End o’ the Month
Posted by SBG on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 9:23 am
One last day in November. It's been a pretty good month -- not insane like October -- but good.
Albert Pujols thinks that the MVP should come from a playoff team. So, if someone from Tampa Bay hits .475 with 120 home runs next year, he wouldn't be eligible if the Yankees hold off the D-Rays. Poor Albert. An eight figure salary and a World Championship ring isn't enough? Here's my rule. The MVP should come from a time that's at least 5 games over .500. That would make Howard eligible, but disqualify Mr. Pujols, whose team got in, barely, because they are in the worst division in baseball.
Christmas is coming. I'm not much of a Christmas guy -- I'm not into the whole exchanging presents thing. I'm also not looking forward to hearing about the "war" on Christmas because some twenty year old girl says Happy Holidays at JC Penneys. Give me a break.
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Hey SBG:
University of North Dakota, here.
Did you see that the hated Bison are going to add a D1 hockey program? I know this is a long way off. In fact, I hope it's a long, long, long way off. But I am not looking forward to the day that the hated Bison (inevitably) beat the Sioux on the ice the first time!
Dicta
I did not know that SU had finally decided to go with the hockey program. Where in the hell will they play?
Aren't there any ponds available in Fargo? Or how about the river? That would be nice.
Here's what struck me first when I read the article (italics mine):
This skirts the whole "what is meaning of 'valuable'" debate, and I really don't want to get into that. But it seems to me that, using Pujols' own criteria, if Albert really was the MVP the Cardinals should have finished with a better regular season record than the Phillies.
Also, as a passing Padres fan (just moved out of town, but they're still my NL rooting interest), I really hope they don't do a trade for Manny. I've been waiting to see what they'd do with Klesko and Chan Ho off the payroll, and while Ramirez is the best available OF on either market, he's just not the direction I'd been hoping the Friars would go.
Hot Stove:
1. Joe Borowski is still looking for work.
The Philadelphia Phillies backed away from a multiyear agreement with free-agent reliever Joe Borowski because of concerns over Borowski's shoulder after the pitcher took a physical, several baseball sources told ESPN.com.
According to the sources, the Phillies were prepared to sign Borowski when a team doctor examined the results of the physical and advised against giving the pitcher a multiyear contract.
I wonder if maybe the Phillies have another Carlos Silva/Nicky Punto pair lying around that could be had for, say, Juan Rincon? I think it might be high time to move Juanie.
2. Clayton and Counsell agree to deals. Re: Counsell. Two years, $6 million for a backup shortstop? What the hell is Wendy doing with daddy's money?? That's just crazy. Doug Melvin also said in the story that the acquisition means that Bill Hall moves to the OF, assuming Koskos stays mostly healthy, of course. Re: Clayton. This is more like it, although probably still too much. One year, $1.5 million with Toronto. Looks like Clayton will start at SS with Aaron Hill moving to 2b. does it also mean that Juan Castro gets to be the April starter in Cincy??
w/r/t Borowski, this line from the espn.com article...
...made me envision this scenario:
Doctor (to himself): "Let's take a look at the charts here. Borowski had a 3.89 FIP in 2006 and a 4.09 FIP in 2005, not really much above replacement level for relief pitchers. And last year he had a 32.5% GB%, which would not translate well at all to our little Philly bandbox. Who do these guys think they are--the Orioles?"
Doctor (to Phillies): "Yeah, his shoulder's totally messed up. No way should you sign him to a multiyear contract."
Does it also mean that Juan Castro gets to be the April starter in Cincy??
They already inked Alex Gonzalez to a 3-year deal to be the starter.
Yea, so he's got a 3-year, $14 million deal. But can he be a vocal leader in the infield?
Good god! Career OPS+: 78. By VORP, he ranked 24th amongst SSs in 2006. THAT is worth 3 years, $14 million???
Maybe I should be hitting fungoes to my kid, training him to be a backup SS instead of a switch-hitting catcher (the left-handed pitcher, alas, is out, despite both his parents being lefties).
No idea what Wendy's doing with Bud's money these days. They sold the club to Mark Attanasio in 2005.
Don't like Christmas?
Obviously you're a Commie.
I will not question Melvin's moves as just about everything he has done has turned out great.
Oh, and I can now comment from work thanks to a new PC
Well, I'm an academic, so obviously I am a Godless Secular Humanist. And I'm an econ-leaning political scientist, so clearly I am a heartless bastard who thinks everything worth knowing is quantifiable.
But I am also fallable. I hadn't realized that the Seligs had sold the franchise. Who the hell is Mark Attansio and why is he spending silly money on a backup shortstop?
Doug Melvin has been GM since October 2002. Milwaukee Brewers' records in the Melvin era:
2003: 68-94 (+12 wins from 2002)
2004: 67-94
2005: 81-81
2006: 75-87
that sort of 4-year track record would earn a Gopher football/basketball coach a fat contract extension. Anywhere else, it would probably get you fired. Milwaukee has not had a winning record since 1992.
For the sake of baseball in Milwaukee (and who could be against that?) I hope your optimism is justified, KäseKopf. Maybe Milwaukee can be the New Detroit in '07.
According to Wikipedia, Attanasio is some Angelino investment banker.
