The Futility Infielder

Back on February 28, I was part of the Baseball Prospectus team that visited the Yogi Berra Museum at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Beyond the usual business of promoting Baseball Prospectus 2010, the occasion was notable because HBO Real Sports sent host Bryant Gumbel and their production team to film the event and conduct interviews in the service of a segment on three transgender sportswriters, including my colleague and friend Christina Kahrl.

Christina is one of Baseball Prospectus' co-founders and quite probably the most original talent the organization has produced. Many a BP writer can pick apart a manager's bullpen usage, run a regression connecting market size to on-field success, or step into a major league front office to advise on Rule 5 draft options. But where else on God's green earth can you find references to Habsburg-era archdukes in the context of breaking down the godforsaken Washington Nationals' non-roster invitations besides Christina's "Transaction Analysis" column, BP's longest-running feature?

Anyway, the Real Sports segment aired on March 16, contrasting the torment and the ultimately tragic demise of the Los Angeles Times' Christine Daniels (née Mike Penner) with the ongoing battles for acceptance that Christina and MLB.com's Bobbie Dittmeier wage. Both surviving writers counseled Daniels/Penner on what became a very public transition, and both have fortunately fared much better than their fallen comrade, facing their challenges with extreme courage and heartening amounts of success.

The story could have been handled in an exploitative manner, but Gumbel and company did a commendable job in treating it with sensitivity. It's a heartbreaking but also inspiring segment, well worth watching. Given how much footage the HBO team shot, I only wish it could have been longer.





On a personal note, yes, that's me visible in a non-speaking role at about the 5:30 mark. While I did have the decidedly surreal experience of standing next to Gumbel while watching the tying goal in the Olympic Gold Medal hockey game — which was going on at the same time as our event, cutting into our attendance — he didn't interview me for the bit. While I wish he had, it's not for my own ego gratification that I say that; I know what I look and sound like on television, thanks.

No, what I would have liked to add to the piece was merely that Chris Kahrl's TA columns were the gateway drug via which I started reading BP back around the turn of the millennium, before this website had even been conceived. It wasn't until shortly after she emerged from her transition in 2004 that I actually met her, and upon doing so, I was instantly relieved to find that talking baseball with a transgender expert was no more difficult than doing so with any male or female expert. Now I'm proud to call her a colleague, a mentor, and a friend, and via the HBO segment, I — and the rest of that episode's audience — understand her world just a little bit better.

Labels: TV, video

I've never worked in film, TV or video, but I have enough friends that do to know what a b-roll is: supplemental footage intercut with the main event in an interview, documentary or news report.

As such, this video has been cracking me up for the past couple of months. Too good not to share. It's even got a great baseball reference to boot. Enjoy!

Labels: Dodgers, video

Last week, Frank Thomas officially called it quits, not a huge surprise given that the 41-year-old slugger, who bopped 521 home runs in his career, didn't play at all in 2009. Today I've got a column at Baseball Prospectus celebrating his career, his Hall of Fame case, and his place in history:

It's no stretch to say that the physically imposing Thomas, who swung a three-foot, five-pound piece of rebar in the on-deck circle, struck fear in the hearts of AL pitchers. The 138 walks he drew in 1991, his first full season, were the highest total in the majors since 1969, and he led the league in both OBP (.453) and EqA (.358) while bopping 32 homers. He finished third in the league's MVP voting, and his 9.5 WARP3 ranked second only to award-winner Cal Ripken's 12.5.

That was the first full season of a dominant seven-years-and-change stretch in which Thomas would hit a combined .330/.452/.600 with 1261 hits, 257 homers, and an impressive 582/879 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He led the league in OBP and EqA four times apiece during that span, won the batting title in 1997 (.347) and the slugging crown in 1994 (.729). His 38 homers in the strike-shortened year were good for a 54-homer pace, which would have far outdistances his eventual career high of 43. He led the league in WARP3 in 1992 and 1994, and took home back-to-back MVP honors in 1993 (unanimously) and 1994, having helped the White Sox to a pair of first place finishes (the latter, of course, mooted by the strike). Along the way, White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson nicknamed him "The Big Hurt" after shouting "Frank put a big hurt on that ball!" during a 1991 home run. The moniker became perhaps the era's most memorable one.

