Hank Aaron 2102 Topps Prime 9 Home Run Legends

Hank Aaron 2102 Topps ‘Prime 9 – Home Run Legends’ Now this is a sharp looking baseball card! I had not seen this set, or even heard of it, until I came across this card of Henry Aaron.  But as … Continue reading →

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http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/hank-aaron-2102-topps-prime-9-home-run
-legends/

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This is what the Twins are getting in Rich Harden

[...]

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twins-are-getting-in-rich.html

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Can R.A. Dickey Succeed in a Dome

As you all know R.A. Dickey has been traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. I immediately wondered how the presence of a dome would affect his knuckleball, or if it would affect it all. Michael Eder of The Yankee Analysts wrote a piece the other day, and gave some interesting insight as to whether Dickey's knuckleball could be affected.

If you’ve ever heard a baseball announcer talk about the knuckleball, you’ve probably heard that it’s random. They say it "dances" and "flutters" in different directions as it approaches the plate. They say the perfect knuckleball has no spin at all. They say that pockets of air and wind create the erratic movement. Not that wind or air pockets don’t exist inside a dome stadium, but the forces are definitely limited, even if the roof is opened. So why would the Blue Jays pay the Mets two top prospects to acquire a pitcher that will start half his games inside a dome?

I will admit, I am not an expert by any means when it comes to knuckleballs, and this has always been my belief when it comes to knuckleballers. When watching knuckleballs being thrown it does appear that they are dancing around, but this next paragraph essentially takes away that theory.

When Watts and Sawyer completed their experiment, they believed that a knuckleball that had little spin would have the erratic "dancing" movement due to the seams changing directions while spinning slowly. Thanks to new PITCHf/x data, earlier this year, Professor Alan M. Nathan of the University of Illinois studied the knuckleball movement from both Tim Wakefield and R.A. Dickey. The data calculating pitch break showed that the knuckleball did not have the erratic "fluttering" movement that’s commonly associated with the pitches’ success. Instead, he attributed the myth to the randomness to which the pitch moves. In other words, the the idea that a knuckleball moves in different directions during it’s movement is a myth, the pitch has the same smoothness in trajectory of any other pitch. He surmised that the idea of fluttering movement was likely due to the random movement of different knuckleballs, as first found in work done by John Walsh of The Hardball Times.

Interestingly, knuckleballs don't have any fluttering movement that we are so used to using when talking about them. Rather they have similar trajectory that any other pitch has, the the movement can possibly be associated to different knuckleballs that are being thrown by different pitchers.

Dickey only pitched 5 games in a dome in 2012, and that came out to 37 innings, but the results are certainly impressive. He had a 1.22 ERA, 24 K%, and a 5 BB%. He was still impressive outside, posting a 3.02 ERA, 25 K%, and a 6 BB%.

In April he had one start that was particularly awful. That game was a rainy outdoor game where the Mets were facing the Braves. In that game Dickey gave up 8 runs, and 3 home runs. That's only game, so it's hard to say if the outdoors, but it's at least mentioning.

Based on the findings, it's probably safe to say that the dome in Toronto should not have any affects on Dickey's knuckleball. Well it's possible that it gets hit more, it would not be due to playing indoors. One thing is for sure though, the Blue Jays got one heck of a pitcher.

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Tearing whose world apart

There is a Rolling Stones song from 1973 which described tragedies involving crime and drugs which I thought was a very effective form of protest. Be they aware or not, they were following a noble tradition of artists giving voice … Continue reading →

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What are the Red Sox doing

2012 was a year to forget for the Boston Red Sox and their fans. They only won 69 games, overall the team was just a mess. They didn't like their manager and then they proceded to trade three players with huge contracts (and Nick Punto) to the Los Angeles Dodgers. As a result of the trade the Boston Red Sox had cleared over $100M off the books, and also got a couple of solid prospects.

With money to spend the Boston Red Sox have gone out and signed a handful of players to short term deals. Those players include Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, David Ross, and Ryan Dempster. As I stated, all of their free agents got shorter deals, with the three years being the longest. With these shorter contracts, and less money, the Red Sox are also allocating that money between a greater number of players that can fill multiple holes in the short term, rather than giving it all to two or three players.

