It’s Pronounced Tar-Jay

The Twins' "Minnie and Paul" logo provides a retro feel in an otherwise modern park

Over at Baseball Prospectus, I’ve got a writeup of last week’s trip to Target Field in Minneapolis:

For the second consecutive summer, a wedding brought me to Minnesota, affording me the opportunity to check another major-league ballpark off my slowly-growing list.* The contrast between the two Twins venues couldn’t have been more stark, but the common denominator was a boisterous fan base backing a playoff contender while affirming that baseball is alive and well in the Gopher State, lest anyone have any doubts. While the Twins hardly resembled that contender on this particular night, as they were trounced 11-0 by the White Sox, their recent roll has given them a leg up on an October berth, their sixth in the nine years since Bud Selig and company tried to shut them down—ostensibly due to owner Carl Pohlad’s inability to secure public financing for a new ballpark.

Last May, I finally visited the 27-year-old Metrodome, a venue — ballpark is far too generous — which I’d always regarded from afar with a mixture of reverence and disgust. Though not a Twins fan by nature, I’d pulled hard for Hrbie, Kirby, and company in the 1987 and 1991 World Series, two of the best Fall Classics of my lifetime. The Dome itself should have been voted full playoff shares in those years given the home-field advantage it provided, as the underdog Twins went 8-0 amid deafening decibel levels to defeat the Cardinals and Braves. I don’t care how awful a stadium is, if a championship has been won there, particularly an unlikely one (or two), that’s an indelible piece of history, a distinction which rescues dives as disparate as Shea Stadium and the Dome.

On the other hand, baseball on artificial turf, in a domed stadium, is as inherently alien and unappealing as canned lettuce. Which isn’t to say I didn’t have fun at that particular game, but after taking in its plastic ugliness of the field from the distant, oddly-angled seats, I could see why the place drew frequent comparisons to a mausoleum.

Target Field will never be confused with a mausoleum, however. It’s a spacious open-air park with real grass and distant fences (339 feet down the left field line, 328 down the right field line, 411 feet to center field) that have made it the majors’ third-toughest park in which to homer this year (0.65 per team a game), though the trees behind the center field wall felt a bit forced. Its angles give it a distinctly modern feel, and unlike many of the other mallparks built over the past two decades, it carries a relatively small reserve of retro nostalgia. The bulk of the latter arrives via the giant neon “Minnie & Paul” logo in center field. Introduced in 1961, revised in 1972, and refined in 2002, the logo shows two cartoonish ballplayers shaking hands across the Mississippi River, one representing the Minneapolis Millers and the other the St. Paul Saints, the two mainstay minor-league franchises predating the Twins’ arrival.

*Alphabetically: Camden Yards, Citi Field, Dodger Stadium, Fenway Park, Jacobs Field, Metrodome, Miller Park, RFK Stadium, Safeco Field, Shea Stadium, Target Field, Tiger Stadium, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadiums II and III.

We had a fun time gorging ourselves on a variety of Midwestern fried goodies while jeering Carl Pavano, who got his ass handed to him (6 innings, 15 hits, 7 runs), thereby proving that he still can’t pitch in front of Yankees fans.

The Harmon Killebrew statue at Target Plaza outside the Twins' new ballpark

Since We Last Spoke

At Pinstriped Bible, I’ve got a look at the Yankees’ backup catcher situation, the post-trade deadline success of the bullpen and the trials and tribulations of Javier Vazquez, who hasn’t lasted five innings in any of his last three starts. From the bullpen piece:

The Yanks spent the first half of the season largely fumbling for the right combination of relievers in front of Mariano Rivera, who’s been as remarkable as ever at the age of 40. Joba Chamberlain didn’t have much to pump his fist about as he struggled to assert a claim on the eighth inning setup role. David Robertson looked like a nervous teenager on a first date instead of a seasoned October veteran. Chan Ho Park showed that without a scruffy beard or a locker at Chavez Ravine, his superpowers were completely neutralized. Alfredo Aceves hit the disabled list due to back woes. Chad Gaudin… well, he pitched like the second coming of Chad Gaudin. Damaso Marte faked a shoulder injury and took up residence in the south of France, just as he did last summer.

The result was a bullpen that ranked in the middle of the pack according to a pair of Baseball Prospectus’ key metrics designed do a better job of measuring reliever performance than traditional ERA, not to mention the execrable holds statistic. WXRL (reliever expected wins added) incrementally credits and debits every reliever with a fraction of a win based upon the game state in which he enters — inning, out, runners on base, relative score — and when he departs. A reliever who allows a run in the eighth inning of a one-run game has done more to cost his team a chance at winning than a reliever who yields one in the sixth inning of a blowout. Fair Run Average is a pitcher’s runs allowed (earned and unearned) per nine innings, adjusted for inherited and bequeathed baserunners and the number of outs; a pitcher who departs with a man on first base and two outs is charged with a smaller fraction of a run than one who fleees with a man on second and nobody out.

The Yankees ranked ninth in the league with 2.7 WXRL in the first half, 4.8 wins behind the Rays; with a better bullpen performance, they’d have built themselves a bigger cushion atop the standings. They were a slightly better seventh in reliever Fair Run Average at 4.30; the Twins paced the Junior Circuit with a 3.22 mark.

Since the All-Star break, however, the Yankees have been tops in the league in both categories, with 3.6 WXRL and a 2.42 FRA.

From the Vazquez piece:

This is not the first time this year Vazquez has been bumped back, and the Yankees can only hope this time around pays similar dividends to the last. Rocked for a 9.78 ERA through his first five starts of the season (a performance I examined at Baseball Prospectus), he was pulled from the rotation, making just one start between May 2 and May 21. He got his groove back, making 10 quality starts out of 14 from the time he was pulled until the end of July, good for a 3.29 ERA. But just when it looked as though he had joined the ranks of the reliable, he was tagged for an 8.10 ERA and seven homers in four starts August totaling just 16.2 innings. On Saturday he tied his season high by allowing three homers in his three frames, two of them to Ichiro Suzuki, who’d hit just three all season long. So it goes.

