Lookout Landing

Thursday Bullet Points

2009-11-20T06:11:44Z

The hot rumor of the day is that the M's and Tigers have been talking about a three-team deal involving Brandon Morrow and Edwin Jackson. I'm only bringing this one up because the M's have been linked to Jackson before, so I can believe in their possible interest. That said:

(1) Jackson isn't very good. Don't believe the ERA. He took a step forward, to be sure, as he's cut his walks in three straight years, but he's still a flyball guy with come-and-go command and stuff that doesn't get as many strikeouts as you'd expect, and when you put it all together, he's (maybe) a #3 with upside. Ignore anyone that focuses on his first half while ignoring his second. That isn't how these things work. Nor is it reasonable to focus on Jackson's 2009 while ignoring his prior track record. Pitchers develop differently than hitters, to be sure, but they're still prone to regression from presumed breakthroughs, as we saw from guys like Edinson Volquez, Ervin Santana, and John Danks. So just because Jackson improved in 2009 doesn't mean he's necessarily going to sustain or continue that improvement going forward. You have to play the odds. Plus the guy he was in 2009 wasn't terrific in the first place.

(2) We have no idea if, in this scenario, Jackson would be coming to us anyway.

I don't know if this rumor has legs. As is the case with every rumor that comes up around this time of year, my conclusion is that, yeah, it could happen, but it probably won't.

You know what's really unfunny? Any joke about the post-game spread. For some reason, people love to make these jokes. They make them all the time. And they're always terrible. Knock it off.

Free agency is upon us, and as such, all 30 teams are free to negotiate with Russell Branyan. If you're someone that really wants him back, I wouldn't be concerned. If you're someone that really doesn't want him back, I wouldn't get excited. Branyan is one of Z's guys, and though nothing in the offseason is guaranteed, I would be really, really surprised if Branyan weren't back as next year's 1B/DH. Branyan's going to look at the market, but once he realizes that no one's offering huge money for an aging slugger with a bad back, I'd expect him and Z to agree to terms. If I made 100 different roster predictions for the 2010 Mariners, something like 97 of them would involve Russell Branyan.

Dave wrote about the Ryan Doumit possibility last night. A lot of people are trying to link the M's to John Lackey. You shouldn't listen to them. You should probably listen to Dave. If I tried to rank rumors on a five-point scale from really likely (1) to really unlikely (5), Doumit would probably rank a 2. The Jackson stuff would be a 3 or a 4.

Dear Media: This Isn't Helping

2009-11-20T04:15:29Z

From the LA Times.

Article headline: Dodgers won't be pursuing John Lackey

Article content:

[LA's team president] said that would rule out Lackey "unless there is an effective way to make that kind of deal."

In other words, the Dodgers won't try to sign John Lackey unless it makes sense for them, and unless they can get him at what they perceive to be a fair and decent deal.

So, the Dodgers won't do anything that they perceive as being "outlandish" and irresponsible.

This is a quote that says nothing. Nothing at all. It's a team president saying the team won't do something the team thinks is stupid. Mannion might as well have said "We can't get him, unless we can." And yet someone at the Times thought this was enough to support such a concrete, assertive headline.

This isn't a big issue on its own or anything. John Lackey almost certainly will not be going to LA. It's just symptomatic of what I hate most about this time of the year - people making far too much out of far too little. I get it. Rumors are fun. People like to talk about roster change. But this business of trying to make little things out to be bigger than they are really soaks my socks. Quit it. Quit it. Just quit it. It sucks. Be honest.

A Second Poll

2009-11-20T00:06:39Z

Closely related to the one below, of course...

Poll

I think a ~daily open rumor thread would:

Polling The Reader

2009-11-19T23:31:10Z

Help me out here. I can't decide how best to handle this part of the offseason.

Poll

What do you want to read about?

Faces

2009-11-19T21:54:22Z

Dave Krynzel looks like he's having fun wearing a hand-me-down cap from Tony Clark.

Baseball, Life, And The Worth Of First Impressions

2009-11-19T02:32:23Z

Warning: what follows is not a baseball post.

