Fanshots

Rage " Joe Posnanski

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"The way I view it, baseball created this culture. They do seem to be trying to clean it up now … and I’m all for cleaning it up. Make testing tougher. Suspend Manny for 50 games. Suspend him for 100 games. Do what you have to do. But I can’t keep pretending that I’m shocked and furious and disgusted every time. I just don’t have those emotions in me over and over and over again. The way I figure it, a lot of Major League baseball players used performance enhancing drugs, maybe most baseball players, maybe even a vast majority. I’m just not going to be able to freak out every time someone new gets caught. Maybe that makes me naive. Then again, maybe it makes me cynical. Either way, I love baseball too much to miss the games tonight." Once again, Poz says what I'm thinking, in ways that I can only hope to reach.

Roberts has written a book about Alex Rodriguez, and it is a journalistic abomination. That phrase...

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Roberts has written a book about Alex Rodriguez, and it is a journalistic abomination. That phrase probably won’t appear in any advertisement for the book, but it should to alert prospective readers what they would be getting. I use the word journalistic rather than literary for two reasons: 1, the book grew out of a Sports Illustrated project; 2, Roberts has been a newspaper and magazine reporter and columnist and as such has practiced the craft of journalism. Based on the book, however, she needs a lot more practice. In general, Roberts makes far too many serious allegations about Rodriguez to hide them behind anonymous quotes. Rodriguez deserves more, but more importantly readers deserve more. There is far too much in this attack book for Roberts to expect readers to take it on faith that her anonymous sources are real and they can be trusted.

The first time I think I have ever enjoyed reading something from Murray Chass, as he rips Selena Roberts's A-Rod book to shreds. Hat tip to David Pinto

Contract Retrospective: Travis Hafner's 2007 Extension

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This is a little "feature" I might keep doing every once in a while. I do a crude "retrojection" of a player at the time of a contract was signed. It's easy enough to criticize an extension after a player busts or whatever, but maybe things looked different at the time. Is this something that seems worthwhile/of interest in general?

NL West Payroll Efficiency - Purple Row

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Average cost per win from 2006-2008: CO Rockies: $809,000 AZ Diamondbacks: $858,000 SD Padres: $885,000 SF Giants: $1.29 million LA Dodgers: $1.41 million Purple Row does a great job of summarizing payroll work done by Rich Lederer and Maury Brown and discusses some specifics of the NL West organizations. Now, as we've mentioned before, it's a lot easier to spend efficiently when you don't spend much to begin with. When money goes into paying players in the first three years of team control, that's cheap. When money goes into paying free agents, that's not cheap. As such, the teams I respect the most are above average in wins and below average in payroll. From 2006 through 2008, the teams that meet those two qualifications, on average, are, in decreasing order of average wins: Minnesota, Toronto, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Arizona, and Oakland. To be fair, Toronto is barely below league-average in payroll, and both San Diego and Colorado barely miss qualifying based on average wins. I have a bunch of interesting ideas on the back burner in regards to rating general managers by their payroll and talent on the team, but one thing I'm missing is something like BPro's third-order wins for historical seasons. Any suggestions? Any ideas on a relatively simple way to build such a measure? I'd want to use something like team wOBA and team baserunning for offense, then park-adjusted FIP/tRA and UZR for defense, plus strength of schedule adjustments.

A pitch is a terrible thing to waste. Or is it? (Part 2) -- The Hardball Times

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My latest article at the Hardball Times follows up from the last one to explore whether it's worth it to waste a pitch. For those who want the quick gratification, here's my conclusion, but you should still read the article for the rationale. It seems pretty definitive that wasting an 0-2 pitch doesn't pay off at the major league level. Hitters chase the wasted pitch only 5 percent of the time, hit for a higher wOBA in plate appearance where a pitch is wasted, and are less likely to strike out despite being more willing to swing at a following pitch outside of the strike zone.

A Rational Look at the Impact of the Manny Ramirez Suspension

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How many wins does the Manny Ramirez suspension cost the Dodgers? Not as many as you may think.

PECOTA Adjusted National League Playoff Odds (5/7)

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  1. Dodgers 88.9%
  2. Cubs 65.4%
  3. Mets 47.9%
  4. Phillies 45.3%
  5. Cardinals 40.7%

PECOTA Adjusted American League Playoff Odds (5/7)

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  1. Red Sox 71.2%
  2. Yankees 63.5%
  3. Tigers 43%
  4. Rays 37.1%
  5. Mariners 31.1%