It’s a banner day for me at Baseball Prospectus Radio — literally. The new BPR banner which I designed late last year has finally been put in place, and two recent episodes of the show with spots by yours truly are archived for your listening pleasure.

The first episode dates back to December 16, just after the Winter Meetings in Anaheim. I discussed the atmosphere of the meetings, the Dodger moves that took place around that time (such as the signing of Jeff Kent and the rumors about Adrian Beltre and Tim Hudson), and the Yankee moves (such as the Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright signings) as well. My spot starts around 19:50 and runs about 10 minutes; also on the episode are Rich Lederer and Neil DeMause.

The second spot was recorded last Thursday and was focused on the Hall of Fame voting results — the election of Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg, the failures of the writers to recognize the brilliance of Bert Blyleven and Rich Gossage, the guys at the bottom of the ballot, and, off the topic of the Hall, the pending Carlos Beltran and Randy Johnson deals. I’ve got the leadoff spot on this one, 2:45 into the episode, and my conversation with host Will Carroll runs nearly eight minutes, with MLB.com writer Kevin Czerwinski and Football Outsiders‘ Aaron Schatz following me on the air.

Other than a few too many “uhhs” and “you know’s” here and there, I’m pretty happy with both performances. I kept things moving reasonably well and didn’t commit any major gaffes or trip over my words too badly. It’s a lot easier to go one-on-one with Will than occasionally struggling to get a word in edgewise during the roundtables I’ve done. Set your browser and your MP3 player to Baseball Prospectus Radio to check the episodes out.

All right, Yankee fans and readers of quality baseball writing on this here web-o-ma-phone, you’ve got a nice little addition to your reading list to celebrate. Steven Goldman, who writes the essential Pinstriped Bible column for the YES website, has added a new little widget, the Pinstriped Blog.

Goldman is — and I say this with as little hyperbole as I can muster, even with the fact that I count him as a personal friend — quite possibly the best baseball writer in the country, at least among those who have sprung forth in the era of the Internet. No partisan hack or house organist, he’s been able to carve out a niche writing a column that takes an objective eye to the Yanks, and done so on George Steinbrenner’s nickel. As he consistently reminds irate Yankees fans whose butts chafe at his criticisms of sacred Yankee cows such as Derek and Tino and hoary baseball myths like the importance of RBIs and pitcher Wins in player evaluation, the PB is an argument about winning baseball. Those of you who come here to enjoy smart commentary, whatever your rooting interests, have much to gain not only by making the PB a weekly stop, but by getting a daily dose via his blog.

I bring this to light not only to celebrate its presence but also to shed a little light on what’s been going on in my life over the past month. Goldman, who is also an author of Baseball Prospectus, has been tapped by the BP übermenches to head up a new project:

I’ve been editing a new book from the Baseball Prospectus about (forgive me, Yankees fans) how the Boston Red Sox went about breaking their so-called curse and winning the World Series. We talk about where they got smart, where they got lucky, and of course we detail every one of their confrontations with the Yankees in 2004. Among other topics, we explore why the Yankees have been so successful against Pedro Martinez, why the Red Sox seem to have the key to Mariano Rivera, and how the recipe for future confrontations between these two superpowers will require the Red Sox to emulate aspects of Yankees’ methodology, loathe as they might be to admit it. That will be out this spring.

Yes, the bearded YES-man is editing a book on the Red Sox, and if that isn’t enough, I’m part of the project as well. That Pedro Martinez chapter he referenced is mine, and I spent a good part of December working on it, mining data via Retrosheet, going over my own blog entries about his two late-September starts against them, watching parts of those performances via MLB.tv, and bemusedly reviewing his history of outrageous Yankee-themed quotations about drilling the Bambino in the ass and calling the Yankees his daddy.

With much of BP’s core staff tied up with their annual player guide, late in the game I agreed to do another chapter upon returning to NYC following the holidays, this on David Ortiz, whose career I knew much less about than Martinez’s frustrated legacy against the Bronx Bombers. Regarding Cookie Monster (or Papi), Steve brought a quote of his that he referenced today to my attention for inclusion in that chapter:

“Something in my swing was not right in Minnesota,” Ortiz told the Boston Globe. “I could never hit for power. Whenever I took a big swing, they’d say to me, ‘Hey, hey, what are you doing?’ So I said, ‘You want me to hit like a little bitch, then I will.'”

Hehehe… even though the project concerns the championship victory of the team I loathe and the worst collapse in baseball history of the team I spend the most time covering, I’m incredibly grateful and excited to be part of it. It’s a great story, one of the best in baseball history, and as a writer I’d be a damn fool not to put aside my own rooting interests to participate in its telling with a group of writers I admire (and earning a little scratch in the process). Not to worry, Sox fans, among BP’s ranks there are plenty of folks on both sides of the aisle to insure a balanced book, and that includes editor Goldman.

That I drew a chapter in which the Yanks won most of the battles made it a little easier to swallow, as did the breaking news of Martinez’s departure for Flushing Meadows. In that context, I really warmed up to Pedro, viewing the performances and antics of his Sox career in the past tense and reconstructing his season through the point of view of the chapter. Pedro the dominant pitcher of 1999-2000 bored me. Pedro of 2001-2002 just pissed me off. But the fallible Pedro of 2003-2004 is one of the more fascinating baseball characters of our lifetime, and a reminder why there’s little need for fiction in baseball: the real thing provides better drama than we can possibly dream up. Red Smith had a point.

At one point during my stay in Salt Lake City, when the deadline was bearing down on me and the Cabernet from my dad’s wine cellar had been especially good, I drifted off into one of those beautiful half-slumbers that I could recall later. In my dream-state, I was driving a car down a desert highway, and Pedro was riding shotgun, laughing bemusedly through his half-lidded expression as we talked about his battles with the Yankees on the field and in the media. The message, I guess, is that now that he’s no longer a Red Sock, I’m free to appreciate him that much more, and I certainly do. And in a strange way, the dream and the writing brought me a kind of closure with the whole Sox win/Yanks lose angle of the past postseason. I can live with it now; the last tantrum has been thrown, the last hat stomped.

Anyway, I’ve probably spilled more beans about the project (not to mention my own psyche) than I should have, so I’ll cut off the topic and turn my attention to Cookie Monster. Pinstriped Blog: go read now. BP Sox book: buy this spring. You have your homework.

