Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Baseball Prospectus (But Were Afraid to Ask)

This one's a little bit personal and more than a little self-involved, so if you're just here for the baseball you might want to come back tomorrow.

I got news Saturday that Baseball Prospectus 2007 hit (or will hit, I've never quite figured out how this works) #9 on the New York Times Bestseller list, in the "Paperback Advice" section, as of March 25. Apparently, this reflects how well the book sold through March 10. Saturday was March 17, by the way. Confused? Me, too!

More certain (but certainly not less confusing) is that this means that all the authors of BP2K7 (as we like to call it) are best-selling authors. Including me. This was unexpected (apparently, this is Baseball Prospectus's best-ever showing), and it came on the tail of some big changes in my life.

So the last few weeks, I've been dealing with the ups and downs of being a BP author. On the up side, at the end of February, I was interviewed for Japanese television, a story about the Yanks/Red Sox rivalry and Daisuke Matsuzaka. The opportunity was sent my way by BP colleague Neil deMause. It was pretty cool: the crew came to my home, and did a detailed interview in which I talked about the Yanks' and Sox's finances and payroll advantage, explained the luxury tax, and gave the Yanks an extremely slight edge going into the season. Then they asked me for action shots of me at my computer, which you can see above. Sadly, the interview will only air in Japan; if I'm able to get my hands on the footage, I'll be sure to share. But it was weird being interviewed on TV, particularly since they were interviewing me...and Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe.

That's a weird feeling. Ryan's been one of the top sports writers in the country since I was in high school, if not earlier. How'd I become the next name they pick out of the hat?

On the down side of all this, came the news just after BP was released that four players were missing from the book--and two of them were from my chapter, including the one that people would be most likely to miss, Seattle third baseman Adrian Beltre. Now, as one of my editors, Christina Kahrl, made clear on BP's Unfiltered Blog, if wasn't that we forgot about Beltre or anything. The team working on BP2K7 had a really cool web-based interface that we used to submit and edit our work, rather than emailing dozens of Word files to each other. From what I understand, something went wrong in that interface, causing the entries on Beltre, Wladimir Balentien, Bob Wickman, and Hernan Iribarren (how's that for a bizarre random sampling of players?) to get lost on their way to the publisher, and so none of those guys made it into the book.

These things happen. The first Baseball Prospectus annual, back in 1996, was missing an entire team, the Cardinals. As was the case back then, we're trying to make the inconvenience up to people--this time, by making all the information from the entry, plus quite a bit more, available to the public by making all four players' PECOTA cards available to the public for free (you can click on any of the player names above to see what those PECOTA cards look like, and the comments that should have been in this year's annual). Still, it sucks because a) a bit of work, by myself and others, went into those comments, and it sucks that they didn't get into print, and b) there are plenty of people who will buy the annual but never see Christina's Unfiltered post, or know that they could get the missing entries online. To all those people, I am very deeply sorry.

Even without Beltre (and Balentien), it's still a great book, and I'm still proud of the Seattle chapter, which is where I made my contribution.

Still, I'd only just gotten over the waves of nausea that the missing players caused me, when another hubub erupted, having to do with my chapter. This one was simultaneously more annoying and far less substantial. Someone took one of the players comments as a personal insult against one of his friends, and decided to make a giant public stink about it. The post about this no longer exists, but the Baseball Think Factory thread on that post can be found here, and another post from the same website giving the denouement of the whole affair can be found here. All in all, I guess the firestorm took maybe six or seven hours one afternoon and evening. It didn't help that I got to the party late, by which time there were many, many comments at both the site in question and at BTF, accusing me and my colleagues of all manner of ugly and scurrilous conduct.

The worst part is, people took great umbrage over the fact that the person who wrote the comment in question (me) was anonymous, as a result of BP's policy that team chapters and player comments are written by the Baseball Prospectus Team as opposed to any particular author. To understand why that policy makes sense, you have to understand how the book writing process works. There are chapter authors, each responsible for writing the team essay and a number of player comments. Each author decides--with the able assistance of BP's resident prospect expert, Kevin Goldstein--which players he'll write about, and who will get a full comment or just a single-sentence Lineout comment. Kevin will also give input on the minor leaguers, ranging from the incredibly detailed to a simple "big fastball, no command."

Then it's off to deal with the blank page, but even that isn't a solitary process. Writers have the backup of BP's technical staff and internal mailing list, where they make requests for statistical queries, often drawing commentary and suggestions from other members of mailing list. By the time all's said and done, the research is collaborative enough that if you had to attribute all the individual contributions, something like "based on research by Ben Murphy with suggestions from Keith Woolner, and a verbal smackdown about historical context from Jim Baker..." by the time you got through with all the shoutouts, you wouldn't have much wordcount left to actually say anything.

Once all the research is done there's the writing, and after the writing, our editors get their thing on. Sometimes their influence is relatively small, just covering up the fact that the writer doesn't know when one should use "that" as opposed to "which", or that he doesn't have any idea about the proper use of the semicolon. In other situations, they're streamlining the text, making it more readable, adding jokes, and trying to make the whole thing read less like a dozen different authors writing in their own voices, and more like a chorus singing in a single key. Sometimes the verbal surgery they perform is radical--in one 120-word player comment I submitted, the editors kept only two of my words, re-writing everything else. Those words? "Hamster wheel."

So the point is, it takes a village to write a player comment.

This comes into play in the weird internet argument I was talking about before. The problem was, I wrote a comment about longtime Mariner Raul Ibanez, in which I looked back at BP's 2004 comment about Ibanez, in which the Mariners' signing Ibanez away from the Kansas City Royals was labeled a waste of money, and pointed out that the previous comment had turned out completely wrong: Ibanez stopped his decline, started playing like a completely different person, and was a bargain over the course of his contract. At the end of this, my editors appended, for humorous purposes "...the guy who made that comment isn't with us anymore."

Someone assumed that this last part was a dig at former BP author Derek Zumsteg, who did the Mariners chapter for several years, including 2004. The only problem with this theory was, well, that the Ibanez comment in 2004 wasn't in the Mariners chapter--it was in the Kansas City Royals chapter, which was written by someone else. I knew that when I wrote the comment (although I'll admit that I forgot for a while in the post-accusation shock period; I thought the guy who'd accused me of being a miserable person was right, and that my memory was wrong). I have absolutely no grudges against either Zumsteg or the person who actually wrote the comment (to the contrary, they're two of my favorite writers). The idea wasn't to get a dig in on anyone, it was to take accountability for a prediction that turned out wrong--one that lots and lots of people, and not just at Baseball Prospectus, shared.

Anyway, all of this comes up because as of today, I'm outed from my Seattle chapter anonymity. I did a Baseball Prospectus Radio spot for today previewing the Mariners' season--ironically, in connection with a piece Zumsteg wrote for Baseball Prospectus's Hope and Faith series. With any luck, my own Hope and Faith entry--on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays--will be up on the site later this week. On Thursday night, I'll be at Columbia University and on Saturday afternoon I'll be at the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair, New Jersey, signing copies of Baseball Prospectus 2007 and talking baseball (details can be found on BP's events page). Feel free to come by and have your book signed. If you've happened on a copy of Bombers Broadside 2007, I'll gladly sign that, also.

Heck, if you bring a printout of the Adrian Beltre or Wladimir Balentien PECOTA cards, I'll sign those, too.

[UPDATE: fixed typo]

Working Overtime for Carl Pavano

The Yanks lost their game with the Phillies in Clearwater today, 3-2. Andy Pettitte pitched the first five innings, allowing only two hits and netting four Ks, and leaving with a 1-0 lead. Then Can't Pitch Carl Pavano took over. The Phils tied it in the sixth, the Yanks took the lead back in the top of the seventh, and then the Phils broke it open in the bottom of the frame, scoring twice to get the lead.

Can't Play Carl actually didn't look that bad. His fastball topped out at 89 MPH, but had good movement. His breaking ball had good action, but wasn't terribly sharp. Pavano was victimized by some bad defense, including some gawdawful work by Andy Phillips at the hot corner.

Although the box score linked above doesn't show it, Pavano actually pitched 3 1/3 innings yesterday. The plan was to get Pettitte five innings of work, and Pavano four innings, so as to keep both men on pace to start the season in the rotation. To make sure Pavano got his work in, Joe Torre made an unusual request of the Phillies--that if they were ahead in the game after the top of the ninth, they should send their batters up against Pavano in the bottom of the inning, even though the game was over.

So when Ryan Madson pitched a scoreless ninth to end the exhibition game, the Phils came out on to the field to congratulate each other, the crowd let out a big cheer over having bested the infamous Yankees...and then the Phils players remembered the arrangement and hustled off the field so that Pavano could take the mound again. Pavano then registered an out before hitting a batter and allowing a fly ball which Kevin Thompson dropped in the outfield. By then Torre and Ron Guidry had seen enough of Can't Play Carl, and indicated to Phils manager Charlie Manuel that the game was over...again.

