Mark Bowman of MLB.com broke the story this morning: The Braves have traded with the Diamondbacks to get corner outfielder Justin Upton.

Upton had a down 2012 (.280/.355./430, 2.5 fWAR) but enjoyed stellar seasons in 2009 and 2011. He will play alongside his brother, B. J., who signed a $75.25 million, five-year contract to play center field earlier this offseason.

Atlanta sent to Arizona super-utility player Martin Prado (.301/.359/.438, 5.9 fWAR), young starter Randall Delgado (7.38 K/9, 4.08 BB/9, 4.37 ERA, 4.13 xFIP), and prospects Nick Ahmed (SS), Brandon Drury (3B), and Zeke Spruill (P).

Joining Upton at the Ted will be Chris Johnson (.281/.326/.451, 1.7 fWAR), who figures to replace retired legend Chipper Jones at third base.

Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated is less than impressed with Arizona’s take in the seven-player deal and points a finger at co-owner Ken Kendrick and general manager Kevin Towers for the club’s offseason transactions.

SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee explains why the trade is a risk for the D’backs:

Short analysis: Man, oh man, did Upton’s distaste for Seattle end up hosing the Diamondbacks. That reported package was a lot more impressive.

More short analysis: The Diamondbacks are gambling an awful lot on Delgado, but the odds are decent that they’ll be worse in 2014 and 2015 if Prado leaves as a free agent. They had Upton for the next three years at a much lower salary than he would get on the open market. I think in a year, the Diamondbacks will regret this deal, especially if they can’t re-sign Prado.

Still more short analysis: For 2013, though, the Diamondbacks filled a third-base hole with a pretty good player in Prado, and they still have a good outfield. That might almost qualify as an improvement in the short-term. Just ignore the once-every-other-decade-supposed-to-be-a-franchise-player guy going the other way. But there’s every reason to think the Diamondbacks aren’t convinced that Upton still is that franchise hitter, for whatever reason. He’s still just 25, but his production is on an every-other-year track right now. Maybe it’s the down years that are the real Upton.

More here.

In contrast, Dave Cameron of Fangraphs sees the glass as half-full for Arizona:

Cameron elaborates:

With Prado, the Diamondbacks finally get the third baseman they’ve been looking for, and a pretty good one at that. No, he’s not going to repeat the +6 WAR season he put up last year, which was driven by an outlier UZR, but he’s got a nice base of skills that should allow him to remain an above average player. He makes a ton of contact and has some pull power that should play well in Arizona, and he’s probably at least an average defender at third base.

More here.

For his part, D’backs fan John McCain supports John Kerry for Secretary of State but not Upton in another team’s uniform.

Given the divine sense of humor, the reception committee appointed to meet Earl Weaver, the Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles during their dynasty years — yes, Virginia, dynasty years — when he arrived at the pearly gates on the morning of January 19 might have been . . . interesting.

It could, for example, have been composed of Mike Cuellar and the first Mrs. Earl Weaver.  

Cuellar’s less than overwhelming career had taken off after the Orioles had acquired him from the Houston Astros, and the screwballing Cuban had reeled off multiple 20-win seasons while Weaver was chain-smoking Raleighs in the passageway behind the Orioles’ dugout. But by 1976 Cuellar had lost it, and Weaver, though he hated to cut veterans who had won for him, had to let him go. As such things often are, it was an unhappy separation, immortalized by Weaver’s comment to an overly-inquisitive reporter whose questions seemed to imply a lack of loyalty on Earl’s part: “I gave Mike Cuellar more chances than I gave my first wife.”

Immediate post mortem commentary quickly focused on Weaver’s legendary feuds with umpires (whose incompetencies, it should be noted, have clearly increased since the days when managers like Weaver literally got into the arbiters’ faces). Other baseball commentators noted that Weaver was a pioneer of sabermetric managing, keeping detailed notes on opposing pitchers and hitters, long before the days of stat-loaded laptops in the dugout, so as to create the best situations for his own teams — a craftiness that made the careers of such platooned Orioles batsmen as John Lowenstein, Gary Roenicke, Benny Ayala, Terry Crowley, Lenn Sakata, and Joe Nolan, and that helped less-than-overpowering relief pitchers such as Tippy Martinez, Tim Stoddard, and Sammy (“the “Throwin’ Swannanoan”) Stewart enjoy major-league success beyond what their talents might have foretold.

