing in the extra ingredients if they give you added insight, but in this case, they do not.

One correction, Brian. I can't comment on Fox's arrangements because I was not part of the executive team at the time, but SIERA wasn't taken; we had always intended to eliminate it and made no objection to its appearing elsewhere.

This is the greatest pleasure of having that subscription. But what do I know, I only write about the Yankees.

Odd typo fixed.

This has been bugging me all day. Of 45 Broadsides (I might have missed one or two), the team I have most written about is no team-15 columns have been about broad topics that applied to more than one club. That leaves another 30 columns. Of these, seven have had topics that were inspired by the Yankees, which is not the same thing as saying they were solely about the Yankees; I usually try to extrapolate so that even if the example comes from a certain team, the lesson is more broadly applicable. If Joe Girardi bunted in a bad situation, the idea may have started with the Yankees but the lesson drawn applies to all the other clubs. Columns have also been inspired by the Cardinals, Cubs, Tigers, Rays, A's, Red Sox, Mets, Braves, Marlins, Indians, Nationals, Mariners, and Dodgers, some more than once each. I'm satisfied with the mix and the approach that I've taken. If you think that makes this the Pinstriped Bible, then you haven't been reading either site.

That was all Bill James, who wrote about him extensively in a couple of books and made people take notice and realize how good he was.

I loved that game, and then Tony LaRussa Baseball after that. I have the original sleeve that EWB came in here and I keep meaning to have it framed.

Marc was thinking of Marlon Bando's epic performance in "The Godfather." More seriously, this is our bad, not Marc's.

Absolutely. Vive la difference, as Pepe Le Pew might have said.

This is one of the most frequent errors managers make, saving a pitcher to protect a lead that they might never get. I've written about it extensively in the past, probably at the Pinstriped Bible. I have a favorite expression from Leo Durocher: "Never save a pitcher for tomorrow. Tomorrow it might rain." The same thought applies here. The only goal should be to prolong the game long enough to score. Maybe if you force another inning you score five runs, not one, and the quality of the pitcher who finishes won't be important. If you don't keep the game alive. you'll never find out.

You just taught me something. I had never heard that expression. It's very apt.

Thank you so much for this reply. Exactly what I would have said.

According to my YES colleague Jack Curry: Girardi on Soriano's role when he returns. "He has been our 8th inning guy." He added, "We'll see what happens. We have to get him back 1st." Some people never learn. http://twitter.com/#!/JackCurryYES/status/93431638956056576

Virgil's root beer for me now.

And one of the best friends a guy could have.

Not only will there be reminders, but we will have an open thread here on the site so that you can comment on what we're saying and that we will respond to on the air.

Posted updated with some late comments from Mike Ferrin, who was stuck on a spy plane overflying the Formosa Strait.

Both Downing and Guerrero were on my short list. Guerrero was easily one of the greatest hitters of all time, but that got lost for various reasons. Downing was a quiet kind of wonderful, the LF/DH version of Randolph, which is why he appealed to me. Wonderful unique career.

There were so many good choices, I could easily have written about 10 different guys I had seen and another 10 I hadn't.

I would like to acknowledge the inspiration of the Onion A.V. Club's Inventory series for this feature.

I did say that there were two-three books still in print in the comments above. Those Harpers were what I meant, and that should have invalidated the Penguin part of what I said. Still, I think the overall point stands. Glad to know that Texas cares, though.

I used him for exactly that reason.

I love his work (and even his short films and supporting parts in others' films, esp. his sour, alcoholic reporter in Hitchcock's underrated "Foreign Correspondent") that I couldn't bring myself to denigrate poor Bob that way.

I wish I better understood why he got stuck on the LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS. I don't know that he's ever clearly explained it.

I know EXACTLY who Ferber is, esp. because Robert Benchley (and thereby the Round Table) has been a huge influence on me, although I am a poor shade compared to him and you probably can't tell. That said, maybe I took the wrong courses in high school and college, but I can't think of a single book of hers that is part of the standard American canon curriculum. She hasn't had a Library of America reissue, you don't see Penguin Classics' editions of her work--what is really in print? Checking out Amazon, I see maybe two-three books. The plays she did with Kaufman aren't often revived... What's really left? Just Showboat, and Showboat has its own problems that keep it from getting as much exposure as it otherwise might (IE the dated, racist language). See, I'm a geek too.

The interesting thing about Ellison is that although he's perceived to be an egotist, if you read the rest of the interview I cited, particularly around the section I pulled, you will see that he's making the point that you can't think that things will revolve around you, because once you do that, you become too self-conscious of yourself to actually do good work. That way lies self-parody at best or extreme writer's block at worst. Or maybe the other way around.

I was thinking along those same lines when I wrote in the Pinstriped Bible: In the time that I’ve been writing the Pinstriped Bible, the Cult of Jeter has been so prevalent, greater than any kind of approbation that met Don Mattingly, the Yankees hero of my youth, that the obligation was to push back against a fanaticism that seemed to claim that the man had no flaws. Those zombies did far more damage to their hero over the years than any critic. A more measured and realistic appreciation would have provoked less of a backlash. Instead of hearing about the wonderful things that Jeter did on the field, we heard as much about his frequently stiff defense. I have sometimes leaned too far in that direction, but then, Jeter-worship is a test for any iconoclast, or even just a writer and baseball fan who recognizes that fallible humans are more appropriately rooted for than gods–a human being proves something every time he steps on the field of competition and succeeds. A god is perfection personified and by definition cannot surprise us or be applauded for succeeding in accordance with his gifts. If any player can do no wrong, then you can’t properly appreciate what he does right. (http://www.pinstripedbible.com/2011/07/09/congratulations-derek-jeter/)

When I think about that aspect I naturally reflect on my own young son,and the pang of grief that wells up inside me is as rich as if this happened to a member of my family. I would like to help as well.

Umpires have nothing to do with passed ball/wild pitch designation. Scorers do.

Let me pose this hypothetical to you: if Bryce Harper comes up next year and hits like Wieters but plays a brilliant outfield, will you say that you're satisfied with the way things worked out? Would it be mean-spirited to ask at that point if he had lived up to expectations? Would I be on a high horse then? Maybe a Lipizzaner? What about the other 39 guys I've mentioned in the four-part prospect disappointments series? Was I mean-spirited about them? Why is it only this one guy who gets a pass based on defense? You were going to get Johnny Bench and you got Bob Boone and you're OKAY with that? I guess beggar franchises can't be choosers, but let's not be dishonest about what was on everyone's mind when the guy was drafted and went through the minors. NO ONE said, "Oh, we'll be really happy if he just turns out to have a good glove." You are correct about one thing. I did use the word "bust" in the initial entry in the series, which I didn't think I had. I hadn't intended to, because my intention was to do something far more nuanced. In picking the players I carefully held to the distinction that a "bust" was a player who largely failed to perform at all and a "disappointment" was a player whose work gave legitimate support to expectations and then failed to live up to them. Thank you for reading, writing.

1. While I agree that as a supposed shot at Lennon the McCartney song was a weak effort, I like it on its own merits and it seemed to fit. As for the rest of Paul's output, Ben Lindbergh and I will be disagreeing with you from the comfort of field-level seats at his upcoming Yankee Stadium concert. I think your "least talented" remark betrays a pretty weak understanding of how the Beatles functioned as a unit. Still, tastes vary, so fine: you registered an opinion. 2. The Dressen comparison is a parallel in terms of a manager who confused his own importance in what is, as you actually point out, an organizational-level success that results in part from good drafting (or in the Dodgers' case, scouting and open-mindedness). That they are not identical figures in terms of what got them to this point doesn't matter at all. It's that they arrived at roughly the same place. 3. Look around the web, turn on your radio. I am not alone in being critical of Riggleman, I'm sorry. Even those defending him don't endorse how this was handled. And John's piece hardly qualified as a slam. 4. Finally, I get really, really bored of hearing "snark over analysis," which has been a favorite of some readers since I got here in 2003. There is no snark in this piece. There is a historical comp. We reject [anything] over analysis on the rare occasions we get it. While I respect and appreciate every reader who takes the time to read and comment, I have long since come to the conclusion that sometimes, to invoke another 60s songwriter, a man will hear what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Sometimes a writer starts with a certain intention but doesn't execute, so his motives are not well understood by the readers. That's his fault. But you can carry through exactly as you meant to and still not be understood, because as with opinions on ex-Beatles, levels of comprehension vary. I have learned to be happy simply that people are galvanized enough to say something, so again, I thank you.