***

I don't mean to get all Paul Lukas on you, but he Spring Training caps the teams have been given this year are outright stupid. In their continuing quest to diddle with the unis just enough that people who already have plenty of their favorite team's gear will buy some more, the manufacturer (New Era?) added a stripe over where the ears would go on the cap for Spring Training. That's it--not a new color, new logo, new design, just a dumbol' stripe. This is like the weird pixelated dots that Nike added to the sleeves of baseball undershirts. These stupid embellishments have no functional purpose, no aesthetic purpose, only a marketing purpose. "Sure, you have a cap, but you don't have a cap with a white swoosh over your ear, do ya?"

Here's hoping that what's worn in Spring Training stays in Spring Training.

Notes from a Backlog of Newspapers

* I missed his appearance tonight, but Kei Igawa's walkitudinous ways are a bit scary. More interesting was watching Tyler Clippard throw a few innings after ol' Dr. Kei exhausted his pitch count with four walks and five strikeouts in three scoreless innings. Clippard allowed one run in two and a third pitched, the run coming on a solo shot Chipper Jones absolutely nuked over the rightfield fence. The homer aside, Clippard looked impressive, throwing his 91 MPH heat up and over the plate as if he were Roger Clemens, and featuring a nice changeup (well, nice changeups aside from the one Chipper hit halfway to Miami).

* Clippard was demoted after the game, which is less a reflection of his performance than a reflection that there are only two weeks of Grapefruit action left, and the Yanks have a ton of righthanded pitchers vying for only a couple of slots. With Jeff Karstens tossing zeroes, there was simply no room for Clippard in the inn.

* A-Rod talks to the New York media so much, I actually worry about his health and safety. Alex should heed the Errol Morris axiom, "Let someone talk for long enough, and eventually they'll hang themselves." He's said he sucked. He's talked about his relationship with Jeter, or lack thereof. Now he's saying that it's "Do or die." Whatever. It's all so much noise.

I mean, we all get the points that Rodriguez is trying to make: 1) he's not forswearing his right to opt out of his contract after this season (he'd be an absolute and total sucker to do so) and 2) just because he's keeping his option(s) open, doesn't mean he doesn't want to stay in New York, with the Yankees. Everything else he says is a reiteration, repetition, or rephrasing of those two points, with a few variations. Enough, already!

* Sadly, Richard Jeni made his own health and safety a moot issue, committing suicide last week. Jeni was one of my favorite standups of the late 80s and 90s, I'll miss him for that. Another one of my favorites from that era, Elayne Boosler, remembers him as a friend in the Huffington Post; Scott Long, whose act I've never seen, but whose blog I read regularly, has a much less sentimental take (at some point in the comments section, it kinda becomes Please Explain: Suicide).

* So far, the biggest non-A-Rod stirs at Yankee Camp happened because Roger Clemens decided to attend a game--as a spectator, mind you--and because Carl Pavano's girlfriend had an unspecified health situation. I think that can speak for itself.

* Best at bat of the spring: Jose Tabata's opposite field dinger on Sunday. Just a really nice flash of strength, to give us something to think about while we wait for him to be ready for the Show.

* Pete Rose used to say he never bet on baseball. Then he admitted he bet on baseball. Now he claims he bet on the Reds, every day. I suppose it's a form of justice that by now Rose has told so many lies (and the truth is so underwhelming) that no one really gives a damn anymore. Used to be that every year, around HoF election time, a dedicated and noisy group would gnash their teeth about the big injustice being done to the Hit King. Haven't really heard a peep from that crowd since Rose's book came out a couple of years ago (and as an added bonus, they seem to have taken the "Free Shoeless Joe!" lobby down with them).

Over the next few years, I think what we'll get from Rose is a series of increasingly desperate confessions in the hope that one of them will finally trigger the American public's forgiveness, until eventually he's confessing to stuff like the Kennedy assassination, the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown, and fixing Ali-Liston II. Not that anyone will care about that, either.

* The wonderful, synergistic relationship between MLB and Viagra appears to be over, which I think is just the kind of victory over artificial performance enhancers that the league needs. This relationship was doomed from the beginning, given that MLB's first Viagra pitchman was Raffy Palmeiro.

Movie Reviews: Breach, The Host

Been a while since I posted any movie thoughts here, so here's a couple of highly recommended movies I've seen recently:

Breach -- This is the fictionalized account of the Robert Hanssen case. Hansen was an FBI counterintelligence expert who spent almost 20 years spying on the US for the Russians. Breach covers only the very end of that period, focusing on the events leading up to Hanssen's capture, particularly the role played by Eric O'Neill, an FBI trainee who went undercover as Hansen's assistant.

Like Training Day or The Last King of Scotland, this movie features a younger actor protagonist (Ryan Phillippe as O'Neill) who gets the most screen time, but the focus is really on the veteran actor/antagonist (Chris Cooper, in the role of Hanssen) with whom the younger character finds himself partnered. Cooper, biting deep into the meaty role of the ultra-patriotic, extremely religious, traitor, gives a performance that's as Oscar-worthy as Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker's performances in those other films. What's special about Cooper's performance here is the unrelenting intensity he brings to each scene. His Hanssen is a man who never lets down his guard, and never stops thinking. He doesn't look at things and people, he scrutinizes them. To Cooper's (and writer/director Billy Ray's) credit, no effort is made to explain Hanssen's behavior or put him in a sympathetic light. Cooper just lays the man, with all his contradictions and oddities, out on the screen.

Based on the trailer, it was expected that Phillippe (best known, until recently, as Mr. Reese Witherspoon) would get blown off the screen by Cooper's performance. Amazingly, Phillippe does a better job of hanging in there than his counterparts did in Training Day or Last King of Scotland (and that's no insult to James McAvoy and Ethan Hawke, both of whom are actors I really like). As O'Neill, Phillippe uses his pretty boy looks and lightweight demeanor to inhabit a role that requires everyone, including Hanssen, to underestimate him. Phillippe's line readings, which have always sounded slightly artificial in his other roles, are effective in the role of a relatively ordinary man called on to pull off a huge deception. Overall, the confrontations between Cooper and Phillippe make for a very satisfying movie.

The Host -- Probably the best horror movie I've seen since 28 Days Later, the Host is a Korean import which draws some of its inspiration from a real-life incident in which a U.S. army coroner ordered several gallons of toxic formaldehyde to be disposed of using a normal sink in the U.S. military base near Seoul. In director Joon-ho Bong's imagination (he co-wrote the script, also), this leads directly to a huge mutant creature, looking like a cross between Geiko gecko and the giant worms from Tremors, coming out of the waters of the Han River with a surly attitude and a taste for human flesh.

The action centers on the dysfunctional Park family, who own a riverside food stand. Hyun-Seo, a 12 year old schoolgirl, is the only member of the family who really seems to have her act together. Her father, Gang-du, is a dyed-blond layabout whose main gift seems to be an ability to fall asleep at will. Her uncle, the first college graduate in the family, is unemployed and has an alcohol problem. Her aunt, a competitive archer, seems like an achiever, but her perfectionism keeps her from being a success. The patriarch of the clan raised Gang-du and his siblings, so he's immediately suspect.

When the monster from the river drags Hyun Seo back to its lair, the Park clan doesn't quite pile into a yellow VW bus, but they do embark on a rescue mission while dodging cops, shady health officials who want to keep them in quarantine, and, of course, their surly feelings toward each other. Horror/Comedy is a hard genre to pull off, because most films that try for it wind up simply as limp comedies, which don't function as horror films at all. The Host keeps up the suspense while mining some unexpected situations (such as a scene at wall of remembrance for the victims of the monster's attack) for laughs. The secret ingredient here is a lack of sentimentality reminiscent of the best of Peanuts. No matter how bad the Park family's situation is, or how badly its members screw up, we're never invited to pity them. Not even when they're being chased by a giant amphibian lizard.

A Week of Grapefruit League

Sorry for the delays. I've been flagged for neglect of blog, but there's been a lot of peripheral stuff going on that merits its own post.

In the meanwhile, we've had baseball. What passes for it, anyway, in Spring Training. I'm happy that baseball's back, but Spring Training has a limited appeal. Wins and losses don't matter; the pace is, to put it bluntly, lazy; the play is often sloppy. I have never been to Spring Training in person, and I've often wondered if being in the ballpark would make a difference here. Still, what Spring Training action really allows you to do is get an introduction to all the new guys on your ballclub--be they prospects, people acquired in trade, whatever. I've gotten to watch parts of a number of the Yanks' Grapefruit games, and here are a few first impressions of pitchers:

Phil Hughes -- Not to rip off Larry Mahnken, but from time to time I've caught myself calling Hughes "the Precious." Hughes' debut last Thursday was hardly the stuff that dreams are made of--his control was off, and the curve wasn't as sharp as we've been told--but it was enough to make you daydream him into pinstripes, rather than the blue pullovers they use in Spring Training. On Tuesday--a game I didn't get to see--he pitched two clean innings. Hughes was just named Baseball America's #4 prospect in baseball (behind Daisuke Matsuzaka, Alex Gordon, and Delmon Young); John Sickels did one his "crystal ball" projections on Hughes, which put Hughes at roughly the same career numbers as David Cone.

