Cup of Coffee

December 5, 2011: Forbidden Topics

102 Comments

The father-in-law, with whom I share this duplex that isn't really a duplex, has just left on a project that will keep him out for seven months. I love him, really, but we can't talk for too long at a time.

102 thoughts on “December 5, 2011: Forbidden Topics”

  2. First the Marlins copy the Mets' colors, then they sign their star shortstop and potentially push their compensation to the fourth round of the draft:

    One might think that since the Marlins did not have to surrender a pick to the Padres to sign Heath Bell, the Mets would get the Marlins' second-rounder. However, an MLB official told Rubin that Bell's higher Elias ranking still pushes the Mets' Reyes pick to the Marlins' third-rounder. We'll have to see if Mets GM Sandy Alderson confirms, or even if MLB will make an exception given this strange situation.

    At 77.249, Reyes was a lower Type A free agent, and the Mets' pick from the Marlins could be pushed back an additional round if the Marlins also add a higher-ranked Type A such as C.J. Wilson, Prince Fielder, or Albert Pujols.

    If this is true and you're the Marlins, how much does jobbing a big market team in your division enter into your calculus?

    1. A lot. The Yankees did just that when they did their free agent splurge prior to the 2009 season. It's a really smart way to take advantage of the compensation system from the other side.

  3. "I'm going to say with no humor involved but some teams came in here and pounded the fences pretty good. We need to get some of that out of our mentality and move forward and just go out there and play the game. If you look at it and you do your Bill James studies and all your sabermetrics, and look at what the oppositions have done at this park, this doesn't play as big as it's stated. Have you looked at some numbers? Because we have."

    who said that? Terry Ryan

    1. A prime example for the Twins is J.J. Hardy, who sources say was likely to be non-tendered had Baltimore not showed interest in making a deal.

      That certainly explains some things. Of course, before this when talking about Slowey:

      They also don't like the idea of trading Slowey, or anyone else, coming off such a down season.

    2. I wonder if that was directed specifically toward The Dude. It's no secret that Kubel has complained about the park and that balls hit he hit for long doubles at TF would be dongers at other parks (although it appears that others have the similar sentiments).

      1. Why direct it at him? If they're trying to sign him, it doesn't do them much good to publicly imply he let the dimensions get to his head. He's going to think what he wants to think, so trying to convince him through the press that the park plays small enough isn't really a good use of time. Now, I don't think Kubel was alone in his gripes about the park, and that the comment might be directed more toward middle of the order hitters still on the roster.

        1. I'm not convinced the Twins are making a strong effort to re-sign Kubel. But that's just me reading tea leaves and twitter accounts, which these days should get me my own column on yahoosports.com.

          1. Me neither. I find it amusing that it's likely the Twins will sign the two guys I was hoping they'd let walk, and let the two guys walk I'd prefer they sign.

              1. If the Twins get Cuddyer on a two-year deal, I'm not that opposed. All things considered, I'd probably rather see the Twins move in a different direction, but there could be some value in having him on a short-term deal.

                1. i would think that, even at reduced salary and years with what he was looking for, him walking and draft picks are more valuable.

                  1. I agree. I thought the Twins' offer of 2/$16 was probably about the maximum that I'd pay him if I was running the team. I guess I'm fine bringing him back for a couple years, as long as the salary is decent, but the picks would be much nicer.

    3. And they are still interested in Capps? Why do they keep defending the guy and talking about signing him? He's an average reliever that happens to have some closing experience. Cut him loose and take the draft pick already!

    1. The pain of double-posting? SI pondering a paywall?
      (That would lead me to paying for SI, unless it's too expensive).

  5. Veterans Committee votes in Ron Santo. I have no problem with that pick. There are too few third basemen in the Hall for whatever reason.

      1. I'm still on the fence.

        Certainly, he was great in his 20s. From age 22 to about age 28 or 29, his wOBA and SLG mirrors that of Mike Schmidt, which is a very high standard indeed. 10 straight seasons of 4+ fWAR (8 of which were 6+, including four straight over 8.5) is also very impressive.

        On the down side, his career ended in a flash in his mid-30s. From age 28 through age 33, his wOBA is pretty similar to that of Corey Koskie, a fine player but not anyone's notion of a HOFer.

        Interesting take pre-announcement on why Santo was not yet in the HOF at Hardball Times. Most of the hypothesized reasons are b.s., but the point about Wrigley is important.

