Ortiz, Red Sox finalize $26 million, 2-year deal
(Yahoo! Sports)

post from MLB News Blog on 05 November 2012 03:51:42 PM. © MLB News Blog

BOSTON (AP) — David Ortiz, the face of the Red Sox since helping Boston end an 86-year World Series drought in 2004, has finalized a $26 million, two-year contract.

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Perez stays with Mariners for $1.5 million
(Yahoo! Sports)

post from MLB News Blog on 05 November 2012 03:39:06 PM. © MLB News Blog

SEATTLE (AP) — Oliver Perez is staying with the Seattle Mariners, giving them a left-handed specialist out of the bullpen next season.

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Around the SaberSphere 11/5: The chance that
Ervin Santana needs Tommy John, trading for Denard Span, projected salaries

post from Beyond the Box Score - All Posts on 05 November 2012 03:03:09 PM. © Beyond the Box Score - All Posts

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Jeff Zimmerman of Royals Review takes a great look into how Ervin Santana's velocity decline among other things, could result in Tommy John surgery for the right-hander: Ervin Santana: Damaged Goods - Royals Review

In 2012, his velocity stayed near 92 mph and his injury factor steadily increased with a couple of large jumps along the way. On August 26, his injury index spiked near .8. It is the highest value I have seen without the pitcher eventually needing Tommy John Surgery.

Eric Seidman of FanGraphs discusses how Denard Span could be a good option in a crowded market for center fielders: Don’t Forget About Denard Span | FanGraphs Baseball

Denard Span isn’t discussed as much as a potential trade target, but he combines some of the best attributes of everyone mentioned above: He fields the position terrifically, he’s a very good baserunner, he has a high career walk rate and a wRC+ 5% better than the league. He’s also signed to a team-friendly contract.

I missed this link last week, because of the hurricane, but Matt Swartz and MLB trade rumors have combined again to create a great resource with their projected arbitration salaries for this offseason: Projected Arbitration Salaries For 2013: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com

As explained in this series of posts, Matt Swartz has developed a very accurate model for MLBTR to project arbitration salaries. We've heard from many MLB teams and agencies that reference the projections in their work. By my count there are 213 remaining arbitration eligible players. Click to download an Excel spreadsheet with our projected salaries, or click below to see everything.

Patriot explains how he is voting for the Rookie of the Year Award for this year's Internet Baseball Awards: Walk Like a Sabermetrician: IBA Ballot: Rookie of the Year

The NL race is competitive, although if you insert any sort of future projection/historical significance/age factor into your thinking, it becomes a runaway as well. I don’t though; I attempt to make an honest evaluation of each player’s value for the season in question and use that as the criteria for my ROY ballot. I might allow those considerations to seep in if it’s a virtual tie and one player clearly has the edge in the other factors.

In an interesting article over at Baseball Prospectus, Maury Brown discusses Josh Hamilton and the possibility of the slugger receiving a $175 million contract: Baseball Prospectus | Bizball: Sizing Up a Seven-Year, $175 Million Deal for Josh Hamilton

So let’s say it happens. Let’s say Hamilton lands a seven-year, $175 million deal. How would he stack up compared to the highest-paid players in the league? Based on total contract dollars, $175 million would rank Hamilton ninth, moving CC Sabathia down to 10th. Mark Teixeira, who would sit just ahead of Hamilton with the seven-year, $180 million deal that he reached with the Yankees for the 2009-16, is the only player beside Sabathia to have a lower WARP in his platform year leading up to their high-dollar contracts.

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Houston Astros Finalize Bo Porter's First Staff

post from The Crawfish Boxes - All Posts on 05 November 2012 03:02:17 PM. © The Crawfish Boxes - All Posts

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Coming on the heels of the club's new branding and uniform choices, we finally got the rest of the Astros coaching staff out of the way. On Monday, the Houston Astros sent out a release stating that they had hired Dennis Martinez and Eduardo Perez to round out first-year manager Bo Porter's field staff this season.