I think we'd take that :)

Kei Igawa -- Erratic first start, striking out three and walking three in an inning-plus on Monday. Stuff was pretty much the same as in his exhibition start against the major league All-Stars; lots of working up in the zone with the fastball, nice breaking pitch. In the broadcast, they repeated the meme that he's a thinner David Wells, and I don't see it. Wells works very differently--off-hand, I'd say he establishes the big overhand curve more than Igawa does his own three-quarters breaking pitch--and Boomer has a lot more precision with his pitches than we've seen from Igawa, yet.

Jeff Kennard -- Not too excited about him, on Monday he came in in relief of Igawa and showed a fairly straight fastball and poor command. It'd be nice to see him under better circumstances, rather than coming in with a man on--but those are the kind of circumstances he'd likely face if he makes it to the Show this season.

Steven Jackson -- Also not impressive. Kept the ball on the ground, but looked fairly generic overall. He'll have to do a lot to stand out in the large corps of young righthanded pitchers the Yanks have on the verge of the majors.

Chris Britton -- Looks like a young Bob Wickman--y'know, before the Wick started hitting those all-you-can eat buffets. Nice movement on his fastball, good slider, thought I saw a changeup in there.

Luis Vizcaino -- I know I've seen this guy pitch elsewhere, but honest, I can't remember him. Interesting arm angle, definitely knows how to pitch, but the stuff didn't look too amazing. People keep talking about the backup catcher battle (a yawner in which I favor Todd Pratt over Wil Nieves and Raul Chaves) and the backup/platoon 1st base...I don't know if you can even call this a fight, given that Andy Phillips now lags Josh Phelps by a week. The real interesting fight of this camp is that the Yanks have about ten relievers in camp who could break camp, and can take eight, max (man, are 13-man bullpens depressing...) A biggish trade is going to have to happen (or a convenient DL stay) because not all these guys can go north with the big team. Again, this topic probably deserves a post of its own down the line.

One Time, At Band Camp...

Can't Play Carl Pavano is having tests done, after a line drive hit him on the foot. As Neil over at Baseball Prospectus put it recently, le plus ca change...

Bobby Abreu is out a few weeks with a strained oblique muscle. Less worried about this than about Can't Play Carl--at least Abreu got injured in early, early Spring Training, when you can afford to miss some time. The biggest news to come out of this is that no, Abreu missing a couple of weeks doesn't mean that Bernie Williams is suddenly going to Spring Training.

A couple of stories about relievers on the outside looking in: Pete Abraham on Ron Villone, and Tyler Kepner on Colter Bean. The one on Bean is not quite heartbreaking, but it's a sobering look at the lives that many minor leaguers lead. The key quote in the Villone story comes from Joe Torre, "You're sorry it happened but we had nowhere to go. He had his hand up all the time. We were up against it."

It's a shame that neither Villone or Bean could really be considered "young" pitchers, else they could just go to Mike Mussina for help with the problems that ail them.

Getting back to Torre, he could have a big day on Tuesday, as it's time once again for the Veteran's Committee to decide on players who didn't make the Hall of Fame through the BWAA, and on Managers, Executives, and Umpires. I have my doubts that anyone will be getting good news from the Vets' committee, given its current composition. The last time they gave this a try, no one was voted in, and the Committee isn't formed in such a way that the members really feel they have a mandate to put people in the Hall.

If I had a vote--off the top of my head--Ron Santo and Joe Torre would be going to Cooperstown, as would Marvin Miller. I wouldn't be too weirded out if Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog, or Dick Williams made it onto my ballot, although I'll admit I haven't studied up on the execs and umps enough to have a refined opinion on the subject. But Santo's a top 10 all-time third baseman; Torre should be in on his combined record as a player and manager. And Marvin Miller...let's just say that if a Veterans Committee composed primarily of ex-players doesn't put Miller in the Hall, those players are the most ungrateful cretins in the history of the game. What do you guys think?

Prospectus: Hughes 2nd Best Prospect in Baseball

Yeah, I've blown the top story with my headline, but Baseball Prospectus has released its yearly top prospects list, this time a top 100, and things look pretty good for the Yankees. Phil Hughes comes in second behind Royals hitting machine Alex Gordon and ahead of last year's #1 the Devil Rays' Delmon Young. This is the highest ranking by a Yankee since Nick Johnson was Prospectus's top prospect in 2000, and probably the highest ranking since the Little Unit, Ryan Anderson, taught Mariners fans the meaning of TINSTAAPP after topping the 2001 rankings.

Further on down the line, Jose Tabata checks in at #22 on the rankings, followed by Joba Chamberlain at #56, Humberto Sanchez at #65, Dellin Betances at #92, and Tyler Clippard as an honorable mention. Before you get too excited by the number of players from the Yanks that made the list, remember that BP doubled its top prospects rankings this year, from 50 to 100, only a couple of years after moving up from their traditional top 40. Chamberlain would have been an honorable mention, at best, under last year's system, and Sanchez, Betances, and Clippard wouldn't have been mentioned at all; so this still definitely ranks behind the 2000 prospects list, when Johnson was #1, D'Angelo Jimenez #16, and Alfonso Soriano #33.

[ASIDE: Yep, there was a time--particularly, but not exclusively, before he broke his neck, that we liked Jimenez more than Soriano. And I wonder, had Prospectus and all the other prospect hounds known that Sori was two years older than he claimed, if he would've ranked anywhere at all. Fast forward to February, 2007, and Johnson's an above-average, but not elite, first baseman, Jimenez is a non-roster invitee, and Soriano's sitting on a $136 million contract. None of them are Yankees. The world's a funny place.]

One of the reasons that the BP list has expanded is because it's now in the capable hands of Kevin Goldstein, who has really improved BP's prospects coverage. Still, as cool as Kevin is and as much fun as it's been working with him is, I kind of miss the old days of the Prospectus Prospects roundtables, where the whole gang would put their two bits in concerning the prospects lists, often leading to some interesting tangents and vicious battle royales.

****

Elsewhere in Yankeedom, not much is happening. Well, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are talking about their relationship, which gives you an idea of the level of news we're talking about. I'd like to thank the Metropolitan area news corps for treating us to a homoerotic undertone in their coverage. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you. Just it doesn't have much to do with baseball.

Perhaps of marginally higher significance, Carl Pavano recently had to sit out with "heavy legs." It's gonna be a an up-and-down ride with Can't Play Carl this season, if we're lucky. Otherwise, like last season, it will simply be a down-and-down ride. Pavano's already had his own relationship subplot this pre-season with Mike Mussina. Any second now, I expect to see the headline "Pavano: Pinstripes Make My Butt Look Big."

Um, Yeah, Pitchers and Catchers

Every year we get excited for Spring Training--for pitchers and catchers to report to the team's Spring strongholds to start getting . Then all you get for the first two or three weeks is pictures of guys stretching, and folks writing either a) human interest stories, b) stories about people's visa problems or other lateness getting to camp, c) "he's in the best shape of his career" stories, usually aimed at veterans who are past their prime, or d) stories about folks wanting extensions on their contracts.

I'm probably spoiled, from having been at the Caribbean Series last week, but the idea of people stretching didn't get me too psyched up after a week of catching a doubleheader per day of real baseball action. Here's what's happened over the past few days in Yankeeland:

The Dude Abides -- Bernie Williams made the predicted choice of not accepting a minor league contract from the Yanks. Bernie Baseball will instead hang around the sidelines waiting for the Yanks to come to their senses, which, y'know, they probably won't do, absent an injury during the springtime. This is the way that things end; this is the way they ended with Don Mattingly, who was even more revered by the Bombers Faithful than Bernie was. I could say that I hope Bernie gets his chance this season, except I won't, because that would mean something went wrong. Does that make any sense?

Sandman Off to Never-Never Land? -- Mariano Rivera announced that he will explore free agency if the Yanks don't sign him to an extension. This is a non-story, other than for its tone: yeah, that's the way it works. Either you get a contract extension, or you become a free agent. It's like saying "If you don't get me a chair, I'll have to stand."

I'm pretty sure that Mariano was saying similar dark things about free agency three years ago, prior to signing his current contract. The big difference this year is that he's seen how Williams--a longtime teammate who's his age--has been treated by the organization. So maybe this time the negotiations will have a bit more edge to them. But I can't imagine that the Yanks don't sign Rivera, not unless his arm's not healthy.

Ron Villone Isn't Insulted by a Minor League Deal -- Villone gets a minor league contract, reportedly an incentive-laden $1.5 million deal if he makes the team. It seems reasonable to give Villone a shot to prove that he's more like the good pitcher from the first half of last season, than the miserable wretch he turned into after Torre pitched his arm off in June and July. Not a lot of risk, and there could be some reward, there.

Heir Apparent Busted -- Steve Swindal--George Steinbrenner's son-in-law, who's the managing general partner of the Yankees--took a DUI arrest early Thursday morning in St. Petersburg, Florida. This news actually has me more worried than Mariano's threats, since Swindal has reportedly been a voice of reason behind the scenes ever since Steinbrenner designated that he was the person who would exercise control of the Franchise after the Boss is gone. Supposedly, it was Swindal who argued for giving Brian Cashman greater authority after the 2005 season and for retaining Joe Torre after the Yanks' early exit in 2006.

If Swindal's position is undermined by this arrest, things could backslide, with the "Tampa Baseball Men" again vying for prominence in the organization. Steinbrenner has been known to be morally outraged, short term, by people's substance abuse problems, before turning into a big softy and giving them nearly limitless chances to redeem themselves. Hopefully, Swindal does whatever he needs to do to make things right, as quickly as possible.

