It’s Opening Day, and the Preseason Prospectus Hit List is up at BP. Due to some design and timing issues, some of the data used to determine the rankings wasn’t listed, so I will run it here while explaining the rankings in a bit more detail. For team comments, please see the original article. Please note that I’m already aware that I botched the chronology of the hiring of Reds GM Wayne Krivsky and the trade of Sean Casey. Score that E-6. Sorry, Reds fans, that doesn’t change my opinion that your team is totally screwed.

Anyway, as you may recall, the regular-season Hit List rankings are derived from Won-Loss records and several measurements pertaining to run differentials, both actual and adjusted, from the Baseball Prospectus Adjusted Standings through the close of play on every Sunday. The preseason rankings as shown in the article under discussion (and listed below), are a different beast. They’re derived from the Playoff Odds Report, a million-run simulation which uses the PECOTA-driven projected winning percentages for each team as the team’s third-order winning percentage.

The consequence of this is that a team like the Dodgers ranks higher than they would if I was just using projected winning percentage. The Dodgers only project to a .537 winning percentage (Pro W% in the chart below), which isn’t so impressive, but they’re the only team in the NL West even projected to break .500, greatly increasing their chances of reaching the postseason. There’s no built-in bias in choosing to rank the teams this way, or in the fact that the A’s wind up with the top spot; I’d decided the methodology before these percentages were finalized; earlier iterations had the Yankees on top and the Dodgers a bit lower down. If this gets your panties in a twist,well, you’ll have to wait for the regular season for the team you’re bitching about to rise or lower itself to a truer level of ability.

So, without further ado, here’s the list:

Rk  Team       Pro W%  pW-pL   Div    WC   Total
 1  Athletics   .574   93-69   56.3   6.6   62.9
 2  Yankees     .580   94-68   43.3  15.7   59.0
 3  Red Sox     .574   93-69   39.8  16.2   56.0
 4  Dodgers     .537   87-75   40.5   6.0   46.4
 5  Mets        .543   88-74   34.9   9.4   44.3
 6  Indians     .543   88-74   35.2   8.8   44.0
 7  Phillies    .531   86-76   29.2   9.0   38.2
 8  Cardinals   .531   86-76   25.6  10.2   35.8
 9  Braves      .525   85-77   26.9   8.9   35.8
10  Twins       .519   84-78   23.5   7.8   31.3
11  Cubs        .525   85-77   20.9   9.3   30.2
12  Brewers     .519   84-78   19.7   9.1   28.9
13  Tigers      .512   83-79   21.1   7.3   28.4
14  White Sox   .506   82-80   19.4   6.9   26.3
15  Giants      .494   80-82   19.5   4.7   24.2
16  Angels      .500   81-81   17.8   6.2   24.0
17  Astros      .500   81-81   14.2   7.5   21.7
18  Rangers     .494   80-82   14.9   5.4   20.3
19  Padres      .481   78-84   15.8   4.1   19.9
20  D'backs     .475   77-85   14.4   3.8   18.2
21  Pirates     .488   79-83   10.4   6.0   16.4
22  Blue Jays   .488   79-83    8.3   6.9   15.2
23  Mariners    .475   77-85   11.0   4.2   15.2
24  Reds        .481   78-84    9.2   5.3   14.5
25  Rockies     .457   74-88    9.9   2.6   12.5
26  Orioles     .475   77-85    6.6   5.7   12.4
27  Marlins     .438   71-91    4.9   2.1    7.0
28  Nationals   .432   70-92    4.2   1.9    6.1
29  Devil Rays  .426   69-93    2.0   1.9    3.9
30  Royals      .377   61-101   0.8   0.3    1.2

Other abbreviations: pW-pL is the team’s projected Win-Loss record based on PECOTAs and playing time projections, Div their chances of winning the division according to the simulation, WC their chances of winning the Wild Card, and Total the sum of those two probabilities.

OK, enjoy the games today, and if you’re watching tonight’s A’s-Yanks game (between the top two teams on the Hit List, what wonderful synergy), please drop by a special roundtable I’ll be participating in along with other BP authors including (I think) Steve Goldman.

Remember me? I used to blog here once in awhile. But it’s been a crazy month, the maddest March I’ve ever experienced. Since we last spoke I’ve done the following:

• delivered roughly 16,000 words of content for Fantasy Baseball Index‘s weekly mailings, not to mention two sets of updated depth charts and projections. Clicked on several hundred links to stay on top of about 20 fifth-starter battles and hundreds of hamstring, quad, elbow, shoudler, and back injury prognoses. Yes, after a while, it DOES start to feel like work, not that I’m complaining.

• trekked to Philly for a Barnes and Noble bookstore appearance with Steve Goldman, Christina Kahrl, Cliff Corcoran and Clay Davenport, whom I’d never met before. We got a solid turnout of 25-30 people and spoke for about 90 minutes on a variety of topics, including Barry Bonds, the World Baseball Classic, the Red Sox, the Pirates, the Yankees and of course, the Phillies. Ryan Franklin (my pick for the Eric Milton Award this year), Ryan Howard, Aaron Rowand and Bobby Abreu were particularly hot items, as was the competition in the NL East. Clay provided some nice tech/stat balance to what Steve and Chris call “the liberal arts wing of BP.” The rest of us, who shared a car ride from Joisey, reprised arguments we’d had while en route to produce the maximum amount of drama when debating, say, the WBC. We were tight, like some road-tested soul band: “Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the BeePees!”