As Girardi noted, Vazquez has indeed been lacking velocity this year, likely the result of mechanical woes which make his delivery hard to repeat and prevent him from getting on top of his pitches. According to the Pitch f/x data at Fangraphs, Vazquez’s average fastball (four-seamers and two-seamers combined) has clocked in at 88.7 mph, down from 91.1 last year and roughly three MPH lower than his 2005-2008 mark; it’s also getting less movement, at least relative to last year. He’s throwing fewer fastballs than in 2009, getting more fouls but fewer whiffs (swings and misses) and more balls put into play… Furthermore, the whiff percentage on Vazquez’s offspeed stuff (curve, slider and changeup) has plummeted more dramatically…

If it weren’t for the fact that Vazquez has been helped out to an almost absurd degree by the Yankee defense — his .271 BABIP is 12 points below the team average, best in the rotation and 43 points better than Burnett — he’d have an ERA even higher than his 5.05 mark, which is still his worst since his 1998 rookie campaign.

Add it up and Vazquez is striking out just 7.1 hitters per nine, his lowest mark since his first tour of duty with the Yankees in 2004 (such wonderful memories that produced) and a full strikeout below his career mark. That wouldn’t be so problematic if the rest of his peripherals weren’t taking a bath as well. He’s walking a career-worst 3.7 per nine, over a 50 percent increase on his career mark (2.4), leaving him with a strikeout-to-walk ratio below 2.0 for the first time in his career. He’s also yielding 1.8 homers per nine, the product of him combining his lowest-ever groundball-to-flyball ratio (0.72) with a ballpark where teams have racked up an MLB-high 1.4 homers per game. That’s a towering 400-foot homer above his career rate of 1.2 per nine innings, a rate which ranks as the ninth-highest among pitchers with at least 2000 innings, a hair higher than that of Jamie Moyer, who earlier this year surpassed Robin Roberts on the all-time leaderboard for homers surrendered. We get it: the guy has a gopher problem.

Meanwhile, over at Baseball Prospectus, I had a piece on the Yankees’ performance through the dog days of August, one which keyed the PB bullpen piece::

The Yankees’ Playoff Odds briefly topped an MLB-best 90 percent in late July and stood an eyelash below that as of August 1. After Monday’s loss, those odds had fallen to 82.9 percent (46.1 percent division, 36.8 percent wild card), just the fourth-highest mark in the league behind the Rangers (96.7 percent), Twins (84.2 percent), and Rays (83.3 percent). While their run differential and third-order winning percentage are higher than those of Tampa Bay (+140 to +134 and .577 to .568, respectively), their remaining opponents have a slightly better record, averaging a 60-57 mark, compared to 58-59 for the Rays, which is why the odds slightly favor the latter. More on that below.

The Yankees’ rotation is in disarray thanks to the combination of Phil Hughesmid-season slump, the sub-par performances of A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez, and the continued absence of Andy Pettitte due to a groin strain; lately, only CC Sabathia has thrown well with any consistency. Consider the contrast between the unit’s first- and second-half performances:

Period IP/GS K/9 HR/9 ERA QS% DS%
1st Half 6.3 7.3 1.0 3.68 60% 11%
2nd Half 5.8 5.8 1.3 4.79 50% 20%

QS% is the percentage of quality starts (six innings or more, three earned runs or less), while DS% is the percentage of disaster starts (more earned runs than innings pitched). The Yankees’ tendency towards the latter has nearly doubled since the break, as the rest of their numbers have suffered.

Fortunately, their bullpen has rounded into shape during that stretch with Joba Chamberlain and David Robertson stringing together several solid outings, Boone Logan emerging as a reliable lefty option, and deadline acquisition Kerry Wood providing another live arm for the late innings. At the break, the Yankees ranked ninth in WXRL (2.7) and seventh in reliever Fair Run Average (4.30); they’ve been tops in the league in both since then (3.6 WXRL, 2.42 FRA). Robertson, Logan, Wood, the amazing Mariano Rivera, and mop-up man Sergio Mitre all have FRAs below 2.00 in the second half, while Chamberlain’s 3.28 is more than 1.5 runs per nine below his engorged first-half mark.

Beyond that, travel led me to try an experiment with the Hit List: follow Twitter rules and limit myself to 140 characters per team, including shortened links. Working within those limitations wasn’t too dissimilar from writing haiku, except with a computer doing the counting. The formant wasn’t universally loved — nor did I expect it to be — but it was fun to try and enough readers did enjoy it. That plus the fact that it took about 1/4 of the time the two league Hit Lists do make it an option which I reserve the right to use in the future:

[#1 Yankees] Dog days here but Sabathia keeps rolling. 15 consec. quality starts most for Yank since Guidry ’78 http://bit.ly/aFqTwT http://bit.ly/bn9fct

[#2 Rays] Hellickson wins again (http://es.pn/by0xhS), Upton raking (.322/.394/.559 in Aug). But “Braysers?” http://bit.ly/bz886k #thegogglesdonothing

[#3 Twins] Twins seize AL Central lead, Thome makes old team pay w/12th walkoff HR of career, ties MLB record http://bit.ly/9PhDls http://es.pn/dmZgge

I’ll have more on the Twins in my next BP piece, as I paid a visit to Target Field over the weekend.

Real Quick Like

It’s been a busy week so far, and it’s only getting busier. Here’s what I’m selling:

A quick follow-up to my recent Phil Hughes take, re-examining some of my earlier assumptions in the wake of more data. It turns out I was wrong about which pitches of his are leading to more groundballs, and which more home runs. Worth noting: Hughes didn’t have a great Saturday night (6 innings, 9 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk, 0 strikeouts) but he did get a season-high 14 groundballs, and threw more cutters than curves for a change. Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez hit three homers for the first time since I saw him do it in 2005.

• Also at Pinstriped Bible, my take on the Yankees’ catching situation given the way Francisco Cervelli’s wearing out his welcome with poor hitting and mistakes in the field. The short version is that the top prospect Jesus Montero, who’s flat-out ranking in Triple-A, simply isn’t an option given how raw he is behind the plate.

• At Baseball Prospectus, Marc Normandin and I debate the Red Sox options regarding Jonathan Papelbon, who will be entering his final year of arbitration eligibility this winter and will be making somewhere around $12 million. Personally, I loathe Papelbon with an intensity I reserve for only a few other players, but I don’t seem to be alone in that lately given the Boston closer’s decline from the heights of his 2007-2008 performance. After he blew his sixth save of the year on Thursday, Marc revived the idea that Papelbon could be nontendered — not offered a contract — this winter; I found his argument highly questionable and took up his offer to debate the issue:

I realize it’s somewhat incongruous for a Yankees partisan to play devil’s advocate on an issue concerning a pitcher that Yankees fans love to hate, but I can’t help but be struck by a parallel to the scenario Marc has outlined above. Namely, it smacks of a certain faction of Yankee fans’ desires to see Joba Chamberlain traded amid his ongoing struggles.Both Papelbon and Chamberlain seem to have fallen far from the dizzying heights of their 2007-2008 performances, stoking outrage and puzzlement among their followers. Of course, the comparison breaks down because of the disparity between the two pitchers’ salaries. Chamberlain is making less than half a million dollars this year and will be arbitration-eligible for the first time, whereas Papelbon is in his final year of arb eligibility and pushing eight figures.

