MLB Fan Cave: Vote for Andres Salgado

post from Marlin Maniac on 01 February 2013 09:09:36 PM. © Marlin Maniac

“There is no such thing as Marlin fans!” “How can anybody cheer for such a bad team?” “The Marlins will never have a winning record!” “They can barely get a 1000 people to a game!” “The fans only come out when they?re winning, which is never!” “The Marlins are the worst team in baseball and [...]

MLB Fan Cave: Vote for Andres Salgado - Marlin Maniac - Marlin Maniac - A Miami Marlins Fan Site - News, Blogs, Opinion and More

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BASEBALL CARD SHOW TONIGHT!!!!

post from 30-Year Old Cardboard on 01 February 2013 07:42:56 PM. © 30-Year Old Cardboard

BASEBALL CARD SHOW TONIGHT!!!! That’s right, it is February 1, and the first Friday of the month. And for me, that means that the local card show is upon us. I was unable to attend the January show, so it … Continue reading →

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New York Yankees: Two wrongs do not make it right

post from Lady Loves Pinstripes on 01 February 2013 05:41:24 PM. © Lady Loves Pinstripes

Undoubtedly, New York Yankees Alex Rodriguez has not always made the best off the field decisions. He is the sports media model of consistency for always providing headline worthy news to the point where even the New York Jets are jealous. Ideally no[...]

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Are the New York Yankees justifying their own
agenda regarding Alex Rodriguez

post from Lady Loves Pinstripes on 01 February 2013 05:41:24 PM. © Lady Loves Pinstripes

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Yankees Officially Sign Travis Hafner

post from Sliding Into Home: A Yankees Blog on 01 February 2013 05:02:49 PM. © Sliding Into Home: A Yankees Blog

From Yankees.com:

The Yankees on Friday finalized a one-year contract with free-agent slugger Travis Hafner, who is expected to help fill the club's designated hitter slot for the 2013 season.

Hafner, 35, batted .228 with 12 home runs and 34 RBIs in 64 games for the Indians last season. Cleveland cut ties with Hafner in October, choosing to pay the left-handed hitter a $2.75 million buyout instead of a $13 million option for the '13 season.

The owner of 201 home runs over 11 Major League seasons, Hafner has not played the field since 2007. As a full-time DH with the Yanks, he'll essentially fill the role envisioned last season for Raul Ibanez.

The Yankees designated outfielder Russ Canzler for assignment to make room on the 40-man.

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Eddie Murray 2005 Upper Deck Trilogy Game-Used
Bat Card SWEET!!!

post from 30-Year Old Cardboard on 01 February 2013 05:01:39 PM. © 30-Year Old Cardboard

Eddie Murray 2005 Upper Deck Trilogy Game-Used Bat Card – SWEET!!! I recently picked up three cards from the same seller on Ebay. All three cards came from the same set, Upper Deck’s 2005 Trilogy ‘Generations Past Lumber’. And without … Continue reading →

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Is WAR Overused

post from Beyond the Box Score - All Posts on 01 February 2013 04:03:21 PM. © Beyond the Box Score - All Posts

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Jim Caple of ESPN wrote an interesting piece this morning on the famous/infamous sabermetric tool, Wins Above Replacement. His core argument is that while WAR is useful and should not be ignored, it is often overused and shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of baseball discussion.

My issue is this: I don't like the increasing over-use of (and over-reliance on) WAR as THE definitive evaluation of a player's worth.
This was particularly true during the Mike Trout-Miguel Cabrera MVP debate last fall. For instance, consider this headline on an ESPNLosAngeles.com story in late September: "Mike Trout Is Your MVP (WAR Says So).
That was just one of many stories focusing on WAR in the MVP race, where the stat became a big factor in analysis of the players, as Bleacher Report noted.
Now, Cabrera wound up winning the MVP by a wide margin, so WAR wasn't a decisive factor in the award vote. (I voted for Trout, though I did not base my ballot on WAR.) But I just found it tiresome to keep reading all the references to it, as if WAR was the only stat that should be considered, and leading a league in batting average and home runs and RBIs -- as Cabrera did in becoming the game's first Triple Crown winner since 1967 -- was somehow a mere accounting trick.

I actually agree with a lot of the points that Mr. Caple makes. In fact, I suspect that most saber-minded fans and writers would agree with the premise that WAR should not be the only contributing factor to our evaluation of a player's value. And therein lies much of the problem with Caple's article - he creates a straw man of sorts that believes that WAR is the only answer, that the reason Trout should have been MVP and Morris shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame is because of their WAR values.

In reality, there are many reasons completely outside of the realm of WAR that Trout was deserving of MVP and Morris was not deserving of the Hall. And as Craig Calcaterra noted, WAR often seems to be "an insult by those who hate it more than it’s used as an argument-ender by those who like it."

