Bradford: Diamond comes full circle in Lowell’s life journey

Excerpts from Mike Lowell and Primer-pal Rob Bradford’s new book...Deep Drive: A Long Journey to Finding the Champion Within. Good stuff.

After the 1-0 win, the Puerto Rican team was getting ready to load onto its bus when Fidel Castro requested to shake the hands of all the players in his private box. One Puerto Rican player, my father, chose to wait behind for the rest of his team on the bus. He was not about to acknowledge the man who spearheaded a government that persecuted my father’s family and friends and committed unspeakable atrocities. Shaking the hand of this man would have been another black cloud among the memories my father’s family were so desperately trying to put behind them.

That refusal to shake Castro’s hand has always stayed with me. My father stood up for what he believed in, and because of it I have always tried to do the same.

Dad got another crack at exacting a measure of revenge against Castro in ’72 when he went back to Cuba to pitch in a tournament called, ironically enough, the Friendly Series. This time my father went face-to-face against his former countrymen, the Cuban National Team. He went seven innings, leaving with a 5-1 lead, having scored the fifth run to complement his extraordinary pitching performance. That final run would prove to be the winning run in what ended up as a 5-4 Puerto Rico victory. My father had become the first Cuban to ever come back and beat the Cuban National Team.

The Baseball Analysts: Lederer: A True Spring Roundtable with Pat Jordan and Alex Belth

Does it get any better than this…

Rich: Besides the Garvey story, I would venture to say that your piece on Steve Carlton ("Thin Mountain Air,” which originally appeared in Philadelphia Magazine in 1994) ranks right up there among your best. 329 wins. Four Cy Young Awards. First ballot Hall of Famer. A fitness freak. Arrogant. Stubborn. The Big Silence. Lefty was and is one complex, maybe even crazy animal.

Pat: The only thing I knew about Carlton was that he didn’t like to talk to the press. But when I met him, we started talking about guns and the next thing I know he was talking about black helicopters and the Elders of Zion. He was a nut.

Alex: And, like the Garvey piece, and, to some extent, the recent Jose Canseco essay, the Carlton story was controversial as it was released shortly before Lefty was going to be inducted into Cooperstown.

Pat: After the story came out, everybody started defending Steve. Tim McCarver, Jim Kaat, all these guys who were in the fraternity of ex-athletes. Even though they knew I had written the truth, I was not in the fraternity. I was the outside, outlaw freelance writer living in Florida. The guy you can’t trust. So the papers are running pieces about what a hatchet job I did, poor Steve Carlton. The Today Show comes down to interview me and I knew what they were going to do. They were going to ask me about guns. Now, in Florida, I have a carry permit. Perfectly legal, I carry a 9mm pistol in my bag wherever I go, except court room, athletic contests, post office, airport. It’s just the way it is. It’s a right to carry state. But the minute you mention guns in New York, you are immediately brandished as a right-wing lunatic. Sure enough, the interviewer asks, “Isn’t it true that you told Steve Carlton about a new gun you had bought?” I said, “Oh yes, I have a Czech-CZ-85, 9 mm semi-automatic, I have an East German military pistol, an American Smith and Wesson.” She said, “Well, why do you have so many guns?” And I said, “Well, it’s just like my right to vote. It’s my constitutional right to have guns, no reason why I shouldn’t.” They never ran it. They cut that part out of the interview. And that was the whole point of it all.

Alex: To make you look like a crazy schmuck.

Viva El Birdos: Iboros: rob neyer Q+A: the art of storytelling

As commenting nomar34 almost said..."I love me some (more) Neyer...”

I have one in particular that’s been driving me a little crazy. I attended a game in the mid-1970s where Ted Simmons and Bill Madlock, who was then with the Cubs, got into a brawl --- and the brawl was precipitated by Al Hrabosky going into his Mad Hungarian routine behind the mound. Every time he’d get back on the rubber, Madlock would step out of the box. And then when Madlock would step back in, the Hungarian would go back behind the mound and do his psyche-up routine again. And eventually words were exchanged, and Simmons and Madlock started going at it. I’ve gone through the archive looking for any game in St. Louis in which Hrabosky pitched an inning in which Madlock came to bat, and I can’t find the game. But I was there.