Still others noted that Weaver never cultivated close friendships with his players, which suggests that he would not have fared well in a psychiatric hothouse like the Boston Red Sox clubhouse these past two years. But this alleged aloofness seems to be a bit overdrawn.

Weaver liked eccentrics and the relaxed atmosphere their antics could create, which he believed helped men play a very hard game more easily. (As his longtime pitching coach, Ray Miller, once observed, you can’t play baseball with clenched fists.) So he encouraged the postgame clubhouse kangaroo court over which Frank Robinson presided in a periwig fashioned from a mop, at which players who had messed up in the game just completed were indicted, convicted, and fined — a buffoonery, Weaver understood, that cleared the air and prevented a warped kind of class consciousness from dividing his team. But he also encouraged individual craziness.

The aforementioned, Sammy Stewart, for example, was a true nut, who relished tweaking Weaver. For months, one season, the righthanded pitcher practiced throwing lefthanded, so that he could, when called into a game in a (presumably dire) relief situation, try a southpaw pitch, just to see what Weaver’s reaction would be. After months of practice, Stewart was summoned from the bullpen one night, took his practice throws righthanded — and then turned on the mound and threw the batter a pitch from the port side. Weaver’s reaction? Stewart later told a reporter, “Earl didn’t let me down. He just said, ‘That’s why I like comin’ to the ballpark every day. You never know what the hell you’re gonna see.”

Then there was catcher Rick Dempsey, who entertained hundreds of thousands during rainouts with his one-man vaudeville act, “Baseball Soliloquy in Pantomime,” which involved a great deal of flopping around the rain-soaked infield tarpaulin on his pillow-enlarged belly (he would be named the most valuable player of the 1983 World Series, the year after Weaver retired). Dempsey and Weaver had notable screaming matches, and Dempsey decided on a unique form of payback. One year, as Tom Boswell reported, Dempsey let his hair and beard grow over an entire off-season, and then pranced into the Orioles spring-training clubhouse in tennis gear, like something out of a drag show. “Who the f*** is that and how the hell did he get into our clubhouse?” Weaver hissed, perhaps hoping that someone would clobber the invader with a bat. “It’s your catcher, “Mr. Genius [Manager],” Dempsey trilled, before flouncing away. Weaver loved it, as he loved the other antics of “the only guy who plays in foul territory.”

In retrospect, I think Weaver’s real genius lay in his ability to get the most out of very disparate groups of players. He inherited a blockbuster team in 1968 — Frank and Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, multiple-20-win pitchers like Jim Palmer — and drove them to three straight American League championships, winning the 1970 World Series. In the middle 1970s, Weaver made do with fewer future superstars on their way to Cooperstown (save Palmer), but the Orioles kept on winning until the next Hall of Famer (Eddie Murray) arrived, to be followed in 1982 by yet another (Cal Ripken Jr., whom Weaver, brilliantly, switched from third base to shortstop, telling the rookie, “Just play short like you did in high school, kid.”) The Orioles’ 1982 end-of-season run was one for the ages, as week after week they closed the gap on the Milwaukee Brewers with one hair-raising late-game rally after another. (The month-long rush that led to another classic Weaverism: “We’ve crawled out of more graves than Bela Lugosi.”) The Birds lost the pennant on the last day of the season, which was the last day of Weaver’s real managerial career (he foolishly came back from retirement for an unhappy season and a half later in the Eighties), but the pitch of emotion in old Memorial Stadium that final day will never be forgotten by anyone remotely involved in Baltimore baseball and its fortunes.

