Glen Mickens looks back on baseball career

Glen Mickens remembers the only two ML home runs he gave up…to Ted Kluszewski & Ralph Kiner. And much more…

The first time Charlie Dressen brings me in from the bullpen, we’re playing Cincinnati. He brings me into face Ted Kluszewski. Here’s a guy who had bigger arms than my legs. I’m looking at this big guy thinking, “What the heck, Charlie, what are you bringing me in against this guy for?” I get a couple of strikes on him, I don’t want him to hit the ball back up the middle, ...

Crasnick: The growing rivalry between Scott Boras and Jay-Z

Yeah, yeah, I’d love to know how you emphasize “in” in “in July”.

in July, [Scott Boras’] name appeared in a tune by rapper Shawn Carter, aka Jay Z. The song “Crown,” on the CD “Magna Carta Holy Grail,” includes the following lyric:

“Scott Boras, you over baby
“Robinson Cano, you coming with me.”

In April, Cano dropped a big one, revealing that he had left Boras and would be represented in his baseball dealings by Creative Artists Agency and in his off-field endeavors by Carter’s Roc Nation ...

WTOP | Ex-major leaguer Offerman missing amid attack suit

Six years after attacking two opposing players with a bat during a minor league baseball game in Connecticut, ex-major leaguer Jose Offerman is nowhere to be found.

As a federal lawsuit over the attack heads to trial, the attorney for the journeyman catcher whose career was ended with a swing of Offerman’s bat doesn’t know where the two-time All-Star is—and doesn’t expect him to show up for court.

Future’s Game: What will White Sox baseball look like in 100 years?

Uhh…they still won’t have built a weena?

Your time traveler from 1913 might be taken with the physical appearance of today’s ballplayers. The game is integrated, of course. Ballplayers are also taller, faster, and stronger than their counterparts from 100 years ago. Our knowledge of nutrition and fitness has improved exponentially in the past century.

Our time traveler also comes from the deadball era. U.S. Cellular Field would probably be too small compared to the cavernous dimensions of ...

red sox - How much can Red Sox spend this winter? A 2014 payroll breakdown - WEEI | Alex Speier

I see the Sox getting Napoli back and then cracking open the piggy bank to add Brian McCann.

So, the total amount of available money the Sox have to spend while staying under the luxury tax threshold appears to be roughly $32 million. Hence, as the roster currently stands, the team could afford to have both Napoli and Drew accept its qualifying offers (which would account for $28.2 million), but it couldn’t afford to have Saltalamacchia back on a similar salary with those two.

Value Over Replacement Grit: The “Nate Silver Slugger Award”

This almost makes up for Indiana in 08!

It began, as it so often does, with a seemingly innocent tweet, this time from Dan Szymborski of ESPN:

  Dan Szymborski @DSzymborski

  Never been interested in the Silver Slugger award, but I would like to see a Nate Silver Slugger award.

. . .  which begat this:

  Dan Szymborski retweeted

  dianagram @dianagram

  Any player who slugs . 538? RT @DSzymborski: Never been interested in Silver Slugger award, would like to see a Nate Silver ...

Gammons: MLB power at the plate; can supply meet demand?

“What we’re not seeing is much power in the draft,” says a general manager. “We had the one big college power bat in Bryant.” It could be that the Yankees and Mariners felt they had to overdraft outfielders Aaron Judge with the 32nd pick and Austin Wilson with the 49th because they were college players with massive power potential, and as rare as power may be, it sometimes develops late; after Miguel Cabrera, Bautista and Davis are second and third in the majors in homers over the ...

CCO: Theo Epstein and Crane Kenney Discuss the Cubs with Season Ticket Holders

Spritzn’ Fritz Mollwitz! There’s a lot to digest here.

As for Wrigley Field turning 100 this year, the team is planning a year-long celebration for the 100th birthday of Wrigley Field. They plan on singing “Happy Birthday” the entire season as Crane Kenney put it. Kenney explained not only is Wrigley where they work and where people watch games but it is the biggest house on the block and it’s definitely going to be the party of the century. The screen behind Kenney said, “We’re ...

Nashville Biz Blog: Boyer: Mayor Dean strikes agreement for new Sounds ballpark

Mayor Karl Dean has reached an agreement for a public-private partnership to move ahead on building a new minor league ballpark for the Nashville Sounds at Sulphur Dell in the Jefferson Street/Germantown area.

The plan includes agreements with the state, which owns property at the proposed location; the Nashville Sounds, which would lease the ballpark from Metro; and Embrey Development Corp., a multi-family developer that has agreed to swap property at the proposed location with Metro.

The ...

Rise of the Machines?

Very good, thorough piece on the pros and cons of automated ball/strike calls.

The goal, of course, is no error, or as close to that ideal as we can possibly come. And so the best solution might be a hybrid approach that combines tradition with technology. Not robot umps, but regular umps with input from robot brains.

Umpires are already more closely acquainted with pitch-tracking technology than is often assumed. “We currently use technology for both evaluation purposes and training ...