A hail of bullets to give you folks a reading list while I plow ahead with an unexpected deadline (another BP thing) and scarf down some lunch, and then I’m back to work…

• The Hall of Fame voting results were announced on Tuesday, with two men getting enough votes for enshrinement: Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg. Boggs got 91.86 percent, and I swear that it feels like the other 8.14 percent all their ignorance. Hey, when a .415 career OBP, the most times on base for eight consecutive years, and a higher WARP than the AL MVP six years in a row DOESN’T equal some measure of dominance that even a non-stathead could trip over on the way to finding his ass with a map and compass, I’ll eat Tracy Ringolsby’s hat.

Sandberg eked out the election by a mere six votes, but as I’ve argued before, he’s a deserving candidate nonetheless. I had high hopes for Rich Gossage; Baseball Think Factory had a tally of published ballots showing that 43 of the 48 named him, a strong showing in what amounted to an exit poll. Alas, it was not to be, but Gossage did garner 55.2 percent, a 14.5 percent gain from the 2004 ballot, the second-biggest jump of any candidate (Sandberg’s 15.0 percent leap was the biggest). In doing so, the Goose crossed the magic 50 percent rubicon, where every candidate save ol’ Gil Hodges and four guys currently on the ballot — Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice, and Andre Dawson being the other three — has eventually been elected. Sutter polled at 66.7 percent, a significantly higher tally than Gossage, which is just wrong in my opinion.

Even more dismaying were the showings of Bert Blyleven (40.9 percent) and Alan Trammell (16.9 percent), both of whom I’ve argued are worthy. Trammell is a comparable candidate to Sandberg, and frankly, the Hall is a joke without Blyleven, who’s probably one of the top 20 pitchers of all time. Fifth overall in strikeouts, 60 shutouts, and a near-unanimous reputation among players for having the best curveball in the game — there’s your dominance. and if that’ s not enough, he had the two World Series rings as well.

I guess it’s back to the drawing board for guys like Rich Lederer and myself, not to mention all of the other analysts who make intelligent cases for some of these deserving but unrewarded players. Joe Sheehan argues that it’s time to expand the voting pool to “acknowledge the breadth of baseball knowledge in the 21st century,” and I couldn’t agree more.

• I just did a quick spot on the Hall results with Will Carroll for this week’s Baseball Prospectus Radio. With any luck it will find its way online. Meanwhile BP’s Nate Silver offers some amusing criticsm of my Jaffe WARP Score system in his piece today:

Truth be told, as much as I like Jay’s work, I also think there is something to be said for gut-feel. A metric like JAWS tells you a lot about a guy’s value, but it doesn’t tell you quite as much about the shape of his career. JAWS applies what I would call the sausage method for assessing player value: you mush everything together into a nice, cylindrical package, add appropriate seasoning, and come out with what is hoped to be a tasty product. JAWS is, indeed, a very tasty sausage, and it’s a heck of a lot more worthwhile than the spoiled cold cuts that most of the press is munching on. But it’s still a sausage.

Hehhehe, fair ‘nuf. At least it’s not chopped liver…

• The Yanks not in on Carlos Beltran? Hey, I’ve been arguing for months that their payroll isn’t unlimited, a sentiment that met with a fair amount of guffaws at the time, even from other Yankee fans. The heft of the pending Randy Johnson extension (two years, $32 million we’re being told) and the ridiculous shower of coins bestowed on Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano have stretched the team’s budget to the point where the Beltran contract won’t fit.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a look at the Yankees’ financial situation and speculates that they may not be making any money. I know most Yankee haters will weep at that notion.

I see the Yanks’ lack of action in the Beltran sweepstakes as a sign that they’re pretty sure they won’t be able to get any relief on the Jason Giambi contract (which still has over $80 million to go) and that they expect to eat just about all of Kevin Brown’s $15 million as well. The recent report (damned if I can find that link) that Brown took the ball in Game Seven of the ALCS despite Joe Torre’s admonishments not to do so if he wasn’t physically up to it are likely the last nail in his coffin as far as any future in the Bronx is concerned.

• The new Dodger beat reporter, Steve Henson — whom I met in Anaheim — has an interesting piece on GM Paul DePodesta, who’s been savaged endlessly by some of the dodger faithful ever since his controversial trade of Paul Lo Duca this summer. But DePodesta takes it all in stride, according to Henson:

Oftentimes the easy decision and comfortable decision is not the right one,” DePodesta said. “You can come under an awful lot of criticism, especially in such a public role as this one. You have to stick to what you truly believe is right and at the end of the day hopefully you will be rewarded by the team’s performance.”

Sending off a good many architects of last season’s National League West title team — Adrian Beltre, Shawn Green, Steve Finley, Jose Lima and Alex Cora — was part of the plan.

Thanks to Dodger Thinker Jon Weisman for bringing this article to my attention.

• Speaking of the Dodgers and thanks, a relatively new blog called The Fourth Outfielder has come to my attention recently, and it’s said some nice things about me, so I’ll tip my cap and return the favor. Tom Meagher has had some excellent analyses of the team lately, takes of the kind that are far off the beaten path. Here he checks in on the team’s 40-man roster situation with an eye towards next year’s Rule 5 Draft (that’s thinking ahead). And his latest article questions some thoughts I put forth the other day on the team’s preference towards ground-ball pitchers. Tom’s got a load of data that it’ll take me some time to digest, but it’s definitely worth a look.

• Thanks to my new Prospectus Triple Play beat, I’ve spent a lot of time following the San Francisco Giants this offseason, and I’ve been corresponding frequently with Fogball blogger Tom Gorman, who’s been an invaluable resource in the process. Tom took an excellent swing at analyzing the Giants’ madness this offseason as they’ve stocked up on players well past their sell dates such as 34-year-old catcher Mike Matheny, soon-to-be 38-year-old shortstop Omar Vizquel, and 38-year old outfielder Moises Alou. As Tom notes, the Giants outfield’s combined age — with Marquis Grisson in center and Mr. Bigstuff in left — is a creaky 116 years old. I suggested to Tom that the trainers put bedpans in the outfield gaps just in case, a joke that found its way into the article. (Yeah, I’ll be here all week, two shows a night. Try the veal…)

First off, a belated but nonetheless heartfelt Happy New Year to all of my readers. I returned from Milwaukee last night after being more or less at the center of attention for the past few days, with a birthday dinner, a bachelor party, and an engagement party broken up only by New Years’ Eve and lots of wedding-related projects, none of which left me much time to think about baseball, let alone write.

