Good news, though I wish the man luck. Is there much precedence for success after this kind of move?

I'm surprised that Henson made this decision, because it's unusual for athletes to walk away from guaranteed money.

Having said, perhaps Henson's agent has feelers from NFL clubs that lead him to believe that Henson can make more $$$ as a QB in the next 3 years (both salary and endorsements) than as an overpaid minor league 3Baseman.

In any case, I think this is a good decision for all involved: Henson can actually succeed in a sport he's good at, and the Yankees get out from an albatross contract from which they were getting no real return.

This is especially good for the Yankees going into the 2006 season when Henson was to receive $6MM(and if memory serves me right, the Yankees will be out from under the Kevin Brown, Bernie Williams and Hideki Matsui contracts at the end of 2005, so they'll have a lot of cash that year).

Re: precedence for success, who else had done this?

Josh Booty, Chad Hutchinson, Chris Weinke (went back to college...), the LSU QB....

There's got to be more. Right?

Yeah, Max, I thought of Elway, but that struck me as unique. I fear that Henson will be another of those like Hutcheson (so far) that fail at both sports. I hope that's not the case.

Quincy Carter.

I think they said a DB for the Panthers, Manning, pitched in some minor league system.

Manning plays in the Twins system during the summer. Not as a pitcher.

I guess we need to specify the precedent we're looking for. I didn't mean, someone who played both sports. And I don't mean someone named Drew Henson who failed miserably in the Yankee system before pursuing a football career. I meant someone who dropped a sport for a time to pursue baseball and then returned to it. Does Quincy Carter fit that mold? I don't think so.

So no Bo Jacksons, Deion Sanders, or Ricky Mannings. Ok.

Stumped.

Lots of NFLers were in the minors.

Quincy Carter

<i>s there a complete list of men who have played in the NFL and MLB? I can think of:

Jim Thorpe

I meant someone who dropped a sport for a time to pursue baseball and then returned to it.

Then you've got Booty (I know he signed a baseball-only K, so he must have "dropped" football, but I don't know if he ever played in college in the first place), Hutcheson and Michael Jordan. Off the top of my head.

Ted: What? How does he fit? Didn't he come straight from playing college football into the NFL?

Another way to put the question is simply speculative: Do you guys think Henson's got a chance? Or what chance do you think he's got? (BTW: How old was Weinke when he came out? 26?)

Akili Smith played minor league baseball (poorly) before playing professional football (poorly).

He was, however, one of the two or three best college football players I've ever seen. Simply amazing.

Michael J: True enough. We knew you could play already, however. But you do have an utter inability to lay off the breaking stuff in common w/Drew.

Jay Schroeder played (poorly) in the minor leagues before going to the Redskins.

Rick Leach was, like Henson, a Michigan quarterback who switched to baseball, but at least Leach got a mediocre MLB career out of it.

Al Martin was a two sport star. His wife told me that.

Ted: Absolutely. I didn't know. I wasn't being smug, I was asking.

He gave up College football after one season,

Wow, Drew Henson only played one year of college football? I thought he played at least two, maybe three. Was his only year the year he split with Tom Brady? That guy doesn't suck.

As far as precedents are concerned, I don't think there are any that are great. Quincy Carter played baseball for a couple of seasons and has become a fairly successful NFL quarterback, though he was never considered to be as good of a prospect as Henson. Chad Hutcheson doesn't look like he will be a successful QB, but he also wasn't the football prospect that Henson is. I don't know what type of prospect Chris Weinke was, but he didn't even start his college football career until he was 26 and didn't get to the NFL until 29.

Josh Booty seems like a pretty good comparison for Henson in that both were QB/3bs who were considered among the top 5 prospects in both sports coming out of high school, but like Weinke, Booty took five years off from football straight out of high school to play baseball, and didn't even return to college football until he was 23. In contrast, Henson will be 24 and entering the NFL after playing football previously for 3 years at the college level. He only took 2 seasons off from football to play baseball. Had he played his senior season he may have been the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Thus, I don't think Henson's NFL career has been significantly damaged by his foray into baseball.

Looking at that NBA draft site quickly, '98 looks like a helluva draft day for the Mavs: http://nbadraft.net/1998.htm

Select Robert Trayolr No. 6 from Michigan.. trade Traylor to Milwaukee for Dirk Nowitzki (No. 9 pick) and Pat Garrity (No. 19 pick).