Driving home from work today, I found myself in some approximation of bumper-to-bumper traffic when a guy in a sports car to my right floored it to get ahead of me and merged into a 15-foot gap without signaling. Per usual, it pissed me off, and I spent the next half mile thinking about what I could do to him if I could catch up. I could flip him off. I could smirk and wave dismissively. I could throw a banana peel I had on the seat next to me at his windshield. I wanted to catch up bad. I wanted to catch up and teach him a lesson about being an asshole.

Drivers who pull those sorts of stunts bother me to the point where sometimes I've memorized and made note of their license plates so that I could indulge in a fantasy where I track them down at their houses. But this isn't about annoying drivers. This is about the human compulsion to judge other people based on very limited information.

People love to judge other people, and they love to arrive at these judgments so quickly that our culture has come to recognize and embrace the significance of a good first impression. When you're applying for a job. When you're meeting the parents. When you're on a first date. A good first impression can open doors while a bad one can lock them, and this isn't really something that people have ever questioned; rather, it's something that most people are happy to go along with, accepting that it's just a part of living life. In the past I've gone so far as to gloat about how important it is for people to make a good impression on me if they want me to like them.

And the nature of first impressions is that they're being made all the time, by everybody, to strangers. The man in the sports car this afternoon, for example, made a bad one on me, and presumably on others. The same goes for someone that talks on his cell phone too loud. A good first impression will be made by someone that, I dunno, holds a door open at the grocery store. People are always making impressions on other people, and in so doing are being judged on their actions.

But it's not that we judge their actions. We don't think "it was nice to hold the door open," or "it was a dick move to pass me on the street." We think "that woman is a good person for holding the door open," or "that guy is a prick for passing me on the street." We have a tendency to arrive at these sweeping conclusions based on very limited observations of behavior, and too often we celebrate these conclusions as being evidence of our perceptiveness. "Adam didn't say very much at dinner. He's kind of jerk."

Evolutionarily, you can kind of understand where this might come from. In nature, it's necessary for one to make snap judgments about another so that the former knows whether it's safe to proceed. If the other animal seems non-threatening, you can go ahead and eat the plant. If the other animals is a potential predator, it's best to avoid it at all costs. In nature, every being has to think quickly, or else it may shortly no longer be able to think at all.

But we don't really live in nature anymore, nor do we encounter frequent situations in which we're met by a possible predator, so the tendency to arrive at these snap judgments of another isn't nearly as important anymore. We can afford to take our time. We can afford to take our time in evaluating other people, and as such it seems like first impressions should play a far lesser role than they currently do.

The reason I'm posting this on a baseball blog is that it was baseball that got me thinking in this vein in the first place. Consider the scout. A scout will observe a potential draft pick over a small number of games. Maybe one game. Maybe four games. And based on these games, the scout will file a report on the player that goes back to the organization. This report will in large part determine where the player goes on the organization's draft board.

What of the scout that catches a pitcher on a day that he has the flu? What if he's watching a talented hitter who maybe strikes out against a couple breaking balls and goes hitless? What if he's watching a worse hitter who maybe stays back on a breaking ball and hits it for a single? Scouts are hired based on their skill in player evaluation, but they are limited to their windows of observation, and sometimes those windows can paint a remarkably misleading picture.

What of all the scouts that saw Ichiro in his first Spring Training and called him a bust?

We - the more statistically-inclined and forward-thinking baseball community - insist on basing our evaluations on all the available evidence, and if there isn't enough evidence, then this is reflected by our conclusions. But take us outside of the realm of sports and we start to act more like the rest of the population, judging people on one or two acts and a ton of alleged intuition.

First impressions are dangerous. They're dangerous because they bias you in one direction or another when these biases aren't justified. They can open you up to people who may not be very good, but worse and more often, they can close you off to people who have a whole lot to offer. One of my best friends is a pastel polo, pink hat-wearing Red Sox fan from Massachusetts. She possesses a number of characteristics I ordinarily consider off-putting, and it was only because of situations outside of my control that I got to know her better and realized how great she is. Left to my own devices, I doubt she'd be a friend of mine today.

That sucks. By believing so heavily in the significance of a good first impression, we are costing ourselves some potentially excellent relationships, because by and large we ignore the odds and see everything in black and white. This is probably best expressed in graphical form:

Any single act by another person gives us insight into that person's true nature, but there are very, very few acts - perhaps none - that give us an absolute answer as to whether or not the person is worth getting to know, or whether that person is romantically compatible, or whether that person is worth flipping off on the freeway. And so it is only by accumulating a wealth of information that we can approach a valid answer. A wealth of information that doesn't often fit into one act or one conversation or one first date.

