Thrylos

I could probably spill a ton on ink on the why, but really the bottom line is $ (like most of the time.) Memorabilia, autographs, game-worn stuff. Lots of collectors out there want HOF collections and willing to pay top $ on it, so... Even a better reason not to let a few have a saying for who goes in and who does not...

Nope. I think it should be an open fan vote with 75% cut off. The point was that a. you don't need to have covered baseball in the 70s to be able to make a determination for the hall of fame and b. there is just too much drama & personal agendas as is and opening it up will take care of it. Funny thing is that it might not matter at the end, since all of the deserving (and some more) players will end up in by the VC...

Had MLB network on while working yesterday morning and there was a certain HOF voter who said that he was very suspicious of Piazza being a PED user and the "acne on his back was the proof". I kid you not. Salem, MA circa 1692 type of evidence (google: Witch's Mark)

Couple of interesting facts against those 2 points: a. The Fans vote (the Deadspin vote) with the 75% cut off, would have gotten who the writers got in plus Biggio and Piazza. Not Mattingly, not Gagne. I'd argue that there are a lot of people who wonder why Biggio and Piazza were not elected today b. We all know the BBWAA. There is a little group called the BBA (Baseball Bloggers Alliance; full disclosure: I am part of it) of independent baseball bloggers who every year they vote for the HOF. Here is this year's vote (with a bit of info about previous votes.) Guess what? They voted in exactly who the writers voted in. That 75% cut-off is very powerful and it is a good check and balance...

Don't compare apples with pineapples. There are a lot of us who wonder how consistent it is that Clemens and McGwire are not in because of alleged steroid use while their managers (who at least were aiding and abetting, by turning their heads the other way) were voted in. Two different groups, two different measuring sticks

Couple of interesting facts against those 2 points: a. The Fans vote (the Deadspin vote) with the 75% cut off, would have gotten who the writers got in plus Biggio and Piazza. Not Mattingly, not Gagne. I'd argue that there are a lot of people who wonder why Biggio and Piazza were not elected today b. We all know the BBWAA. There is a little group called the BBA (Baseball Bloggers Alliance; full disclosure: I am part of it) of independent baseball bloggers who every year they vote for the HOF. Here is this year's vote (with a bit of info about previous votes.) Guess what? They voted in exactly who the writers voted in. That 75% cut-off is very powerful and it is a good check and balance...

Maddux and Glavine did nothing to hurt Mike Mussina (and Curt Schilling btw). The writers who wasted votes for the much less qualified Jack Morris, because it was their last chance to vote for him and pass that agenda, were the problem. Give the Morris votes to Mussina and Schilling and they are in.

Did you see the Deadspin Ballot (i.e. the fan ballot?) : Maddux, Thomas, Glavine, Piazza, Biggio, Martínez, Bagwell, Clemens, Bonds, Schilling. Story here. That was the top 10. If you had the 75% cut-off rule, the inductees would have been: Maddux, Glavine & Thomas (already in by the writers) plus Piazza and Biggio. I'd say as a group, the fans did about as good a job (if not better) than the writers. As a matter of fact, baseball fans probably watch more baseball than some of those guys who got the privilege because they covered baseball 25 years ago and now they moved to politics or horse racing or something like Gophers Basketball...

If you compare Dozier 2012 with Dozier 2013, you will find in the 2013 version: Same BABIP close BA higher OBP (because of double the BB%) higher SLG (because of almost double the HR/FB rate and little higher FB%) same LD% little higher K% I think that both of those drivers (the higher selectivity and the pull swing that likely resulted in the higher HR/FB rate) might be sustainable, and I want that to happen, because he is an easy guy to root for. About how well he did with individual pitches (and PitchF/X @ FG is my source here) Looks like he did make a huge turnaround on how he hits the FB, but he also had positive results against cutters, two-seamers and curves. Changeups, sliders and knuckleballs were his week points.