Flip Garrity along with Martin Muursepp, Bubba Wells and their '99 first-rounder to Phoenix for Steve Nash.

I believe that was Cuban's first time as owner. Not a bad debut.

Julius Peppers played hoops for NC as well.

billyshears: Are you sure he played 3 years of college football? I thought he played less.

Also Andre King of the Braves, went back to school and became a reciever for Miami (Fla). Just popped into my head because I remember seeing him play his last professional baseball game in St. Pete Florida for the D-Rays team there. Anyone know if he ever moved on to the NFL?

I believe he's a receiver for the Browns now, if this is the same Andre King I'm thinking of.

Rob, thanks for bringing that up.

Michigan never won that game. I'm a Bears fan, and I still hate A-Train because of that game.

And i could have sworn Henson played only 2 years-and Brady was only the starter 1 year (Henson's freshman year), and Navarre was a freshman when Henson was the starter (after the Illinois game).

darrell sutherland's 10th best comp is 989. That will be tough to beat.

What of George Lombard, the "next Herschel Walker" who wound up being the next Brad Komminsk? I guess he's too old to go back now.

Trajan Langdon played pro baseball? As a Duke alum, I'd like to hear some specifics, if you've got any.

As a Buckeye/Reds fan, I gotta say that Drew Henson is hitting alltime levels of systemic despisal. Quarterbacking the Wolverines parlayed with refusing to play baseball with the Reds? Whoa. I loved the karmic retribution of him having to play with the Columbus Clippers.

If he gets traded to or signs with the Steelers, we'll have to check his DNA for evidence of Luciferian ancestry.

Didn't the Rockies try and take Michael Vick a few years back?

<i>I'm amazed Danny Ainge has been forgotten. He dropped basketball for baseball until he realized that he wasn't much good at it.

*(BTW: How old was Weinke when he came out? 26?)*

Have him call me.

Vick was drafted in the 30th round, IIRC, even though he didn't play baseball in college.

Henson was better than Brady in college, and would have gone top 5 after his junior year, so if he can get back into the swing of things, he's got a real chance.

Danny Ainge was an absolutely sick athlete, by the way. Picked up a golf club for the first time a couple years back, and hit like 2 over par.

Earlier this year there was a Cowboys-Falcons game where all 4 QB's had baseball ties - Vick, Hutch, Q Carter, and Doug Johnson.

On the subject of the '96 draft, the Suns are the best drafters ever. They turned #16 Steve Nash into #19 Pat Garrity, two scrubs, and the pick that became Shawn Marion, who wouldn't go lower than 4th if they ran that draft again.

I have to disagree with you, Kevin. This is extremely different from Henson.

Ainge played in the 1981 NCAA tournament, which means he was playing college basketball as late as March 1981. In the 1981-82 season, he played 53 games for Boston, which meant that he played no later than January 2, 1982, and one source I saw said he was in Boston no later than October. So he was "out" of basketball for at most half a season, and possibly no time at all, since that summer would have been his off season.

Yanks have traded for Mike Lamb, giving up an A-ball arm

I saw that, SM. What do you think? Decent stop-gap measure, or waste of time?

Putting on my Dan S. hat here...

Mike Lamb posts a ZiPS projection of .288/.353/.424 in 406 ABs

So you're saying my Szymborski imitation needs a little work, SG?

At any rate, this trade doesn't change the fact that third base is the Yanks' weakest offensive position and the infield defense is, ahem, weak, shall we say.

The trade is a good one for the Yanks, who part with just a A-ball pitcher with 104 Ks in 160ish innings of work.

Not a bad move for the Yanks. About as good as they could do, I suppose.

Since I've seen just about every Michigan game for the last 20 years, I would say that Brady is up there. Can't forget about Jim Harbaugh, he was pretty good too.

Henson was the better athlete, and MIGHT have been the better QB if he had stuck around for his Heisman...I mean senior season, but Brady was much better than Henson when they played together and had a much better career.

Hopefully Matt Guttierez will make us forget both of them.

Well, he's going to have the one of the two or three best receiving corps in the country to throw to next season.

Edwards, Avant, Breaston, Ecker and Massaquoi and the bevy of top ranked receivers they pulled in this year. The O-line is still solid. Only thing they need is a running back. Unfortunately, those don't seem to grow on trees at Michigan like they used to.

