Hot off the presses

Today’s links are brought to you by those shiny bracelets that bring ballplayers magical powers. Let’s hope they do the same to this post.

-Over the Baggy sat down with Twins assistant GM Rob Antony for a lengthy interview about how exactly the Twins use sabermetrics in their operations. A good quote for everyone who likes to put a lot of stock in single-season defensive stats:

A few years ago when we traded Jason Bartlett to Tampa, they said the reason they wanted him was that he had the highest UZR…We watched the guy; we liked him and thought he was a pretty good shortstop too. A year later, people were writing “What happened to Bartlett?” His rating dropped off to 15th from number one. He wasn’t any different the next year – the stats said he was – but I’m not sure he was any different from the next year.

-Nolan Ryan wholeheartedly agrees with this ancient text.

-Sky Andrecheck has a nice series of articles on franchise strength in the majors. This one graphs it throughout MLB history.

-In the “drama” created from Derek Jeter being in his walk year, some have wondered about the possibility of the Yankees offering him an ownership stake in the team. I’m 99% sure it won’t happen while he’s still an active player, though I wouldn’t rule it out once he finally hangs it up. At BP, Kevin Goldstein writes about the legality of such an agreement, how it came to be, and how it could happen. The history of the rule is pretty interesting.

-Jeff Sullivan is explaining the science of baseball, and he needs some ideas.