Thursday 6/5

Draft day special

Today at 2 PM is the 2008 baseball draft on ESPN2 and mlb.com.
It is very difficult to learn about every player potentially being drafted, so I just try and get whatever info I can before the draft, then sit back on a Yankee message board (Nyyfans.com) and watch some knowledgable losers who know 10,000x more than me bicker about the merits and faults of Kennedy and Chamberlain (that's what I did last year anyway). Of course, it's important to baseball fans because more and more in the past decade the draft has been increasing in importance.
Here are some things you can look at to get a little basic knowledge of this year's draft, and I will also provide some of the notable draft selections of the past 5 years so you can appreciate the immediate dividends wise picks have produced.

• Some things to remember.. unlike other sports there is no trading picks. Baseball has a unique system (a little about it here) where you can steal other team's picks when they sign a top notch free agent who left your team, which was implemented to help lower market teams.
• Baseball Prospectus' MOCK DRAFT (with the Yankees taking Ike Davis).
• If you have ESPN Insider (I don't) you can see Keith Law's Updated Top 75 Rankings.
• The Devil Rays will select Tim Beckham #1, learn about him here. Moneyball wouldn't approve of a High ceiling HS SS prospect, but the Devil Rays have been pretty good at drafting recently (albeit with darn good positioning) so we'll let it play out.
• Of course, take a look at the Draft Order (Yankees 28, 44 (Vizcaino Rockies). Red Sox 30, 45 (Gagne Brewers). Mets 18 (Glavine Braves), 22, 33.)
• Mets (18) and Twins (27) are the big free agent type A winners who got first round picks in addition to their Compensating round picks. Rowand signed with a team that had a protected pick (which means a top 15 pick, it was the Giants at 5) so the Phillies were only able to get the Giants 2nd round pick (in addition to the Comp round pick which every team that loses a FA (definitely at least a Type A) gets (I believe)).
• Some Yankee speculation:
  - Someone posted this on NYYFANS.com message board:
  Quote:
  • Rumor of the day: Seattle's doctor has given the team the all-clear to take Tanner Scheppers, whose medical report on his injured shoulder has scared away a number of teams off. His advisors are saying they want top-four-overall-picks money, which has clubs convinced they have a deal in place already later in the round. -Keith Law's blog We got him.
• #1 overall picks sinec 1987: David Price, Luke Hochevar, Justin Upton, Matthew Bush, Delmon Young, Brian Bullington, Joe Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Hamilton, Pat Burrel, Matt Anderson, Kris Benson, Darin Erstad, Paul Wilson, Alex Rodriguez, Phil Nevin, Brien Taylor, Chipper Jones, Ben McDonald, Andy Benes, Ken Griffey Jr.
• Baseball America has some notes from a few days ago, right before the Rays anounced they are taking Beckham.

THE DRAFT MATTERS:

First round players from the past 3 years who have debuted in MLB. Each bullet will start with a year, then it will show player, overall selection and by which team:

• 2007 Ross Dewtiller taken 6th by Nats
• 2006 Hochevar 1 Royals, Andrew Miller 6 Tigers, Tim Lincecum 10 Giants, Ian Kennedy 21 Yankees, Joba Chamberlain 41 Yankees.
• 2005 Justin Upton 1 D-Backs, Alex Gordon 2 Royals, Jeff Clement 3 Mariners, Ryan Zimmerman 4 Nationals, Ryan Braun 5 Brewers, Troy Tulowitzki 7 Rockies, Mike Pelfrey 9 Mets, Cameron Maybin 10 Tigers, Lance Broadway 15 White Sox, Jacoby Ellsbury 23 Red Sox, Matt Garza 25 Twins, Craig Hansen 26 Red Sox, Joey Devine 27 Braves (you gotta check out his stats or gamelog so far this year for Oakland btw so click his name), Travis Buck 36 A's, Clay Buchholtz 42 Red Sox, Garrett Olson 48 Orioles.

Wednesday 6/4

OK so I've been a little busy. But I'd like to thank Giller for insighting an idea which will change every upcoming club posting. Also thank Farbs for his contribution via facebook, with some tweaking:

The Player:
Cecil Fielder: G=1470, and SB=2
The Club:
Cecil Fielder has stolen the fewest bases (just 2) by anyone who has played 1310 games or more. If you count 1309 or more, then Del Rice is in a tie with 2. If you count 1252 games or more, then Jesse Orosco qualifies (he of 76 career plate appearances) with 0 steals. So 1310 games or more, and only Cecil has stolen 2 or fewer bases.
WOW. Are you kidding me? That many games and that few steals? Look at the Next in line section for some perspective into how rare that is, because I certainly didn't appreciate it at first either:

