Take Two

A better start for Alex Gordon this year as he goes yard for the second time this afternoon versus Jeremy Bonderman. It took Gordon until the 15th game of his 2007 rookie season to hit his second home run and his 43rd game to hit his third.

MAD-don?

I thought that the order of Joe Maddon's first four hitters on his lineup card today for the Rays was interesting.

1. Iwamura
2. Crawford
3. Pena
4. Upton

I say you use Crawford in either the one hole to exploit his base stealing abilities or the three hole whereby you would employ his potential for gaudy extra-base hit totals combined with a high batting average.

Iwamura seems to be to be the perfect number two hitter with his great bunting ability, solid OBP and the weakest extra-base hitting ability of the four. So if you're going to have him in the top four I bat him second. That means Crawford's going to have to bat first since you can't have the strikeout prone Upton hitting lead-off.

Pena is the big fly hitter of the group and the question is do you bat him third or fourth. In this case I think Maddon's got it right having Pena slotted third against the righty. He's a bit more of an accomplished hitter than Upton at this point. But Upton does have a live bat and when you look more closely at their lefty/righty splits Maddon could flip-flop the two between third and fourth in the order whether a lefty or righty was pitching. That probably won't happen, though, as it's rare for managers to flip their third and fourth hitters in the lineup based on handedness considerations.

Another lineup I like is when you bat Crawford third. This is how I drew up their lineup back in the Fall.

1. Iwamura
2. Upton
3. Crawford
4. Pena

Again, the weak link is Upton and his strike outs. In the future I don't think it'll be a big problem because I believe Upton's going to start cutting down on his k's as he moves into his mid-20's. But for this year I think Maddon's right to hide the holes in Upton's bat in the fourth spot in the order.

Picking Up...

...where he left off. Carlos Marmol throws one and a third innings of scoreless, hitless, no walk, three strikeout out ball this afternoon.

Last year he spun ninety-six strikeouts in sixty-nine and one-third innings.

Commonality

Ken Griffey Jr. looked like he was running on two wooden legs today during the Brandon Phillips triple.

I can relate.

The Lineup

I've been anxiously awaiting Jim Leyland's first lineup card of the '08 season. Recent additions Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria were nice upgrades for the Tigers over the off-season and were the finishing touches to what could be one of the great offensive teams of all-time.

The Tigers faced right-hander Gil Meche of the Royals today. Leyland's lineup follows,

Edgar Renteria ss
Placido Polanco 2b
Gary Sheffield dh (4 walks!)
Magglio Ordonez rf
Miguel Cabrera 3b (dinger)
Carlos Guillen 1b (I thought he'd hit second)
Ivan Rodriguez c
Jacque Jones lf
Brandon Inge cf

Inge is back in his super-sub role as he'll probably get the bulk of time in center while Curt Granderson recovers from his fractured finger. Once Granderson comes back at the top of the order I'd guess that Renteria will slip in behind Guillen and push Rodriguez and Jones to the 8th and 9th spots respectively.

Weaveresque

Mariner manager John McLaren -- member of the Moneyball school.

Take, for instance, McLaren’s acknowledgement of Bill James, the former night watchman who determined baseball’s century-long methods of evaluation – in which gut hunches and snap judgments had precedence over statistics and analysis – were obsolete in the late 1970s...

...‘It’s intriguing,” McLaren said of James on Friday, “because I like baseball. New things, out of the box type stuff, you’d have to be foolish not to take a look at it.”

Three Definites

For the Baseball Hall of Fame that is. I'm a Small Hall guy and for me to pick even three players is stretching it but there are some wrongs to be righted from past elections.

Bert Blyleven

Bert Blyleven was an absolute pitching monster. He featured a devastating 12 to 6 curve ball and a rubber arm that allowed him to log the 13th most innings pitched, strikeout the 5th most batters and hurl the 9th most shutouts in history. Playing for more poor teams than good ones throughout much of his career hindered him in his pursuit of three-hundred wins. He ended his career just thirteen short.

Marvin Miller

Marvin Miller is easily the most influential actor in the economic sphere of Major League Baseball in the second half of the 20th century. Miller served as the head of the Major League Baseball Player's Association from the mid-1960's through the early 1980's. In less than two decades Miller was able to transform the entire economics of the game through his winning of numerous benefits for the players through a series of collective bargaining agreements. When Miller began his tenure the players were slaves to the franchise that drafted them for their entire careers if the club so desired. By the time Miller had retired the right to free agency for players had been in existence for over five years.