Think about your worst qualities. We all have them. For example, I'm short-tempered. Sometimes I'm obliviously inconsiderate. I have a bad memory and things often slip my mind. Now think, would you want to be judged on these, or are you allowed to have the occasional bad day where your positive qualities might not show through? Shouldn't you then afford others the same courtesy? There are any number of innocent or perfectly acceptable reasons for why a person may act or appear in such a way that we perceive to be obnoxious, and it seems to me that we should try harder to give other people the benefit of the doubt, because the risk is minimal, and the reward is potentially gargantuan. Everybody has bad qualities. Where we fall short is in determining whether or not the positive qualities outweigh them.

Try not to consider this preaching. I'm not preaching, because I don't take my own advice. I got mad at that guy in the sports car. I wish ill on the woman in front of me who ordered the last chocolate croissant. But I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to get away from being so damn judgmental, because the truth of the matter is that there isn't a benefit. How does writing off another person based on limited interaction help in the least? There is far more to gain by opening yourself up to other people than there is to lose, and just being aware of this...I don't know if I'll ever be able to reverse my wiring, but I feel like I have a chance. And that makes me happy.

Time. In life, as in baseball, you need to give people the time and the opportunity to prove what they are. Don't, and you may find yourself running through Times Square in a thong.

Faces

2009-11-18T20:53:19Z

Luke Scott looks like he's talking to someone important and is ashamed to have such a dweeb for a friend so when you come up to him he pretends he doesn't know you.

Felix, Greinke, And Some Reflecting

2009-11-18T04:43:58Z

May 19th, they say, was the turning point. Following a rough start against the Angels in which he gave up a bunch of hits and a bunch of stolen bases, Felix was called out by Don Wakamatsu for a lack of focus and determination, and from then on it was like night and day. Beginning the next weekend with eight innings against San Francisco, Felix ripped off a four-month streak the likes of which few have ever seen. Over his final 25 games, Felix would allow just 40 earned runs while turning in 24 quality starts, and Wakamatsu was praised by many as the manager that finally got through to our ace of frustration. Felix, it seemed, had arrived, and either because of Wakamatsu or by sheer coincidence, the sentiment has been that something clicked that night in May, turning Felix into the guy we'd been waiting for him to become.

And, sure enough, that guy is amazing. We've all heard of lucky ERAs, but it's hard to fluke your way to a 1.98 over 182 innings. From May 24th through the end of the season, Felix was both a shutdown righty and a workhorse, keeping the opponent off the board while not once throwing fewer than 101 pitches. It was like the best of both worlds, as Felix partnered Rich Harden's effectiveness with Roy Halladay-level durability, and it was a performance many feel would've won Felix the Cy Young had he been able to sustain it all year. It was that first month and a half, they say, that wound up holding him back.

They're probably right, in that had Felix run a 1.98 ERA over a full season, voters would've had a hell of a time placing him second. But while Felix's streak was extraordinary, it may actually serve to make the strongest case in Greinke's favor. Just look at the following comparison:

Stat	Felix, post-5/19	Greinke, year
ERA	1.98	2.16
RA	2.67	2.51
FIP	3.01	2.33
IP/start	7.2	6.9
Pit/start	109.6	105.4
BB%	7.2%	5.6%
K%	21.9%	26.4%
HR%	1.4%	1.2%

From May 24th through the end of the season, Felix pitched as well as we've seen him in four years. He proved himself to his coaches, he proved himself to opponents, and he proved himself to a fanbase that'd been waiting to see him take his game to the next level. Felix's turnaround is seen as his ascent. His ascent to the top, his ascent into the upper echelon of pitchers in the world. His ascent to the throne.

And Greinke was still better.

Greinke's ERA, Greinke's FIP, Greinke's tRA...not only was Greinke better than Felix in 2009, he was better than Felix at his best in 2009, and he was better than the 12 starts we got out of Felix in 2005. The hot streak that was supposed to legitimize Felix's candidacy instead works for Greinke, because Greinke was better than that hot streak, and he was better over a full season.

