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Friday, January 17, 2003
I hate computers
That may sound like a strange thing for a guy with a website to say, but, quite often, it is true. Wednesday at around noon I was in my room, typing something on my laptop and the power cord got unplugged from the computer somehow. No big deal because the computer just starts running on battery when it gets unplugged. I noticed it, finished the thing I was typing and then went to plug it back in. Usually when you plug and unplug the power cord, the computer makes this "beep" sound, so you know it either just went on battery or off battery power. When the cord got unplugged, the computer made the "beep." When I plugged it back in about 30 seconds later, there was no "beep." So, my computer was running on battery and I had no ability to get it running on normal, plugged in power or even charge the battery. Like I said, I hate computers. I called up the customer support help line at this computer company that I won't name here (The company name is two letters and it starts with a "H" and ends with a "P" but that is all the clues I am going to give). The guy on the other end was very friendly and he really wanted to be helpful, but he wasn't. He had me unplug the computer and try something, he had me take the battery out and try something, he had me get a paperclip and press some secret button the side of the computer. Nothing worked. Then he told me he had "run out of stuff to try" and that I would have to send it in. I really had no choice in the matter because at this point the battery was down to like 72% and the computer would stop running after another couple of hours. The guy from the un-named company informed me that it would take between 3-5 business days to get it fixed and that "includes shipping time." So, I got all the info from the guy and he dispatched a Fedex truck to my house and told me it would be there sometime "between noon and five" yesterday. I waited around all day and guess what time they showed up? 7:15. No big deal though, I was just planning on being a bum around the house yesterday (and every other day) anyway. It really all sounded very easy and nice to me - they come to my door and pick it up and in 3-5 business days I'll have it back - until I remembered something: I go back to school on Sunday and start class again Tuesday morning! AGH! Going on the theory that nothing is as easy as it sounds and computers suck, I expect to have my laptop back in time for my graduation in 2005, hopefully. I really love laptops. I have had 3 of them in my lifetime and I don't think I would ever buy a regular computer for myself. When I am home from the dorm, it goes upstairs to my room with me and downstairs when I watch the gigantic TV we have. At the dorm, it moves all around my room, from desk to chair to bed - wherever I happen to be sitting/lying at the time. I play CDs and DVDs on it, I use it for internet access, I store all of my top-secret fantasy baseball cheat sheets on it and I type up all of my school related stuff on it. And now, my baby is gone and who knows when I'll have her back again. I hate computers, but only because I love them so much. What's that you say? This is a baseball blog? Hmmm...let's see if we can find anything baseball related to talk about... 
Seligula and his cronies voted unanimously to give the league that wins the All-Star game homefield advantage in the World Series. What do I think of this? The short answer is I think it is a really dumb thing to do. If you want my long answer, click here and read what I had to say about it when Bud first proposed the deal last week. Apparently the players still need to give their approval, so hopefully Bud's brilliant idea will never actually take place (kind of like contraction). ESPN.com came out with their list of the "Top 10 Outfields in Baseball" yesterday. I have always loved lists, making them and reading them. I'm guessing my fondness for them comes from the fact that I like to argue about stuff and lists usually give you some sort of an opportunity for a healthy "debate." However, I am not going to argue about anything on the ESPN.com list, because I don't think they screwed anything up all that badly. Instead, I wanted to give my own list of what I think will end up being the top 5 outfields in baseball for 2003: 1)    
Atlanta - Chipper Jones / Andruw Jones / Gary Sheffield If Andruw Jones ever has that breakout season people have been expecting for years, these 3 could be scary in 2003. Even without the breakout year, Andruw was pretty great last season, hitting .264/.366/.513. That was good for 42.1 "Runs Above Replacement Position," which ranked 4th among all center fielders last season. Add in the awesome defense and Andruw is arguably one of the top 2-3 CFs in baseball. The other Jones, Chipper, is one of the best and most consistent hitters in all of baseball. He's a pretty bad left fielder defensively and the Braves never should have moved him from 3B. Offensively, he was the 4th best LF in baseball and I think his 2003 will be better than last year. Sheffield had an "off" year in 2002, but he was still good for 41.6 RARP, which ranked 8th among all right fielders. I think he'll have a better 2003 too. Last year the Braves 3 combined for 144.7 RARP and I think it'll be closer to 175 in 2003. As an added bonus, all 3 of these guys may end up in the Hall of Fame someday, which not a lot of teams can say. 2)    