        Santo was a product of Wrigley Field. Some of Santo’s critics have pointed to a disparity between his home and road offensive numbers. Of his 342 home runs, 216 came at home, only 126 in road ballparks. He slugged .522 at home and .406 on the road. While the contrast is rather startling, it does not necessarily put Santo in a bad light compared to other Hall of Famers. Hank Greenberg, Mel Ott and Frank Robinson, among others, also had large power production disparities in their home/road splits.

        Frankly, this criticism of Santo strikes me as nitpicking. It also should be counterbalanced against the context of the mid-to-late 1960s, an era that was dominated by pitching and not hitting. The bottom line is this: The totality of a player’s career should matter more than fractional splits.

        The writer's dismissal of this criticism seems a bit weak to me. Santo's home/away split is pretty stark.
        296/383/522 career home
        298/385/529 career Wrigley (he played one season -- his last, which was subpar for him -- for the White Sox)
        257/342/406 career away

        Those career away numbers are at least questionable as HOF-worthy numbers, unless maybe he was a SS or catcher, although his era needs to be taken into account. Unfortunately, b-r does not provide career splits for OPS+ or rWAR.

        Compared to his more charismatic contemporary, Brooks Robinson, his splits look a lot more inviting, however.
        272/329/410 Brooks career home
        263/316/392 Brooks career away

        I remain torn on Santo's case. Not torn, like I'm gonna Occupy Cooperstown or anything. But torn, as in Santo's case seems much, much less compelling than Blyleven's, to pick a comparison to another long-suffering candidate.

        1. But, what if Santo modified his approach at Wrigley to maximize his offense there? We can't just take his road numbers and point out they aren't that great without recognizing they might not be that great because he tailored his style to Wrigley, not everywhere but Wrigley.

        2. But torn, as in Santo's case seems much, much less compelling than Blyleven's, to pick a comparison to another long-suffering candidate.

          That's a pretty high bar. Blyleven is top-15 in pitcher rWAR, and was good enough for induction by every measure that didn't include the performance of the rest of his team (which implicitly includes the Cy Young award, which relied/relies on the team-based pitcher Wins as a primary criterion for the award.)

          At the same time, though, Santo is 75th in career rWAR, which is an awfully good total for a guy you're knocking on his career length.

          As far as Santo's Home/Road splits go, what is the point exactly? Given a relatively free market in baseball, a player will tend to land in situation where he is the most valuable. If Santo happened to be more valuable playing in Wrigley than he would have elsewhere, so what? I think that adjusting for the generic park factor goes far enough. A big part of the split could have been home cooking as much as it was the park itself and he could have had a similarly large split at other parks. Also, do we know if he used greenies or not? Perhaps his performance on the road suffered relative to his peers because he was unwilling to drink the leaded coffee? The big split is an interesting footnote (just as it is an interesting footnote for Puckett), but I don't see it as a particularly big deal one way or the other.

          Comparing Santo's wOBA to Koskie's wOBA really misses the boat, given that Koskie's numbers were put up in an entirely different offensive context. Santo's wRC+ numbers are much, much better than Koskie's and Santo played over twice as many games as Koskie. The only comparison between the two, IMO, is that Corey Koskie was no Ron Santo.

          Maybe at a different position I'd consider Santo more borderline, but there are relatively few 3B in the Hall, and I think Santo is a fine inclusion.

          1. Given a relatively free market in baseball

            This made me giggle just a bit. What part of "relatively free market" applies to Ron Santo's career?

            Look, I'm not up in arms or anything. I just think there are good reasons to question whether Santo "belongs" in the HOF.

            The point of bringing up the Home/Road split is HIGHLY relevant. Santo was a superstar in Wrigley, compared to league averages in Not Wrigley. Santo was merely "very good" outside of Wrigley, compared to his contemporaries.

            I really don't understand how you could say that the splits are not relevant to assessing his case. I thought the general consensus was that Wrigley significantly inflates offensive numbers, above and beyond the usual and expected home cooking advantage. Would you also argue that pre-Humidor home numbers for the Rockies should be taken at face value?

            That said, if you re-read my earlier LTE, I think you will see that I'm pulling that one factor out as the most compelling of the arguments the author brought forward, with most of the other contra cases boiling down to b.s. like Santo was a dick or some such. I strongly caveated even that argument by directly comparing his splits to those of his contemporary, Brooks Robinson, whose splits are smaller but performance is much weaker.

            The only reason I gave the wOBA comparisons at all is because fangraphs doesn't give many stats to compare graphs on. If you don't think wOBA is worth comparing between Santo and Koskie because of the differences in era, fine with me.