One of the stories I do remember from my youth --- and I should have remembered this one before --- also involved Hrabosky. I remember very vividly being at my grandparents’ house on summer vacation in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, which is Cardinals country as you know, and I have this incredibly vivid memory of Hrabosky coming into the game with the bases loaded and I believe even falling behind the first batter 3 and 0, and then striking out that batter and the next two batters. I would have bet just about anything that this happened. Well I tried to check it out a few years ago when I was working on my Baseball Lineups book, and I could not find anything. These things lodge in our heads, especially when we’re young, and once they’re there --- I don’t know much about how memory works, but my guess is it’s self-reinforcing. Things pop in there, and then the next time it pops in, we think about it again and that reinforces it, and that happens over and over again --- and eventually we know that happened. Even though it didn’t.

K.C. Star: Posnanski: Bill James has made the sports world a better place

Joe Posnanski and Bill James, does it get any sweeter!  Ok, ok...so the Cutter Buck Eeeewing shirt has to go.

He wrote about baseball, but in a different way. He was an outsider, and he embraced that role. He wrote sacrilegious things, wrote batting average was no way to measure a hitter, wrote that ballparks could make a break or a player’s numbers, wrote that counting errors was a pretty pointless way to measure a guy’s defense. At the time the stuff was so different from what was in the papers and on television that many people took to mocking Bill James. That was OK. He mocked back. He was better at it.

Over time, of course, people began to realize that most of what Bill was saying was true — or at least a lot more true than the conventional wisdom. Batting average is, in fact, a ridiculously flawed statistic because it doesn’t bother to count walks. Ballparks, as anyone who watched Neifi Perez hit .321 at Coors Field, do have huge effects on ballplayers’ numbers. And you cannot judge a fielder by his errors anymore than you can judge a pitcher by his wild pitches.

...This is the age of questions, and Bill had a lot to do with that. Bill is 58, and he hasn’t stopped asking questions either or writing about what interests him. He has a new book called The Bill James Gold Mine 2008 with a bunch of statistics and essays and stuff. He has a Web site ( www.billjamesonline.net) with a lot of great stuff. And every so often — quite often — he will just send an e-mail to a friend asking whether the 1999 Kansas City Royals had the best young outfield ever.

Cardboard Junkie: NEWS FLASH: 2008 Topps Preview

YEAH!...Kinda early for the Traded Set though.

Kaimin: Chaw in baseball: battling tradition for health

Kaimin’s look at chewing tobacco...and Red sox Man.

Simply enough, these quotes attest to the historical attitude of chew in the MLB, as well as haunt advocates to rid the sport of the practice.

Manny Ramirez is one of the game’s best players today. As much of Ramirez’s trademark swing, as much of his power to put any low-and-away pitch off the green monster in right, is his signature left cheek, molded with fresh Copenhagen. So much so that maybe his Cooperstown bust will carry his giant smile, with his classic dreadlocks hanging, and a bronze pouch in the cheek, preserved in time.

The bust represents baseball’s stark reality: steep tradition at the expense of health. A can of worms is eventually opened.

For the national pastime, actually, it’s more like opening a can of chaw.

Beckett Media: Philip Hughes: Beckett Board Member

I don’t have time to wade through this (too many commons)...but Philip Hughes as a baseball card collector/sneak-peaker is pretty damn cool.

It’s no secret that Yankees top pitching prospect Philip Hughes is a frequent Beckett.com Message Board participant. But today’s thread on his latest Upper Deck signing session might just be the thread of the year.

ULowell laboratory insures all major league baseballs are up to standards

O-o-o-h, I’ll harm you!...A look at the BESR system and other goodies at the ULowell laboratory.

The data gathered by the machine’s three sensors is then translated into the bat’s BESR (bat exit-speed ratio). Any bat that falls between two preset values passes inspection.

Meanwhile, the machine that tests ball durability - “Our new toy,” said Prof. Sherwood like a proud parent - works much the same way. It fires a ball at a 21/2-inch half-cylindrical piece of wood at 115 mph.

“Any faster than that, and it would destroy the ball,” explained Patrick Drane, the BRC’s assistant director.

The machine tests to see how much force it takes to squeeze a baseball one-quarter of an inch. The speed causes about 8,000 pounds of force between wood and ball for a thousandth of a second.