Cincinnati - Adam Dunn / Ken Griffey Jr. / Austin Kearns You would think that this high ranking would be based on Griffey staying healthy and, to an extent, it certainly is. However, I really don't expect him to ever be the same player he was in Seattle (for more on that, click here), but I am incredibly high on both Kearns and Dunn, which is why I rank them #2. This ranking does assume that Griffey is healthy enough to play 140+ games and he hits somewhat Griffey-like. This outfield has the potential to hit 150 homers and each get on base over 40% of the time. Griffey isn't what he once was defensively and should probably be playing a corner position, but Kearns is a great defender in either corner and Dunn is above average. This ranking may be a little bit of wishful thinking on my behalf, but if Griffey can hit .280/.375/.500, which is about what he did in his first year with Cincy, they will be one of the best offensive outfields in baseball for sure. 3)    
St. Louis - Albert Pujols / Jim Edmonds / J.D. Drew If J.D. Drew can stay healthy and have a season close what he did in 2001, this will be the best outfield in baseball. Unfortunately, neither of those is likely to happen and, together, they are a real longshot. Edmonds was 57.2 RARP, which ranked 3rd among all center fielders. He even missed some time with injuries, but that is probably somewhat likely in 2003 as well. Pujols was 5th among all LFs in RARP with 55.4, one spot behind Chipper Jones. I would expect Edmonds and Pujols to post similar numbers in 2003, somewhere around 50-60 RARP. Drew almost can't help but improve upon his 2002 performance, but how much he improves is the key. 4)    
Boston - Manny Ramirez / Johnny Damon / Trot Nixon Quite simply, Manny Ramirez is a hitting machine. With Thome gone to the NL, Ramirez is probably the best hitter in the AL, although ARod might have something to say about that. Manny also can't seem to stay healthy - he missed 40 games last year after missing 20 in 2001 and 45 in 2000. If he can stay on the field for 155 games or so, he's going to drive in 140 runs and hit 40+ homers. Even with all the injury problems last year, Ramirez's 73.0 RARP ranked 3rd among all LFs and 1st in the AL. A lot of Johnny Damon's value comes from his great defense, but he also had a very good year with the bat in 2002, rebounding from an awful 2001 with Oakland. Damon had a .292 EqA and his 40.9 RARP ranked 5th among all CFs, right behind Andruw Jones. Like J.D. Drew, Trot Nixon is the key to whether or not this outfield makes a jump into the top 2 or 3. Nixon had a slightly disappointing season, but still ranked 14th among all RFs with 23.7 RARP. His defense is also very good, which bumps his value up a little bit. If Manny stays healthy and Nixon rebounds a little, the Sox starting 3 could easily put up 170+ RARP. 5)   
San Francisco - Barry Bonds / a center fielder / a right fielder Okay, remember like 10 seconds ago when I said I wasn't going to argue with anything ESPN said? I lied. ESPN.com's list of the top top outfields did not even include the San Francisco Giants. Now, I realize the identities of San Fran's center and right fielders aren't yet completely known, but that is somewhat irrelevant when you think about how good their one definite outfielder is. For example... ESPN.com has the Angels' outfield as #3, with Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad and Tim Salmon. Offensively, here are their "Runs Above Replacement Position": Anderson = 38.1 Erstad = 11.2 Salmon = 38.4 TOTAL = 87.7 RARP That's a pretty nice total, especially considering Salmon missed some time with injuries. However... Barry Bonds = 140.8 RARP The Anaheim starting 3 were a total of about 90 runs better than replacement level players last season offensively. Barry Bonds was, all by himself, about 140 runs better than a replacement left fielder. My math is not great and big numbers generally make my head hurt, but it looks to me like all the Giants would have to do to have a better offensive starting outfield than the Angels would be to have a center and right fielder that would avoid each being 25 runs BELOW replacement level. Wanna know how bad someone would have to be to check in at 25 runs below replacement? Last season, Neifi Perez (aka "The Worst Doctor in the World") was "only" 19 runs below replacement on offense last year. Enough said. Which all means that if you stick Barry Bonds in left field and find 2 guys that are the outfield equivalent of Neifi Perez, they are going to be a better offensive outfield than Anaheim was last season. Brian Sabean was apparently interested in actually trying this experiment, so he went and signed Marquis Grissom to be an