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Tuesday, April 13, 2004 |
Pickoff Moves
Weaver = Brown?
Does Baseball Prospectus like the Dodgers' chances this year? Well, maybe. The magazine seems to have a bad case of schizophrenia. One day, they're picking them to finish fourth, and the next they're heaping praise on Paul DePodesta for picking up outfielder/petty criminal Milton Bradley. (As usual, some or all of these links require a BP subscription.) While BP hasn't recalibrated their standings, the news is mostly good on the Dodgers' chances, with Hideo Nomo remaining a big question mark. Joe Sheehan is even more optimistic (Nomo aside), declaring Weaver might be Brown's equal this year:Jeff Weaver, Dodgers. Part hunch, part context, and his brutal spring doesn't make me feel any better about this selection. While Kevin Brown is the better pitcher of the two, much of the differences between the ERAs of Weaver and Brown last year was context: ballpark, league and defense. You can't make a more extreme move right now than going from Yankee Stadium and their middle infield to Dodger Stadium and theirs. That alone moves the two pitchers to within a run of ERA of each other. I think Weaver takes advantage of the context to get his command back, and ends up having comparable value--within a win, in Support-Neutral or VORP terms--of Brown.I like Weaver's chances to improve, but I'm not that convinced. As I said earlier, he looks to improve a lot, but a 4.07 ERA is nothing like Kevin Brown's nasty sub-3.00's he regularly posts when healthy. Still, it didn't hurt that his first outing ended in the "W" column.
"Party Arte" All Business
In case you missed it, today's Times carries an article about the Angels under Arte Moreno. Arte's clearly got a game plan: winning breeds financial success. Whether he can pull that off with an unimaginative GM remains to be seen, but he's got a long way to go. TV revenue still "lags far behind the Dodgers'", but this could merely be the prelude to something I've speculated on previously, the opening of a new cable channel:The Angels' contract with Channel 9 expires next year, and the contract with Fox Sports Net expires in 2008. The Fox contracts with the Lakers, Mighty Ducks and Clippers all expire by 2008, and the Angels have considered the possibility of starting their own cable channel — or threatening to — in partnership with other local pro teams. Disney lost interest in owning the Angels and Ducks after its plans for an ESPN West cable channel collapsed.And HBO, and Cinemax, etc. The point is, even if this year is less-than-stellar, Arte could spin off his own cable network four years from now, something the Dodgers won't be able to do for years."We are exploring everything," Moreno said. "There are some great teams in L.A. You've got showtime there."
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