Details from Dan O’Brien

This move gives the Braves quite a bit of starting pitching to work with and all the rumors say they will try to move a starter for a power bat, which would certainly make sense.

However, I’m not so sure signing Hudson to this deal makes all that much sense. He will make $9 million per year for 3 years and the club option is also for $9 million or a $1 million buyout. That seems like quite a chunk of change for a guy who is soon turning 34 and coming off Tommy John surgery.

By most accounts, the Braves have handled Hudson’s rehab properly. They haven’t rushed him back and in the 7 games he started at the end of last year, he posted a 114 ERA+ and a 6.4 K/9, which is better then average, to be sure, but that probably isn’t worth $9 million per.

In my eyes, the Braves are going to need the 2007-8 Hudson in order to make their money on this deal. That seems a little unlikely. Maybe for a year or two but it’s hard for me to see a 37 year old Hudson with a 133 ERA+ and a 9.0 K/9. Possible, but unlikely.

Regardless, the Hudson extension probably means that either Derek Lowe or Javier Vazquez will be traded for the aforementioned power bat. Lowe seems hard to move given he is still owed $45 million over the next 3 years and really isn’t pitching like a $15 million a year pitcher any more. Vazquez is much easier to move, especially considering how he pitched last year, and would likely draw a nice hitter in return, but I would think the Braves would really love to hold on to him.

My bet is that Lowe gets moved for a solid bat and the Braves eat a good piece of his contract.

Regardless, the Braves are shaping up to have a very good rotation next year and, if they can get that bat they need, will have a shot at contending next year.

Report from the Seattle Mariners Team Site

So, Griffey is back again, and why not? There may not be a player more loved by his home town fans in the entire league. Griffey and the Mariners are like high school sweet hearts. It’s the perfect feel good story.

Junior won’t contribute much with the bat and he will contribute less with the glove. He’s basically playing at replacement player level these days, but he’s not blocking any young players from coming up and his value rests more with his locker room presence and leadership then it does on the field.

By pretty much all accounts, Griffey was a lark to the Seattle locker room last year. The M’s went from a 101 loss team in 2008 to a 85 win team in 2009. Most of that had to do with having the best defense in the league, Felix Hernandez and an overachieving bullpen. However, there is certainly a lot to be said for having a uplifting working environment. We can all talk about how money should be the only motivation a player needs to give every game his all, but baseball players are like any of us average working stiffs – it’s hard to put in 100% effort when you hate your job.

A guy like Griffey makes it a joy for his team mates to come to the ball park every day. He keeps things fun, makes people laugh and brings out the best in other players. People want to win for Griffey. Considering that fact alone, he’s probably worth the money the Mariners will spend on him this year. Add in the additional fact that they will definitely sell more tickets with a Griffey “fair well tour” and it makes a ton of sense to bring him back.

Considering how players seem to respond to Junior, one would have to think that he could make a great skipper some day. No doubt, Griffey will have plenty of work, if he wants it, after he finally hangs up the cleats.

ESPN Story About the Cards Introducing McGwire

Obviously, the elephant in the room is the belief (by just about everyone paying attention, anyway) that Big Mac used steroids. To break HR records. While baseball ignored it.

Now, we could get into whether he did or he didn’t, whether it was right or wrong if he did, all that kind of stuff. I’m not sure we will really get anywhere with that conversation; no one else seems to have been able to over the past couple years, anyway. Personally, I have enough evidence to believe that he did. I think most people are in that same camp with me.

However, McGwire becoming the hitting instructor of the Cards isn’t a big story because he did steroids. The simple fact of the matter is that this is such an issue because McGwire has made it one. By not talking to the media (or congress, for that matter), Big Mac has a created more questions than answers and has given legion of reporters something to write about. Does anyone write about Alex Rodriguez or Andy Pettitte doing steroids anymore? Not really. And that’s because they addressed the situation and moved on, right or wrong.

