LATEST STORIES FROM
Discuss
Dotel Signs With Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays entered the offseason knowing that the team’s bullpen would look drastically different on Opening Day 2011 than it did last October. While Jason Frasor decided to accept Toronto’s arbitration offer rather than testing the market as a Type A free agent, fellow Type A Scott Downs signed a three-year deal with the Angels, and Type B free agent Kevin Gregg is...
Microeconomics And Offense (Part 2)
Last week’s post examined offense in the American League through the prism of capital and labor. This week, it’s the National League’s turn.
To review, Quadrant I contains teams which are above average at getting on base, but below average in driving runs in. Quadrant II consists of teams which are below average at both skills. Quadrant III contains teams which are above...
FanGraphs Chat – 12/28/10
Chris Cwik will swing by at 3:00 pm eastern time for his inaugural chat here on FanGraphs. Come meet the new guy and talk baseball for an hour or so.
FanGraphs Chat
The Cheap DH Cycle
While the market for relief pitchers has been brisk, there’s one group of players that have generally been ignored so far this winter – designated hitters. Thanks to the glut of available bat-only players, teams with open spots at DH have been content to sit around and let the off-season play out, and so it looks like we’ll head into January with a half dozen or so designated...
Show Me the $! End-of-Year Payrolls
On some level, it’s simple to say that each of the Big-4 sports in Northern America are different. Baseball doesn’t have a clock; the NHL uses a puck; the NBA uses a hoop; the NFL has downs.
Yes, I’m being over simplistic here, but on the salary side, the distance between MLB and its other Big-4 brethren diverge further still.
Baseball has a soft salary cap, but only in the...
Hu’s on Short?
On Monday, the Mets traded left-hander Michael Antonini for the Dodgers’ future shortstop of the past – Chin-Lung Hu. Though the move didn’t include any top prospects, it may have real implications for the Mets going forward.
Antonini does pitch with his left hand, and may be close to the major leagues (the 25-year-old just finished his second stint at Triple-A), but he looks...
Brewers Strengthen Bullpen With Saito
After improving its starting rotation with the acquisitions of Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke, the Brewers have moved onto other aspects of team building. On offense the team appears set, as they’re returning seven of the eight starters who contributed to the team’s 110 wRC+ last season, which ranked third in the majors. Where the team could use some fortification is in the bullpen...
Webb, Texas Ranger
The representatives of Brandon Webb and the Texas Rangers front office managed to take some time out of their undoubtedly busy Boxing Day schedule to agree to a one-year contract. Terms of the deal have not been released as of Sunday night, but the deal is “incentive-laden,” according to Nick Piecoro. If this deal fits into the market of Rich Harden and Erik Bedard type market...
Atkins to Pittsburgh
Brad Hawpe wasn’t the only former Colorado Rockies’ slugger to find a new team over the holiday weekend. For the second consecutive winter, Garrett Atkins will attempt to re-establish himself with a perennial cellar-dweller. The Baltimore phase of his mission went stunningly poor, so his new (minor league) deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates couldn’t possibly go any worse, could...
Marlins Win Christmas Day Extension
Ricky Nolasco was headed into this third arbitration season after achieving Super 2 status in 2009. That is no longer his concern after inking a three-year contract with the Florida Marlins. Per MLB.com, the terms of the deal call for $6 million in 2011, $9 million for ’12 and $11.5 million for ’13. There is also an innings bonus of up to a half million per season.
He was under...
Rockies Acquire Matt Lindstrom
The Colorado Rockies have acquired right-handed reliever Matt Lindstrom from the Houston Astros for a pair of minor league pitchers, Wes Musick and Jonnathan Aristil. Lindstrom, swapped from the Florida Marlins to Houston last December, will join Huston Street, Rafael Betancourt, Matt Belisle, Franklin Morales and others in a Colorado bullpen that placed third in the National League...
Kansas City’s Current Rotation
The Kansas City Royals possess one of the most fertile farm systems in recent memory. In addition to top position prospects Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Will Myers, K.C. has unparalleled pitching talent — Mike Montgomery, John Lamb, Danny Duffy and Christopher Dwyer are potential top-of-the-rotation lefties. From the right, there’s Aaron Crow and two of the four youngsters...