I really liked it, but was confused by where the line between fact/fiction was. It seemed to have been badly blurred.

FPA used the "and so home to bed" tag also. I didn't include it in this excerpt because the entry went on to some non-baseball matters before reaching its inevitable conclusion. As always, I am gratified when even one person knows what the hell I'm talking about.

Fixed. I'm going to flay someone.

Pretend the projection never happened. His season was huge, regardless of what we said its implications meant for his future. He didn't compile those numbers at High Desert--Wieters wasn't Matt Mieske 1991. Whatever spin should have been put on those numbers, they weren't going to vanish altogether.

I didn't say "busty," I said "disappointing." He's not a bust, he's just not living up to expectations legitimately generated both by his status going into the draft and his exceptional minor-league performances. As I have stated repeatedly, this series is NOT about busts, but about players who seemed to be coming stars only to fail to achieve that level of success. Wieters could still turn out to be quite a useful player--he is one--and not meet expectations. Imagine if Joe DiMaggio had come to the Yankees having hit .398 for the San Francisco Seals and turned out to be Lastings Milledge. Then he would be on this list too.

Just a quick note that Kevin's ESPN chat is at http://espn.go.com/mlb/draft/live, and a reminder that he'll be back here for another chat after today's action concludes.

Kevin is at http://espn.go.com/mlb/draft/live

I'm not really whining over it as a Yankees fan, but as a fan of good team management. This was a decision that was widely first-guessed as a bad one, and that it has seemingly played out (seemingly because even with Soriano's injury it's something of a rush to judgment) that way is not satisfying but frustrating.

I've added that to the above.

I have an idea for how to deal with intentional walks that I'm going to try out in a subsequent column. I didn't want to cram that in here.

Peter, if you have a moment, please go through my BP archives, either for just Broadside or overall since 2003, and count the number of Yankees-oriented articles I've written here. I usually have reserved my Yankees thoughts for www.pinstripedbible.com. This article is actually an exception made because I thought it had wider interest.

Working with two sets of stats and I conflated two numbers. Will fix.

Frustrated that we can't always address things in more detail. There are always assumptions made about reasons for things, but inasmuch as we'd like to disclose specifics at times, we have to have a respect for privacy as well.

Had to find the right guy!

I appreciate this comment, and the next one as well, but I don't mind saying these things, and wanted to say them for a long time, because the tenor of the comments is generally the same, and it's a helpless feeling to not be able to address them more directly. The reasons why people stay or go are generally pretty commonplace, but we have to respect everyone's privacy, so we don't say much. Yet, BP readership has always had a family feeling, and so I don't mind trying to address these things as best I am able. I'm very happy that so many care so deeply. Without that, we couldn't exist. That caring demands an explanation, even if that explanation would seem obvious to some.

Y'know, I retyped 37 lines and made ONE typo...! :)

To all who have written about this, we will have a comment later today or first thing tomorrow. We're not going to let the departure of a contributor as important as Marc go unremarked.

I think what we need is an additional fielding category for catchers, and Colin and I have been talking about that a great deal today.

Actually, it was Robin Yount '82, who is coming up soon.

Darn straight. Ever find yourself thinking about Ashburn putouts and Snider homers at the same time? That's what happened to me. That and women.

Looking for a "Cosmic Dancer" reference next time, Jason, and perhaps a rebuttal to Pete Townshend: "I love to hear you say my name especially when you say yes I got your body right now on my mind but I drunk myself blind to the sound of old T-Rex, Mmmmm To the sound of old T-Rex oh, and Who's Next"

Yes, that's what I meant. Beg pardon.

You can see the rest of Jeter's seasons here. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=990557

How did you read that so fast? I posted it like three seconds ago!

Also, it's Buck Showalter's birthday.

Through the "Search" tab above.

Slightly off topic, but I want to apologize to the readers for using the Indians logo. I love the Indians as a team and an organization and think very highly of many who play and work there, but that mascot is an ugly relic of the past and has to go.

I can't forget Keith: not only was he a great colleague, but as soon as this story went up he got in touch. And I'll give you another: Manny Acta has often praised BP, and Mind Game in particular. So, let's just say I've got a rooting interest here, even if the reports don't always agree.

"Some of those doubles will turn into home runs." This is standard projection language. How frequently does it actually happen?

Hey, Carl Hubbell got 16 years/250 wins/2 MVPs out of it, and he threw 280 innings a year. Let's not let one bad experience with Fernando scare us off of the screwball!

Glad you got the Yankees mascot, which many knowledgeable Yankees fans like to deny ever existed. Should also note that Topps is putting out mascot cards this year, and one of the packs alluded to in my recent "Tulowitzk, Outfielder" post contained a Junction Jack card. Junction Jack looks like he belongs in "Harvey" with Jimmy Stewart.

Joke, not error. Thank you.

See http://www.pinstripedbible.com/2011/05/04/going-long/ for more on that percentage. Jay Jaffe has the numbers.

I'm still looking for the brave soul who will take the division. I'm picky.

Don't let him fool you--around the water cooler he insists we call him "Sir Dawkins."

That is correct. Fixed, writer cautioned not to drink and type, another lesson we can all learn from Tony, sort of.

Fixed, thanks.

I recall my fingers poised dramatically above the keyboard to talk about Mayberry and Gload, and I'm not sure if the phone rang or a supermodel made a pass at me or Ben Lindbergh offered to give me a newly discovered Beatles outtake ("Ticket to Ride take #32, Lennon sneezes on second chorus"), but I must have forgotten when I resumed work. My main thought on Gload is that the more you see of him the less there is and he needs to remain in a tailored roll. The same is likely true of Mayberry, whose lack of selectivity would turn him into something like a bad (even worse?) Delmon Young in regular playing time. In short, the answers lie elsewhere.

Fewer turf hits. He's a career .301 hitter on turf, .286 on grass, and therein lies the difference between a good Crawford OBP and a mediocre one.

I didn't see the highlight until this morning or I surely would have mentioned it. Still, the analysis would have been the same.

Crawford or Pena? My entry for Crawford was going to be about one line. Something like, "He's going to rebound, but he's not going to be as good off of turf. Sorry."

He was literally next on the list, but deadlines loomed. Carl Crawford also just over the horizon.

Because you can totally detach the human element from the baseball element? Isn't that what sabermetrics' most hostile antagonists always accuse of us doing? In any case, be careful of the kind of false equivalence you set up here, between rape, adultery, and tax evasion. None are good things, but there is no element of violence or coercion in the latter two.

My bad... I kicked the "author" menu a little too hard.

That was the suggestion I made over at the Pinstriped Bible.

Thanks to everyone for the comments and suggestions. We're going to continue to refine this new version, adding features as we go on.

Now, now... No trolling, Burr!

Something I meant to say. Thanks for pointing that out.

He was also the best Riddler!

It's like the old Patty Duke show -- not even their mothers can tell them apart. Seriously, though, thanks for the hint.

This is actually a really good idea, and we'll do something with it.

Regardless of our translation, a minor league line of .343/.438/.576 speaks for itself. Unless he compiled those numbers in a hitting environment more generous than Denver relocated to the moon, no translation was going to wash all of that way.

I'm not mocking this request at all, but I'm really curious if that's a big issue in this day and age. Are there really locked-room drafts with no net access?