Not that I had any idea what the hell was going on anyway. As wonderful and attentive as my future in-laws may be, they’re practically off the grid as far as what I do is concerned — no home computer, no cable TV, not even home delivery of a newspaper; do people still live like this? So I was about a day late in finding out that the Yankees and Diamondbacks had sifted through the ashes of the 10-player blockbuster which collapsed upon the Dodgers’ withdrawal to reach an agreement on a deal that will put Randy Johnson in the tallest set of pinstripes ever. The Yanks will give up pitchers Javier Vazquez and Brad Halsey, as well as catching prospect Dioner Navarro, and about $9 million in exchange for Johnson. The Dodgers have similarly salvaged their own corner of the deal, agreeing to send outfielder Shawn Green and $8 million (half of Green’s 2004 salary) to Arizona in exchange for Navarro and a pitching prospect (perhaps Halsey), assuming the previous deal goes through. If the Johnson deal should fall through (and with physicals and the negotiation of an extension for the Unit, who knows), the Dodgers would receive either another catching prospect, either Koyie Hill (sent to the desert in the Steve Finley deal) or Chris Snyder.

Where to begin with all of this? My circuits tend to overload anytime the Yankees and the Dodgers are involved in the same deal. I touched base on this one a couple of weeks back, spent a fair bit of time outlining the Dodger angle in my recent Prospectus Triple Play, and already had to scrap one lengthy post that expired like a carton of unsold milk. So I’ll keep this brief, fast-forwarding through the drama that had Yankee Hatchet Man/President Randy Levine (I swear that’s his true job title) and an unnamed Arizona executive (likely GM Joe Garagiola Jr.) ripping Dodger GM Paul DePodesta for “reneging” on their previous agreement, and then resident ESPN yenta Peter Gammons spinning the story back in the Dodgers’ direction, pulling out because of their “respect” for Javy Vazquez’s family values. Whatever.

In the initial ménàge à trois, the Yanks would have given up third base prospect Eric Duncan instead of Halsey, and received Dodger pitcher Kaz Ishii and $3 million. So for a net of $12 million cash flowing westward and the loss of a marginally promising lefty, they get to keep Duncan, the team’s top prospect according to Baseball America, and they don’t have to figure out what to do with Ishii, whom they would have either made $2 million for his enigmatic and erratic contributions (perhaps at the expense of, say, Tanyon Sturtze) or been traded elsewhere. Duncan’s 20 years old and might see Double-A this year; his weighted mean PECOTA projection (via Baseball Prospectus) is at .241/.311/.410, so he’s still a ways away from being a productive major-leaguer. While it’s great that the Yanks get Johnson to capstone their remade rotation, the cost of keeping Duncan — who now becomes their primary midsummer bargaining chip if they need one — is a steep one.

In the supermegablockbuster, the Dodgers would have given up starters Ishii and Brad Penny and reliever Yhency Brazoban as well as Green, while they would have received Duncan, Navarro, Vazquez, and Arizona reliever Mike Koplove. Vazquez would have been a pricey upgrade on Penny, had the Dodgers actually kept him, something not at all clear given the flurry of rumors regarding a subsequent deal to the White Sox. Javy’s got a higher upside and he’s likely healthier than Penny, who was limited to 11.2 innings by a nerve injury after being acquired in the Paul Lo Duca trade. But as a flyball pitcher (0.85 g/f ratio last year), he likely wouldn’t have benefitted much from Dodger Stadium, especially in its radically reconfigured state. The rumblings that he could have been unhappy enough to demand a trade next year (as is his right as a player traded in the middle of a multiyear deal) and perhaps opt out of the final two years and $25 million of his contract (his right if the demand was not fulfilled) were enough to make him too hot for the Dodgers to handle.

Meanwhile, keeping Brazoban is a nice little victory, though the sidearming, groundball-inducing Koplove would have had his uses for L.A. Navarro is clearly the lesser of the two prospects from the Yanks’ chain. He’s closer to major-league ready than Duncan, and the Dodgers do have a hole at catcher that you could drive a truck through if you don’t mind running over a pair of guys who couldn’t even make it across the Mendoza Line last year (and you shouldn’t). But I see a lot more Einar Diaz (who’s about his size) than Victor Martinez (one of his 2005 PECOTA comparables, I’m told, on a .249/.307/.371 projection) in Navarro, and that’s not a compliment. But he’s got youth in his favor, and he’s still a significantly better prospect than either of the other two catchers the Snakes might substitute in the deal.

In the rotation, keeping Ishii is a necessary step when your five-man rotation is otherwise Penny, Jeff Weaver, prospect Edwin Jackson, and swingmen Wilson Alvarez (fragile lefty) and Elmer Dessens (nondescript righty named Elmer, for crying out loud). Shedding Green’s salary is a plus for the Dodgers if they spend the money on pitching (Derek Lowe, a groundballer with a strong postseason resume but a whopping 5.42 ERA last regular season, is their reputed target) and can put some faith in the relatively economical and still-promising Hee Seop Choi at first base. Otherwise, they’re just jettisoning one of their more productive (if expensive) hitters and another significant chunk of change in favor of a couple of prospects whose value has been significantly inflated by a grand tradition of pinstriped puffery.

So it’s not at all clear that either the Dodgers or the Yankees have improved their lot over the deal which fell through nearly two weeks ago. The Yanks get a difference-maker in Johnson, but they’ve yet again put their eggs in the basket of a very old hen (Roger Clemens, David Wells, Kevin Brown…). They get to keep their prize in Duncan, but at the cost of eating a lot more of Vazquez’s contract. The Dodgers eliminate some risk in their rotation, but still leave it looking nothing like that of a playoff contender, and the Navarro/Green angle is a salary dump that makes it look as though they, not the Diamondbacks, are the ones already playing for 2006.

But just as the three-team deal required a mountain of paperwork before it could be officially consummated, so do these two deals promise to keep the fax machines busy in New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and wherever Bud’s toupée currently rests. In this never-ending epic saga of perpetual infinity (like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim), it’s likely we haven’t seen the last twist or turn, nor have we read about the last hand being wrung. Stay tuned.

• • •

Meanwhile in Yankeeville, the Bronx Bombers have lived up to their recidivist ways by re-signing Tino Martinez to a one-year, $3 million deal. The 37-year-old first baseman, who played for five pennant-winning Yankees teams from 1996-2001, always left me considerably more lukewarm than the dyed-in-the-wool Yankees fans thanks to his incredible shrinking OPS. But he enjoyed a reasonably productive season in Tropicana oblivion (.262/.362/.461, good for a .280 EQA, his highest since 1998), he’s still good with the leather (six runs above average per 100 games, according to BP), and he gets the decaying corpses of Tony Clark and John Olerud off of the Bronx doorstep, so things could be worse, unless Jason Giambi replicates his 2004 form. In which case it will be one uncomfy and expensive summer in Yankee Stadium, and all the veteran herbs and spices which Tino brings to the Yankee clubhouse will be a poor substitute for his limitations.