I just changed my mind about this HOF voting: Since the writers try to make political statements and pass personal agendas with this vote, the HOF should take that privilege away from them. They do not deserve it. From the steroids witch hunting and not voting for people never proven guilty, just because they feel they are guilty, to sending empty ballots, to voting for non-worthy pet players to non-voting for someone like Maddux so he would not be unanimous, they blew it. Gone. No more BBWAA votes for the HOF. How would players get in? It is a museum for the fans, let the fans (who are the ones who are spending $ to go and see the museum and not the writers who get in for free) vote. Open voting like the All-Star game, but have a 75% cut off. Much.Less.Drama

here comes that BABIP conversation again Dozier's BABIP in 2013 (.278) was very similar to his BABIP in 2012 with the Twins (.267) and Red Wings (.270). 2011 at Fort Myers and New Britain was around .350, 2010 was .294 in Fort Myers and .304 in Beloit, and in 2009 it was .395 in Etown. Not sure whether the ones around .280 are who he is vs the ones around .350, but because they are the more recent, I tend to believe that he is one of those medium-low BABIP guys. If you look at the difference between the 2012 Dozier and the 2013 Dozier, you will notice very similar BAs and higher OBP and SLG%. He doubled his walk rate and close to doubled his HR/FB rate (walks and HRs are not Balls In Play) Interestingly enough, his LD% remained the same, which means that, if anything, if he regresses power-wise, he will be around a .650 (vs .600 in 2012) OPS guy. That's why the Twins should not turn Rosario into a full-time OF, despite what fans want, quite yet...

Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Ripken Jr and Ty Cobb are all at 98.something in the order mentioned high to low; bet the difference has to do with the total number of ballots cast each year. That's as far as BBWAA voting goes. There are 2 unanimous members Josh Gibson (1972) & Cool Papa Bell (1974) who received 100% of the votes of the Negro League Committee. The VC committee votes have been recently tabulated only (2008; before that it was just names announced) and there have been no unanimous elections since then.

Devil's advocate: What if the alternative is signing Cuban, Japanese and Korean Free agents (that are not subject to the international FA cap?)

League average does not make much sense for this. It is an individual metric. It measures how much better one does in high leverage situations compared to all situations. Zero means that someone does the same in high leverage situation as in all other situations. So zero is the "normal" baseline, i.e. the norm for comparison purposes.

Indeed. So were Terry Ryan's and Ron Gardenhire's about Scott Baker not playing in that Spring Training before he got the TJ surgery. Perception and fact are different beasts.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- "Clutch" is a word that has been used to describe the players who go above and beyond the norm and perform highly in difficult situations in close games: The guy who comes into the game with 2 outs and the bases loaded, down three in the bottom of the ninth and hits a grand slam off a closer who never blew a save. The pitcher who comes in with bases loaded and no outs, up one on the bottom of the ninth and strikes out the side to save the game. Whether or not there are players out there who are "clutch" and consistently outperform themselves in those type of situations has been a vast subject of debate. Here is a good summary of a few historic studies and here is a list of lots of links on the subject, if you feel like reading more. About 5 years ago, David Appelman devised a measurement called, well, "Clutch" that tries to describe clutch hitting and pitching. Basically what it does, is it looks at the difference of someone's performance (based on Win Probability Added) in High Leverage situations only, versus his overall performance. Players with positive Clutch outperform their overall performance in those situations and players with negative Clutch underperform. This does not mean that a player with a higher Clutch is a "better" player than one with lower Clutch. If someone hits .220 with the bases loaded and .200 overall, is not a better player than someone who hits .320 with the bases loaded and .340 overall, despite the Clutch numbers. Fangraphs picked the stat now and I sorted the Twins hitters, relief pitchers and starting pitchers based on Clutch. This is an exercise just for fun. I don't think that it means that much (see example above), but it is interesting and it potentially be an additional tool for player evaluation, but not a stand alone tool. Situational and High Leverage performance definitely might tell something about relievers as a group, but we are not about to jump into any conclusions here. Just a demo Here are the 2013 Twins' hitters ranked by Clutch (60 PA min) : http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2866/11820134366_5e90eacd0e_o.jpg Here are the 2013 Twins' relief pitchers ranked by Clutch (10 IP min): http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5525/11819784464_a6e035295d_o.jpg Here are the 2013 Twins' starting pitchers ranked by Clutch (35 IP min): http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3713/11819635523_ff2a441b27_o.jpg Pitchers in both roles are listed on both tables for that role only. A couple of observations: The Twins definitely do not use or value the metric, since about half of the players with positive Clutch numbers are gone I am not surprised to see Dozier and Duensing lead the hitter and the reliever groups respectively. It is my recollection that they really excelled in pressure situations Worley leading the starter group may be a surprise, until someone considers that, in order to pitch in a high leverage situation, a starter needs to get himself into trouble to make that situation high leverage. Thus, Clutch, is not very useful at all for starters (other than looking at fun results like the above...)