Corrected, thanks.

You guys are wonderful. I love our readers.

Yogi is being remodeled, so unfortunately no.

Thanks, D. I didn't mean to suggest that we would be milling about on that corner.

Thank you! Goldman has been here pretty consistently--he just keeps disappearing to work on books. That will happen less in the future, though, as I am being cloned.

Parenthetically, I will be discussing this very issue on Baltimore's 105.7 the Fan in Baltimore at approximately 2:20 PM EST on Wednesday.

You're wrong about all three. Posada was hardly a highly touted prospect, and Martinez hadn't piled up anything like the major-league sample Wieters has had. Once he got to play, he was remarkably consistent, with only the injury year of 2008 a disappointment. Only Varitek had a negative label based on how highly touted he was coming out of college and how weak his minor-league hitting was, but that's also the point--as a pro he hadn't given anyone reason to dream on him the way Wieters had. Varitek surprised in the majors after disappointing in the minors. Wieters has been the reverse of that. Your evaluations of editors might be better; I guess we'll see. I'm well past my age-25 season, so anything BP gets out of me is a bonus. You can talk about your late bloomers, but this is ridiculous.

Pitch-perfect.

In part because I am consciously slanting towards the modern era, where the line between hype and performance is easier to discern. Paul Strand in this piece is a good example. Accounts say he was an anticipated pitching prospect, but the detail in his minor-league record is non-existent and there was no BA top 100 or Kevin Goldstein, so I have to take the word of some sportswriter from 100 years ago.

Thanks, Joe D. Komminsk is definitely coming.

And there were about three Casey Stengel mentions, right?

Consider that in 13 postseason games at Ebbets, facing very good pitching, Mantle hit five home runs in 54 at-bats, so it's not hard to see him as being an annual 50-homer guy in that park. Mays had 28 home runs in 248 career at-bats there, slugging .786. I don't care what the indexes say--it's pretty clear that Ebbets played smaller for them than did their home parks.

I've got another 40 slots on the list, so these guys may be coming, but I'm leaning against Griffin. It seems to me that, as hyped as he was as a college player, he was more an overdraft than an established prospect who failed to make good. Patterson also seems like a borderline case, but closer to my parameters than Griffin.

Again, my goal here is not to look at overdrafts, guys who were just pure scouting misses, but players who justified their selections to some degree before failing. For some, the reason will inevitably be injuries, whether random or through mishandling. For others, the reasons are more difficult to identify.

I've put them all here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=13085. It's also accessible on the home page on the blog menu. Thanks for the suggestion!

When considered in the context of PECOTA, it's redundant to have SIERA. The latter is an ERA predictor. The former predicts ERA as part of what it does, except it's better. I didn't see the necessity of having both.

...It's a Ray Charles reference, but obviously YMMV.

You are 100% right. And I was upset I didn't get Cesar Tovar in there...

My feelings on Big Fish go up and down quite a bit. Sometimes I think it's quite good, sometimes overpriced and mediocre cooking with an emphasis on sodium content. That mall also has a P.F. Chang's, which I find better than it has any right to be.

Thanks for coming! I don't think we'll get treated like that again. That was a strange mishandling of an event, something for which the company later apologized. They were very classy about it after the fact.

Re typos and the book: as consumers, you have the right to expect a clean book, and we do our best to give you that. However, because we close the book so late, trying to give you a book that is as up to date as possible when spring training starts, there is a certain trade-off for that. This is a document of 350,000 words plus many more numbers, and despite some really expert professionals working on copyedits (I do not claim to be a copyeditor; that's a specialized skill set)there simply isn't time to give it the same going-over that a normal, non-rush publication that sits with the publisher for three months is going to get. I apologize for every error that gets through, but after seven years of doing this, I'm forced to recognize that some are just unavoidable unless we want to hurt the book's timeliness in such a way as to make it unrecognizable. Re PECOTA: As in every year that we've done the book, PECOTA gets revised versions as we tinker with the system, and later we incorporate information from the depth charts. Obviously, the book represents a moment frozen in time. The later versions represent a combination of refined methods and additional information.

We. Don't. Write. Those.

And the lovely and talented Jay Jaffe added to Princeton.

We would very much like to. For reasons that I don't quite understand, the schedule has become snarled. I expect that we will, but I can't confirm any date or place just now. I will update as soon as I have something definitive. In the meantime, Princeton is lovely this time of year. Good restaurants and my favorite used record/CD/DVD store.

I remember reading that, but the Yankees got plenty from McDougald as it was. The two biggest impediments to McDougald being a HOFer are (1) A park that simply KILLED him, and (2) that he changed his swing after lining a ball into Herb Score's eye and he just wasn't the same hitter anymore. He was done being a star before his age-29 season was over, something that, more than his selection in the first expansion draft, meant that he was out of the majors at 33.

Mark Twain Opines: It is almost always wise, and is often in a manner NECESSARY, to kill an editor.

Thank you, Lloyd. I will treasure your response.

Thanks, TraderBob. Fixed.

We are NOT setting the price point.

JP, I honestly have no clue, but I will pass along the question to the publisher.

Good job, Joe. Can't wait until you get Stan Lee! Wait... wrong industry.

Once in 16 editions there was not an index and it was not our call but one by our then-publisher, one akin to pinch-hitting for Willie Mays with an undersized gerbil. It has not/will not happen again.

The book is out! It's away! Free! You should begin seeing them this week.

First edition, 1996... I wasn't there, so I'm not sure. I believe Christina could tell you more.

We have a BP 2011 app coming from the publisher, where you can purchase aspects of the book, but not everything. I will have a post up about that tomorrow. The Kindle/iBook issue remains one of all the numbers translating correctly to that form, and what I have repeatedly been told is that it's not technically feasible right now. This is not our call, but a limitation of the technology.

VORP is still HERE, and will continue to be. But we had a decision to make in terms of presenting an ever-larger book, or cutting our player commentary down, or excising a couple of stats columns that are freely available on the net in a way that wasn't true when the book started back in 1996. It was an easy decision.

The book is already out of the warehouses, off of the trucks, and should be shipping from Amazon/in B&N stores this week.

THIS. This is the kind of discussion that I felt this article should/would provoke. Where do you draw the boundaries of fandom and hero worship? Why is it on one level acceptable to say, "I'll always love Famous Shortstop even if he hits .239," but not okay to really, y'know, LOVE him, or fantasize about it? Who is to say which way of acting with the game is the right one? I pose these as rhetorical questions--I don't claim to have the answers. There is nothing salacious here, but a question of philosophy raised by the game, in the same way it has raised so many issues that extend beyond the lines over the years.

The Robinson trade is up there on the list of superstar trades and should be better known, but somehow Frank got lost in the shuffle as an all-time great, perhaps because he was a contemporary of Aaron and Mays... I mentioned the Ruth trade as well, and several others of players in the top 50 career WARP list. Larry, at the time you mention, Mattingly might have been incensed because he got benched for having hair that was too long for the Yankees dress code.

As I tend to have to explain every year, it's not about an EC bias but rather the fact that more of us live in the East and Midwest and so it is logistically easier and less expensive for us to set up events in those parts of the world. Further, we can't just commandeer a venue--we have to be invited, and for whatever reason there are more stores on this seaboard that are eager to have us in. That said, we have always done and will continue to do WC events, and we are also working on a couple of possibilities for the Cactus League. Stay tuned.

Thank you, Denny. Just trying to be myself, but I very much appreciate the thought.

It's one of the last of the great independent book stores. I was in the Barnes & Noble at Union Square in NYC today, and now not even the great chain bookstores are bookstores--they're toy stores with some books in them. This can only end badly.

I don't THINK so, but Princeton, if we do Princeton, is reasonably close...

Today's release is just the beginning. The percentile breakdowns will be coming with the cards.

We will continue to present VORP here at BP.

We just put this up! The world is asleep and you're here! I love you guys!