            1. wRC+ should solve the wOBA problem. It applies a park factor and adjusts for the league average of that year.

            2. During Santo's career, the Cubs were free to trade him whenever they wanted. If someone thought Santo would be better in, say, Boston than Chicago, a trade likely could have been arranged.

              Let's put the home/road split a different way: If the home/road split for all Cubs players was different (if Wrigley was more of a hitter's park overall), then the park factor would be different. (But it's not.) If Santo was consistently better at Wrigley--compared to his peers--than he was on the road, well, that still helped his team win ballgames. So he gave away some value on the road and had additional value at home. Overall there are enough games that he's still contributing the same number of wins as his fWAR/rWAR would indicate, it's just distributed differently betweeen home and road. No one has found any significant non-linear relation between WAR and team wins, so there's not really any evidence that his contribution to wins at home through better hitting would have suffered from a diminishing returns standpoint.

              Would you also argue that pre-Humidor home numbers for the Rockies should be taken at face value?

              No, but I'm not arguing that we take Santo's numbers at "face value" either. I think he should get the same park factor applied to his numbers that gets applied to all Cubs hitters in that era. Yes, Santo benefitted from his home park, but past that generic adjustment, we're left with the fact that Santo still performed better at home than he did on the road, but we can't really say why he did. Could be park, could be that he didn't travel well, we don't really know.

              It would help if he had more seasons outside of Wrigley. In his last season, his only season not with the Cubs, he OPS'd .689 home and .513 away. Certainly a small sample size, but it was at a park with essentially a neutral park factor and it wouldn't have had any of the same quirks that Wrigley had, and he still had a giant home/away split.

        3. Santo looks very good compared to Brooks, who only has longevity and a better defensive reputation on his side. Offensively, Brooks couldn't even touch Santo, who won five NL Gold Gloves, so he certainly wasn't a liability in that respect. If you compare all the years of Santo's career (1960-74), Santo had a 125 OPS+ and Brooks had a 111 (104 for his career). I think the "Friendly Confines" are overstated. I've seen it very friendly and not friendly at all depending on the weather. This ain't Fenway (hello, Jim Rice). Given his diabetes, it wouldn't surprise me that Santo's health and energy were much better at home since he was in a more controlled environment, so he may have had exaggerated home/road splits no matter what his home ballpark was.

          1. I agree with pretty much everything you just said, socal.

            Here are the fWAR leaders for "third basemen" from 1946 to 1990, arbitrarily bracketing Santo's career (1962-74) by 16 years each way.

            Schmidt, Mathews, Brooks and Brett are the runaway leaders in fWAR, followed by Santo and Graig Nettles (discounting Harmon, who played more games at 1b than 3b in his career; likewise Tony Perez and Dick Allen).
            So, in terms of close contemporaries, Brooks and Santo are head and shoulders above all of the other "real" third basemen but for Eddie Mathews, who leads the pack.

            One way to read this is to say that there is a shortage of 3b in the HOF and Santo's inclusion helps right that wrong, because there is a good case to be made for him. Another way to read this is to say that there is a shortage of 3b in the HOF because there just haven't been that many "great" 3bs in the post-WWII era.

            Including Santo isn't crazy -- he obviously had a huge peak and was a very good-to-great hitter for almost a decade and had a very good defensive reputation in the NL (although, if you put stock in fangraphs' defensive measures, he wasn't all that great defensively).

            Looking at these numbers provides reasonable cover to those who believe Santo belongs, but it also begs for a reevaluation of Graig Nettles (lower peak, greater longevity, MUCH higher defensive value by fangraphs' measure).

            I can hear ubes' counterargument already -- that the plausibility or near-plausibility of others not in the HOF is not an argument against Santo's inclusion. But I think that is exactly the sort of reasoning we use all the time -- we have a hidden standard against which we evaluate potential inductees. We bitch about undeserving inductees and about deserving candidates who have been omitted. Certainly, the line could reasonably be drawn between Nettles and Santo, in Santo's favor. I've just been expressing (at excessive length, I recognize; please excuse the dead horse flesh spewing over your screen) my skepticism that the line clearly belongs below Santo rather than above him.

    2. He also could have gone in as a broadcaster. Listening to Cubs games just isn't the same without him.

    3. My guess is that he's minor league roster filler, although he did get a September call-up this year. His highest minor league average is the .267 he hit in AA this year at age 24. He has some doubles power, but he strikes out a ton (over a hundred times three years and 97 in a fourth). He steals some bases, but he also gets caught stealing a lot. He also makes a lot of errors, although he seems to have good range. I agree that you can't have too many shortstops, but it's hard for me to see him doing much. Sometimes I get surprised, though.