• • •

On a more positive and personal note, I’d like to thank everyone who made 2004 such a great year for me, both at this venue and at Baseball Prospectus, where every passing month finds another couple of my toes wedged in the door (“You want a toe? I can get you a toe…”). I’m not going to do the roll-call like I’ve done in prior years, but suffice it to say that I know who you are even if you don’t, and I won’t forget that as we continue on this journey.

As I round the corner and head towards the fourth anniversary of my starting this site, it’s been a great ride, one that’s taken me to some wonderfully unexpected places, and the new year promises to be every bit as rewarding and exciting. Much of that excitement — opportunities to write in other venues, not to mention my impending nuptials (not until May) and travels — may keep me from writing here as much as I’d like to, but one way or another, I’ll be around, and I hope you’ll stick around as well. Best wishes to all for a happy and healthy 2005.

The following is a belated and revised version of my annual December 25 piece.

December 25 marks a holiday for most of this country and probably, for most of my readership — if so, my sincere wishes for a happy holiday to you. For me the day is somewhat more paradoxical: I’m Jewish and thus don’t celebrate Christmas, which is fine by me because I’m none too fond of that red and green color scheme. It also happens to be my birthday, number 35 to be exact.

I’ll spare you the tales about how this combination of circumstances influenced my psyche while growing up (long story short: people forgetting birthday bad, never having to work or go to school on birthday good) and, as usual, move onto the baseball angle in all of this. Baseball-Reference lists 67 players as being born on December 25, including Hall-of-Famers Pud Galvin and Nellie Fox, and future Hall-of-Famer Rickey Henderson, and two Xmas babes who made their major-league debuts in 2004, Ruben Gotay and Willy Taveras.

Henderson is undoubtedly the best major-leaguer born on this day, but then again, he’d be the best major-leaguer born on any one of over three hundred other days, too. To quote the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, “If you could split [Rickey] in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.” Given that there are 258 members of the Hall of Fame (including executives), having two or three HOFers born on any single date is an above-average representation. Still, having spent some time looking over the resumes of the 67 ballplayers with December 25 birthdays, I can’t make any claims for the All Xmas Team I’ve assembled. They’re exceedingly long on futility infielders and backup catchers, short on outfielders, first basemen, and power hitters in general. Their pitching is pretty solid — a front three of Pud, Ned, and Ted — though they don’t really have a closer.

Pos  Name (Years)                 AVG   OBP   SLG   HR

C    Quincy Trouppe (1952)       .100  .182  .100    0   

1B   Walter Holke (1914-1925)    .287  .318  .363   24

2B   Nellie Fox (1947-1965)      .288  .348  .363   35

3B   Gene Robertson (1919-1930)  .280  .344  .373   20

SS   Manny Trillo (1973-1989)    .263  .316  .345   61

LF   Jo-Jo Moore (1930-1941)     .298  .344  .408   79

CF   Rickey Henderson (1979-)    .279  .401  .419  297

RF   Ben Chapman (1930-1946)     .302  .383  .440   90



C    Gene Lamont (1970-1975)     .233  .278  .371    4

IF   Tom O'Malley (1982-1990)    .256  .329  .340   13

IF   Joe Quinn (1884-1901)       .261  .302  .327   29

IF   Bill Akers (1929-1932)      .261  .349  .404   11

OF   Red Barnes (1927-1930)      .269  .347  .404    8

OF   Gerry Davis (1983-1985)     .301  .370  .397    0

PH   Wallace Johnson (1981-1990) .255  .316  .332    5



Pos  Name (Years)                 W    L    S   ERA

SP   Pud Galvin (1875-1892)      364  310   2  2.86   

SP   Ned Garver (1948-1961)      129  157  12  3.73

SP   Ted Lewis (1896-1901)        94   64   4  3.53

SP   Charlie Lea (1980-1988)      62   48   0  3.54

SP   George Haddock (1888-1894)   95   87   2  4.07

RP   Al Jackson (1959-1969)       67   99  10  3.98

RP   Lloyd Brown (1928-1940)      91  105  21  4.20

RP   Eric Hiljus (1999-2002)       8    3   0  4.72

RP   Charlie Beamon (1956-1958)    3    3   0  3.91

CL   Jack Hamilton (1962-1969)    32   40  20  4.53

Not too terribly impressive, is it? This year, I decided to take a slightly different look at this motley crew using the Wins Above Replacement Player totals and JAWS (Jaffe WARP Score) system that I used on my recent Hall of Fame pieces for Baseball Prospectus.

Thanks to Henderson and the Hall of Famers, the average for all players is 11.5 WARP, a career of roughly the same significance as — to use a pair of recent, non-Xmas-related examples with that total, Wayne Gomes and Turner Ward — players that may have had a few useful years as spare parts, but little more.

The numbers show that 51 of the 67 accumulated less than 10.0 WARP over the course of their careers, just over half (34) of them racking up less than 1.0 WARP for their careers, and 18 of them actually below replacement level, with one Jim Jones (-1.3) winning the Least Valuable Player award. Jones accumulated a 15.43 ERA in two short stints totaling 11.2 innings around the turn of the 20th century. At least he can’t lay claim to being the most destructive Jim Jones in history, that honor belonging to the guy with the bad Kool-Aid.

The ten most valuable Xmas-born players, based on career WARP, peak WARP, and JAWS, which is an average of the two, used to measure Hall of Fame-worthiness as described in my BP articles:

Last      WARP3   Last       PEAK   Last        JAWS

Henderson 169.4   Henderson  49.1   Henderson  109.3

Fox        86.2   Galvin     45.4   Fox         62.5

Garver     76.1   Garver     44.3   Garver      60.2

Chapman    68.9   Fox        38.7   Galvin      56.2

Galvin     67.1   Moore      32.5   Chapman     50.4

Moore      47.9   Chapman    31.9   Moore       40.2

Trillo     42.8   Jackson    22.9   Trillo      32.5

Brown      31.0   Trillo     22.2   Brown       24.4

Jackson    25.0   Brown      17.8   Jackson     24.0

Rath       20.0   Lea        16.4   Lea         17.0

Quinn      17.8   Lewis      14.6   Rath        15.5

Lea        17.6   Holke      12.9   Lewis       14.5

Holke      15.9   Haddock    12.3   Quinn       14.5

Lewis      14.4   Quinn      11.2   Holke       14.4

McCormick  13.7   Rath       10.9   McCormick   11.5

A few words about the All-Xmas Team, the men on the leaderboards, and the new kids on the block:

• Quincy Trouppe spent twenty-two years in the Negro Leagues before receiving a 10-at-bat cup of coffee with the Cleveland Indians in 1952, at age 39. He was a fine player in his day, making All-Star teams everywhere he went and accumulating a lifetime Negro League Average of .311. He also won a Negro League championship as player-manager of the Cleveland Buckeyes. Bill James rates him the #7 catcher of the Negro Leagues in the New Historical Baseball Abstract. One more interesting note about him: during the height of World War II, he had trouble securing a passport to play in the Mexican League. The league’s president intervened, and made arrangements for Trouppe’s services in exchange for those of 80,000 Mexican workers. You could look it up.