At Least Mrs. Yastrzemski Didn’t Use It: Sex Product Steals Nickname of Hall of Famer

Bah...I remember the uproar over the Johnny Kling-Tite brand.

Yaz is one of the great baseball nicknames of all-time. It’s both simple and elegant. It has the advantage of being necessary and somehow descriptive at the same time. Just typing the word Yaz, I automatically conjure up an image of the player with the dark hair and the big nose standing in the batter’s box with his bat held high in the air, which made him seem even wirier than his 5-foot-11, 182-pound frame.

So, imagine my surprise when I’m watching TV and a commercial comes on for a new birth control pill called Yaz!

Is nothing sacred? Did the people in charge of marketing for this product not understand that particular name was already taken?

George Washington hair relic card surfaces in 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter case

8 grand for the The Father of our Country? Shoot...I remember when Thurston Moore’s (The Father of our Daydream Nation) rancid bag-o-hair went for $100 at Pier Platters in Hoboken!

The first of three George Washington hair relic cards from 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter finally surfaced over the weekend in a 10-day auction listing on eBay. The auction, which currently stands at $8,300, with six days remaining, has attracted more than 40 active bidders and 9,000 unique page views in its first four days.

“It’s the most groundbreaking card that I’ve ever pulled,” said 17-year veteran hobby dealer Ken Simonis of Phoenix, Arizona. “I’ve been a high-end, game-used, dealer for long time and I have pulled some cards back in the day that could be equivalent monetarily to this card, but never have I pulled anything so unique.”

“I’ve received a mountain of email,” Simonis said. “Some people want to know about its origin, other people have just written to congratulate me, and others think the card is gross. The strangest email I’ve received by far was from a gentleman who seriously wanted me to end the auction so that he could buy it and try to clone George Washington.”

CNN Money: Luxury baseball: The $400 glove

Which reminds me...time to repair my ‘62 Mantle Rawlings model MM 5 glove with bailing wire, staples and stripes of heavy duty ElastoTape.

That glove, called the Bill Doak, began an evolutionary process that today culminates in the Rawlings Primo, the most expensive baseball glove ever made. It costs $400. Yes, $400 - that’s a little over a week’s pay for a typical Wal-Mart employee. (At least that employee won’t be tempted to blow his wages, as you’ll never find the Primo on Wal-Mart’s shelves.)

Two years in development, the Primo features Italian leather hand-sewn into an advanced three-layer design that, Rawlings claims, can be broken in to suit specific positions. In a season dominated by batting achievements (Barry Bonds’ record*, Alex Rodriguez’s 500th homer), Rawlings hopes the Primo will reestablish its status as the preeminent glove-design house, a position that is under threat from rivals like Wilson, Mizuno, Easton and Nike.

Seattle Times: Safeco Field is a gadget-friendly stadium

FOBBTF Jeff Angus inspects the 21st-century technology in Safeco Field: Nintendo DS units, food-to-your-seat texting, and in-game statistical reports.

It’s no accident that the Mariners, this year enjoying one of their better seasons on the field, have become a leader in this area. For one thing, the M’s are among a small number of teams owned by people from the high-tech sector, including Nintendo. The Northwest itself is laden with more tech-using folk than the country as a whole. And Safeco Field was designed and built to accommodate contemporary networking.

But the most important reason is that the M’s are among the pro-sports teams most avid about building their marketing around family-oriented, casual fans.

If the club can provide a ballpark experience that holds some appeal for most or all of the family, it can both get more people into the seats and buffer (though not eliminate) the need to win on the field to keep fans spending on tickets and concessions.

Beckett Media: Henry: The State of the Hobbyist

Ben Henry is addicted!....And getting this new Beckett gig ain’t gonna help!

But what they can do is ease up. Go back to the years right before the Upper Deck Era started (1986-1988) and learn from the great sets of the Eighties. Sets with iconic photography, full stat lines and Minor league stats for the younger guys. Sets where a rookie card meant something. Take the great things out of these sets and create a new take on the remaining Flagship brands: Fleer, Topps and Upper Deck. Don’t push a thousand insert cards through the Flagship; make collectors go to other brands for those. Ease up on the mirror cards and make a parallel set that’s easy to collect (if you make one at all).