Moose Calls Out Pavano -- Welcome to Paraphrase Theater. Let's give this a try. Carl: "I'm fine with all my teammates." Moose: "You'll be fine with us when you make 30 good starts in the Show, meat." Anybody want to argue with that?

Additional Odds and Ends:

Frank Torre, who previously had a heart transplant, is now waiting on a kidney transplant. Here's our best wishes to Frank on a swift and successful surgery. I remember when he had the heart transplant, they held a press conference, one of the reporters asked if they would be able to speak to the donor. The doctor, who I seem to recall had an accent, said "You must be one of the sports press, yes?" At least, when Frank gets his kidney, there's a possibility the beat writers will have someone to talk to.

The Yanks will wear black armbands this season to honor Corey Lidle. One of the stranger moments working on Baseball Prospectus 2007 was seeing an early draft of the PECOTAs that included a projection for Lidle.

While I was away, John Sickels wrote a prospect evaluation entry about Tyler Clippard. Check it out.

For any of you who are interested, here's the rest of my Caribbean Series Saga that I didn't link last week: Day Four, Day Five, Day Six and -- for the commenter who wanted to see them -- we got photos. Just, sadly, no pics of the Jailbait Dancers.

The A-Rod Kobayashi Maru

Yeah, that's a title that calls me out as a nerd, but what can we do? One of the things that's happened during my absence is that Alex Rodriguez started touring behind his children's book, Out of the Ballpark. It appears that one book tour appearance was disrupted by Rodriguez's (or his publisher's) public relations people, when the event was swamped by sports press intent on asking Rodriguez about the out-clause in his contract, rather than about his book. According to Mike Lupica, this led to Rodriguez's Today Show appearance being canceled, when the same media people wanted to make contract talk off-limits for his promotional appearance there.

Now, this type of gaffe is what we've come to expect from Rodriguez, whose public relations people should not only be fired, but exiled to other countries. But the guy shoots himself in the foot. Instead of coming up with a simple, neutral answer to the question (like "I'm happy in New York and happy with my contract. But I'm not going to make decisions a year in advance, just the same way that I wouldn't expect the Yankees to exercise a contract option until it's time for them to do so") his people are trying to preempt the questions, which makes him look like a wimp who can't deal with pressure.

That's without mentioning the book itself, which sounds like the punch line to a dozen meanspirited sportswriter jokes. Here's the publisher's description:

Before he hit 400 home runs...
Before he was named
American League MVP...
Before he was AROD to
millions of fans...
He was Alex.

Just a kid who wanted to play baseball more than anything else in the world.

Baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez has drawn on his own childhood experiences to create this exciting picture book. It's the story of a boy named Alex who knows what it's like to swing at a wild pitch or have a ball bounce right between his legs. Alex is determined not to let his mistakes set him back—even if it means getting up at the crack of dawn to work on his hitting and fielding before school each day!

Full of the spirit of determination and joy in the game that put AROD in a league of his own, Out of the Ballpark is a gift from a great sports hero to every young player who dreams of becoming a star.

Dude, we keep trying to help you, but you keep leaving yourself wide open...

Getting back to the nerdriffic title of this piece, in Star Trek (specifically, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, one of my favorite movies ever) the Kobayashi Maru scenario was a simulation given to trainees, in which the trainee faced superior enemy forces there was no way to beat. The idea was to see how they handled losing. Notionally, Alex Rodriguez has experience losing--the ALCS in 2004, the ALDS the last two years, last-place finishes with the Rangers. But his brand of "losing" usually carries more accomplishment than even the best of "winners"--even in an "off" season of 2006, he still performed like a star player.

Now, the twist that Rodriguez's relationship with the media has taken shows us that he's facing the No-Win Scenario. Up until now, the assumption was that all it would take for Rodriguez to be accepted in New York would be for him to get hot for a few weeks in October. Now, even if Rodriguez is the World Series MVP, the story will be that he's a greedy player, who only "turned it on" when there was a payday on the line. The champagne won't be dry in his hair before he gets the first question about his contract's out clause.

What's worse, let's say that Rodriguez doesn't exercise his out clause after this season. He has similar rights after 2008 and 2009. As always, I wish Alex the best, but I'm not holding out too much hope, here.

Where On Earth Are You?

Well, if you think things have been a little quiet around here, it's because since late last week I've been working press at the Caribbean World Series, in Puerto Rico. You can see (and, to my chagrin, hear) the fruit of my labors at Baseball Prospectus. Links follow:

The Return of Game of the Week (Unfiltered--free)

Caribbean Series Round Robin Preview (BP--pay article)

BP Radio February 2, Caribbean Series

Caribbean Series Day One -- (BP--free)

Caribbean Series Programming Notes (Unfiltered)

Caribbean Series Day Three -- (BP--pay)

Caribbean Question of the Day -- (Unfiltered)


Hopefully, I'll have some cool pictures to post soon. In the comments section, please tell me: what's going on in baseball in New York?

Pinstriped Prospect Top 10s

Baseball Prospectus's Kevin Goldstein has released his top 10 Yankee prospects list for 2007, joining Baseball America and John Sickels, the other major players in the prospects game. Here are the lists, in reverse chronological order of release (in BP and BA, the lists are available to the public, but the articles detailing the choices are pay articles):

Baseball Prospectus (Kevin Goldstein, January 28, 2007):

Excellent Prospects
1. Philip Hughes, rhp
2. Jose Tabata, rf
Very Good Prospects
3. Joba Chamberlain, rhp
4. Humberto Sanchez, rhp
5. Dellin Betances, rhp
Good Prospects
6. Kevin Whelan, rhp
Average Prospects
7. Tyler Clippard, rhp
8. J. Brent Cox, rhp
9. Ian Kennedy, rhp
10. Alberto Gonzalez, ss


Minor League Ball (John Sickels, January 7, 2007)

1. Phil Hughes, RHP, Grade A
   
2. Jose Tabata, OF, Grade B+
   
3. Humberto Sanchez, RHP, Grade B+
   
4. Joba Chamberlain, RHP, B
   
5. Tyler Clippard, RHP, B
   
6. Dellin Betances, RHP, B
   
7. J. Brent Cox, RHP, B
   
8. George Kontos, RHP, B-
   
9. Christian Garcia, RHP, B-
   
10. Ian Kennedy, RHP, B-

Baseball America (John Manuel, November 8, 2007)

1.	Philip Hughes, rhp
2.	Jose Tabata, of
3.	Dellin Betances, rhp
4.	Joba Chamberlain, rhp
5.	Ian Kennedy, rhp
6.	Chris Garcia, rhp
7.	Tyler Clippard, rhp
8.	J. Brent Cox, rhp
9.	Mark Melancon, rhp
10.	Brett Gardner, of

All three lists agree on the Yankees' top two prospects, Phil Hughes and Jose Tabata, with just about everyone in agreement that Hughes is one of the very top prospects in baseball. The lists would likely agree on Humberto Sanchez as one of the Yanks' top four prospects if Baseball America had gone to press after the Sheffield trade, rather than before. Another side effect of BA's early press date (and the fact that they're a print publication) is that starter Christian Garcia and reliever Mark Malencon are on their list, but missing from the two others--BA's list was posted about a week after Malencon had Tommy John surgery and a month before Garcia had a TJ of his own, which will set both prospects back a year or more in their development.

What everyone agrees on, other than the top two, is that the Yanks' system is stronger than in previous years--last year, Sickels only gave out three grades over B-, this year six prospects made it--and that the organization's strength is righthanded pitching. The only consensus top ten position prospect is Tabata. Outfielder Brett Gardner is highly featured on all three lists (he's #16 on Sickels and an honorable mention for Goldstein), and Alberto Gonzalez, the shortstop from the Randy Johnson trade, also gets some play (#15 on Sickels). Beyond that, the pickings are slim--guys like Eric Duncan, Austin Jackson, Marcos Vechionacci, and Bronson Sardinha aren't getting the prospect hounds terribly excited anymore.

Not-So Secret Projects

Here are a couple of projects that I'm very proud to have been working on this winter, which I'm proud to finally be able to announce:

BP 2K7

The 12th edition of the classic baseball annual is coming February 2007.

Pre-order for only $13.57

Yes, I've got a chapter in the classic baseball annual. Since they're not bylined, I can't tell you which one (insert I'd-tell-you-but-I'd-have-to-kill-you joke here).

Bombers Broadside 2007

This one's new to the dance, it's a Yankees-only baseball annual, and I've got two pieces in it, one on the aging of the Yanks lineup and pitching, and another, shorter piece on Alex Rodriguez. More on this as it becomes available...

Congrats, Willie!

The big news around town this morning, baseball-wise, is ex-Yank Willie Randolph's three year , $5.65 MM extension with the Mets. The extension, which tears up the last year of the existing three year deal Randolph struck with the Mets after the '04 season (worth $700,000) will keep Willie in blue and orange through the '09 season, with a club option for 2010.