WAR is great. But it is not perfect. It is not the be-all and end-all of stats. It is flawed and must always be used alongside other evidence. Most of us agree with that. Jim Caple agrees with that. Maybe Jim Caple didn't realize that we agree with that. Maybe he was aiming his article at that small subgroup of fans that hails WAR as the only stat to use. If so, I hope they come around.

If he was aiming the article at people like the readers and writers of this blog, I hope he comes to realize that we actually agree with him (for the most part). And once we all get on the same page about that, we can begin to have interesting and productive discussions about how to best evaluate players instead of talking over one another's heads about WAR and RBI and the like.

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-cabrera

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The 2013 Houston Astros Season Preview

post from The Crawfish Boxes - All Posts on 01 February 2013 04:02:29 PM. © The Crawfish Boxes - All Posts

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We go through the potential 2013 roster looking at each player, what they did last season and what they could contribute this year.

Flash-forward to spring training or June or July of this season. Jed Lowrie is traded to Oakland or Baltimore or any number of places and there's not a major league-ready shortstop coming back to Houston in return.

Or, in another scenario, Lowrie suffers another severe injury and has to miss significant time next season. Where does that leave the Astros? Who fills in at shortstop? Jonathan Villar probably needs at least half a season in the minors before he gets called up. Tyler Greene has the bat at home, but his defense could leave something to be desired.

That leaves Marwin Gonzalez, a Rule 5 pick who played a little last season and got some time at short. He certainly looks the part of a major leaguer with a big frame and good arm, but does that mean he'll be a good fit to start for Houston? What did the Astros see out of him last year and could it make him a viable option if things go sideways with Lowrie?

Let's break things down into three categories.

Defense

Heading into last season, Gonzalez had a reputation as a pretty good defender in the minors. He didn't have the flashy plays that someone like Villar did, but he made all the routine plays and showed the same propensity in 347 innings at short last year.

The defensive metrics we have show that he was perfectly average. He had no positive or negative defensive runs saved at short, and his UZR was right around zero. What does that tell us? Well, here's a snippet from an interview with Tom Tango at ESPNChicago:

The issue with the fielding stats that we have now is that we have to infer a lot simply because we aren't recording enough. You'd rather record the fielder's positioning rather than infer it. You'd rather know how many hops a ball takes to get to the shortstop rather than infer it. Basically, all the things we see and we know and we take for granted as a baseball fan isn't being recorded. Even something as simple as hangtime took forever to finally get recorded. You and I know looking at a seven-second lazy flyball is going to be caught by every outfielder in MLB, and is therefore noise. But, if the systems aren't being told that it was a seven-second flyball, it tries to guess based on other parameters on its difficulty, and therefore might suggest it had a 90 percent of being caught rather than 99.9 percent. Instead of that data being treated as noise, the fielding system treats it as valid useful data.

But, just because a metric has bias or noise doesn't mean we should discard it altogether. We need SOMETHING. As long as the bias and noise isn't too extensive, then something is better than nothing.

If we've got reports that Marwin is solid defensively and then see the metrics saying he had a perfectly average season, that tells us something, right? We can't predict how Marwin will do with an increased innings load, and we can't predict that he'll stay as average as he looked last season.

Offense

In 219 plate appearances last season, Gonzalez hit .234/.280/.327 with two home runs, 29 strikeouts and 13 walks. That's good for a walk rate of 5.9 percent and a strikeout rate of 13.2 percent. Both of those numbers match his career numbers from the minor leagues, suggesting that his patience should stabilize around this rate in more playing time.

It's the bat that could improve. Don't expect Gonzalez to hit many home runs. His two last season was pretty much par for the course in the minors. But, I do think you can expect him to hit a bit higher than .234, seeing as his BABiP was one of the lowest of his career.

His line drive rate was decent at 19 percent and a slight uptick in him BABiP could lead to a .270/.330/.320 line pretty easily. That's not great, but it would be playable in the short term.

Add in decent speed numbers, despite not being very good at stealing bases, and Gonzalez would be an offensive plus at short if he can keep up those average defensive numbers.

Stamina

Here's the rub. Gonzalez has never had more than 465 plate appearances in a single season. He got just 262 between Triple-A and the majors last season, so there's not telling how he will hold up over 500-600 plate appearances or if he'd be able to make it that far without getting injured.

There's no reasons he couldn't, though. Just because a young guy hasn't played that much doesn't mean he can't. We just have to adjust the likelihood down a bit.

Conclusion

Could Marwin start? By all indications, he'd be perfectly normal and average at the position. Given the lack of shortstops on the free market at any given time, having a backup plan who can provide average production at a premium position is very handy.