While most of us like to stoke our inner Steinbrenner when we run our fantasy teams, releasing struggling players only because we can’t order summary executions instead, the reality of a major-league general manager is much different. A good GM won’t simply punt a high-upside player because he’s on a bad stretch that depresses his value. On the contrary, a good GM will take advantage of the gap between the player’s perceived value and his actual value, and call Ed Wade or some other sucker to see if he’ll take him off his hands.

In an industry where Brad Lidge is being paid an eight-figure salary to close games for a contender while flirting with replacement level, Papelbon has tremendous value. This is a pitcher who’s compiled a 2.04 ERA while whiffing 10.1 hitters per nine innings in his five-plus seasons. Only Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan can top that ERA, and only seven pitchers can top that strikeout rate. Only two of those seven, Rivera and Lidge, have closed out a World Series. Papelbon not only has “the Scarlet C,” he has it with distinction.

It’s an interesting exercise, to say the least. Personally, I hope Papelbon sticks around because he’s so much fun to root against.

The Bible Study Group

The second of two videos that the new Pinstriped Bible crew taped earlier this week is up here, weighing in at a meaty 13 minutes. In it, Steve, Cliff and I discuss the state of the team following the trading deadline. My worry, which I hinted at in my initial PB post, is the starting pitching; Cliff’s a bit more focused on the bullpen. We kick around the players the Yankees added at the trading deadline — Lance Berkman, Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood — and how well they fulfill the team’s needs, and worry about the offense’s vulnerability against lefties (Cliff’s got a forthcoming post on that front). Plus we bust on Kyle Farnsworth, which is always fun. Check it out.

The Two Hugheses

As promised, my Pinstriped Bible debut is up. In it, I break down some Pitch f/x data on Phil Hughes in an attempt to see what he’s doing differently of late than he was before, using his late-June skipped start as the dividing line:

              GS  IP/GS  K/9  HR/9  HR/FB  GB/FB  BABIP  ERA    FIP
Thru June 19  13   6.3   8.5   0.8   6.8%   0.76   .276  3.17   3.32
Since then     8   5.9   6.2   1.7  11.6%   0.65   .282  5.24   5.06

On both sides of the line, Hughes has received virtually identical defensive support from his teammates, above-average support at that, given that the league batting average on balls in play is .294. He’s got two main problems: he isn’t striking out hitters at nearly the same clip as early in the year, and his home run rate has more than doubled. The latter is a byproduct of him generating fewer groundballs (which don’t go for homers) and getting a bit more bad luck on his increased number of fly balls (which do, given enough of ‘em).

…basically, Hughes has switched from the cutter to the curve as his number two pitch, resulting in more contact and fewer whiffs or fouls. I’ll wager that many of those homers came off hanging curves, and that most of the cutters which hitters make contact with are hit as grounders, but I don’t have the processing power at my immediate disposal to confirm that. What I do know is that based upon the Pitch f/x data at Fangraphs, which is presented differently than at the TexasLeaguers site, but comes with similar caveats, Hughes’ curveball has been a net negative in terms of runs this year, while his cutter has been a net positive.

Missing from all of this is the vaunted changeup which was the talk of spring training and the so-called key to Hughes winning the fifth starter job over Joba Chamberlain and (guffaw) Sergio Mitre.

There’s plenty more where that came from, and it’s free, so I’ll avoid over-rehashing. I saw Hughes pitch against the Red Sox on Monday from the Yankee Stadium press box. While the early going was rough, and while the Yanks went down in defeat, Hughes was able to take away some positives:

[Jon] Lester’s opposite number, Phil Hughes, appeared to be in for a short afternoon in the early going, extending a slump which had seen him post an unsightly 5.16 ERA and 1.6 HR/9 over his last 14 starts, only six of them quality starts. Hughes ran up a total of 57 pitches over his first two frames, stranding runners at first and second in a 20-pitch first inning, and surrendering two runs in a 37-pitch second. The latter frame started on a positive note, as [Nick] Swisher made an outstanding diving catch on Mike Lowell’s slice down the line. [Ryan] Kalish, who walloped a huge two-run homer on Friday night and came in hitting .360/.393/.520 through his first eight games in the majors, singled, stole second, and advanced to third aided by [Jorge] Posada’s wide-right throw into center field. Bill Hall singled to deep shortstop, bringing Kalish home with the game’s first run. Jacoby Ellsbury snapped an 0-for-22 skid which had him riding the proverbial interstate (.183/.222/.250 coming in) with a single up the middle, sending Hall to third. Ellsbury then stole second, the first of a team record-tying four steals he would collect on the afternoon. Marco Scutaro walked, and at that point the sharks were circling; Hughes had gotten just four outs via 46 pitches. J.D. Drew grounded to Robinson Cano, who made a nice spin move on the edge of the infield and took the out at first as Hall scored. Luckily for the Yankees, Hughes escaped further damage by retiring Victor Martinez on an infield grounder, but at that point, the potential for an extended afternoon chockfull of Sergio Mitre and/or Chad Gaudin loomed large.

After the game, Hughes would admit that his second-inning struggles forced him to change his approach so as not to wear out the bullpen or himself on a hot day (92 and muggy at first pitch). “I backed off and tried to play catch after that inning,” he said. “I took a bit off and went for quick outs.” The 46 four-seam fastballs he threw in the first two innings averaged 92.3 mph, but the remaining 31 he threw averaged just 91.0. The strategy worked, and helped keep the Yankees in the game, as Hughes retired 14 of the final 15 hitters he faced starting with Martinez, getting the Yankees through six innings, something he’d done in only one of his previous four starts. In fact, he generated more swings and misses as the game went on; after netting just one in his first 73 pitches through three innings, he got five in his final 41, having more effectively introduced his curveball into the mix.

In all of this, it’s important to remember that Hughes is just 24 years old, still scaling the learning curve in his first full season in a major league rotation, and that coming into the year, he was expected to be the Yankees’ #5 starter, not their #3. If he can survive the season intact with an ERA below 4.00 and some innings headroom to start in the postseason, he’ll have delivered far, far more than just about every fifth starter in the majors.