      1. This I don't really like. It sounds like the Phillies are trying to move Polanco to open up 3rd for Aramis Ramirez. Depending on what it would take, and how much salary the Phillies would eat, he might not be a terrible pick up for infield depth.

        1. I wonder if the Twins are mainly talking to him in case they don't sign Cuddyer and feel that they need a 1B/OF in case Morneau can't go at 1B. Someone like, say, Josh Willingham could still conceviably fit on a roster without Cuddyer, but you probably wouldn't ask him to play 1B for an extended period. Guillen's bat is probably toast, but his line last year wouldn't look so bad if he'd had even a moderatly better BABIP. (.270-.275 BABIP doesn't seem like a totally crazy potential outcome for next year.) And you could probably also fit both Guillen and Willingham (or whatever other corner OF) on the roster without Cuddyer.

    2. I'd really like this, as gross as it would feel to root for Burly. He'd get a couple extra shots to stick it to the White Sox if he signs with the Twins. Maybe they can give him an NTC to make up for some of that difference in contract value. I'd much rather the money go to a reliable starter than a proven closer.

      1. With the position the Twins are in, they are much better off giving the extra money than a NTC.

  9. I went to one of my favorite expat pubs to watch the Fulham-Liverpool match. Got to talking to some of the Scousers there, and they invited me into their betting pot. 10 Kc (Czech Korun~= $0.75) entry and call the scorer of the first goal. Winner take all. Clint Dempsey scored the only goal in a 1-0 Fulham win and I walked away 60 Kc richer, enough to pay for 2 pints.

    1. caught most of that game on ESPN2 and it had me daydreaming. I really want to go to England and watch an EPL match. Im not that big of a soccer fan (I watch it and sort of understand it, but have never caught onto the nuances of the game like defense and tactits) but the atmosphere that comes across on the tv screen is just amazing

  10. Sounds like Capps is coming back. On the one hand, I'm glad this means that Perk can be the fireman in the 7th & 8th innings instead of only pitching in the 9th. On the other hand, Capps was terrible last year and I hate seeing his stupid face.

    It would've been much smarter to sign someone else similar (like Rauch) to pitch the 9th and collect the draft pick when the Red Sox or whomever signed Capps. I'll wait to see what the money is like but this bums me out.

    1. @Jon_Heyman Jon Heyman
      Capps gets 1 year and option.#twins

      If it wasn't for the draft pick, I would be fine with this, assuming they didn't sign him to a huge amount. It just seems like it wouldn't be difficult to find a similar player for a similar deal and be able to get the extra draft pick.

      1. Puke. Given the closer premium, I'm going to guess he'll get around $4-5 million. That combined with the draft pick loss makes me really question this deal.

      2. On average, that draft pick isn't really worth a whole lot and they have plenty of bullpen holes to fill. It's really all about how much he signed for. My main fear here is that he made $7M last year and players usually don't simultaneously take a big paycut and stay with the same team. Hopefully his health issues from last year are behind him.

        1. Is the pick really not worth a whole lot? It would be the first-round pick right before the signing team's pick, right? Or did I get something wrong?

          1. No. He's a modified Type B. A supplemental pick whether the Twins offer arb or not, but the signing team doesn't give up anything.

            3. O.k. maybe I have to turn in my WGOM credentials but I'm not that upset by this, especially at this price. Last year the Twins were paying $18M for closer and setup man (Nathan/Capps). In 2012 they will spend $5.5M (Capps/Perkins). If Capps 2012 is similar to Capps 2011 the buyout at $250K is reasonable. If Twins are out of it but Capps is pitching well, maybe you dump him for a prospect in July. Granted I can see why people want the Twins to go in a different direction but it's not worth the level of angst displayed on the twitter.

              1. I'm with you free. I don't like it, but it's not causing me angst like giving up Ramos for him.

              2. I'd just prefer they get a couple of non-closer relief arms for that same ~$4.5 million than spend it on a "proven closer." Capps being terrible last year, and the Twins missing out on a draft pick by signing him makes it worse.

                In a vacuum the signing isn't terrible, but I am still angsty that they traded Ramos for him and seeing his stupid face just angers me ever since.

                1. The pick they would get from him wouldn't be worth all that much though. He's a fringe closer, so likely wouldn't sign until after every other better reliever signed, giving the Twins a pick in the 60s or later.