The funny thing about all of this is that for all the woe-is-me gloom and dooming I do, I’m still the Guy Pushing Thirty Spending More Time Than Necessary In The Baseball Card Aisle At Target/Kmart/Wal-Mart. And as much as I outwardly hate the idea of pouring money down the drain for new cards, I still want new cards. I like opening packs. I like putting together sets. I’m guiltily addicted to That New Card Smell.

Beckett Media: The Mother of All Topps Cards!

Mother Teresa jumped the gum?

The 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter product had barely been on the market 48 hours when one of the best cards available was pulled by a local dealer during last week’s National Sports Collectors Convention.

Chad Smith, of Wolverine Sportscards in Westchester, Ohio, bought a case of Allen & Ginter from Dave & Adam’s Card World on the show floor. Like many dealers, Smith lugged the case back to his hotel room to bust, with the intent of selling its key singles the next day.

Halfway through the case, she appeared. The 1/1 Mother Teresa cut autograph.

...Word of Smith’s divine pull spread like wildfire on the show floor. While value estimates on the card have ranged from $10,000 all the way up to $40,000, Smith says he’s already received an offer of $20,000, which he rejected.

Baseball cards stolen from collection

Cheerios cards?

A Rochester resident’s baseball card collection now is two sluggers short. And the loss from the lineup could prove costly.

The Harmon Killebrew and Hank Aaron cards were stolen either on Friday or within the past six to nine months, according to the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office.

The years of the cards were not available, but the owner said the value could be in thousands of dollars because they came from Cheerios boxes long ago.

Big Papi sued over memorabilia deal

Big Hits, Walk Off Homers and How I Became a Champion Chisler?

A sports memorabilia company sued Boston Red Sox baseball star David Ortiz for $1 million Friday, claiming he breached a contract by failing to autograph a required number of items and appear at “meet-and-greet” events.

Steiner Sports Marketing Inc. of New Rochelle, N.Y., said the company signed Ortiz to a contract to autograph 13,000 items, appear at public signing events, and to do these things exclusively for Steiner until Jan. 31, 2008.

“Ortiz has constantly remained substantially below the amount of memorabilia items required to be signed under the agreement,” according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court.

Liveboard brings baseball scores in retro manner

$$$300 bucks for this?!...I’ll stick to my Zenith Royal 180 and trusty catspray-infested marble/pebble counting system. Thank you.

Baseball fans, unite! There is now a device that displays the latest game scores on a retro-looking stadium scoreboard smack right in front of you. You no longer need to have an Internet Explorer/Firefox window open at all times, waiting for MLB.com’s website to upload those scores. No sir, the Liveboard from Vroop does all that for you, giving you one of the quickest and most efficient methods when it comes to pitch-by-pitch updates. How is this possible, you ask? Was it done via a little sprinkling of fairy dust? Find out further after the jump.

Scores are displayed courtesy of a Bluetooth connection between the Liveboard and your computer. Whenever you want to view scores on the Liveboard, just boot up your computer and load the Liveboard manager application (takes approximately 1 minute to download) in order to sync the scores.

Plain-Dealer: Livingston: Putting his mark on baseball’s shame

Cool! Tom Wilson...from Verve Records to Swerve Recor...oh, he did...in 1978 you say. My bad.

The Tom Wilson asterisk, made of foam rubber and available for $9.95 at fanslovebaseball.com, is similar to a “We’re No. 1” foam finger. It comes in four colors and reads “Steroids” on one side and “Asterisk” on the other.

...He is not alleging any conspiracy to restrain trade, although he is a self-described “little guy who believes in capitalism” who thought he had a timely idea and has been hassled every time he tries to sell it.

He had sold 50 asterisks after he showed up outside Dodgers Stadium when Bonds’ San Francisco Giants were in town. Then what he calls the “vendor police” showed up and told him to move along because he didn’t have a permit. At Wrigley Field, ticket-takers weren’t going to let him in with the foam-rubber stars until Wilson said: “They’re seat cushions. I sit on my asterisk.”

Boston Globe: Ryan: DVD captures color of that glorious season

The oldest extant color TV broadcast of a full MLB regular season game (September 30, 1967) has been restored for the pleasure of Red Sox completists.

Beginning with the pregame entrance of Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Senator Ted Kennedy and ending with a fine Jerry Adair play on a Tony Oliva line drive, it is an eerie, almost voyeuristic look into a baseball time past.

