1/5/12

Baseball – Go To Bat for Cuba, Hall Of wWAR, HOF Votes, Tampa Bay, Billy Beane




In a country where food is rationed and a lack of housing is increasingly becoming a problem, it should come as little surprise that thousands of children have no equipment with which to play their national sport. Go to Bat for Cuba, an organization started by two Penn baseball players, wants to change that. Though Go to Bat for Cuba is the brainchild of former Penn right fielder Adrian Lorenzo and current Penn shortshop Derek Vigoa, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns deserves some credit. http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2011/10/penn_baseball_players_go_to_bat_for_cuba

That's just those who appear in the Top 144 eligible players. Here, I obviously use "eligible" as meaning "retired for five years". Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson obviously are not eligible for the Hall of Fame. I just can't believe we have a Top 50 player who is struggling to get in the Hall of Fame. One thing that makes me quite happy about this visual is how much more in sync the Hall of wWAR is with the Hall of Merit than it is with the Hall of Fame. For example, the Hall of Merit contains just 26 players who are not in the Hall of wWAR. Meanwhile, the Hall of Fame contains 64 players who are not in the Hall of wWAR. Those two groups have an overlap of 15 players. Five of them (Ralph Kiner, Clark Griffith, Enos Slaughter, Roger Bresnahan, and Sam Thompson) rank among the Top 25 players outside of the Hall of wWAR. http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/1/3/2673453/hall-of-wwar-vs-hall-of-fame-vs-hall-of-merit

 In the annual polling of members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, former Cincinnati Reds shortstop Barry Larkin and former Houston Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell were recommended for induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is the third year the organization has conducted this survey of the membership. Larkin, a 12-time All-Star who fashioned an .815 OPS over 19 seasons, received the largest percentage of votes, being named on 84.25% of the 148 ballots cast. This is the highest percentage garnered by any player in the three years of BBA voting. Bagwell, who hit 449 HR and had a .948 OPS in his 15 seasons in Houston, was selected on 115 ballots for a 78.77% rate. As with the official voting done by the Baseball Writers of America, a player must be named on 75% of the ballots to be recommended by the alliance. http://randombaseballstuff.com/2012/01/03/press-release-bba-recommends-larkin-bagwell-for-hall-of-fame/

The Tampa Bay system retains its great depth but has really thinned out at the top. Matt Moore was an easy first overall choice in this system and is the best pitching prospect in the game. Moore has electric stuff and it comes from a low effort delivery. He's as good a bet as anyone to be a front line starting pitcher over the next decade. Hak-Ju Lee was also a fairly easy choice for second in the system. I don't know that Lee will hit a whole lot... he's a slap hitter who doesn't really drive the ball at all. His frame isn't conducive to power - even the gap to gap variety - but his speed will lead to a few extra bases. Lee also doesn't have much in the way of bat speed but should still have some offensive value as a shortstop because of his patient approach and speed. He's a plus defender at shortstop as well and should be a solid major league regular. That's more than lots of teams can boast at shortstop. http://bullpenbanter.com/

Billy Beane loves to talk about Windows. The Window is the short period of time in which small-revenue clubs supposedly have to compete. Right now, the Window is closed in Oakland. The Window was open once, and the A's general manager did everything he could to keep it that way just a little bit longer. But changes in the game, we're told, have made it harder and harder to prop open the Window even a crack … much less wide open, allowing years of fresh air and pennants to waft in. There is a nugget of truth behind this Window obsession. Smaller-revenue teams have a tougher time signing premium free agents, or retaining their own top players past their initial six years of team control. That puts extra pressure on these poorer teams to bring up a bunch of great prospects all at once, then hope they get good at the same time before they get expensive. http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7422765/the-myth-small-market-window

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