outfield starter. Even if Barry drops off quite a bit, like say 50 runs, he still out produces the Angels outfield as far as RARP goes, which means if the Giants get any sort of decent production from Grissom (19.6 RARP last year) and the other guys they play in CF and RF, they'll have a much better offensive outfield than Anaheim. I didn't account for defense and Erstad is, in my opinion, the best defensive center fielder in the AL, so his contribution there is significant. But, I am not really arguing that the Giants should be ranked ahead of Anaheim (although they should be), I am simply saying there is no possible way that the Giants should be completely absent from a list of the "Top 10 Outfields in Baseball." By the way, in case you were wondering... The worst outfield in baseball for 2003: 30)    
Florida - Todd Hollandsworth / Juan Pierre / Juan Encarnacion Not that bad you say? First of all, they all have almost identical facial hair, two of them have the same first name and what the hell is wrong with Juan Pierre and his hat?! Juan Encarnacion actually had a decent year last season, hitting .271/.324/.449, which was good for a .267 EqA and 15.2 RARP. Encarnacion is, by far, the Marlins' best outfielder and even he was about 15 points of EqA worse than ML right fielders as a whole last season. Moving to CF, it gets really bad. Juan Pierre had the benefit of hitting in Coors Field for all of 2002 and he still managed to put up some of the worst numbers this side of Doug Glanville. Pierre hit .287/.332/.343, which works out to a nifty .230 EqA and negative 5.9 RARP. To put that in context, that RARP figure of -5.9 was the worst out of any center fielder with more than 250 plate appearances. In 2003, Pierre will be leaving the best hitting park in the Majors (Coors) and will head to one of the worst parks for a hitter, Pro Player Stadium. Juan Pierre hit - get ready for this - .247/.297/.297 on the road last season. If Juan Pierre slugs over .400 in 2003 I will eat my Minnesota Gophers hat. Over in left field, the Marlins have their newest acquisition, Todd Hollandsworth. Florida thought so much of him that they got rid of one of their best hitters, Kevin Millar, so they could give Hollandsworth $1.5 million bucks. Like Pierre, Hollandsworth played for the Rockies last season and he really enjoyed hitting in Coors Field. At Coors = .378/.444/.659. Very impressive. Those are awesome numbers no matter where you are doing your hitting. Hollandsworth got dealt to the Rangers at mid-season and also hit very well in The Ballpark In Arlington, which is another very good place for hitting. However, on the road last year, away from Coors and TBiA, Hollandsworth was putrid, hitting only .224/.272/.346 in 237 at bats. I will almost guarantee that the Marlins will lead the National League in stolen bases next season. They better plan on stealing about 1,000 bags because with that outfield, it's gonna be a long season of watching Juan Pierre ground out to second base. See, lists are fun aren't they? Speaking of lists... It's not too late to vote in Baseball Primer's "Primey" awards balloting. I am up for "Best Internet Baseball Weblog" and I would really love it if everyone that enjoys this blog would go and place a vote for me. The 2002 Baseball Primer Primeys *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****     
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Isn't it ironic...oh shut up!Sometimes, writing stuff that other people read on a daily basis makes me feel like a complete idiot.A prime example of that occurred yesterday. Here is what I wrote at the end of yesterday's column: Sometimes I am not completely happy with my team's GM, Terry Ryan. Whenever I feel that way, I think how lucky I am that my team is run by someone like Ryan and not someone like Kenny Williams. As long as there are teams in my division being run by Kenny Williams and Allard "Mr. Beane on line two" Baird, I feel a little safer with my team's division title hopes when I go to bed at night. And then do you know what happened? I literally went "to bed at night" and, when I woke up, Kenny Williams had gone out and acquired Bartolo Colon. There is so much irony in this situation that it makes me want to puke! I think I speak for all Twins fans when I say: Awwwww crap! As far as a blow to the Twins' division winning chances, this is a pretty big one. If I were making a list of things the White Sox needed to do to have a better chance of winning the AL Central this year, #1 would probably have been to get another top-level starting pitcher. You see, their offense is pretty great and their bullpen isn't bad, but the one thing they didn't have was another top-of-the-line starter to go along with Mark Buehrle. Well, until now. Get a load of this deal from the White Sox's perspective: They get: Bartolo Colon They give up: Antonio Osuna Rocky Biddle Jeff Liefer Delvis Lantigua Are you f@#%ing kidding me?! In exchange for one of the top handful of pitchers in all of baseball, the White Sox only needed to give up: A 30 year old relief pitcher with a 3.86 