...One can make a reasonable case that Thomas was the AL's best hitter of the Nineties. His .440 OBP was the circuit's best, his .573 SLG was just eight points behind that of Albert Belle and Ken Griffey Jr., and his EqA for the decade trailed only that of Barry Bonds:

Player              PA    EQA
Barry Bonds        6146  .352
Frank Thomas       6092  .343
Mark McGwire       5054  .338
Jeff Bagwell       5800  .334
Mike Piazza        4075  .326
Edgar Martinez     5589  .325
Gary Sheffield     5054  .317
Ken Griffey        6182  .314
Rickey Henderson   5452  .313
Albert Belle       5820  .313

...On the traditional merits, his credentials [for the Hall of Fame] are certainly strong, with two MVP awards, five All-Star appearances, 521 homers, 2,468 hits, all-time top 25 rankings in OBP (.419) and SLG (.555), and the ninth-highest walk total (1667). He's one of just six hitters to total 10,000 plate appearances with a batting average above .300, an OBP above .400, and a slugging percentage above .500—the triple-slash "Golden Ratio," as my friend Nick Stone likes to call it—the others being Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Tris Speaker, and Mel Ott (stump your friends with that list, as I did on Twitter yesterday). Plus he never laid down a successful sacrifice bunt despite spending a good portion of his career under the smallball-friendly Manuel and Ozzie Guillen, which has to count for something. Thomas' only real shortcoming is a .224/.441/.429 line in 68 postseason PA.

Via BP's advanced metrics, Thomas's work should be held in similarly high esteem. His career EqA ranks in a virtual tie for 13th (i.e., not sweating the fourth decimal point) among players with at least 6,000 PA, eighth if one raises the bar to 10,000 PA:

Rk   Player             PA     EQA
 1   Babe Ruth        10617   .363
 2   Ted Williams      9789   .359
 3   Barry Bonds      12606   .354
 4   Albert Pujols     6082   .347
 5   Mickey Mantle     9909   .342
 6   Lou Gehrig        9660   .341
 7   Rogers Hornsby    9475   .337 
 8   Stan Musial      12712   .332
 9T  Willie Mays      12493   .330
     Ty Cobb          13072   .330
11T  Hank Aaron       13940   .328
     Mel Ott          11337   .328
13T  Frank Thomas     10074   .327
     Johnny Mize       7371   .327
     Mark McGwire      7660   .327
     Dick Allen        7314   .327
17T  Dan Brouthers     7676   .326
     Joe Dimaggio      7671   .326
19   Frank Robinson   11743   .324
20T  Jeff Bagwell      9431   .322
     Jimmie Foxx       9670   .322

In terms of JAWS, Thomas (90.2 Career WARP/58.1 Peak/74.2 JAWS) ranks third among first basemen (despite spending more than half his career at DH, that's where he fits, but it doesn't really matter) behind Lou Gehrig and Albert Pujols. In fact, the Big Hurt ranks 38th overall in JAWS, and 27th among non-pitchers. That's not just a Hall of Famer, that's an inner-circle one.

And for once, we've got a big slugger with a sterling reputation on the topic of steroids, so we can forgo the handwringing which will accompany seven of the other nine players who reached 500 homers during careers that broadly overlapped with that of the Big Hurt. At this juncture, Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr. and Jim Thome have reputations unsullied by any allegations regarding performance enhances, while Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, Manny Ramirez and Gary Sheffield all do.

I'm not suggesting that we should throw a blanket on the latter group and keep them out of the Hall of Fame; it's a complex issue that will take decades to sort out, given that each of those players has a maximum of 15 years on the ballot, and that some of them aren't retired. I'm just celebrating a guy for whom that won't be an issue, which is quite refreshing. Just one more reason why the Big Hurt will be missed.

• • • 

Oh, and while we're on the subject, here's a Reebok commercial for which my friend Adam Gravois did some effects work back in the mid-Nineties. It's cheesy, but I can't help but smile.