You do know I write Pinstripedbible.com, right?

I live here! I'm entitled!

The Wilpons predate Bud--he didn't pick them just like he didn't pick the Steinbrenners or Jerry Reinsdorf or any other old hand.

A rare solid SF episode of that show (vs. solutions by "Tech tech tech."

Totally intentional, Yatchisin, thank you for noticing.

Yup! It's there now.

One of the new things we added to the book this year.

Thank you for saying so, Bodhizefa. We're going to do our best to keep you excited.

lucastate, not trying to be coy--I thought we would have an answer for you up not long after I did that. Watch the BP Blog side of the home page this evening for a message from Colin Wyers.

RallyKiller, just for you, next week I will deliver five Broadsides, M-F, and then I will complete the process of changing the name to just "The BP Broadside" and take a nap.

What I would love to do is print up a series of T-shirts with the Prospectus Boxes from last year's/this year's annuals (designed by Jay Jaffe). Everyone looks at me a little cross-eyed when I bring that up, though.

On the days we don't publish it, I will be thinking about it very intensely?

Welcome, Larry! That strip where Charlie Brown finally hit a home run (even if it turned out the pitcher had grooved the ball) almost brought me to tears. It was like witnessing a miracle, and as much as I loved Schulz, probably the first time he ever surprised me.

I don't think we will be suffering for chat hosts. We may need a bigger clubhouse.

My BP colleagues will gladly tell you that my conception of time is quite elastic compared to the accepted definitions of such.

Tick... tick... tick...

I got yelled at -- a lot. But I remember the cows.

So how often could we do these things before y'all would get bored of coming?

Aw, shucks.

Wow, a BP 2012 question. You want to see a grown man cry, don't you? The answer is, it's too soon to talk about that, but whatever happens I'll never totally abandon the Precious.

No, and patience! You should hear more from us on this tomorrow.

Welcome back to BP, Neil.

There are few words more likely to stop a conversation than "Episiotomy."

I don't understand the point being made here. Even if 1Bmen were not asked to play defense in the distant past, which is utterly, completely not true, what would that have to do with Jeff Bagwell? Meanwhile, non-sluggers like Stuffy McInnis and George Kelly played well into the era of Gehrig and Foxx because of their perceived defensive value. Simultaneously, there were great pure hitters like Zeke Bonura who came up late and finished early because they were felt to be subpar defenders, and Joe Hauser's immobility meant that he stayed in the minor league despite popping 63, 31, 49, and 69 home runs in consecutive seasons (in the competitive American Association). Still don't know what that has to do with Bagwell, though.

This highly-requested advance is still something we're working on. However, the publisher is working on an iPhone app that answer at least a portion of your needs. More info on this as I have it--that part really IS being done by elves, elves that look like Wayne Knight in "Jurassic Park."

Christina and I spent the last five years encouraging a level of verbosity undreamed of in the early days. We both agreed from the beginning of our partnership that this book not only had to succeed in its most basic functions, but had to go beyond that to be something that you could read and get enjoyment from, not just refer to.

We tried to get Dobby from the Harry Potter books, but Rowling's people are impossible to deal with.

Keep in mind, we do not write the cover copy. We look at it, but very briefly, because we're too busy trying to actually get the contents of this year's book right. If the publisher came to me and said, "Last year you predicted that Albert Pujols would be revealed as a giant bag of sentient peanut butter," I would probably say, a little sleepily, "We did? Cool" and move on to the next thing that I'm editing. You will find that with most books, the author is responsible for what goes between the covers and the publisher has final say as to what the dress looks like. This is why MIND GAME went from a cool sabermetric take-off on a phrenologist's model to a picture of Rodin's "Thinker" on an avocado-green background, along with a title font that was lifted from MAD magazine. It wasn't what I approved, but someone with the publisher had a last-minute brainstorm that that was what the book should look like.

I expressed some of these same concerns at the Pinstriped Bible (http://bit.ly/gAy0hg). Spare me the spectacle of watching another thirtysomething with an injury history age painfully into expensive irrelevance. I've already got A.J. Burnett for that.

Already sort-of on it. We need to make sure the deal is actually consummated, but if it is we've identified what we're changing and how. What I can't wait to see is a Fenway-flavored PECOTA for A-Gonz.

That was exactly what I meant. Sometimes, as a writer, you compose something and you say, "I really should have put that better." In this case, I got caught between knowing I didn't clarify that as well as I might have and not wanting to disrespect the audience by over-explaining. What I was trying to get at is that tolerance of risk on a Guthrie type depends on your position. For the Orioles, the downside outweighs the upside, particularly in regards to contract length. A contender without better back-end options might see the gamble of getting another defense-lucky season worth the risk given that the rewards could include a trip to the postseason.

This idea occurred to me as well for exactly that reason, but given the positive charge the pitchers got out of a few defensive changes, I'd rather go with the Atlanta Braves '91 model and keep emphasizing the gloves for awhile.

This is one of the areas I didn't get into for space. I don't think the Orioles can look at those guys as problems right now given other more urgent issues. I also do expect better things from them in the future.

You're right re Uehara. Corrected.

I thought about mentioning that, but when you have guys like Ty Cobb and Ted Williams setting the standard for petulance, Griffey's occasional cranky spell hardly seems to register.

Likely not, but also not impossible. Read the first paragraph again. And who said they were limited to "a player?"

I would like to respond to the "Deadly Accurate" thing once and for all, since I'm the SOB that coined it. As I recall, we were asked by our then-publisher for some ways to describe what we do, and I jokingly offered a number of things, one of which was "deadly accurate." There was much chuckling at the time, because who but Annie Oakley would say "deadly accurate" about anything? Six months later, there it was on the cover. It was never intended to be more than an obviously hyperbolic boast, something out of the Stan Lee school of breathless cover blurbs. I see how some might read it as written, but even so, it's a line on a book cover, not a slap across the face, and I've never understood why some folks seem so exercised about a harmless bit of self-evident braggadocio.

Love the Alan Moore reference, Colin.

Lemppi, there is NO preaching here, and as for douchebaggery, one wonders if you would say such things to MY face. As for what I would have said to Pujols and LaRussa re Beck it would go like this, and it has nothing to do with my own political leanings: "Albert, Tony, Beck is a highly polarizing figure. The Cardinals have to sell tickets and Pujols T-shirts to the entire political spectrum in this country, not just people who use terms like 'liberal douchebaggery.' As such, whatever the intentions or potential outcomes for this particular event, it would be better for the Cardinals organization and you personally not to divide our/your fans by attending." I would say the same thing to any player in any organization who got publicly involved with a divisive figure, left or right. When Derek Jeter burns down a housing development, I'll be the first here to call him out on it, but until he does, we don't have cause to comment here, do we? We just have Pujols, TLR, and Beck, and your bringing up those other things is completely irrelevant. Finally, this is BP. It's supposed to be about reasoned analysis, not name-calling, so for goshsakes, before you start throwing names around THINK about the problem from all angles.

Marshall hit 36 home runs in 1947 as part of the Giants' "Window-breakers" lineup referenced above. He didn't hit over 17 in any other season. The 50s are just full of guys like that, who had one or two big years that are out of line with the rest of their careers. Walt Dropo is another one that comes to mind.

I went with WXRL, and it's at http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=68788 on the statistics tab. Corbett would be ineligible under the rules I've adopted, which says that a manager has to have a full season to "get" a player. I violated that rule once (see the Billy Martin entry).

Bill, what, a title like "Magical Magic" doesn't SCREAM sarcasm at you? Did you not read the piece, which regards the so-called rivalry with apathy? My alternative title was actually, "Yankees-Red Sox: We Do What We're Told," which might have made it even clearer, but cripes, it's pretty damned obvious that I sympathize with the idea that this is overblown. PS: We probably do less Yankees here at BP than we should--I do 99% of my writing on the subject at the Pinstriped Bible and use my BP time for other stuff.

