The Cubs made a steal of a deal; the Expos are getting Vladimir Guererro back, and not a moment too soon; the A’s are investing their money unwisely; the Cardinals take another hit in losing Matt Morris; and the Padres get a small-scale boost in regaining Phil Nevin. All this and much more news from around the league in your Tuesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
“What the %@#$! are the A’s doing?” That’s how I found out about the Scott Hatteberg contract extension Friday night, picking up my cell phone and hearing that question.
Hatteberg was one of the A’s success stories of 2002. Picked up for the bargain price of one meeeeeelyun dollars, the former catcher was made into a full-time first baseman and hit .280/.374/.433, good for a .292 EqA that ranked right in the middle of the pack among major league first basemen. Hatteberg made a strong transition to his new position; according to Clay Davenport’s defensive Translations, Hatteberg saved 17 runs more than an average first baseman in 81 games last season, an excellent figure. He was one of the primary characters in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, with Lewis devoting a chapter to Hatteberg’s story and, in particular, to his approach at the plate. In 2003, however, Hatteberg has hit like a replacement-level first baseman: .264/.348/.394 (which includes a monster series against the Angels over the weekend), and his .259 EqA ranks him above just a handful of regulars at the position. At 33, Hatteberg doesn’t seem to have much development left, and if he is to have an unusual career path, Nate Silver’s PECOTA system doesn’t see it. After plugging in Hatteberg’s 2003 performance, it projects a slow decline from his 2002 peak.
There are over 290 million people in the U.S. Only above half of those have a team in their metro area. A lot more have regional teams, of course, but there are tons of people out there who are in one way or another, up for grabs. Teams only have a few minor league teams they can use to try and build affiliations with, and the rest has to be access and marketing–setting up radio feeds, getting games on televisions across the country any way you can, handing out flyers, whatever. Unfortunately the way baseball has things set up, teams are handcuffed.
Say the Expos move to Oregon and are run by, uh, me. I want to make the team popular, and I’m willing to run it at a huge loss for a while to get people attached to the new team. I want to offer free Internet radio feeds to capture a huge attractive audience of affluent people. Can’t do it, because MLB Advanced Media’s running the Internet game, and I have to be content with the money and exposure I get with their pay-for-play packages. I can try and reach the most ears with actual radio coverage, and advertise to make sure people know they can listen in, but it’s going to be extremely hard for me to crack the tiny markets and pick off those guys I wanted to get to through Internet feeds. I can set up a loss-leader television deal, start my own channel and try and go superstation, but there are huge costs involved and I just bought a baseball team, which puts me (roughly) $200 million dollars in debt, assuming a purchase price of $200 million, plus I’m going to be dealing with baseball’s impossibly complex and wacky blackout rules. I’m SOL, domestically.
Baseball’s becoming more and more of an international game, and for once should take the lead among sports innovation. Baseball should make every effort to get games on in countries where baseball’s played, particularly in the Pacific Rim. Live or rebroadcast, there should be a baseball game on every day in Seoul and Sydney, a well-produced advertisement for the sport. Baseball has a massive resource pool to get these games on the air somewhere in these markets and try and build an international fan base.
Does Todd Walker’s bat make up for his defensive shortcomings? Could the Reds use Elmer Dessens right about now? And do the Padres have a trade up their sleeves? All this and much more news from Boston, Cincinnati, and San Diego in your Tuesday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
There are days when baseball is just too good to me. Five-hundred-and-two foot home runs; radio stations calling at all hours wanting me to talk about pitch counts; reader email, which has always been a joy. It’s all just fantastic.
Often though, the highlight of my day is when I go through my list of things I must read and find that the normal, high-quality stuff I spend my time perusing has taken it to another level. From Jayson Stark–who has the best roundup of the Reds situation that I’ve seen–to Jim Baker, to the work done by Jamey Newberg and Mike Hindman of the Newberg Report: there’s a ton of writing out there that has been flat-out amazing lately.
Someone asked me about football today, and I just stared at him, wondering if he knew what he was missing.