ERA in 2002 A soon to be 27 year old pitcher with a career ERA of 5.23 A 28 year old corner outfielder/first baseman that hit .230/.295/.373 last season. And a minor league pitching prospect that had a 3.48 ERA in Double-A and a 5.85 ERA in Triple-A last season. Un-freaking-believable. Antonio Osuna is a very nice relief pitcher, but 30 year old relievers that aren't dominant are pretty easy to come by, so losing him is no big deal. Rocky Biddle is the best player they had to give up and he has a chance to become a good pitcher, but he is already 26 years old and hasn't exactly been great thus far. Jeff Liefer is your run of the mill left handed LF/1B/DH-type that can't hit lefties. I really don't know much about Delvis Lantigua, but he is not an elite pitching prospect by any means. 1 decent "young pitcher," 2 completely replaceable players and a decent minor league pitching prospect. It is never easy being a Twins fan. But hey, at least we signed Chris Gomez this off-season, right? If you needed any more evidence as to how much of a crock of excriment the Montreal Expos organization has become, look no further than what they gave up to get Bartolo Colon and what they received for him less than a year later when they traded him away: Gave up: Brandon Phillips Grady Sizemore Cliff Lee Received: Orlando Hernandez Rocky Biddle Jeff Liefer Yeah, that's a well run franchise. Not only did they get ripped off by the White Sox when they dealt Colon, they completely demolished their farm system in order to get Colon in the first place. Phillips, Sizemore and Lee are all top-level prospects, with Phillips and Lee both appearing on my official "Top 50" that should be posted on Baseball Primer very soon. And we already talked about what they got in return for Bartolo - a whole lot of mediocre players. Since we talked about this from Chicago and Montreal's end, I suppose we should touch on the Yankees' part of the deal. Essentially, they gave up Orlando Hernandez and some cash for Antonio Osuna. Personally, I think Orlando Hernandez is perfectly suited to be a relief pitcher, so I would have just stuck with him as my replacement for Ramiro Mendoza. But, the Yankees felt the need to trade away a "starter" for a "reliever" and they chose Osuna, who is a nice member of a bullpen, assuming he is healthy. There isn't exactly going to be a ripple effect throughout the organization because of the cash they had to give up in order to make the swap of pitchers, so it's basically just the Yankees preferring a 30 year old relief pitcher over a however-old-El Duque-is starting pitcher. And lastly... Yesterday I proclaimed how safe I felt going to bed at night with Kenny Williams running the White Sox...and then I woke up and he had gone and made an excellent trade, making me feel the exact opposite of safe. So, with that in mind... When I go to bed at night, I feel completely confident that I will not be given $1 million dollars upon waking up the next morning. Let's see that statement come back to bite me! For more on the Colon deal from a Twins fan's point of view, make sure to check out TwinsGeek.com. Also, I think voting for the Baseball Primer "Primey" awards closes on Monday, so make sure to vote (for me!) before then: The 2002 Baseball Primer Primeys *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Wednesday, January 15, 2003
It's an honor just to be nomina...aw, screw it! Let's win this thing!In a shocking turn of events that rivals anything in the history of sports, this website, Aaron's Baseball Blog, has been nominated for a "Primey" award as the "Best Internet Baseball Weblog."As with any contest, I am in it to win it, so let's stuff those ballot boxes, shall we? Anyone with a computer can vote and, since you're reading this, I am fairly certain you own one. Here is the official Primey voting form: The 2002 Baseball Primer Primeys I am up against some really stiff competition. The other nominees in my category are: Jay Jaffe and his always awesome "Futility Infielder" blog, which is located under "Starting Lineup" on my links section on the left hand side of this page. Don Malcolm's always entertaining and occasionally controversial "Big Bad Baseball" blog, which is located under "Pinch Hitters" in the links section. Ben Matasar, Ryan Wilkins and Tim Kraus' Baseball Junkie website, which is one of my favorites and can also be found under the "Pinch Hitters" part of the links. And finally, the "big boys" of the baseball website world, Baseball Prospectus' "Daily Prospectus," the link to which can be found under the "Hall of Fame" section of my links. So there you have it. I am up against Jay Jaffe, Don Malcolm, the boys at BaseballJunkie.net and the world famous Baseball Prospectus guys. I am thinking my chances aren't particularly good, so I am going to say this right now, "It is an honor just to be nominated." That statement is actually true, but I sure would like to win this whole thing! So vote early and vote often (and for me!). Once again, the place to vote: The 2002 Baseball Primer Primeys In other (non-self promotion) news...  
