Will Carroll chimes in with a UTK Sunday Extra, reporting on Ken Griffey’s latest injury, plus status reports on Derek Jeter, Kevin Millwood, and more.
Welcome to the Derek Jeter Report…I mean, Under The Knife. I want to start today by thanking everyone for stepping up and helping with the Velocity Project. Heck, one great reader, Josh Plotkin, even sent in some great pictures! We’ve already had several reports come in–including one on Mark Prior today that made me giggle–and several more people have weighed in on potential problems. Yes, there’s a lot of error in the sourcing, but it we get enough of a sample, we should be able to come up with something workable. If the data from this phase works, I’ll find a way to get people at games with radar guns. Since today’s UTK is almost all about pitchers breaking down, even a small step toward figuring things out–or even figuring out that velocity doesn’t work–gets us closer to true knowledge.
Joe Sheehan spots two underdogs making early noise, grabs Ronnie Belliard, Jay Payton and Endy Chavez at bargain-basement prices in roto, and starts saber-rattling for a new cause with Erubiel Durazo justly freed.
Bill “Chief” Gayton has spent 18 years in the scouting profession, working for the White Sox, Athletics, Yankees, Rockies, and Padres, and enters his third full season as the Director of Scouting in San Diego. BP correspondent Craig Elsten recently sat down with Gayton at the Peoria Sports Complex, while watching many of the Padres’ top minor leaguers play on a back field in a Double-A game against Texas. Elsten asked Gayton about the effects of technology on scouting, the challenge of evaluating high school talent, and balancing performance analysis and scouting principles.
Derek delves deeper into the mystery of the Twins outfield while lamenting the wearing of pants.
In the spirit of Better Late Than Never, it’s time we present the
second annual Golden Gun Award, honoring last year’s most valuable
catcher arms.
One of the downsides of writing this by a deadline and then having a gap to publication is that things can happen, new information can come out, or a source will pop in late.
With Derek Jeter yesterday, I speculated that the delay in the MRI of his injured shoulder was due to swelling in the joint space. In fact, the Yankees were merely trying to keep their star shortstop safe. With the global SARS outbreak affecting Ontario, the Yankees elected to delay the MRI until they returned to Tampa. While this makes me no more optimistic about Jeter’s prognosis–in fact, I completely agree with Joe Sheehan’s assessment of the situation–I applaud the Yankees for making a smart decision. UTK will of course have info on Jeter’s MRI and prognosis tomorrow.
In a recent article about the 1967 Boston Red Sox, I wrote that the team’s 20-win improvement was not particularly unusual. I had spent a few minutes convincing myself that there were a few other teams in neighboring seasons that accomplished the feat, but made no attempt to determine how common it was, or whether the 1960s were particularly unique in this regard. This article delves into the topic quite a bit further, presenting an historical survey of the phenomenon, while contemplating patterns that might help us figure out who is most likely to leap forward this year.
Joe Sheehan offers a darkhorse candidate to replace Derek Jeter, defends Boston’s bullpen set-up, and chronicles the exploits of a free man.
It’s amazing how quickly I can go from sitting on the couch watching game after game after game, cold beer never far from my lips, to full on working the phones. It’s funny that there’s now two phases to how I write–first, I make the outgoing calls to the usual suspects, but now I’m also getting a significant amount of incoming calls, pages, and emails. During my first call to my Yankees source–and note, many U.S.-issued cell phones don’t work in Canada–I probably had three calls coming in. In the first few hours of a “big story” like Phil Nevin or Derek Jeter, I make more outgoing calls, but by morning the ratio completely reverses. It’s an interesting experience. Thanks to all the readers who alerted me (I was watching, but thanks) and offered their takes. On to the injuries:
Nate Silver examines PECOTA’s five-year forecasts. Guess who PECOTA picks as baseball’s MVP over the next five years. You’ll be surprised.
Derek Zumsteg suggests an alternative to Major League Baseball’s toothless drug policy, and a better use for Pete Rose’s services.
The Red Sox and Yankees on the aftermath of last night’s mishaps, Rob Dibble has a new appreciation for performance analysis, Scott Boras discusses Josh Beckett’s paralyzing fear of Jeff Torb…er…blisters, and Jose Contreras and Miguel Tejada announce plans to pull their pants up to their chests and move to Florida.
The cheapskate A’s finally get off their butts and spend some money, inking reigning MVP and world’s best shortstop Miguel Tejada to a five-year, $58.5 million deal. GM Billy Beane turns attention to locking up Frank Menechino for the next five years.
The best division in the National League features three solid playoff contenders, and two teams that might be no more than a year away.
Derek Jeter could be out a long time, it’s a bad 2003 so far for closers, and no UTK would be complete without the requisite pickle juice and urine reference.