Labels: Hit and Run, JAWS, video

Not a whole lot to report here that hasn't been reported elsewhere. The Hot Stove season is upon us and after busting my butt to cover the postseason, I'm playing catch-up with my allotment of Baseball Prospectus 2010 comments. With my wife out of town on a business trip for a few days, I've taken the opportunity to bury myself in Dodger prospect minutiae while still keeping tabs on the various trade and free agent rumors going around, mostly via Twitter. And I've been sharing my razor-sharp analysis with the world via that medium as well. From today's Sports Business Daily (subscription required):

SI.com’s Jimmy Traina cites a source as reporting “The Who will take the stage” during the Super Bowl XLIV halftime show. An NFL spokesperson declined to confirm the report, only saying, “When we have something to announce, we’ll announce it” (SI.com, 11/12). The L.A. Times’ Sam Farmer writes, “SI.com reporting the Super Bowl halftime show is.... The Who. Excellent.” But FoxSports.com’s John Halpin writes, “A band full of guys in their 60s? NO WAY!” Baseball Prospectus writer Jay Jaffe: “Because nothing says NFL like half a band of Brit Invasion senior citizens” (TWITTER.com, 11/12).

ZING! I had a better one about the surviving members trying for one last cash grab before reuniting with their deceased rhythm section, but it was longer than 140 characters, hence. Who says my expertise doesn't cross genres?

Speaking of crossing genres, artist James Blagden has set Dock Ellis' tale of his infamous no-hitter to a four-and-a-half minute Flash animation at a site called No Mas. It's also on YouTube, for those afraid to venture out onto the scarier parts of the information superhighway.

Sigh. Only 94 days until pitchers and catchers report. We now return you to your regularly scheduled offseason...

Labels: Press Hits, video

Just before signing off early Thursday morning in the wake of the Yankees' World Series win, the YES network ran a montage set to Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," the song which had become this team's anthem; the rapper performed it live prior to Game Two of the series, the one I attented. In my haste to record the montage, I changed the channel — I was a bit excitable — but was pleased to find it online today. Enjoy!

Labels: postseason, video, Yankees

Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran and I cut a snappy two-part video series for SNY.tv's "Bronx Banter Breakdown" yesterday. Part two, covering the lineups, is now up at Bronx Banter.

While you're there, check out Cliff's excellent piece on the 1950 World Series and its future ramificiations:

To give you a sense of just how long it’s been since the Yankees swept Philadelphia’s Whiz Kids, the 1950 World Series was the last Fall Classic to feature two all-white teams.

That fact is not as trivial as it might sound. The Yankees’ struggles in the late 1960s and early 1970s had several sources, including the institution of the amateur draft and the corporate ownership of CBS, but their failure to properly exploit the African American talent pool was undeniably a contributing factor. When they finally emerged from that slumber, it was with black stars such as Mickey Rivers, Willie Randolph, Chris Chambliss, Roy White, Oscar Gamble, and Gamble’s replacement, Reggie Jackson.

Similarly, the Phillies’ surprising pennant in 1950 fed the organization’s resistance to integration. The 1950 Whiz Kids got their name not only because they won the pennant, but because they were the youngest team in the National League on both sides of the ball. In fact, the 1950 Phillies were the youngest pennant winners ever. The Phillies’ oldest regular was first baseman Eddie Waitkus (the player whose shooting the previous year inspired The Natural). Just one of the six men to make more than ten starts for them was over the age of 26, and future Hall of Famers Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts were both just 23.

Assuming that young squad would only get better with age, the Phillies didn’t even begin scouting black players until 1954, when Roy Hamey took over as general manager following four seasons in which the Phillies finished between third and fifth place. The Phillies didn’t field their first black player until 1957, didn’t have an African-American starter until 1961, and didn’t have an African-American star until the arrival of Richie Allen in 1964.

As i wrote in It Ain't Over, the teams that integrated early dominated then National League for more than a decade after the color barrier was broken. The Dodgers won seven pennants between 1947 and 1959, the Braves won three, and the Giants two. Those Phils were the only breakthrough, their franchise was the last NL club to integrate, and they wouldn't even get back to the World Series until 1980. Serves 'em right to suffer.

Labels: postseason, video, Yankees

Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran and I cut a snappy two-part video series for SNY.tv's "Bronx Banter Breakdown" today. Part one is up at Bronx Banter, and in HD at SNY.tv.



One correction to an assertion I made within this video: Pedro Martinez has one postseason start on three days’ rest, in the 1999 AL Division Series opener against the Indians. He left after four innings due to a back strain, then famously returned four days later to pitch six hitless innings of relief to close out the series in Game Five.

Regardless, he ain’t going on three in this series.

Labels: postseason, video, Yankees

A note from somebody at the New York Times alerted me to this new-found footage of Babe Ruth swinging a bat and playing Yankee Stadium outfield circa 1928. The footage comes via 90-second silent 8-millimeter clip shot recently unearthed by a New Hampshire man from his grandfather’s home movie collection. It won't win any awards for clarity, but the Bambino's distinctive swing and gait are apparent, and the expert researchers at the MLB Network archive have verified it.