• caught a drink with Mike Carminati, who just happened to show up outside of B&N when we were contemplating whetting our whistles aabout an hour before showtime. During the bookstore event I had a chance to laud Mike’s lamentably long-gone Joe Morgan Chat Day deconstructions when the topic turned to everybody’s favorite sabermetric nonbeliever. Fond memories…

• celebrated International Cheesesteak Day at Jim’s Steaks on South Street in Philly (mushrooms and Provolone, not Cheez Whiz on mine, thanks). Cliff was the man with the day circled on his calendar, and we are richer for it.

• appeared on a panel — in fact the largest gathering of Baseball Prospectus authors ever — at the Yogi Berra Museum at Montclair State University along with Steve, Cliff and fellow BP colleagues Neil deMause, John Erhardt, Jonah Keri, and Nate Silver, plus special guests Will Weiss (Steve’s editor at YES), Allen St. John (Wall Street Journal) and Allen Barra. My favorite moment came when I looked over and found that all ten of us were wearing glasses (all we lacked were the slide rules). Even among nine other writers, I got my yaks in, as the audio and video recordings of the event, should they ever be made public, will show (nobody ever called me a wallflower). Great panel, great audience of about 60 people (thank you all for coming out) and a hell of a fun time. Travis Nelson of Boy of Summer turned up and we spent a bit of time talking about how the phrase he coined — League Average Innings Muncher, or LAIM — has penetrated BP’s lexicon and appears in this year’s book. My research assistant (now the new BP intern), Peter Quadrino, showed up as well and had a chance to get aquainted with some of the folks who will torment him in the coming months.

• that appearance at the Yogi was preceded by some rather dubious navigation that caused Nate, Jonah, Derek Jacques and myself to a) miss deMause because we were too busy administering savage sabermetric beatdowns in the New Jersey Transit terminal of Penn Station:

“You didn’t set the replacement level high enough, bitch!” (SMACK!)

“Do I need to kick your ass again before you stop reaching for the sacrifice bunt, tough guy?” (POW!)

“And that’s for failing to adjust for park effects!” (THUD!)

and b) miss our changeover in Secaucus Junction and wind up on the Newark Airport AirTrain because we were too busy listening (or burying our faces in the newspaper to avoid same) to Nate and Jonah’s fantasy draft blow-by-blows. Suffice it to say it’s a loooooooong cabride from the airport to the Yogi, but it’s even longer if you have to hear about the rationale for another man’s draft.

• cranked out a quick Prospectus piece on Jeff Bagwell and a few other recently retired ballplayers in light of their Hall of Fame chances (JAWS). Some of the Sammy Sosa content will be familiar to readers of this space.

• did 15 minutes of radio for WQXI in Atlanta to promote BP 06, answering questions in a lightning-round format, where I was practically being asked the next question before I’d finished my answer. No complaints; the last thing I needed was for somebody on the radio to start asking me what I liked the most about Chipper’s swing or something.

• suffered a maddening back spasm during my physical therapy regimen that nearly blew my Fantasy Index deadline. Thank the good Lord for ice packs, ibuprofen, and my Herman Miller chair. Seriously.

• failed to keep an NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bracket for the first time since the year they had the Final Four in my hometown. That hurts, it really does.

• groaned at the E-6 I scored when I listed B.J Upton (who had 176 at-bats in 2004) as third place on my AL Rookie of the Year staff prediction ballot, when I was thinking Delmon Young. D’oh!

• found space for a little QT with the little cutie who puts up with all of this craziness and even encourages it, my wife Andra.

As tired as I am, it’s been a great couple of weeks, and for better or worse, the madness continues for another week as I head towards my last deadline for the FBI (no, not the guys who are tapping your phone). My Baseball Prospectus chat, originally scheduled for Thursday, has been rescheduled for 1 PM on Friday, March 30. I’ll be taking calls on Saturday morning (10:30-10:45 AM is my window in the 9-11 AM lineup) as part of a special episode of BP Radio (800-825-5290 is the number). I’m also slated to do a roundtable on BP with a few other writers during Monday night’s Yankees-A’s game; check back for details. Not coincidentally, the “Opening Day” version of the Prospectus Hit List will be published that same day.

Opening Day! How great do those two words sound? They’re music to my ears, and they promise a return to a bit of normalcy around here and in the rest of my life. I can hardly wait.

I’m snowed under by deadlines for my fantasy work (how odd does that sound?) but wanted to call attention to a few Baseball Prospectus-related appearances I’ll be making in the next two weeks. On Thursday evening (3/23, 6:30 PM), I’ll be at the Barnes and Noble on 1805 Walnut Street in Philadelphia, joined by Steve Goldman, Christina Kahrl, and Cliff Corocoran. On Sunday (3/26, 1 PM) I will be part of the largest gathering of BP authors ever, joining the aforementioned trio plus Nate Silver, Jonah Keri, John Erhardt, Neil deMause, special guest Allen Barra (and perhaps others) at the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, NJ. As a bonus, we’ll all be wearing superhero costumes; I’m likely to appear as either Underdog or the Greatest American Hero unless Steve agrees to let me alter his oversized Spiderman costume in exchange for never starting a sentence with the word “But” in any BP-related item he’s editing. My Spidey senses tell me you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

I’ll be wearing Kevlar on Thusday, March 30, when I host a BP chat at 1 PM Eastern time. The hot topic is likely to be the preseason version of the Prospectus Hit List, which will run that day, and I’m bracing to hear it from disgruntled White Sox fans unhappy with where their defending champs rank (hint: not first).