In mid-July of that magical season, the Orioles came to Seattle, where I was writing about the Mariners for Seattle Weekly. Armed with my press pass, I approached the Earl of Baltimore as he was sitting in the dugout during batting practice, and thanked him for what he had done over the last 14 years for the team I loved. He growled something about “What’s that to me?” and lit another Raleigh. After the game, I ventured into the dingy visitors’ clubhouse in the dreadful Kingdome, whose multiple inadequacies included being really unwelcoming to the visiting team’s manager and coaches, who were all crammed into a holding pen the size of a living room in a modest Baltimore row house. The coaches (including Cal Ripken Sr.) dressed out of high-school lockers against one wall, while the visiting manager’s “office” was an Army-surplus metal desk and chair that took up about 40 percent of the space in the room. The scribal brethren were packed in there like sardines, everyone wanting a last chance to hear Weaver on his last visit to Seattle. And there, in his own lair, crumby as it was, he didn’t disappoint. Buck naked, with a Schlitz in one hand and a Raleigh in the other, he held forth for what I remember as the better part of an hour, one story after another, while Ripken the Elder and the other coaches quietly dressed and slipped away into the Puget Sound darkness.

The next day, I described this amazing scene to a colleague who had learned his baseball in Brooklyn in the 1950s, which is almost as good as learning it in Baltimore in that same Golden Age. So how was it, he asked? Well, I replied, I now know what it was like to listen to Homer reciting the Iliad. The only thing lacking was the philosopher’s chiton; but draped or undraped, as he was in this instance, Earl Weaver, Number Four, was a man of parts and ideas, who cared far, far more than he usually let on.

— George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. 

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make the Inauguration a bit more bearable:

• Rest in Peace, Stan the Man, 92 (.331/.417/.559, 139.4 fWAR ). Scott Miller of CBSSports.com reflected, “Musial and St. Louis were more of a perfect match than Budweiser and the Clydesdales.” Miller’s colleague Dayn Perry noted:

Does he get short shrift because he wasn’t as combative as Ted Williams, as afflicted as Mickey Mantle, as graceful as Willie Mays or as resonant as Joe DiMaggio? Probably so. But that’s surely a reflection of what draws us to a story, to a life. In other words, if Musial has been overlooked, it’s our fault, not his. Because what he authored over a 22-year career in the majors can be ignored only if you’re hellbent on doing so. . . .

Despite his power and despite that corkscrew swing, Musial never struck out more than 46 times in a season.

It goes without saying that Musial routinely walked more than he struck out. What’s even more noteworthy is that Musial tallied more doubles than strikeouts in each of the first nine seasons of his career. Let that one breathe for a moment.

• Rest in Peace, Duke of Earl, 82. Amazingly, the Orioles skipper from 1968 to 1982 and from 1985 to 1986 was only 56 when he retired from the game for good. Joe Posnanski of Sports on Earth remembers how Weaver never hesitated to heap scorn at the conventional wisdom. Here was one example:

Probably his most famous against-the-world risk was making Cal Ripken a shortstop. He was Cal Ripken Jr. then, and he was 6-foot-4, and if there’s one thing everybody knew about baseball it was that 6-foot-4 men did not play shortstop. Ripken had played third mostly in the minors, and he looked like a third baseman, and when he began the 1982 season he was a third baseman. Nobody but nobody seemed to think he had the dexterity or quickness to play short.

Weaver decided on July 1, 1982 that he was a shortstop. There were some serious doubters — though the doubts were interrupted, as they often were in the Earl’s career, by a seven-game Weaver’s suspension — but he didn’t care. He never cared. He saw Ripken as a shortstop. So Ripken played shortstop. You might know — he played there a lot time.

• ESPN’s Jayson Stark has a summary of the game’s rules changes for 2013, including the ability of interpreters to accompany managers and coaches to the mound.
• Team USA’s World Baseball Classic roster has been unveiled. Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated Hit and Run is not particularly impressed.
• Jonah Keri of Grantland looks at last week’s three-way trade involving the A’s, Mariners, and Nationals and MLB regulars John Jaso and Michael Morse and does not offer many kind words for Seattle’s fifth-year general manager, Jack Zduriencik:

From Seattle’s perspective, this reads as the latest reaction to a huge dearth of power from the traditional power spots last year, as well as overvaluing power skills compared to on-base skills. You also get a whiff of urgency from M’s GM Jack Zduriencik, who’s entering his fifth year as Mariners GM with little to show for it and may well be under heavy pressure to produce results this year in an AL West division that features three very strong rivals.

• Writing in SB Nation, Marc Normadin explains why Mike Napoli last week signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Red Sox more than six weeks after agreeing to a $39 million, three-year contract.

