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Tuesday, January 31, 2012 |
Happy Birthday, Jackie Robinson
Happy birthday to Jackie Robinson, who would have been 93 today. In celebration, here's an excerpt of a letter he wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower at the delightful blog, Letters Of Note:
I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience. On hearing you say this, I felt like standing up and saying, 'Oh no! Not again.'I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people. When you said we must have self-respect, I wondered how we could have self-respect and remain patient considering the treatment accorded us through the years.
17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans. This we cannot do unless we pursue aggressively goals which all other Americans achieved over 150 years ago.
Monday, January 30, 2012 |
Dodger Thoughts Moves Again
Jon's leaving the ESPN LA umbrella to set up shop under his own domain. I'm presently blocked from seeing it, but expect it ought to be visible within an hour. Sidebar links to come.
Update: Hey, here's the maiden post at the new site.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 |
Rangers Sign Yu Darvish To 6 Year/$60M Deal
Per Buster Olney of ESPN, the Rangers signed Japanese import Yu Darvish to a 6-year/$60M deal. Favorite Twitter gag about this so far:
Props to Angels GM Dipoto. Angels sign Wilson for 75 mil, force the Rangers to spend 120 mil to back fill his spot in the rotation #geniusI'm not so sure about that; word so far is that Darvish may be the best Japanese pitcher to hit the US in approximately ever, and is quite a bit younger than the Angels' C.J. Wilson. On the other hand, Texas paid a "record" $51.7 million posting bid. That's a lot of money to have sunk into a guy nobody's ever seen pitch in the majors. We'll see how this plays out.
Update: Supposedly — and this is unconfirmed — Darvish has an opt out clause after five years.
Update 1/20: No, not on the weed.
Labels: angels, hot stove, rangers, transactions
Dodgers Ink Ethier, Loney, Still Working On Kershaw; Angels Sign Aybar
The Dodgers have signed one important and one unimportant piece for 2012, signing Andre Ethier and James Loney for single-year deals at $10.95M and $6.375M, respectively. The team will go to arbitration with Clayton Kershaw, with the Cy Young Award winner asking for $10M in his first year of arbitration eligibility, and the Dodgers offering $6.5M.
Also, the Angels signed Erick Aybar for $5.075M, and the team will seek to long-term him.
Labels: angels, dodgers, hot stove, transactions
OT: Stop PIPA/SOPA
I have (too late!) made general policy around here that politics are offlimits (I talk about them enough on Facebook), but today I'm making an exception to stop PIPA/SOPA, a pair of horrible bills that would do untold damage to the Internet. Please visit the EFF for more information. Also, Gizmodo has a nice gallery of sites going dark in protest.
Labels: offtopic
Friday, January 13, 2012 |
Bill James Predicts The Lansford/Burleson/Hobson Trade Outcome
Back when I was doing the daily series about player birthdays in team history, I ran this for Rick Burleson which detailed the catastrophic trade by the Angels of Carney Lansford, Mark Clear, and Rick Miller to Boston for Rick Burleson and Butch Hobson. That deal turned out to be a catastrophe for the Angels — it was the second such horror in as many years, given the team let Nolan Ryan walk in free agency just the year prior.
But what brought this to mind was a Sports Illustrated article by Daniel Okrent (h/t Jay Jaffe on Twitter) introducing the then-unknown Bill James to a wider audience. In particular, check out this passage about that deal, freshly struck, and the far more even-handed deal that sent Fred Lynn to the Angels:
This season James relishes the textbook cases he expects will develop from the big Boston-California switches of the past winter, when players shuttled between the best hitters' park in the league (Fenway) and the third-worst (Anaheim). "One is tempted to say," he writes, "that when you put Carney Lansford in Fenway he will inherit Fred Lynn's statistics, and when you put Lynn in the Big A, he will pick up those left behind. That could very possibly happen, and I've hung myself on cruder scaffolds."Pretty impressive, really.James then made the following bold declarations:
- Lynn, over a period of years, will not even approach in California the offensive production he had in Fenway. If he hit .300 two-thirds of the time in Fenway, it might be one-third of the time in California. James admits that Lynn is unpredictable, but he estimates that in the long run he will be a .285 hitter in Anaheim, with 18 to 24 home runs a year. [In fact, he only once in four years with the Angels posted near a .300 average, in 1982 when he hit .299. — RLM]
- Third Baseman Lansford, a .261 hitter in Anaheim with 15 homers last year, is pegged for a .310 season in Boston with 25 home runs, but, says James, "that doesn't represent the upper boundary of his ability." [Lansford went on to post two very good seasons with Boston, and then found himself traded to Angels' AL West division rival Oakland, where he finished his career.]