Also, I’ve been told to set aside time for a couple of radio spots in the Atlanta and L.A. markets on March 28 to discuss my takes on the teams I covered for Baseball Prospectus 2006. Further details TBA.

Got back from Puerto Rico Tuesday evening, and it feels like I’ve been writing ever since. My epic account of the two games I witnessed is now up at Baseball Prospectus. While I can’t say I give San Juan itself particularly high marks, attending the games was a fantastic, eye-opening experience, and an intense one at that:

We arrived at Hiram Bithorn Stadium–named for the first Puerto Rican to play in the majors, circa 1942–about ninety minutes before gametime to find a frenzied scene outside the park. Salsa music blared, airhorns sounded, thundersticks pinged (those inflatable abominations make a decidedly “aluminum” sound when they’re banged together) and packs of Puerto Rican and Dominican fans waved flags, chanted and danced to the rhythms. Even to an American fan who can claim attendance at a World Series clincher in the Bronx, not to mention a large handful of tense Yanks-Red Sox matchups, this was an entirely higher level of tension, chaos, and sensory overload outside a ballpark. The atmosphere was as electrifying as jamming a steak knife into a wall socket. Faced with the need to procure a pair of extra tickets to the sold-out event, we were anything but loose.

We began our discussions with a tall, broad-shoulder Dominican man asking $80 apiece for a pair of $50 tickets. He had been asking $100 a pop earlier, he confided, but wanted to get inside the park to join the fun (keep in mind this was still well over an hour before game time). We haggled and in doing so, drew a curt dismissal. Our next discussion was with an enthusiastic Puerto Rican wearing a replica flag as a bandana. He wanted $100 per for a pair of $75 tix down the rightfield line. As we negotiated with him, a visibly intoxicated seller brandishing a seating chart horned in on the racket, claiming his $50 seats, for which he was asking $100 apiece, were superior. The scene got tense, and I backed off, letting Andra and Adam, both of whom can speak Spanish, work their way through the conversations as I scanned the crowd for our Dominican contact. The second Puerto Rican soon wandered away. Finally our bandana-bedecked friend — citing a need to get into the park as well — relented, punting the tickets for face value as the clock struck 8 PM. No laws were broken in this transaction, officer.

We entered the park to find that within the concourse, the fans were no less controlled. Loyalties were advertised on sleeves and heads; at least half of the people visible were wearing something to mark which side of the rivalry they were on, be it via t-shirt, replica jersey, hat, flag, or face tattoo. A ring of Puerto Rican musicians playing drums and brass instruments whipped up a frenzied, cacophonous beat while women danced among them, throngs pushed towards a D.R.-only merchandise area, the stadium shook with the cheers and jeers of fans in the stands watching Japan versus the U.S. on the Jumbotron, and a vendor hawked piña coladas. Alas, the only food we could find on the concourse besides plantain chips was standard-issue fare from an American fast-food chain. So much for my dreams of ballpark churrasco with tostones and plastic mini-helmets full of mofungo.

The piece contains blow-by-blow accounts of both games, along with some perspective on the tournament and coverage of the rest of that four-team pool. I’ll try to get my photos up here later today.

The flurry of writing I’ve done since returning, including my latest batch of updates for Fantasy Baseball Index has, for the second year in a row, prevented me from getting involved in an NCAA Basketball pool. Call it my own brand of March Madness; one year ago today I was on television, debating steroid policy with a grandstanding congressman and the son of a former U.S. President. Not surprisingly, steroids are still in the news; the weight of evidence against Barry Bonds has finally compelled Bud Selig to launch an investigation into the whole sordid affair, just as he was asked to by Congress one year ago tomorrow. While I’m hardly impressed by the Commissioner’s reaction time, and I think the investigation should be broadened to include other players, Bud may have more up his sleeve than I previously gave him credit for:

Selig’s anger with Bonds goes beyond recent allegations that he used hardcore steroids knowingly and before he ever met Victor Conte and the staff at BALCO labs. As the Chicago Tribune reported, Selig met with Bonds two years ago and said if Bonds had anything else to confess, he wanted to know about it then. Bonds reportedly told the commissioner that he would have nothing to worry about, and Selig warned Bonds that he would deal with him more harshly if it turned out he was not telling the truth.

It looks like Hank Aaron won’t be the only hammer Bonds has to deal with this year.

I wish I could say I felt sadder when I heard the news that Kirby Puckett died on Monday after suffering a stroke over the weekend. A superstar whose career I enjoyed immensely, forced to retire before his time due to glaucoma, elected to the Hall of Fame despite his foreshortened career, then taken from us at age 44 — this one has all the ingredients of a three-hanky movie. A three-Homer Hanky movie, even. But there’s a bitter taste in my mouth right now, and it’s Puckett who put it there.

Make no mistake about it: Kirby Puckett was one hell of a ballplayer. A 5’8″, 210-pound centerfielder, Puckett packed a ton of athleticism and style into that roly-poly package, exuding such an infectious enthusiasm that you couldn’t help but smile anytime you watched him. If you didn’t take joy in watching Puckett play, then you didn’t like baseball.