Next in line:
Here is the active leaderboard for the Cecil Fielder club sorted by Games Played (AKA these are active players, who have played the most games and have yet to steal the 3rd base of their career):
1. Mike Stanton 1178 Games, 0 SB
2. Mike Timlin 1012 Games, 0 SB
3. Roberto Hernandez 1010 Games, 0 SB
4. Jose Mesa 1007 Games, 0 SB
5. Todd Jones 958 Games, 0 SB
6. Trevor Hoffman 902 Games, 0 SB
7. Daryle Ward 889 Games, 1 SB
I went 7-deep for obvious reasons... I wanted a hitter! Ward is 33... If I were to look for someone who actually has potential to pass Cecil in games at this point, I'd have to keep going. So I will:
8. Tom Gordon 882 Games, 0 SB
9. Mike Myers 866 Games, 0 SB
10. Dave Weathers 849 Games, 0 SB
11. Bob Wickman 835 Games, 0 SB
12. Wes Helms 817 Games, 2 SB
13. Alan Embree 804 Games, 0 SB
Ok I'm not going to list Eddie Guardado, 796 Games, 0 SB because this is getting boring. I'm drawing the line right here at 800 games. I guess it is conceivable that the 32 year old Wes Helms or the 33 year old Daryle Ward, who each can get 100 games a year (being generous) as pinch hitters and such, can catch Cecil in games but it is unlikely. Every listed reliever here is way too old and has no shot at pitching that many games. Looks like Cecil will own this club for a while.

Sunday 6/1

In honor of Manny joining the 500 Homer Club, here is his personal club as well as another very similar player in terms of 4 of the 5 parameters who also dominated the 1990's:

1. Manny Ramirez: HR>=500, SB<=35, 3B<=18, SH<=2, and SLG>=.590
2. Frank Thomas: HR>=500, SB<=35, 3B<=18, SH<=2, and OBP>=.420
Two OPS machines who had different specialties. But don't ask either to run or bunt.

Friday 5/30

1. Al Leiter: BB/9>=4.37, WL%>=.55, IP>=2391, and GS>=382
The guy who most represented the type of pitcher who has been around a long time, was on some good teams and pitched deep into games, but walked a lot of batters.

I love Leiter's quirky personality. I loved him as a pitcher, I loved him even more as an old washed up Yankee pitcher on his way out, and now I love him the most as an amusing TV analyst. Besides for being hilarious, I will also say that while he is no Brian Bannister, he still is for a major league player surprisingly "with-it" in terms of the sabrmetric revelations of the past quarter century, particularly with WHIP, and pitching to certain counts. He had an idea which I found fascinating a few years ago and I will mention it as I also ramble on about the subject in general. I hope this turns out coherent:

While I don't fully agree with his proposed playoff-system that he made several years ago as a player which was quickly lambasted by the local sports media, it definitely would be a step in the right direction and is MUCH better than the current system. He wanted 6 playoff teams from each league with the top 2 seeds in each league getting a first round bye, thus aiding "better" teams and giving them more a shot to win. But why is that necessary you might ask. Don't top teams such as the Yankees of the late 90s seem to survive this playoff system just fine? I truly believe the Yankees got very lucky and a string of success of actual WS Championships like that may go down in the history of this current playoff system as a remarkable dynasty.

For those unaware, the problem with the current system is that the Better team (defined as the team which has been proven to be superior to another team through a 162 game sample) is subjected to 2 brutal short series matchups which pretty much make it, as Billy Beane in Moneyball coined, a "crapshoot."

Here is the best way to show that the system is flawed: in a given league with 4 playoff teams, one of them according to win-loss record is better than one other (namely, the first place team from the same division as the wild card team is better than that wild card team). This means, that unlike the other 3 teams, this team should have LESS than a 1/4 chance of making it to the world series. Because of the 4 teams in its league, at least this one is known to be inferior to one another.

And yet, since the advent of the wild-card system in 1995, out of those 13 seasons in which there are 2 leagues, there should only be, in a perfect playoff system, AT MOST 1/4*(13*2) = 6.5 wild card teams making the world series. And yet there have been 9 such examples:
1997 Marlins, 2000 Mets, 2002 Angels, 2002 Giants, 2003 Marlins, 2004 Red Sox, 2005 Astros, 2006 Tigers, 2007 Rockies.

I, personally believe, that the Yankees have screwed with everyone's perceptions by winning a remarkable 4 world series in 5 years (and 1 inning away from 5/6) in this system. I think the depth of that type of streak will be put into a much greater perspective 40, 50 years from now when it is likely never repeated (assuming the system never changes), and then people will realize how the Yankees spoiled everyone into thinking that Selig's wild-card system was "good" when in essence it gave too much of a chance to the weak team to defeat the strong team in a probabilistic sport.