You could, of course, argue that Greinke kind of got lucky with his home run rate, that 11 in 33 starts for a flyball pitcher isn't a sustainable level of performance. And you'd probably be right. Greinke will almost certainly allow a higher rate of home runs going forward. But while projections and regressions look forward, statistics look backward, and the fact of the matter is that, along with all of his other achievements, Greinke only threw 11 pitches that got hit out of the park last year. Only 11 of his pitches had the necessary characteristics such that the opposing batter was able to hit a home run, and though that likely isn't repeatable, it's what happened, and it's one of the reasons why this will go down as one of the least-debated Cy Youngs of all time.

Felix's May 19th light switch was his strongest argument for the award. And when a player's strongest argument turns out to support his competition, that leaves absolutely no doubt as to who deserves to win. Would I take Greinke as the better starting pitcher going forward? I'm not sure. That one would require more thought. But an assertion that requires no further thought at all is that, in 2009, Zack Greinke was the best pitcher in the world. Congratulations to one eccentric son of a bitch.

Faces

2009-11-17T22:13:05Z

Matt Anderson looks like he's chewing a discus.

Right Player, Wrong Season

2009-11-17T21:08:24Z

Since 2000 - covering the last ten years - there have been 428 American League starter seasons with at least 150 innings pitched. Here's how Felix's 2009 ranks among them:

ERA: #5
FIP: #17
Combined*: #8

* (2*ERA + 6*FIP)/8. A quick and dirty way of still giving starters some credit for their context pitching. This stat sucks and please never use it.

Of course, neither ERA nor FIP are adjusted for park, so Felix gets a boost, but he was still excellent, and the unfortunate coincidence that Zack Greinke was better doesn't take away from the fact that Felix still had a Cy Young-caliber season. No reason to be disappointed.

The top three AL starter seasons since 2000: Pedro Martinez 2000, Pedro Martinez 2002, and Pedro Martinez 2003. Pedro Martinez 2001 would have qualified had he thrown another 33.1 innings. Between 1999-2003 - covering five years, 135 starts, and 933 innings - Pedro ran a 2.10 ERA and 1.94 FIP. He allowed 133 runs between 1999-2001. Jose Contreras and Scott Olsen allowed 134 runs in 2007. This really happened.

They're Getting Smarter

2009-11-17T19:09:42Z

2009 AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke

(Felix came second with two first place votes)

All Assumptions-Are-Dangerous Minor League Free Agent Team

2009-11-17T06:07:19Z

Dave at Fangraphs passed along a link to this year's crop of minor league free agents. A popular thing to do with this information is pick out a handful of guys that would make interesting and potentially worthwhile pick-ups. This is not that. This is a full team made up of guys who, years ago, were supposed to go on to do some big big things, only to end up on the fall 2009 list of mlFA's. Consider this just another reminder that you should never ever ever take a prospect's future for granted.*

C: JR House
1B: Ryan Shealy
2B: Josh Barfield
SS: Antonio Perez
3B: Dallas McPherson
LF: Wes Bankston
CF: Joe Borchard
RF: John-Ford Griffin
DH: Josh Phelps

BENCH-C: JD Closser (does Ben Davis still count?)
BENCH-INF: Eric Duncan
BENCH-OF: Dave Krynzel
BENCH-UTIL: Donnie Murphy

SP: Jerome Williams
SP: Greg Miller
SP: Kenny Baugh
SP: Humberto Sanchez
SP: Bobby Brownlie

RP: Jose Capellan
RP: Wes Littleton
RP: Casey Fossum
RP: John Van Benschoten
RP: Chad Orvella
RP: Clint Everts
RP: Andrew Brown

If there were a 26th spot, I'd give it to Dee Brown, but it would just be so damn easy to include him that I had to find an alternative. Also among the free agents are formerly established Major Leaguers like Chris Capuano and Chad Cordero, along with the astonishingly driven Jolbert Cabrera. Jolbert just wants to win. Come on, Yankees. Take the plunge. Win one for Jolbert.

If there were a 27th spot, I'd give it to Mark McGonigle, because, really? McGonigle?

* never take any player's future for granted

Some 2010 Projections

2009-11-15T23:46:01Z

For those of you who are (justifiably) distrustful of the Bill James projections but still want to look at some numbers, the 2010 CHONE projections are live. For hitters, anyway. Here are the Mariners, here are the free agents, and here are the Yankees, in case looking at the Mariners didn't make you sad enough.