Marc Normandin of Baseball Nation, located here on the SBNation network, looked into the Red Sox' thinking behind the signings.The article can be read here.

The other difference is contract length -- Boston is using their flexibility to pay players like Victorino, Dempster, and Dempster a bit more money in exchange for cutting down on their demands for years. A team like the Tigersisn't concerned with years as an impediment, because they are to built to win now, in the next couple of seasons while their core is intact. The Red Sox, however, have a different plan: they want to compete now, but what general manager Ben Cherington calls "the next great Red Sox team" isn't finished developing yet. Napoli, Victorino, and Co. are important in the present-day, but as players already in their 30s, the Red Sox don't want them or their contracts around blocking the next wave of talent from within.

In 2015 the Boston Red Sox will have a good number of players leave via free agency, or sign new deals with the team. David Ortiz will become a free agent, Andrew Bailey will hit the market, as will Andrew Miller, Alfredo Aceves, and Franklin Morales. It's likely that Jacoby Ellsbury will be gone. The Red Sox will also have to start deciding if they want to re-sign Pedroia and Lester to long-term contracts.

They also have some young talent in the minors, most notably 20 year old prospect, Xander Bogaerts. As a 19 year old Bogaerts dominated High A and AA ball. In AA he showed some good power, posting a .598 SLG%, but that was in only 23 games. From what I've read though his bat sounds like the real deal.

The Red Sox still want to be competitive in 2013, but they realize that the next time they begin another title run might not come until two or three years down the line.

Questions for the community:

1) Do you think the Red Sox are handling this situation the right way?

2) Can they contend in two years, or do you think it will take longer?

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The Third Time Through The Batting Order At Coors

On Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to be one of the callers on Mile High Sports Radio who got to pose a question to Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd and Rockies owner Dick Monfort. So I used the opportunity to address one of the major reason's why they decided to switch to a four man (three piggybacker) rotation last June, and specifically question why they chose that method over another system. Before I get into O'Dowd's answer though, I want to go into deep detail about that "other system" which I'll label as the "six man / three day" rotation.

First off, take a look at the two charts below. The first one is OPS against Rockies pitchers and the second one is OPS against N.L. pitching as a whole (Basically a league average).

One thing to quickly note; I used all of the data available post humidor installation but did not use 2012 data because there's an extraneous variable involved. Once the Rockies limited their starters to 75 pitches, the only pitchers who were ever going to see a decent number of hitters in a lineup the third time through were the ones who were already pitching well that night by throwing strikes and limiting their pitches per plate appearance to batters. Meanwhile, the first and second time through the lineup sample is still loaded with all of the outings where the starters were terrible. In other words, the 2012 numbers are going to give us misleading data when it comes to determining if there is a significant rise in OPS that third time a pitcher faces a hitter in a game.

Each column is as follows...

1) The year

2) The OPS against starting pitchers the first time through the lineup

3) The OPS against starting pitchers the second time through the lineup

4) The average OPS against starting pitchers the first AND second time through the lineup

5) The OPS against starting pitchers the third time through the lineup

6) The difference in OPS points between the OPS against starting pitchers the third time though the lineup and the average OPS against starting pitchers the first and second time through the lineup.

(Data provided by baseballreference.com)

The data here is pretty incredible. It shows that there is a DRAMATIC rise in OPS the third time a starter faces an opponent across the National League, but more importantly for Colorado, it also shows that the rise is about 30% higher for Rockies pitching. Even more amazing though is that the 30% increase in the rise seen here includes all of the Rockies road games.

Before the opportunity to address this on the radio came up, I was working to figure out just how large that rise was at Coors Field specifically since baseball reference only breaks this down for teams throughout a whole season. Unfortunately that's an enormous pain in the butt as you have to add up all the data yourself. For that reason, I didn't get to finish everything from this large time period, but the data I have collected so far seems to indicate that the rise in OPS against Rockies pitching at Coors the third time through a lineup is going to be somewhere around 100 to 105 OPS points.

This would make sense too as you would expect the OPS rise against Rockies pitching on the road the third time through a lineup to mirror the league average numbers which the second chart shows to be right around 64 OPS points. Assuming this is true, then you would need to see an OPS rise of about 100 points that third time through a lineup at Coors in order to arrive at the overall OPS rise of 83 points we see against Rockies pitching the third time through the lineup at the bottom of the purple chart. In short, that 100 to 105 OPS point rise number passes the smell test.