The Milwaukee Brewers signed Todd Ritchie, who went 5-15 with a 6.06 ERA last season with Chicago. Yeah, that seems about right. This quote from the AP story on the Ritchie signing caught my eye: "Todd Ritchie has proven that he can win in the major leagues,'' Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said. I suppose that, technically, Todd Ritchie has "proven he can win the major leagues," in that he has actually won quite a few Major League Baseball games. Todd Ritchie has been the winning pitcher in 42 games during his ML career. He has been the loser in 50 of them. Ritchie was actually pretty good in 1999, when he went 15-9 with a 3.51 ERA with Pittsburgh. Other than that year, he is 27-41 with a 4.97 ERA in his career. To be honest, there are certainly a lot of pitchers that the Brewers could have signed that would be worse than Todd Ritchie - for example, me or you. And, as long as the investment is minimal, it is probably worth signing him in the hopes that he can provide Milwaukee with some league average innings or something vaguely similar in 2003. Actually, I am not sure why I am picking on the Brewers so much for this signing, except that, for whatever reason, I sometimes see a quote that just strikes me as really funny and stupid and that is exactly how that gem from Doug Melvin struck me yesterday afternoon. There are definitely worst situations involving general managers and Todd Ritchie. Doug Melvin's career dealings in the Todd Ritchie department are a lot better than, say, Kenny Williams'. Before the start of last season, Williams traded Josh Fogg, Kip Wells and Sean Lowe to the Pirates for the services of Mr. Ritchie. I am sure that, at the time, Williams was quoted as saying something about Todd Ritchie being a "proven winner" or some other such nonesense. Sean Lowe had a bad year for Pittsburgh and they ended up cutting him in the middle of the year, but Fogg and Wells were nice additions to the Pirates' pitching staff and should be around for a long time to come. Here are the relevant performances in 2002: Player Age IP ERA Todd Ritchie 31 133 6.06That is just an awful trade, no ifs ands or buts. As a Twins fan, I am glad Kenny Williams decided not to keep Fogg and Wells and leave Ritchie to Pittsburgh. If he hadn't done the trade and the Sox were able to have Wells and Fogg last year AND they were able to not acquire the putridness that was Todd Ritchie, last season's AL Central race would have been a whole lot tighter and I would be a lot more scared of Chicago this season. As it stands now, the Sox got one godawful season out of Ritchie and they are out 2 young pitchers that are now solid, established members of a big league rotation. That deal was awful at the time, it is awful now and it is only getting worse as time goes on. Sometimes I am not completely happy with my team's GM, Terry Ryan. Whenever I feel that way, I think how lucky I am that my team is run by someone like Ryan and not someone like Kenny Williams. As long as there are teams in my division being run by Kenny Williams and Allard "Mr. Beane on line two" Baird, I feel a little safer with my team's division title hopes when I go to bed at night. Post-Script: Apparently, Kenny Williams just dealt for Bartolo Colon. I'm not sure of all the details yet, but I am starting to feel a little less safe with my division title. More on this tomorrow... *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Big dealThe last time I wrote about one of my Diamond-Mind keeper league teams I got a lot of really good feedback, so I am going to do so again and hope I don't completely bore everyone.The first Diamond-Mind related entry was about one of my two teams, the Minnesota Gophers, and I solicited advice from everyone about which players I should keep for next year and which players I should cut to stay under the salary cap. I got a ton of emails with suggestions and I even listened to a few of them. This time, I want to talk about my other team, the Minnesota Fatboys. In the middle of last season, I was enjoying my first experience in a Diamond-Mind league so much that I decided I wanted to join a second league. So, when I was offered a chance to take over an abandoned team in a really good league, I jumped at the offer. The Fatboys (not their original name) were in dead last (because of some injuries to the star players and some not-so-good 2001 seasons by everyone else) and had no chance of contending, but they had a lot of players that were in the midst of having great 2002 seasons and I knew they would be very good for this upcoming season. I took over the team, took my lumps over the second half of the season and set out with plans of contending next season. Looking at the roster and the stats now, I am almost certain I have a playoff team on my hands and I think 100-105 wins is a reasonable expectation. My general strategy for keeper leagues is to plan for a 2-3 year period at all times. However, this roster is so unbelievably stacked for 2002 that I have decided that I need to do everything possible to win this year, which means forgetting about any sort of long-term plan. It might come back to bite me, but it is a chance I am willing to take. Plus, I think it would be really fun to win the championship during my first full-season in the league! So, with that in mind, I have been searching for ways to upgrade my team for this upcoming season, via trade. When you aren't particularly worried about the long-term effects of a trade and you are able to know in advance how well a player will perform for you in the upcoming season (Diamond-Mind uses the previous season's stats in the league's current season) it is fairly easy to figure out whether or not a trade is an upgrade for the upcoming season. A few weeks ago, I got an email from one