Goose Gossage

When talking about relief pitchers three names immediately come to mind: Hoyt Wilhelm, Goose Gossage and Mariano Rivera. All three men enjoyed (or are enjoying in Rivera's case) remarkably long career peaks. Here are their ERA+ figures for those peaks:

Wilhelm (1958 - 1969): 157 - 173 - 115 - 168 - 191 - 132 - 173 - 176 - 190 - 229 - 184- 159

Gossage (1977 - 1985): 243 - 180 - 155 - 173 - 461 - 178 - 171 - 124 - 195

Rivera (1996 - 2007): 239 - 238 - 232 - 259 - 169 - 191 - 161 - 265 - 231 - 307 - 251 - 142

Why Gossage still hasn't been elected to the Hall after all these years is still one of life's great mysteries.

Shortstop Chain Reaction

Edgar Renteria has already been moved. Now it's Orlando Cabrera getting moved to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for starter Jon Garland. What shortstop could be on the move next?

...the addition of Garland, a 28-year-old who went 10-13 with a 4.23 ERA last season, gives the Angels a rotation surplus that would enable them to package a young starter such as Santana or Saunders in a trade for a slugger such as Florida third baseman Miguel Cabrera or Baltimore shortstop Miguel Tejada.

It would be a great move for Oriole fans if Tejada could be flipped for Ervin Santana and a prospect. Even Tejada for Santana straight up would be acceptable.

Brave Development

The fact that the Braves are going to be increasing their payroll by millions of dollars is quite the unexpected development. Perhaps a run at Carlos Silva will be in the offing? I think he'd be a nice fit. Extending Mark Teixeira is probably a good chance now.

It's good to read this because the Braves will be able to hang with Philadelphia and New York for the forseeable future on the payroll front. And then there's Washington who's going to be gearing up their payroll over the next few years.

All in all the National League East should be a fun watch for the next few years. Here are ten reasons all under the age of 30 -- Hanley, Rollins, Zimmerman, Escobar, Wright, Reyes, Milledge, Cabrera (for the next two weeks at least), Howard and Teixeira.

Sabathia's Three Million Dollar Haul

The take on Sabathia's Cy Young Award win today from Baseball Prospectus. It's about the Benjamins, er, the innings.

Sabathia pitched 241 innings to Beckett’s 200.7, an advantage of more than 20 percent. He completed the 7th inning 24 times, as opposed to Beckett’s 15, a critical threshold for a team with a set-up man as effective as Rafael Betancourt, but inconsistent middle relief. As a result, Sabathia finished with a 65.2 Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) to Beckett’s 58.6. The voters have started to look at these statistics, and it’s giving them a more complete picture of pitcher performance.

Reliever Romero Signs

J.C. Romero is the classic example of the up and down performance of relievers on a year-to-year basis. The key with this group is to find one who doesn't embarrass himself in the down years and can put up great years when he's on. Romero is one such reliever.

The Phillies just signed him to a 3-year $12 million contract today. For a guy who's thrown less than an inning an appearance the past three seasons that may be a bit steep but the Phillies desperately needed to get Brett Myers back into the starting rotation so they had to make sure their bullpen would be solid enough.

A positive note about Romero's up and down career is the fact that since 2002 he's only had one season in which left-handers have had a +.700 OPS against him.

A Six-Man Ro

I can say with near certainty that no major league team has ever employed a six-man starting rotation over the course of an entire season.

With the recent signing of Curt Schilling, though, it could become a possibility with the 2008 Red Sox. Boston GM Theo Epstein has said he's considering the idea. It would be constructed to provide plenty of rest for the oldsters, Curt Schilling and Tim Wakefield, in an effort to keep their arms fresh. While Taylor Buchholz and Jon Lester, the under age 25 set, would get plenty of rest to protect their young arms over the long season. Josh Beckett, the least likely to break down, would be kept on an almost full five man rotation schedule while Daisuke Matsuzaka would start a few less games than Beckett.

One possibility of how the rotation would be constructed would be to start Beckett 32 times with Matsuzaka starting 29 games. Lester would start 27, Schilling and Wakefield 25, and Buchholz would bring up the rear with 24 starts.

The Red Sox are an organization that's brave enough (i.e. handle the media criticism if it doesn't work) to give this a go. They'd also be an organization brave enough to move to a four man rotation if the personnel they had could make it work.

This Fall's Baseball Book

This is cool. Jamey Newberg's been writing a yearly book providing a synopsis of all things Texas Rangers since 2000.

Class Moves Again

Edgar Renteria's trade to the Detroit Tigers for two prospects this week has kicked off baseball's off-season with a bang. Renteria has been a solid shortstop since his first year in the majors in 1996 and with 1,934 hits to his name after his age 31 season he looks like a good bet to reach 3,000 hits.