• Sorry, ladies: According to ESPN’s Adam Rubin, David Wright, the recent beneficiary of a handsome, eight-year contract extension, is off the market.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make the second Monday of 2013 a bit more bearable:

• The St. Louis Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz analyzes the current Cooperstown voting process and suspects that it’s harming the Hall of Fame’s bottom line.
• In Nate Silver’s New York Times analysis on this year’s Hall of Fame vote, Mr. FiveThirtyEight notes the impact of this year’s newly eligible candidates had on the vote totals of returning ones:  

Perhaps the clearest effect of the crowded ballot, however, was realized among candidates who were returning to the ballot from last year. Of the 13 players who carried over from the 2012 ballot, nine received a lower share of the vote, including Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Fred McGriff, Don Mattingly and Bernie Williams.

This is atypical; instead, players usually add votes with each additional year they spend on the ballot. Since 1967, when the Hall of Fame adopted balloting rules similar to the ones it uses now, about two-thirds of holdover players gained ground from their prior year’s vote percentage.

• In his third year on the Cooperstown ballot, Larry Walker pulled in a disappointing 21.6 percent of the BBWAA vote. In a message to Sports Illustrated’s Joe Lemire, he expressed gratitude to those who backed him:

I was actually shocked by some of the articles I read in which people supported me. They studied my home and road splits and the Coors Field effect and how they would compare to other people’s numbers after doing all that analysis. I don’t know how they do it all and what it involves, but I saw the final result and I thought, ‘OK, cool, I like that.’ Somebody took that time to try and figure out the reasons why I should be in.

• One day after the Hall of Fame vote results were made public, MLB announced stronger testing for performance-enhancing drugs for the coming season and beyond, which includes checking for use of human growth hormone.
• Now that Adam LaRoche re-signed with the Nats, Mark Zuckerman of Nats Insider asks what Washington lineup for 2013 makes the most sense.
• Meanwhile, Marc Normandin of SB Nation looks at teams that may have need of Michael Morse.
• The proprietors of theScore have launched a new blog, Fanatico. According to Dustin Parkes:

We want to offer an alternative to sports writing that has too often either congratulated itself for its ignorance (“I don’t use the Tweeter.”) or dismissed the unknown as unworthy of attention before giving it any whatsoever (“I don’t understand it. Therefore, it’s scary and stupid.”).

• Trish Vignola of Full Spectrum Baseball looks back at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, home to the Philies from 1887 until the middle of 1938. Regarding the park’s high wall in right field, Vignola writes:

In 1915, the right field wall was raised to forty feet in an attempt to keep deadball home run hitters, the few that there were, in the ballpark. By 1929, the Phillies added a screen. Frank Jackson of “The Hardball Times” attributes these renovations to the introduction of a livelier baseball. The total height of the wall was now sixty feet.

There is evidence that the Baker Bowl’s right field wall set precedence and was a forerunner to such classic ballparks as Fenway Park. We see evidence in the right field wall at Baker Bowl in what would become the Green Monster of Fenway. Like the Green Monster, the Bowl’s right field wall was initially cluttered with ads. Eventually, that gave way to a well-documented enormous Lifebuoy soap advertisement. The ad boasted that “The Phillies Use Lifebuoy.” The iconic ad was known to prompt the response from a local vandal, “And they still stink.”

• A five-episode, 30-minute series, Costas at the Movies, starring, yup, Bob Costas premiers tonight at 8 p.m. EST on the MLB Network. As told by the Hollywood Reporter, the “broadcaster will interview the stars and filmmakers behind classic baseball movies.”

• Justin Upton appeared to be headed to the Mariners until he exercised the no-trade clause in his contract. Other teams remain interested in the Diamondbacks outfielder, however, including the Braves, Mets, and Rangers.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

No one agrees on what “Hall of Fame numbers” are. No objective criteria exist.

Here’s a game that statistically oriented fans are wont to play: Draw up the list of who would be in the Hall if it were up to you. Then devise statistical standards that accommodate your Hall of Famers but almost no one else. Declare those standards intuitively obvious. Write up your formulas into an article without explaining that you reverse-engineered from the results you wanted the formulas to produce. Then send the article to the editors of Baseball Prospectus, but don’t expect them to run it.