of the other team owners (actually the commish of the whole league) wondering if I was interested in Brian Giles. I definitely was, as any card-carrying member of the stathead community would be. Giles has been one of the best and most consistent hitters in all of baseball for the past 4 seasons, not to mention one of the most underrated. His being underrated wasn't going to help me in this instance however, because the guy I was talking trade with was a stathead just like me and was fully aware of Giles' value. The other team's owner - let's call him Chris - was in rebuilding mode and was interested in acquiring players that had the potential to help him win a championship in 2 or 3 years. He was interested in a few of my players, but the one he liked the most was Adam Dunn. As many of you know already, I think Adam Dunn is going to be a stud. He is a gigantic left handed hitter with huge power potential and an incredible ability to draw walks at a young age (he was 22 last year and drew 128 walks!). That said, his 2002 season, which was his first full year in the Majors, was slightly disappointing, at least in my mind. I was expecting him to be one of the top offensive outfielders in baseball from the start...and he almost was. In the first half of the year, Dunn hit .300/.452/.544 with 17 homers, 14 doubles and 78 walks in 283 at bats. Those are incredible numbers for a guy in his first full-season in the Majors at the age of 22. Then something happened and I am still not sure exactly what it was. Dunn absolutely stunk in the second half of the year and was about as close to "lost" as a great player can be. He hit .190/.339/.353 with 9 homers, 14 doubles and 50 walks in 252 second half at bats. Basically, his average dropped over 100 points, his home run power dropped almost in half and he walked quite a bit less. For the year, he hit .249/.400/.454 with 26 homers, 28 doubles and 128 walks in 158 games. Definitely a very good season, particularly for a 22 year old, but a lot less than my lofty expectations. So, while Dunn would have been a very nice right fielder for the Fatboys in the upcoming season, Giles would be a significant upgrade. Here are Giles' numbers from 2002: .298/.450/.622 with 38 homers, 37 doubles and 135 walks in 153 games. According to Baseball Prospectus, Giles was worth 10.0 "Wins Above Replacement Position" in 2002, while Dunn was worth 5.2 "WARP." The Diamond-Mind league only has 20 teams in it, which means the "replacement level" is quite a bit higher than Major League Baseball, but I think it is safe to say that Giles would be worth about 3-5 wins over Dunn for the upcoming season. As I said, I am in a mode that is 100% focused on winning this upcoming season, so a 3-5 game improvement is something I was willing to sacrifice the future for. Still, I was a little uneasy trading away Adam Dunn. I truly believe he will be a consistent .280/.440/.550 hitter for a very long time. In his peak, it wouldn't surprise me to see him hit 50 homers and walk 140 times in several different seasons. But guess what? Brian Giles is already that caliber of hitter and he has been for the last 4 seasons: Year G AVG OBP SLG BB HR 2B EqAFor a player performing at such a high level, those are remarkably consistent stats over a 4 year period. Basically, Giles is a .300 hitter that walks 100 times, hits 35-40 homers, 35-40 doubles, gets on base 40-45% of the time and slugs .600. I was looking at those numbers while thinking about Adam Dunn's future and the light bulb went on over my head: If Adam Dunn becomes the player I think he will be, he will be performing at about the same exact level that Brian Giles has been performing at for the past 4 seasons. And, since I am focused on the present and not the future with this team, how could I pass up the chance to get Giles and his performance right now, in exchange for a guy that I think has a very good chance of hitting that well in the future? I couldn't, so I made the deal. Actually, it wasn't that simple. Because the team that I took over had such an awful season, I was holding the #3 pick in the entire off-season draft. Chris wanted that pick, along with Dunn. There were a lot of players that I had being drooling over with that #3 pick, particularly one Mr. Hideki Matsui. But, I wasn't sure exactly which players would be available at #3 and no one seemed very likely to help me a whole lot for this upcoming season (Matsui, for example, couldn't even be used because he didn't play in MLB in 2002). So, I agreed to hand over the pick, along with Dunn, in exchange for Brian Giles and a couple of role players - Steve Reed and Karim Garcia - both of whom had nice 2002s and could help me in the upcoming season. And just like that, I had completed the biggest trade I had ever made in a keeper league. One of the top players in all of baseball for a young superstar in the making and the #3 pick in the draft. I know this is a cliche, but I really think this is a deal that truly helps both teams. Chris wasn't looking to contend this year or even the year after, so by the time he is ready to get serious about winning, Brian Giles will be well into his 30s. And by that time, Adam Dunn will be a veteran and will have already totaled about 150 homers and 500 walks and he can be the cornerstone of a championship caliber team. From my point of view, I sacrifice a potential .400 OBP / .600 SLG hitter in 2005 and beyond for a .400 OBP / .600 SLG hitter right now. At this point, you are probably wondering exactly what the Minnesota Fatboys' roster looks like. Unless I am crazy, it is pretty damn scary. Keep in mind, this is a 20 team league, so the overall talent level per team is better than Major League baseball. I haven't decided exactly which players I am going to keep and cut, but here is a