All three of the veterans in those trades were far below the star level and so the deals had a greater chance of achieving equilibrium in the first place. That said, even if you want to look at Alexander, Blake, and Andersen as stars, these trades would still be rare cases compared to the prevalence of the kind that I cite.

http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0D14F7395C12728DDDA00894DC405B8084F1D3 Other quotes I had no room for. Re Dave Parker: "He played hard every day. "I don't know anything about cocaine, but I know he played hurt." "Sutter's gruntin' when he throws," said Chuck Tanner, manager of the Braves. "That's a good sign." It is? "Sure," Tanner said. "If he was hurtin, he'd be moanin'." "The best thing in the world is to win a major league baseball game. The second-best is to lose one." "Rod [Scurry]'s a good guy. They tell me drug abuse is a sickness. It must be hell on earth. I hugged him. I cried for him. He's trying, and so am I. Maybe it's meant that he cleans himself up and goes on to help others. I don't know. I don't know about tricky stuff like that."

He didn't shoot himself, he had part of a thumb blown off in an accident while doing his Marine reserve duty in August of his rookie year. I don't know how he would have developed with the thumb, but he was still pretty good without it and seemed to be back on track as of 1972. Instead, the wheels came off. I don't know if the accident played a role in that or not, but you'd think that three seasons of decent hitting on would eliminate it as a culprit.

Matt, I've been following the Yankees since I was a kid and writing about them professionally for 11 years, and what she said was the correct analysis. The Yankees have now been outbid for the two best pitchers on the market, instead winding up with Mitre in the rotation, a pitcher who, whatever arguments, mitigating factors, and short passages of effectiveness you can point to, has more often been a replacement-level pitcher. This is what you would call (1) a self-defeating act of faith over reason and (2) an inappropriate lack of urgency. While the team's postseason spot is probably safe, the starting rotation as of now comes down to CC and pray for a flying monkey attack--which is more or less what Christina said. I'm sorry you didn't like the manner of delivery, but if you're making your decision on the basis of a lack of analysis, I do hope you will reconsider.

He just didn't get on first base that often in most years, alas. Between that and his Mets phase, well, I wasn't a fan.

I was thinking about that on a long car trip today. I can guess who would be on it, two of them no surprise to anyone - Mantle and Maris '61. I might do it anyway.

Here it is, a little later than I had planned: http://www.myyesnetwork.com/12478/blog/2010/07/22/my_favorite_ralph_houk_story

Not exactly. Casey used Ford on the erratic schedule to which Steph referred. He saved Ford for the tougher teams and matchups, costing him some easy wins against second-division teams. In today's terms, if Casey was managing the Yankees, he would juggle the schedule so that CC Sabathia saw the Red Sox and Rays as often as possible, even (or especially) if that meant never seeing the Orioles. The benefits are obvious, including the lower innings totals. The negatives are as she pointed out--there was less Whitey action than there conceivably could have been. When Houk came in, he used Ford in regular rotation, regardless of opponent. Ford was thrilled. The writers applauded, or at least have subsequently: At last! Whitey Ford is being used correctly! Whitey's innings shot up--he led the AL with a career-high 283 IP in 1961 despite having arm problems in 1960--and he had his big 24/25-win seasons, but his career also came to a rapid close. I can't prove cause and effect there, but I've always wondered. Hence, Houk's change with Ford is celebrated for the same reason it should be scorned.

Jay was contemplating this question yesterday, so I'll defer to him if he cares to answer.

I'll have some more thoughts on Houk up at the Pinstriped Bible shortly... I'll post the URL here when it's ready.

Here's mine: http://www.myyesnetwork.com/12478/blog/2010/07/20/joba-be-gone_not_now

Thanks to everyone for the good wishes. I don't think I'm going to end up in traction or anything--it's just one of those things that seem to happen to me. Some people's bodies quit on them at 40, some at 50, some don't ever quit. My warranty seems to have expired at 30. Still, I'm happy to be here and I expect to be in fighting trim for Friday's chat. "You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head Do you think, at your age, it is right? "In my youth," father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again."

Seriously?

Andres Galarraga TAv/WARP/VORP: 1998: .321/4.5/58.6 McGriff: 1993: .330/2.7/29.4 1994: .323/4.8/47.5 1995: .281/2.4/20.5 1996: .285/2.2/29.5 1997: .276/0.9/14.8 I went with the full-season Big Cat rather than the trade-shortened or Selig-truncated Crime Dog.

The James book came out roughly 15 years ago, so a LaRussa list in there (I don't recall if there is one) would be greatly out of date. If there's interest in more of this kind of thing, I'll do one for him.

Casey Stengel called him "Duckbutt."

cggarb, I break for scarecrows and didn't intend to push over a straw man. Rather, I figure that sometimes these kinds of responses are opportunities for education. I don't always want to preach to the converted. You can't do that without bantering a bit with those that disagree and getting some general principles out there. I know that Dorothy Parker was right when she said that you can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think (the rare meaningful pun?), and there are some bonehead fans that are never going to get beyond the back of the baseball card and what the team-approved broadcaster says (there are probably fans in New York who think Miguel Cairo is a better player than Mickey Mantle due to the way he was fawned over when he was here), but I feel obligated to try.

I debated how to phrase that particular point to account for the very issue you mentioned, but in the end I settled on the definition of "long" as "long enough that Dusty should know better" or "longer than his managerial career."

My pop is back in the hospital (pretty much from the moment I posted this) and I'm with him, but I have a source I can check when I get home. I can say that none of the sources I checked (primary or secondary) made any mention of the nickname.

You really know how to hurt a guy, Ben. I would feel worse if I didn't know that you are fully capable of conversing in exactly the same idiom.

I think I disagree in this instance. The Platters did the definitive "Great Pretender" (it was written for them). Worthy alternatives include Roy, the Band (on "Moondog Matinee") and the fairly histrionic version by Freddie Mercury on his solo album of the same title. Dolly Parton's version is really well sung, although it appears to be taking place during a funeral. And listen to Stan Freberg's parody version before you ever try Gene Pitney's supposedly legitimate cover--it's more of a parody than Stan's.

The Spanish-American War, Korea, and Vietnam only had small effects on baseball--none were, at least for us, the kind of total wars that required massive disruptions of society. Some ballplayers did serve in the Spanish-American war, including a very young Tom Zachary (at least, that was the rumor). There were also various incursions into Mexico and the Caribbean during the early part of the 20th century that some ballplayers participated in--Sam Rice was in the navy during the 1914 punitive Veracruz expedition, and was part of the attacking force. The Great War didn't affect play greatly in 1917, though some players volunteered; Hank Gowdy was famously the first. Some were also drafted, but not a huge number. Later, in 1918, the government issued a "work or fight" order to ballplayers, meaning that baseball was over--they had to either get into a war-essential industry or get into uniform by July. This was later extended to September so that baseball could wrap up the season and have a World Series, but they still had to cut things short; if you look at the standings for 1918, you'll see that everyone played about 125 games. Some players saw action, like Pete Alexander, and were wounded; former player Eddie Grant was killed looking for the Lost Battalion, which is an epic story for another day. Christy Mathewson, who was done playing by then, was accidentally gassed in a training exercise, an event which seems to have left his lungs vulnerable to the TB that eventually killed him in the 1920s. The owners, in their brilliance, also shortened the 1919 season, though the war ended in November and no one had asked them to. After World War II, there was a draft, which meant that players like Whitey Ford and Willie Mays spent part of their careers in the service. Mickey Mantle, disqualified for reasons of health, was constantly harassed as to why he wasn't serving. A few players, like Ted Williams, served in Korea (Williams thought his being called up was political, and it seems reasonable that it was) and Vietnam (Al Bumbry and Bobby Jones before they were called up); two minor leaguers were killed.