YES, It’s True

As I hinted at in my last post and as Duke Castgilione mentioned on the air with an exclusive, I have a new venue for my writing. Friend, colleague and mentor Steven Goldman has invited Bronx Banter‘s Cliff Corcoran and myself to join him at the YES Network’s Pinstriped Bible blog. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be part of something I’ve admired for such a long time, and to work with a swell pair of fellas. Steve’s work at the PB has always been top-notch, blending sharp analysis, sly wit and obscure pop cultural references. Cliff has done a bangup job as well with his own work over at BB and at SportsIllustrated.com. BP intern Stephani Bee will be pitching in with coverage of Yankees prospects as well; she’s out in California, so she’s not pictured above.

Us newcomers will be posting several times a week to complement Steve’s near-daily schedule, and we’ll be taking advantage of the YES Network’s resources, such as the ability to shoot videos, worm our way into the press box (not that I haven’t done so already as a member of Baseball Prospectus) and get Derek Jeter to show up at our birthday parties. I’m excited for the chance to get back to posting more in-depth analysis of the Yankees on a routine basis, something I’ve particularly gotten away from since Joe Torre stepped down and my own responsibilities at Baseball Prospectus have grown. I’ll still be doing my thing there as well, of course.

In any event, don’t miss the introductory video. We shot a longer one as well which should be up either later today or tomorrow. Cliff’s already published his first post, and I’ll have mine a bit later this afternoon.

It’s That Guy From TV

On Sunday night I was a guest on the WNYW Fox 5 Sports Extra with Duke Castiglione. It’s the second time this season I’ve done his show, and while the spot was brief (just over three minutes), I think the comfort level shows. On the other hand, the lighting was harsh; I had a lot of makeup on because I had arrived  at the set rather damp, not surprising when you’re wearing a wool suit in August and sweating out Sunday night subway service limitations.

Most of our discussion concerned batting orders, a common topic on sports talk radio in the past couple of weeks with the Yankees adding Lance Berkman and experimenting with him in the number two spot but deciding instead to stick with Nick Swisher there, and the Mets… well, whatever the hell it is they’re doing, it ain’t working.

That last bit about Omar Minaya and the Mets is based upon some data that Duke asked me to pull regarding their spending during his tenure (2005-present). The Mets rank third in the majors and first in the NL in total payroll during that time, but just eighth in winning percentage:

Rk  Team          Payroll    W%  Rk
 1  Yankees      $1,277.6  .594   1
 2  Red Sox        $876.5  .575   2
 3  Mets           $731.6  .523   8
 4  Cubs           $698.4  .497  18
 5  Dodgers        $673.4  .518   9
 6  Phillies       $672.0  .553   4
 7  Angels         $650.8  .575   3
 8  Tigers         $616.7  .508  12
 9  Mariners       $583.4  .458  26
10  White Sox      $581.3  .534   7
11  Astros         $580.2  .491  21
12  Cardinals      $579.2  .543   5
13  Giants         $578.8  .483  22
14  Braves         $548.2  .516  10
15  Orioles        $509.0  .415  28
16  Blue Jays      $455.1  .510  11
17  Twins          $435.7  .537   6
18  Rangers        $423.3  .504  14
19  Brewers        $418.3  .501  15
20  Reds           $401.5  .478  24
21  Athletics      $399.7  .504  13
22  Diamondbacks   $397.7  .475  25
23  Rockies        $382.0  .496  20
24  Indians        $374.8  .499  17
25  Royals         $364.2  .406  29
26  Padres         $356.1  .501  16
27  Nationals      $348.0  .426  27
28  Rays           $269.8  .480  23
29  Pirates        $259.6  .402  30
30  Marlins        $238.1  .497  19

Not pretty, particularly when you consider that they’ve only made the playoffs once during that timespan (back in 2006). Even the Cubs, who spent nearly as much and who have a sub-.500 record overall, did so twice, while the Dodgers and Phillies made it three times apiece.

Anyway, twice in the clip, Duke mentions some heretofore unannounced news about the whereabouts of my writing. I’ll have more on that after the official announcement.

Friday’s Child: Headshots and Coups de Grâce

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve once again been invited to appear on the Fox 5 Sports Extra with Duke Castiglione. It’s the second time this season I’ve done so; I joined him back in March, where I got to show off the latest copy of the Baseball Prospectus annual. The spot airs Sunday at 10:30 PM on WNYW Fox 5.

Onto this week’s links:

• On Wednesday, I buried the 2010 Tigers as part of a “Dog Days” series at BP and ESPN Insider; they now have a 5-17 record since the All-Star break, which is even worse than the Dodgers’ 7-14 mark:

In many ways, the Tigers’ season ended July 24 when Magglio Ordonez broke his ankle while sliding into home plate in the third inning. A few innings later, Carlos Guillen departed with a severe enough calf strain to hit the disabled list as well, where he joined not only Ordonez but Brandon Inge, who had suffered a fractured metacarpal the previous week. The devastation wrought by this injury stack left the Tigers with a lineup half-full of Triple-A fodder, one which was no-hit by Matt Garza two nights later.

The Tigers did look good early — they spent much of the first half in second place, trailing the Twins, then surpassed Minnesota for a bit. Then, through Sunday, they lost 15 of 19 games, saw their playoff odds plummet, and are presently looking up at the Twins and the White Sox; they’re seven games back in the AL Central.

Can they get back in this thing? All signs point to no.

For starters, Detroit’s schedule is brutal. ESPN ranked the Tigers’ second-half schedule as the fourth-toughest among contenders, noting that the team will have played 30 straight games against teams above .500 by August 19. They’re just 16-21 against the rest of the division, a mere half-game better than the Royals. With six games left against the Twins (versus whom they’re 5-7) and a whopping 14 against the White Sox (versus whom they’re 1-3), any shred of hope in climbing back into contention rests on sweeping a few of those series.

The Tigers have more than $60 million in payroll coming off the books in 2010, $52 million of that in the contracts of Ordoñez, Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis and Nate Robertson; the latter duo aren’t even with the team anymore. They’ll have plenty of money to play with over the winter.

