In case you forgot, J.D. Drew doesn’t have a contract

I owe a debt of gratitude to Jeff Horrigan of the Boston Herald. Today, out of sheer concern for out of the loop readers, he reminded us that the Sox have not yet reached an agreement with J.D. Drew. He even put the situation to an analogy:

…the truth of the matter is the delay has been as exciting as watching a meticulously-thorough accountant pore over every line and number in a complicated tax return.

You know what bothers me more than the overall hackery of that statement? That he described the account as “meticulously-thorough.” 1) No need for a hyphen, because you’re using an adverb to modify an adjective, and 2) the two words are so close in meaning that it’s inane to juxtapose them. I know I’m venturing into nerd territory here, but that is simply terrible writing.

My favorite bit, though: “Agent Scott Boras said late last week the deal was 90 percent complete.” Isn’t that what he’s been saying since December? First off, it’s pointless to quote Boras on matters like this; he has canned answers to everything. Second, if they are 90 percent complete, they’ve made no progress since last year. And, if no progress has been made, there should be less optimism about the deal in Boston.

Boston Herald online has a nifty new feature: rate this article. I’ve seen this feature plenty before, but never in a newspaper sports page. I only wonder if the sports editor actually pays the ratings any mind. Horrigan is sitting on a two-star rating (I gave him a one, and I felt that generous).

Monday Quickies

Phils give Utley 7 years, $85 million. He’s trading a few dollars for some security, but it should work out well for both ends. And you know it’s a good deal when I don’t have a wise-ass comment to go along with it.

Rockies ink homer-prone pitcher. Dan O’Dowd doesn’t make matters easier for himself by signing former Padre Brian Lawrence. Although he doesn’t walk a lot of batters, he also doesn’t strike out many and was susceptible to the long ball in San Diego. Think about how that’s going to translate to Coors Field. Dan, you are so fired after this season.

Mystery team emerges in Ohka sweepstakes. He’s the best pitcher left on the free agent market, and probably better than Brian Lawrence. The mystery team, though, is likely a fabrication on Ohka’s agent’s part to net his client eight figures, much like Scott Boras loves to use the Yankees to ramp up the price of his better free agents.

Prior looking forward to 2007. Because, you know, he wasn’t looking forward to 2004, 2005, or 2006.

Football: one time and one time only

Championship Sunday means a slow news day for baseball. A few tidbits are worth mentioning, but the lack of real news gives me a chance to cross sports lines and discuss—today and today only—football.

My roommate is perhaps the biggest Colts fan I’ve ever met. I was downstairs finishing some laundry during pre-game, and I could hear him upstairs, cheering and clapping as CBS ran their pre-game fodder.

When the game started, though, the scene at our house got a bit ugly. The Pats looked solid, and the Colts were flailing; it was destined to be a typical Belichick-Manning bout. Making matters worse for my roommate, I was reading (as I love to do during football games) Education of a Coach by David Halberstam, which to this point is an insightful, informative, and well-written book about Belichick.

Zambrano on the Zito trail

We all know that Carlos Zambrano is a free agent after the 2007 season. We all know that he possesses a desire to stay in Chicago, but we also all know that he wants to get paid. And, with the free agent market for pitchers booming, we all know he wants to get paid a lot.

So, what is a reporter do with all of this well-known information? Write an article telling us what we already know!

Okay, okay. So the annual Cubs Convention was held last weekend, and a story had to come out of it. The “Jim Hendry has opened the checkbook” stories are even more exhausted than the “Zambrano wants Zito money” stories, so this one made more sense to write. And yeah, the writer was able to score a few quotes from Big Z. But I still knew this, like, last week.

”I don’t want to talk contract when the season starts,” Zambrano said. ”It has to be before the season starts or spring training.”

That’s about the only new news, as I see it. Though, that’s the case with most soon-to-be free agents, so it’s not like I couldn’t have figured it out.

The two sides exchanged salary- arbitration figures Tuesday, with Zambrano seeking $15.5 million in 2007 and the Cubs offering $11.025 million. Both figures were the highest numbers exchanged in arbitration this offseason.