From the accompanying story:

Babe Ruth has struck out looking. Displeased, he leans on his bat, right hand on his hip, and looks back at the umpire. He utters something that can only be imagined. Lou Gehrig, on deck, leans on his bat, too, as if he has seen this act before. Ruth finally shuffles away, head turned to the umpire, dragging his bat through the dirt.

...The newly arrived Ruth film is part of the video collection of Major League Baseball Productions, the league’s official archivist, which spans more than 100 years and includes about 150,000 hours of moving images. Most of the collection is stored in plastic cases that line metal shelves of a room labeled “Major League Baseball Film and Video Archive.” The overflow rests in storage a few miles away, in Fort Lee, N.J.

...He is shown in right field, hands on his knees, glove on his right hand. To a casual fan, it appears unremarkable. But it represents the archive’s only game action of Ruth playing in the outfield — where he spent more than 2,200 games — other than a between-innings game of catch.

Nick Trotta, baseball’s manager of library licensing, took a look at the newly arrived Ruth clip first. He quickly realized it was something he had not seen before.

When others saw it, it was “wow, wow, wow,” Mr. Trotta said.

Wow, wow, wow indeed.

Labels: baseball history, video

The third installment of the series shot Monday with Bronx Banter's Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran and myself is now up at the SNY.tv video channel. This one discusses the Twins, the Yankees' first-round opponents (given that it was shot before Tuesday night's Game 163 play-in, we also shot a Tigers' segment that will never air). The Twins come in having won 17 out of 21 including the play-in, but as I showed the other day, late-season performance has no reliable bearing on playoff performance. That was my key point here. Also a bit of talk about Alex Rodriguez.

Not surprisingly, I had lots of Yankees-Twins questions in today's chat. A sampling of them:

David (Evanston, IL): Do this year's Twins have one of the least intimidating starting rotations in postseason history?
JJ: It's fairly unimpressive, for sure, and certainly belongs in the discussion. What I'd like to know is why Scott Baker wasn't tabbed for Game Three instead of Carl Pavano, given that after throwing last night, he'd have four days of rest. You've *got* to guarantee your best pitcher a start in that series.

ssteadman (St. Louis, MO): Obviously it's hard to predict because he is just 26, but are we potentially seeing the greatest catcher of all time (maybe excluding Josh Gibson) in Joe Mauer?
JJ: Mauer is great, but best catcher of all time is a tall order even for a three-time batting champion, because Johnny Bench was so incredible on both sides of the ball — his defense made Jose Molina look like Mike Piazza.

Eli (Brooklyn): As a Yankee fan, please talk me off the ledge Joe Girardi has me on. The Molina start is exactly the kind of over-managing that I'm terrified off all postseason — Jeter bunting in the fifth, Coke facing Mauer in the 8th, etc...
JJ: The Molina start is a pretty stupid thing that has me gritting my teeth, but the fact of the matter is that it's a pretty small thing, too, and it's not like it's deviating from something Girardi has done all year by putting him into the mix. Last I checked, they won 103 games, so it worked out OK. 

I'm far more worried about the team's lefty relief situation going into the playoffs than I am about the catching. Neither Coke nor Damaso Marte give me much confidence, and there are a fair number of key lefties they'll need to get through to win another World Championship. Despite that complaint, Girardi has shown that he deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to handling that bullpen — it might be his strongest area as a manager.

William (Orange Beach, AL): What type of player with Delmon Young be 5 years from now ? If not for the 50 something games he sat out this year, its not crazy to think that he could have hit .290-18-80.
JJ: Yes, Young might have approached those Triple Crown numbers, but given his plate discipline (92/12 K/BB this year), all that would tell you is that Triple Crown numbers do a poor job of telling you what a disappointment he is. .284/.308/.425 isn't remotely acceptable for a 23-year-old corner outfielder with his caliber of tools, and I don't know if he's ever going to fulfill the promise that the scouts saw in him a few years back. Five year's from now we'll be watching him hang on for dear life to a major league career.

Ballgame's about to start, second game of the tripleheader to which I'm glued. Go Yanks!