One thing I didn't realize, until Mike Lupica brought it up in his column on Randolph's extension, is that this contract calls on Willie to make more per year than he ever made in his playing career. I actually didn't believe that at first--after all, Randolph was a star player in New York for all those years, and he never made $2 million in a season? But checking on his Baseball-Reference page, the most money Willie made as a player was $1.06 million in 1986. If that option for 2010 gets picked up, Randolph could wind up making more as a manager than he did in his entire playing career.

So, despite the fact that he'll be earning the big money as a member of the Mets organization, we're happy for Willie on a well-deserved payday.

***

In other notes, Robinson Cano has reportedly changed his number, from 22 to 24, so that #22 will be available for Roger Clemens. Thank heavens Cano doesn't appear to be too superstitious, because he's had a darn good start to his career wearing 22. As for Clemens, I'd still be surprised if he's not pitching in Houston this summer, but at least the club is doing all the small things to make him know he'd be welcome. In another purely symbolic move, earlier in the month the Yanks signed Jeff Nelson to a minor league contract, so that he could retire as a Yankee. Not really sure how that works, but if it makes him happy, I'm happy for him.

Speaking of retirement, the big question has been, what to do about Bernie Williams, now that he's the odd man out on the Yankees' roster? Jorge Posada wants Bernie Baseball to return, which isn't surprising since the two boricuas are close, but the Yanks seem determined to make a go of things with only four outfielders for 2007: Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and Melky Cabrera. With the team carrying three firstbase/DH types--Jason Giambi, Josh Phelps, and Doug Mientkiewicz--the best chance of Bernie remaining a Yankee would be to accept a Spring Training non-roster invite, and hope for an injury or that he outperforms one of the fellows above. It would improve Bernie's chances if he'd spend the off-season getting familiar with a first baseman's mitt, which there is no indication that he's done or plans to do.

The other option is the old "I'll be in shape in case they need me" non-retirement solution, where Bernie signs with nobody, but waits around in case the Yanks come to their senses. That latter option--raised by Posada in the Newsday link above--just about never works out. In Bernie's case, in particular, it seems far-fetched. He's never been a quick starter--historically, April is his worst month with the bat by far--and that's with a full Spring Training under his belt. Now, say the Yanks have a big injury in June, or Dougie Spellingerror isn't hitting his weight in mid-May, or Phelps once again has trouble hitting in a job-sharing situation--how quickly could Williams be ready to help the team, if he's just been at home, staying in shape? Usually, when the Yanks need help, they need it immediately--would the ballclub really wait around for Bernie to go to extended Spring Training, then get some minor league games in as prep, before making the roster?

Hope as we might, I think that you have to call this what it is, which is the end of the road for the Yanks and Bernie. Baseball breakups sometimes happen quietly, not with a big messy fight, but with the club quietly giving your job to someone else and moving on. Bernie should ask Don Mattingly, whose career ended a lot like this after the 1995 season--the Yanks picked up Tino Martinez (along with the aforementioned Jeff Nelson) in the off-season, and the Hitman was stuck between retiring in the only baseball uniform he'd ever known, or scratching out employment elsewhere. Sometimes, when Mattingly's interviewed, you get the feeling he wishes he'd taken a different path at the end of his career.

Monday Yankee Links

A few links of interest to Yankee fans:

From John Sickels' website, the updated list of the Yankees' top twenty prospects does a great job illustrating what effects this winter's trading have had on the organization's depth. For comparison, you can check out the original list, which happened before the Sheffield and Johnson trades. Speaking of the Johnson trade, Sickels also posted his player comments for the three prospects the Yankees picked up in that deal.

Bob Nightengale in USA Today has a good bit on Cashman's strategy for the organization--it's the last point on his list, toward the bottom of the column (Hat Tip to Bronx Banter). My BP colleague, Dayn Perry, isn't as impressed with Cashman, ranking him 11th among the 30 current major league GMs. Pete Abraham, who also writes the invaluable LoHud Yankees Blog (yeah, it's past time to update that blogrol...), writes in the Journal News that Cashman's a happier fellow now that he has full power over--and full accountability for--the Yankees' organization (hat tip to Baseball Primer).

New York Post beat writer Michael Morrissey has a book coming out on the pressures of being a Yankee in 2006, and Steve Lombardi, over at Was Watching has an interview with Morrissey about the book.

And, for anyone reading who's a subscriber to MLB Extra Innings--the out-of-market game service--raise your hand. Now lower your hand if you're not a DirecTV subscriber, because MLB has followed the NFL's lead, and is on the verge of signing an exclusive contract for out-of-market games and a 24 hour baseball channel with the satellite service provider. If you're a New Yorker without a view of the southern sky, or if your building won't allow you to set up a satellite dish, well, you're SOL. More on this later in the week.

Finally (and belatedly) our condolences go out to Bronx Banter's Alex Belth, whose father passed away last week.

Hall of Fame Election: 2007

This time it counts!

OK, so maybe it always counts. Enshrinement is forever, so let's talk about the candidates. Once again, I'm using the tiered Hall approach from my 2004 Hall of Fame column:

The Hall of the Extremely Competent: These guys shouldn't get into Cooperstown without a ticket. Heaven knows, for many this will likely be their only turn on the ballot, most likely failing to make the required percentage of votes to carry over to next year. Still, we owe them our eternal gratitude, because at some point, just about every player on this list was someone's favorite, maybe even the best player on their team. Even if they weren't they were good enough to get ten years in at the big league level.

Jay Buhner -- I remember* August 19, 1988, after Buhner had been traded for Ken Phelps, and the Mariners were in town. Buhner came up against John Candelaria, with a man on. The Candyman delivered one of his mediocre sidearm fastballs--as he so often did toward the end of his career--and I remember Buhner swinging, with that huge "fatal" hitch to his swing that had caused hitting expert Lou Piniella to declare him a non-prospect based on what? Seventy at bats? And the ball flew dead center into the blackened bleachers in center field. Back in '88, before they started putting flubber in the baseballs, that meant something. And it was just this sinking feeling of "Oh, man, what did George do? This guy is going to kill us for years!" Buhner would just never stop haunting the Yanks, not for another ten or so years.

*By remember, I mean I remember it fuzzily, but it gets a lot clearer when I use the gamelogs at Baseball-Reference.com.

Bobby Witt -- Over the first 300-plus innings of his career, Bobby Witt walked 283 guys. In 1987, he walked an amazing 140 in 143 innings, for the highest single season BB/9 rate in the Baseball Prospectus sortable database (which goes back to 1960, I think). I don't know that we'll ever see again the kind of wildness that Witt brought to the table, much less for enough years that he'd be eligible for the HoF.

Devon White -- What I remember best about White was his 1987 strat-o-matic card, which was the perfect utility outfielder: rated with gold glove range at every outfield position, deadly arm, good speed...and if by any chance you got a hit with him, you could announce, "Devo whips it!" Not that I did that more than twenty or thirty times.

Wally Joyner -- I remember being annoyed at him early in his career because people dared compare him to Don Mattingly. Later on, those comparisons ran dry--1987 was the only season Wally cracked a .500 slugging percentage. Still, his career was one of unstilting competence, so long as you accepted the limitations.

Scott Brosius -- I can't talk objectively about Brosius, the guy who got salary-dumped on the Yankees, and wound up winning three world championships, and coming within a hair of a fourth. For the most part, Scott's bat was pretty rank, but I remember his smooth glovework fondly. Brosius retired off the third-best season in his career, according to WARP. That's a classy exit.

Dante Bichette -- Looked like a softball player, then went to Colorado, in the pre-humidor days when it looked like everyone was hitting with an aluminum bat. He provided the object lesson that finally got average fans to understand the concept of park effects. A valuable service, for which we thank you.

Bobby Bonilla -- Committed one of the classic blunders, like "never start a land war in Asia" (to paraphrase Vizzini): if you sign a big-money deal with a New York ballclub, never brag about how you're going to "handle" the New York media. Bonilla came to Flushing as a doubles machine with a reputation as a team leader. When he left the club, his rep was that of a thin-skinned, bullying clubhouse cancer. All told, a nice career, but not one where anyone would believe that at any point he was the highest paid player in the game.

Ken Caminiti -- Was actually a pretty bad player up until the the walk year of his first go-around with the Astros. Then there was the power spike, the pneumatic physique, the MVP...and all the problems with substances not steroids. Gets extra credit from some corners for admitting steroid use after his career was over. He really shouldn't. Also, someone needs to remind sports writers and editors out there that while he abused steroids, it was the other illegal drugs Caminiti also abused which led to his premature demise. Since all this is really very negative, I will say that my favorite part of Caminiti's game was his throwing arm--the man just shot laser beams out there. It was a pleasure to watch him field.

Prior Inductees: Jim Abbott, Tom Candiotti, Chili Davis, Mark Langston, Jack McDowell, Willie McGee, Jeff Montgomery, Otis Nixon, Tony Phillips, Terry Steinbach

The Hall of the Pretty Darn Good: This is the area for guys who had good, long careers, which didn't pack quite enough oomph! to go with the longetivity. Not Hall of Famers, but still great careers.