Knowing this, we can deduce that the increase in OPS from 2002 through 2011 when a lineup faced a starting pitcher at Coors for the third time was approximately 60% higher than the National League average.

The Rockies Front Office saw these numbers (Or at least their own version of these numbers), correctly tried to take advantage of them, and ended up implementing the four man rotation. This plan would limit, but not completely eliminate exposure of the starters to a third trip through the lineup.

When I first saw these numbers, the four man rotation made sense to me - But after thinking about it for a while, I began to realize that there was an even better way to address this unique property of Coors Field. Instead of using seven pitchers in a four day rotation (the four 75 pitch starters + the three piggybackers), it would make much more sense to use a six man / three day rotation in which you have two "starters" each game throw about 55 pitches. Pick your six best arms, pair them into three groups of two, and repeat the process every three games.

For example, your "A" pair could be Jhoulys Chacin and Jorge De La Rosa, your "B" pair could be Drew Pomeranz and Juan Nicasio, and your "C" pair could be Jeff Francis and Tyler Chatwood.

There are many benefits to doing this - And some of them even go beyond impact the impact we see in the charts above.

1) You completely eliminate your opponent seeing your starting pitcher a third time through the lineup.

From 2002 to 2011, Rockies pitching faced an opponent a third time in a game just under 1,100 times per season. With a six man / three day rotation, that number would be cut almost to zero as pitchers would rarely get into a lineup for a third time in 55 pitches. Taking away the 1,100 most productive plate appearances from your opponent and replacing them with plate appearances where the OPS is going to average 83 points lower will do the same thing to opposing offenses as if our opponent could magically lower both Tulo's and Cargo's OPS by 83 points. It's that significant.

2) You can strategically pair two "starters" together who are left handed and right handed giving opposing managers nightmares about lefty / righty match ups.

There's no way the opponent can win here. They have two choices and neither of them are good. They can either suffer through two of the first four plate appearances in a game in which they will have an undesirable lefty / right match up as it relates to guys with large platoon splits - Or they can start pinch hitting four guys in about the fourth inning and have a very small bench left by the latter third of the game.

3) More bullpen to work with...

Unlike with the four starter / three piggybacker rotation the Rockies implemented last season in which the Rockies only had five men left to work with in the bullpen, a six man / three day rotation would still leave you with a six man bullpen. There's more flexibility here, and that's always a good thing.

4) Pinch hit when the situation demands it.

Let's say you have a situation in about the 4th inning of a game where the starter is at about 45 pitches and his turn comes up in the lineup with the bases loaded and two outs. In a normal situation, you just have to eat it and let your pitcher bat, but in a six man / three day rotation, you can end that starter's day without blinking and sub in a decent bat for what it likely to be one the most important plate appearances in the game. This won't happen too often, but in the games it does happen, it has to potential to be the difference maker.

5) You can give the pitchers who are throwing well more meaningful innings and the pitchers who are throwing poorly less meaning innings.

It's possible to do this because you can alternate which of your two "starters" actually starts each game. For example, if your second starter has been pitching well and the game is likely out of reach one way or the other, you can cut down the number of pitches he throws in that outing (let the mop up bullpen guy clean it up) and let your "starter" throw more pitches the following outing if he needs them to get completely through a lineup twice. We're not talking about anything major here, but you can definitely tweak things some to make sure that the arms who are throwing the best are throwing as many meaningful innings as possible.

One final note for those wondering - The math works. If a starter throws in 54 games (which they would in this system), and threw an average of 55 pitches an outing, they would throw 2,970 pitches over the course of the season. Compare that to a regular starter who throws an average of 95 pitches a season over 32 starts and throws 3,040 pitches in a season. This system would be no more taxing on the arms, and if anything, this system could be less taxing.

So knowing all of these benefits, why didn't the Rockies adopt this method? Here is Dan O'Dowd's response...

I can tell you that we looked at that specifically, but there's a human element involved to these things. Wins are extremely important to starting pitchers, and ultimately it's an industry driven system as it relates financially.

