Transaction Oracle: Dodgers - Re-signed Juan Rivera

Los Angeles Dodgers - Signed OF Juan Rivera to a 1-year, $4.5 million contract with club option for 1-year, $3.5 million.

This is a signing that makes me want to take a paint tutorial (Billy is pretty loyal to the Royals though and might not be available). Words will have to be enough.

Honestly though this isn’t an objectively terrible signing. I can’t readily identify 60 better corner outfielders, so he’s (arguably) playing on merit. He isn’t horrendously overpaid and there’s no long-term ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZIPS Projections - New York Mets

Obviously not a great year for the Mets at 77-85, but if you just went by the tenor of the media reports, thanks to the Wilpon/Madoff turmoil, you’d think the Mets played like the 1993

edition that went 59-103.  The team spent most of the year, playing “sort of OK-ish” and while never really in any kind of risk of being relevant, weren’t Astrotastic horrible.

The pitching staff is interesting in that while it was one of the worst in the league (the 89 ERA+ was 15th of 16 teams in the National ...

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Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1967 Discussion

The American League saw one of its more exciting pennant races, in the penultimate year of non-divisional play. By contrast, the National League found the St Louis Cardinals in first place on 18 June 1967, and they never looked back. The St Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

                  Win       BB-ref
                 Shares       WAR
Carl Yastrzemski 43  	12.2
Harmon Killebrew 38  	 7.1	
Ron Santo 37  	10.2
Roberto Clemente 36  	 8.2
Orlando Cepeda 	35 ...

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Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1966 Results

In our second-closest election since we began the project earlier this year, Frank Robinson's four-point advantage over Sandy Koufax wins him the title 'Most Meritorious Player' for 1966.

pts	ballots	1sts	Player
186	13	8	Frank Robinson
182	13	2	Sandy Koufax
166	13	2	Juan Marichal
150	13	1	Willie Mays
131	12	0	Dick Allen
123	12	0	Ron Santo
110	11	0	Jim Bunning
74	10	0	Roberto Clemente
73	9	0	Joe Torre
36	5	0	Willie McCovey
35	5	0	Harmon Killebrew
22	3	0	Henry Aaron
19	3	0	Bob Gibson
14	2	0	Al ...

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Transaction Oracle: Yankees - Signed Sabathia

New York Yankees - Signed P C.C. Sabathia to a 6-year, $142 million contract.

Well that was something of a letdown. I think most of us were poised for a lot of posturing and a lengthy negotiation that in the end would see CC re-signing with the Yankees.

Did he leave anything on the table either in terms of length of contract or dollar per year? Could be, but I'm skeptical that he left a lot. In effect he signed for 5 years at $117 million (but with a potential $5 million buyout at the end) ...

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Jim's Lab Notes: Please Excuse the Mess

It's update time. The season is over and a slower news cycle is upon us. It's time for me to roll up my sleeves and work on the site. First up is the transition of our Content Management System (CMS) from Expression Engine's 1.x series to its 2.x series. I had hoped to accomplish this upgrade last March but, unfortunately, some of the third-party scripts the site uses had not yet been updated to the new version, my personal life was much too busy and, frankly, I did not have sufficient funds to ...Read More...

Transaction Oracle: Indians - Acquired Lowe

Cleveland Indians - Acquired P Derek Lowe from the Atlanta Braves for P Chris Jones

It's not exactly news that Lowe was surplus to requirements in Atlanta. His health record has been exceptional – rarely missing a turn since becoming a starter a decade ago.

The problem is that he's 3 years removed from being an impact player. His upside is probably league average and I'd be more than a little surprised if he's that good. 39 year old pitchers in a decline phase are not what you'd call good ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections - Philadelphia Phillies

Not a whole lot of surprises here. A ton of hitters that played in the organization get projected this year, mostly because the team employed a massive number of semi-familiar names this year. Brent Clevlen! Rich Thompson! Tagg Bozied! A lot of the minors looked a bit like the 2004 waiver wire in your fantasy baseball league.

The starting pitching made up for a lot of sins in the form of an overrated offense and should continue to do so, even if they can't bring Roy Oswalt back at a ...

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Transaction Oracle: 2012 ZiPS Projections - Chicago Cubs

Epstein! That's pretty much the big news in Cubs baseball the last month. It's still hard to tell what direction exactly Epstein will take the Cubs, but it's likely that the list of players employed by the Cubs in 2012 will look very different than the list of players below. Epstein wasn't brought in with giant sacks full of money in order to politely churn Jim Hendry's assemblage of awesomeness.

On the plus side, the Cubs aren't really as decrepit a team to rebuild as the Houston ...

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Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1966 Ballot

Most Meritorious Player: 1966 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 ...Read More...