In case you were wondering my thoughts, the perfect system would have just a regular season with 1 league, no divisions, everyone plays everyone an equal amount of time and the first place finisher is "champion." I would love for this to be the case, and in such a league you can even quantify and give major importance/shep a lot of nachas from your team coming in 2nd, 6th or even 10th place out of 30.

But if there must be a post season for laymen fans' sake, at least make it only 2 rounds, and if you must have 3 rounds, at least lengthen each round! Prediction: none of this will ever happen, and a new wild card team will continue to advance to the world series much to Tim McCarver's "surprise" year in and year out.

Wednesday 5/28

I haven't necessarily been doing this until now, but from now on I am going to give the exact parameters of the actual guy in the club as the parameters. I may actually have been doing this but I'm not sure, either way from now on I won't just say "2B>600" if the guy really had 668 doubles.
The reason for this, as you will see from the John Olerud example, is that if there is an active player on the guy's tail I want to make the club as exclusive as possible so it is as hard as possible for the active player to join. Also, during each off season (if this thing is still around) I will go through every single club I made and put a big fat * next to the ones that no longer apply along with the new player who holds the club with the slightly superior standards. And of course, its just nice to know exactly what statistics the player had.
In general, lastly, I will try and mention who the active player close to the current stats but that is not always easy to find.

1. John Olerud: 2B>= 500, 3B<=13
Edgar Martinez on Steroids.
Not literally of course. I don't think either player did steroids. I mean in terms of being a speedless masher, he is in even more of an exclusive club if you don't care about homers (less doubles, even less triples, but no homerun requirement). He's Edgar with more doubles, fewer homers (so the same XBH power but less HR) and even fewer career triples (although both are negligible by career standards).
Frank Thomas has 492 doubles and 12 triples. If he gets 8 or more doubles without getting 2 or more triples before retiring, this club is either a tie or has a new leader with stronger standards (for example it might become the 2B>=503, 3B<=13 club or something). The only thing I want to mention about Olerud is Jim Rome's nickname for him, John "C3P0-lerud" (he wore a helmet in the field) which gets me every time.

Late.

Tuesday 5/27 Bonus - the technical "how to" post

I'm go to walkthrough my process for those interested. Let's say you want to make a club emphasizing how bad of a hitter Ray Ordonez is. Start by going to baseballreference.com and typing in Rey Ordonez at the top. (or you can type "Ray Ordonez" or even "Reinal Or").
Now you have all of his stats in front of you. If you aren't savvy enough to do this by mind, then you can open an excel spread sheet and type in Ray Ordonez and input a bunch of his offensive stats into columns.
Now, click the words "play index" next to "Quick Index:" towards the top of the page under the huge "Baseball-Reference.com" link. Under non-player specific tools, select batting season finder (because ordonez is a hitter).
Now, select "find totals for matching seasons or careers." Then look on the right where it says "Select Additional Criteria to Match." Now, based on our mind/excel spreadsheet, we know that Ordonez has played in 973 games with 3407 PA, 12 HR and 28 SB.
So set:
G>=973
PA>=3407
HR<=12
SB<=28
Above 'Get Results' you can select to sort it by something. You should choose one of the 4 categories you already inputted, and select ascending or descending so that Ordonez is not the #1 return. What I mean by that, is that you know Rey Ordonez will be one of the qualifiers for this club. If you choose to sort by Games, ascending, then you know that he will be the #1 return because of all the people who qualify for the above club, he has played the fewest games (973) while everyone else has played 973 or more. Therefore, if you are choosing to sort by G or PA leave the "ascending" box blank, if you are choosing to sort by HR or SB then select "ascending" to get an answer BESIDES Rey Ordonez. If you want to follow along with my example, select G and keep it descending.
Click 'Get Results.'
In a few moments a list should appear only showing you the #1 return, in this case Dal Maxvill who played 1423 games, the most games. Below you can see it says "Seasons/careers found: 6" This means that besides Dal Maxvill and Rey Ordonez, there are 4 more qualifiers. By being smart with the sorting options, you can possibly uncover the other 4. It doesn't take as long as it is about to look when you are used to going back and forth and when you have a fast computer, both of which I do/have. But to save you noobie the time:

Sorting by descending PA uncovers Tommy Thevenow.
Sorting by ascending HR uncovers Mike Tresh.
Sorting by ascending SB uncovers Dal Maxvill as well. No new name. Still 2 left.
Now you can just sort by anything until you uncover the final 2:
Sorting by ascending R uncovers Doug Flynn.
Sorting by ascending OBP uncovers Hal Lanier.
Now, you might say it is possible with this system that you can't ever find certain players no matter how you sort. That is to say, of this group, maybe there is a player that belongs neither at the top or bottom at every single searchable category. But considering you can search by year or birth, year of death, year of debut, height, weight, etc, this becomes extremely unlikely.

