The Futility Infielder

A Baseball Journal by Jay Jaffe I'm a baseball fan living in New York City. In between long tirades about the New York Yankees and the national pastime in general, I'm a graphic designer.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

 

Banters, Ranters, and Other Stuff I Missed

Since I wasn't online for a whole five days, I've missed plenty of interesting baseball articles, some of which I'd like to call to your attention...

• Bronx Banter's Alex Belth interviews Marvin Miller. THAT Marvin Miller. In the name of a book proposal, Belth phoned the 86-year-old former Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association and spoke to him for about an hour on Curt Flood and his landmark Supreme Court case. Wow, great stuff.

• Mike C.'s got the latest lengthy installment of his look at relief pitchers over at Mike's Baseball Rants. This one covers the Nineties and the current decade (that would be the Aughts, wouldn't it?):
The saves numbers have changed so rapidly that the change has obscured the value of pitchers like Goose Gossage (13th), Bruce Sutter (16th), and Dan Quisenberry (21st), all of whom were arguably more valuable to their teams in the day than three of the top four in career saves (Lee Smith, John Franco, and Jeff Reardon) were to theirs.

This argument I feel is a stronger explanation for the current dearth of Hall of Fame relievers than the ubiquitous “The Hall voters don’t value saves” argument. They value saves, just not the relievers who have high totals in that statistic. I believe that there are voters who do not select the worthy candidates that I mentioned because they are over one hundred saves behind John Franco, a player who will not be regarded as a strong Hall candidate when he retires.
Good stuff, and lots and lots of data as well.

• Baseball Primer's Eric Enders, taking a tack from Bill James, enumerates the successes of Dodger manager Jim Tracy in making regulars out of several players. Enders points out how Tracy's resourcefulness has allowed the Dodgers to overcome several boneheaded contracts, returning them to the ranks of the competitive -- something I've harped on this myself recently. Continuing his examination of Tracy, Enders also has written a season preview of the Dodgers with some good analysis.

• Forget previewing a team; Aaron Gleeman, has lengthy previews of the entire AL & NL Easts. I'm guessing Aaron didn't spend much of his spring break outdoors.

• David Pinto's Baseball Musings has a slick new look and a new, easy-to-remember URL.

• The Yankees pulled off a good trade, sending outfielder Rondell White, who'd been rendered obsolete by the Hideki Matsui signing, to the Padres for outfielder Bubba Trammell and pitching prospect Mark Phillips. In the short term, the Yanks save $2.5 mil on this year's payroll, plus another $350 K on the luxury tax, and they get a lefty-masher well suited to coming off the bench (though admittedly not as good an outfielder as departed lefty-killer Shane Spencer). Long-term, they're on the hook for Trammell's $4.75 mil in 2004, but the acquisition of bona fide prospect Phillips should temper that.

Pinstriped Bible's Steven Goldman notes that Baseball America rated Phillips as the #3 prospect in the Padres organization:
Phillips is your prototypical tall lefty flamethrower -- the 6-foot-3 Phillips has whiffed 273 batters in 266 professional innings -- who struggles with his mechanics and control but is dominant when he gets it right... the Yankees took an expensive spare part and converted him into a potentially dominant young pitcher. That happens very rarely. Keeping all the usual caveats in mind (young pitchers are frequently derailed by injuries; the Yankees don't have the greatest track record of translating minor league pitchers into major leaguers) this has the potential to be the kind of deal that people cite for years afterwards as a steal.
Sweet.

• In one of the spring's most interesting experiments, former Cubs phenom Brooks Kieschnick is slated to make the Milwaukee Brewers' roster as a pitcher/outfielder. An outstanding hurler and in college at the University of Texas (2-time National Player of the Year), Kieschnick never stuck in the bigs as an outfielder, passing through eight organizations while racking up less than 200 major-league plate appearances. He made a couple of mop-up appearances here and there, but never gave pitching a serious shot again until last year. With the White Sox AAA affiliate in Charlotte, he pitched 25 games with a 2.75 ERA and 30 K's in 31.1 innings while also hitting .275 with 13 home runs and 40 runs batted in. New Brewers manager Ned Yost, who's got a long season ahead of him, is open-minded enough to try out this unique double threat, who bats lefty, throws righty, and can play both corner outfield positions and first base. And while spring-training stats don't mean much, it's worth noting that he's thrown 11 innings with a 4.77 ERA while going 4-for-10 with 2 dingers (tied for the team lead) and 7 RBI. Baseball Prospectus has a worthwhile interview with Kieschnick. I'm definitely rooting for the guy.

Comments: Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]





<< Home

Archives

June 2001   July 2001   August 2001   September 2001   October 2001   November 2001   December 2001   January 2002   February 2002   March 2002   April 2002   May 2002   June 2002   July 2002   August 2002   September 2002   October 2002   November 2002   December 2002   January 2003   February 2003   March 2003   April 2003   May 2003   June 2003   July 2003   August 2003   September 2003   October 2003   November 2003   December 2003   January 2004   February 2004   March 2004   April 2004   May 2004   June 2004   July 2004   August 2004   September 2004   October 2004   November 2004   December 2004   January 2005   February 2005   March 2005   April 2005   May 2005   June 2005   July 2005   August 2005   September 2005   October 2005   November 2005   December 2005   January 2006   February 2006   March 2006   April 2006   May 2006   June 2006   July 2006   August 2006   September 2006   October 2006   November 2006   December 2006   January 2007   February 2007   March 2007   April 2007   May 2007   June 2007   July 2007   August 2007   September 2007   October 2007   November 2007   December 2007   January 2008   February 2008   March 2008   April 2008   May 2008   June 2008   July 2008   August 2008   September 2008   October 2008   November 2008   December 2008   January 2009   February 2009   March 2009   April 2009   May 2009   June 2009   July 2009   August 2009   September 2009   October 2009   November 2009   December 2009   January 2010   February 2010   March 2010   April 2010   May 2010  

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]