Labels: chat, postseason, video, Yankees

The second installment of the series shot Monday with Bronx Banter's Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran and myself is now up at the SNY.tv video channel. This one previews the Red Sox-Angels series, and finds me in motormouth form trying to squeeze in all my points about the Angels' offense and the Red Sox shoddy defense.

More preview stuff to come later today. I'll also be hosting a chat at Baseball Prospectus starting at 2:30 PM Eastern, during the Phillies-Rockies game. Stop by and drop in a question if you dare.

Labels: chat, postseason, Red Sox, video

Earlier today, I shot a series of short video segments with Bronx Banter's Alex Belth and Cliff Corcoran for their SNY.tv video channel in which we discuss the 2009 Yankees, their playoff chances, and the rest of the AL playoff slate. Yes, we had to shoot two segments because the tossup in the AL Central — and thus the Yanks' first-round opponents — won't be decided until Tuesday evening's play-in game between the Tigers and the Twins.

In this first installment, we look back at the Yankees' regular season performance, with Cliff mainly covering the hitting, me focused on the pitching staff, and Alex playing the ringmaster. It's always fun for the three of us to banter about baseball.

Labels: postseason, video, Yankees

Like everyone else, I was surprised and saddened by the death of Michael Jackson yesterday, capping a surreal day of celebrity demises that also claimed Farrah Fawcett and garage rock legend Sky Saxon.

I'm old enough to remember when Thriller hit the racks and was all the rage; I didn't have a copy, but my brother did, and that was more than enough for me to get sick of it — except for maybe Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing on "Beat It" - because for a couple of years, his songs were everywhere. Still, for a kid who didn't have cable TV, I have to admit that his videos, watched sparingly in their rotation on Friday Night Videos, were something else.

Nonetheless, for some reason the two video clips I thought of with regards to Michael Jackson's music aren't those well-worn classics but these rather off-the-beaten-path ones which speak to his broad cultural reach by featuring his music but not his image (Cliff Corcoran curated an idiosyncratic selection of Jackson vids at Bronx Banter, while Pitchfork has the motherlode). The first is from the Kevin Smith movie Clerks II, a scene in which Becky (Rosario Dawson) teaches Dante (Brian O'Halloran) to dance to the Jackson 5 classic "ABC." Joyful, absurd, and poignant all at once:



The second one is just surreal — a group of some 1,500 Filipino prisoners at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center learning an ensemble dance routine to "Thriller." You can read about the dance program here, but for now, just watch:



Meanwhile, here's a clip of Saxon's band, the Seeds, in a 1967 clip on the Mothers-In-Law show, lip-synching their hit "Pushin' Too Hard," one of many garage rock staples immortalized on the Nuggets compilation. Saxon's the guy with the cape:



As for Fawcett, being the prettiest of Charlie's Angels, married to The Six Million Dollar Man made her about as famous as Reggie Jackson in my eight-year-old mind. Here she is in the opening credits to the pilot episode of her first star vehicle:

Labels: non-baseball, passings, video

Happy New Year, dear readers! It's been about three weeks since I checked in here, a time during which I've been plowing through my winter workload, with a weeklong trip to England over Xmas and New Years thrown in as well. In the meantime, I've completed the entire JAWS series on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot for Baseball Prospectus:

• Oh Rickey You're So Fine: Rickey Henderson

• A Rock-y Road: Tim Raines

• Throwing Rice: Jim Rice

• Andre and Onward: Andre Dawson and the other outfielders

• The Infielders

• The Pitchers

There's also a WWZN "Young Guns" radio segment from last week, focusing on Rice as well as a two-part video series at Bronx Banter featuring Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran and myself. In Part One, we discuss Henderson, Raines and Alan Trammell. In Part Two, we hit Rice, Dawson and Bert Blyleven.

But wait! There's more! For those who didn't feel like reading over 20,000 words worth on the topic, I penned an express version for SI.com which briefly covers the cases of the five players whom the JAWS system tabbed as vote-worthy (Henderson, Raines, Mark McGwire, Trammell and Blyleven) as well as the two players from outside that group who had polled more than 50 percent in the balloting last year, Rice and Dawson.

As you probably know by now, Henderson and Rice were the two who got the call, while Raines' vote total actually dropped. I'm elated about Henderson -- about whom Bill James once famously wrote, "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers" -- making the Hall, but that was a no-brainer; what was surprising was that 28 writers left him off the ballot, thus committing mail fraud. As for Rice, I've railed against his candidacy and the late groundswell of support he received, support which is founded in mythology rather than performance (Joe Sheehan hit this one out of the park) and, in my mind, some amount of guilt on behalf of the writers who covered Rice and with whom he sparred. That he could get in while Raines is on the outside has me burn-an-overturned-car angry. Or it would if I didn't need some sleep to catch up with all of this.