Both of those are very old news. Likely they are both from early December. I have been following the Deduno story very closely (here is the chronicle of his injury and surgery) and the last thing the Twins said (exactly what mentioned in that link) was on December 9th. Silence after that.

Not true. I'd say in the high minors (and on the 40-man roster) Danny Santana is an "above average" prospect and in mid minors Jorge Polanco is a top prospect. Lots of people are high on Goodrum (pun not intended) as well... That said, a 3 year contract to Drew will "block" only Florimon, Escobar and Santana. I like to see what Escobar can do. SS is his best defensive position, he is just 24 and I think that his bat will take off this season if given a chance. Not sure that Drew is the best investment here. Back to the wRC+ numbers: his career wRC+ is 96. His last 3 seasons his wRC+ was 92, 80 and 109 (average 93.6). In other words, for his career he has been 4% below the average player and 6.4% below the average the last 3 seasons combined. A 3 year contract will buy his age 31, 32 and 33 seasons, that should theoretically be worse than his age 28, 29 and 30 season when we was 6.4% worse than the average hitter. One thing that might be encouraging is his splits. He is horrible against LHP. Last season in 167 PA vs LHP he hit .196/.246/.340 with a 10/55 BB/K ratio. If the Twins were to find a platoon player against LHPs, they might be in business. Florimon is worse against LHP, but Escobar is better. Drew mashed RHP in the rate of .284/.377/.498 last season, but a. do you want to pay $3/35M for a platoon player (even though he will take the majority of PAs) and b. (even more importantly) will the manager platoon him, because he should?

If Fryer makes the Twins over Pinto and Herrmann, I expect another long season. Already the Twins have no bats at CF and SS, and a questionable one at DH, and losing another at C will not take them anywhere. If the Twins want another defensive-minded catcher, in addition to Suzuki, it should be Herrmann. He was ranked by BA's as the best defensive catcher in the Twins minors in 2013, for a good reason.