If you’re tempted to play that game, at least go to the trouble of expressing your numbers as ratios to the league average. Curt Schilling’s lowest single-season WHIP was 0.968, in 2002. Impressive, yes, but Bob Gibson did a lot better in 1968, with 0.853 — except he didn’t, because the league average that year was 1.120, compared with 1.369 in 2002. Schilling in 2002 posted a WHIP that was only 70.7 percent of the league average. Gibson in 1968, 76.2.

The business of comparing player stats from different eras is fraught with difficulty. Most of the Hall’s 300 members — 163, to be exact — were nominated by the Veterans Committee. Many of the names mean nothing except to baseball historians, and the records of those you do recognize are liable to be inscrutable. Sure, you might have heard of Old Hoss Radbourn, but how do you interpret his record of 59 wins and 12 losses for the Providence Grays in 1884? He started 73 games and completed — 73. For someone whose frame of reference is MLB in 2013, those numbers are too remarkable to be meaningful. They don’t compute.

When trying to quantify a player’s Hall-worthiness, we should translate all his numbers into ratios to the league average and then compare his ratios to the ratios achieved by players who have already been inducted. In the end, though, we have to accept that any player’s standing in baseball history isn’t entirely quantifiable.

Given the opportunity to honor several of the greatest players to ever pick up a bat and ball, the Baseball Writers Association of America instead chose to induct no one into Cooperstown in 2013.

A winning candidate did not emerge from the Hall of Fame balloting conducted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and verified by Ernst & Young. There were 569 ballots cast, the third highest total in the history of the voting, but none of the 37 candidates in the 2013 vote gained mention on the required 75 percent for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Craig Biggio, who totaled 3,060 hits and was a seven-time All-Star while playing three positions (catcher, second base, outfield), topped the ballot with 388 votes – 39 shy of the 427 needed for election. His total reflected 68.2 percent of the electorate, which consists of BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years of Major League Baseball coverage. Five blank ballots were among those submitted. Other players named on more than half the ballots were pitcher Jack Morris with 385 (67.7 percent), first baseman Jeff Bagwell with 339 (59.6), catcher Mike Piazza with 329 (57.8) and outfielder Tim Raines with 297 (52.2).

Two great center fielders, Kenny Lofton and Bernie Williams, did not even meet the 5 percent threshold needed to secure their places on next year’s ballot. A third, Dale Murphy, received only 18.6 percent of the vote in his final year of BBWAA eligibility.

In an online chat that took place in the announcement’s immediate aftermath, Joe Posnanski of Sports on Earth summed up the feelings of many:

Let’s take a second to reflect on this, by the way. This ballot, with Bonds, Clemens, Bagwell, two guys with 3,000 hits, two guys with 600 homers … nobody got in. It’s a historic moment. Not a happy historic moment, but historic just the same.

Don’t expect this year’s induction ceremony to be one you’ll want to tell your grandkids about. As one Baseball Think Factory commenter cynically observed, “Good summer to plan a trip to Cooperstown if you don’t like crowds or plan to make reservations.”

It’s that time of the off-season again.

At 2 p.m. ET, the MLB Network broadcasts the results of the Hall of Fame votes cast by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Before the announcement of last year’s election, I indicated what my picks would be if I were a rumpled, gray-bearded sportswriter clutching a BBWAA ballot tighter than Charlton Heston ever gripped a Sharps rifle. Below are the candidates on this year’s ballot and how I would vote.

Jack Morris: No
Jay Jaffe, Sports Illustrated:

Morris’ supporters dismiss his high ERAs by noting that they’re distorted by the 5.91 mark he put up over his final two seasons; through 1992, he stood at 3.73, with a 109 ERA+ but “only” 237 wins. This is hardly unique, even among Hall of Famers. [Jim "Catfish"] Hunter yielded a 4.52 ERA and an 86 ERA+ while battling injuries over his final three seasons; he finished with a 105 ERA+, one percentage point better than Morris. [Steve] Carlton was rocked for a 5.72 ERA over his final three seasons. [Phil] Niekro was lit for a 6.30 ERA ERA in his final year. [Bert]Blyleven posted a 4.35 ERA and a 90 ERA+ over his final four seasons, a span that included a full year missed with injury; he had one stellar year (17-5, 2.73 ERA) and two with ERAs above 5.00 in that span. All of those pitchers elevated their win totals by hanging on, but with the possible exception of Blyleven, none enhanced their Hall of Fame cases. Even if one merely focuses on his good seasons, Morris cracked the top 10 six times in raw ERA, but never ranked higher than fifth, and only four times ranked in the top 10 in ERA+, never higher than fourth.