At the very least, Marwin showed enough last season that he could be a capable fill-in for however long the Astros need him. If that's until Villar is ready or until Lowrie comes back from an injury, they shouldn't be hurt by having to play him at short for an extended time this season.

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iew

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ESPN: Bosch Injected A-Rod With HGH

From T.J. Quinn:

The texts, the source said, usually came late at night, telling Anthony Bosch to come to the house. Bosch would then head to the waterfront mansion on Biscayne Bay, through the gate on North Bay Road, to inject performance-enhancing drugs into Alex Rodriguez.

Procedures were different, though, sources told "Outside the Lines," for the other athletes who were customers of Bosch's Biogenesis of America clinic in Coral Gables, which Major League Baseball considers the center of a widespread doping operation in South Florida. Those athletes, sources said, relied on intermediaries to transport the performance-enhancing drug regimens Bosch provided.

But for A-Rod, the service was always personal: "Only Tony handled A-Rod," one source told "Outside the Lines."

The visits took place every few weeks. One night last spring, a source said, Bosch told associates he had been kicked out of Rodriguez's home after he had trouble locating a vein, infuriating the player. The sources did not say why Bosch would have been tapping a vein, as HGH and testosterone do not require intravenous injections. But whatever he was doing, "Tony said A-Rod was pissed at him," a source said. "He said he was bleeding everywhere."

Several sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Bosch spoke openly about his relationship with the Yankees All-Star, and two sources said that documents they reviewed detailed the drug regimens and schedules Rodriguez received.

A spokesperson for Rodriguez on Friday said "the allegations are not true."

...

Bosch termed the allegations against him "bull----" and "all wrong" when reached by "Outside the Lines." His attorney, Susy Ribero-Ayala, also put out a statement denying the allegations and told "Outside the Lines'' that Bosch wouldn't be talking "any time very soon."

This story keeps getting worse for A-Rod.

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Miami Marlins News: Marlins Hire New Public
Relations Firm

20120714_jla_su8_322

The Miami Marlins have gone through a lot in the past three months since the 2012 season officially ended. The team had what was likely the worst calendar year of the club's history, as it struggled through a terribly disappointing season. The team made a series of midseason trades that seemed to clear dead-weight salary for re-appropriation, but the team then decided against investing in this core and broke the entire foundation down, culminating in the greatest fire sale trade of the organization's history.

It is no doubt that the Marlins had a terribly ugly 2012 year, but they want to open the 2013 year and campaign the right way. Of course, that does not mean investing back into the team that was supposedly going to be able to afford a mid-market salary for years to come. No, the Marlins want to show that they are capable of communicating with their fans by hiring a new public relations firm. Friend of Fish Stripes David Hill of NBC 6 Miami has the details on the topic.

Jeffrey Group president Mike Valdes-Fauli acknowledged his firm faces a tough task. "Definitely the Marlins are cognizant of how important it is moving forward that they communicate better with fans and stakeholders across the community," he told the Herald.
"I think it will be important for the Miami Marlins to communicate their point of view on a whole host of issues, including on the upcoming season, some of the challenges they've faced in the past, and even the current comparisons with the Miami Dolphins."

If the Marlins were indeed this cognizant of and interested in their negative publicity, they would have probably considered their inconsistent planning processes and their constant trigger-happy moves that disrupt any long-term laid-out plans. If the Marlins had an approach that fans could get behind for long-term success, Marlins fans would be more willing to invest into the product. But a season like 2012, with its high promise and immediate downturn, followed quickly by a panicked destruction of the team's core, is only going to encourage Marlins fans to stay away from the product. After all, the slightest hint of failure may cause owner Jeffrey Loria to abandon whatever three-year goals the team set just three months prior.

A public relations change is going to do little to stem the tide of anger about the Miami Marlins. Most fans are irrationally angry just because the Marlins traded any players, as their sense of "here it comes again" about this team is really strong. But in my opinion, this fire sale went beyond that and betrayed the fan base more than could have been imagined. And the only real way to change this is to change how the front office and ownership run and interact to make the product on the field a success. A change like this is likely to represent an actual improvement over the current situation, far more than any public relations firm change will accomplish that.

David seems to be in agreement with me that this particular fire sale hit a nerve above and beyond the typical Marlins fire sale.

Even if the Marlins become competitive once again in a few years, fans' enmity for Loria may never subside. The best PR firm in the world would have a difficult time making South Florida love Loria again.

Loria has challenged the Marlins fan base one too many times, and it would seem as though something more astronomical than a public relations switch will be needed to buy the fans' trust back again.

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http://www.fishstripes.com/2013/2/1/3939774/miami-marlins-news-public-relations-f
ire-sale-jeffrey-loria

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