I’m a little ashamed to admit this now, but I used to hate Rickey Henderson. I grew up following the Giants and the Mariners, and Rickey beat the hell out of the Mariners on his way to making the Giants look stupid. And growing up in a rival city, you hear all the bad and not much of the good: Rickey’s arrogant, but not that he’s got a sense of humor.
Rickey changed baseball, too. Not for the better, unless you enjoy the motions of throwing back to first 20 times to make sure Edgar Martinez doesn’t steal second late to ignite a come-from-behind rally in an 8-1 game the M’s are losing.
We haven’t seen much base-stealing lately, for reasons that manage to hurt the understanding of how great both players were. Ruth’s marks don’t seem so impressive when even the bat boy hits 10 out a year. And power has eclipsed speed. While some (Luis Castillo,Juan Pierre) have gotten into the 60s, it’s largely forgotten that there were players like Henderson and Vince Coleman who reeled off a series of years where they swiped over 100 bases a year.
For quite a while now, teams with little hope of contending have been rightly ridiculed for throwing cash at high-end free agents despite a roster full of surrounding chaff. The Mets of the early ’90s and Devil Rays for most years of their miserable existence as ball club-cum-novelty act are prominent examples of this phenomenon. Teams that indulged in this approach often squandered precious draft picks by signing free agents that had been offered salary arbitration by their former employers and also provided themselves with plenty of disincentive against trading high-salary veterans off for prospects. As you can see, in previous years, such an off-season approach would strike a pair of potent blows against the rebuilding process. Well, this may no longer be such a ham-fisted way of operating.
As has been detailed here and elsewhere from various and sundry angles, baseball’s economic landscape is now altogether different. Whether it’s collusive in nature or merely a market correction isn’t my concern at this time, but it is a market that bears scant resemblance to the one only two winters ago. A new wrinkle is that teams aren’t offering arbitration to those free agents that, even a year ago, would’ve been no-brainers: Vlad Guerrero, Gary Sheffield, Mike Cameron, Greg Maddux, Bartolo Colon, Ivan Rodriguez, Javy Lopez, among a host of others. The idea being that the market for free agents is so depressed that there’s now a substantive chance the player will accept arbitration and take his team to the cleaners, at least relative to what he’d command on the open market. The upshot of this development is that the overwhelming majority of free agents can now be signed without forfeiting high compensatory draft picks to his former club.
With the 2004 STATLG-L Hall of Fame balloting now in the books, and the results of the BBWAA voting slated to be released this afternoon, there are few topics more prominent in baseball fans’ minds than “Which players will make it to Cooperstown in 2004?”
And rightfully so. Enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame is the highest honor a former-player can receive, and most fans are protective of that: a fact that has spurned countless heated debates over the years–rational, objective, and otherwise.
With that being said, I thought it would interesting to see what some of Baseball Prospectus’ newly updated measures of player evaluation had to say on the topic. For the uninitiated, BP’s Davenport Translated Player Cards measure a player’s value above replacement level for offense, defense, and pitching while adjusting for context–park effects, level of offense, era, length of season, and in Clay’s own words, “the distortions caused by not having to face your own team’s defense.” The Davenport Cards offer the most sophisticated statistical summaries available; if you can adjust for it, it’s in there. The basic currencies of the Davenport system, whether it’s offense, defense, or pitching, are runs and wins, more specifically, runs above replacement level and wins above replacement level.
In this, our 13th year, the STATLG-L Internet Hall of Fame balloting demonstrates anew the uncertainties involved in trying to decide whether Player X or Player Y has the credentials to merit your vote for induction into the Hall. There were a number of intriguing questions to be answered this time around, dealing with both first-year eligibles and holdovers from last year.
We recorded a total of 2363 ballots in this year’s edition of the STATLG-L IHOF, appreciably less than last year’s record total and even a bit lower than the number of ballots cast two years ago. I don’t think we can blame this drop on the absence of a Veterans Committee ballot this year, and I won’t speculate about other possible reasons for the decline. I must report, however, that I personally did less shilling for the event than I’ve done in previous seasons, so maybe some of the decrease can be laid at my own feet. The average number of names on a ballot was 5.83, very similar to last year’s 5.96 and well above the 5.18 names per ballot a year earlier. Given the total number of ballots recorded this time, the 75% threshold was set at 1773 votes while the 5% gateway for retention on the ballot (if we, rather than the BBWAA, made that decision) came to 119 votes.