Supporters have tended to dismiss Morris’s high ERAs with claims that he “pitched to the score.” The research efforts of Greg Spira and Joe Sheehan have long since put the lie to this claim. In studying his won-loss record through 1993 (his second-to-last season), Spira found that Morris was just four wins ahead of his projected record based upon run support. Sheehan, who pored over Morris’s career inning-by-inning via Retrosheet, concluded: “I can find no pattern in when Jack Morris allowed runs. If he pitched to the score — and I don’t doubt that he changed his approach — the practice didn’t show up in his performance record.” Morris’s record is more a product of strong run support than it is special strategy.

Jeff Bagwell: Yes
Larry Granillo, Baseball Prospectus: 

He truly was a corner infielder who could do it all. While he is compared to his contemporaries like Frank Thomas and Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell was a more complete player than either ever was, contributing to the Astros success with his power, his patience, his speed, and his defense. He also played in the stingiest ballpark amongst those peers. Bagwell continued to perform at a high level well into his thirties, hitting 39 home runs and scoring 109 runs in 2003 when he was 35 years old. His steals disappeared as he aged and his career average finally dipped below .300 in 2004, but it’s not enough to take away from the best all-around first baseman of the 1990s and one of the best of all-time. It’s such a shame that Hall of Fame voters haven’t been able get past their prejudices against the high-offense era in which he played (or any other, more nefarious issues some may be grappling with) to give him his due.

Lee Smith: No
Ken Davidoff, New York Post:

It’s not as hard to find a closer as you think. As Tom Verducci wrote here, in the past 10 seasons, 91 different pitchers have recorded 25 or more saves in a season. That’s why closers don’t score well at all in value equations like WAR and JAWS. The obvious exception is Mariano Rivera, because he has been so elite for so long.

Smith pitched long enough to collect 478 saves. But he’s no Rivera. No one is.

Tim Raines: Yes
Brian Kenny, Clubhouse Confidential:

Jon Heyman, CBS Sports, Eye on Baseball, on Raines:

The second greatest leadoff hitter of his era walked a lot and rarely was thrown out trying to steal (second best steal percentage for those with 300 steals). Works for those who want to see greatness (like myself) with seven superb years to start the career, but also for those who like career numbers since he hung around for 16 mostly good to very good seasons after the initial seven great ones. Should take a big jump and eventually get in.

#more#

Alan Trammell: Yes
Kurt Mensching, Detroit News:

Trammell’s OPS+ — basically a batting equivalent of ERA+ — of 110 leads [Ozzie] Smith’s 87.

Trammell leads his in most offensive categories — traditional or sabermetric.

He trails Smith in stolen bases and defense, but his defensive WAR, as noted by CBSSports.com’s Dayn Perry, still ranks among the best 10 of all time at the position to go along with four Gold Glove awards.

Larkin and Trammell trade blows in offensive categories — and [Barry] Larkin’s OPS+ of 116 is slightly better — but Trammell leads him in defensive ability.

Edgar Martinez: Yes
Ken Rosenthal, Fox Sports:

I know, he was mostly a DH. But what a DH (maybe the best ever) and one of the best right-handed hitters of his era, period. Since World War II only Barry Bonds, Mickey Mantle and Frank Thomas have finished their careers with OBPs higher than Martinez’s .418.

Fred McGriff: No
David Schoenfield, ESPN SweetSpot:

In the end, however, McGriff remains borderline. The biggest problem is that there are three first baseman on the ballot who are better Hall of Fame candidates in Jeff Bagwell, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. Obviously, there are complicating issues around those guys. Plus, there are first basemen such as Keith Hernandez, John Olerud and Will Clark, who arguably had similar value to McGriff, albeit compiled in ways that didn’t appeal to Hall voters (on-base percentage, defense). For now, I say McGriff is just short. And that’s not an easy assessment to make for a guy with 493 home runs and over 1,500 RBIs.