Tony Fernandez -- Of the trio of American League shortstops of the mid-80s, Fernandez was just behind Cal Ripken and Alan Trammell. Ripken was the hitter but Fernandez was the superior gloveman--it was left for Trammell to be the guy in between, neither fish nor foul. Trammell's candidacy doesn't seem to have picked up any traction, so it's unlikely that Fernandez will see many votes. At no point was Fernandez the Best Shortstop in Baseball, or even the American League--still, he was a personal favorite, as the top shortstop in All-Dominican teams I used to cobble together during that era.

Orel Hershiser -- Had one of the more amazing two-year runs I've ever seen from a pitcher, keeping his ERA below 2.50 in 1988 and 1989. Never quite the same after that--he had a shoulder injury after pitching more than a thousand innings from '86 to '89. Afterward, he was an innings-eater, often a very effective one.

Hal Baines -- Baines is 39th on the all-time hit list, with 2,844. Everyone ahead of him is either in the Hall of Fame, or is not yet eligible (today, the list of people not in the Hall ahead of him will get shorter by two). There were days when I used to worry what would happen if Baines got hit # 3,000, because I was certain he isn't a Hall of Famer. It looks like time has caught up with me, because Baines isn't getting much traction for the Hall, people accepting that he was merely pretty darn good.

Paul O'Neill -- My dad hated Paul O'Neill. Dad's baseball agnostic, but he started rooting for the Yankees when he saw how much it meant to my brothers and me. And every time O'Neill came up, Dad would get upset. We would see the same thing four or five hundred times a season: O'Neill misses a pitch and yells at himself, O'Neill takes a strike and gives the ump a stare and a full dose of John McEnroe "What? Are you crazy?" body language, O'Neill strikes out, grounds out, or pops out and slams his helmet against the ground, his face turning so red you're sure he's going to rupture a blood vessel. Every time, my dad complained about O'Neill's sportsmanship as if he'd never seen him play before. I say thanks for the memories, Paulie. One of the great crimes in baseball history is that the 1994 strike prematurely stopped the insane year O'Neill was having--.359/.460/.603 through August 14.

Prior Inductees: Dave Concepcion, Andre Dawson, Steve Garvey, Jack Morris, Dave Parker, Lee Smith

The Hall of the Prematurely Bronzed Plaques: These guys looked Cooperstown-bound, but fell off the pace and instead wind up here.

Brett Saberhagen -- Brett Saberhagen notched his 92nd major league win prior to his 26th birthday. His career continued for another 11 years after that, during which time he'd only manage 75 wins. After throwing over 779 innings in 1987-1989, Saberhagen fought arm trouble the rest of his career. He was the type of player who had two modes--effective, or unavailable. Still, it's disappointing for anyone who saw his 1985 season to remember that the expectations were higher than this.

Jose Canseco -- The 1986 Rookie of the Year was second in the league in RBI, and fourth in homers. Two years later, he's leading the league with 42 homers, and 124 RBI (the numbers are a lot more impressive when you remember that these were the low-offense 80s, and Canseco played in a bad park). Jose missed the triple crown, finishing ninth with a .307 average, but he tossed in 40 steals to become the majors' first 40/40 man. The A's went to the world series for the first of three straight seasons. One hundred and ten homers before the age of 25 ain't bad, and there looked like nothing could stop this fast, powerful beast of a man, except maybe his anything-goes lifestyle. After '88, Canseco had good years, but the rest became a farce. We now know what every opposing fan merely believed back then, that Canseco's amazing physique was chemically-inflated, and that parts of it were ready to pop like a balloon. I don't know which bumbling Canseco memory I like best--the homer off his head when he was a Red Sock, or his begging and pleading to get a chance to pitch with the Rangers in '93 (Canseco was a pitcher when he was drafted by the A's) and then getting raked in his one inning of work, and managing to hurt himself, to boot! At least he was entertaining...

Eric Davis -- Talk about entertaining! In his rookie season, E.D. stole 80 bases. In his second season, he hit 37 homers to go with 50 steals. That's in addition to Gold Glove center field defense. He was just getting started...but it was all downhill from there. Davis had all sorts of injuries in his career, the most serious being a lacerated kidney sustained during the Reds' successful World Series run in 1990. He never got 500 at bats in a season, not even once. We're all left wondering what might have been.

Prior Inductees: Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Jim Rice, Darryl Strawberry

The Hall of Maybe: Now we're talking about guys legitimately on the fence. One of our prior inductees, Bruce Sutter, was last year's Hall-of-Famer. This year, there's only one guy on that level.

Albert Belle -- I know, it's not his first time on the ballot, but I didn't do this exercise last year. Probably belongs with Canseco and Davis in the previous section, because there was a point in his career when Albert "Don't Call Me Joey!" Belle looked like a real threat for a bronze plaque upstate. Still, because his career ended about a month after his 34th birthday, Albert never got to the point where he'd make it difficult for those voters who might want to keep him out of the Hall because of characters issues: use of a corked bat, bad behavior toward reporters of the female persuasion, violence toward fans, near violence toward umps. Add to that his recent conviction for using a GPS device to stalk an ex-girlfriend and I expect him to fall off the ballot this season. Still, if you saw this guy with a bat in his hand during the 90s...you knew you were witnessing greatness. There was no question, he was just amazing.

Prior Inductees: Tommy John, Bruce Sutter, Alan Trammel

The Hall of, Well, Duh! Okay, now we're getting to the obvious candidates. Since last we checked in, Ryno's made it to the Actual Hall, but Blyleven and Goose are still cooling their heels on the outside. I'm not going to rehash those arguments, waiting instead to start new fights, but it sure would be nice for Gossage to get some good news tomorrow, along with the two guys who are certain to make it.

Tony Gwynn -- He hit .289 as a rookie in 1982, playing 54 games. That was the last time he'd be under .300. Toward the end of his career, Gwynn was at least forty pounds over his playing weight, had no knees, and he could still hit over .320. Gwynn had one overwhelming skill--a skill that statheads have spent 20+ years saying is the most overrated of all skills. It's still plenty good enough to make him a no-question Hall of Famer. The man simply owned the hole between shortstop and third, having a stronger claim to it than Ozzie Smith and Brooks Robinson combined.

Mark McGwire -- The day McGwire retired, he was a no-brain Hall of Famer. Not much has happened since then that changes anything about what he did on the field. Just because McGwire didn't want to "talk about the past" doesn't mean the past is changed. You say we "discovered" that McGwire was using steroids? At the height of his popularity, back in 1998, a bottle of androstenedione was in plain sight in his locker. All the holier-than-thou types who are making a big noise about not voting for McGwire now were all baseball writers back in '98. Here's a simple deal--show us your article, back then, condemning McGwire's steroid use, and you can bloviate all you want about how he's dirty and undeserving and you're so morally superior. Don't have one from '98? How about 1999?

I don't think that too many of our suddenly-righteous brethren can come up with their vintage 90's article taking down Mark McGwire, steroids user. Back then, they didn't dare. Now, they want to re-write history--some of them, to the extent of claiming that McGwire wasn't great player, steroids or no. He was too "one dimensional." All he did was hit home runs!

Now that my eyes have stopped rolling, a couple of points. Folks talk about how Mcgwire was skinny as a rookie and a tree trunk when he retired, but he didn't just get bulky right before he made a run at the home run record in '98. Look at video of the 1990 World Series, and I suspect you'll see that McGwire was pretty damn built up already. He was ripped during the worst season of his career, 1991, when he barely managed to stay over the Mendoza line. His muscle-bound physique was actually blamed for the two years he missed to injury, in 1993 and 1994. Up til that point, the most homers McG hit in his career were in 1987, his "skinny" rookie year. Y'know, when he was skinny, ergo not using 'roids, or so we say.

The second point is that McGwire isn't Pete Rose. Rose committed an offense which was clearly at the time punishable by expulsion from the game. Everyone knew what the penalty was going in, ever since the Black Sox scandal--you bet on baseball, you're out. McGwire is thought to have committed an offense for which there was no at penalty at the time, and only the merest suggestion that it was even against baseball's rules. Now that there is a punishment protocol for steroids in baseball, the first offense does not call for expulsion from the game on a first offense, or not even on the second. Yet so many reporters are giving him the death penalty for...a rumor of an offense.

The fact is, folks had plenty of opportunities to rail about steroids while Mark McGwire was still in the game. The folks who bring up Operation Equine tend to forget the part where the FBI agent supposedly warned the Commissioner's office that players were juiced in the early 90's. Nobody did anything. Not Bud Selig, not the other team owners, not the press. Everyone turned a blind eye. Now some members of the press want to write cloying articles in which they ask, "How can I look my kids in the eye if I vote for Mark McGwire?" Sadly, you should have been thinking about your kids back in the day, when you were trumpeting McGwire's achievements. Too late to grow a spine now. Let him in.

Prior Inductees: Bert Blyleven, Goose Gossage, Ryne Sandberg

The Broom Closet of the Immortals: We need something more exclusive than the Hall of Fame sometimes. Someplace where transcendent talents like Babe Ruth and Willie Mays don't have to rub elbows with the lesser lights. These guys are more than just no-question Hall of Famers or guys who should be in on the first ballot, they're the inner circle, the best of the best. And like the exclusive club like this is, only one guy gets in this year...