Henson was quite good in his junior year at Michigan, and would have been a pre-season favorite for the Heisman. Pretty good TD/INT ratio.

<i>Putting on my Dan S. hat here...

Mike Lamb posts a ZiPS projection of .288/.353/.424 in 406 ABs

Corey Koskie was quite the little goalie, eh, in addition to being a member of the Canadian Junion National volleyball team.

Ricky Williams (of the Dolphins) was a minor leaguer for the Rangers during college. He was even taken in the Rule 5 draft.

Williams was actually in the Phillies system originally, I believe. I saw him play a couple of games for Class A Batavia. Three things I remember:

1) He was one of the fastest baseball players I've ever seen. He even got an infield single on a routine comebacker to the pitcher.

Also:

Bill James:

Uh, okay... So is "0" a replacement player, or 1.7 better than a replacement player? And why 150 games?

It's an honor sir!

Yes, 0 is a replacement player, under the scheme I posted above. An example:

Player A is a catcher. His batting lwts is -20 per 150 games (actually 630 PA). That is traditional lwts and means 20 runs below the league average (all players, all positions). Let's say his peripherals (baserunning, etc.) are -5 (again, like with batting, 5 runs below an average players in the league). Le's say his defensive runs are +5 (that is obviosly as comared to all catchers only). Again, these are all per 150 "games."

So catcher A has -20 plus -5 plus +5 total Superlwts runs per 150, or -20. An average catcher over the last 4 years has a total Superlwts of -15 per 150 (for an average LF'er, it is +11, etc.). That becomes the positional adjustment. So catcher A's position adjusted Superlwts is -20 plus 15, or -5 (he is bascially 5 runs worse than an average catcher).

Why do we use positional adjustments? Because a player is only as good or bad (his "value") as his "stats" compared to the average catcher. You can't replace a catcher with a better hitting left fielder. You have to replace him with another catcher. If all baseball players who have the ability to play catcher can only hit .100, then so be it. A player who can play catcher but can hit .200 would be worth a zillion dollars, regardless of what the other players who play different positions (and cannot play catcher) can hit! Since catchers have a Superlwts of 15 runs below an average player, it must be a really hard position to play, otherwise they (MLB teams) would take better hitters (there are a ton of better hitters than the poor to average catcher, sitting on the bench and in the minor leagues) who play other positions, and turn them into catchers!

All players's value and salary must be based on the average player at that defensive position. That is why positional adjustments are a must when comparing players across different positions!

I used to express everyhitng as "per 162 games," but I was constantly having to covert that to "per 150 games" since most players only play 150 games or so, if they are full-time players. So i just decided to express everything as "per 150 games." That way, you can look at my charts and say, "That's what I expect this player to contribute (in runs or wins above average or replacemnt) as a full time player."

I also used to express everything as runs (wins is just runs/10.5 or whatever the proper "runs per win" conversion is) above average rather than replacement. It doesn't really matter, except when it comes time to assign a dollar value to players, you need to change the scale to runs or wins above replacment or many of your players will have "negative" run or win values - that makes it awkward to assign a dollar value to them. SO lately, I have been converting everything into "above or below replacement."

I don't particularly like the idea of "replacement" becuase there is no "real" value for a replacement player. It depend upon the position, the current scarcity of players at that position, etc. A replacement player is loosely defiend as the run or win value of the "lowest common denominator" of players at a partiuclar defensive position. IOW, the value of the player's that are backups, etc., and get the least amount of playing time. Presumably, you can find a player at about replacement level failry easily in the minors or as a journeyman, and pay him the major league minimum salary. But again, there is really no exact run or win value for a replacement player.

I arbitrarily assign a value of -18 runs (position adjusted) per 150 for a replacement player at all positions - if for no other reason than a team of 8 or 9 replacement players will win around 40% of its games (40% is arbitrary - is not a magic number either).

So I simply add 18 runs to a player's position adjusted runs per 150 to get their runs above/below replacement. So our catcher A above would be -15 plus 18, or 3 runs above replacement (a replacement catcher of course, although he is "equivalent" in value to a +3 above replacement player at any other position, as long as that player's Superlwts were position adjusted as well).

Divide the +3 by 10.5 to get .3 wins above replacement, which should be conservatively worth about a million bucks per year (each win above replacement should be worth about 2 million bucks each PLUS the 300,000 for the replacement baseline). IOW, a player's value in salary is about $300,000 + $2M * wins over replacement.