Fenway Park is pristine. No electronic scoreboard. No advertising anywhere. And off in the distance, it is not yet the “Citgo” sign. It is, of course, the “Cities Service” sign. ....

There is a center-field camera, but many of the at-bats are shot from behind the plate. With a man on first, the director favors that old wide-screen look that includes the pitcher’s mound and first base. I rather liked seeing it again. By the way, you’d better be paying attention. There are no replays. There are no graphics. At the end of each half-inning, the scoreboard is panned. That’s it.

Tastykake Announces 2007 Season Partnership with Minor League Baseball™

Won’t somebody please think about the Ring Dings!?

“The Tastykake tradition, which began in 1914, goes back almost as long as Minor League Baseball,” according to Charles P. Pizzi, President and CEO of Tasty Baking Company. “Our partnership with Minor League Baseball is a perfect fit for our brand. For over a century, Minor League Baseball has been providing family-oriented entertainment and strong character lessons to the kids and parents who support the teams in the community. It’s an atmosphere where Tastykakes can be enjoyed as a special treat!”

“Tastykake is legendary in the Philadelphia area, and one of our most important objectives is to extend the Tastykake excitement and brand loyalty to markets beyond our hometown,” according to Tasty Baking Company Marketing Director Jon Silvon. “Our relationship with Minor League Baseball enables us to engage families who might not be aware of the high quality and product variety available from Tastykake, from trans-fat-free chocolate covered, Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes, to Sensables® sugar-free, low-carb cupcakes, to our iconic butterscotch-iced, sponge cake Krimpets.”

“We have a great story to tell,” notes Silvon, “as do each of the teams we’re supporting this season. Tasty Baking Company is proud to be a part of such a rich American tradition, and we wish all of our teams and players success this season!”

Inventor makes mud machine for baseballs

Meet Cameron Kruse...the Cameron Crowe of crud.

A strange, motorized contraption made of LEGOs looms between buckets of dirty baseballs on the countertop of Cameron Kruse’s booth at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

The invention might look like spillover from a boy’s toy chest, but the 17-year-old has used his love of baseball and LEGOs to explore mechanical engineering - and possibly create a profitable business.

The gadget uses lasers, motors and wheels to apply an even coating of mud on new baseballs, a process that baseball clubs currently do by hand - and with some controversy, he said.

“New baseballs have this slick gloss on them,” Kruse said. “When the pitcher throws a new ball it can slip out of his hand. You have to degloss it first with mud.”

Thanks to Bradford.

Santana to pitch homegrown rub

Whew!...Good thing the Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair Growing Tonic ain’t around any longer.

Twins Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana could probably have his pick of products to endorse. But the only one in the United States he pitches for is a muscle liniment so old that, well, Cy Young could have used it. J.R. Watkins Apothecary Red Liniment—a product nearly 140 years old and made by a small company in Winona, Minn.—put Santana on its roster this week.

..."I do things realistically,” said Santana, who said his only other endorsement deal is with a soft drink manufacturer in his native Venezuela. “This is reality. ... I love the product.”

The red liniment was the first product developed by J.R. Watkins, which was founded as a medical company in Plainview, Minn., in 1868. The company moved in 1885 to Winona, where it still produces the red liniment—a pain reliever and nerve stimulator with ingredients such as camphor (from evergreen trees) and capsicum (a red pepper extract)—in a 10-story factory.

The Sporting News: 2007 Complete Baseball Record Book

Fear not Sir Forman...at least until Baseball Digest goes live!

Welcome to the 2007 edition of the Complete Baseball Record Book. For the first time, Sporting News is publishing this book electronically and making it available at no cost.

Tip o’ Bob T.

Web site: NXBL (Nation Extreme Baseball League)

National Xtreme Baseball is a patent pending game that was created in 2006. This revolutionary game/sport will be introduced to the public through a series of games between teams established throughout Florida as well as in other US regions and marketed as a new up and coming professional sports league. The 2007 NXBL games will be played in many locations throughout Florida as well as other US cities during the leagues introductory season. The official inaugural season will be launched in 2008 with teams competing on a regional and national level. The games will also be introduced in other countries in order to take part in national and international competition.