In addition to naming those two, the Astros announced roles for some of the coaches they had hired or kept on before. Martinez will serve as the team's bullpen coach while Perez will be the team's bench coach. Dave Trembley, the former big league manager who was announced before but not given a role, will be the club's third base coach with Dave Clark moving over to first base. Doug Brocail and John Mallee will fill the pitching coach and hitting coach roles, respectively.

Martinez is an easy hire, as he comes from the St. Louis minor league system and brings a ton of experience and wins at the big league level, maybe to legitimize the staff a bit? He also has a perfect game on his resume, which is cool. Here's what Luhnow had to say about him in the release:

"Dennis has an impressive track record as a Major League pitcher and now has six years of coaching experience under his belt," Luhnow said. "He has a unique ability to inspire pitchers and give them the confidence they need to succeed at the highest level."

The interesting hire is Perez as bench coach, considering we assumed Trembley would fill that spot to provide some AL experience for Porter. Instead, the Astros turned to the younger Perez to fill the bench coach role. The son of Hall of Famer Tony Perez, Eduardo was most recently a hitting coach with the Miami Marlins, but has also served in different capacities for the Cleveland Indians for the baseball operations department.

Perez doesn't have as significant experience with the AL to provide as bench coach, but maybe the Astros think Trembley can provide the scouting reports before the game and Perez can help better with strategy. Perez also marks another Astros hire who is on Twitter, and has also appeared as a guest analyst for ESPN.

Again, Luhnow's comments on Perez via the release:

"Eduardo has a deep knowledge of the game which stems from his childhood growing up around the game, his days as a college player, a minor league player, a Major League player for over a decade, as a broadcaster and as a coach at the big league level."

Finally, Houston announced that Tony DeFrancesco will be the manager at Oklahoma City next season. I mentioned this on the podcast Sunday night, but I'm really pumped about this. Hearing what Tony D was able to do with the culture of the clubhouse last season at Triple-A made me want him back in that role. It's a tough environment, and Houston figures to have some top prospects roll into OKC this season. I couldn't think of a better guy to be leading the show down there.

So, that's it for the news portion...what do you think of the hires? Is there enough legitimacy to this staff? Do you think Martinez is a pitching coach in waiting as Luhnow gives Brocail some more time? What about Trembley getting the third base job? Was that surprising or sort of expected?

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Baseball Card Show Purchase #6 Bill Madlock 1974
Topps Rookie Card

post from 30-Year Old Cardboard on 05 November 2012 03:00:03 PM. © 30-Year Old Cardboard

Baseball Card Show Purchase #6 – Bill Madlock 1974 Topps Rookie Card\ This was my lone ‘vintage’ buy from the show. And while I was not seeking the card out purposely, I recognized that finding it was a great chance … Continue reading →

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PAT CORRALES NAMED SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE
GENERAL MANAGER

post from LADodgerTalk.com - Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Vin Scully, Andre Ethier and the Dodgers on 05 November 2012 02:01:42 PM. © LADodgerTalk.com - Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw, Vin Scully, Andre Ethier and the Dodgers

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Plate Discipline

post from Love My Team on 05 November 2012 02:00:10 PM. © Love My Team

Plate discipline is a statistic that helps us understand both the effectiveness of a pitcher and[...]

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Astros add Perez and Martinez to staff (Yahoo!
Sports)

HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Astros have hired Eduardo Perez as bench coach and Dennis Martinez as bullpen coach to complete the staff of new manager Bo Porter.

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Baseball Card Show Purchase #5 Ian Kinsler 2005
Topps Rookie Card!!

Baseball Card Show Purchase #5 – Ian Kinsler 2005 Topps Rookie Card!! Don’t tell anybody, but I am secretly an Ian Kinsler fan. And you may not believe this, but this is the first card of him that I have purchased … Continue reading →

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Jordan Schafer is Worth the Gamble

Jordan Schafer is now 26 and has hit .221/.305/.301 in 893 big league plate appearances and 238 big league games. He also rates as merely a serviceable major league centerfielder. Yet the Atlanta Braves have now acquired Jordan Schafer twice,…[...]

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