---- Last season, after his World Baseball Classic performance, which ended with a [URL="http://m.startribune.com/sports/?id=199709321"]pulled groin[/URL] that led him to miss a chunk of spring training and the first 44 games of the season, and his consistent performance in June and July that had him enter August with a 7-4 record and a 3.18 ERA in 12 starts, many people in the Twins Cities called [B]Samuel Deduno[/B] an "ace". This included several well-respected mainstream media. (For sample of relative stories, look [URL="http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/07/29/twins-pitcher-deduno-as-ace"]here[/URL], [URL="http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/217259751.html"]here[/URL], [URL="http://www.tout.com/m/jp4mhd?ref=twjdvvqm"]here[/URL], [URL="http://fpbaseballoutsider.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-five-seasons-of-sam-deduno.html"]here [/URL]and [URL="http://www.rantsports.com/mlb/2013/09/07/samuel-deduno-minnesota-twins-ace-has-great-potential/"]here[/URL].) Not sure whether calling Deduno an ace, which of course he never was, made him one. Being the only pitcher who gives a bad team a semi-consistent chance of staying close in a game, does not an "ace" make. Perhaps this mis-labeling caused a hubris-derived curse, but he was never the same afterward. He suffered injuries that led him to have double (labrum and rotator cuff) shoulder surgery this fall, making his trip north this spring with the Twins pretty unlikely. When (then interim) General Manager [B]Terry Ryan[/B] returned to that role with the Twins after the 2011 ninety nine loss season he identified several areas that needed to change in order for the team to improve. In addition of the firing of [B]Jerry White[/B] and [B]Rick Stelmaszek[/B], the retirement of [B]Steve Liddle,[/B] the "no scholarships" approach with certain players like[B] Tsuyosi Nishioka[/B] and the reassignment of the other remaining coaches, Ryan fired the Twins' head athletic trainer [B]Rick McWane[/B], establishing medical treatment of the players as one of the areas for improvement and implicitly part of the cause of the Twins demise in 2011. How well has that latter change worked in 2013? Let's look at a chronicle of Samuel Deduno's shoulder injury, diagnosis and treatment, beginning from last August, and let readers reach their own conclusions: [B]August 7:[/B] Deduno allows four runs in 5.7 innings in a loss to the Royals, giving up twelve hits. [B]August 13:[/B] He allows five runs in six innings in loss to Indians; five hits and three bases on balls. [B]August 18:[/B] Allows five runs and eight hits in five innings against the White Sox. After the game Deduno [URL="http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_23889736/minnesota-twins-pitcher-samuel-deduno-having-shoulder-problems"]speaks to the press[/URL] indicating he has shoulder problems. He said "It started behind the [B]shoulder [/B]a couple weeks ago [[I]August 7[/I]] , but I could handle that". "Now it's in the front. I felt it a few days ago [I][August 13[/I]]. Today, I didn't feel good. In the bullpen and during the game, I didn't feel strong." [[I]In other words, Deduno made three starts with shoulder issues. It is unclear whether he communicated those issues to the training staff[/I]] The Twins' trainers prescribe and Deduno undergoes [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_muscle_stimulation"]Electronic Stimulation Therapy[/URL] (a muscle therapy). [B]August 19:[/B] Consistent with the treatment prescribed, the Twins' training staff [URL="https://twitter.com/Brandon_Warne/status/369515859674288128"]diagnose the condition as [B]biceps tendinitis[/B][/URL]. [B]August 21[/B]: Deduno throws bullpen and [URL="https://twitter.com/RhettBollinger/status/370275096075595777"]says he feels fine[/URL]. [B]August 22:[/B] Starts against Cleveland. Allows one run in six innings in a win at Cleveland. Three hits, four bases on balls. [B]August 29: [/B]Starts against the Royals. Allows three runs in three innings. Out with [URL="https://twitter.com/LaVelleNeal/status/373161735240183808"][B]shoulder [/B]soreness.