Last week I answered some questions for Scott Wallace at Mets Paradise. You can check them out today. There was some good questions about the roster and a few on front office and the farm system. Of course there was also the obligatory question about Jason Bay and why the Red Sox let him go. With the Mets looking like a .500 team this year I’m glad he didn’t ask me for more thoughts on them.
Since the introduction of Sabermetrics many concepts and terms have started to enter the main stream. OBP is now a regular on the NESN broadcast and OPS is often a common term in any presentation. That has not lead to a change in much of the conventional wisdom that we have started to be seen as not true. Just watch a few minutes of the ESPN Wednesday night game and by the third time you hear Joe Morgan call for a bunt you’ll know what I’m talking about.
One common misconception to me that would make player analysis much better is the understanding of streaks and slumps. To put it quite bluntly there is no such thing as a streak or a slump. There may be peaks and valleys in any given season, but that doesn’t mean your doing anything different.
Bill James wrote about this in one of his earlier papers Understanding the Fog. He said that there was no hot or cold streaks, but simply a cluster of events that made it appear to be on or the other. The point was the placement of them was completely random.
There has been talk that Jason Bay has come back to the Red Sox asking if they could resign him. Obviously there are a ton of problems with resigning him, but that isn’t what I wanted to discuss here today. There are a few of things to take into account in a move like that.
The first is when we discuss designated hitters we are talking about someone who has no need for defensive value so his level of “average” and “replacement” is very different. This has been articulated many times by Tom Tango, but replacement level at DH is actually average. This should make sense as you could find someone with enough of a bat to hit, but often has poor defensive skills.
This effect is why the DH has such a large positional adjustment at -17.5. This is why a league average DH is a much better hitter than the league average player. You can also see how poor a defender needs to be before they would be better at DH.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Holidays to everyone!
While I celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah, there’s no denying the holiday that stops America in its tracks — that’s Christmas. That’s why I’ve chosen Christmas as the holiday of choice to reveal certain Red Sox personnel’s holiday gift lists that were acquired in some unseemly ways. And away we go…
D.J. Short is a writer for Rotoworld and NBC Sports’ Circling the Bases. He is one of the original contributors to MetsBlog.
Neither the Red Sox nor the Mets announced a significant signing or trade during the winter meetings, but the latter made some ripples on Thursday by tendering contract offers to free agents Bengie Molina and Jason Bay. Most importantly for the purposes of this space, the proposal to Bay, according to various reports, is worth more than Boston’s $60 million offer, but less than $65 million. With season ticket renewals lagging in Queens, the offer was met with immediate skepticism, as fairly or unfairly, the Wilpon’s can’t shake the public perception of failing to go the extra mile for their fans.
I’m not claiming that Epstein and his staff are smarter than Minaya and his, but their public comments and respective actions don’t leave much room for doubt.
The arbitration tender deadline has come and gone, and unsurprisingly, many players were not tendered arbitration contracts they had the right to accept or reject.
Also unsurprisingly, Boston offered arbitration to its two eligible players: Jason Bay and Billy Wagner. Let’s run through the implications for offering arbitration to the two, and then take a look at players who’s possible Boston future was impacted by their club’s decision.
If Boston waves Bay good-bye and Matt Holliday is out of reach, which of these established left-fielders would you like to see play the line at Fenway in 2010?
* Garret Anderson
* Marlon Byrd
* Fernando Tatis
* Randy Winn
Yesterday, ESPN’s Rob Neyer published an article quoting Commisioner Bud Selig’s thoughts concerning the current state of baseball economics. Says Selig,
Some teams lost money in 2009, baseball commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday after the final owners meeting of the year.
“There was no question about that,” Selig said. “I don’t think the concerns have been ameliorated at all. I think the concerns are still there because all these people have their own economists.”
Selig said final figures for this year are still being calculated and everyone is living in the most difficult economic times since the Great Depression. He declined to identify the teams.
“I think of all the heartache that’s in the world,” Selig said. “We live in this environment. We don’t live in a bubble. And so, I think the clubs in some areas have been hit a lot harder than others.”
This seems to happen every year, where multiple MLB owners allege that their team has “lost money” and therefore needs any number of amenities, including, but not limited to: extra money towards the building of a new stadium, special tax relief, more money from the state, etc, etc, etc.
According to Jon Heyman of SI.com, Jason Bay has rejected the Red Sox offer of $60 million over four years. He will now be able to sign a contract with any major league team when the Red Sox exclusive negotiation window ends at midnight tonight.
Considered by many to be the number two free agent this winter behind fellow left fielder Matt Holliday, there are signs that Bay’s stock is dropping among potential suitors. For one, the Cardinals don’t consider Bay a priority due to his poor defense.
Thanks to Sean O. for helping to break the story in the Soriano/Gonzalez comment section.
Coming into the 2009 season the Fire Brand community went through the exercise of giving their individual expectations of each players fortunes for the season to come. Once all the forecasts were in, I took the liberty of averaging the numbers together to come up with a singular community projection for each player. Over the next few weeks, we’ll look at results and compare our expectations to the reality that would follow.
Given the uncertain future of Jason Bay underneath the Green Monster in Fenway Park’s left field, I thought it only appropriate that he serve as our first profile.
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