• Manny Trillo played most of his career as a second baseman, and a slick-fielding (if overratedly so) one at that, winning three Gold Gloves and setting a record for consecutive errorless games. But Nellie Fox also won three Gold Gloves at 2B, so I took the liberty of moving Trillo to SS (where he had limited experience). I’m sure he and Nellie would have made a fine double-play combo. Trillo is the only Christmas-born ballplayer whose real name is Jesus.

• Jo-Jo Moore and Ben Chapman both crack Bill James’ Top 100 lists by postion. Moore ranks 77th among LFs, Chapman 55th among CFs (I put him in right because he played a good portion of his career there). Chapman was, by all accounts, an aggressive ballplayer who fought a lot. He stole as many as 61 bases, and had some power as well. He later managed the Philadelphia Phillies for parts of four seasons and is most noted for baiting the rookie Jackie Robinson with racial epithets. Schmuck. We’ll let Trouppe manage this squad, just to rub it in Chapman’s face.

• Red Barnes — don’t you love that name? Gerry Davis did pretty well in 73 ABs for the Padres, but missed out on their glory year of 1984. Not to be confused with the MLB umpire of the same name.

• Wallace Johnson was a pretty good pinch-hitter whose claim to fame was the hit that put the Montreal Expos in their only postseason in 1981. He spent five years as the third-base coach with the Chicago White Sox but was fired after the 2002 season. At last notice, he had plans to run for a city council position in Gary, Indiana, the murder capital of the U.S. Fun. Given the paucity of updated news I could find, I don’t think he succeeded.

• Three of the pitchers on this team made their names in the 19th century, when pitching and pitching stats were much different. Galvin had back-to-back 46-win seasons in 1883 and 1884, making over 70 starts each year. He won 20 games or more ten times, and lost 20 games or more 10 times as well. George Haddock went from 9-26 in 1890 for Buffalo of the Players League to 34-11 with Boston of the American Association the following year. Ted Lewis won 47 games over two seasons for the Boston Beaneaters in 1896-1897.

• Ned Garver was a hard-luck pitcher who managed to go 20-12 for a St. Louis Browns team that went 52-102 in 1951. This performance so impressed MVP voters in the AL that he finished second to Yogi Berra.

• Speaking of pitching for lousy teams… at 8-20 with a 4.40 ERA, Al Jackson could have easily been mistaken for the ace of the 1962 Mets (though Roger Craig had an equal claim). Jackson managed to lose 88 games in a 5-year span, four of those with the Mets. He had a long career as a pitching coach (Red Sox, Orioles, Mets), last serving as an interim one for the Mets in 2001 following Steve Phillips’ purging of Bobby Valentine’s staff.

• A couple of others have claims of infamy. Pitcher Jack Hamilton is best known for hitting Tony Conigliaro in the face with a pitch in 1967, one of the most severe beanings in the annals of baseball. Hamilton’s only major league homer was a grand slam off of the aforementioned Al Jackson. Morrie Rath (who didn’t make the cut here), a second baseman with a career .254/.342/.285 line, was hit by a pitch from Chicago Black Sox hurler Ed Cicotte to open the 1919 World Series. The message of this purpose pitch: the fix was in.

• So far as I can tell, there’s at least one Jewish ballplayer with a December 25 birthday. Alta Cohen played in 29 games from 1931-1933 for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. In his first game he got two hits in a single inning when the Boston Braves failed to notice that he batted out of turn. He spent the rest of his career paying for his sins: .194/.289/.224.

• The first Christmas-born ballplayer, Nat Jewett (who I’m guessing didn’t celebrate either), was a member of the 1872 Brooklyn Eckfords of the National Association, who went 3-26 for the season. Sweeeet.

• Rickey Henderson spent the entire year at Newark of the independent Atlantic League (where he hit .281/.462/.436 in 91 games), waiting for a call from a big league club that never came. He last played in the majors with the Dodgers in 2003, hitting a meager .208/.321/.306. The JAWS system places him as the fourth-best leftfielder of all time behind the guy with the “flaxseed oil” (140.6) and a couple of more upstanding citizens, Stan Musial (123.4) and Ted Williams (119.8).

• Ruben Gotay is the the son of a former minor-league infielder (also named Ruben) and the nephew of former big-league infielder Julio Gotay. As a 21-year-old, he hit .270/.315/.375 in 44 games for the Kansas City Royals and .290/.373/.441 at Double-A Wichita. He’s a switch-hitting second-baseman who ought to have a regular job with the big club soon. Fellow Texas Leaguer Willy Taveras, 23, is a speedy centerfielder who spent most of the season at the Astros’ Round Rock Express club (Nolan Ryan’s outfit), hitting .335/.402/.386 with 55 steals in 66 attempts. In his September cup o’ coffee, he got all of two plate appearances in ten big-league games, seeing time mostly as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement.

Rickey, Nellie, Manny, Quincy, Ruben, Willy, and all of my fellow December 25-born mates — happy birthday, guys!

Blogging’s been light here lately because I’ve been hard at work on various projects for Baseball Prospectus. The second half of my Hall of Fame JAWS piece, covering the pitchers, went up on Monday; I found three pitchers worthy of a spot on the 2005 ballot. Also, my second Prospectus Triple Play, covering the Dodgers, Giants, and Twins (oh my!), is up today, chockful of Hot Stove goodness.

The Hall piece is a premium, but the the PTP, as always, is free. I stayed up late last night to squeeze in a few details about contract nontenders, so the stuff is an up-to-date reflection of where the three teams are this winter.

I’m off to Salt Lake City and then Milwaukee for the holidays. Given my usual patience with 56K connection speeds and one more BP deadline to meet, blogging will be light.

In a seething-rage-driven and impulsive move whose repercussions were felt far earlier than I had expected, I switched webhosts for The Futility Infielder last night with all the grace and foresight of a man jamming a knife into an electrical socket.

I had long been threatening to switch, and one last “not found” message for this site sent me over the edge; however, I did a lousy job of anticipating how quickly everything would take effect — email, FTP access, nameserver switch, etc.

