Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections Spreadsheets, v. 1

This is the first general release of final ZiPS projections 2012. All players, to the best of my knowledge, are projected for their most recent employer's organization. In the final spreadsheet, there will be a "current team" field and unemployed players will have a blank there, with the "team" field becoming "projected team" so you know to what organization the player was originally projected.

2012 ZiPS Projections for Office 2007, .xlsx format

Comma-delimited batters

Comma-delimited ...

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Transaction Oracle: Pirates - Acquire Burnett

Pittsburgh Pirates acquire P A. J. Burnett for outfielder Exicardo Cayones, pitcher Diego Moreno and $20 million in cash ($11.5 million in 2012 and $8.5 million in 2013)

All in all a pretty reasonable deal for both sides. The Yankees free up a roster spot, add a couple of middle grade suspects and make those last few additions to the roster a little more cost effective. It’s been reported in terms of giving the Yankees financial flexibility. That’s only true if they were dealing with an ...

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Jim's Lab Notes: Upgrade Update: New Servers, Email Logins, Mobile, Feature Requests, and a Lot of Other Stuff!

New Servers
Yesterday I ordered two new servers for the site! They should be built within the next couple of days at which time I will begin moving the site. With lessons learned from my first two server migrations, I expect the move to be relatively painless. Be on the lookout for updates about the timeline.

Updates
Since I’ve been asked by a few people…as I mentioned within the previous update thread, I am completely re-factoring the data structure and back-end template code for the site. ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections - Pittsburgh Pirates

Unfortunately, Pittsburgh’s 72-90 record pretty accurately reflects where the team current stands, more than the early summer run that saw the team relevant in the NL Central standings for the first time in years.  A lot of the success with the pitching staff was of the ephemeral variety.  Jeff Karsten and his 3.38 ERA last season stand out - he has a weak resume and as a finesse righty with a fastball in the 80s that can’t keep the ball down enough, he walks that Josh Towers-like line between ...

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Sox Therapy: The Best Shape of His Life

Those spring puff pieces about the right fielder who added ten pounds of muscle and the fourth starter who trained harder than ever and is experimenting with a new grip on his slider, they’re a running joke in baseball.  But I love ‘em.  There are two reasons – first is that spring training is when fans are supposed to start imagining what could happen if Ryan Sweeney finally developed the power scouts projected or if Dan Bard made a seamless transition to starting.  Puff pieces and ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections - San Diego Padres

I can understand a team trading Mat Latos for quality prospects. I can understand picking up Carlos Quentin and trading off a surplus 1B/OF prospect for starting pitching depth. What I don't understand is doing the things described in the first two sentences in the same offseason. Part of the reason you acquire a slugger for the short-term and trade for depth is because you have Mat Latos on the team, after all. I had the same puzzlement last year as the Padres traded Adrian Gonzalez (who ...Read More...

Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1969 Ballot

Here are the specific rules for this election:
Candidate Eligibility: Any North American professional baseball player is eligible for the Most Meritorious Player (MMP) award including players in the top Negro Leagues or independent teams. Voters should consider the player’s on-field contribution to Major League Baseball (MLB) team(s) in that season only. If part of the season was spent outside MLB, that value may be considered as well. However, the player’s on-field contribution should be ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections - Oakland A’s

The A's are starting what looks to be their first true full tear-down job of the last decade. While they've always sent their better players out of town for various reasons, the players they've traded away aren't as good, and as a result don't fetch as much, as previous salary dumps. It's also unlikely that the A's will do any sudden strategy shifts, like the acquisition of Matt Holliday less than a year after the trading-away of many players that would have made the Holliday trade ...Read More...

Sox Therapy: Offseason Minor League Thread

Because the Red Sox system is so thin in the high minors, and because their low-minors strength doesn’t feature any single obvious superstar, the prospect ratings have been a bit all over the place.  John Sickels’ top five only shared two names with Jim Callis’ top five, and Keith Law didn’t rank Callis’ #1 in his top 100, but he did put Sickels’ #7 in his 100th spot (only the second Red Sox to make the list).  Since I don’t actually watch minor league games, I tend to count on ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections - Texas Rangers

What's there to say about the Rangers, really? It's a deep team with a very good farm system that'll be there at the end of the season. The team's still a bit underrated defensively - I'm not sure how much the general public really comprehends just how good the non-Beltre defenders generally are. Even Mike Napoli, considered a serviceable backstop at best, made great strides defensively last season. ZiPS saw the Angels pulling even with the Rangers this season, but the Rangers landed ...Read More...