[/URL] [[I]In other words, Deduno made two additional starts with apparently unresolved shoulder issues[/I]] [B]August 30:[/B] Deduno [URL="http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9616368/minnesota-twins-place-samuel-deduno-wilkin-ramirez-dl"]placed on of the 15-day DL[/URL] [B]September 8[/B]: Deduno transferred to the 60-day DL [B]September 9: [/B]The Twins'[URL="http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/222909141.html"] GM talks to the press about Deduno[/URL]. Saying that he might need [B]shoulder[/B] surgery but is "not as bad as it sounds" and could rehab instead. Terry Ryan indicates Deduno is "battling [B]inflammation[/B]" and says he is "sure that it is [B]scar-tissue [/B]related" [B]September 9 (later in the day)[/B]: The Twins [URL="http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_24100800/minnesota-twins-samuel-deduno-confident-heading-into-surgery"]announce [/URL]that Deduno has "[B]issues [/B]in his [B]labrum [/B]and [B]rotator cuff[/B]" and might need "just a[B] clean up[/B]" [B]September 13[/B]: The Twins [URL="http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Notebook_Whos_hot_whos_not_so_far_in_September091313"]indicate [/URL]that Deduno has "[B]fraying [/B]in the [B]shoulder[/B]", recovery timetable is set at two months and should be ready for the onset of spring training. [B]September 20:[/B] [URL="http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_24143696/minnesota-twins-samuel-dedunos-shoulder-surgery-successful-agent"]Announcement [/URL]that Deduno has successful arthroscopic s[B]houlder s[/B]urgery (by his agent), reparing "slight [B]fraying[/B]" and "slight [B]tear[/B]". [B]December 9:[/B] [URL="https://twitter.com/MikeBerardino/status/410189031121895424"]Twins indicate[/URL] that Deduno has started to playing catch and his rehab progresses (in Fort Myers) as planned and he is still on schedule for spring training. Meanwhile, Terry Ryan signed three free agent pitchers who, in addition to Correia, [URL="http://tenthinningstretch.blogspot.com/2013/12/by-numbers-body-count-of-twins-pitching.html"]are all penciled in ahead of Deduno for the 2014 rotation[/URL]. After the season Terry Ryan publicly said that "Deduno has pretty much earned a spot on the 2014 rotation", but his actions show he is not counting on Deduno. Whether he will be ready for spring training or not, it is now no clearer, since there has been pretty much silence on Deduno since September 20. It has to be noted Deduno has been very fragile. Here is his lost days and injury history in his professional career: Missed 30 days of 2013 with [B]Right Shoulder [/B]injury Missed part of 2013 (ST and 44 days) with [B]Groin [/B]injury Missed 45 days of 2012 with [B]Right Elbow[/B] injury Missed 18 days of 2011 with [B]Groin [/B]injury Missed 111 days of 2010 with[B] Right Elbow [/B]injury (inflammation) Missed 22 days of 2009 with [B]Hip Flexor [/B]injury Missed all of 2008 with [B]Tommy John Surgery[/B] recovery Missed 45 days of 2005 with [B]Right Shoulder [/B]injury The only healthy seasons in Deduno's career were 2006 and 2007. It looks like his right shoulder, groin, hip and right elbow (unfortunately even after Tommy John surgery) have been his problem areas. The elbow and shoulder issues are especially worrisome... I hope Deduno is healthy, because he pitches in an intriguing way and could help the Twins, but if his history is any guide of his future, he is not to be counted on to take the ball every fifth day. [I]Originally published at [URL="http://tenthinningstretch.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-chronicle-of-shoulder-injuries-of.html"]The Tenth Inning Stretch[/URL][/I] [CENTER] [URL="http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Samuel+Deduno+Cleveland+Indians+v+Minnesota+Xce3dNpDXAQl.jpg"][IMG]http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Samuel+Deduno+Cleveland+Indians+v+Minnesota+Xce3dNpDXAQl.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [/CENTER] View full article

wish. Need to buy a "d"

Love that size of the head talk regarding Bonds and proof of steroid use by big head and big muscles . Check this out: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2840/11806566255_c5fa94fb9f_z.jpg http://tireball.com/mlb/files/2013/01/frankthomas.jpg http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/130109214120-barry-bonds-650-single-image-cut.jpg http://sportscasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/frank-thomas.jpg Me thinks that Thomas has a bigger head and bigger muscles... And for comparison's sake, here is Thomas' rookie card picture: http://acimg.auctivacommerce.com/imgdata/0/2/7/3/3/5/webimg/4287638.jpg

Garza will not cost a pick. The other 3 will.

Google is your friend. Looks like a web-based MMORPG (link goes to the game site.)