Anyway, I'm glad the JAWS project is done for another year, the sixth time I've done this for BP and the eighth time I've reviewed the BBWAA ballot at length overall. My timing wasn't great this year, not only since I needed to deliver the last three installments covering 21 of the 24 players on the ballot in the span of five days. The system's underlying valuation metric, Wins Above Replacement Player, is in the midst of a recalibration which has raised the offensive replacement level, with the conversion to a play-by-play system for defense still pending. The changes remain unpublished, so essentially I've been on the bleeding edge, working with a system that's still in beta, with all of the hazards that entails.

In any event, I'm proud of the work but even more glad than usual that it's done, as is my work for the Baseball Prospectus annual and the Fantasy Baseball Index. Might just find time for the occasional blog post now and then...

Labels: Hit and Run, JAWS, radio, video

Happy belated Turkey Day, everyone. Here are the third and fourth post from the Bronx Banter video series that ran last week, starring Alex Belth, Cliff Corcoran and myself: Part Three is about Derek Jeter's future, and Part Four covers our take on Mike Mussina's Hall of Fame case. Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for a new set of data to fire up this year's JAWS series (grumble, grumble), and when I do, I'll let loose a post about the Moose.

Also, here's last week's radio hit on Boston's WWZN. I'm down to every other week during the offseason so the Basketball Prospectus guys can get a shot. Yes, there's a basketball equivalent to BP, complete with Bradford Doolittle's Hit List-style power rankings, the Hops List. Anyway, the WWZN crew is back to afternoon drive times, meaning that I can put an extra hour of sleep under my pillow on those Wednesday mornings.

Back to grinding away at player comments for BP09...

Labels: radio, video

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but my pals at Bronx Banter recently moved into some upscale new digs at Sportschannel New York's website, SNY.tv. Congrats to them on the move and the recent expansion of their blogging staff.

As part of their arrangement, BB and SNY are collaborating with some experimental video blogging recorded in the latter's studio, with Alex Belth playing host to two guests as they break down various issues of the hot stove season. I was honored to have Alex invite me to be on the debut show along with BB co-consipirator Cliff Corcoran; we covered the Yanks' possible pursuits of Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia, among other things, but technical difficulties prevented our first takes from being aired, and last week a series of new segments with YanksFanSoxFan's Mark Lamster and the Daily News's Anthony McCarron went up covering those primary free agents. Alex invited Cliff and me back for a re-shoot, and we did four segments that will air this week.

The first two are already up. In Part One, we examine the Yankees' options on the free agent market beyond Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe (the subject of one of our lost segments, alas). My Brewers-fan relatives won't be too happy to hear me touting Ben Sheets as an option for the Yankees, but I laid it out there on the table. If the Yanks are silly enough to risk a long-term deal on the injury-prone Burnett -- and they seem to be firm on not going five years, at least -- they may be able to do better with a more incentive-based shorter deal with Sheets.

In Part Two, we look at some options for hitters beyond Mark Teixeira. I spent a lot of time talking about free agent second baseman Orlando Hudson, late of the Diamondbacks, and how the Yanks' rumored interest in him points to the organization's dissatisfaction with Robinson Cano. I am not a Cano fan, not anymore -- he's immensely talented, but completely vapid, and his strike zone judgment is, to put it frankly, for shit. He walked 26 times in 634 plate appearances last year while hitting .271/.305/.410, year-to-year drops of 35, 48, and 78 points in those triple-slash categories, and his fielding was awful as well. the Fielding Bible's Plus/Minus system, which uses a panel of expert evaluators to review each play and compare whether an average player would have made it, saw Cano at -16 last year, "good" for the 35th ranking in a 30-team major league set; for comparison in 2007 he was at +17. Hudson was at -4 last year, down from +20 the year before, but he's got a much longer track record of success.

Part Three should air tomorrow, and Part Four... I don't know when it will air, actually; the two segments are re-takes on topics we covered the first time, one on Derek Jeter's eventual destination on the diamond, and the other on the recently-retired Mike Mussina's Hall of Fame chances. I'll be back with a link when those air.

Labels: video, Yankees