I thank you very much for asking and for your good wishes. As I've remarked many times before, I am so very fortunate to have a wonderful community of colleagues and readers surrounding me and supporting me in difficult times. It really does make a huge difference. Regarding my father, I have good news. After almost a month away from home, first in the hospital, then in a rehab facility, he is home and recuperating. He hasn't fully resumed his normal activities, but I am hopeful that with time he will. On day one, his prognosis seemed rather dire, so that he has come so far seems to me something of a miracle--I have no complaints with the world. And PS, he's a veteran, so it's especially appropriate for me to answer you within this piece.

Howard Bryant, for one, covered it in his fine book "Shut Out," one of several sources for this profile. I recommend it.

How damaging is Nettles' long post-peak period to his ranking? Buddy Bell just wasn't a better player than Nettles.

I'll grudgingly give you Bobby Bonilla as a third baseman (950 games/3950 PA as a 3B), but reject Edgar Martinez (552 G/2269 PA) and Paul Molitor (788 G/3622 PA). At that point, why not include Harmon Killebrew (775/3084), Dick Allen (652/2836) or Pete Rose (631/2902)? As such, I think the rankings have got to be recalculated--something that will make Rolen's case even more favorable. Otherwise, your analysis is dead on as usual--the Bobby Grich comp is especially tasty. One wonders how history would have changed if Grich had not reversed himself and turned down the Yankees' FA offer for '77 at the last minute (he would played SS; the move would have meant no Bucky Dent, no Reggie Jackson).

It's a very small difference, and I would suspect it's mostly park factors (Milwaukee County was tough, and Mathews also had his rookie year at Braves Field, another tough stadium) partially Schmidt's not-quite-ready rookie year, which was a .257 TAv, something Mathews never did. The thing that flat-out most shocked me in compiling the list of 3B TAvs is that Richie Hebner ranks 18th at .284. He was a decent hitter for a long time, but I never thought of him as being THAT good. Parenthetically, the rest of the top 20 after Hojo is Ron Cey, Bill Madlock, Darrell Evans, Troy Glaus, Hebner, Ken Boyer, and Ken Caminiti... In a couple of years, Alex Rodriguez will jump in there somewhere, as will David Wright.

I didn't consider him a 3B, limiting my selection to guys with 1000 games and/or 5,000 PAs.

Actually, it was shortstop. Red Rolfe came up as a shortstop and played short in that game. The "Folfe" part is a typo, hereafter fixed.

It struck me as odd too, but I went with what Baseball-Reference had for the team name...

I had some thoughts on Vazquez as well, partly inspired by the Great Jaffe: http://bit.ly/b0tDIO.

Not if it's a staged picture, Saucy, which is exactly what it is. Were it an ACTUAL picture of a recovering patient, I would have a different attitude. My puzzlement came from why the hospital would choose to represent its efforts in THAT way.

Thanks so much to all of you. All of your wishes are encouraging to both me and my father.

1. No MORAL reason, but we happen to like baseball here, and there's nothing wrong for advocating for its promotion, preservation, perpetuation. You're right that other kinds of programs have a greater impact on society, but they're are plenty who advocate for those. This is Baseball Prospectus, not the Great Society Prospectus. 2. Who the hell needs a moral reason? Just because teenagers don't NEED to be encouraged doesn't mean they shouldn't be. The more inclusive the game, the better for the game on all kinds of levels.

Mike, it was a pleasure to see you as well and thanks for making our event classier with your presence. I feel like we should probably pay you for the mini-essay above. I'll respond at length in the next DPOTD. The one thing I want to emphasize here is that I was not trying to be critical of Andy MacPhail, but saying, perhaps ineptly, that each of us was coming at our jobs from different directions, and thus each places a different emphasis on "the human element" that he mentioned--his emphasis is correct for his job, while our emphasis is right for ours. At the same time, I also believe that he was correct that players are not reducible purely to numbers, but as I said, show me a stats guy who believe that and I'll show you a bad stats guy.

That's a great story. I think that's an even better example of what I pointed out in the paragraph about Granderson and Cha-Sung Baek. The overall point about small sample sizes stands, but there are always exceptions that just are what they seem to be despite the minute track-record.

Thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate it.

I'm glad that someone else remembers Statis-Pro. My cousin's 1978 set was part of my falling in love with baseball, and I later played all of 1984 and chunks of other seasons.

Sometimes a thing is what it is.

Let me ask you a question in return: should Obama try to sell health care to reform by standing on a street corner and stopping them one at a time, or should he use his "bully pulpit" to try to convert masses of people at a time? I'm willing to do both, actually, but I do question the utility of getting into altercations with inebriates, which is what you seem to be suggesting here.

Well, here's the thing. I have been in the room with the players and I would feel entirely comfortable asking Adam Lind a question like that, so long as I phrased it so it was going to get an intelligent or revealing answer, and to be honest I can think of a few ways of asking exactly what you wrote there and turning it into a useful point of discussion, even if the other two guys were listening in. What I wouldn't feel comfortable doing is asking Adam Lind if he's an [expletive][expletive][expletive], because I don't think that way and there's no place for it anyway. And no, I don't correct people in the stands because I'm not the Baseball Police, nor am I Don Quixote. That doesn't change the truth of what I said.

I would never, never do that with a recently deceased player.

Washington Senators, somewhere in the 1930s IIRC.

Because this is the surreal world I live in?

Thanks, Chris! Always good to know that someone is listening.

No... Honestly, it was inspired by a midnight conversation with Jay Jaffe in Washington. Jay might or might not have been listening, as he was writing up his own blog entry at the time. Much like Kaiser Wilhelm reviewing the British fleet of dreadnoughts prior to World War I, I thought, "I vant dat!" and the format just popped into my head.

Another typo, a risk of fast blogging. I know that like the back of my hand, too. Not that I have hands. Will fix.

Fixed Ferguson. I was aware of the Tovar thing, but didn't list him for that reason -- the stunt was an extension of what he was already doing, as opposed to Bert Campaneris, who did the same thing in '65 but wasn't really that kind of player.

I call him a Live Dead Person of the Day and keep going. Or I flip to another page.

And so few of them could hit... Not sure this method works though. Wouldn't you consider Jim Leyritz (four corners and catcher) worthy of discussion here? How about Bill Sudakis?

Thing is, Dave wasn't much of a hitter and I was looking for guys who were both versatile and potent. All of the guys above could be counted on to be at least league-average most years. Kubek is the one exception, but he was close enough in '57 that I felt okay with the choice. I'm sure there was a better option (I thought about Tom Tresh '62) but I went with my first guess.

Yup, M-F. Thank you!

That one is great, too. Be careful what you pretend to be, because that's what you are...

I dig "Cat's Cradle" too...

The Rockies somehow failed to make it out of my notes, an oversight for which I apologize. I'm going through a period of sleeplessness right now, and I forget things. The Rockies would have boiled down to not understanding the importance of OBP in a hitter's park.

Meant to say, thank you for that. I'm still very proud of the book and its snapshot of a historically significant pennant race. I wish we could do a book like that every year (don't tell my fellow BPers I said that -- they'd have me burned at the stake).

That's my intention. Just trying to keep these entries to a manageable length.

If you ask Goose Gossage, he'll tell you that Ron Davis was the best setup man he ever had, to the extent that Goose wasn't asked to be his own setup man. Whenever he says this, I have to stop myself from letting out a theatrical guffaw. Even though I know full well Davis was a perfectly fine (if not better than that) reliever from 1979-81, I have to check myself from saying, "You're kidding, right?" It's just hard to think of the two Ron Davises as the same guy.

When I saw the word "Homestead" hyperlinked, I was very excited to read Christina's attempt to analogize the Homestead Act of 1862 to baseball. Alas, this particular dream remains unfulfilled.

Yes. It was meant to be two different strips. The second of them can be found here: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/fan_shot_images/13766/mccovey1.gif.