- Rick Burleson, the ex-Boston short-Stop, never used Fenway to his particular advantage and should hit just as well in California. [He did — for one year — separated his shoulder in a spring training game in 1982, missed most of that year, posted solid numbers in 1983, but missed most of 1984 when he re-tore his rotator cuff lifting weights before the season.]
- But Butch Hobson, the third baseman sent from Boston to California, is in for trouble. His home-run frequency will hold up, but his average will plummet so much that, in combination with his poor defensive play, it will make him a bad risk. The Angels will eventually bench him, since they already have an abundance of designated hitters and first basemen, and there's no other place to play Hobson. So he'll wind up hitting .230, with 15 to 22 home runs, in no more than 350 to 450 at bats. [Just so. He hit .235/.321/.336.]
- Joe Rudi will drive in 100 runs in Boston if he's healthy and playing. "But," adds James, "if he'd been healthy, he would have done it in California." [I can't tell if Rudi was healthy, but judging from the 49 games he appeared in in 1982 for Boston, I take that as a "no".]
Labels: angels, history, red sox, sabermetrics
Thursday, January 12, 2012 |
The Birth Of SaberBoy
The USA Today launchpad, and a nice followup post at The Platoon Advantage. An inspired act of genius; "the hero the BBWAA needs, not the one it particularly wants right now."Labels: funny
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 |
Angels Sign Kendrys Morales To One-Year, $3M Deal
Per MLB.com, though I haven't been able to find dollars, the Times and Register both agree the amount is likely to be in the $3M range.
Labels: angels, hot stove, transactions
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 |
Dodgers, Fox Cease Hostilities
Very interesting consequences from today's agreement, with both sides agreeing to cease legal actions against each other. The Dodgers will no longer pursue a TV rights sale, while leaving Frank on the hook to pay back a $30M loan Fox gave him personally to make payroll in April, 2011.
That loan is secured by McCourt's malpractice claim against Bingham McCutchen, the Boston-based law firm responsible for the faulty marital property agreement upon which McCourt relied to establish his sole ownership of the Dodgers. The agreement was invalidated, and ultimately McCourt agreed to settle his divorce by paying his ex-wife $131 million by April 30.Fox retained the right to challenge any sale of the team, in part or in whole, to Time Warner Cable. The settlement also clarified that Time Warner Cable is bound by a provision of the TV contract that hampers the ability of ESPN, Comcast or Time Warner to hold a share of a Dodgers' cable channel.
Barry Larkin Ascends To Cooperstown
... and none others (BBWAA). Congrats, Barry; one of these days, another Barry (coffBondscoff) should join you, but I won't be too surprised to find him excluded for strictly spurious reasons.
Labels: hall of fame
Monday, January 09, 2012 |
Belated: Angels Extend Howie Kendrick Through 2015
The Angels signed second baseman Howie Kendrick for four years, buying out his last year of arbitration eligibility and the first three years of his free agency, and is said to be worth $33.5 million.
Labels: angels, hot stove, transactions
Wednesday, January 04, 2012 |
Mark Trumbo's Return Delayed Five Months
The stress fracture in Trumbo's foot is healing slower than expected; he won't begin rehab until the beginning of spring training.
Time Warner "Interested" In Dodgers
Time Warner is "interested" in buying the Dodgers; it makes sense from a fiscal standpoint (spend $4 billion for TV rights over 20 years, or own the team outright for less than half that?), but from a fan perspective, it looks for the world like a replay of the Fox years. DO. NOT. WANT.
Joe Torre To Resign Post At MLB Operations To Join A Group Pursuing The Dodgers
Per tweets by Eric Fisher and Jon Heyman. Supposedly the group is headed by real estate baron Rick Caruso.
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Labels: dodgers
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