As such, any email sent to me between 6 PM EST Friday and 1 AM EST Saturday through jay@futilityinfielder.com is gone like a Sheffield homer. If you tried to contact me, please resend. And apologies if you were unable to access this site for any length of time, either before or during the move.

Like my Remaking the Yankees series, the Hall of Fame ballot has become an annual staple of my winter diet. For the second time this calendar year, I’ve tackled the most recent slate of candidates for Baseball Prospectus. The hitters’ segment, an epic unto itself, went up on Thursday and is free to all readers. The pitchers’ piece should follow shortly, and if history is any guide, it will be a premium piece.

Since the last time I vetted the ballot, I have very self-consciously re-christened my system JAWS (JAffe WARP Score) after dusting it off for a look at Barry Bonds’ teammates a couple of months ago. JAWS is based on Clay Davenport’s Wins Above Replacement Player metrics found on the Davenport Translated Player Cards. Just as before, the idea was to identify the players on the ballot who meet or exceed the standards of the Hall of Fame, with those standards being defined as better than the average Hall of Famer at his position in light of those Davenport metrics. A player’s career WARP and his best five-season peak WARP are averaged to produce the JAWS score, which is compared to the JAWS scores of all the enshrinees at his position. As a secondary measure, players’ batting, fielding and pitching runs above average and above replacement are also compared accordingly.

The numbers have shifted slightly since the last go-round as Clay Davenport continues to refine his system, mainly to reflect the way defensive responsibilities have changed over the game’s 135-year major-league history. While I still put in waaaay too many hours looking at spreadsheets and player cards to do this (including the entire battery life of my iBook on both coast-to-coast flights for my winter meetings trip), my task is much easier now that I’ve been able to work more directly with Clay. I thank him for his cooperation and wish that I’d figured out a year ago that all I had to do was ask. Oh well, file under “things to do while your shoulder mends and your dad and brother are skiing in knee-deep fresh powder while you sit here healing.”

Back to the ballot, I found three hitters and three pitchers worthy of election to the Hall. Wade Boggs, with over 3,000 hits, is the easy choice. The rest are facing uphill battles and it wouldn’t surprise me if none of them were elected this year. Two of them are pitchers I feel like slapping the heads of writers to get to notice (I’ve got some allies in that department), which is why I wanted to see this published before the holidays. With the breadth of BP’s reach, I hope that I might actually play a part in swaying somebody. We’ll see if there are any surprises in the first week of January.

Oh, and one more thing concening BP: I’ve never been more proud to acquire a new email address.

• • •

My head is spinning over the rumors about the three-way supermegablockbuster which might bring Randy Johnson to the Yankees and send Javy Vazquez to the Dodgers. Anytime my two teams are involved in a trade it sets off a sway of emotions that’s hard to sort out. That this one is still hanging in the balance only prolongs the dizziness. Some very quick thoughts:

• The Yankee fan in me would be elated to get Randy Johnson. He’s a true difference-maker, one of the top pitchers in the game and of all time. Having him at the top of the rotation would make the Yanks’ spending spree on Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright look a bit less risky, though still expensive. Acquiring Johnson while avoiding the dreaded Eric Milton signing would be gravy.

On the other hand, with the departure of prospects Dioner Navarro (catcher) and Eric Duncan (third base), I would be somewhat disgusted by the fact that even as a 35-year-old with a bum shoulder, I am now one of the Yankees’ top ten prospects, somewhere between Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano.

• The Dodger fan in me would be relieved to be rid of Brad Penny and Shawn Green. Both are pricey (Penny is arbitration-eligible after making $3.725 mil, Green will make a whopping $16 mil) and questionable from an injury standpoint. The former is coming off of a nerve injury in his pitching arm which limited him to 11.2 innings after being acquired at the trading deadline. The latter had surgery to repair a torn labrum last winter; his power numbers have fallen considerably since he hit 91 homers in 2001-2002. Green has been rumored to be on the market all winter.

I would be bummed to see reliever Yhency Brazoban go. It’s no secret I have a Yhency fancy; as a throw-in in the Weaver-Brown deal who wound up the setup man on a playoff team, he made an interesting case study to examine the strengths and weaknesses of my two favorite teams when it comes to developing talent. I last wrote about him in my first BP Triple Play.

With the transition to a new pitching coach and a return to the National League,

Javy Vazquez would give the Dodgers the potential ace they desperately need. That Vazquez had a disappointing second half in New York is well established; if he’s healthy — and he passed an MRI just after the season — I’m going to guess he has better luck at his next stop.

While both of the Yankee prospects, Duncan and Navarro, have potential, neither is ready for prime time. Navarro likely needs at least another half-season in AAA if not a whole one. Duncan is probably two years away from anything meaningful, so the Dodgers will have to find a stopgap third baseman now that they’ve lost Adrian Beltre to the Mariners (about which I’m bummed, but not surprised).

The Beltre signing is rumored to be the reason this deal is on hold; the Dodgers have already shed 74 homers with the departures of Beltre, Steve Finley and Jose Hernandez in the past week. While shedding Green might meen a run at Carlos Beltran, their limited offense would still have some sizable some holes to fill.

• The Diamondbacks hater in me would be overjoyed to see the team get overpriced and somewhat damaged goods, and wish that Joe Garagiola Jr. was around when I was trying to shed an 1986 Camry so that I could move to New York City. On top of the insanity of the Russ Ortiz and Troy Glaus deals, this gives further opportunity for the rest of baseball to watch the Diamondbacks get kicked in the groin repeatedly, something they richly deserve.

I’ll have more on this deal if and when it actually happens. I’m not banking on it actually going down, but it’s sure to feed the Hot Stove flames for awhile.

• • •

Back to the Yankees, the details of Jaret Wright’s contract, which will be offically announced next week, are reportedly as follows:

Wright’s two-year, $14 million contract will include a player option for the third year. The deal could still be for three years and $21 million, as it was initially, but Wright could opt out of the third year if he stays healthy in the first two.

If Wright misses 60 to 90 days with a major shoulder injury over the first two years of the deal, the Yankees could reduce the value of the third year to $3 million to $4 million.

If Wright is healthy and chooses to accept the third-year option, the value of the deal will be the original proposal: three years and $21 million.

This is surprising, as the Yanks don’t usually do player options. Their contracts tend to come with club options and buyouts, most of which are usually invoked to stop the payroll insanity. But in light of the fact that Wright failed his first physical upon agreeing to a contract, this gives the Yanks a chance at a savings if he doesn’t remain healthy, and gives Wright the chance to cash in if he does especially well.