guess as to how the core of the team will shake out for next year: Starting Rotation: Player IP ERAMy rotation includes the top 3 AL Cy Young award vote getters and Al Leiter, who had a 3.48 ERA and over 200 innings pitched. The only guy with an ERA over 3.50 is Jason Jennings and he pitched half his games in Coors Field, so his performance was actually way better than his numbers indicate and Diamond-Mind does adjust everything for park factors, so he'll see his ERA drop quite a bit pitching for me outside of Coors. Bullpen: Player IP ERAAll 4 guys had very nice 2002 seasons and my bullpen should be only slightly less effective than my rotation. If all goes according to plan, I would think my team ERA could very easily be under 3.00, depending on which relievers I grab to fill out the bullpen. Starting Lineup: Pos Player AVG OBP SLGI think that's a damn good lineup, although not as impressive as the pitching staff. The defense is even decent, with Torii Hunter and Ivan Rodriguez on the plus side and Jeter, Vaughn and Huff on the bad end. Wilkerson, Giles and McLemore all have some serious platoon issues, so they will likely sit on the bench against lefties, at least occasionally. Bench: Pos Player AVG OBP SLGAs I said, I will need guys to play the outfield corners and hit left handed pitching, which is exactly what Gant, Alou and Garcia can do. The one thing I need to do is find a capable backup infielder that can cover SS, 2B and 3B, which would enable me to keep 3 outfielders on the bench. All in all, a pretty good team, don't you think? I think the pitching is good enough to lead the league in ERA and, with the addition of Giles, the offense looks very good as well. Of course, the team can only go as far as the manager takes them, which is why they might be in trouble. *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
Monday, January 13, 2003
So much for thatTypically, I write an article for Friday and then leave it as the "new" article through the weekend, until I post another article for Monday.This weekend was no different, as I left the article from Friday up over the entire weekend. Sometime around Saturday afternoon I was considering either writing a new article for the weekend or at least modifying Friday's article. The reason for that was because I had written somewhat extensively on the reported 3-way trade between the Reds, Marlins and Expos. Then, shortly after I posted my thoughts on the deal, the Marlins announced that they were no longer interested in Bartolo Colon and they then proceeded to make a trade for another starting pitcher, Mark Redman. Friday's column wasn't a total loss though, because I did talk about several other subjects and also gave this disclaimer for the 3-way trade: "Of course, it's possible that this 3-way deal may never get done." Got that right. I have read a few articles and discussions about the trade and it seems as though a lot of people are scratching their heads wondering why the Tigers would trade someone like Redman. The thought being that they need pitching and Redman was pretty good last year and able to give them 200+ innings. I agree that the Tigers need pitching (and hitting and fielding and...) and I basically agree that Redman was pretty good last year, but he wasn't anywhere close to as good as his "raw" numbers would indicate. Comerica Park has been a pitcher's park for its entire existance and even more than an overall pitcher's park, it is a park that is death to right handed home run hitters. According to Diamond-Mind's park factors, Comerica yielded 53% fewer homers to right handed hitters than the "average" park did in 2002. That number is pretty huge. On the other end of the spectrum, Coors Field gave up 53% more homers to right handed hitters than the average park in 2002. So, as much as we think of Coors as a haven for hitters, Comerica is the exact opposite, at least for righties (and switch-hitters batting against southpaws). And guess what? Mark Redman is a left handed pitcher, which means when he is on the mound, the opposition's lineup is going to feature primarily right handed hitters. So, you have a pitcher facing a ton of righties in a home ballpark that takes an incredible amount of home run power away from righty hitters. Add that up and that pitcher has a pretty good chance of pitching very well at home. Redman's splits for 2002: Ballpark IP ERA SO BB HRBasically, everything about Redman is identical everywhere he pitches, except he gave up almost 3 times as many homers on the road as he did at home. He struck out 4.8 per 9 innings at home and 4.9 per 9 on the road. He walked 1.9 per 9 innings at home and 2.5 per 9 on the road. And he served up 1 homer per 24.5 innings at home and 1 per 9.5 innings on the road. Like I said, the increase in homers away from Comerica really shouldn't be a surprise because of the way Comerica affects the ability of right handed hitters to hit homers and the amount of right handed batters Redman faced throughout the year (about 76% of the batters he faced hit right handed in 2002). All of this is a long way of me saying that the Tigers trading Mark Redman shouldn't be looked at as any sort of a surprising or major transaction. Mark Redman is an average starting pitcher who was perfectly suited for pitching in Comerica Park. However, the plan for 2003 is to move the left field fences in at Comerica, which will most likely take away a lot of that incredible effect on right handed power that the park had. In a normal park, Mark Redman is basically a league average pitcher. He doesn't strike anyone out, he has pretty good control and, outside of Comerica, he'll probably give up about a homer every 9 innings or so. Redman was extremely durable last year, logging 203 innings in only 30 starts, but he does have a real history