Saltalamacchia Catching On Just Fine

Is the emergence of Jarrod Saltalamacchia at all a surprise to anyone? Were you expecting him to settle in so…

Coast to Coast Tickets 6/8: Live chat tonight for Red Sox vs. Yankees

Boston Red Sox (34-26) @ New York Yankees (33-25) Tim Wakefield (2-1, 4.40) @ A.J. Burnett (6-3, 3.86) 7:05 PM…

And the Season Begins…

And the season begins… There’s no doubt the bureaucrats “got it right” on this one – pairing the league’s biggest rivals in the 2010 MLB opener. All signs point to a classic, fit with a marquee pitching matchup, palpable hatred on both sides, and the two best teams from the past decade kicking off the new one. Josh Beckett takes the hill against C.C. Sabathia as the two AL East juggernaughts begin their annual battle for divisional supremacy. Get to your TV at 8:00 pm sharp – or 6 pm if you’re like me in the Mountain Time Zone – and prepare to watch baseball at its finest. Keys of the Game Starting Pitcher Coming off a strong spring, striking out 22 in 19.1 innings while walking just 5, Beckett certainly has the edge over Sabathia, who has looked sluggish in 18.2 IP thus far (15 K, 8 BB). Though spring stats are rarely an indication of long-term success, they are a good indicator of a hurler’s readiness at the season’s onset. If C.C. continues to struggle with his command, he could be in for a long night. Expect Beckett to be sharp as the team gets off to an early lead in the first few innings.

The Current State of Baseball Economics

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.

Time to give Youkilis credit: Deserves to be in MVP mix

As we get later and later into September, the question inevitably crops up: Who is the Most Valuable Player?

In the American League, Joe Mauer all but has the award sewed up. A .367/.435/.612 line out of the catcher position tends to do that. There's also been the inevitable Yankee calls: Mark Teixeira is unquestionably the MVNP according to a Yankees beat writer. Derek Jeter is in the mix... of course. MLB Network's Victor Rojas yesterday gave props to Miguel Cabrera.

I ask: Where's the Youk love? (I asked this of Rojas, who said that we'll probably start hearing Youkilis' name bandied about. You are. Right here.)

Defending Theo’s offseason.

One can point to one move, or non-move, that is the reason the Red Sox are so far out of the division. And that is the Yankees acquisition, via free agency, of Mark Teixeira. Had the Red Sox signed him, rather than the Yankees, it could very well have made up the difference. Maybe the two teams are tied right now, rather than 5+ games apart. Tex is currently raking at a clip of .284/.382/.557. And he's stellar with the glove as always. His 'WAR' is 3.6 (3.6 wins over a replacement player).

Basically, adding Tex would have given the Red Sox the best corner infielders in the game.

But we didn't add Tex. Instead, we decided upon saving tons of money--especially some probable dead money at the back end of Tex's contract. And the organization felt it was best to put their stock in the players on the farm, rather than expensive veterans. Lars Anderson being the main reason why Tex wasn't signed, as far as "players on the farm" goes.

Lady Luck is a fickle mistress — just ask the Sox and Yankees

This decade has been the most monumental in the franchise's history. Not only did new ownership arrive, but Fenway Park was revitalized, a Nation was born (in the media, that is), a new generation of stars (Nomar, Manny, Pedro, Big Papi, Papelbon, Pedroia) put their stamp on their team... oh, and there were those two World Championships as well.

All this was done thanks to the incredible work that Theo Epstein and the rest of the baseball operations put in to give us the players that we root for every day. They are, to be certain, the reasons why we have our first two rings since 1918.

But let's not count out Lady Luck. Lady Luck is a fickle mistress; you never know when she'll turn on you.

Know Thine Enemy 2009: New York Yankees

The other half of the best rivalry in sports, The New York Yankees. The Bronx Bombers "only" ended up with 89 victories last season. And the key players they inked this past off-season, have them looking incredibly strong on paper for this upcoming 2009 season.

The philosophy about building a strong farm was basically put on hold for a year. But Brian Cashman made some nice maneuvers, and the result--whether it was intentional or not--allowed the Yankees to lose their first three picks this year. And that is better than losing a first-round pick in three consecutive seasons, of course.

Fire Brand explains Win Values

Baseball has forever been a game of statistics and over the past few decades, sabermetrics have taken this passion way beyond batting average and on-base percentage. Growing up, my family always said all you needed to do to be successful was to "build a better mouse-trap," meaning, if you can find a way to improve on existing information, to make something more efficient, you'll find success follows. Statistics in baseball are the new mouse-trap; for the most part, the numbers being used haven't changed for 100 years, they are just being manipulated in a way to provide a better benchmark to evaluate a player's value and/or worth. The end goal never changes: a better mouse-trap still kills the mouse in the end, and a better statistic still just evaluates a player, but the means or accuracy of doing so makes it special.

The problem with the evolution of statistics in baseball has been the public acceptance of them. I'd be just as willing to bet that Woodrow Wilson and his friends talked about Babe Ruth's batting average in 1915 as I would bet that Barack Obama won't discuss the VORP of David Ortiz in 2009. Some statistics resonate through the general public and become part of the casual fan's conversation, and some don't. The "stickiness" of a stat depends on how complicated it is to understand, calculate, or relate to something the average fan can appreciate.

The numbers being thrown around by stat heads these days are often hard to grasp. Even an easy concept, such as Batting Average on Ball In Play, can be misunderstood and misused, as I demonstrated during my fourth outfielder series. Okay, so we all agree that batting average is a horrible statistic to base the value of a player on, but what metric can we all agree on that makes sense? Fortunately for us, Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs, has put together an eight part series on Win Values.

The Truth is Out There

While the truth may be out there, it's awash with a sea of misinformation deeper than any Mulder and Scully had to wade through.

Buster Olney provides the latest fodder for the Red Sox rumor mill in his links column on ESPN Insider.