McGwire needs to do the same thing. It’s the only way it’s going to go away. He seems like a really nice guy, a non-confrontational type. He seems like he just wants to go about his business and be left alone, which I can certainly understand. But that strategy isn’t going to work, no matter how much he might wish it would, for someone who is going to be in the public eye – which he will be on a certain level as the Cards hitting instructor.

I would imagine the Cards have already discussed it with him – there is no way they go a whole season where reporters want to talk to the hitting coach more then the players after every game. I have to assume that McGwire will address the media at some point before or during spring training, admit he used, and remind everyone that he’s not an active player any more so the whole issue is moot for the future. It’s the right thing to do.

Additionally, this would be a perfect time for the Commissioner’s office to come out and say they support the hiring. It would be a great time for them to man up and admit that they could have (and should have) done more to prevent all this and that they didn’t.

But, c’mon, that will never happen, right?

WEEI Report On New Deal, with Wakefield Comments

Wakefield was very gracious in his comments about the new deal.  But, quite frankly, the Red Sox took advantage of a very loyal player here.

I admit it – I’m a Yankee fan. So, I’m not usually one to take up for a Red Sox player or to speak of what a player is “owed” by his team – I normally take the point of view that a player has the right to earn as much (or as little) as the market will bare.  The Yankees have certainly signed enough “hired guns” for me to understand how the market works. But there are exceptions to every rule, and Wakefield is one of them. I feel like the Red Sox owed him this one.

The Red Sox showed that they care more about money than they do loyalty with the way they handled Wakefield in this situation.  They saved basically a million bucks – which represents less then 1% of their payroll from last year.  It means nothing to them and everything to Wakefield (not to mention the numerous charitable organizations that Wakefield gives to every year, as evidenced by his 7 Roberto Clemente Award nominations).

They are saving very little, overall, by cutting his contract.  Wakefield himself set up the perpetual team option for $4 mill in 2005 – a deal that many called him a fool for doing.

Over the years that the Red Sox benefited from that perpetual team option, they saved *way* more then the $1 mill or so they are getting by cutting Wakefield’s contract like this.  Wakefield could have easily made double the team option if he chose the open market (fangraphs.com, for example, basically says that the Sox would have had to pay more then double for Wakefield’s production between 2006 and 2009, if they had to buy on the open free agent market).  He chose to stay a member of the Red Sox and handed the Sox, and the Boston community, a huge gift.  There is no way they get his production for only $4 mill from any other free agent.

Considering how far ahead of the game the perpetual team option financially put the team, they should have picked up the full option for this year and worked out something for next year, if Wakefield were to decide to play in ’11.

Real bush-league move by the Red Sox, especially to a player who has been nothing but loyal to them – loyal in a way that you basically *never* see any more. I guess I’m saying that just because the Red Sox *could* low ball the guy, doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. We are talking about one of the leagues “good guys”. He’s saved the Sox millions over the years. He’s given away millions more to charity. He’s never complained about his role, just went out and got the job done and been worth every penny (and then some) along the way. He is an asset to the team in literally every sense of the word, both on and off the field. This is the unique type of player that a team should celebrate every chance they get.

The Red Sox brass should be more than a little ashamed of themselves, in my opinion.  Congrats, guys.  You chiseled a million bucks from the most loyal player in baseball.  I hope you all sleep wonderfully knowing your payroll will be .8% lower next year.

Chances also are that if the Rockies move him, it will be for a very nice package of prospects. After all, 28 year old MPV candidates don’t come cheap, right?

The way the rumors have been flying, everyone from the New York Yankees to the Oakland Athletics to the Cleveland Indians would be willing to make a significant pitch for Holliday. I’m not so sure I see the draw, honestly. Holliday is a solid player, but to me, he’s over rated like Coldplay (yes, I said it!).

Anyway, there probably hasn’t been a player in recent memory who’s numbers indicate they are more a product of his home field (in this case, the hitter’s mistress, Coor’s Field) then Holliday.

The difference in his splits is stark:

Career Home OPS: 1.081 (nice!)
Career Road OPS: .781 (yikes!)