In his 12-year career, all with the Twins, Puckett hit .318/.360/.477, bashing out 2,304 hits and 207 home runs, reaching the 200-hit plateau five times, making 10 All-Star teams, winning six Gold Gloves, and leading the Twins to not one but two improbable World Championships. Most memorable was Game Six of the 1991 Series; with the Twins trailing the Braves three games to two, Puckett had a game for the ages, scaling the centerfield plexiglass to make a spectacular catch off of a Ron Gant drive in the third inning and going 3-4 with an RBI triple, a sac fly, and a walk-off homer in the 11th frame to force Game Seven. “And we’ll see you tomorrow night!” went Jack Buck‘s memorable play-by-play call as the ball sailed into the seats.

Puckett was well on his way to 3,000 hits and a plaque in Cooperstown when he awoke one spring morning in 1996 suffering from blurred vision in his right eye. He was diagnosed with glaucoma and forced to retire at 35. It was a sad day for baseball, especially so since Puckett seemed nowhere near ready to cede the stage; in the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons, he’d combined for 43 homers and 211 RBI while batting .315/.371/.526.

Still, when Puckett’s name made it onto the 2001 Hall of Fame ballot, it didn’t look as though he’d have the numbers to gain election. But he got over on personality; the generation of writers who’d lionized him not only admired the way he played, but also the off-field deeds that netted him the 1993 Branch Rickey Award for community service, the 1996 Roberto Clemente Man of the Year Award, and an induction into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame in 2000. It didn’t hurt that he had a great rapport with those gatekeepers to immortality, either. Puckett received 82.1 percent of the vote, only twelve fewer votes than former teammate Dave Winfield, who had 3,110 hits and 465 homers on his resume. So much for nice guys finishing last.

And so much for waiting for all the facts to come in. The good-guy image that Puckett cultivated throughout his career began taking serious hits soon after his induction. His wife Tonya filed for divorce in early 2002, two months after she told police he threatened to kill her during an argument. Prior to that, she had laid out a pattern of years of mistreatment to police, alleging that her husband had pointed a cocked gun to her head, tried to strangle her with an electrical cord, locked her in a basement, and used a power saw to cut through a door behind which she’d locked herself.

Through a private investigator, Tonya Puckett also discovered that her husband had carried on an 18-year-long affair with one Laura Nygren. Nygren herself obtained a temporary order of protection after being threatened by Puckett once the affair was exposed. She also said that Puckett told her of a female Twins employee filing a sexual harassment claim against him and that a settlement between Puckett, the Twins, and the employee had settled just prior to his Hall of Fame induction.

It got worse. In the fall of 2002, Puckett was charged with false imprisonment, fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct, and fifth-degree assault. Allegedly, he dragged a woman into a restaurant bathroom, pushed her into a stall, and grabbed her breast. The case went to trial and he was cleared of the charges despite several witnesses to the incident.

That’s an ugly litany of misdeeds, and just because Puckett was never convicted of any crime doesn’t mean they should be swept under the rug. It’s impossible to discount the allegations against him when one considers the low frequency with which sexual assault and spousal abuse cases are brought to justice, the impact Puckett’s celebrity may have had on the various proceedings, and the general culture of athletes and their, um, affairs off the field. He may have been innocent of the particular charges brought against him, but the pattern of complaints about his behavior was undeniable.

Back in December, when I was reviewing the 2006 Hall of Fame ballot at Baseball Prospectus, I mentioned Puckett in connection with Albert Belle’s Hall of Fame case. Like Puckett, Belle had a short but dominant career that ended prematurely due to health reasons. But unlike Puckett, Belle wasn’t a threat to win any humanitarian awards; he was loathed by the press and the feeling was mutual. Here’s what I wrote:

Belle was no choirboy, as his several clashes with fans and media reveal, but consider the case of perceived nice guy Kirby Puckett, whose own JAWS credentials (91.9 career WARP3/61.8 peak/76.9 JAWS) fall short of Belle’s [88.5/ 73.3/ 80.9], and whose off-the-field behavior was — allegedly — much worse. Should one be in the Hall and the other outside based on a popularity contest whose results were decided too early?

Of course, Belle’s recent arrest for stalking his ex-girlfriend brings him closer to Puckett territory, not further, but that’s not my point.

My point is that we all bought Kirby Puckett’s act because he was an amazing player between the baselines, and we wanted to believe he was just as amazing a human being off the field as the press clippings said. We cheered even harder when Kirby got his due, only to realize later that one could field a starting nine with the skeletons in his closet. In an era where we’ve made a routine habit of knocking yesteryear’s heroes off their pedestals with alarming speed — Goodbye, Mark McGwire! So long, Sammy Sosa! Get bent, Jose Canseco! — Puckett’s transgressions went far beyond the alleged chemically-enhanced gamesmanship of those pilloried sluggers.

That’s a harsh reality to square even with the fondest of memories of his playing days. And it compounds what was already a senselessly premature death into a complete and total bummer. I’m sad for the premature demise of a player who once thrilled us, but I’m sadder still for what Puckett took from us.

Been meaning to get to this for a few days, but work and deadlines have been in my way…

• I’ve had similar feelings of pride when holding my initial copies of The Juice and Mind Game, but nothing felt quite like seeing my name on the front page of Baseball Prospectus 2006 when it arrived on Thursday. Will Carroll once compared joining BP to donning the pinstripes, and by that analogy, this feels like hearing Bob Sheppard intone my name in front of 55,000 fans on a chilly October night. “Attention ladies and gentlemen… writing the Dodgers chapter… page two-hundred and forty-two… Jay… Jaffe!”