We struggled knowing that even with going to a four man rotation and limiting the pitch count a lot of the starters were not getting wins unless they dramatically lowered their pitches per innings and were able to get through five innings. Now you're talking about taking them down to three [innings].

Conceptually you're right on. No argument at all from me at all. It creates a lot more flexibility. It also creates a little more onus on your manager and your bench coach and your pitching coach to manage it appropriately, but you hit on every major point that we actually looked at.

[However], there's a human element involved and that human element is that you've got to get your players to buy into this this kind of concept. That would be a struggle. It was a struggle even to get them to go to the concept we went to and it would be a further struggle to take it beyond that.

I have mixed feelings about this response. On one hand, I'm happy that the Rockies did look into the six man / three day rotation, but at the same time the players rejecting the idea leaves us at quite an impasse. The worlds in which it's a high priority for a starting pitcher (and only a starting pitcher) to get a win doesn't coexist well with a world that's trying to eliminate a starter going through an opponent's lineup a third time for the greater good of the team. In order to get through the five innings needed to qualify for a win without seeing a lineup for the third time, a starter would need to retire at least 15 of 18 hitters - Either that or mix in an extra double play for every hitter he fails to retire. In other words, the math dictates that it just won't happen very often.

While there's no way to know for sure what was discussed between the Rockies Front Office and the team's players last June, it's probably fair to assume that the four man rotation was a compromise settled on between the two sides. The starters could still get their wins if they pitched well, and the amount of plate appearances the opponents would see a starting pitcher the third time through would be limited.

So where does it go from here? That's a really tough question. I'm a firm believer that the greatest pitch a pitcher can throw is the one he can throw with conviction, and if he thinks that he can pitch better when in line to get a win, it's going to be very hard to convince him otherwise. With that said though, I don't think it should be impossible. These numbers are so significant that it would be foolish for the team not to take full advantage of them.

I know Purple Row operates in a vacuum; there's no way we can know exactly what goes on behind closed doors on a daily basis - And most cases we shouldn't. But when the potential for increased production from our pitching staff as a whole is this large, and is sitting right in front of us, it's very difficult to accept our pitchers not buying into it and leaving a potential gold mine untapped. The case for a six man / three day rotation from a numbers perspective is there. It's well supported by a large sample size of data that tells a dramatic story of increased offensive production the third time through the order. There's no denying it.

As someone sitting here with no ability to control what happens with this going forward, a part of me realizes that I just have to accept whatever comes, but I'd be lying to you if I told you that there wasn't another part of me just yearning for this issue to be revisited in 2013.

Yeah, I want more.

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Braves Minor League Reliever Billy Bullock
Suspended 50 Games For Drug Violation

According to the Twitter feeds of the Atlanta Braves beat writers, right-handed relief pitcher Billy Bullock has been suspended 50 games after violating the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. This is his second violation. It was apparently not a PED, but a "drug of abuse."

Bullock was acquired from the Minnesota Twins two years ago in exchange for starting pitcher Scott Diamond. Bullock has shown promise as a hard throwing reliever, holding opponents to low batting averages and racking up high strikeout totals, but he has also tallied high walk totals throughout his career. He was highly regarded as a bullpen prospect, but that excitement has been tempered by his lack of progress this past year.

He has spend the majority of the past two season at double-A Mississippi, and did not fare well in a late season promotion to triple-A. The suspension will begin at the start of the 2013 regular season.

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The Third Time Through The Batting Order

On Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to be one of the callers on Mile High Sports Radio who got to pose a question to Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd and Rockies owner Dick Monfort. So I used the opportunity to address one of the major reason's why they decided to switch to a four man (three piggybacker) rotation last June, and specifically question why they chose that method over another system. Before I get into O'Dowd's answer though, I want to go into deep detail about that "other system" which I'll label as the "six man / three day" rotation.

First off, take a look at the two charts below. The first one is OPS against Rockies pitchers and the second one is OPS against N.L. pitching as a whole (Basically a league average).

One thing to quickly note; I used all of the data available post humidor installation but did not use 2012 data because there's an extraneous variable involved. Once the Rockies limited their starters to 75 pitches, the only pitchers who were ever going to see a decent number of hitters in a lineup the third time through were the ones who were already pitching well that night by throwing strikes and limiting their pitches per plate appearance to batters. Meanwhile, the first and second time through the lineup sample is still loaded with all of the outings where the starters were terrible. In other words, the 2012 numbers are going to give us misleading data when it comes to determining if there is a significant rise in OPS that third time a pitcher faces a hitter in a game.