The first thing you should do here - as one should do with pretty much any forecasting system - is ignore the Ichiro projection. It's a well-known fact that forecasting systems hate Ichiro, and I mean literally hate him, in that they have a built-in hate factor that program creators activate for Ichiro because they feel threatened by his improbability. It's my understanding that CHONE took all the hits it stole from Ichiro and gave them to Prentice Redman.

Eventually Ichiro will decline and a few forecasters will give each other high-fives for nailing it, but it doesn't count when you project decline every year. It's like the computer version of me and Raul Ibanez. .305/.338/.400 isn't unreasonable - Ichiro did hit .310/.361/.386 as recently as 2008 - but just because it's possible doesn't make it a good projection, because projections are supposed to fall in the middle of the next year's probability distribution, and a .738 OPS is towards the bottom of Ichiro's. Feel free to bump that up a fair bit in your head. It'll help paint a slightly better picture of our currently miserable offense.

Among Mariners currently in-house, you'll notice that Jose Lopez forecasts well, while Franklin Gutierrez comes out looking a little worse. The former strikes me as optimistic, given the things I've talked about before with regard to Lopez's power, but the latter seems fair, given that Guti probably overachieved a little bit in 2009. But hey, he's young, so who knows? Not a lot of love in there for Michael Saunders or Matt Tuiasosopo, which you can believe in, or not believe in. Overall, man, do we need help. The Russell Branyan line looks good, but that won't be enough on its own.

Most optimistic projection of the bunch? Greg Halman's .193/.242/.334 with 17 walks and 147 strikeouts. Halman just ran a 29/183 ratio in AA. Methinks the decimal in "17" was put in the wrong place.

~Where We Stand With Regard To The Moneys

2009-11-14T23:46:43Z

The following table shows what our payroll situation would be if we built a team from what we already have in-house. Some figures are exact, and others, such as those of the arbitration-eligibles, are approximations.

(Don't worry about things like, say, Jason Vargas showing up instead of Garret Olson. It doesn't matter.)

Right now we're looking at salary commitments totaling $65-70m. The 2009 Mariners cost about $99m, so assuming a fairly similar but slightly reduced budget going forward, that leaves us with $25-30m of room to play with, with a number of spots at which we could stand to improve.

Damn you, Carlos Silva.

We Have Come A Long Way

2009-11-14T09:06:11Z

Pretty much everybody that gives a crap about baseball understands by now that the Mariners are way different from how they used to be, but people's minds have been changed by different events. Some people were convinced by the hiring of Jack Zduriencik. They knew about him in Milwaukee, they were familiar with his philosophies, and they saw what he meant and what he'd be capable of.

Some people were convinced by the Branyan signing. A guy many have wanted to see in Seattle for years, bringing Branyan into the fold showed that the front office was willing to take a risk in the name of getting good production for cheap.

Some people were convinced by the JJ/Gutierrez trade. The structure of the deal and the public justification for making it demonstrated that this organization knew which characteristics were important, which weren't, and how it wanted to go about building a contender.

Some people were convinced by the left field situation. Not only did the front office know how to value defense; it refused to deviate from its plan of having a strong defensive outfield, even when its original starter got hurt.

Some people were convinced by the team's 2009 record. Any team that gets that much better in that little time has to have done something right.

And so on. Ever since Jack Zduriencik and the rest of his new front office were brought in and put in power, there has been a series of revealing events, each persuading more and more people that, after years of prodigal lunacy, the Mariners organization finally had it figured out. And this afternoon we were able to add the latest landmark moment to the list when the following was written in the same place where just a couple years ago authors lamented the lacking of playing time for one Willie Bloomquist:

Wilson earned the Fielding Bible Award as the best fielding shortstop in the Majors in 2009, leading all Major League shortstops with 27 runs saved. In 1,143 starts at shortstop, he has recorded a .977 fielding percentage. He's a career .268 hitter.

The Fielding Bible Awards and defensive runs saved, on Pravda, used as evidence. I don't know if this was the author's idea or a suggestion from someone a little higher, but what difference does it make? Remember when the broadcast would talk about RZR and UZR? Forget whose decision it was. What matters is that not only does this front office intend to use its superior valuation skills to make this team good again - they're going to make damn sure as many fans as possible know how they're doing it.