That’s, like ridiculous. A split like that, 300 points of OPS, has to be one of the biggest splits in baseball right now. At Coors Field, Holliday is Barry Bonds. Everywhere else, he’s Todd Walker. Or David Dellucci. Or Orlando Hudson. Or Mike Lieberthal. You get the picture.

And we are talking over 1200 plate appearances for both home and away, so it’s not like we have a small sample size effect taking place. This is the hitter Matt Holliday is. To expect anything else would be unreasonable.

Furthermore, his home BABIP (.389!!) is 70 points higher then his road BABIP. Which brings me to my point: Holliday is custom made for Coors.

One of the popular misconceptions about Coors Field is that hitters numbers are inflated because of home runs. While that’s true, Coors is just as big a park for doubles. That’s why runs score so much there – the combination of HR and doubles.

The park is a gap hitters dream. And nothing describes Matt Holliday better then calling him a good gap hitter. Holliday has good home run power – but it’s not like we are watching him hit 50 bombs a year. He will hit you about 35 a year, which is good, no doubt.

But the last two years, his break out years, he has hit 45 and 50 doubles. The 45 put him 9th in the league in 2006 and the 50 put him first in the NL in 2007. This season, he is again on pace to be in that 45 to 50 range in doubles but is only one pace for 20-25 HR. A lot can change with “on pace” numbers as they are hardly scientific, but the trend is there.

Now, the Rockies probably aren’t going to pay up for Holliday after this season. He is due to make $13.5 million next year and would probably command a $16-20 million per season contract on the open market. Assuming he hits that open market, he will be 29 years old, a career .320-ish hitter, a 2 time All-Star. And he just missed an MVP by a .04 share in the voting. You have to believe that some team will pony up and sign him to a long, expensive contract.

If the Rockies can find a way to sign him long term, they probably should do it. He is worth way more to them then he is to any other team. However, they probably can’t get a deal done with him. And if that is their reality, they should hold him out there and trade him. It won’t be popular in Denver, but pretty much any realistic package is going to be more then Holliday is truly worth in a non-Coors environment – even if the fans don’t realize it at the time.

And again, a manager takes the fall that the general manager should be taking.

I like J.P. Ricciardi well enough, I suppose. He has a tough job in working against the front office skills of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox (not to mention their check books). But lately, it seems like Ricciardi’s decision making skills have taken a turn for the worse.

You could go back to the A.J. Burnett signing and say that things became questionable then. But, the guy was trying to compete in the most competitive division in baseball (at the time, anyway) and you can give him the benefit of the doubt on over paying for a injury prone pitcher. At least Burnett is a good injury prone pitcher. And you need good pitchers to compete.

However, this season kicked off with Ricciardi and Frank Thomas trading haymakers. Thomas gets cut and moves on to the Oakland Athletics, where he has only OPS’ed over .910 since arriving. History told us that Thomas was a slow starter and that patience would likely pay dividends for the Jays.

Then you have the recent Adam Dunn dust-up. It’s admirable that Ricciardi has made multiple apologies to all the injured parties (and I have no reason to suspect that he is being anything less then sincere in those apologies), but what he said at the time shows that he probably isn’t looking at the value of Dunn correctly.

Dunn strikes out (a lot) and has a low batting average. So what? The types of outs he makes really have little (if any) impact on the way he plays the game.  He, like Thomas, has an OPS over .900. Now, who knows if there was even a feasible trade on the Jay’s table for Dunn, but Ricciardi basically indicated by his comments that he wasn’t even interested in a .900 OPS; a player with a career 130 OPS+. That’s probably not something you want to hear out of your general manager.

Then you have the ever present issue of Adam Lind. While it’s true that Lind struggled in about 300 at bats last year (as a 23 year old, mind you), he currently has an OPS of .933 in AAA Syracuse. He’s 24 years old and it seem pretty clear that the minor leagues have little left to teach him. You can’t expect his hitting to translate to a .900 OPS in the bigs right now, but you also have to figure that he has earned a spot a on a big league roster at this point.