Bill James Mailbag - 11/7/13 - 11/9/13

Steve Garvey is dumber than ten worst selections to the Hall of Fame in the last 30 years.

Hey Bill, Did your folks have the opportunity to see baseball when they were young- either major league or the minors- and what teams or players might they have shared memories of with you?

No.. .well, I never knew my mother, who died in 1954, and my father was not a baseball fan.  He grew up on a farm in Kansas, hundreds of miles from the nearest baseball team.  He was interested in baseball in a very ...

Posnanski: The Finalists: Miller and Steinbrenner

“Cumberland”!  So formal!

Marvin Miller…

Comparable Hall of Famer: Bowie Kuhn, if by “comparable” you actually mean, “person who the candidate destroyed every single time they competed for anything.” As has been written before, putting Bowie Kuhn in the Hall of Fame but not Marvin Miller is like putting in Wile E. Coyote but not the Road Runner.

George Steinbrenner…

Comparable Hall of Famer: Best I can tell, there are eight men in the Hall of Fame primarily for being baseball ...

Goldman: The Yankees, Derek Jeter, and ‘Our Plan’

It wouldn’t be the same without you (needs slapback, echo…and juice).

As Emily Dickinson might have written, hope is the thing with pinstripes. In today’s New York Times, Joe Girardi does some aggressive wishcasting in regards to Derek Jeter:

  “We’re hoping that he’ll be back to where he was in 2012 before the injury took place,” Girardi said. “We’ll go through the off-season and allow him to do the things that he needs to do and then keep our fingers crossed in spring training that it’s ...

Grantland (Baumann): Don’t Bother Trying to Grade Baseball’s New Managerial Hires

The more attention analysts pay to on-field tactics, the less important they seem to be in the minds of GMs when selecting managers, apparently:

Managers matter less and less in baseball today. I wrote about the disappearance of the managerial cult of personality back in August. Sports on Earth’s Jack Moore just explored the new model of manager, while Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief and Grantland contributor Ben Lindbergh noted that as we learn more about baseball’s tactics, the men who ...

StL Today (Goold): Cards name Leveque minor-league pitching coordinator

This is the bit in the article that led me to post it:

Johnny Rodriguez, the Cardinals’ High-A Palm Beach manager this past season, will move to rookie-level Johnson City. His pitching coach there will be Paul Davis, who will also assist Leveque as the team’s “Minor League Pitching Coach and Coordinator of Pitching Analytics.”

Davis has an interesting background. He was a college pitcher at Creighton in the mid-80s, later a successful HS and college coach, but he’s also been an adjunct ...

Ervin Santana seeking five years, $100 million in free agency

I want five minutes with Kate Upton.

Right-hander Ervin Santana, who entered free agency after a bounce-back year with the Royals, is seeking a five-year deal for $100 million, according to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports.
    
An asking price is just that — an asking price — but, if true, the Royals are likely to escalate their efforts to find a replacement rather than work to retain Santana, who was 9-10 with a 3.24 ERA in 32 starts.

Santana, who turns 31 in December, made $13 million ...

King: Red Sox making aggressive push for Carlos Beltran

The world champion Red Sox aren’t getting fat.

According to a person who knows Carlos Beltran, the switch-hitting right fielder has drawn strong interest from the Yankees’ blood rivals.

The person said the Yankees and Orioles are in on Beltran, too, but the Red Sox have been more aggressive.

Of course, it’s early in the process and that could change. Beltran, 37 in late April, is expected to turn down the Cardinals’ $14.1 million qualifying offer Monday. Teams signing him will ...

Chicago Cubs vs. WGN-TV – Doesn’t Matter Because It’s About the Broadcasters, Not the Station

Funny, I never got worked up like this over Bob Gamere.

Brickhouse grew a mustache while I was at WGN, and he asked me if he should shave it.  I was smart enough to know that people who ask if they should change something about their appearance are looking for affirmation, not honesty.  I said, “Jack, I think it makes you look young and hip.  You aren’t my Dad’s Jack Brickhouse with that thing.  Keep it!”

Whether Brickhouse had a mustache or not was of no consequence to me, but I ...

Gammons: MLB’s small market puzzle

A complete bodycombe over…

Now limitations have been placed on their ability to sign foreign players to inject into their farm systems, and the draft itself has virtually eliminated the opportunity for the Pirates to do what they did in their rebuilding process, namely go above “slot” for lower round picks. Now the draft rewards poor performance, not poor markets.

Look at the list of the 13 players to whom clubs made the $14.1M qualifying offers. The Yankees (Robinson Cano, Curtis ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 11-8-2013

Pittsburgh Gazette Times, November 8, 1913:

The drafting season has not ended yet. What if Uncle Sam should put in drafts for a few stars to play in the threatened post-season engagement in Mexico?

The world was less than a year away from a war that would eventually impact MLB, but it wasn’t in Mexico.

BA: Sano, Buxton Winter Seasons Cut Short by Injury

And Twins’ fans everywhere (hello Aaron Gleeman) cringe!

On the heels of a dispiriting 96-loss season in the American League, the Twins now feel the sting of injuries to two of the game’s premier prospects. The organization believes neither injury is serious, however.