• The NL Hit List examines the aftermath of the trading deadline. Here’s what I had to say about the Padres and the Dodgers:

[#2 Padres] The Chase is On: Chase Headley’s three-run homer—part of a four-hit night—helps the Padres rout the Dodgers and preserve a dwindling NL West lead. Though his overall numbers aren’t much to look at (.278/.336/.398, still good for a .276 TA), Headley has been swinging a particularly hot bat since July 1 (.324/.400/.539). He’ll get some extra offensive help with the Padres’ deadline acquisitions of Ryan Ludwick and Miguel Tejada. The former may rate as the deadline’s biggest steal, not to mention a solid cornerstone in an outfield more suited to mixing and matching; his .289 TAv is higher than every Padre except Adrian Gonzalez and Yorvit Torrealba. The latter, while not the player he used to be, can help cover for Headley at third against lefties (he’s got a horrific .190/.259/.238 reverse platoon split), as well as providing some punch from shortstop, where Everth Cabrera and Jerry Hairston Jr. have “hit” .223/.292/.327.

[#8 Dodgers] Too Lilly, Too Late: Fourteen years after being drafted by them, Ted Lilly tosses seven strong innings in his Dodgers debut, halting his new team’s six-game losing streak. Acquired from the Cubs at the deadline, Lilly’s arrival is too late to save the Dodgers’ season; the team’s fifth starters yielded 20 runs in 20 innings over their previous five starts as their Playoff Odds plummeted into the single digits, and they’re now around 6 percent. Meanwhile, there are signs — boy, are there signs — that the Dodgers could shift into selling mode regarding Manny Ramirez; multiple teams have inquired, but he can’t be waived while on the disabled list, and his rehab has suffered a setback.

The news just gets worse for the Dodgers, as Russell Martin is done for the year. From today’s Under the Knife:

Russell Martin (torn acetabular labrum, ERD 10/4)
Some injuries are traumatic, while some are insidious. With Martin, it’s pretty clear exactly when and how his hip was injured. In virtually every other case in baseball, the mechanism is a bit different. Martin basically had his hip stuffed back into the fossa, the cup where the head of the femur connects to the pelvis. Because of this and his position, it’s harder to compare this injury and the treatment to similar cases like Chase Utley and Alex Rodriguez. There are just no really good comparables here. There are going to be some that take a look at Martin’s declining steals and workload and say that this did have some insidious nature. There’s simply no way for us on the outside to know that and unless Stan Conte or Martin decide to share, we’re left with what we do know. As a former Super-Two player, Martin is headed back to arbitration this year (or signing out of it, as he’s done twice), but this complicates things. If Martin needs the FAIL surgery, he could be playing winter ball in time to get a good look at him prior to an arbitration hearing. While he’s done for this season and there are no good comps, it’s unlikely that Martin is done, period. The idea that Martin is a non-tender is a non-starter too; the Dodgers have nobody close in the minors after trading Lucas May to the Royals in the Scott Podsednik trade last week. In the meantime, the Dodgers will have to hope that Brad Ausmus is smart enough to handle this team for a couple months.

Martin’s been quite a disappointment over the past couple of years, but it’s worth pointing out that even with his loss of power, his .261 True Average is five points above the major league average for a catcher, and that for all the criticism of his defense, he’s scored in the black according to BP’s Fielding Runs Above Average in each of his five seasons, averaging +10 runs per 100 games. He won’t be easily replaced, either this season or down the road.

• The AL Hit List has plenty of post-deadline stuff, as well as a delicious opportunity to take a few shots at some of the game’s most annoying writers in the context of the week’s events:

[#1 Yankes] The Waiting is the Hardest Part: After 51 plate appearances without a home run — tied for his second-longest streak of the year — Alex Rodriguez finally hits his 600th; despite the delay, he’s still the youngest player to reach the milestone. The celebration is dampened by the number of players who have preceded him to the mark in recent years, by his awkward public persona and his own admission of steroid usage, and by the hypocrisy of so-called journalists who celebrated the post-strike home run binge while looking the other way at such activity but are now content to moralize. In any event, the well-timed homer helps the reloaded Yanks — Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood, Austin Kearns and more cash? — snap a three-game losing streak that briefly bumps them out of first place for the first time since June 12.

[#3 Red Sox] Man Up? Man Down: The Sox scramble to make up lost ground, but the injuries continue to mount, as does the misplaced machismo. As Jacoby Ellsbury is slammed for the slow speed of his rehab, the bolder Dustin Pedroia is cautioned for overdoing it as he rehabs his broken foot, Mike Cameron is shelved for the year after playing through pain, and Kevin Youkilis is done for the year due to a season-ending thumb injury after playing through his own pain. Losing the latter and his .331 TAv (fourth in the league) might be the coup de grâce given that Mike Lowell’s health inspires no more confidence than his rusty bat (.244 TAv), though he does homer in his return from a six-week absence.

As for the former, anyone who wants to mount their soapbox to discuss how many home runs A-Rod owes to steroids would do well to check out today’s Joe Posnanski column, which distills the work of Eric Walker. It’s a topic I’ve hit upon plenty of times, but it’s nice to see it in the hands of as widely-read a guy as Poz:

The biggest power jump in the steroid era did not happen in the late 1990s as most of us think but actually from 1993 to 1994. There were 4030 home runs hit in 1993 … and the players were on pace to hit almost 4,700 homers in 1994 before the strike crushed the season. That was a huge spike year. You will no doubt remember the individual achievements. Matt Williams was just about on pace that year to break Roger Maris’ home run record when the strike struck, and Ken Griffey Jr. had a shot at the record, and Tony Gwynn was a real threat to hit .400 (just to show it wasn’t all power that year). Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas were both having absurd Jimmie Foxx kinds of years AND (people do forget this), Barry Bonds had 37 home runs in 112 games. He was on pace to hit 53 or so home runs. And this was the SKINNY Bonds (he might, with a stolen base rush, have had a shot at a 50-50 season). Seventeen different players (including a 25-year-old kid named Sammy Sosa) had at least a shot at 40 home runs … the most ever in a season had been eight.

So what happened from 1993 to 1994? Steroids kicking in? It doesn’t seem likely that all of a sudden all these players, all at once, started doing steroids at exactly the same time and their power numbers began to soar all at the same time. It seems much more likely that, yep, once again, something happened to the baseball.

This starts to get to the point here, which is this: We KNOW that adjustments to the baseball — adjustments so slight that baseball can deny they even exist — can create a massive shift in the game. We KNOW that slight alterations to the rules (such as expanding or shrinking the strike zone a touch or raising/lowering the mound) can create a massive shift in the statistics of the game. We KNOW that even minute changes in ballpark dimensions can create massive shifts as well*.