So, you have a team that is pitching well, but not scoring enough runs. Yet, Ricciardi has directly turned down one guy who has a .900 OPS, claimed he has no interest in a 28 year old who has a .900 OPS and can’t find a roster spot for a 24 year old with a .900 OPS in AAA. The answers seem pretty clear. The AL East is wide open at this point, especially with one of the perennial power-houses, the Yankees, struggling out of the gate.  Now would be a good time to take run at the division title.

So, does Ricciardi need to go, too? Maybe. At the very least he needs to take a long hard look at his current philosophy and adjust. Because what he’s doing right now isn’t working and likely won’t start to work in the future, no matter how many managers take the fall for him.

You can hardly blame McLaren.  He didn’t have too much to work with.  However, at this point, cleaning house was probably the only option.  When you are attempting to change a culture of losing, there is something to be said for getting rid of the old guard and starting with a clean slate.

However, Bavasi really made some bad decisions.  There isn’t any one trade or signing that he accomplished that you could say, you know, was actually great.  Signing Eddie Guardado and Raul Ibanez were probably the best things contracts he was involved with.  In fact, most of his significant moves were downright awful.  At different points in his stint with the Mariners he traded away Carlos Guillen, Freddy Garcia, Randy Winn, Jamie Moyer, Raphael Soriano, George Sherril and Adam Jones and received essentially nothing in return.

He got suckered by Scott Boras (though he definitely isn’t the only GM to have to receive that honor) into one of the worst contracts in all of baseball when he signed Adrian Beltre to a 5 year/$65 million deal when Beltre was coming off a career year.  Like a huge career year.  Beltre has spent most of his career being a league average hitter, at best.  Despite the fact that most commentators realized that Beltre was unlikely to repeat his huge year, Bavasi offered the deal anyway.

The Beltre deal (along with the unreal drop off of Richie Sexson, which he certainly can’t be blamed for) is a large part of why the team is where they are.  You just can’t spend $12 million a year on a below league average hitter and expect good results.

So, we saw this coming.  Well, PECOTA saw it coming anyway as they had the Mariners as a 75 win team this year.  Turns out that PECOTA was actually wrong as the Mariners have a chance to be a 100 loss team.

Baseball is really hard, obviously.  It’s not easy to put a team together.  And it’s clear that there are far fewer qualified general managers then there are general manager jobs.  That said, even with the level of difficulty factored in, Bavasi has to be considered one of the poorer GMs in recent memory.

The good news is that the Mariners can start the process of putting the pieces back together.  They have a lot of work to do, especially after trading away Adam Jones.  Baseball Prospectus has them ranked as the 23rd overall organization when it comes to prospects – which isn’t good.  Jeff Clement and Carlos Triunfel have a chance to be very good players but things get thin quickly after that.  With the right hire at GM, they can turn the ship around.

It might be a long road, though.

This comment pretty much sums up why any manager is fired in the big leagues. Omar Minaya basically admitted that the Mets are underachieving and that he had to do something to shake things up. He can’t “replace 25 players” so, he made the only move available to him that would make it appear to the public that he was actually doing something to earn his paycheck: he fired the manager.

Which is horrible logic, of course.

But, we are talking about the same organization that allegedly submarined their manager by leaking less then favorable player evaluations to said players (at least if Buster Olney has his information correct, which I’m inclined to believe he does). When you manager can’t even have a reasonable expectation of confidentiality in upper management meetings, then I suppose his expectations of keeping his job should be lowered.

So, Willie Randolph and 2 others gets canned, in a particularly classless fashion, in my opinion. Minaya keeps his job despite having more to do with the on field product then any manager does.

I guess I don’t really understand why Minaya gets the the benefit of the doubt on this one. He’s never really won anything. His track record is spotty, at best. Pedro Martinez, Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca immediately jump to mind. He traded away all the good bullpen arms the Mets had. He should get credit for the Johan Santana deal, but he had to basically clear out what little was left of the farm system to get it done (something he has done before to the detrement of his team; see Expos, Montreal/Nationals, Washington). And I’m not so sure how good that deal is going to look when Santana is in his mid-30’s and pulling $23 mill a year.