Third baseman Miguel Sano won’t play the remainder of the Dominican League season because of a strained collateral ligament in his right elbow. He appeared in two games for the Estrellas and went 1-for-5 with four walks and ...

Interactive World Series Probability Added Chart

With Mr. Cameron’s permissions, I combined FanGraphs’ win probability data with my World Series projections and developed an interactive World Series Probability Chart.

Some insights:
*  David Ortiz was indeed the MVP (with a whopping 0.368 WSPA)
*  But Lester made a pretty compelling case (0.223 WSPA)
*  Johnny Gomes’ Game Four dinger was the biggest play and the turning point (0.165 WSPA)
*  Molina was the Cardinal who contributed the most (0.112 WSPA)
*  The Sox overcame losing nearly ...

Lamster: Can the Doomed Astrodome Save Modernism?

This ain’t the Modernism world that I’ve learnt about!

Earlier this week, Houston voters declined to fund a bond initiative to renovate the Astrodome, meaning the landmark bubble known as the Eight Wonder of the World is likely to be demolished. It’s a bitter pill. The historical significance of the building as the first multipurpose domed stadium is considerable, and its various innovations are remarkable testaments to the outsized, can-do spirit that defined America generally and Texas in ...

Moore: Sure-thing Hall of Famers fill Expansion Era ballot

Including Dave Concepcion…

The same goes for Concepcion, who was more than just the starting shortstop on a Big Red Machine team that dominated much of the 1970s. Before Concepcion’s career, Major League shortstops were mostly one dimensional—all-field, little-hit, not much of anything else. After Concepcion’s career, you had Cal Ripken Jr., Barry Larkin, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and the rest, because during Concepcion’s career, he showed everybody that shortstops could field, hit and run. ...Read More...

Repoz Posted: November 07, 2013 at 12:27 PM | 44 comment(s)
  Beats: history, hof

CBSSports.com Lays Off Two Baseball Writers

Sure…makes things even tougher for my 2014 HOF Ballot Collecting Gizmo.

Continuing with a small purge that began this summer, CBSSports.com on Wednesday laid off two of its national baseball writers. A source confirmed those writers were Scott Miller and Danny Knobler.

Our source attributed the layoffs to “some bottom-line stuff” made “at the behest of some people outside the building.” CBSSports.com had made other job cuts over the summer for the same reason, the source added. NFL writer ...

Go to Hell Mike Piazza

In 2001, hot on the heels of major hits There’s Something About Mary and Meet the Parents, Ben Stiller became arguably the biggest comedic movie star going. In the heat of this success, Stiller almost made a movie called Go to Hell, Mike Piazza, in which he would have played a guy who’s hellbent on ruining the life of the famous MLB catcher, who he grew up with – and Mike Piazza was close to co-starring in the movie as himself.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 11-7-2013

El Paso Herald, November 7, 1913:

Walter Johnson says that all the news about new fangled curves and mysteries is nonsense. Johnson says that it was the spitball which ruined the wings of Russell Ford and Ed Walsh...Johnson declares that he never tries to monkey with a new curve, but depends on delivering slow and fast balls with the same amount of action in them.

Of course, that’s a whole lot easier when you’re the fastest pitcher on the planet.

NFL’s Ace Parker, The Hall Of Fame’s Only Centenarian, Dies

Football Hall of Famer and Major Leaguer dies at 101.

Here’s what we can tell you. He was an all-America tailback at Duke. He played for Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics* for two years, and hit one of his two Major League home runs in his first at-bat. But what made him special, even for the two-way days of the early NFL, was his ability to do all the things that anyone does in football.

MLB’s top hitters earn Silver Slugger Awards | MLB.com: News

2013 SILVER SLUGGER WINNERS:

National League

1B: Paul Goldschmidt, ARI (.302, 36 HRs, 125 RBIs)
2B: Matt Carpenter, STL (.318, 11 HRs, 78 RBIs)
SS: Ian Desmond, WAS (.280, 20 HRs, 80 RBIs)
3B: Pedro Alvarez, PIT (.233, 36 HRs, 100 RBIs)
C: Yadier Molina, STL (.319, 12 HRs, 80 RBIs)
OF: Jay Bruce, CIN (.262, 30 HRs, 109 RBIs)
OF: Michael Cuddyer, COL (.331, 20 HRs, 84 RBIs)
OF: Andrew McCutchen, PIT (.317, 21 HRs, 84 RBIs)
P: Zack Greinke, LAD (.328, 0 HRs, 4 RBIs)

American League

1B: Chris ...

Rick Renteria to be named Cubs manager

Rick Renteria, who served the last two seasons as bench coach for the San Diego Padres, will be named Thursday to succeed the fired Dale Sveum as Chicago Cubs manager, the Tribune confirmed.

Renteria, 51, has spent the past six seasons as a coach with the Padres and fits numerous qualifications that Cubs team President Theo Epstein sought after firing Sveum on Sept. 30.

I have no initial impressions, but I’m glad the search is finally over.