We KNOW these things are true. But we don’t KNOW what steroids do to help players hit home runs. It’s like Jim Mora said: We may THINK we know but really don’t know. For a long time, you will remember, the conventional wisdom was that weight training and steroid use could NOT help you hit home runs — could not give you the necessary hand-eye coordination, the necessary form, the necessary mental approach, the necessary preparation and so on. And then, one day, without any real shift in logic except that a few guys started hitting a lot of home runs, the conventional wisdom shifted wildly to the point where it seemed that steroid use was the MAIN FACTOR in home run hitting.

Word. As for the Sox, all hail the Fragile Equilibrium of Unhappiness. Just a few weeks back, Youkilis was calling out Ellsbury for not being with the team during his rehab, implicitly questioning his toughness. Now he’s apparently been felled by his own bullheaded desire to play through injury (a trend that brings up fond memories of this blog’s first-ever post). Meanwhile, it’s wicked fun to see Peter Gammons taking a shot at former Boston Globe colleague Dan Shaughnessy for the innuendo-laden piece of shit — you’re better off reading the takedown, trust me — the Curly Haired Boyfriend unleashed on the world earlier in the week pertaining to Ellsbury.

Anyway, I’m off to the stadium to night for the first of two games in this Yanks-Sox series, tonight as a fan, Monday as a member of the working press. Hoping the Bronx Bombers can step on the hurtin’ Bostons’ necks…

• • •

A few friendly links:

• Speaking of the Red Sox, BP colleague Marc Normandin and Baseball Analyst‘s Patrick Sullivan have a new Sox-flavored blog, Red Sox Beacon. They’re a pair of quality analysts, so this should be a lot more rational than your average RSN fanboy site.

• Again with the Sox (and the extended BP family), a fine interview of Pedro Martinez by Dayn Perry. Some particularly poignant stuff pertaining to last fall’s World Series:

DP: Although Game 2 of the 2009 World Series wasn’t your last game, I think that’s one of the things people are going to remember about the tail end of your career – a great effort against the Yankees and that smile you cracked while walking off the field. Why were you smiling at that moment?

PM: I was realizing that New York wanted to clap for me, but I was wearing the wrong uniform. They wanted to show me respect, and I knew that, and I loved it. If you understand baseball, the more they boo you, chant your name, the more respect there is.

DP: Have you thought about pitching for the Yankees?

PM: I thought about it a couple of times in my career. I was a Yankee fan growing up, a Reggie Jackson fan. I had a couple of opportunities to pitch for the Yankees, but it never worked out.

DP: You’ve played in Philadelphia, New York and Boston–all intense baseball towns. How do they differ from one another?

PM: In those cities, the fans are warm and into it, and the media is into it. But I think Boston’s the most intense. It’s an aggressive media.

DP: Do you miss Dan Shaughnessy?

PM: No, no, no. That’s the only thing I don’t miss about Boston. I’m pretty sure other players feel that way, too.

Oh, snap!

• Finally, a fine excerpt of Bronx Banterer Emma Span’s 90% of the Game is Half Mental is up on Deadspin. Big fan of the Span here.

• Oh, and early next week, you can expect an exciting announcement about a new venue in which my work will be appearing. Try to get some sleep before then, because I’ll have a hard time doing so myself.

Dodger Deadline Dealings

Well, the Dodgers pulled off a deadline deal with the Cubs, acquiring Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot and $2.5 million in exchange for Blake DeWitt and two low-minors pitching prospects, Brett Wallach and Kyle Smit. Regardless of whether the latter duo pans out (Wallach ranked as the #20 prospect in this year’s Baseball America Prospect Handbook, Smit not only wasn’t in the top 30 but didn’t even rate a spot on their depth chart) this looks like a bad deal for the Dodgers, for a few reasons. The biggest one is this: after Saturday night’s loss to the Giants, the Dodgers are seven games out of first place, 4.5 back in the Wild Card, behind the Giants, Reds and Phillies. Their Playoff Odds range between 5 and 12 percent depending upon which flavor you prefer

Ted Lilly — who the Dodgers drafted way back in 1996 but traded to Montreal two years later — is a fine pitcher, don’t get me wrong, somebody I’ve always regretted the Yankees losing because of his stuff and his aggressiveness; for my money, he’s a better pitcher than A.J. Burnett, or at least a more reliable one. Over the last four years, he’s put up a .542 Support Neutral Winning Percentage and a 3.70 ERA with the Cubs, the latter matching up almost perfectly with his SIERA (3.75) despite an inflated home run rate (1.3 per nine). Alas, he’s arriving too late to make a difference. Over the past month, the Dodgers have seen their fifth starters allow 20 runs (19 earned) in 20 innings, averaging a bullpen-burning four innings per start. In those games, the Dodgers are 1-4. Flip one or two of those games from the loss column into the win column, and they’d have quite a bit more life in them, particularly since Lilly, who averaged 6.5 innings per start, could have saved their struggling-of-late bullpen considerable exposure. Added now, he doesn’t move the needle on their chances of playing into October.

As for DeWitt, he’s a former first-round pick (taken 28th in 2004) who’s basically an average young ballplayer at age 24, with a chance to be a bit better than that with some growth. DeWitt’s career line (.262/.340/.379) comes out to a .264 True Average, but that’s considerably inflated by the intentional walks he received at the bottom of the lineup. His unintentional walk rate is just 8.5 percent, and for somebody with average-at-best power, that’s a problem. He’s an average-minus defender at second — he’s worked hard to make himself playable — and while he’s above-average at third, that advantage is offset by the higher offensive bar at the hot corner. His big advantage, beyond versatility, is that he’s cost-controlled, something the Dodgers dearly need. He won’t be arbitration-eligible until after the 2011 season, or free agent eligible until after 2014.

Though he’s got a batting average 14 points higher than DeWitt at the moment (.284/.320/.327), Theriot has less in the way of secondary batting skill than the man he’s replacing, with a career 8.0 percent unintentional walk rate and below-average power. His only major advantage over DeWitt is that he can play shortstop and is a slightly better defender — certainly more polished — than DeWitt at the keystone. Alas, his .239 True Average this year is closer to replacement level than it is league average. He’s already 30 and more expensive ($2.6 million) than DeWitt, and basically destined to become the kind of aging, expensive mediocrity that gets you nowhere.