Each column is as follows...

1) The year

2) The OPS against starting pitchers the first time through the lineup

3) The OPS against starting pitchers the second time through the lineup

4) The average OPS against starting pitchers the first AND second time through the lineup

5) The OPS against starting pitchers the third time through the lineup

6) The difference in OPS points between the OPS against starting pitchers the third time though the lineup and the average OPS against starting pitchers the first and second time through the lineup.

(Data provided by baseballreference.com)

The data here is pretty incredible. It shows that there is a DRAMATIC rise in OPS the third time a starter faces an opponent across the National League, but more importantly for Colorado, it also shows that the rise is about 30% higher for Rockies pitching. Even more amazing though is that the 30% increase in the rise seen here includes all of the Rockies road games.

Before the opportunity to address this on the radio came up, I was working to figure out just how large that rise was at Coors Field specifically since baseball reference only breaks this down for teams throughout a whole season. Unfortunately that's an enormous pain in the butt as you have to add up all the data yourself. For that reason, I didn't get to finish everything from this large time period, but the data I have collected so far seems to indicate that the rise in OPS against Rockies pitching at Coors the third time through a lineup is going to be somewhere around 100 to 105 OPS points.

This would make sense too as you would expect the OPS rise against Rockies pitching on the road the third time through a lineup to mirror the league average numbers which the second chart shows to be right around 64 OPS points. Assuming this is true, then you would need to see an OPS rise of about 100 points that third time through a lineup at Coors in order to arrive at the overall OPS rise of 83 points we see against Rockies pitching the third time through the lineup at the bottom of the purple chart. In short, that 100 to 105 OPS point rise number passes the smell test.

Knowing this, we can deduce that the increase in OPS from 2002 through 2011 when a lineup faced a starting pitcher at Coors for the third time was approximately 60% higher than the National League average.

The Rockies Front Office saw these numbers (Or at least their own version of these numbers), correctly tried to take advantage of them, and ended up implementing the four man rotation. This plan would limit, but not completely eliminate exposure of the starters to a third trip through the lineup.

When I first saw these numbers, the four man rotation made sense to me - But after thinking about it for a while, I began to realize that there was an even better way to address this unique property of Coors Field. Instead of using seven pitchers in a four day rotation (the four 75 pitch starters + the three piggybackers), it would make much more sense to use a six man / three day rotation in which you have two "starters" each game throw about 55 pitches. Pick your six best arms, pair them into three groups of two, and repeat the process every three games.

For example, your "A" pair could be Jhoulys Chacin and Jorge De La Rosa, your "B" pair could be Drew Pomeranz and Juan Nicasio, and your "C" pair could be Jeff Francis and Tyler Chatwood.

There are many benefits to doing this - And some of them even go beyond impact the impact we see in the charts above.

1) You completely eliminate your opponent seeing your starting pitcher a third time through the lineup.

From 2002 to 2011, Rockies pitching faced an opponent a third time in a game just under 1,100 times per season. With a six man / three day rotation, that number would be cut almost to zero as pitchers would rarely get into a lineup for a third time in 55 pitches. Taking away the 1,100 most productive plate appearances from your opponent and replacing them with plate appearances where the OPS is going to average 83 points lower will do the same thing to opposing offenses as if our opponent could magically lower both Tulo's and Cargo's OPS by 83 points. It's that significant.

2) You can strategically pair two "starters" together who are left handed and right handed giving opposing managers nightmares about lefty / righty match ups.

There's no way the opponent can win here. They have two choices and neither of them are good. They can either suffer through two of the first four plate appearances in a game in which they will have an undesirable lefty / right match up as it relates to guys with large platoon splits - Or they can start pinch hitting four guys in about the fourth inning and have a very small bench left by the latter third of the game.

3) More bullpen to work with...

Unlike with the four starter / three piggybacker rotation the Rockies implemented last season in which the Rockies only had five men left to work with in the bullpen, a six man / three day rotation would still leave you with a six man bullpen. There's more flexibility here, and that's always a good thing.

4) Pinch hit when the situation demands it.