                  1. based on absolutely no data whatsoever, i think that baseball's draft is a lot more finicky than other sports. i'd rather have one more early stab in the dark than one less.

                2. Detroit signed Benoit to be a non-closer relief arm for 3 yrs/$16.5M. Grant Balfour got 3 yrs/$12.6M. Jesse Crain got 3 yrs/$13M. None of these guys have been closers. Capps is taking a major paycut. Even his option year is less than what he made last year. He's also getting significantly less than what the Twins would have paid Nathan, who is about 10 years older and coming off TJ surgery. My only complaint is not getting the draft pick, but that's a crapshoot anyways and wouldn't pay off for 4-6 years anyways, if at all. The last two years, Capps has average 1.25 WAR. That's not a terrible value at $4.5M.

              3. If you think of Matt Capps as Karl Welzien and it makes you start to like him a little bit more. In this situation I would imagine Kevin Slowey is the nosey lady.

                1. Haha, that's awesome. I can see Capps rocking out to Seger on his way to the ballpark.

                  "Another blown save, sick of this!"

              4. i'm not up in arms and spewing hot fire in comment sections that they re-signed capps boner (yeah, that eases the blow a little), but i think it's a bad move. it doesn't take a whole lot to see that we could have received equal talent for less money plus a draft pick. i don't see how they'd walk away from that with a basically empty farm system. is it a turrible move? relatively, no, not really. but i think it was a simple choice where basic rationality was ignored.

                    2. Is it a given that Capps will close? I'm not that upset with having him back, but I wouldn't just hand him the closer role.

      1. We've probably had this discussion before, but when a show is filmed in front of a live studio audience, do they still replace the actual audience with a laugh track?

          1. try this link to the original Dish post that references the NY Magazine piece. I don't know why the link doesn't work; it is identical to the link in the Dish post.

            (the piece discusses sweetening, as well as some experimental work on laugh tracks)

      1. Without looking up any stats, at least in hockey it seems like the #8 seed almost never wins. I think that's usually true for the NBA, too.

          1. When the Ducks won the Cup, they were a #8 seed, and to get to the finals they'd beaten the #7 - Minnesota. Or were the seeds the other way around? No matter, really, the point stands either way.

            1. The Ducks were ranked #2 in the Western Conference while the Wild were #7. So you were... half-rightbaked.

              1. And they did have to beat the Wild, but it was in the first round.

                Now that I looked up more, it was when the Mighty Ducks lost the Cup in 2003 they were ranked #7. The Wild were #6.

                1. I was thinking of that year - 6 and 7, apparently. Whoops. I would have sworn they won it that year, but apparently the finals is where the goalie finally started being...touchable.

    2. That's ... different for Minnesota. Many fewer Western Canada road trips.

      This makes no sense to me (I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm saying I don't understand what the idea is):

      In the eight-team Conferences, teams would play either five or six times in a season on a rotating basis; three teams would play each other six times and four teams would play each other five times. This process would reverse each season: An eight-team Conference member that plays an opponent six times in one season would play it five times the following season.

        1. So if in the 2011-12 season Minnesota plays Detroit, Chicago, and Columbus 6 times and Nashville, Dallas, Winnipeg, and St. Louis 5 times (plus the other 22 teams twice each) that makes 82 games.

          If "This process would reverse each season: An eight-team Conference member that plays an opponent six times in one season would play it five times the following season." then in 2012-13, the Wild would play Nashville, Dallas, Winnipeg, and St. Louis 6 times? then we've got 83 games.

          So I guess one of those teams will be a 5-game opponent two years in a row. OK...

      2. The Wild are thrilled, as am I, at least as much as I can for NHL hockey. That brings most of the old Norris Division together, the U.S. parts anyways. Plus, now we can hate the Red Wings and Blackhawks even more, as well as the Stars.

    3. I hope the name the confernces like they had in the old days for the divisions (Norris, Smythe, Patrick, etc)

      if it means less west coast games, Im for it.

          1. Bobby, naturally. We here in Buffalo have a bit of an issue with Brett. If you'd prefer, we can go with Mikita.

            [Wayne's World .jpg]

    5. I think they have C and D wrong.
      Buffalo and Boston should be in D with the rest of the teams from NY/NJ/PA.
      Carolina and Washington should be in C with the teams from Canada and Florida.

      Conference Names:
      A. West
      B. Central
      C. Southeasts
      D. Megalopolis

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