Having been privy to nothing but my own contributions to the book prior to receiving it, I spent a good couple of hours browsing through it, when a telling moment happened. My Bob Sheppard moment having long passed, I reflexively turned to the Dodger chapter , thinking to myself, “I wonder what they say about…” and then it hit me: *I* wrote the chapter. In the introduction, co-editor and co-founder Christina Kahrl had mentioned that one of BP’s goals was to write the book that they wanted to read. If that’s not a case in point, I don’t know what is.

• The Fantasy Baseball Index Internet Update, including updated depth charts and some 7,400 words covering all 30 teams from yours truly, is is available here; you’ll need your copy of the Index to find the day’s password.

• Enough about me already. One of the more exciting developments to come down the pike in awhile at BP is the addition of Kevin Goldstein, formerly of Baseball America, to our roster. I met Kevin at the Anaheim Winter Meetings in 2004, and found him to be personable, incredibly knowledgeable, and immensely entertaining. On the final night of the meetings, Goldstein and Carroll kept a group of us in stitches with their imitations of various Cubs announcers, with Goldstein lampooning the homoeroticism of Hughes’ descriptions of bulging calves and pectorals. By the time he and Carroll were finished, I felt like I’d done about 100 crunches, my abs were so sore from laughing.

Goldstein brings more than a fine sense of humor to BP. He’s got an encyclopedic breadth of knowledge when it comes to prospects and player development; my Dodgers and Braves chapters in BP06 were considerably enriched by lengthy discussions with him, and he provided a hefty chunk of background on David Ortiz for my Mind Game chapter on Big Papi. He’ll be covering the prospect beat for BP, writing 4-5 times a week during the season, adding a voice that might stand in stark contrast to the stathead bent which dominates our coverage. Riffing on Dayn Perry‘s favorite analogy for the need to mix a statistical perspective with a scouting one, Nate Silver’s introduction of Goldstein is tellingly titled 2″Now Serving Beer… and Tacos!”

In addition to an introductory chat laden with prospect questions, Goldstein has begun his time at BP with a six-part series called “State of the Systems,” a division-by-division rundown of each team. Friday’s installment is the AL East, and here’s what he has to say about the Yankees:

What’s Working: This is a system on its way up, but it’s going to require patience. Because the Yankees are always good at the major league level, they never get a high draft pick, and their annual forays into the free agent market leave them with even fewer picks. Compounding the problem was that until 2003, the Yankees did a horrible job with what few picks they did have. The 2003 and 2004 drafts showed a little more promise, and new scouting director Damon Oppenheimer had a solid 2005 set of selections — despite Big George’s insistence that the club hand out no major league deals to draftees, preventing them from selecting Craig Hansen in the first round. It will be interesting to see if what the Yankees did with Austin Jackson will be the beginning of a trend. Jackson entered the draft with possible first-round talent, but also a perceived stronger desire to play basketball, where he was one of the top point guards in the country with a full ride to Georgia Tech lined up. So teams shied away from Jackson, but the Yankees took him in the 8th round and lured him away from hoops with $800,000. Just like the free-agent market, the Yankees are uniquely able to draft and get under contract some of the more difficult signability players in any year, and it’s an ability that they should take advantage of more often. Beyond the improved drafting, a dramatic shift in international scouting is also paying dividends. Always one of the bigger spenders in Latin America, the Yankees have gone away from getting involved with the big names (like Wily Mo Pena for $2.44 millioin in 1999), and instead spreading a number of six-figure bonuses around to a number of talents, which has stocked the low levels with some exciting high-ceiling talents like outfielder Jose Tabata and shortstop Eduardo Nunez. As you can see by the size of this paragraph, even at the minor league level, things are always interesting in Yankee-land.

What’s Not Working: Despite the unquestionable uptick in the system’s overall talent pool, there’s still plenty to make up for from the moribund years early in the decade. Nearly all of the system’s top players have yet to play above the Low-A level, and the upper levels are filled with minor league veterans and fringe prospects.

2006 Rookies: None, zero, nada, nunca, zilch. If there is a player in the current Yankees system getting significant playing time with the big league club this year, that means that something, somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

I Like Him Better Than Most: Tabata is potentially one of the most exciting prospects in baseball — his distance from the major leagues is the only negative thing one can say about him. At the same age of most American high school sophomore and juniors, Tabata hit .314 in the Gulf Coast League, walked more than he struck out, led the league with 22 stolen bases, and showed big-time power potential. He’ll play in a full-season league this year, and he doesn’t turn 18 until August 12. His ceiling is as high, if not higher, than any low-level prospect in the game, but he so far from it there’s just so much that can go wrong.

Don’t Believe The Hype: Eric Duncan may have won MVP honors in the Arizona Fall League, but the AFL record book is littered with names like Steve Pegues and Orlando Miller. So do you want to base your excitement off those six weeks, or his 316 minor league games in which he’s hit .258 with just OK power and a ton of whiffs? Add in the fact that he’s not really a third baseman and he is moving to first, and I’ll take a pass.

Good stuff from Goldstein, and definitely some value added to the price of a BP subscription.

