USSM 2006 Endorsements, Part 2
Officially endorsed car of USSM: Conor Glassey‘s* ride which not only has a “Please stay alert to balls and bats leaving the field” dashboard warning and Mariner sticker, but also has this license plate holder:
* yes, the noted gnome-napper and all-around cool guy
First batch o’ t-shirt designs
In our never-ending quest to move up in the world of servers (You catch that outage last night? Wasn’t that great?), we put out a call a month ago for designs. Here’s the first batch, for your consideration. Please comment if you like ’em, don’t like ’em, and as always, if you want to give this a shot yourself, you know our email address.
Designs below the break, as I didn’t want to try and serve even these modest thumbnails to everyone who visited. I look forward to hearing what everyone thinks — I’d buy some of these now.
Loaiza vs others
One more:
Loiaza: 196 IP, 202 H, 51 B, 131 K, 23 HR, 4.42 park-adjusted ERA. 3y, $21m
Rogers: 165 IP, 198 H, 49 BB, 80 K, 24 HR, 5.59 park-adjusted ERA. 2y, $16m
annnnd then back to Washburn.
Loiaza may be the best free agent pitching acquisition any team made this off-season.
Okay, one PECOTA comparison
2006 projected lines:
Pitcher A:175 IP, 183 H, 49 BB, 99 K, 24 HR, 4.70 park-adjusted ERA
Pitcher B:184 IP, 208 H, 50 BB, 92 K, 22 HR, 5 park-adjusted ERA
How about this
Pitcher A: 4y, $37.5m
Pitcher B: 1y, $4m
Yes, it’s a repeat of “Pick the Pitcher“
Yes, the PECOTA forecasts are out
If you’re a Baseball Prospectus subscriber, you can go download them. I mention this in the hopes that it prevents further hijacking (you pirates). I’m not sure how much quoting is cool with my former colleagues, and PECOTAs are worth subscribing for on their own (then, so’s Steve Goldman, I’d suggest (though he also writes for free if mostly about the Yankees)).
So I’ll just hum a few lines.
Beltre bounces.
Betancourt improves.
Bloomquist suuuuuuuucks.
Everett comes in at about what we’ve been kicking around (.260/.320/.425ish).
Johjima’s at .292/.354/.424, but he’s got some weirdness in there.
Lopez is okay for a 2B.
Reed improves a lot.
System still doesn’t know what to do with Ichiro.
Sad note: the second-best projected hitter on the team is “Doyle“, who after last year’s insane season-long hitting clinic gets scored at .303/.376/.486, one of the best hitting prospects in all of baseball. I’m going to go off and… I don’t know. Drink to forget or something.
Pretty dim view of the pitching rotation, though Meche and Pineiro both escape with ERAs under 5. Pineiro’s is pretty average, and not far off Washburn’s, now that I look at it. Which says a lot about this off-season.
King Felix contends for a Cy Young.
Hargrove on KJR
In an effort to stem the inexorable tide of Derek posts, I rise from the sickbed to summarize Mike Hargrove’s appearance on local radio. There’s not much that will surprise you here; only one item leaped out at me.
On the World Baseball Classic: It’s a benefit to baseball and helps grow the game internationally.
On Carl Everett: He’s a proven winner and run producer who has played on good teams. Also: “It’s good to have someone in the clubhouse that will speak their mind.” Passed on without comment.
On pitching: Gil Meche and Joel Pineiro are among the keys to the rotation. He “saw Joel get stronger as the season went along” (huh?), but for Meche, “his first half was pretty decent,” but his second half “was not good” (double huh?).
In a perfect world, Hargrove said, his rotation would include Meche, Pineiro, Moyer, Washburn, and Felix. Someone could beat one of those guys out, but he doesn’t expect it. Felix will most likely be the fifth starter, which Hargrove said will make it easier to keep track of his workload. They’ll keep him under 200 innings — unless the team is in contention, Hargrove said, drawing gulps from most everyone.