Cal Ripken -- Somewhere along the way, the word "overrated" got stuck to Cal Ripken, even if it was only in my head. At a number of points in his career, it seemed like the consecutive games played streak had become an end onto itself, and like maybe it wouldn't kill him to sit out a game once in a while--and maybe it was hurting the club that he wasn't. During the last eight or nine seasons of his career, he had a lot of middling or even bad seasons, at a time when the new breed of shortstops was actively outshining him, but he was still the starting shortstop at the All Star game just about every year. There are more excuses out there why someone might not think of Ripken as a full-fledged, say-his-name-in-hushed-tones baseball diety--and they're all wrong.

The second I took a good look at his record for this column, I knew that all the "overrated" thoughts were bunk. Ripken's first nine years in the league were flat-out dominant. He followed that stretch up with one of the best seasons ever by a baseball player, in 1991. He retired the all-time leader in homers at his position. Oh, and he played every day for the longest stretch of anyone in history. It's an odd accomplishment, but an accomplishment nontheless.

But it's more than that. The best players change the game. Guys like Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez got to play shortstop in the majors, in large part because Cal Ripken showed people that a guy who's 6'4" could handle the position. Without Ripken's example, those guys probably get shunted off to third base or the outfield before reaching the Show, some coach in the minors sitting them down and telling them "You know, son? They don't call it tall-stop..."

For all of that, Cal Ripken, Jr. is more than a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame. Anyone who didn't vote for him should have their BWAA card torn up right in front of their face.

Prior Inductees: Wade Boggs

Is This Thing On?

Yeah, last time you guys heard from me, it was Wednesday and I was promising my Hall of Fame column "tomorrow". Life intruded, so I've been pretty quiet. In the interim, I've finished one major project (more on this shortly), started another, seen an opera (La Traviata at the Met), got bounced hard out of the playoffs for my pool league, had a couple of celebrity sightings (Famke Janssen, John Turturro), saw a play (A Spanish Play, directed by Turturro), helped tear up a concrete sidewalk in my friend's backyard (who ever knew that a well-swung sledgehammer was so cathartic?), and experienced pain in muscles I'd forgotten I had in the aftermath (the mysterious one is the muscle that sends me into a nice bit of pain whenever I try to reach my right hand into any of my pockets).

So I've been busy. The Hall of Fame column is still coming, even if it's stale. A few notes while we wait for that:

The Iron Sheff, now happily situated in Motown, is bringing out an as-told-to book this spring. Guess this must have happened pretty quickly after he was traded, because according to the New York Times, Sheff is one of the first players I can recall to focus some criticism on Joe Torre, saying that Torre got on his nerves by constantly talking about how much he wished the Yanks had signed Vlad Guerrero.

Tom Verducci has an article mentioning both Phil Hughes and Roger Clemens, so I'm linking it. Tim Marchman, whose articles are now available to everyone now that the New York Sun isn't subscription-only, is optimistic about the Bombers' future, so that gets linked as well.

The pool league playoffs I meantioned in the intro were held at Amsterdam Billiards' new location, across the street from Webster Hall, after their old location on Amsterdam Avenue and West 76th Street closed down at the end of the year. Not mentioning the closing of the place where I met La Chiquita, and spent huge amounts of my young adult life was definitely an oversight. Some of it I'll have to chalk up to denial--the old Amsterdam was the best pool hall in the city, upscale and well-maintained, but also down-to-earth and entirely focused on the game (unlike, say, Slate--the former Chelsea Billiards--which is now a high-end lounge/sports bar with several dozen full-size pool tables thrown in as an afterthought). I loved the old hall's wood paneling and exposed brick; its working fireplace, and the front tables were pool pros (Jeanette Lee, Mika Immonen) and celebrities (Paul Sorvino, Jerry Seinfeld) were put on display. But most importantly, it was my pool home. I'd played every single table in the room at least a couple of times, I knew the place like the back of my hand. Shortly, there will be a soulless apartment building in its place.

Amsterdam's new home is the former Corner Billiards, down on Fourth Avenue. It's just a walk away from where I live now--the move saves me a ton on cab fare--but it'll take lots of time for me to get as comfortable downtown as I was on the Upper West Side. It's just a different room with a different vibe--and management hasn't gotten to shake out all the kinks, yet. The Bank the Nine Blog has some awesome photos of them getting the new pool hall ready to open at the start of this month.

As the saying goes, you close a door and open a window. I had a chance to say good-bye to the old Amsterdam, dragging Brother Joe out there while he was in town for the holidays, and spending the last nights the place was open there with La Chiquita. Now, we've moved on to a new place, which despite the 7-2 whupping I took there on Saturday, we're intent to call home. Back with some baseball tomorrow.

Yes to Cal & Tony; No to Mark & Goose

My Hall of Fame column was supposed to run yesterday just prior to the results coming out, but due to technical difficulties with Blogger, it'll have to wait til tomorrow. We now know that Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn will take the dais at Cooperstown next July; the foregone conclusion that Mark McGwire would not be joining them is now officially confirmed; and Goose Gossage, after seeing a lesser reliever make it into the Hall last year, fell just short--just 21 votes shy of the promised land. I hold out hope for Goose that he'll make it, not so much so for the Great American Scapegoat, Mark McGwire.

In other news, Randy Johnson was announced as the newest member of the Diamondbacks yesterday, so that's one more chapter in Yankee history closed, another one of those Yankee-fan specific lessons in finally getting something you've coveted for so long. I have an irrational suspicion he'll go back to dominating now that he's in the National League again.

On a non-baseball related note, the new IPod Phone freaks me out in a way few gadget introductions have managed to do. Just thought I'd share that.

Randy and Minky: Ships Passing in the Night?

I started hearing the rumors just before 4:00 on Prospectus's internal mailing list, that the Yanks and D'Backs had agreed to a package of players in return for one Randall David Johnson. By the time I got home to check things out, the story was being reported by MLB.com, just with less certainty about the names involved. A short while later, it was on ESPN--confirmations on the names, and that Arizona and Johnson had entered one of those 72 hour negotiating periods--y'know, the ones made infamous a few off-seasons ago when Boston was trying to deal for A-Rod--that meant a deal was in place, just awaiting financial negotiations between the team and player to convince Johnson to waive his no-trade clause.

No one expects Johnson's 72 hours to stretch over more than a week, like the A-Rod negotiations did back in 2003-2004. Newsday's convinced that Johnson's already reached a "back-channel" agreement with his old team on the terms under which they'll reunite. No one is taking these negotiations as a real barrier.

So for all intents and purposes, it's possible that this is a done deal. So let's look at what the Yankees get:

Luis Vizcaino -- A righthanded reliever (yeah, another one), Vizcaino's the veteran portion of the Yanks' haul. Veteran, as in, he's 32 years old, with about seven major league seasons under his belt. He's pitched 410 career innings, all of them in relief. Started out a hard-thrower in the Oakland system, and that's been pretty much his calling card throughout his career. Had some gopherball problems early in his career that he seems to have put in check as he's gotten older. If this deal goes through, Vizcaino's the fifth righty in the pen, sixth if you rank Britton ahead of him, which wouldn't be unreasonable. Hard throwing Dominican reliever coming into his age-32 season? Haven't we seen this before? Steve Phillips, who's been on this story for ESPN, could tell you from experience--trying to corner the market on middle relievers never works. Heck, at least when Phillips tried it with the Mets, he was hoarding lefties, which are relatively rare...

The three prospects alleged to come along with Vizcaino all played most of their ball last season at AA:

Ross Ohlendorf -- Because Mientkiewicz wasn't hard enough to spell, I suppose. Big righthander, with a big fastball but no reliable secondary pitch, which projects him--wait for it--as a reliever. That means the 24 year old joins the teeming righthanded masses including Kevin Wheelan, Jose Veras, TJ Beam, Anthony Claggett, Mark Malencon, JB Cox, Darrell Rasner, and Jeff Karstens, all hoping that one or more of the six righthanded relievers ahead of them on the Yanks' depth chart--Mariano, Scott Proctor, Kyle Farnsworth, Brian Bruney, Vizcaino, and Britton--gets traded, injured, demoted, or simply decides to quit playing baseball.

Alberto Gonzalez -- A smooth-fielding shortstop, Gonzalez has a decent righhanded bat, but not much pop--about a .100 isolated power over the last two years. Could be a utility infielder of the future. At least the Yankees finally dealt for a position player.

Steve Jackson -- ...but that doesn't mean they're not out to get even more righthanded pitchers! At least this one's a starter. Jackson's fastball sits around 91 MPH, topping out around 94, and complemented by a splitter, sinker, and change. Despite a nice 2.65 ERA at Tennessee this season, he isn't considered a top prospect--Kevin Goldstein didn't rank him or the other two prospects in this deal among Arizona's top ten, and John Sickels has the three of them at the bottom of his top 20. Jackson will be 25 before Opening Day, he got raked in the AFL, and he hasn't reached AAA yet. But at least he isn't another relief prospect.

All told, this is far less swag than the visions of Miguel Montero and Alberto Callaspo we had stuck in our heads, or even the more modest talk of higher-tier pitching prospects like Micah Owings and Dustin Nippert. To some, having Randy Johnson gone is motive enough--it would appear that Brian Cashman is among these people. Still, I was hoping the Yanks would make the D'backs squirm a little to get the Unit back, part as payback for the 2001 World Series, the other part as payback for the way they made the Yanks crawl in order to get Johnson in the first place. If this is what they get, it's an opportunity missed. Stay tuned.

