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February 10, 2012
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Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.Wednesday, January 07, 2009DimensionsMost keen observers realize that you can't put much stock in the numbers painted on the outfield walls, as "330" in one park can be radically different in another park. The problem is that there really isn't much uniformity in terms of how the measurements are made, and I'm willing to be that there's zero enforcement of the outfield wall distances Major League Baseball claims to require. Against this backdrop is an interesting interview of Hit Tracker's Greg Rybarczyk over at Amazin' Avenue. Rybarczyk -- who, like some other brilliant guys, has a piece in this year's Hardball Times Annual -- expands on a point he made in the Annual about how he thinks the Mets' new park is going to kill home runs. It's not just speculation based on published distances on his part. He uses satellite images and everything, so it's like science and stuff. I hope he's right, because I kind of like pitchers' parks. The fact is, however, that one really never knows how a park is going to play until someone plays in the park. (link via BTF) Anatomy of a scandalWhen a political scandal hits, you can always expect things to happen in this order: 1. Denials that anything happened; 2. Denials that that which happened was inappropriate; 3. Admissions, either tacit or explicit, that that which happened was inappropriate in an effort to minimize the damage; and 4. Heads rolling. We're now at step three in connection with the Bloomberg administration finagling a luxury box, food, and parking spaces out of the Yankees. Get creative, Adam!Rosenthal has a piece up about Adam Dunn. The first post about it in the BTF thread is from the always insightful Harveys Wallbangers, and it's pretty brilliant, actually: If I were Adam I would take a one year deal, play my *ss off and look to re-enter a much better market to start 2010. While the general economy will still be lagging somewhat things will be ticking upward. This would be a fantastic idea for Dunn. Risky? Sure. He could pull an Andruw Jones and fall off a cliff, I suppose. But given Dunn's outrageously consistent stat lines for the past few years, if there's anyone I'd count on to not crater, it's him. As Neyer and others have noted, there is damn little available in next season's free agent market. Another 40 homer season in 2009, and Dunn could set himself up as one of the most sought after guys on the market next season instead of everybody's fifth choice this year. The gum must be AWFUL by nowIt's this sort of thing that causes my brother to drag me through antique shops and thrift stores for hours on end whenever we're together: Bernice Gallego sat down one day this summer, as she does pretty much every day, and began listing items on eBay. It's an 1869 Cincinnati Red Stocking team card. My guess: she has the checklist too, but some young punk marked off all the boxes on it with a ballpoint in 1874, rendering it worthless. More on Romero and MitreThere is a lot of he-said-she-said about the Romero and Mitre suspensions. To help clear up things -- or muddy things, depending on your point of view -- Jason at IIATMS spoke with agent Matt Sosnick about L'affaire (L'affaires?) Mite and Romero. Check it out. What are the Reds doing?I'm not a Reds fan, but because they're close to me and because I have friends that are Reds fans I tend to obsess on their minor personnel moves more than I would that of other teams. This is one worth obsessing on a bit: The Reds, securing protection at shortstop, have reached a preliminary agreement with free agent Jerry Hairston Jr. on a one-year, $2 million contract, according to major-league sources. The deal, expected to be announced on Wednesday, includes $2 million in incentive bonuses. Shortstop? He's played 40 games at shortstop in his career, 34 of which came last season when he was 32 years old. Someone who knows anything about defense, tell me: is it even remotely possible that Hairston could handle shortstop for 150 games? And even if he can, while this may help his own bat look a bit better, doesn't it mean that Norris Hopper and Chris Dickerson are your left fielders? Given the stadium in which they play, it strikes me that the Reds cannot afford to give anyone any extra outs, as Hairston at short is likely to do. It also strikes me that they can't devote two of their three outfield slots to guys who can't hit, as the Dickerson/Hopper platoon + Willy Taveras in center situation is likely to do. If this makes sense beyond what I'm seeing, someone, please tell me how. Mrs. Teixeira made the callApparently Mark Teixeira's wife made the call on signing with the Yankees: Thirteen days before Christmas, Mark Teixeira, the Yankees’ $180 million man, was having dinner with his wife, Leigh, when he pleaded with her for insight about the future. If everything was equal among Teixeira’s suitors, he said, where would she rather see him play? Leigh admitted to preferring the Yankees . . . I said yesterday that I don't think that these "introduce the new player" press conferences have any value, and this is one of the reasons. I suppose it's entirely possible that Leigh Teixeira was the driving force behind the Yankees landing their new slugger. I suppose that to some it might even matter. I also suppose, however, that if I wanted to change the subject from a contentious negotiation with the Red Sox and a media firestorm about the size of my contract in these tough economic times that I might float the story that my wife made the call so I don't look so damn mercenary about it. A new angle on Mike Hampton's "I'm signing with the Rockies because the schools in Denver are good" if you will. Today at THTI'm in a Diamondmind sim league with Dayn Perry, Joe Dimino, Shredder, and a bunch of guys whose names you might know if you hang around Baseball Think Factory a lot. Last night I turned in my keeper list in the runup to this year's draft. We're allowed to keep ten players. I listed mine, and even though they are merely virtual, textual and statistical representations of real people, the guys I kept started a whisper campaign to the local media about how I simply don't care about winning. Then the press saw that I didn't keep the fake Jeter, and they really let me have it. Rough league. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||