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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