Next week, Peter Gammons is hosting Hot Stove, Cool Music in Boston. All proceeds from this benefit concert support The Jimmy Fund, which raises funds to support cancer treatment and research. Baseball Prospectus has pledged 50% of all proceeds from new subscriptions during the next week as a donation to The Jimmy Fund, so if you were thinking about subscribing, this is the time to do it. More importantly, if you’d like to support the Jimmy Fund with a donation, simply click here. Yeah, people are hitting you up for money all the time, and we all get tired of it, but The Jimmy Fund is worth both your money and time. Cancer is an indiscriminate killer, and it’s likely affect either you or someone you love. Pre-emptively strike with a donation. Maybe an hour’s salary.
It’s cold over much of the country, but Spring Training is not far off, and beginnings of all types are actually pretty cool, when you think about it. New Year’s Resolutions don’t, on a percentage basis, pay off, but occasionally, they stick, and if you make one to be generous in some way to someone in your life, you’ll be happier, and so will they. I It sounds corny, but it’s true. Think about it: do you ever really feel better–and deservedly so–than when you’re helping out someone else? So, at the very least, show some pity to a Devil Ray fan this year. I only know of one–Tony Constantino–so you’ll have to find your own.
Earlier this week, the Federal government banned products containing ephedra, the dietary supplement which was linked to the death of former-Orioles’ pitcher Steve Bechler last spring. This ban gives athletes, trainers, and anyone else currently using products containing ephedra 60 days to clear out their inventory and rebuild around products containing other thermogenic agents.
And yet, while the ban is intended to keep people from using ephedra, products containing the dietary supplement are already flying off the shelves in some areas. The reason? Because despite its pitfalls, products containing ephedra are still very effective at helping individuals lose weight.
That said, ephedra is not the only thermogenic agent. The pill that Bechler took, Xenadrine RFA, was removed from the market voluntarily by its manufacturer and replaced with a similar product that did not contain ephedra. In fact, on the Xenadrine webpage, the manufacturer states that the new product is more effective without ephedra. What, then is powering this ‘more effective’ thermogenic? According to the manufacturer…
Is the current collective bargaining agreement solely responsible for the crash in free agent values? We mentioned this in passing during a recent Roundtable, but it’s worth a more in-depth look. As Doug Pappas has noted, revenue sharing reduces the marginal value of players. What that means is that if you’re the Red Sox, and you worked out that a win was worth $1 million to you in additional raw revenue from merchandise, next year’s radio deal, and so forth, if you share your revenue with the other 29 teams, that amount is reduced.
I usually complain that the lack of changes in the weather in southern California causes me to not get into the Christmas spirit. So this year, Sophia and I came east to spend the holidays with my family…and it’s 57 degrees in New York City on December 23.
The California-native bride is happy that she can feel all her extremities, but I’m looking around for an open golf course, and still wondering if my Christmas cheer is going to make an appearance.
Baseball’s Rule 5 draft, in many ways, is confined to the rural route of the annual winter meetings, so it doesn’t get as much bandwidth/column inches as it should. But as many teams are learning or already know that the Rule 5 is a nifty way to add a high-ceiling prospect to the system. The catch, as you know, is that any team selecting a player in Rule 5 must keep the lucky draftee on the active major league roster for the entire season or until he can fake an injury substantial enough to eventually land him on the 60-day DL. Just last year, we saw teams choose a handful of vaguely useful to flat-out good relievers (e.g., Aquilino Lopez of the Blue Jays and Javier Lopez of the Rockies). And reaching back into the antediluvian mists of prehistory, luminary Roberto Clemente first made his way to the Pirates via Rule 5. This winter’s crop is the least impressive since I’ve been closely following this draft, but there were still some engaging names on the board. So, in my stateliest Lance Ito fashion, I shall now pass judgment on the 2003 class of Rule 5 draftees. All rise…
In 2002, at the tender age of 18, Andy Marte led the Appalachian League in RBI, was second in home runs, and had a composite line of .281/.344/.492. That performance made Marte an interesting prospect to be closely followed in 2003. This past summer in the Carolina League, Marte had another solid performance and jumped to grade-A prospect status. Baseball Prospectus minor league expert David Cameron said that Marte was the player “that most amazed me” in his most recent chat.
Marte is getting regular playing time at the Dominican Winter League as the third baseman of the Azucareros del Este club, and he was kind enough to have a brief conversation with Baseball Prospectus. We interviewed Marte before his team most recent game at the Estadio Tetelo Vargas in San Pedro de Macoris.