THE GAME:
NXB uses many of the traditional baseball rules and methods however has incorporated “xtreme” new methods of play which make the game pace much faster. The game is played with both teams on the field at the same time and alternating pitches.The skill level to play the game is the same as traditional baseball however does require a better athletic condition.

It’ll only be good if there is blood involved.

Cardboard Gods: Wilker: Pete Broberg

Signals, Calls and the Death March of Pete Broberg…

But in this 1977 picture Pete Broberg doesn’t seem to give a #### that his early promise has gone unfulfilled. That year he racked up another lousy year with the Cubs, then brought his career full circle, in a raggedy ass way, by going 10 and 12 for the A’s, the team that had tried to throw $175,000 at him right out of high school 10 years before. The Dodgers signed him as a free agent the following year but told him he’d have to go to triple-A or be released.

In the aforementioned article from the Oakland A’s website, Pete Broberg recounts the choice in a way that seems to fit his expression in this card:

“I went home,” Broberg said. “They still had to pay me, and the Dodgers paid my way through law school.”

Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About BPro (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Derek and the domino effect…

...At the end of this, my editors appended, for humorous purposes “...the guy who made that comment isn’t with us anymore.”

Someone assumed that this last part was a dig at former BP author Derek Zumsteg, who did the Mariners chapter for several years, including 2004. The only problem with this theory was, well, that the Ibanez comment in 2004 wasn’t in the Mariners chapter--it was in the Kansas City Royals chapter, which was written by someone else. I knew that when I wrote the comment (although I’ll admit that I forgot for a while in the post-accusation shock period; I thought the guy who’d accused me of being a miserable person was right, and that my memory was wrong). I have absolutely no grudges against either Zumsteg or the person who actually wrote the comment (to the contrary, they’re two of my favorite writers). The idea wasn’t to get a dig in on anyone, it was to take accountability for a prediction that turned out wrong--one that lots and lots of people, and not just at Baseball Prospectus, shared.

Topps Launches Online Video Channel

“Oh yea!...I wanna rip!”

Topps has launched an online video section on their website titled TOPPS TV.  According to Topps, the objective of TOPPS TV is to deliver interesting, engaging and up-to-date video that will educate and excite sports fans and collectors.

ESPN the Magazine: SHEFF SPEAKS UP

Sheffield...Hellbent on cap sizing baseball.

* SHEFFIELD ON STEROIDS: “Look at the change in McGwire’s and Barry’s numbers. Then look at my numbers. Have mine changed? No. Now look at their head sizes, and look at my cap size from when I started to now. Have I changed? No.”

* SHEFFIELD ON “THE CORPORATION:” “I’m not saying they’re not first class, but the Yankees are strictly business. Baseball is your life, everything else is secondary. I know why a lot of people break down there. If winning is everything to you, go there. If it’s not, the Yankees aren’t the place for you. Just stay out of their way.”

* SHEFFIELD ON JOE TORRE: “When I’m not playing and A-Rod is hitting eighth, something’s wrong. If something’s wrong, who writes the lineup? Torre writes the lineup.”

Ban On Metal Bats for Kids? One Yankee Says No, Met Says Yes

Uh...I guess Franco has no connections with DeMarini.

A mini subway series is brewing at City Hall over the City Council’s proposal to ban metal bats in high school baseball game.

Former Mets relief pitcher John Franco testified in support of the ban at a Monday hearing, while Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina has already taken a swing against it. Franco and the bill’s supporters say metal bats hit balls faster and harder, while Mussina and other opponents say there is no evidence to suggest they are more dangerous.

“I’m speaking from someone who was standing on the mound for 22 years, and I can see the difference,’’ Franco told a council committee on Monday. “And while I’m standing in the stands watching my son play, or some of the other Little Leaguers, I can see the difference.’’

New THT 2007 Season Preview Book

Apparently, it consists of a series of essays written by the Sabermetric League of Justice Blogging All Stars and projections for players:

The heart of our Preview is our unique take on batting and pitching projections. For every major league player we could think of, as well as a number of minor leaguers, we projected his batting, fielding and pitching performances for the next three years. .  .  . 

The numbers were the result of several months’ work by David Gassko and Chris Constancio. David provided the overall framework, relying heavily on Baseball Info Solutions’ batted ball statistics, and Chris provided the minor league stats, as well as park and league adjustments and a model of how player performance changes as players age.