• One of the more interesting tidbits that I discovered in my trek through all 30 teams is that the likelihood of the Dodgers two top prospects getting a shot with the 2006 team appears to be increasing. Earlier this week, the team moved its top hitting prospect, 6’6″ Joel Guzman, out of the shortstop position and announced that he’s headed for leftfield, and will have a chance to supplant Jose Cruz, jr. as the team’s Opening Day starter. The catch is that Guzman has no experience in the outfield yet, so while he’ll work on the side with the Dodger coaches at getting up to speed, he’ll likely be playing first base — a position he’s played in winter ball — in the early exhibition season. Guzman ranked 14th on BP’s Top 50 Prospect list, and Nate Silver’s PECOTA system — a component of the other list, but the former also includes more subjective consideratins — has him as the most valuable prospect among shortstops, with only Prince Fielder, Chris Young, Delmon Young, Jeremy Hermida, Howie Kendrick, Dustin Pedroia, Ryan Zimmerman, and Andy Marte outpacing him.

Meanwhile, pitcher Chad Billinglsey, Guzman’s teammate at Double-A Jacksonville last year, will reportedly get a long look in consideration for a spot in the rotation. With Derek Lowe, Odalis Perez, Brad Penny, Brett Tomko, and Jae Seo ahead of him, Billingsley will need a break — likely in the form of an injury to one of that quintet — to make the grade. Given that Perez and Penny combined for just 48 starts last year due to various woes, that’s hardly out of the question.

Billingsley ranked 24th on BP’s Top 50, and Silver’s system has him as the 11th-most valuable among current pitching prospects. Still, the team has a balancing act to do to avoid rushing the 21-year-old, who’s never pitched above Double-A. The lessons of since-traded Edwin Jackson are fresh in memory, but I do think it’s imperative for the Dodgers to have Billingsley bypass the heartbreak of Triple-A Las Vegas, where Cream of Pitcher is the soup du jour. Breaking camp in the bullpen seems like the best outcome available.

• I’m still looking forward to my upcoming trip to Puerto Rico, where I’ll see a pair of World Baseball Classic games, but the endless stream of player withdrawals has dashed a bit of my enthusiasm for the tournament. ESPN’s WBC home page has no shortage of headlines regarding withdrawals: Pedro Martinez and Aramis Ramirez due to injury, Vlad Guerrero due to the death of his cousin, Melvin Mora due to being asked to play outfield, Manny Ramirez, Billy Wagner, C.C. Sabathia… the list goes on. The Yankees rather tastelessly apologized to fans for the absence of their stars at spring training games, which is somewhat ridiculous when one considers that the big names rarely get more than one or two at-bats in the early exhibition season.

Still, this is turning into a PR disaster for Bud Selig and company, and not without cause; taking players away from their teams for three weeks in springtime is likely to have all kinds of ramifications, from the risk of injury in a glorified exhibition to WBC pitchers not getting enough innings to prepare for competition to the players left behind playing against substandard competition. But I do think that the perspective of Americans on this event differs from view of those in the Carribean countries, in particular. I don’t know too many of us who are swollen with pride at the thought of Team USA, but the nationalistic fervor appears to run deeper when it comes to the Venezuelan, Dominican, and Puerto Rican teams and the nations they represent. Not only are those teams, in particular, gunning for a shot to beat the US, but they’ve also got bragging rites amongst themselves at stake. Hopefully I’ll get more time to write about the WBC before I depart.

Things have been a little quiet around here for the past several days, but I’ve been as busy as a mop-up reliever at Coors Field. Not that you should read anything further into that analogy, because the news is actually quite exciting (for me at least).

Fantasy Baseball Index has contracted me to do their Spring Training coverage, updating subscribers on the moves which have transpired since the magazine went to press in mid-January. I’ll be cranking out five updates over the next six weeks, running through fantasy-related developments on each team, updating depth charts and tweaking playing time and stat projections. The first issue, which is free to those who bought the magazine, comes out tomorrow, March 2. There’s no issue for March 9, but there’s one for every week — called “The Fantasy Index Cheat Sheet Update” — after that up through the first week of April.

It’s a serious workload, and there’s serious money behind it, all of which makes it a hell of a lot of fun. Who knew that fantasy baseball would be the vehicle to fulfill my own fantasy of being a full-time professional baseball writer, even if it’s only for a month or so here and there? Nice work if you can get it, and right now, baby, I’ve got it. If you can’t see my smile, you’re using the wrong browser.

The side benefit is that all of this work is my own spring training for the Prospectus Hit List. I’m building up the stamina to go around the majors once a week, working on my keyboard posture, squinting at stats (well, I do that every day), trying to sweat out all of those cliches and horribly elongated sentences — you know, the ones with lots of em-dashes, and subordinate clauses, and tangents that go on for days. This one sentence back a couple weeks ago was like watching Tony LaRussa make multiple pitching changes — you get the idea. Within my schedule, I’ll find some time to crank out the preseason PHL, which is sure to enrage about half of those who read it (especially White Sox fans, not that I should be offering anyone hints). If I get some cooperation from certain quarters, I might even get to provide a glimpse at how past years’ PHLs would have looked.

And yeah, someday I’ll finish dumping my DIPS spreadsheet onto the website, if I don’t claw my eyes out first, or decide to bury myself in the fantastic pile of baseball books that’s keeping my doorman busy. Seriously, six books in three days, and BP 2006 is on the way too. Aw yeaaaaah!