This amuses me because I remember the hoopla in LA when Frank McCourt (a Boston-based real estate developer) dared buy the Dodgers from News Corp. The guy was (and still is) viewed as an interloper. Attanasio goes to buy the Brewers and there isn't a peep, despite the fact that the guy rescues the club from the second-worst ownership group in the game.
I didn't mean to poke a sharp stick with my previous comment, though. I knew the Seligs had sold the club, but I had to look up who the new owner was.
As for Doug Melvin, I was secretly hoping he'd be induced to trade Capuano or Bush.
I agree on Capuano, he seems like a vastly underrated pitcher. Without looking anything up (why bother with facts?), I seem to recall his name among the tops in terms of quality starts last year. While that isn't the best measure of a pitcher's success, he's not bad. I have no idea what his contract looks like or what it would have taken to get him. Probably just partial to a good pick-off move. For what it's worth, too bad we couldn't have taken Davis/Eveland off their hands instead of going to Zona. Surely Redmond would have been just as desirable as Estrada.
Not a chance Cappy gets traded. With something resembling an offense, he's a 17-18 game winner. He can pitch over 200 innings/season. Plus, he's a lefty and only made 450k last year. I think this is his last season under contract coming up. He's a fantastic #2 pitcher.
I didn’t mean to poke a sharp stick with my previous comment, though.
No offense taken. I'm naturally grumpy. And old.
Only slightly on topic, but we went to a Cubs-Brewers Spring Training Game at HoHoKam earlier this year. My roommate's cousin was with us and Capuano walked by and immediately vaulted to #2 on her list of sports hotties, behind Beckham. Though you all would like to know that Capuano has Andrew's roommate's cousin's stamp of approval.
Re: G.S.H.'s - bring 'em on.
Communist? No. Grumpy old man? Yes.
While his reasoning is flawed, Pujols was a more deserving MVP candidate than Howard.
I think you are right.
Right, I would give it to him because he was the better player, not because of team record.
Monson is finally out, according to Grampa Sports, Intrepid Reporter.
Gophers coach Dan Monson told his coaching staff this morning that he is resigning, according to a member of his staff, who also said that assistant coach Jim Molinari will become the interim head coach.
I guess getting crushed by Clemson was the final straw.
Addendum. "Monson received an extension before the 2002-03 season and would have been due a $1 million buyout had he been terminated."
Hmmmm. He's resigning??? there MUST be either a buyout or some serious skeletons-in-closets. Did Monson murder a bunch of little old ladies in Spokane before coming to town?
I thought that the BP Stat of the Day was especially good today:
Raise your hand if you would've guessed that list. Okay, everyone with your hand up, you're a big liar. The things that strike me looking at this list:
1) Neshek pitched 37 innings and had the third-most inherited runs prevented. That's phenomenal.
2) Ron Villone? Seriously? He had a 4.64 FIP, driven largely by a high walk rate. I guess that from a run expectancy standpoint, each individual walk must not have hurt much, but if you were going to keep him in there for full innings at a time, he would've allowed a lot of those walks to come around and score. Kind of weird, though.
3) The Jays got their money's worth with B.J. Ryan. They didn't sign him to be a one-inning closer, and he added significant value to their 'pen by essentially being his own set-up man.
4) Putz must've gotten a lot of his ranking in the first part of the season before he became a closer, because as a closer, he seemed to be a one-inning wonder, for the most part, but that's Mike Hargrove for you.
Anyway, you're looking at one expensive reliever and four guys who are paid from minimum to $2M. I still can't understand why teams like the Orioles feel they need to spend $TEXAS on mediocre relief pitchers.
If you would have asked me, I was thinking Reyes would have been on the list. (anecdotal memories:) His success rate in stranding runners was pretty damn good.
Neshek was super at stranding runners in scoring position. All those ridiculous looking Ks probably helped. Remember, he was referred to as a cheat code. You could hit the Neshek button once a game to get out of an inning with no further runs.
Oh, I remember the Neshek button. I remember that it was good. But third in the league good? That was slightly surprising.
I would've thought Reyes might've made the list, too. After all, Ron Villone made it, and Reyes>>>Villone. (Checks the list.) Huh, Reyes was slightly below average with inherited runners--at -0.2. He was very good overall at preventing runs, with 20.6 ARP, and had an outstanding sub-3.00 FIP, with a ridiculous GB%. I guess this is one of those situations where I think that inherited runs (and ARP) are good indicators of value (sort of like WPA), but that they aren't very good predictive stats. If I had to pick between Villone and Reyes for next year, I'd go with Reyes without a moment's hesitation.
"If I had to pick between Villone and Reyes for next year, I’d go with Reyes without a moment’s hesitation."
Especially at Reyes' rate. Just think how much he could have gotten from Baltimore. $Texas indeed.
It's been said so many times before, but there are so many things that happened that made 2006 my favorite Twins season ever (in my memory), and Neshek's crazy strikeouts are one of them.
By rate, I mean salary.
I may be wrong, SBG, but I'm guessing that once Baby SBG comes along, you'll become a lot more of a "Christmas guy".
Maybe. I think it's more probable that I'll just keep quiet about the whole thing and let Lucy have run of the event.
That's just part of the process of accepting that you are married, SBG. Sometimes she will let you THINK you are in charge. Then again, maybe not even that.
I consider this to be one of the benefits of being married. She can have at it. I can wash my hands of it. We're both happy with that.