Let's say you have a situation in about the 4th inning of a game where the starter is at about 45 pitches and his turn comes up in the lineup with the bases loaded and two outs. In a normal situation, you just have to eat it and let your pitcher bat, but in a six man / three day rotation, you can end that starter's day without blinking and sub in a decent bat for what it likely to be one the most important plate appearances in the game. This won't happen too often, but in the games it does happen, it has to potential to be the difference maker.

5) You can give the pitchers who are throwing well more meaningful innings and the pitchers who are throwing poorly less meaning innings.

It's possible to do this because you can alternate which of your two "starters" actually starts each game. For example, if your second starter has been pitching well and the game is likely out of reach one way or the other, you can cut down the number of pitches he throws in that outing (let the mop up bullpen guy clean it up) and let your "starter" throw more pitches the following outing if he needs them to get completely through a lineup twice. We're not talking about anything major here, but you can definitely tweak things some to make sure that the arms who are throwing the best are throwing as many meaningful innings as possible.

One final note for those wondering - The math works. If a starter throws in 54 games (which they would in this system), and threw an average of 55 pitches an outing, they would throw 2,970 pitches over the course of the season. Compare that to a regular starter who throws an average of 95 pitches a season over 32 starts and throws 3,040 pitches in a season. This system would be no more taxing on the arms, and if anything, this system could be less taxing.

So knowing all of these benefits, why didn't the Rockies adopt this method? Here is Dan O'Dowd's response...

I can tell you that we looked at that specifically, but there's a human element involved to these things. Wins are extremely important to starting pitchers, and ultimately it's an industry driven system as it relates financially.

We struggled knowing that even with going to a four man rotation and limiting the pitch count a lot of the starters were not getting wins unless they dramatically lowered their pitches per innings and were able to get through five innings. Now you're talking about taking them down to three [innings].

Conceptually you're right on. No argument at all from me at all. It creates a lot more flexibility. It also creates a little more onus on your manager and your bench coach and your pitching coach to manage it appropriately, but you hit on every major point that we actually looked at.

[However], there's a human element involved and that human element is that you've got to get your players to buy into this this kind of concept. That would be a struggle. It was a struggle even to get them to go to the concept we went to and it would be a further struggle to take it beyond that.

I have mixed feelings about this response. On one hand, I'm happy that the Rockies did look into the six man / three day rotation, but at the same time the players rejecting the idea leaves us at quite an impasse. The worlds in which it's a high priority for a starting pitcher (and only a starting pitcher) to get a win doesn't coexist well with a world that's trying to eliminate a starter going through an opponent's lineup a third time for the greater good of the team. In order to get through the five innings needed to qualify for a win without seeing a lineup for the third time, a starter would need to retire at least 15 of 18 hitters - Either that or mix in an extra double play for every hitter he fails to retire. In other words, the math dictates that it just won't happen very often.

While there's no way to know for sure what was discussed between the Rockies Front Office and the team's players last June, it's probably fair to assume that the four man rotation was a compromise settled on between the two sides. The starters could still get their wins if they pitched well, and the amount of plate appearances the opponents would see a starting pitcher the third time through would be limited.

So where does it go from here? That's a really tough question. I'm a firm believer that the greatest pitch a pitcher can throw is the one he can throw with conviction, and if he thinks that he can pitch better when in line to get a win, it's going to be very hard to convince him otherwise. With that said though, I don't think it should be impossible. These numbers are so significant that it would be foolish for the team not to take full advantage of them.

I know Purple Row operates in a vacuum; there's no way we can know exactly what goes on behind closed doors on a daily basis - And most cases we shouldn't. But when the potential for increased production from our pitching staff as a whole is this large, and is sitting right in front of us, it's very difficult to accept our pitchers not buying into it and leaving a potential gold mine untapped. The case for a six man / three day rotation from a numbers perspective is there. It's well supported by a large sample size of data that tells a dramatic story of increased offensive production the third time through the order. There's no denying it.

As someone sitting here with no ability to control what happens with this going forward, a part of me realizes that I just have to accept whatever comes, but I'd be lying to you if I told you that there wasn't another part of me just yearning for this issue to be revisited in 2013.

Yeah, I want more.