With just eight games left on the schedule, the Dominican Winter League is entering in the final and decisive stretch to decide which four teams are going to the playoffs beginning January 2nd. Two teams are already in: the Licey Tigers and the Cibao Eagles and three others are fighting for the final two spots. Two-and-a-half games separate the Giants, Toros and Estrellas, yet the Estrellas are at a marked disadvantage.
Before the season started, there were signals that the team from San Pedro de Macoris was working with a different agenda than the other five ballclubs. Most of their foreign players were from the Japanese League (Masato Yoshii, Takahito Nomura and Brian Mallette) or the Taiwanese League (Jeff Andra). Only three played the whole summer in organized baseball: Greg Bauer, Koyie Hill and J.D. Closser. The clear motives for this curious strategy were economic, as the ballclub was not in the same financial position as the two previous seasons, when their payroll was almost at the same level of the big-market clubs in Santo Domingo and Santiago.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, it’s been a pretty interesting couple of weeks in the news. If you’ve been feverish, like most of the populace of California’s scenic Contra Costa County, you may have observed that a bombastically hirsute Alex Rodriguez was liberated from a sort of cave/hutch just north of Tikrit and west of Odessa by a U.S. Army strike force, who then checked him for ticks, packaged him in a box, and shipped him to Worcester, where he was unpacked by Larry Lucchino and Gene Orza, then shipped back to Houston, Texas, where he was awarded a Hummer by noted conservative talk show host Michael Savage.
The more coherent among you are aware that the Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers have been discussing a deal that is, at its center, Manny Ramirez for Alex Rodriguez.
Since both players have very long, lucrative contracts, money has been a significant component of the deal. So let’s dive in and take a look…
Rather than just adding another thousand-or-so words to the million which have been written this week about Alex Rodriguez’ negotiations with the Boston Red Sox, the Texas Rangers, the MLBPA, Scott Boras, Bud Selig, and a bunch of angry Red Sox fans, I’ll focus on a few specific issues which often seem to be misunderstood.
This deal validates the notion that the Rangers were somehow ruined by the signing of Alex Rodriguez, when in fact, Rodriguez has been worth the money. The Rangers’ problems have more to do with wasted money on non-contributors, the failure of some B and C pitching prospects, and the absence of a center fielder for years on end. We’ve reached a point in the trade negotiations between the Rangers and Red Sox where the issues aren’t players, but money. Money as in “how much less can the Red Sox pay Rodriguez?” The Sox have been negotiating that point with Rodriguez for some time, and the two sides appear to have an agreement that satisfies both sides, one in which he gets much less guaranteed compensation and assumes a lot more risk. Conceding that we don’t yet know exactly how much money he might be giving up to make this happen, I think it’s entirely possible that Rodriguez would be doing himself a disservice. Is it reasonable for someone to pay, for the sake of argument, $40 million just to change employers and base cities?
We can be pretty hard on front offices sometimes, whether they’re deserving of it or not. For instance, during a Roundtable recently, I stated the following: “I don’t think the Mariners have enough brain power to light a bulb, much less think through the intricacies of market dynamics.”
I doubt this comes as much of a surprise to anyone. It was a comment born out of frustration at an off-season that started with bringing back Edgar Martinez, but has gone downhill from there. Sometimes it seems like the people running major-league clubs are as clueless as that one owner in your fantasy league who just traded Rafael Soriano for Terrence Long.
Take Pat Gillick, a man who was frequently mentioned as one of the best general managers in the game. Gillick’s a smart guy; he and the Blue Jays set up a tremendous player development system in the Dominican Republic back when people thought they were a little loopy for doing it, and it paid tremendous dividends. His teams have won championships. So, to call him dumb… well, that was stupid of me, and it sparked some arguments.
Ivan Santucci, 32, is project manager for the Umpire Information System (UIS) created and administered by QuesTec, Inc., of Deer Park, N.Y. He manages technical issues, training, installations, upgrades, and maintenance in the U.S., Korea, and Japan. He’s on the road for 80 percent of the regular season, but when he’s at home (down Beacon Street from Fenway Park) Santucci is also one of three QuesTec technicians who handle the pitch-by-pitch UIS duties for home Red Sox games.
The UIS, which has been a topic of much controversy in its brief MLB lifespan, is a system of video cameras used to evaluate umpires’ strike zone accuracy. Baseball Prospectus interviewed Santucci in a series of emails before and during the 2003 winter meetings.