Absent from my Sammy Sosa piece the other day was the question of whether the once-great slugger actually had anything left in the tank, playing-wise. Coming off of his Age 36 season, in which he missed sixty games, Sosa put up a .221/.295/.376 line that looks as though it were borrowed from Neifi Perez. As such, there is plenty of cause for pessimism.

About a month ago, ESPN’s Alan Schwarz compared two projections for Sosa’s 2006, those of Bill James (as published in Baseball Info Solutions’ The Bill James Handbook 2006) and Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system. Here’s what those two systems say, along with a couple more, Tangotiger’s deliberately facile Marcel the Monkey forecasting system, and Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projection:

             AB   AVG  HR  RBI  OBP  SLG
Bill James  388  .265  27  70  .355  .521
PECOTA      311* .242  12  44  .312  .418 (* PA, not AB)
Marcel      417  .245  22  61  .318  .451
ZiPS        440  .227  21  67  .313  .409

Suffice it to say there’s some difference of opinion between James (who admittedly ignores the possiblity of injury in his projections) and the rest of the field, but none of the other three are very rosy. Focusing on PECOTA because it factors in the most data and offers a range of outcomes instead of a single one (the above line is the weighted mean projection), the system shows Sosa’s 90th Percentile forecast at .267/.336/.475 with 20 homers in 358 PA, good for a 16.5 VORP an a 0.072 Marginal Lineup Value rate, the number of runs per game that Sosa would add to an otherwise league-average lineup. Dropping down to his 75th Percentile forecast of .247/.317/.430 with 15 home runs in 377 PA, Sosa’s VORP comes in at a paltry 4.8, and his MLVr slips into the red, at -0.032 runs per game. In other words, the system sees a better than 75 percent chance that Sosa’s production will be below average. That ain’t good.

At his weighted mean forecast, Sosa’s VORP is just 1.8, and his MLVr is -0.059. Other veterans within 0.002 MLVr include Mark Bellhorn (last seen gathering splinters on Joe Torre’s bench), Josh Phelps, Orlando Palmeiro, and Eli Marrero — reserves who once might have had some value but are now looking at longer odds of contributing positively.

As bad as those numbers are, they come with some caveats. PECOTA sees Sosa’s missed playing time, but it doesn’t see the causes for it (a staph infection in his foot, and later a lesion under his big toe). As nauseating as those injuries are to contemplate — how much could a new pair of sanitary socks, shower sandals and a washcloth cost, really? — they’re not hamstring, knee or back troubles. Given that Sosa hit just .248 on balls in play, fifty points below the league average, it’s a reasonable assumption that he could pump a bit of life into that batting average if he wasn’t in pain during every single step.

Suppose that Sosa can hit that 75th percentile projection, which equates to 1.6 WARP. Using Nate Silver’s Marginal Value Over Replacement Player formula (MORP), that’s worth about $1.65 million in salary. Even his weighted mean of 1.2 WARP is worth $1.2 million. If I’m a GM with a roster spot that might be up for grabs, or a corner or DH slot that’s been filled in less than impressive fashion (the Yanks’ hopelessly misguided Bernie Williams plan, the Cardinals’ Larry Bigbie/John Rodriguez combo, Toronto’s Reed Johnson/Alex Rios duo, and the Indians’ Casey Blake solo), I think I could find the extra half-mil and the guaranteed contract that the Nationals couldn’t come up with for what’s essentially a better than 50 percent chance that he’ll be worth that meager amount. Sosa’s detractors might point to the potential distraction the slugger-in-twilight might cause, but there isn’t a team that couldn’t punt a $1 million problem if it had to. And the upside, that Sosa might hit 20 homers and put a few fannies in the seats with a mild resurgence, isn’t the worst gamble in the world.

In any event, if Sosa is indeed done, he’s virtually a lock for the Hall of Fame. Not only has he crossed the Kingman Line of 442 homers, above which every eligible player has been inducted (Jose Canseco at 462 will raise the bar next year when he reaps what he’s sown, Fred McGriff’s 493 will probably set the new standard before too long, and Rafael Palmeiro at 569 might be in for a good stretch in the waiting room), he’s fifth all-time in homers. Only Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Willie Mays are ahead of him, and that’s worth a lot.

The Jaffe WARP Score system (JAWS) isn’t quite so convinced. Sosa accumulated 93.6 WARP3 for his career, with a seven-year peak of 59.5. That comes out to a 76.6 JAWS score. The average Hall of Fame rightfielder scores at 112.4/61.5/86.9, more than 10 points better than Sosa. Rightfield is an especially strong position among HOFers; only the second basemen, at 90.6, have a higher average JAWS score.

Part of the problem for Sosa, JAWS-wise, is that he’s hanging up his spikes earlier than most superstars; another three years and 10.0 WARP would do wonders for his score. Looking a bit more closely at his peak score, Sosa’s got a big gap between his best season (13.6 WARP3) and his second-best (9.6), though anyone looking for fuel to add to a steroid-fluke fire ought to consider that more than 300 players throughout baseball history have a gap of 4.0 wins or more between best and second-best seasons. Moving along, there’s a pretty serious dropoff between Sosa’s fifth-best season (7.6 WARP) and his sixth (6.0) and seventh (5.8, a total he hit three times). An extra win in each of those years would almost cut the difference between him and the Hall average in half. Among rightfielders, Sosa’s score falls between those of Enos Slaughter (96.2/57.7/77.0) and Harry Heilman (92.8/57.7/75.3) and would rank 12th of all time. That’s not inner circle, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, and while my system doesn’t advocate a vote, it’s prone to penalizing those who fail to collect those final table scraps. If I had a BBWAA ballot, he’d be on it.