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The Blue Jay Way (Part I)

Since being appointed General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays just over three years ago, Anthopoulos has built one of the top farm systems in baseball and now has the Blue Jays in position to take advantage of the relatively weak AL East. Winning the division would be a feat they have not accomplished since way back in 1993. Replacing J.P. Ricciardi, who was supposed to be the next great GM, Anthopoulos inherited one of the worst farm systems in baseball as well as one of the worst contracts in baseball history, which happens to still belong to Vernon Wells. On the other hand, the Jays had a great trade chip in Roy Halladay and plenty of future payroll flexibility to be able to hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Now that the Blue Jays have started the second part of rebuilding, otherwise known as contending, I thought it would be interesting to take an inside look at Anthopoulos' moves to get them here. This series will encompass AA's trades, free agent signings, the amateur draft and international free agency. We will look through his moves and try to determine if he has been successful at bettering the team and helping them move forward as a franchise.

Prior to Anthopoulos' first regular season on the job, he appointed Dwayne Murphy as hitting coach. He is considered responsible for turning Jose Bautista's and later Edwin Encarnacion's raw power into game changing home run power. While neither of these players were acquired by Anthopoulos, both only started succeeding after he had taken the reigns of the organization. Murphy is known to have a coaching style similar to his own hitting style, he is a big believer in trying to hit for as much power as possible and once said "Get ready, get a pitch, swing hard". While his hitting approach does not necessarily fit everyone's hitting technique, the matching of the right personnel with the right coaching and in the right ballpark is nothing short of extremely creative. Being able to help Bautista and Encarnacion mature into two of the deadliest power hitters in baseball was nothing short of a stroke of genius.

While Murphy's methods did not work out for everyone, Anthopoulos showed his understanding of the principal of making the best with what you have. Finding the right blend of coaching with the players already on hand is no smaller of a skill than being able to swing a good trade or find a talented player cheaply on the waiver wire. I mean imagine having the best knuckleballer in history pitching indoors half of his starts.

Anthopoulos has just attempted to remodel his club from a talented team with a few too many holes to compete, into one of the better looking teams in baseball, on paper. One of the first questions that should be asked is why now. The answer is that a few things had fallen into place making it the opportune moment for the Blue Jays to trade away a bunch of their top prospects and try to compete now.

First of all, the AL East is probably the weakest it's been in a decade if not longer. The Yankees are trying to get themselves under the luxury tax threshold for next season which is seriously hampering their ability to add impact players. The Red Sox are coming off a brutal season which involved finishing below .500 and trading away half their team. They definitely have improved this offseason, but the Red Sox, just like the Yankees, just aren't that scary anymore. The Rays are a very well run organization and have only improved this offseason trading from an organizational strength to replace BJ Upton. And I think it's safe to say no one takes the Orioles 2012 postseason appearance too seriously, you'd still be hard pressed to find a less talented team in the AL East. When this is taken into account along with the second wild card spot, now seems like a great time to compete.

Another factor to consider is the Blue Jays market size and current inter-sport competition for the Toronto spotlight. The Raptors are not even close to being a respectable basketball team and the NHL is currently in the midst of its second lockout in the past ten years. Not that it matters, being that the Maples Leafs aren't any good. If you look back at the early '90's Toronto was clearly a Blue Jays town. With the large market currently not being fully exploited by any one of those teams, the Jays have the ability to dominate one of the largest markets in sports.

A third factor is money. For a big market team, the Blue Jays had barely been spending having their payroll in the $70-$85 million range the past few seasons. Couple that with Rogers being maybe the wealthiest owners in baseball and all of the sudden we're dealing with a lot of financial flexibility. On the other hand, the Blue Jays spending now could be them realizing that with prices in baseball going up and the new TV deal with FOX beginning in 2014, free agents will just be getting more expensive. Therefore, them investing a lot of future dollars now, could really be them capitalizing on what will likely be a more expensive marketplace 3-5 years from now. It's basically betting that one 2012 dollar, will only buy you 80 cents on the free agent market in two years. So accordingly, the Blue Jays have invested a lot of 2012 dollars in their 2014 payroll and beyond.