Meanwhile, the team’s deal with Carl Pavano is complete. It’s four years, $40 million, with a team option for a fifth year at $15 million or a $2 million buyout (that’s more like it). Pavano could become a free agent after four years if he reaches 200 innings in years three and four. Tall dollars for pitching.

• • •

Finally, if you want to share in a good inside laugh at the Winter Meetings, check out this Flash animation by Ken Arneson, who begged to differ about the excitement level. Starring Burl Ives as Will Carroll, Elvis Costello as myself, Lou Ferrigno as Rich Lederer, and much more, with special appearances by Giants trainer Stan Conte, and the floating head of Bruce Bochy. I don’t share Ken’s view of the proceedings, but I can’t stop laughing at his little piece of work.

The following post was written Monday morning but could not be published until my return to New York City.

As I sit here at LAX, mooching wireless and recharging my gadget batteries even while my own are considerably run down, there isn’t a hell of a lot to add to the coda of my last report. Sunday night at the Winter Meetings was especially slow as news goes, that Kevin Cash blockbuster generating even more of a ripple than a deal for a catcher with a .180 EQA deserves. Perhaps its amplification was to distract Blue Jay followers away from the overly generous deal J. P. Ricciardi bestowed on Corey Koskie earlier in the day.

But the day was not without its highlights, at least for me. The dearth of news cued an early dinner at the hotel’s steakhouse, where I dined in a private room with Joe Sheehan, Will Carroll, Tom Gorman, Chaim Bloom, and Rob Assalino (Tom’s partner in blogging crime at Fogball as well as an assistant to an agency working on some interesting arbitration cases). The stark contrast to the rest of the weekend’s less than stellar fare had us slapping our foreheads that such good cuisine had been underfoot while we scrambled for worse. Kind of like settling for Cristian Guzman when we could have had Nomar Garciaparra — pricey, yes, but infinitely better.

After dinner I got something I’d sought all weekend, an introduction to writer Alan Schwarz, whose book, The Numbers Game, I reviewed favorably this past summer. To my surprise, Schwarz had seen the review, and we talked fondly of its unique characters such as F. C. Lane, Earnshaw Cook, the Mills Brothers, and the team that assembled the first MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia. Our conversation turned to Schwarz’s recent work at the New York Times, column called “Keeping Score” in which he checks in on more modern metrics, often with the Baseball Prospectus cast making appearances.

As Schwarz left to buttonhole Atlanta GM John Schuerholz, I gained an introduction to a pair of Mets statistical analysts including Ben Baumer. Baumer’s job opening was one of the prizes sought at last winter’s gathering. I was pleasantly surprised to find him, if not overly candid, than at least willing to talk about his work with the team. Like Voros McCracken with the Red Sox, Baumer was quick to concede that he had no real idea how much impact his work had on the upper reaches of the front office, nor did he know exactly what GM Omar Minaya had up his sleeve [including, as it turns out, the eventual dalliances with Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez, with the latter looking as though he’s all but signed to play in Shea].

With little news to go on and few big writers to chase, the night devolved into our little clique milling around the lobby (biiiiig surprise) sizing up immense Padres scout Charlie Kerfeld and taking turns complaining about the lobby’s acoustic guitar player running through the same set as the previous two nights. Padres manager Bruce Bochy, kicking back to enjoy a cold one or two, only encouraged the likes of “Sundown” and the worst Stevie Ray Vaughan imitation you’ve ever heard by rocking out from his chair, drumming his fingers and nodding his head to the tunes. Tom Gorman’s facetious request for John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” was rebuffed, leading us to conclude that the “entertainment” hadn’t been procured especially for the occasion. As the evening wound down, Baseball America’s Kevin Goldstein and BP’s Will Carroll had us in stitches as they took turns imitating the Cubs’ broadcasters, with Goldstein lampooning the homoeroticism of Pat Hughes’ descriptions of bulging calves and pectorals and Carroll shrieking, “Oh, NOOOO!” Ron Santo-style. Carroll also told us about some of the more angry phone messages left on his machine, including one which had Dusty Baker using twelve-letter curses by the second word. My ribs were hurting by the time we went back to the hotel.

By the time we packed it in, there still no Tim Hudson trade, no Big Unit trade, no deals for Adrian Beltre, Edgar Renteria, Carlos Beltran, or any of the winter’s other prizes. Murmurs of Richie Sexson to Seattle (for five years?) and of the Giants locking up Mike Matheny began to percolate after the bar closed, but that was about it. Monday morning would bring the Rule V draft — teams vulturing in on each other’s unprotected minor-leaguers — but for this reporter, the winter journey had reached its end, and so I said my goodbyes.

All in all, it was a hell of a weekend, and I thank the cast of characters who populated these reports over the last few days, particularly my peers at Prospectus and All-Baseball. There’s something extremely comforting about walking up to the same circle of people for the dozenth time in one evening, knowing you can join the chatter seamlessly and without apologizing for any social awkwardness. We’re bound together by our love of the game, one that portends a happy return to next December’s meetings in Dallas. See ya then, pals, if not sooner.

It would be inaccurate to say that I spent 14 hours in the lobby of the Anaheim Marriott on Saturday. After all, I hit for the cycle at the hotel’s Starbucks (coffee, soda, juice and water) and spent a good deal of time in the 100-yard-long hallway connecting the two rooms. Plus the walk from the hotel to our dinner in Downtown Disneyland (a po’ boy at a “Cajun” takeout joint, as if I needed yet another reminder that this is not New Orleans) was epic in length. Nonetheless, I got to be on friendly terms with nearly every siteline in the hotel’s reception area.

I’d gotten to bed at a reasonable hour on Friday night, only to kick myself when Will Carroll filled me on on the big fish he, Joe Sheehan and Jonah Keri had netted in the hotel bar after I departed (Cashman, Hendry…). With Will rising at o’dark-thirty to do his radio show and Ken Arneson departing the hide-a-bed soon afterwards, the commotion in our suite was enough to roust me out of bed to bang out yesterday’s entry before heading back over.

I arrived to find Dodger Thoughts blogger Jon Weisman waiting for me with Alex Ciepley. The chance to meet Jon, one of my favorite correspondants, in person had been one of my excuses to embark for Anaheim in the first place. We spent a good deal of time catching up on the Dodger rumors centering around Tim Hudson (with pitcher Edwin Jackson and infielder Antonio Perez headed to the A’s) and Adrian Beltre (heavily courted by the Mariners via a six-year deal), the Jeff Kent signing, and the Steve Finley departure before Jon introduced me to Steve Henson of the L.A. Times. A former colleague of Jon’s, Henson is assuming the Dodger beat, so in my role as Baseball Prospects’ Triple Play beatman, the opportunity to connect was worthwhile. Like his colleague Bill Shaikin (who didn’t make an appearance, at least that we saw), Henson apparently reads Dodger Thoughts regularly and is receptive to the ways that bloggers’ coverage complements that of the traditional media. It’s always nice to find allies.