He made a very enlightened comment about pitch counts. Hargrove said that he monitors them closely not just for Felix, but for everyone, since high pitch counts undermine pitcher effectiveness over subsequent starts.
The team is planning on carrying a seven-man bullpen that will include Rafael Soriano. There was some consideration given to trying out Soriano in the rotation, but — among other factors — the signing of Washburn sunk that idea. “There may be one or two spots open” in the bullpen, he said, but had good things to say about J.J. Putz.
On What His Opening Day Lineup Would Look Like: Here’s the mildly surprising part. While acknowledging that it was terribly early, Hargrove dropped the following potential batting order:
1. Ichiro!
2. Johjima
3. Ibanez
4. Sexson
5. Everett
6. Beltre
7. Reed
8. Lopez
9. Betancourt
Now, I know batting order has little importance. I also understand the value of breaking up the lefties in one’s lineup. But Beltre sixth? Hargrove talked about how Beltre “got into some bad habits” at the plate last year, and was doing “one or two little things” that impeded his progress. This may be an indication of the skipper being pretty down on his third baseman.
On the other hand, I like Johjima second in the order. Shows faith in this year’s big acquisition.
Felix out of WBC, spring training invites
From the Seattle Times,Check it out, looks like no extra pitching for Felix.
Here’s the list of NRIs as they’re known, with some sorting for your convenience. Lotta unfamiliar names. I’ll be updating this as I run stuff down.
Pitchers:
RHP Kevin Appier
RHP Scott Atchison
RHP Dave Burba
RHP Francisco Cruceta
RHP Rich Dorman
LHP Lindsey Gulin (Issaquah High School grad)
RHP Jeff Harris
RHP Jeff Heaverlo
RHP Chris Jaile
Hitters
IF-B Asdrubal Cabrera
C-L Jeff Clement
DH-L Greg Dobbs
C Andy Dominique
C Rob Johnson
CF-R Adam Jones
?-R Rayon Lampe
C-R Corky Miller
IF-R Jose Morban
IF-R Cody Ransom
1B-L Todd Sears
SS/?-R Matt Tuiasosopo
2B-L Fernando Vina
Meche signs
One year, $3.7m. Could be almost $4m if he hits targets for innings pitched.
Frank Thomas signs with the A’s
1y, $500k.
So here’s why this is totally awesome:
– Frank Thomas is a great bet to pound the ball when he’s in the lineup. He may not hit .250, but he’ll draw a ton of walks and hit for good power
Here’s why this kinda sucks:
– He’s not going to be in the lineup that often. He’s old, he seems to be increasingly fragile. He’s barely played in 100 games over two seasons
– So you have to be prepared to have someone else play instead, and expect they’re going to get at least 40 games and maybe all season
– Pasting the ball if you can’t manage to hobble to second turns him into a single/walk/home run/out machine
For $500k? That’s not a bad deal at all, especially for a team like the A’s that stock their AAA team with interesting players who can step in to help the roster flex around injuries. I mean heck, if he tears up his knee in spring training and spends all year on the DL, they’re not out that much money at all.
It’s a nice little gamble.
NY Times: Partisan thought is unconscious
From the Paper of Record (and other things):
Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain’s pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected.
There’s a lot more here, and it’s really good.
This seems applicable to baseball thought, and particularly the “camps” debate.
From personal experience, I immediately thought of the stadium debate, when I didn’t know enough about it and was too emotionally tied up in it. You can go back and look through the Usenet archives and see me running around acting like a goat, and while the other side wasn’t conducting itself particularly politely, I look back on some of it now and think “that one guy made a perfectly logical series of arguments, and I just really angry about it.”
The realization that untoward belief in one side or another can lead to an weird state of dedicated ignorance unsettled me, and I think it’s played a big part in my long and rocky development as a writer.
Anyway, it’s interesting to ponder.