Even with the stars aligning themselves financially and competitively, the Blue Jays still were a good 10-15 winsshy of being in the same conversation as the Rays, Angels, Rangers and Tigers. Even with stars like Bautista, Encarnacion and Brandon Morrow along with a great cast of role players, their window of opportunity was probably sometime in the next few seasons. Equipped with one of the best farm systems in baseball all the Blue Jays needed was to wait a couple years and they'd have all the pieces in place to make a serious playoff run. And that's where the Marlins come in. Without Jeffrey Loria none of this ever happens. But, being able to add another couple of stars to an already talented Blue Jays team without having to commit a ton of years or give up too many prospects is exactly what the doctor ordered. This is just an example of the perfect opportunity coming along at the perfect moment. It's getting lucky, but using that luck to gain an advantage over your opponents.

But before we get into actually judging AA as a GM, I feel the need to point out his fearlessness in conducting blockbuster trades. In his three years on the job he's been involved in quite a few trades, high in both quality and quantity. Not only will we try to find out if Anthopoulos is one of the best at what he does, but we'll try to uncover patterns he follows when making baseball operations decisions.

Next Time

We'll take a look into actual transactions made this far in Anthopoulos' tenure.

Dov Goldstein contributed to this article

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Around the SaberSphere 12/21: 2012's Best
Defensive Teams, Mike Minor, Park Factors

John Dewan of Acta Sports and Baseball Info Solutions presents the list of 2012's Best and Worst defensive teams: Stat of the Week | ACTA Sports

The defensive shift is more popular in the American League, especially in the East, where four of the top five top teams reside. Some of that is specific to players. The Indians played in a division with Adam Dunn and Prince Fielder, and the Blue Jays, Rays, Orioles, and Red Sox used a lot of defensive shifts against Carlos Pena, David Ortiz, and Mark Teixeira. Those five hitters were the most heavily shifted players in baseball. Still, there are players on every team that should be shifted, and certain teams are taking advantage more than others.

Ben Lindbergh of Baseball Prospectus questions whether Mike Minor's resurgent second half was due to luck or a change in approach: Baseball Prospectus | Overthinking It: The Mike Minor Mystery

So, which was most responsible for Minor’s second-half success: more mixing of pitches, better fastball, or better luck? (Or something else entirely!) Did Minor stop serving up hits and homers because his luck turned and more balls began to find gloves? Or did he succeed because he started doing things that were more likely to lead to outs?

Also at BP, Colin Wyers delivers a great reference on the implementation of park factors: Baseball Prospectus | BP Unfiltered: The Philosophy of Park Factors

Those are useful things to know if we want to project a player's skill, but TAv is not supposed to measure a player's skill, it's supposed to measure a player's value to his team. So our interest in park adjustment is not in seeing what a player would have done in a different park (I abjure those sorts of hypotheticals in value stats), but accounting for the different value of a run in different park contexts. We all know that Juan Pierre wasn't the sort of player who could really take advantage of Coors back when he was on the Rockies, for instance. But the average player coming in to face the Rockies could, and that changed the run environment Pierre played in, so even if he couldn't hit additional home runs in Coors it still affected the run environment he played in, and in a value stat that's important to account for.

Matt Swartz of the Hardball Times concludes his series on game theory and baseball with an awesome pitch selection model: Game theory and baseball, Part 5: Generalizing the pitch selection model

These articles have only served to develop a framework. Going forward, analysts could use FanGraphs’ o-swing and z-swing statistics to actually calculate some more exact payoffs. Variation in pitch usage by count could be explored differently, too, using these payoffs. Additionally, discussions with players could determine ability to detect pitches. Variations in counts could be used to adjusted x+y and z frameworks. Other pitches could be added to complicate the equilibrium for pitchers with more than two pitches, too.

Finally, I have to announce that this will be the last sabermetric link post of this form at Beyond the Box Score.

I've really enjoyed doing these link pieces since July and I hope the readers have enjoyed them at least half that much. Also, hopefully it became some sort of a resource for those who wanted to find the good baseball pieces from around the internet.

BTBS will be moving towards a different form of links going forward. The goal will be to respond and interact with pieces that our writers find interesting, follow this link for an example.

Anyways, it's been a fun ride, but before I go for the last time, I'll leave you with this clip of the great Josh Gibson, whose birthday is today: Baseball Hall of Fame - Biographies: Josh Gibson - YouTube

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