A significant group of people were skeptical of the Zduriencik Mariners back when the hiring was made public.

Something tells me the remaining members of that group are getting sick of goodbyes.

Reader Poll

2009-11-14T00:39:48Z

Given the following information:

-----

32 year old injury-prone shortstop

UZR

+14 runs in 105 games in 2009, +23.6 in 316 games since 2007

Plus/Minus

+27 runs in 2009, around +48 since 2007

Revised Zone Rating

+15 runs in 2009, around +50 since 2007

Fan Scouting Report

#7 SS in 2009, average 7th or 8th since 2007

-----

How would you project his defense in 2010?

Poll

Project Jack Wilson's 2010 defense based on that information.

Jack Wilson Inked

2009-11-13T21:38:33Z

Two-year deal. Details forthcoming.

Jeff's update: $10m, 2 years. I think I said everything I have to say about Wilson the other day, so the bottom line is that this is a great deal in a vacuum and still a pretty good deal for a team in our situation. The shortstop hole has been plugged without our having to make any sort of potentially debilitating commitment. Onward to solving the team's other problems. Call Felix!

Faces

2009-11-13T00:04:02Z

Chip Ambres thinks you tell some pretty lame jokes.

2009 SBN AL MVP Voting Results

2009-11-12T20:02:58Z

Let's see what we've got here...

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	Pts
1	Joe Mauer	Minnesota Twins	24	3	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	371
2	Ben Zobrist	Tampa Bay Rays	-	10	6	2	2	1	-	1	-	-	172
3	Mark Teixeira	New York Yankees	2	3	2	4	3	2	7	1	-	-	158
4	Derek Jeter	New York Yankees	1	5	3	4	4	2	1	1	2	1	157
5	Evan Longoria	Tampa Bay Rays	-	2	4	1	2	3	2	3	2	1	106
6	Zack Greinke	Kansas City Royals	2	3	2	1	1	-	2	-	-	-	92
7	Miguel Cabrera	Detroit Tigers	-	-	3	1	2	4	-	2	-	5	74
8	Kevin Youkilis	Boston Red Sox	-	2	-	-	1	3	1	8	1	-	69
9	Chone Figgins	Los Angeles Angels	-	-	-	3	4	1	-	1	3	1	60
10	Jason Bay	Boston Red Sox	-	1	-	4	2	-	-	1	-	2	54
11	Kendry Morales	Los Angeles Angels	-	-	4	-	-	1	-	-	1	-	39
12	Ichiro Suzuki	Seattle Mariners	-	-	1	-	2	-	1	2	2	3	37
13	Franklin Gutierrez	Seattle Mariners	-	-	-	1	1	1	3	-	1	2	34
14	Justin Verlander	Detroit Tigers	-	-	-	2	1	1	1	-	1	1	32
15	Felix Hernandez	Seattle Mariners	-	-	-	2	-	-	1	3	2	-	31
16	Jason Bartlett	Tampa Bay Rays	-	-	1	1	1	-	-	-	-	1	22
17	Alex Rodriguez	New York Yankees	-	-	1	-	1	-	1	-	-	-	18
18	Roy Halladay	Toronto Blue Jays	-	-	-	1	-	1	1	-	-	-	16
19	Adam Lind	Toronto Blue Jays	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	-	1	4	16
20	Dustin Pedroia	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	4	1	13
21	Bobby Abreu	Los Angeles Angels	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	1	-	12
22	Aaron Hill	Toronto Blue Jays	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	-	-	12
23	Mariano Rivera	New York Yankees	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	1	9
24	Torii Hunter	Los Angeles Angels	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	8
25	Brian Roberts	Baltimore Orioles	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	-	-	7
26	CC Sabathia	New York Yankees	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	-	6
27	Carl Crawford	Tampa Bay Rays	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	6
28	J.D. Drew	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	5
29	Jon Lester	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	5
30	Jonathan Papelbon	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	5
31	Robinson Cano	New York Yankees	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	5
32	Victor Martinez	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	5
33	Michael Cuddyer	Minnesota Twins	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	4
34	Shin-Soo Choo	Cleveland Indians	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	4
35	Michael Young	Texas Rangers	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	3
36	Jacoby Ellsbury	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	2
37	Jason Kubel	Minnesota Twins	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	2
38	Alex Gonzalez	Boston Red Sox	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1
39	Nick Markakis	Baltimore Orioles	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1

Zobrist posts the highest (position player) WAR in the American League and is absent from six ballots.