Larry Walker: Yes
Joe Posnanski, Sports on Earth:

There is no question that Walker’s home-road splits are over the top:

Home: .320/.374/.546 Road: .277/.330/.459

But still . . . oh, wait, those aren’t Larry Walker’s home-road splits. Those are Jim Rice’s. Sorry.

Home: .348/.431/.637 Road: .278/.370/.495

Ah, right, those are Walker’s splits. But since those are just super-sized versions of Jim Rice’s splits anyway — and Rice just got voted into the Hall of Fame — I don’t think they are disqualifiers. Walker was a terrific all-around player who stood out in a crazy offensive era.

Mark McGwire: No*
Al Yellon, Bleed Cubbie Blue:

Everyone with as many home runs as McGwire has is in. He eventually came clean about his PED use, and has become a respected hitting coach.

Posnanski on McGwire:

I still believe Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame. But this year’s ballot, in my mind, is overstocked. And with a 10-player limit — a limit I feel certain the Hall of Fame and BBWAA will at some point reconsider — he does not make the cut.

* McGwire is a “no” this time since, as noted above, no more than ten candidates may be chosen.

Don Mattingly: No
Craig Calcaterra, NBC Sports, Hardball Talk:

Nope. People say “but for the injuries . . .” I say “he had a lot of injuries.” The Hall should be about the career a guy had, not the one he would have had if x, y, z didn’t happen.

Dale Murphy: No
Jaffe:

Even by the most generous standard, measured against all Hall of Fame hitters, he’s 2.3 WAR shy of the average Hall of Famer on peak value, and 22.1 WAR shy on career value. Among centerfielders, he ranks 25th in JAWS, below 12 Hall of Famers as well as several other very good players including Kenny Lofton, Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, Jim Edmonds, Jimmy Wynn, Willie Davis, Cesar Cedeno, Vada Pinson, Chet Lemon, Johnny Damon and Fred Lynn.

Rafael Palmeiro: No
Dayn Perry, CBS Sports, Eye on Baseball:

Apply context to Palmeiro’s rate of production throughout his career, and you find he doesn’t compare favorably to Hall of Fame first basemen as a corps. It’s little wonder, then, that his career WAR is below the average of the enshrined first basemen. Keep in mind that Palmeiro’s career value is the driver for his case. With Palmeiro, you have a player whose counting stats are far, far more impressive than his context-adjusted indicators.

There’s also the matter of Palmeiro’s peak. By the very lofty standards of Hall of Fame first basemen, Palmeiro’s peak — i.e., his very best seasons — is a bit lacking. That sounds absurd to say about a player who thrice put up an OPS+ of 150 or better, but again, we’re talking about Hall of Famers who manned the position at which the offensive bar is the highest. In part, that’s why JAWS rates Palmeiro as having a seven-season peak that’s a tick or two worse than the average HoF first baseman. The standards are ruthless and exacting, but they’re supposed to be.

Bernie Williams: No*

Lincoln Mitchell, Faster Times:

The arguments against Williams are clear.  He was not great defensively, was never one of the best hitters in the game, was surrounded by better players and did not play much past his prime.  The arguments in favor of Williams candidacy are less obvious, but also very powerful.  Williams was a very good hitter who had a very long prime.  Between 1995-2002, a period of eight years, he hit .321/.406/.531, good for an OPS+ of 142.  He did this while playing a key defensive position decently.  Although he retired at age 37, thus truncating the decline phase of his career, he remained a useful player until the end hitting .281/.332/.436 during his last year with the Yankees.

Another way to assess Williams candidacy is to determine how many center fielders in the history of the game had clearly better careers.  The list is shorter than one might initially think.  Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey Jr., and Jim Edmonds are on the list, but after that it is hard to find a better all around center fielder.  Many other players were better with the glove, a few like Dale Murphy were better power hitters and some good leadoff men, like Richie Ashburn played center field, but it is not obvious that any put together better careers than Williams.