• • •

Retirements have been in the news lately. The reviled Kevin Brown — a pain in the ass during his Dodger and Yankee years due to a variety of injuries, has decided that his back can’t withstand the rigors of playing any longer. Personally, I think he’s just bitter he’ll no longer have that Fox jet at his disposal now that his seven-year, $105 million deal is history, but then I’ve got few kind words to say about the man. Watching him struggle to a 4-7, 6.50 ERA season was a pleasure even as it set the Yankees back (it’s called schadenfreude; I’ve got all their albums), given his stubborn insistence on taking the ball for Game Seven of the 2004 ALCS when he was physically unfit for the task and digging the Yanks a hole out of which they couldn’t climb.

Baseball Prospectus’ Christina Kahrl was more charitable in her Transaction Analysis obit:

As much as Brown’s decision to call it quits might elicit all sorts of raspberries from now-frequently disappointed Yankee fans, let’s consider their receipt of [Scott] Erickson as a punishment for any ill will they may still bear, as well as a caution as to what the alternatives can be.

I guess I think of Brown the way some people think of David Cone or Curt Schilling, or the way I think all sentient life on this planet felt about Mike Scott in 1986, which is that he was not somebody you wanted to face in October. I know, some will point to his losing three of four World Series starts, and Yankees fans probably can’t see past his getting torched twice by the Red Sox in 2004, but that’s hardly fair. Brown was damaged goods at the point that the desperate Bombers threw him out there against Boston, and if he doesn’t pitch as well as he did for the Marlins and Padres in the Divisional and Championship Series of 1997 and 1998, those clubs almost certainly don’t make it to the World Series in the first place.

But my warm feelings for Brown’s performances aside, I know a lot of people will be looking at his as a career that ended on a note as characteristically sour as the rest of it. A good amount of that seems to be the product of Brown’s personality, or more properly, the way media interlocutors have portrayed him to the public. I don’t know if Brown eats kittens or feeds them cream-fattened mice in his moments of kindness, and I don’t especially care, because it was the quality of his work on the mound that matters, and the quality of that work that made several teams winners. I’ll look forward to what Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system has to say about Brown, but I don’t think any of us expects him to be a Hall of Famer.

Since Chris asked, and since we were already on the topic, Brown finishes at 104.6/61.6/83.1, which is actually above the HOF average for pitchers of 99.3/61.9/80.6. That’s better than (among others) Tommy John, Red Ruffing, Don Sutton, Don Drysdale, Bob Lemon, Jim Kaat, Curt Schilling, Juan Marichal, Luis Tiant, John Smoltz, Jim Bunning, Wes Ferrell, Whitey Ford and the aforementioned Cone and Schilling . Which isn’t to say he’ll make it to Cooperstown, not with “only” a 211-144 lifetime record, a shelf that’s lacking a Cy Young (though he finished among the top six five times), and a postseason record of 5-5 with a 4.30 ERA. But in five years, maybe I can come up with something nice to say about the bastard if my system still pegs him as worthy.

• • •

Also hanging up his spikes, though with nowhere near the fanfare or a shot at the Hall, is Brooks Kieschnick, a favorite around these parts for his double-duty efforts as a pinch-hitter and mop-up pitcher.

The #10 pick of the 1993 draft by the Chicago Cubs, Kieschnick’s career stalled before he could ever draw 100 at-bats in a season at the major-league level. A pitcher in college at the University of Texas (for whom he was the two-time National Palyer of the Year), he decided to revive his shot at the bigs by returning to the mound in 2002. In 2003, he earned a spot with the Milwaukee Brewers, for whom he tossed 53 innings of 5.26 ERA ball in 42 relief appearances (posting a 1-1 record) and hit a neat .300/.355/.614 with 7 homers in just 70 at-bats.

Kieschnick pitched better in 2004 (3.77 ERA in 43 innings), but his hitting declined (.270/.324/.365), and he spent 2005 in the Astros chain, getting roughed up in the PCL (5.72 ERA in 56.2 innings). He’d signed a minor-league contract with the Orioles, but rather than face that ignominious fate, packed it in at age 33. He won’t reach Cooperstown, but he’s earned a spot on my Wall of Fame when I get a chance to write him up.

• • •

When I touted Albert Belle for the Hall of Fame back in December, my reasons were based on his statistics, not the charming personality and gentlemanly conduct which endeared him to so many of our nation’s finest and most forgiving scribes. Alas, Mr. Belle has seen fit to show that he’s still crazy after all these years. This past week he was arrested and charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend by — get this — planting a Global Positioning System tracking device on her car. The ex discovered the GPS unit fell off and put two and two together with the fact that Mr. Romance “had been showing up everywhere she went [the store, on dates, the gym, etc.]” according to the article. No, that’s not creepy, threatening, or desperately obvious at all.

Not that Belle had any legitimate shot at the Hall based on his surly reputation and foreshortened playing career, or that I was endorsing him based on his humanitarian credentials. But getting pissed off at sportswriters or fans is one thing, crossing into Kirby Puckett territory by threatening a woman quite another entirely. This is likely the final nail in his Cooperstown coffin, and it’s pretty clear who’s holding the hammer.