My feeling is that Willie got a raw deal. Ninety-percent of being a baseball manager in NYC is being able to deal with the media in an non-Lou Pinella like way and being able to manage huge egos and huge paychecks in the locker room, which I think Willie did very well with.

It will be sooner, rather then later, that Willie is missed by the Mets and Mets fans.

Anyway, it’s an interesting topic.  The arguments for Rice pretty much come down to the following points (though there are certainly others):   

a)    – “he was the most feared hitter in baseball” 

b)    – his 12 best years (1975-86) were dominate

c)     – he received a large number of MVP votes over his career (furthering the legend of how feared he was)

d)    – his 1978 season was spectacular 

However, in pretty much all of these areas, Dave Parker was just as good as, if not much better then, Rice was – yet I don’t hear anyone clamoring for Parker to get into the Hall.  Parker received only 15% of the vote this last go round.  If we are going to talk about Rice getting into the Hall, we probably need to also talk about Parker getting in.  I really love the comparison between these two players as their careers spanned virtually the same years and they both played a corner out field spot. 

Let’s take the Rice arguments one by one and see how Parker compares: 

a)  – “he was the most feared hitter in baseball” 

There is no doubt that Rice was a feared hitter (though, how one grades who was “most” feared has not been explained to me as of yet).  However, if we look at intentional base on balls, which would seem to be a some what of an indicator of how feared a hitter is, Parker wins – and it’s not even close.   

Parker lead the league in IBB 2 times – and finished in the top ten 6 other times.  This puts him as 24^th all time in IBB, with 170.  (C’mon, how many of you knew that Dave Parker finished in the top 25 all time in IBB?  Put your hands down, you’re all filthy liars!)  For the record, Rice finished with 77 for his career (which puts him in a 10 way tie with, among others, Claudell Washington, for 176^th place on the all time list) and only finished in the top 10 3 times. 

That’s like less then 5 IBB per season for Rice.  The most feared hitter in baseball was only really feared 5 times per season?  One would think that any middle of the order hitter would get intentionally waked that much just based on situational strategies over the course of a year.  Plus, 27 of those 77 walks came in just 3 seasons.  Meaning that the other 50 came over the other 13 seasons of his career.   That’s about 3.8 walks per season.  This does not seem fearsome to me.

b)  – his 12 best years were dominate 

Rice’s best years are generally considered to be 1975-86.  He led the AL in a number of categories over that time period, including at bats, games played, hits, RBIs (can we just stop already?), slugging percentage and total bases – he was very, very good.  How did he compare to Parker over that same time? 

Batting Average:  Parker – .302, Rice – .304

On-Base Percentage:  Parker – .351, Rice – .355

OPS:  Parker – .952, Rice – .981

EQA:  Parker – .315, Rice – .325 

So, Rice was a bit better of a hitter over that random, arbitrary period – but not that much better.  And when you consider that OPS over values slugging over on-base, the numbers get a little closer.  Throw in the fact that Parker was intentionally walked 54 more times, hit into 130 (!) fewer double plays and generally is considered to have played quality defense (he won 3 Gold Gloves over that time period – I know, I know) while Rice generally is considered a very poor defensive out fielder, I think the scales are pretty farking close.   

c)   – he received a large number of MVP votes over his career 

Rice did receive quite a bit of consideration for MVP over his career, winning one.  According to baseball-reference.com, he is ranked 29^th all time in MVP shares with 3.15 (tied with Mike Piazza), which I must say is pretty friggin’ good.  Parker?  He is ranked 28^th all time with 3.19 shares.  If you go with cumulative MVP points instead, Rice wins (22^nd overall, Parker 23^rd overall). For the record, Parker also only won a single MVP.

d)  – his 1978 season was spectacular 

This is, of course, very true.  Rice’s 1978 year (in which he hit 46 HR and won the AL MVP) was exceptional.  Interestingly, Parker won the NL MVP that same year. 