Handling Young Pitchers
This article was initially meant to be one piece, but there was too much information to analyze. In order to save everyone from one massive article, I’ve decided to split this piece into two parts. Part two will run in the coming days.
While traveling for the holidays, I find that a good book makes a flight much more enjoyable. Last night, I began my journey through The Hardball...
The Top 10 Prospect Lists… So Far
In case you’ve missed the Top 10 lists so far, here they are. Click the team names for scouting reports/profiles.
30. The Chicago White Sox
1. Chris Sale, LHP
2. Jared Mitchell, OF
3. Brent Morel, 3B
4. Dayan Viciedo, 1B/3B
5. Tyler Flowers, C
29. The Houston Astros
1. Jordan Lyles, RHP
2. Delino DeShields, OF/2B
3. Tanner Bushue, RHP
4. Jio Mier, SS
5. Mike Kvasnicka, C/OF
28...
Royals’ Farm System: Best of the Decade?
Even before trading away Zack Greinke, the Royals were widely considered to have the best farm system in baseball. With Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress now in the fold, some prospect analysts believe the the Royals’ farm system may be historically good.
Is this a case of hyperbole, or do the royals really have one of the best farm systems ever?
Ranking farm systems and prospects...
Choosing among three walk-heavy lefties
If you go to our pitcher leader boards and sort by BB/9, you’ll see a trio of lefties on top. Jonathan Sanchez, Gio Gonzalez, and C.J. Wilson pitched effectively in 2010 despite being the only three qualified pitchers in baseball to walk more than four per nine. Yet all of them out-performed all of their peripherals, in some cases to a considerable degree. It made me wonder...
Adrian Beltre’s Possible Suitors
Tidbits started floating around yesterday that to some extent the Angels were out of the running for Adrian Beltre. Those rumors coalesced as the day wore on and the story appears to be that Boras and Beltre have rejected the Angels latest offer and that negotiations are at a standstill currently, but not off entirely.
This was a bit of a surprise since as the free agent market has...
FanGraphs Audio: James Kannengieser, Amazin’ Ave.
Episode Fifty-Six
In which the guest is neither a cannon, nor a geyser: discuss.
Headlines
The Moneyball Book Club
Meta-Meta Musings on Blogging
The Sabermetric Biography of James Kannengieser
Featuring
James Kannengieser — Purveyor, White-Hot Prose
Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 40 min play time.)
Buck, Fields Find New Clubs
Heading into the 2007 season, outfielder Travis Buck and third baseman Josh Fields were primo prospects. Baseball America ranked Buck, the Oakland Athletics’ supplemental first-round pick in the 2005 draft, as the 50th best farm talent in the game. A standout quarterback at Oklahoma State, Fields gave up throwing spirals to sign with the Chicago White Sox for $1.55 million as the...
Pondering a Platoon
The Milwaukee Brewers re-signed Craig Counsell yesterday to a one-year pact worth $1.4 million. Counsell spent last season primarily at shortstop while seeing time at second base and third base as well. Despite Counsell’s age – he turned 40 in August – there’s a case to be made that he should find himself in the lineup more often in 2011.
The Brewers’ acquisition of Yuniesky...
The NL Central Rotations
In this afternoon’s impromptu chat session, I was asked which team I thought had the best rotation in the National League Central. This question was clearly inspired by the Brewers recent acquisitions of Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum, giving them three formidable starters to match up with the group down in St. Louis. However, I didn’t choose either of those rotations as my...
Microeconomics And Offense (Part 1)
In Microeconomic theory, there are two factors in production: capital and labor. Labor is the manpower used to create output, and capital is the machinery and technology that makes that labor work more effectively.
At its core, there are two main factors in scoring runs: getting runners on base and knocking those runners in. By looking at these skills as capital and labor it reveals...
Related Yards
|
|
|
|
|
Today's Best Stuff |
For BloggersJoin the Yardbarker Network (YBN) for more promotion, traffic, and money. |
Company Info |
Help |
What is Yardbarker?Yardbarker is the largest network of sports blogs and pro athlete blogs on the web. This site is the hub of the Yardbarker Network, where our editors and algorithms curate the best sports content from our network and beyond. |
