EVIL~! alkeiper

Chris Young, whom Baseball Prospectus hailed as the best center field prospect in baseball. Really, the Diamondbacks have a great number of position prospects coming up. Carlos Quintan, Conor Jackson, Chris Young, Stephen Drew and Melvin Upton are all in the system. Upton's gotten more hype as any player in recent memory before he even plays a professional game.

There probably isn't a player who deserves more credit for his defense than Ozzie Smith. The problem is that this is very hard to quantify. Just looking at range factors, Ozzie scores a full play per game better than league average. If we were to assume these were all singles, that would save about 18 runs a season beyond what an average shortstop would do. That's about two wins in the standings. Total Baseball scores Ozzie at 19 Fielding Runs, so my calculations are not off base. The question is how close that closes the gap regarding batting statistics. And to be honest, I don't have a good answer for that. Total Baseball sees Smith outside of the top three, but win shares places him second.

He did, but the Cubs have never seen the demise of an old player as a deal breaker. In all seriousness, Grissom remained productive well into this decade. He hit 20 and 22 home runs for the San Francisco Giants in 2003-04.

The key to Graffanino is if he can press Angel Berroa or Mark Teahen for their jobs. He's certainly a useful player to have, even though he's fairly similar to Mark Grudzielanek. On a side note, in order to claim Graffanino the Royals designated Chip Ambres for assignment. Ambres was the player the Royals got for trading away Graffanino in the first place. One more Royals note. MLB.com reports the following transaction. Ouch.

-The Royals claimed IF Tony Graffanino and RP Steve Andrade off waivers. -OF Marquis Grissom retired. Cub fans can sleep easy. -The Rockies demoted C J.D. Closser.

This blog's becoming one of TSM's hidden gems. It took me awhile to see this, but I had to comment on this particular MVP race. It is my opinion that Ozzie Smith nearly deserved the MVP award. If not, he certainly ranks higher than sixth. It is easy to look at Ozzie's 1987 stats and dismiss them slightly. After all, there is little impressive about a .383 Slugging percentage. However, for an NL shortstop they are extremely good numbers. Of the twelve shortstops in the NL in 1987, Smith rates first in batting average and OBP, and third in slugging percentage. He rates second in OPS+ behind Hubie Brooks. And Ozzie rates first in steals among shortstops, with twice as many as his nearest competitor (Barry Larkin). That's pretty good for an average fielding shortstop. Smith of course was not an average fielder. Every single defensive rating system ever devised ranks Ozzie among the greatest fielders in baseball history. When you have a shortstop making an enormous number of plays in the field and creating runs at the plate in a leadoff hitter fashion, that's every bit as valuable as a 40 home run guy. Tim Raines probably edged Smith, but the voters were closer to nailing his spot.

A couple of moves today. The Tigers released 1B Carlos Pena. Pena is on the same level as Hee Seop Choi, but the difference here is that the Tigers have a clearly superior player available in Chris Shelton. Unfortunately for Pena, there is little value for him at this point. The Reds could use him, but how many weak hitting first basemen do you need to carry? Chris Donorfia could likely outhit Pena and push Adam Dunn to first. Also, the A's traded Juan Cruz to the Diamondbacks for Brad Halsey. This seems like a good trade for the A's. Cruz has great stuff but poor control. Halsey has lesser stuff but great control. With the A's defense, Halsey's a better fit. I doubt Cruz will succeed as a starter.

The Cards finished second in runs allowed last season, and first in ERA. Their ERAs as a whole were extremely impressive because they did not have a single pitcher with more than six innings post an ERA higher than 4.13 (Jason Marquis). I would think their team defense is key.

So much for the anal rape. Tie game.

What a mess. What goes unmentioned with these stories is that the U.S. team will travel to Havana this August for the Olympic qualifiers.

My instinct is to ask how the hell the Red Sox were able to snag Hee Seop Choi off waivers. Beyond the stupidity of the Dodgers for letting him go for free, he shouldn't have gotten this far to the point where the Red Sox could get him. Just to illustrate a point here. The Dodgers signed Nomar Garciaparra to play first base and apparently felt Hee Seop Choi was expendable. Choi outhit Garciaparra the last two seasons. The Dodgers ranked sixth in OPS at first base thanks to Choi and Olmedo Saenz, despite the best efforts of Jason Phillips. Olmedo Saenz also outhit Nomar. And now the Dodgers break up a perfectly acceptable platoon to place an injury prone shortstop at first base, and pay $6 million for the priviledge. But I guess as long as Nomar has "character," that's ok. Sure, Nomar could return to star status, but even that level is much less impressive at first base. As for the Red Sox. Gary Gillette stated that the Red Sox have not been encouraged by Mike Lowell this spring. The Red Sox could easily move Youkilis back to third base and play Choi, or make Choi the left handed platoon partner at first base. Or they could Roberto Petagine him at Pawtucket and bitch about how they desperately need a first baseman. That's all speculation. Properly used, Choi can hit 20 homers in a platoon role. EDIT: I note this has appeared on ESPN.com's transaction page. Still waiting MLB.com to pick it up.

The league is filled. Thank you.

Three spots left.

Agreed, except I would move Griffey to a corner and play Denorfia in center field.

Lots of televised coverage. ESPN is airing Phillies/Braves right now. The YES Network is carrying Red Sox/Yankees tonight. And ESPN2 is airing Twins/Red Sox tomorrow at 1pm ET.

Ok guys, here's the info. It's on Yahoo. League ID: 268412 Password: tsm Draft is this Friday at 9pm ET. Sorry if that's inconvenient, but weekday available draft times are either before 6 or after 10.

I'm interested in starting one more fantasy baseball league. It's a little change of pace. 12 teams, rotisserie, NL Only. This forces owners to dig much deeper for good players and values. Is there enough interest to form such a league?

Cuba gives up two early runs. They pulled their first pitcher early, and they burned their two best in the semifinal (they are ineligible for today's game due to pitch count rules).

Fair enough. That's the big problem, that neither party can come out of this looking good unless Soriano relents.

Double OT. God damnit.

The finals should start now. Of course, ESPN's NIT game is going into overtime.

I'll jump on the "Soriano is overrated" bandwagon as fast as anyone. But I really can't blame him for taking this stand. The Nationals are asking him to learn a new position in a week and a half. The team seems determined to make extremely stupid moves this offseason and I'm glad to see yet another bite them in the ass.

The Reds have just about nuked their lineup in favor of mediocre starting pitching. Arroyo's been a nice pitcher but he's essentially league average. Pena has warts but star potential. The problem with the Reds now is that their best first base options are guys with slugging percentages south of .400. Plus, two-thirds of their outfield defense is awful, and one of those guys is injury prone to boot. Ryan Freel could outhit Hatteberg perhaps, but that opens the door for Tony Womack at second base. Trading excess hitting for pitching is a good move for Cincinnati. But they haven't demonstrated that they have an honest plan to move back into contention. None of their pitchers exhibit any kind of star power, and there is nothing left to excite fans besides Dunn and Griffey. The farm system ranks among the worst in baseball.

Yahoo's pre-rankings have Bonds 110th, Prior 32nd, Bagwell 556th, and Clemens 92nd. I think they're getting better at this.

I got to listen to Ron Santo and Pat Hughes today. I missed those guys.