Now that you have the 6 players who qualify for the aforementioned 4 parameters, you need to whittle it down even further to find where Rey Ordonez stands alone. By making an excel spread sheet (or the way I prefer - a chart on a piece of paper) and adding a dose of common sense/4th grade skill with charts, you can see that by adding in 3B<=17 you eliminate everyone except Ordonez and Tresh. Now, you see that Tresh had more RBI than Ordonez, so set RBI<=287 and you have your 6th and final parameter. Thus:

3. Rey Ordonez: G>973, PA>=3407, HR<=12, SB<=28, 3B<=17, RBI<=287
Can't hit or run for freaking beans.
This was one of the more tough ones I had to go through, so I thought it would be a good example to show you how I did it. It's the first time I had to sort through so much to find all the qualifiers of my initial 4-parametered search, and it's also the first time I had to make a chart to find out which additional parameters to use. Therefore it made a perfect "example" example for people to learn from, but don't think I spend more than 5 minutes on a typical club creation.

Tuesday 5/27

Bare with me for some technical stuff before I get to the day's big 2...

A) Don't expect to see too much of Paul Waner and Tris Speaker on this site. This is about contemporary player clubs. Instead, look for random people that I(/we?) grew up watching (who may or may not be still active) who we never possibly could have expected would have their own "club," a la the well known 30/30 club or the 500 homer club, but alas they do indeed have their own club nonetheless.
B) I also decided retired is much better than active. Let me rephrase that (without simply deleting because I'm too lazy). The ideal is active players with ">=" type counting stats (e.g., "at least 300 homers") , as opposed to weighted or average stats ("at least a .400 OBP") or <= stats (no more than 200 steals) because those latter two (namely, average or <=) can change over time for an active player (he can reach a certain mark and no longer qualify as less than X, or his weighted averages can change.) And, wow, the end of that second to last paranthesis looks like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. Anyone else see that? Anyway, as I was saying, that is the ideal, namely, active and at least X. After that, comes retired, and lastly, the other types of active (weighted/less than). C) Lastly, I may or may not write more by each player, random things about them I remember or what not. Now that I got that out of the way, 5/27, here we go...

1. Tony Batista: HR>=220, SH<=10, SB<=50, OBP<=.300
THE sucky dude with pop to end all "sucky dude with pop"s.
Yes, this IS a tribute to Aaron Gleeman, my favorite blogger besides FJM who killed his favorite team, the Twins, for signing him in December of 2005. If you don't want to read the whole link, here is an exerpt:

"I actually find myself struggling for words to describe just how pathetic this move is, as if every criticism I've ever leveled against the organization in the past was simply me crying wolf. The fact that Batista will hurt the team in 2006 is almost an afterthought, because the much more damning aspect of signing him is that it exposes the organization as completely unable to recognize what leads to scoring runs."

In addition to this club, he also is the only player to have the much heralded "gayest batting stance" parameter:
Moshe, if you are reading this, is this the dude who gave you an autograph? Also, no Tony Batista post can possibly be made, ever, without referencing this hilarious youtube clip. No other comments are needed... just watch:

2. Robin Ventura: G>=2050, H<=1890, SB<=25, OBP>=.360
He can walk but he can't run.
He played a long time, literally never ran, and had a decent OBP but it didn't come from an incredible amount of hits.I decided not to include the "easy" Ventura isolating parameter: grandslams. (He's tied with McCovey at 18 behind Gehrig 23, Manny 20, and Murray 19 for all time grandslams, and that doesn't count his grandslam single) because that would have been too easy for me. Instead, he is the only player with those aforementioned qualifications, which to be honest I find surprising. If I had to venture (pun intended?) a guess, I'd say the nice OBP without that many hits per game in a long career probably isn't as unique as the putrid 25 steals in over 2050 games. Even with that said, I'm kind of surprised he is the only one who qualifies for this club.

P.S 1 - I would like to take this moment to happily mention that last night, Mike Pelfrey did everything in his power to remain in his club (see the welcome post), by posting the following line against the Florida Marlins:
4 ip, 6h, 3bb, 4er, 3k, 1hbp

P.S 2 - Tonight there is a conflict in rooting interests... while my fantasy team (santana, beltran and han-ram) is of the utmost importance, my Marlins-fanhood (which is behind Yankees and pro-Brian Bannister for 4th on rooting list) will be eliminated, at least until Santana is out of the game and no longer has a chance for a win. In such a case, I will root for the Marlins unless Beltran is up. I thought you all should know that. And I will be at this game so let's go Santana!