The Marlins have charged into the thick of the NL Wild Card race. The Yankees acquired two useful relievers for next to nothing. The Pirates also showed it was a buyer’s market, selling Aramis Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, and Mike Williams for modest returns. These and other news and notes out of Florida, New York, and Pittsburgh in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Congratulations to Eddie Murray, Gary Carter, Bob Uecker and Hal McCoy for their inclusion among baseball’s immortals. Uecker’s speech was one I hoped to hear, but Comcast doesn’t see fit to provide me with ESPN Classic among the 16 versions of Lifetime spread across the 340 channels of digital cable.
And speaking of things that I’d like to see: if they can’t have the exhibition game there during induction weekend, why not put together a team of reserves and prospects and play an exhibition under, say, 1896 rules. Pick a different year every year, do up the (marketable) uniforms and funny hats, and for at least a couple years, people would watch. It couldn’t be any worse an idea than “This Time It Counts!”
The sky is falling! The Huns are at the gates! Dogs and cats have been eyeing each other lustily! There’s a competitive imbalance problem, where 28 teams entered the season with no chance of finishing within 40 games of .500!
OK, enough of that. The notion that Major League Baseball has a competitive imbalance problem has been so thoroughly discredited in these and other forums that I’m not going to waste too much time on it here, although some of the supporting data below touch on it tangentially. It’s actually a worthwhile question to note that the extended playoffs might have pushed things to the point where MLB has a competitive balance problem, which in the NFL is known as the parody of parity. It’s possible that it’s currently too difficult for a well-run club to sustain prolonged excellence, not because of some silliness about market resources, but because the playoff marathon frequently randomly robs the best teams of chances at deserved high-revenue World Series shots. I think we’re in the range where this is a matter of individual aesthetic choice, though, so we’ll leave that discussion for after the incoming (duck) round of playoff expansion. In the meantime, I want to show you what actual competitive imbalance actually looks like on a large scale, identify some of the causes, and discuss just how big a problem competitive imbalance actually is.
College baseball has a considerable amount of competitive imbalance. There are factors that have nothing to do with baseball that have a great effect on the quality of team that a school is likely to field, variables like weather (which, due to the early schedule, influence the amount and type of practice a team can get), enrollment, tuition, and how many games the football and basketball teams have won lately. With my External Factors Index, I’ve done some analysis on this stuff; you can create a single number which has a .82 correlation with results in my rating system (which only considers on-field results). It’s certainly possible to overcome these factors–which Rice was nice enough to demonstrate by winning this year’s College World Series–but the issues do exist.
Rich Harden sparkles in his major league debut. Aramis Ramirez apparently thinks he’s been traded to the Braves. Sadly, George Brett may be better known for pine tar than for being one of the greatest third basemen in baseball history. Brendan Donnelly gave up a run, a sure sign that the apocalypse is near. Mike Hargrove has an exceptional grasp of the obvious. These and other pontifications in The Week In Quotes.
The Florida Marlins have been in the news quite a bit lately. Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera have arrived in Miami with great fanfare, with Willis’ performance being one of the reasons the Marlins can still consider themselves in the playoff hunt. More recently, Florida parted with three prospects, including former number one overall pick Adrian Gonzalez, to acquire Ugueth Urbina. The Marlins were willing to part with Gonzalez because of the presence of Jason Stokes, also a first baseman whom the Marlins view in a more positive light. However, one name who has been kept out of the spotlight is Jeremy Hermida, who just may be the Marlins best hitting prospect, and one of the more unheralded young players in the game.
At the end of January, I was fortunate enough to sit down and talk with executives from a couple of clubs, and reader response was heavy and extremely positive. So we’ve imposed once again on the executive of the AL Club who was so generous with his time back in January, and here’s what he had to say as we approach the final third of the season.
Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia get rewarded for 2002. The Indians and Rangers swap pitching prospect for hitting prospect. The Yankees grab Armando Benitez in a non-Sierran move. The Jays get a steal in Stewart-for-Kielty. These and other tidbits, plus a full array of Kahrlisms, in this edition of Transaction Analysis.