We circulated through the room to find Rich Lederer bending Tom Verducci’s ear about Bert Blyleven’s Hall of Fame candidacy. Verducci, who has a vote, listened politely but did not seem especially receptive to the cause of the man fifth all-time on the major league’s strikeout list (and eminently overqualified according to my JAWS system). Ciepley pressed Ryne Sandberg’s case and himself was met with a polite but surprising frostiness even as he pointed out the unfairness of comparing the Ryno’s power stats to those of Jeff Kent in this inflated era. As the theme song to Gilligan’s Island reminds us, “It’s an uphill climb.”

Lederer was fearless. After making his case to Verducci, he went up and introduced himself to Tommy Lasorda (recall that his dad was a Dodger beat reporter). He came away with Tommy’s cellphone number, or at least something purporting to be those digits. Again, more chutzpah than I could muster when mere paces away from the former Dodger skipper. [Late note: Sunday morning Rich did a two-hour interview with Bill James which will make a fine capstone to his “Abstracts from the Abstracts series.]

Speaking of Dodger brass, former GM Fred Claire made an appearance later in the afternoon. Will and Jon huddled around him along with a couple of other folks, and just as I emerged into the circle, Jon’s assessment of the Finley situation seemed to drive Claire away – almost as if he’d brought up the Jody Reed debacle which led Claire to trade away Pedro Martinez. Sigh.

The hottest rumors to sweep the room centered around the Yankees. In midafteroon, Will stormed by me and without breaking stride muttered to us that Jaret Wright had failed his physical, calling his three-year, $21 million deal into question. I immediately whipped out my phone to call my pal Nick back in NYC, while Rich rang up Alex Belth. I later asked Baseball Prospectus’ Joe Sheehan how many cartwheels he’d turned upon hearing the news, and he replied that he’d broken into the Ickey Shuffle, though he didn’t get too far in demonstrating the dance.

It would have been for naught, alas, as later in the day Wright passed a second physical done by Dr. Jim Andrews. But the uncertainty surrounding Wright created an opening for the Yanks to close in on a four-year, $39 million deal with Carl Pavano. In the hallway I passed a front-office type consoling Jack McKeon as he chewed at an unlit cigar. “I hear your boy is headed for the Big Apple,” he said as I whisked by in the neverending quest to balance my fluids.

One of the more unlikely surprises came later in the afternoon. As I nearly tripped over a large, bespectacled redhead gentleman profusely thanking Peter Gammons (who on Sunday was declared the winner of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s J. G. Taylor Spink award), I quickly figured out that said redhead was Gary Huckabay of Baseball Prospectus fame. Having spoken to Gary on the phone a few times, I introduced myself, and he quickly steered me over to a corner of the room where Voros McCracken was holding court. Best known as the creator of the Defense Independent Pitching Statistic system, Voros’ groundbreaking work got him a consulting job with the Boston Red Sox prior to the 2003 season. Via email he had encouraged me to continue applying his DIPS 2.0 methodology to annual pitching stats, coaching me through his method to park-adjust for home-run rates. A self-effacing alumnus of “As Seen on TV” university, Voros exuded a combination of modesty and swagger as he fielded several questions from us bloggers about his role within the Sox organization. He recounted the chronology of how he’d been hired to report to Theo Epstein mere days before the boy genius was promoted to the GM post of the Red Sox, explained that much of what he’s doing these days for the Sox from his Phoenix residence involves the amateur draft, and thanked us for listening to him as he bullshitted (that’s his word) away.

Upon returning from our epic journey from dinner –- we are hell and gone from anything resembling quality cuisine – we arrived to find that the Marriott lobby had taken on the air of a cocktail party. Team employees were decked out in suits, many of them with wives or girlfriends accompanying them. The setting of the sun had tilted the scales of the business at hand from news to schmooze, creating a booming business for the hotel bar. Nonetheless, nervous young twenty-something job-seekers paced the room, portfolios in hand as they angled for a few moments of face time with the gatekeepers to their careers in baseball. I counted one looping by a half-dozen times during a fifteen-minute conversation I was having. Grab a beer and give it a rest, kid.

One of the more enjoyable conversations I had on Saturday evening was with Matthew Leach, MLB.com’s beat reporter for the St. Louis Cardinals. I approached Matthew to check if he knew anything about the Cards’ supposed interest in Pedro Martinez. His response implied that the reports were somewhat exaggerated, more a product of Pedro’s camp trying to get leverage with the Red Sox than anything else. Our conversation shifted all over the map as we discussed the Cardinals’ season, their playoff matchup with the Dodgers (he shares my admiration for Jim Tracy) and the World Series. Growing up a Red Sox fan, he was in a uniquely awkward position, bummed most that he could not share in the immediate enjoyment of the Sox championship victory. His theory is that the first five minutes after winning it all are better than the entire year that follows, and having been present for the Yanks’ 1999 clincher, I can relate.

Evening turned to night turned to last call. Not only did we close down the hotel bar at 1 AM, we watched with some incredulity as a hotel securitywoman made Will polish off the last of his final beer an hour later while we discussed BP with Joe. Yet another reminder that we were no longer in the Big Easy. By the time I hit the hay, Will and I had spent another hour BSing back at our hotel room, our wide-ranging conversation centering around steroids. Will just did an excellent piece for BP and has a New York Times Op-Ed piece in the pipeline, among other things. Look Ma, I really am hanging with the newsmakers.

Other sightings of note: Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox (seen talking to Tracy Ringolsby in Starbucks), Felipe Alou, Tony Peña, Theo Epstein (veerrrrry briefly), Bill James (through tinted glass), the Mayor of Las Vegas (with two showgirls and an Elvis impersonator in tow, making a big splash about the city courting the Marlins), Matt Williams, Frank McCourt, new Angel Steve Finley…

•••

It’s approaching 6 PM here on Sunday and there’s not much happening today, and by not much I mean NOTHING. As BP intern (and Fogball blogger) Tom Gorman showed me some impressive work using metrics to measure injury values, we heard rumblings that Beltre’s going back to the Dodgers and Pedro back to the Sox, but the lack of action here in the media room (thanks again to that hobo-acquired credential ) confirms that thus far today the tumbleweeds outnumber the trades (and the press release I was just handed about that that hot Kevin Cash trade doesn’t count; neither does the guy next to me using Orioles and Hudson in the same sentence). Back as time permits…