Mark Teixeira gets two first-place votes despite being an average first baseman and having one of the lowest clutch scores in the league, for whatever that's worth.

Assorted other ridiculousness.

Mauer's (probably) the smart pick, so in terms of what matters the network got this one right, but there are some stupid bloggers out there.

Points Of Contention: Jack Wilson's Offense

2009-11-12T03:53:06Z

When the Mariners traded for Jack Wilson, we knew it a move fueled by defense. The front office and coaching staff made no secret of that. Wilson brought a glove, an excellent glove capable of making up for a lackluster bat, and this was okay, because we knew that he'd be able to field while remaining something above a black hole at the plate.

However, over the span of the next six weeks, Wilson would collect 116 plate appearances as a Mariner, and over those 116 plate appearances, he would hit just .224 with a .562 OPS. While no one expected Wilson to light it up, this was beyond terrible. This was a Ronny Cedeno level of bad, and in part because the whole Cedeno experience was still fresh in our minds, there developed this sentiment that Wilson's an "NL hitter," that he's a guy who can sort of hold his own on the other side but who becomes completely overmatched against the superior AL competition. Cedeno was awful here and successful with Pittsburgh. Wilson, some people have claimed, is a player in the same kind of mold.

I find this claim to be dubious for three reasons:

(1) There's no such thing as an "AL hitter" or an "NL hitter." While the AL is the better league and has the better pitchers overall, it's not so lopsided that NL hitters come over and lose tons of points off their production. I identified 42 hitters who switched leagues either last offseason or during the year and who accumulated at least 100 PAs on both sides. Those 42 players averaged a .315 wOBA in the AL (not park-adjusted) and a .323 wOBA in the NL. Over a full season, that's a difference of about four runs. It seems significant, but it's not colossal. Jack Wilson may have struggled over here, but what about, I dunno, Jeremy Reed? What about Endy Chavez or Alex Cora? It's not an idea that makes a lot of sense when you think about it, and it's not an idea that holds up to much scrutiny.

(2) Jack Wilson has collected 470 PAs during interleague play over his career. In those 470 PAs, he's hit .301/.334/.420, and he's been good in each of the last three seasons.

(3) 116 plate appearances. That's all we saw from Wilson in the AL, and for many of them he was playing hurt. 116 plate appearances barely tell you anything. If Wilson had come over and sucked that bad for a whole year, that would be one thing. But he sucked for a handful of weeks. A 3/4/5 weighting of his most recent seasons yields an un-adjusted wOBA of .301, which isn't that bad for a defense-first shortstop.

Jack Wilson may be a baseball player in the National League style, but there's no good reason to believe that his bat will continue to be this bad as long as he plays for an AL team. There is an AL adjustment that docks him a few points, but what we saw from him was extreme, a performance towards the lower bound of his probability distribution. It isn't realistic to expect him to keep that up. He's proven over the years that, while he's not a great hitter, or a good one, or an average one, he's a below-average one, and not a disaster. That's the player we traded for, and that's the player we almost certainly still have.

How Seattle will affect Wilson's offense is, of course, a legitimate question. Not only did he switch leagues, but he also moved to a park that doesn't treat righties very kindly. That's going to be an adjustment. However, for one thing, Wilson's power, like Jose Lopez's, is down the line to left, so he won't get killed by that power alley, and for another, the bulk of Wilson's production comes from line drives instead of fly balls anyway, so Safeco shouldn't hurt him as bad as it has guys like Mike Cameron. Wilson sprays singles. A single is a single in any ballpark.

Jack Wilson isn't a sexy, impact type of player, and at 32 this December, he's not on the way up. However, as a regular shortstop who can turn a lot of balls into outs and make a lot of low-to-the-ground contact, we could do a lot worse. Assuming his offense hasn't completely collapsed and that he's something like a +10 defender, we should see him end up in the neighborhood of a 1.5 - 2.0 WAR, and that's going to help. That's going to help quite a bit.