I figured I'd let Jay regale you with a story of Nomar's on-field heroics since that was his initial thought. I certainly enjoyed Nomar the player, and this post isn't really about his sulking as it is about the risk that Theo Epstein took.

She was! That's why you should have been there!

How about "Kevin, Jay, Clay, Matt, and the really fat guy authoring this post..."

This is something we'll do in a week or 10 days.

Part three.

Neil, I quit top 40 about 1985 or 1986, at roughly the exact moment that I discovered the Beatles, Stones, etc, etc. As we go backwards this is going to become more familiar to me, which is the opposite of how it probably works for most people.

And one other point: the stuff about the presidents and the water-cooler is meant to contextualize how long it has been for these teams. You're either going, "Yeah, I remember that. Gee, that was a long time ago," or "I read about this in my history class, that's how long ago it was." It's not about politics, it's about how much the world has changed since some of these clubs had their acts together.

There really are no political comments. For each president I tried to pick something that was going on at that time, like Clinton sending all that money to Mexico -- very controversial that year. G.H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas. That was a huge story. Ronald Reagan really did make a big emotional speech in Moscow. As for the various comments about "the more things change" or "ever feel like you've been treading water?" That's more observational than political. As you page back over the history of the last 20 years, certain things repeat: health care, terrorism, problems in the middle east, global warming, and it's a bit frustrating because it feels like we've been dealing with the same stuff forever without ever coming to the end or making real progress. That's not a political comment that's partisan in any way, it's just a statement that we've been stuck. I don't think it's even debatable.

So you're dropping your subscription because you don't like the Marlins essay, or three pages out of a 650-page book? It's certainly your right, but it seems a bit disproportionate. It's funny... I could see canceling a subscription to a political magazine because, say, they advocated going to war in Iraq when you felt the opposite, or vice-versa, or canceling your sub to a publication that changed formats and they no longer covered what you liked. I once subscribed to a movie magazine and halfway through the sub they ceased publication and transferred me to "Porcelain Statues of Puppies Magazine" or something, and I certainly didn't keep that up, but here we're talking about one writer's opinion of a baseball team, one of 30. If you disagree, great, stay here and be part of the conversation. That's what we're all about, and we'd like to learn from you if you have something to say. However, you should realize that we're trying our best, whether you agree or not, and a cancellation threat isn't going to coerce us into (A) trying harder, because we're already working our asses off to do our best or (B) changing our analysis, because what would our analysis be worth if we flinched every time someone reacted badly? Obviously we hate to lose anyone, but if we checked every opinion to see if it would be 100 percent acceptable to 100-percent of the audience, we'd never publish anything.

The problem is not in the book. The pitchers are projected to allow home runs, even Ryoto Igarashi... And Alfredo Aceves.

Judging by the stocking practices of the Borders in my area, I figured they were pretty much out of the book business. They sure had some pretty stationary, though. In any case, I wouldn't take what their systems say too seriously. The book has shipped. If they can't get it onto shelves until then, they're just highlighting their own inefficiencies.

Wrong.

We've answered this a number of times, alangreene. We've asked our publishers over the last 2-3 years, but the current e-readers are just not set up to deal with the formatting of the book.

There is a team essay for every team, 30 in all.

pgrabar, please see http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1492. Thanks. Shorter version: it has an index.

Hey, I totally meant it. Love that women's curling.

That's been up there for a couple of days. The severe weather is over for now and the major roads are clear.

And miss women's curling?

Thanks for that. Not all of the bio pages are that good, so I've not gotten in the habit of stopping by there for that kind of information. I should have known that a hitter as good as Harris might have a cult following.

Thank you, too, Pebblyjack. What source did on Harris did I miss, because I exhausted just about all of the obvious one except the NY Times (whose sports coverage was hit or miss at that time), which I checked after ddanyc's post and should have checked before. The Times reported the independent team as Fraklin, PA, FWIW.

Ddanyc, that is absolutely right. In a rather odd decision, after taking until midseason 1919 to get back to the Indians, Harris jumped his contract to play with an independent team in Franklin, PA, although I'm not clear if the real issue was the offseason activity or the fact that the men he played with and against had been previously banned. Either way, why this seemed like a good idea to Harris I do not know. He didn't apply for reinstatement until August '21 and was finally reinstated the following February, at which point a deal that sent him to the Red Sox was allowed to go through. Judge Landis did indeed cite his difficult war experience as an exculpatory factor. I had a difficult time digging up information on Harris, and I thank you for filling in this gap.

At a Johnson City, TN Cardinals game I attended way back (long enough ago that Dmitri Young played in the game) where the postgame entertainment was a guy named the Amazing Dan or something. Dan was an old guy who came out to the middle of the infield wearing a helmet and a jumpsuit and sat on a cube of some kind of explosive. The PA guy says, "And now, watch as the Amazing Dan blows himself up!" The cube explodes, Dan goes up about three feet in the air and lands on his back on the remains of the cube, arms and legs flung out in all directions. He lay motionless for a full minute or so, and the PA guy felt obligated to say, "Don't worry, folks, the Amazing Dan is only stunned!" After that he twitched a few times and a couple of people came on and got him to his feet and he staggered off the field to a kind of bewildered, staggered applause. It wasn't entertaining, but more like a vision of a man who was in hell.

I would love to do a Princeton Pizza Feed again... Christina and I had a very nice turnout the one that we did. Is there a lot of love out there for that idea?

Another possibility is to talk to the Community Relations Manager of your local store and ask them to make a request for us.

I just want to know how Manuel dropped all that weight.

Actually, it was JFK.

Richard, I think I've commented on this before, but let me do so again. We want the writers to feel free to disagree with stats like FRAA. Their worldview should not be limited to numbers on a page, but should also embrace what they see. Obviously if a player hit 25 home runs then he hit 25 home runs, but with some of the fielding metrics and projections there is more room for interpretation. If that means saying they disagree with the PECOTA projection for a player, fine. If it means saying that FRAA over- or underrates a player's defensive abilities, that's great too. Sometimes it's kind of important that we do. For example, part of the Mark Teixeira comment is spent discussing why FRAA (and UZR as well) didn't like him this year. That's a spot where the metrics and perception clash, and it's important to acknowledge that and try to understand what is happening.

We edit like crazy, amazin. However, most books of this size are prepared over the course of a year or more, not in a mad rush of just a couple of months. We added an additional layer of copyediting last year, and the number of errors was vastly reduced. I trust the same will be true this year. I offer this explanation not as an alibi but as a simple statement of the limitations inherent in the process.

Why is that important?

What if you had that, but it just had the text and none of the stats, or only the text plus PECOTA?

Depends how he's using them. As I said in today's chat, look up Thalidomide. First it was a good thing to give to pregnant women. It was rapidly found to be a very bad thing to give them. Time went by. Scientists played around with it some more and found it has some useful applications. Now it's a good drug again provide it is used properly. Cyanide has clinical applications. Arsenic has clinical applications. It is almost never a black and white issue.

The Tripp Cromer comment is legendary around the office. They only bring it out when some dignitary comes to visit. I've never been blessed with the chance to read it, but I've heard it's AWESOME.

Keeping in mind that we have very, very little input in such matters, we do bring it up every year and what Will relates is what we've been told: the formatting just wouldn't translate.

Would you have been happier if I had gone with Candy LaChance of the 1903 Red Sox? If the Red Sox aren't your style, I could skip down to Todd Benzinger of the 1990 Reds -- see, if I can't use Yankees, I have to pass over Tino Martinez (2000) and the ubiquitous Babe Dahlgren (1939). I was trying to answer a particular question, and the answer happened to be a Yankee. If it had been a St. Louis Brown I would have gone with that story, and then someone would have said, "Yeah, but who has ever heard of the St. Louis Browns?" YCLIU is going to appear more frequently this year. Some of the entries will be like this one, others will be quicker hits, and some will even be about current events. I hope that you enjoy something in there...