While Parker didn’t have as many HR or RBI as Rice, he actually had a higher OPS+ – 166 to 157 – indicating that Parker was, possibly, a better hitter that year, relative to his league.  Parker also won a Gold Glove that year, so it wouldn’t be totally crazy to say that Parker’s best year was better then Rice’s best year.  Rice did have a nice edge in EQA – .380 to .357, though.  All told, I think we are probably talking about a comparable year. 

So, I think Parker stacks up pretty well with Rice.  Throw in the fact that: 

1. Parker is generally considered to be a much superior defensive player over his career (which is highlighted by the fact that Rice played a greater percentage of his games at DH then Parker – 25% to 20%) 
2. Parker had a longer career (he threw in a couple nice seasons, with a Silver Slugger, All Star game and MVP votes after Rice was dead and buried)  
3. they made about the same number of All-Star games overall (8 to 7 in favor of Rice) 
4. they were both about equally crappy in the post-season 
5. they won about the same number of Silver Sluggers (3 to 2, in favor of Parker)
6. Rice’s home/road splits (he was kind of a scrub on the road) vs Parker’s home/road splits (Parker was better at home but the split is much more even)
7. Parker has a slight career WARP3 edge (85 to 83.2) 
8. Parker has a significant career Win Shares edge of 327 to 282 (!)  

I think it’s safe to say that if Parker wasn’t a better player then Rice, he was really close.  Rice was probably the better hitter in his prime (but not a whole lot better) but Parker had the longer career and was better with the leather.  

So, how many of those Jim Ed supporters are ready to throw a vote Ole Dave Parker’s way?  Evidently, not too many, when we look at the voting results.   

I’ve long stopped caring about MVP and Cy Young voting.  As best I can tell, these awards appear to exist just so that the player who most deserves said award can get screwed 7 ways to Sunday.   I keep telling myself that I should think of the Hall the same way – but try as I might, I just can’t do it.  I care.  A lot.  More then I should. 

And every year, even though I know it’s going to happen the same way it does every year, I get disappointed.  Again. This year, I knew what was going to happen – Tim Raines was going to get hammered like a penny nail.  Still, I didn’t think it would be this bad. 

Tim Raines received less then 25% of the vote.  Twenty-five percent!  Lee Smith received almost twice as many votes!  Tommy John got more votes!  Less then a quarter of the men fortunate enough to have a Hall of Fame vote thought Raines deserved to be elected.   

It really makes me believe that most of these guys just aren’t paying attention.  Maybe it’s because he played in the baseball black hole that was the city of Montreal.  But, considering that Bert Blyleven isn’t in yet, either, I thinking it’s more likely that most of these guys don’t even bother to research who they are voting for. 

Raines was one of the 5 best players of his era.  Pretty much any metric you can look at, traditional or SABR-ish, can tell you that.  Best stolen base percentage of all time.  Career .385 on base.  Career 123 OPS+.  Almost 400 Win Shares.  Boat load of Runs Created.  Seriously, compare him to Lou Brock and tell me Raines isn’t better.  Like, way better.  You can even make an argument that his dominate years were more dominate then Henderson’s dominate years. 

I honestly defy anyone to look at all the available information and tell me that Raines was worse then Tony Gwynn.  And Gwynn was a slam dunk – receiving over 90% of the vote on his first ballot – which is a totally good thing.  Gwynn is a Hall of Famer, without a doubt.  But so is Raines. 

My suspicion is that the voters are probably going to do one of their ridiculous “Henderson was the best lead off hitter of all time, so he needs to be voted in before Raines” type things.  Henderson will go in on his first ballot next year (and rightly so, of course) and will probably come close to breaking a record for most percentage of the vote.  Then, I’m hoping we will see Raines voting totals rise over the next 8-10 years.  

It’s a crying shame that Raines will have to wait that long.  He is a Hall of Famer all around.  Here’s hoping the voters realize that fact sooner rather then later.