****

As alluded above, and mentioned in the linked article, the Yanks have signed Doug Mientkiewicz as their new firstbaseman. It's not a bad deal, part a defense move, part a hedge in case Josh Phelps turns out to be a scrub. The most likely scenario has him platooning with Phelps or Andy Phillips, either on a righty/lefty or offense/defense basis. At a reported $1.5MM, Minky's expendable should a better option come along. Heck, maybe Dougie Spellingerror can teach Matsui to play first base...

Back when Mientkiewicz was the proud possessor of the 2004 World Series game ball, I kept hoping the Yanks would sign Minky, and buy the ball off him as part of the deal. I imagined the Yankees having an elaborate ceremony before their first home game against Boston, where the accursed ball would be presented and destroyed by explosion--like the Bartman ball was, in Chicago. Then the remains of the World Series souvenir would be thrown into the stands, for the right field bleacher fans to floss with.

A man can dream, can't he?

2006 In Review Part 2: The Pitchers

Final letter grades, like we did for the hitters:

Chien Ming Wang -- A: Went 10-2 with a 3.13 ERA in the second half, was absolutely the Yanks' most reliable starter. It's a pleasure to watch the Wormkiller work, despite the fact that he just about never strikes anyone out. Outlook for 2007: Seems like everywhere you look, someone's saying that Wang's due for a big regression to the mean. I have to admit that I have my doubts, too. Still, the good news is that unlike with Shawn Chacon, last year, "regression to the mean" still makes Wang out to be a solid mid-rotation guy; which is more than we were expecting coming into 2006. I still hold out hope that he'll remain much, much better than an average innings-eater.

Mariano Rivera -- A: Ho hum, more excellence. The only chink in Rivera's armor was the elbow trouble that took him out of service for much of September. Still, overall Rivera notched 34 saves in 37 opportunities, and pitched well despite heavy use prior to the injury. Outlook: Will Rivera slow down, now that he's 37 years old? A lot could depend on the Yanks getting some reliable arms to back him in the bullpen. Off-season acquisitions Wayne Britton and Kevin Wheelan could be play a huge role in avoiding the kind of innings crunch Rivera faced last year.

Mike Mussina -- A-: The Moose didn't maintain his first half performance, but then again, that was hardly expected. Like Rivera, he had to take a breather late in the season. Gets an A- rather than a B+ because his 2006 performance was both surprisingly good and really beautiful--every fifth day, Mussina gave a clinic on pitching, despite his diminished stuff. Outlook: On board for another two years, he may not manage a 3.51 ERA again, but he should be able to hold down that #2 spot in the rotation, and pass the 250 win mark in 2007.

Scott Proctor -- B+: Most improved player of the second half--jumped up by more than a grade from the mid-season report card. Proctor cut his ERA in half after the All-Star Break; he also dramatically reduced his walk and home run rates. Outlook: He'll be Rivera's primary setup man in 2007; hopefully Torre won't take his rubber arm for granted, causing it to snap.

Brian Bruney -- B+: A revelation after being picked up on waivers in the second half. He's wild (15 BB in 20 2/3 IP) but he's also cookin' with some heat (25 K). Good things happen when you shop for bargains. Outlook: Twenty innings is a very small sample, so it's way too early to declare Bruney the next big thing. A darn good bet to see his ERA rise, if only because it was 0.87 in 2006. Still, the possibility is open that he could wind up providing the kind of pitching the Yankees expected to get from Kyle Farnsworth.

Matt Smith -- B+: Didn't get a chance to louse up his perfect Yankees season, going over as the major league portion of the Bobby Abreu trade. Just what you want from an unheralded prospect--have a few good weeks, then bring back a star player while your trade value is at its highest. Outlook: He should be the second lefty in the Phillies' bullpen; like Bruney, ERA inflation is a given.

Jeff Karstens -- B: Called on to fill in during Mussina's injury, Karstens provided four quality starts in six opportunities. Yet another decent return from what some people regarded as a bankrupt minor league system. Outlook: He's a scary flyball pitcher, which means that this nice performance could be his ceiling. Still, it's not the end of the world if he winds up as the fifth starter.

Jaret Wright -- B-: Did a solid job in the #4 spot, which was way more than anyone expected coming into the season. Then he got traded for a living, breathing young pitcher, which was way more than anyone expected coming into 2006. Outlook: Wright won't exactly be a stranger, given how often the unbalanced schedule matches up the Yanks and Orioles--unless, that is, Wright's shoulder acts up on him again. Still, his outlook should be strong, now that he's been reunited with Leo Mazzone. Trading him was still the right thing to do.

Darrell Rasner -- B-: Rasner has a better pedigree than Karstens, but wound up not having as much playing time or success. Still, he contributed some good innings down the stretch, and his total performance is skewed by his final, awful start against the Orioles. Outlook: Like Karstens, there are worse fifth starters in the league; there are a number of barriers, and a lot of competition before he'll get that shot.

Kyle Farnsworth -- C+: Big disappointment, particularly with all the hothouse flower rules that were applied to his usage--Kyle doesn't like to pitch back-to-back days, doesn't pitch well when he comes in with guys on base, and he has a balky back that sometimes keeps him from being available at all. The fact that he was so often unavailable put extra pressure on Rivera, Villone, and Proctor.

Mike Myers -- C:+ Ugly second half; some question whether the Yanks have the luxury of carrying around a pitcher who won't break 40 innings for the year. Still, it was nice having someone to pitch to David Ortiz in a tight spot. Outlook: Should be doing his LOOGY thing once again next year.

Jose Veras -- C: Probably the guy who loses the most from all the righty relief prospects the Yanks have picked up. Eleven good innings weren't quite enough to give him any priority in the pecking order. Outlook: We hear the new AAA site in Scranton is just a two-hour drive away from the Stadium.

Cory Lidle -- Pass

Randy Johnson -- D+: Put the seventeen wins on one side of the scale, then put the supposed "ace" of the staff with a below-league-average 5.00 ERA on the other. The image that we came away from 2006 with was that Johnson was a big surly guy who couldn't pitch when he didn't have his good stuff. Outlook: If the stories are to be believed, he'll be headed out of town soon for dimes on the dollar, complete with the legacy of being the second coming of Kevin Brown.

Ron Villone -- D+: Villone's godawful second half is well-documented. Given the fact that he couldn't get anyone out down the stretch, it was a total shock when the Yankees offered arbitration. This may have been one of those matters where player and team agreed that Villone would refuse arb, which he did. Outlook: Under the new rules, Villone's standing as a type B free agent won't have a negative impact on any team that signs him--the Yanks will just get a sandwich pick.

Tanyon Sturtze -- D: Sturtze's Yankee career, which started under bizarre circumstances in 2004, ended with shoulder pain in 2006. There's no evidence that he was ever actually, y'know, good at any point during this tenure, even though he got a fair number of high-leverage innings from Joe Torre. Outlook: Picked up by Atlanta, which isn't as promising as it was back when Mazzone was the pitching coach.

TJ Beam -- D: What went for Veras, goes twice as hard for Beam, who showed nothing in his major league tryouts despite good performance at Columbus. Outlook: There are two paths in front of Bean right now: one that says "Scott Proctor" and another that says "Colter Bean, among others." At stake is a nice summer spent touring the International League, or another shot at the Show.

Sidney Ponson -- D-: Allowed 20 runs in 16 1/3 Yankee innings, which is an awful, awful performance. Ponson's reign of terror in the Bronx lasted only a month, but the repercussions will be felt for...who am I kidding? A year from now, will anyone remember that this bloated scofflaw wore pinstripes? Outlook: Only just turned thirty, and still throws pretty hard--I have a feeling someone will give big Sidney a few more chances to prove he can't pitch.

Shawn Chacon -- D-: Okay, so 2005 turned out to be a fluke, right? Chacon was traded for Craig Wilson, and performed better as a Pirate than he had as a Yankee. Just because he performed better doesn't mean he performed well. Outlook: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a darn.

Octavio Dotel -- D-: a/k/a, the Human Torch. Dotel was the pipe dream we were fed all summer, the guy who would come back from injury any moment now to make things right in the Yankee bullpen. That didn't work out--Dotel showed no sign of being major league ready, but was brought up to the Show anyway because he was on a one-year contract while he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery. Outlook: Signed on as closer for the Royals, may Lord have mercy on his and their souls. Seriously, full recovery from TJ surgery usually takes a year and a half or more, so Dotel's awful performance at the end of the year is not necessarily the last word on his career.

Aaron Small -- F: Every fairy tale ends, and the sports ones almosy always end with someone eventually being unable to hack it at the highest level of competition. Outlook: Not sure where he's hooked on, if anywhere, but I think I can speak for most Yankee fans in wishing him well. Unless he joins the Red Sox, that is :)

Incompletes: Sean Henn (lefthanded and has a pulse), Kris Wilson (righthanded, check him for a pulse), Colter Bean (must have cheated Cashman at cards some time--just absolutely buried in this organization, needs to go to Japan or something), Carl Pavano ("You're dead to me, Carlo").