Last week, last week, last week.

Both sides have expressed a strong desire to complete a multiyear contract before Zambrano is eligible for free agency next offseason.

Last month, last month, last month.

“There’s a [good] chance I sign with the Cubs,” Zambrano said. ”This is a business. I want to stay here, but like I said, this is a business.”

Follow-up question, Mr. Z: Did you say “good,” or was that inserted by the writer? Because that drastically alters the meaning of what you just said.

”You take less than Zito take and everybody talks about you, saying, ‘Zambrano sign a bad contract,”’ Zambrano said. ”You take more and everybody says, ‘Zambrano is taking advantage.’ I think the thing is to be around what Zito signed for, more or the same.”

The best part about that quote is that I can really hear Zambrano speaking those lines. So I guess this article isn’t all for naught; I got a good laugh out of it. And, for the record, I think Zambrano is going to end up taking advantage. Because, should he hit the open market, Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein will be sure to help him take big advantage.

Bill Madden misunderstands Moneyball

Oh, Bill Madden. He’s been on the baseball scene since well before I was born, yet still demonstrates a level of cluelessness in his coverage. For instance, in today’s column, he complains about the Mets not handing Willie Randolph a new contract, despite his success with the team.

This is absurd and yet, thanks in no small part to the “managers are immaterial” philosophy espoused in “Moneyball”, baseball owners have become increasingly hardline when it comes to paying the men they entrust with their multi-million dollar rosters. In that regard, you could make the case for managers being the most important components of the organization.

Billy Beane does not believe managers are immaterial. Anyone who has read the book knows that Madden’s statement is wholly inaccurate. If he did believe it, why did he pawn Arte Howe off on the Mets? (Answer: because Steve Phillips is the only GM dumb enough to take him.)

Rather, Beane’s take on managers is that they’re not of enough consequence for a small-market team to overpay for one. Why would Beane, working with a tight budget, pay Lou Piniella $3.5 million per season? That money would be better spent on players, who have a weightier impact on the outcome of games. For a team like the Mets, for whom money isn’t much of an object, it would be wise to open the checkbook for a guy who’s proven his worth with the team.

Madden has demonstrated his misunderstanding of Moneyball. I’m just hoping that he’s not right about the rest of the league.

Evolution of a baseball fan

There was a time, many years ago, when I would enjoy sitting down with a big mug o’ coffee on a Sunday and read through the Sunday sports sections of various New York area papers. During my early college years, this would provide a week’s worth of discussion fodder. By reading what Mike Lupica and Bill Madden had to say about baseball, I could regurgitate their points and sound like I knew what I was talking about.

After a while, though, I started to sour on many newspaper columnists. It seemed like I was reading the same thing week after week. I still wanted to read about sports on Sunday mornings, but I didn’t want to read Lupica predicting doomsday for the Yankees after they lost three games in a week.

My father recommended the literature: Moneyball by Michael Lewis. So, at about 11:00 a.m. that Sunday (yes, 11:00 was early morning for me at the time–I was in college, after all), I began. At about 3:00 p.m., I was over halfway through. My eyes hurt, so I put it down for a bit, but that couldn’t last. By 5:00, I had it back in my hands, schlepping it with me to the dining hall (the library wasn’t too happy with the mac and cheese stain on page 192).

After completing Moneyball, I couldn’t bear to read sports columnists anymore; if I did, it was to amuse myself with their ignorance. What amused me more was the ignorance of the book in general. From the misconception that Billy Beane wrote the book to the complete misunderstanding of the messages contained therein, people could not come to grips with Moneyball. Most famously, Joe Morgan quipped: “I don’t need a computer to tell me how to play baseball,” (paraphased).

At about this time, I discovered blogs. While interning one summer, I discovered Aaron Gleeman and The Hardball Times. Much to my delight, they provided much more insightful and intellectual baseball analysis than their newspaper counterparts. My Sunday mornings were saved.