The rule didn't really have any effect whatsoever. The Yankees were mostly built through their farm system, and trades played little part in the creation of the roster. The only real exception was Red Ruffing, who had been a Yankee for 10 years by the time they passed the rule. The reason the Yankees finished in third place--all of three games out!--is detailed in the article, and can be paraphrased as an inability to overcome too many replacement level performances. The rule was rescinded after the Tigers won the pennant, since it was no longer punishing the team it was aimed at.

Now I've got the "music" for that in my head.

This is a pejorative way of looking at our decision. You assume that we cut back because of negative feedback, but the issue wasn't the quality of the essays, but that they were not always a good fit for the book. Whether you like or don't like pure stats essays, and some of them were very good, they took resources away from the main stem of the book. We've been straining at our limits, wanting to write longer and more in-depth comments, but you can only make the book so big before it becomes a cost factor. No matter how much the essays could be improved, they aren't going to rival the player comments as the book's main feature. Thus, we made the call we did. That doesn't mean that those essays are gone for good. If we have a really great piece to present, we can always bring them back. They also can be, and have been, subtly integrated into the team essays where appropriate. In the meantime, there's already a venue for these kinds of pieces here at BP.com, and I suspect that sooner or later we may find a way to devote a separate publication to that kind of material. In the meantime, please don't assume that we ran away from some kind of challenge. It was not a paucity of quality material of that kind, but a surfeit of quality material for the rest of the book.

Two things at work in the player comments as far as the fielding metrics: Christina and I encourage the writers to debate with the stats (all the stats) where appropriate. Second, I'm not really satisfied with any one fielding metric and consult a range of them, and I know the others do the same. Until a grand unified theory of fielding stats comes along, that is going to be an area where what the writers see and what the stats say aren't going to match up every time.

That's okay... It was a nice switch from people confusing me with Kevin Smith.

Again, it wasn't that we didn't have room, but that other logistical problems prevented its inclusion. That won't happen again. Now, we have cut back on the back-of-book essays this year, because we wanted to spend the space on the teams and players themselves. Emphatically, it is not a shorter book. It's probably a longer one, we've just allotted the space a little differently. Our feedback has been that the essays in the rear were not very well read but for Kevin's top 100 list which remains (although in the spirit of his Top 11 Prospects, it is now the Top 101) and that these journal-like, research-heavy pieces were better located on the web. After this year's book comes out, one thing I intend to do is ask you, the readers, for very specific feedback as to what you like and don't like, what you'd like to see more of, what would make it a better book for you. I look forward to having that conversation. Finally, I'm gratified that you've re-read them; all of us really work hard to make it a BOOK first and foremost, something that you can learn from and be entertained by. Some people call the annual a fantasy guide, and sure, it can be used that way, but our ambitions are always far greater than that.

Thank you, JParks, it means a lot to get feedback like that. I hope to bring more of my style of looking at things to BP this year, be it historical stuff or more current-events-type pieces. I should have mentioned the index in my original response. All I can say is (as I believe we said at the time), it will never, never happen again. It wasn't something we chose but that events forced on us. We're not in that position this year, and part of my job is to make sure that we're never in that position again. BP 2010 WILL have an index, and if I could put it in flashing pink neon, I would. Not having an index was like walking around with your fly open -- for a year.

As an addendum to my own comment, last year's book was an outlier as far as pages. No other annual had been longer than 602 pages, and the average for the entire run is 551. That said, I would caution against judging how much material you're getting by page count, as changes in layout and other alterations to the way the book is constructed can swell or restrict the number of pages. In any case, I have little doubt we'll be closer to last year's figure than to 551.

You're assuming that we're not still tinkering with the recipes, and that what has been discussed here is the end-all be-all of what we'll be offering. As Kevin said, there is more news coming. And as I said elsewhere in this thread, we know the value the readers place on incisive commentary, and there are no plans to abandon that.

Richard, as I write this we are still working on Baseball Prospectus 2010. I do not know what the final page-count on the book will be, so I'm pretty sure you don't either. If you're referring to the page-count listed at Amazon, that's an approximation that is supplied by the publisher, not something we're bound by. So don't worry: given the way the manuscript has looked so far, I'm fairly certain that this will be yet another bulging compendium of baseball, possibly the longest we've done yet. Judging from the raw word count, we've had more to say than ever. Just about all of that additional length has gone into the player comments, which have achieved an even greater depth than usual this year. You've also made an incorrect assumption about the new writers not being invited to participate. In addition to old-guard types like Jay, Kevin, Christina, Clay, John, and myself, there have been extensive contributions from the new crew, and I hope you will be as pleased by their work as we have been. Finally, we DO NOT set the price on the book. That is something the publisher does. Still, I'm looking at Amazon and it goes for $16.47 there, $16.83 at Barnes & Noble. I buy a lot of books--it's an addiction--and I think it is not unfair to say that in this day and age less than $20 for a massive tome like the Baseball Prospectus annual is one of the better bargains out there.

They NEVER go unnoticed. Kevin and I discussed it off-line. I believe we've figured out a solution: I will continue to be Steven Goldman, but he will be legally changing his surname to "Skippy."

What I'm saying is that you never know what is going to point you towards a story worth telling. Yes, I might find a reason to write about the 1922 World Series on my own, so I don't REQUIRE new research for that, but if statistical research provides new insight into what happened there, then I have a much stronger reason for doing so. My goal is always to write something you haven't read before. Sure, you've read about 1922, Babe Ruth and the gang, but maybe I can find a new angle in it. Stats can help me do that, and then I can bring both elements together - I can tell you something about Carl Mays' personality, and then I can also use the stats to give you a better picture of what kind of pitcher he was. All of that said, I think the larger point here is that these two avenues of endeavor are not mutually exclusive. BP has always done both of these things, has always done numbers, always done storytelling, and at its best has done both at the same time. The changes to the cast discussed above do not mean that we have moved away from that or are any less committed to it than we've always been.

Jay Jaffe always makes fun of me for overusing this quote, but here I go: as Abraham Lincoln supposedly said, if this is the kind of thing you like, then you will like this kind of thing. We have a large readership. Some of them are very interested in this kind of tinkering, and internally we're interested as well, because one of the things that separates BP from random opining and the mooing of the sports-radio masses is that we make every effort to support our arguments with facts. Whether I'm talking about Tim Lincecum or Bob Gibson or Walter Johnson, if Eric or Colin or Clay can get me that much closer to being sure that my argument is solidly grounded, I want to hear what they have to say. For those that are less interested in stats research, we're never going to forget that good writing and analysis is a key component here. That's something that Christina imparted to me from my very first day here and it's an ethos that she and I will continue to carry forward in the books and John will maintain on the web site as well. Heck, that's what made me reader before I was a contributor. Reading this discussion I know that's what brought many of you here, too. We're very aware of that, and it's not something we're ever going to get away from. These two components go hand in hand here at BP. The stats work fuels the analysis and vice-versa. When the stats guys do something new, those of us on the pure analysis side try to apply it. When we ask a question, they endeavor to answer it. It's that exchange of ideas that helps make BP what it is.

Steve Goldman is flattered and doesn't mean to be rare, but during annual season my columns have to take a back seat to getting the book ready to go. Once we're done, and we almost are, I intend to be more visible here (and at my other home, the Pinstriped Bible as well).

I actually liked that one.

In fairness to Richards, yes, his instinct was to be a stathead. One of the cool things in the book is a photo of a notebook of his from the early 1940s where he derives a basic OBP for his PCL players at a time when no one was thinking about OBP. If there's enough interest, I'll revisit Richards after I've actually read the book. Regardless of this little anecdote, he was a fascinating character.

Eyewitness accounts, such as Lieb's.

Mike, a better word would probably have been "maintaining" instead of "adding," given that Hendry had already moved in this direction by trying to continue the OBP dominance of the previous season. The other postwar OBP leaders were one-offs. Just a poor choice of emphasis on my part as I rushed to the finish.