As for the Dodgers’ other deal, in which they acquired reliever Octavio Dotel in exchange for reliever James McDonald and left field prospect Andrew Lambo, it’s tough to like either end. Dotel can still miss bats, but he walks too many and has a hard time keeping the ball in the park; since returning from Tommy John surgery in 2006, he’s got a 4.11 ERA with 1.3 HR/9, 4.5 BB/9 and 11.3 K/9 – numbers which basically add up to him being a reliever with a 4 ERA. He’s got terrifying splits,  .217/.298/.386 versus righties since his return, but .275/.394/.500 against lefties. Yikes.

McDonald, who doesn’t miss as many bats, was miscast as a potential fifth starter by the Dodgers, but he’s a decent enough reliever. Here’s what I wrote about him in Baseball Prospectus 2010:

The Dodgers hoped the two-time winner of their Minor League Pitcher of the Year award would claim the fifth starter’s spot in 2009, but McDonald was tarred and feathered in four April starts (13 runs in 13 1/3 IP). He continued to start during a six-week Triple-A refresher, but pitched exclusively in relief upon returning, with considerable success (2.72 ERA, 8.7 K/9, 3.0 K/UBB). Known more for deception than power, McDonald’s average fastball speed increased from 91 to 93 mph with the move to the pen, he got far more strikes with his 12-to-6 curveball (his best pitch) and changeup, and he generated enough grounders to move out of the “extreme” category of flyballers. He’s a better fit in the pen as a change of pace from the power arms, but may get another shot at the back end of the rotation.

As for Lambo, here’s what I had to say about him in the annual:

This 2007 fourth-rounder came into the year considered to be the best pure hitter in the system thanks to a combination of bat speed and raw strength. He was also the system’s most advanced prospect for his age, reaching Double-A as a 20-year-old, and spending 2009 as the league’s fourth-youngest hitting prospect. Despite a hot start at Chattanooga (.321/.383/.548 in April), Lambo soon went Arctic, batting just .243/.295/.377 the rest of the way as his plate discipline suffered and his power failed to develop. His odd reverse platoon split persisted, as he batted just .241/.299/.388 against righties. Lacking in speed, athleticism, and defensive ability, Lambo will only go so far as his bat takes him, and right now, that appears to be back to Chattanooga.

Colleague Kevin Goldstein had him ranked 12th among Dodger prospects coming into the year, but since then he’s hit just .271/.325/.420 while repeating Double-A, a line that becomes even worse once you realize that he was tearing up the league before serving a 50-game suspension for a second violation of the minor league drug policy, and has fared poorly since, making this a lost year developmentally for a guy who was already starting to look less than completely special.

Friday’s Child: The Trade Deadline Approacheth

Another busy week at Baseball Prospectus. On Wednesday, I examined the Hall of Fame’s announcement of new voting procedures to consider manager, executives, umpires and long-retired players — basically a rebranding of the unloved Veterans Committee in any of its forms, including the expanded format one which begat us hearing that Reggie Jackson didn’t think Marvin Miller was worth his vote:

That august body, which had been enlarged to incorporate all living members of the Hall of Fame proper, the surviving Ford C. Frick Award and J.G. Taylor Spink Award recipients, and a couple of old VC members whose terms hadn’t expired, didn’t elect a single new member in 2003, 2005, or 2007. In the two cycles since being retooled again, the new VC tabbed three managers (Billy Southworth, Dick Williams, and Whitey Herzog), three executives (Barney Dreyfuss, Bowie Kuhn, and Walter O’Malley) and one umpire (Doug Harvey) but just one player (Joe Gordon) for enshrinement. All eight of those honorees gained entry via smaller panels appointed by the board, not via the larger body; Gordon fell into the category of pre-1943 players, separate from those whose careers began after that year.

It’s tempting to say good riddance to the unwieldy group, the most glaring failure of which was their inability to get former Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Marvin Miller into Cooperstown. Not even Reggie Jackson, one of the first marquee players to profit from the free agent system that flowered on Miller’s watch, could find it in himself to recognize the tireless labor leader with a vote in his favor. “I looked at those ballots, and there was no one to put in,” he said after the 2007 vote. When Miller advocates Brooks Robinson, Tom Seaver, and Robin Roberts—a member of the group that originally chose Miller to take over the union—declined seats on the committee charged with electing executives, Miller took the unprecedented step of asking not to be considered on future ballots.

Though the new VC pitched four shutouts in the player election department, one can argue that they at least did no harm by anointing an unworthy player. Nonetheless, a couple of omissions do stand out. Both the traditional numbers and the JAWS ones show Ron Santo as eminently worthy of enshrinement, at times ranking as the best eligible hitter not in the Hall of Fame. While he received majorities in the 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009 votes, he has yet attain the 75 percent supermajority necessary for election. Aside from him and the still-active Joe Torre, whose managerial contributions will put him over the hump but cannot currently be considered part of his case, none of the other players most popular in those votes — Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, Maury Wills, Vada Pinson, and Luis Tiant — have strong enough credentials when compared to the players elected by the writers.

The problem with the dismissal of the big-bodied new VC is that it is being replaced by something which looks a whole lot like that old VC, or the more recently constituted subcommittees: 16-member Voting Committees for each of the three eras outlined by the reorganization, comprised of “Hall of Famers, major league executives and historians/veteran media members,” the latter a group which has been long on ex-newspaper columnists and short on research scholars; why in the hell aren’t John Thorn, Pete Palmer, and Bill James — three men who’ve added more to our baseball knowledge than just about any BBWAA member — among the “historians/veteran media members” included? The old VC, which generally consisted of 15 members, was guilty of some of the most flagrant electoral mistakes in the Hall’s history… Just 15 of the 84 qualifying players elected by the old VC exceed the JAWS standards, and with the exception of shortstop, at least the two lowest-ranked players at every position came from that VC.

Elsewhere in that piece, I took a look at the assumption — circulated widely in the wake of last week’s retirement announcement, and pitched to me on a few radio appearances — that Lou Piniella should be in the Hall of Fame as a manager. Short answer: no, because he won only one pennant in 23 years.

While that was going on, I gave BP alum Keith Law an assist on a piece regarding Omar Vizquel’s Hall of Fame chances, providing him with the JAWS numbers showing how far below the standards he ranks and getting a nice mention in return:

Jay Jaffe, who blogs at Futility Infielder and Baseball Prospectus, has come up with his own Hall of Fame worthiness stat, JAWS, that has Vizquel well below the career and peak standards for a Hall of Fame shortstop, ahead of only Rabbit Maranville (maybe the worst Hall of Fame selection, period) and Luis Aparicio.