Since then, I have spent countless hours researching and writing about baseball. There are endless questions to be answered, and thousands of different ways to approach each one. The development of more advanced and accurate statistics have allowed us to better understand what makes a good player, and how that good player fits on a team. But that doesn’t mean that Baseball Prospectus can tell us everything–why would they play the games? Traditional scouting and observational evidence is still necessary, and a marriage of the statistical and observational provides the deepest understanding of the game.

Padres get better (also older and fatter)

As expected, David Wells will continue his baseball career, signing with the Padres for one year. He’ll make between $3 and $7 million. Now, if he can just stay healthy for an entire season.

Wells, bearer of a career 4.07 ERA, has journeyed over a good portion of the Major Leagues. Starting in the Toronto system, his stints were as follows:

Toronto
Detroit
Cincinnati
Baltimore
New York
Toronto
Chicago
New York
San Diego
Boston
San Diego

His greatest success came in New York, where he won a World Series championship with the Yankees in 1998. He went back to the series during his second stint in New York in 2003. That was when he famously bragged about his lack of conditioning, only to become injured during the Series, paving the way for Jose Contreras and Enrique Wilson to blow the game (and ultimately the series) for the Yankees.

Jeff Samardzija, meet Drew Henson

Friday was quite the slow news day in baseball, so it’s a good thing that the Cubs handed Jeff Samardzija . Also included in Mr. S’s deal is a full no-trade clause and team options 2012 and 2013.

This sounds vaguely familiar. There was an incident like this, I believe, in 2001. What was the guy’s name? Drew Henson or somethin’. What ever happened to him? I mean, he did well for himself in baseball, right?

Of course, this isn’t to say that Samardzija will meet the same fate. However, his numbers in college aren’t entirely impressive. Players develop at different times, and a full dedication to baseball may benefit Samardzija. So, as you can see from the back and forth in just this paragraph, it’s one big gamble. And the Cubs have $12.5 million on black.

Friday Quickies

Braves acquire Craig Wilson. And the Yankees are stuck with Doug Mientkiewicz.

D’backs give Doug Davis 3 years, $22 million. Not bad for a guy who has walked nearly 4 batters per nine innings over his career (4.5 per nine last year).

Dodgers humoring Hendrickson, Tomko. This article purports there will be a fight among the two aforementioned starters and Chad Billingsley for the fifth spot in the Dodgers rotation. Lessee: two 30-plus less-than-mediocre starters, or 22-year-old with promise? Hmmm…

Twins close to signing Ramon Ortiz. Ugh. Once again, a case of a team seeking “reliable veterans” when call-ups from the minors will likely fare just as well or better. At least the rest of the linked article is worth reading (as is normal of Ken Rosenthal).

Indians sign Trot Nixon. In other news, he still can’t hit lefties a lick.

The government totally sucks

I don’t quite understand Congress’s burning desire to probe into steroid use by Major League Baseball players. Yes, it’s a problem; no, we don’t need the representatives of our nation looking into who did them and to what degree. After all, don’t they have more important matters to attend to?

Why the need to out the guilty, when most of the highly guilty were fringe players or retired? There was a problem; baseball made a small gesture to correct it; it was not harsh enough; baseball stepped up and made it harsher. They now have in place a strict steroid use policy, one that covers almost every aspect of abuse except for HGH, for which there exists no reliable test (yes, there’s a blood test out there, but it’s far from completely accurate, and MLBPA will never allow blood to be drawn from its constituents).

People always talk about different eras in baseball. Factors present in each era made it more or less difficult for pitchers and hitters. The late 80s and 90s are considered the steroid era. The numbers are different in that era than they are now; so are the numbers from the dead ball era; so are the numbers from the 1920s, when Babe Ruth hit more home runs than some entire teams.

Truth is, baseball is a constantly changing game that is defined by eras. The steroid era shouldn’t be embraced, necessarily, but it should be accepted as part of baseball history. Yes, Major League Baseball considered it unfair and waited too long to do something about it. But they have done something about it now, and are working to rid the game of performance enhancing drugs. What more do you want?

I guess the point is: finding out who abused steroids in the past won’t help prevent abuse in the future. What will prevent future abuse is recognition of a problem and rules to punish infractions. I think we have that right now, and are working to make the system more efficient.