of being injured and up until 2002 he had pitched a total of 222 Major League innings. Plus, he is already 29 years old, so this is about as good as it is going to get, barring some type of mind meld with Jamie Moyer. The Tigers are a bad team that don't appear to be in any danger of becoming a good team anytime soon, so trading a 29 year old pitcher that will probably only be good for an ERA around 4.50 in a "normal" ballpark and may or may not be a good bet to be healthy enough to pitch 200 innings is just something a bad team that is trying to rebuild does. The Tigers are no doubt hoping that one of the pitchers they got back from the Marlins can turn into a serviceable Major Leaguer by the time Detroit is ready to start thinking about contending again (assuming that time actually arrives at some point). On a somewhat related note, I think the Tigers are making a gigantic mistake by moving the fences in. I am of the belief that anytime you have a "unique" home field, you should take as much advantage of it as humanly possible. In some cases that is easier said than done. For instance, the best way to utilize Coors Field is far from being found, although I truly believe that a "best way" does exist and I even have a few ideas of my own on the subject. On the other hand, for a park such as Comerica, the differences in the ballpark are very clear and the way to take advantage of it is fairly simple. Assuming the fences were left in the same position, there are two main things the Tigers should do to take advantage of their ballpark: 1) Focus on left handed pitching. 2) Focus on left handed hitting. Like I said, very simple. You play 81 games per season in a park that is death to right handed hitters, so you want to make it so that your pitchers face as many of them as possible. The best way to do that is to stock up on left handed pitching, both starters and relievers. And, of course, the exact opposite is true for your offense. You want to get as many at bats as possible from left handed hitters, particularly left handed hitters with power. Obviously no lineup can succeed batting 9 straight lefties. However, as long as the hitter doesn't rely primarily on home run power, it doesn't matter if he is a righty or a lefty. The 3-4-5 hitters should be lefties, or at least switch hitters. The leadoff guy and 7-8-9 hitters can be righties or lefties, it doesn't much matter unless they hit homers. Those 2 relatively simple things could do a lot of good for the Tigers. Meanwhile, the Tigers have decided to ditch an area of their organization that is currently a potential strong point and turn the ballpark into just another "average" park, with no advantage available to Detroit. One of the reasons why my own hometown team, the Minnesota Twins, had a great deal of success in 2002 (and to a lesser extent 2001) is because their organizational approach to hitting took advantage of the Metrodome. In 2002, The Dome was 21% below average in allowing homers to righties and 26% below average allowing homers to lefties. At the same time, The Dome was a great place for doubles hitters, yielding 12% and 15% more doubles to righties and lefties respectively. The general offensive philosophy of the Twins appears to be to produce hitters that have more of strength for doubles power than they do home run power. Guys like Doug Mientkiewicz, Corey Koskie, A.J. Pierzynski and even Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones. They are not big sluggers, but they hit balls into gaps and use the Metrodome and its turf to their advantage. At the same time, the Twins have quite a few pitchers that struggle giving up home runs. However, their homerific tendencies become less of a disadvantage because The Dome decreased homers across the board last year. To be honest, I am not sure if The Dome and its advantages were part of the overall plan for the Twins organization or if they just "lucked" into it. I suspect it was at least a small part of the plan, primarily because the general consensus is to focus on speed and defense (and not power) when you are playing your home games on turf, as the Twins are. There are a lot of different things in the world of baseball that can produce positive results for whichever team takes advantage of them. For a team like the Tigers, they need to take advantage of pretty much anything and everything possible at this point. As those fences move in, one big potential advantage disappears. *****Comments? Questions? Email me!*****
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 Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com OFGoAG.com Timeline: Heidi Klum (8/2002 - 12/2003) Jessica Alba (12/2003 - 10/2004) Elisha Cuthbert (10/2004 - 11/2006) Vacant (11/2006 - 6/2008) Keeley Hazell (6/2008 - 3/2010) Mila Kunis (3/2010 - Present) OFGoAG.com Candidates: Marisa Miller Jenna Fischer Kate Beckinsale Keeley Hazell Diora Baird Top 40 Twins Prospects of 2010: 1. Aaron Hicks, CF 2. Kyle Gibson, SP 3. Wilson Ramos, C 4. Miguel Angel Sano, SS 5. Ben Revere, CF 6. Angel Morales, CF 7. David Bromberg, SP 8. Danny Valencia, 3B 9. Matthew Bashore, SP 10. Billy Bullock, RP 11. Rene Tosoni, RF 12. Chris Parmelee, RF 13. Adrian Salcedo, SP 14. Joe Benson, CF 15. Jeff Manship, SP 16. Tyler Robertson, SP 17. Carlos Gutierrez, RP 18. B.J. Hermsen, SP 19. Anthony Slama, RP 20. Max Kepler, CF 21. Alex Burnett, RP 22. Robert Delaney, RP 23. Luke Hughes, 3B 24. Ben Tootle, RP 25. Deolis Guerra, SP 26. Shooter Hunt, SP 27. Trevor Plouffe, SS 28. Michael McCardell, SP 29. Reggie Williams, 2B 30. Estarlin De Los Santos, SS 31. Derek McCallum, 2B 32. Jose Morales, C 33. Chris Herrmann, LF 34. Bobby Lanigan, SP 35. Danny Rams, C 36. Josmil Pinto, C 37. Steven Tolleson, 2B 38. Anderson Hidalgo, 3B 39. Loek Van Mil, RP 40. Joe Testa, RP |