Aparicio himself was a poor selection, among the worst by the BBWAA, as he was a terrible hitter who finished in the bottom 10 in his league in OPS 12 times. And while some voters will rely on the “if player X is in, player Y should be too” argument, it’s a horrible way to build a meaningful monument to great players because it will lead to the sort of quick dilution that has Jim Rice and (could have) Omar Vizquel in the Hall. In fact, Jaffe’s statistic — which averages a player’s peak Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) score with his total career WARP — has Vizquel below such clear non-candidates as Nomar Garciaparra, Chris Speier and Garry Templeton.

I’ve also had readers point to Vizquel’s raw hit total, but without any consideration of all the outs required to get those hits — 8,030 as I write this, most among active players and 14th most all time.

To put that in context, Vizquel ranks 50th in hits, 137th in total bases and 61st in times on base, but made more outs than all but 13 other players in history to achieve even those modest rankings. Hall of Fame hitters produce more offense while using fewer outs, but Vizquel’s offense was less valuable than his raw hit total would indicate because of how much he hurt his team by making so many outs as a hitter. He’s been below average offensively for his career, even for a shortstop, dancing on the edge of replacement level as a hitter, and he hasn’t done enough on defense to overcome all of those outs he’s made with his bat.

In the wake of all of this Cooperstown chatter, I recorded a 30-or-so minute segment on this week’s BP Podcast, clashing with Kevin Goldstein over two very different visions of the Hall of Fame. My ideal is that it be a meritocracy, while KG sees its duty to emphasize the “fame.” His is not an entirely invalid argument, but taken to its logical extension, it becomes a dangerously stupid one where a clown like John Rocker might wind up inside (luckily he never got his 10 years before heading back to trailer-park oblivion).

As for this week’s Hit Lists, the approaching trade deadline has provided a fair bit of extra fodder. A few bits from the NL’s lower reaches:

[#13 Brewers] Good Weeks and Bad Weeks: The Brewers briefly show signs of being almost lifelike with a five-game winning streak, but a pair of double-digit drubbings in Cincinnati — 22 runs allowed over two games — quells any threat of .500. While GM Doug Melvin mulls whether or not to trade Prince Fielder and/or Corey Hart to San Francisco, Texas, Anaheim, or elsewhere, Rickie Weeks homers in three straight games and five of his last nine. He’s got a career high 22, as many as Hart and just two less than Fielder, and has played in all but two games while hitting .276/.376/.492.

[#14 Diamondbacks] Snake-Whacking Day II: Interim general manager Jerry DiPoto pulls off a real howler of a trade, sending Dan Haren to the Angels for a whole lot of very little. While Haren had a 4.60 ERA, 1.5 HR/9 and .450 SNWP, those marks owe much to a .350 BABIP and 17.7 HR/FB%; his 3.16 SIERA is very close to last year’s 2.92 mark. That he had a favorable contract ($29 million owed for 2010-2011 or $41 million for 2010-2012) only exacerbates the situation; the Snakes dealt from weakness, and it certainly doesn’t help matters to hear DiPoto cite Saunders’ win total and winning percentage, even if that is just spin. Luckily the Diamondbacks lose six straight to remind us that they’re as inept on the field as they are in the front office.

[#15 Astros] You’re Still Here? Knocked out due to injury in his last start, Roy Oswalt simply gets knocked around in his return. He’s still around, for the moment as he deliberates on a deal to the Phillies. Given that the Astros lineup has provided him with just four runs of support over his last six starts, you couldn’t blame him for jumping at the chance to leave. Meanwhile, Brett Myers raises his own trade value with a 12-strikeout complete game against the Cubs; he’s put up a 1.67 ERA in five starts this month, never allowing more than two runs in a start, and now ranks 20th in the league in SNWP.

Hours after that went up, Oswalt accepted the trade. As for the AL, I’ll leave you with the one containing my favorite rumor of the week:

[#12 Royals] Royal Pains: It’s a brutal week for the Royals, who lose both David DeJesus and Gil Meche for the season due to surgeries for thumb and shoulder injuries, respectively. For DeJesus, the tragedy is that he was hitting at a career-best .295 clip and would have netted a nice return under sell-high conditions; he’s got a $6 million option for next year, but the organization is better off finding out if Alex Gordon’s shift to the outfield can pay off. For Meche, the tragedy lies in the Royals’ utter mismanagement of last year’s shoulder woes. Since his 131-pitch shutout last June 16, he’d gone 2-9 with a 7.52 ERA, 2.1 HR/9 and more walks than strikeouts; the Royals, in their epic stupidity, pushed him to 121 pitches during a dead arm period shortly afterwards. For those of us who love comedy, the tragedy lies in the latter injury quashing a timeless trade rumor involving Meche, Jose Guillen, Kyle Farnsworth, Jeff Francoeur, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo. What, no Willie Bloomquist?

Fun stuff. My colleagues Goldstein and Christina Kahrl are frantically keeping up with all the deadline activity at Baseball Prospectus. Check out their expert analysis whenever a deal goes down. As for me, I don’t expect a whole lot to happen where the Yankees and Dodgers are concerned. There have been a slew of conflicting rumors regarding the Yanks’ interest in Adam Dunn to be their designated hitter, but the Nationals are apparently asking for an arm, a leg, and two organs to be named later; hell, the Blue Jays apparently asked for überprospect Jesus Montero in exchange for reliever Scott Downs. I’d be surprised if they get much done, but wouldn’t worry too much; the Yankees can still make upgrades during the August waiver period because of their ability to take on salary. The Dodgers may be working on a Ted Lilly deal, a move I’d approve of, but only with a blood oath from Stupid Flanders that he’ll offer arbitration following the season so as to collect on the draft picks Lilly’s Type A status would yield. I don’t really understand the Ryan Theriot angle given the Dodgers’ glut of second basemen unless it means the Cubs will be giving the Dodgers a whole lotta cash.

If I have one piece of advice as the trade deadline approaches and you immerse yourself in the instant-analysis world of Twitter, it’s this: be skeptical about every rumor but less so about those coming from Ken Rosenthal, who’s always dialed into the best sources. The stuff that comes from most of the other big names — Jon Heyman, Peter Gammons and Buster Olney come to mind — is generally a hell of a lot less reliable, often serving its purpose as a sounding board or a misdirection play. Also, if you start to hyperventilate, breathe into a paper bag.

See you on the other side…