A pro's pro, Renteria has been willingly employed up and down batting lineups for four different teams throughout his career. Renteria's batted 2nd the most in his career -- 963 games. He's batted 6th and 7th the next most -- 273 and 245 games. He's also played in 200+ games batting 1st, 3rd and 5th in the lineup. Throughout all those changes Renteria has performed consistently at the plate as a good doubles, batting average and on-base average hitter. He'll serve as a nice upgrade to the Tiger offense and defense in '08.

One of the great things about successful veterans being traded for prospects is that many times it introduces me to minor league prospects I've never come across. With well over 4,000 minor leaguers plying their wares each year I'm bound to miss a few during my daily baseball studies. Two such prospects that I hadn't heard of are the two traded for Renteria -- Gorkys Hernandez and Jair Jurgens. Zach Jett provides a nice synopsis of the two. As Jett says this will help replenish the Braves somewhat depleted minor league system after the surge of Brave minor leaguers that graduated to the majors during the impressive 2005 season and the trade for Mark Texeira this summer that sent five Brave minor leaguers to Arlington.

The trade of Renteria also frees up money for the tight Atlanta budget so a free agent starting pitcher can be signed. And Yunel Escobar should slip in at short nicely for the Braves in '08. Especially at a sub 500k salary.

And what would a Brave's post be without comment from Rowland's Office regarding Renteria.

Still, it's sad to see such a classy pro leave so quickly. Has there ever been such an excellent, popular, solid citizen and winning player who's changed teams so often? Vagabonds like Sheffield and Lofton are fine players. But popular? Good in the clubhouse? Not quite.

Detroit will be Edgar's third club in four seasons, after stints here and in Boston. In appreciating Edgar, I struggled to recall standout moments. And maybe that's the point with Edgar. He's not a player who hits a game-winning homer, or makes a spectacular play that defines a season or career. Rather, he's a guy you need to watch daily to truly appreciate.

Edgar is more Columbo than Magnum PI: an unassuming genuis, a player of pure substance.

I would offer that Edgar, in his two seasons here, established himself as the best shortstop in Atlanta Braves history. It's no landslide and maybe you don't achieve that in just two seasons. However, I think it's proper in this case.

My sentiments exactly.

The Best Pitcher You Don't Know

Webb

Underappreciated Sawx

Lowell

Devilish Movement

Carmona

Colorado's Twenty-Two Year Old Leader

Tulowitzki

The Final Four

I haven't looked this forward to the Major League Baseball Championship Series for years. The Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians offer a match-up of great 1-2 punches in the starting rotations as well as top-to-bottom strong offenses. Out west the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks match-up holds many of the game's youngest stars and should be a rollicking affair of homers, stolen bases, fine pitching and great defense.

Jocketty Out

Will LaRussa be the next to go? And if he does where would he manage? Possibly he'd pull a Lou Pinella and sit out a year and then consider the inevitable openings that will arise after the 2008 season.

I don't envision too much manager movement this off-season. The Royals have an opening. Torre may not survive another Yankee winter. Toronto's Gibbons could be a darkhorse firing. Randolph still has to be cleared by the Met's upper brass. Mackanin in Cincy doesn't know if he'll be retained as of this writing. And with a new sheriff in town, Pittsburg's Jim Tracy could have a one-way ticket handed to him.

Barring any surprise retirements everyone else seems safe and secure in their positions.

If LaRussa leaves St. Louis he'll pick his next situation very carefully. LaRussa places the relationship he has with his General Manager high on his list of priorities and also places a high premium on organizational stability and shared purpose. That would put Kansas City and the Mets at the top of the list. The Pirates would be a distant third. I can't see the Yankees as the right fit for the mercurial LaRussa and in Toronto the general manager has an entirely different idea of in-game strategy than LaRussa.

The Royals have highly thought of general manager Dayton Moore at the helm and as a protege of John Schuerholz he bleeds competency and stability. In New York the Mets have experienced strong and competent leadership during general manager Omar Minaya's tenure. Minaya definetly sets a stablizing tone at Shea (look at how he rallied the troops in Montreal on a shoe-string budget). In Pittsburg general manager Neal Huntington is less of a known quantity and may not be secure enough to bring in such an overpowering personality as LaRussa for his first year on the job.

I wish I knew more about Drayton Moore's personality to determine whether he and LaRussa would be a good fit but I'll go out on a limb and say that if LaRussa leaves St. Louis and looks to manage in '08 he'll be heading to the Royals. The Midwest is more his speed and he'd be making a trimuphant return to the American League to try and raise a once proud franchise back from the dead.