One way to see this is that Williams played 1,924 games in center field during a career where he posted an OPS+ of 125.  In the history of the game, only eight players have played 1,700 or more games in center field with an OPS+ of 115 or better.

* Williams is a “no” this time since, as noted above, no more than ten candidates may be chosen.

Sandy Alomar Jr.: No

Craig Biggio: Yes
Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated:

Biggio’s value resides not so much in his 3,000 hits as much as it does a seven-year prime that began soon after he moved to second base and his power suddenly spiked (.303/.397/.473). He also was an exceptional baserunner and adept fielder. Like [Robin] Yount, Biggio figures to fall right around the 75 percent threshold. (Roberto Alomar and Barry Larkin were better players, and neither made it on first ballot.) It’s a close call, but if he does have to wait, it won’t be for long.

Barry Bonds: Yes
Davidoff:

Bonds was far from the only player who likely was using some illegal help during the latter part of his career, and that he nevertheless dominated his era.

And really, let’s get over ourselves here. Bonds is the all-time leading home run hitter. Number two Hank Aaron has confessed to using amphetamines, also an illegal PED. Number three Babe Ruth did his offensive damage in a time when only white players were allowed. There is evidence that number four Willie Mays used amphetamines. Number five is Alex Rodriguez.

There’s no such thing as a “clean” statistic. Every statistic reflects its era.

Jeff Cirillo: No

Royce Clayton: No
The 43-year-old former shortstop is more likely to earn an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor (Moneyball) than pick up the 5 percent of the vote required to remain on the ballot next year.

Roger Clemens: Yes
John Perrotto, Baseball Prospectus: 

These achievements can’t be misremembered: a record seven Cy Young Awards, seven ERA titles, five strikeouts titles and 11 All-Star Game appearances.

Peter Abraham, Boston Globe, on Clemens:

Before there were pink hats, seats on the wall and Red Sox Nation, there was The Rocket. His turn in the rotation was an event that caused everybody to take notice. Clemens had a 3.06 ERA and 192 wins with the Sox before there was a hint of improper behavior. His perjury acquittal aside, Clemens probably did some things he regrets. But there is no discounting his place in history. Clemens is one of the three or four best starters the game has seen.

Jeff Conine: No

Steve Finley: No

Julio Franco: No

Shawn Green: No

Roberto Hernández: No

Ryan Klesko: No

Kenny Lofton: No
Jason Lukehart, Let’s Go Tribe:

Still, if you’re looking at a player’s hitting, Lofton doesn’t have the portfolio of a Hall of Famer. An OPS+ of 107 would be among the lowest in the Hall, most of the players below that mark are among the most questionable inductees. Those below a 107 who most modern fans might agree are deserving Hall of Famers tend to be among the greatest defensive players in history, guys like Brooks Robinson (104 OPS+) and Ozzie Smith (87 OPS+). If you’re looking to make a case for his induction, you must argue he was a special player in other aspects of the game. . . .

Certainly Lofton does not have the defensive reputation of those two, or of Willie Mays or Andrew Jones, but just about any fan old enough to remember him would tell you Lofton was an excellent fielder. He won four Gold Gloves, finished in the top five among A.L. outfielders in putouts four times and in the top five among A.L. outfielders in putouts five times. Lofton scores well on the newer fielding metrics at both Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs too (though Baseball Prospectus is not as bullish on his defense). . . .

Except in extreme cases like Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith, the Hall of Fame voting body has shown a strong tendency to value hitting far above all other parts of a position player’s body of work, which isn’t the way Lofton’s case needs to be viewed.

José Mesa: No

Mike Piazza: Yes
Tom Haudricourt, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Piazza didn’t approach [Sammy] Sosa’s power numbers but did consistently hit 30 to 40 per season while driving in 100 runs, which as a catcher made him an elite player. Some have questioned his candidacy merely on numbers alone (427 HRs, 1,335 RBI, 2,127 hits) and that’s all well and good but he was a 12-time all-star, won 10 Silver Sluggers, was 1993 rookie of the year, placed in the top 10 in NL MVP voting seven times and finished with a major-league record of 396 homers as a catcher (396).

Abraham on Piazza:

He is one of the best-hitting catchers ever, if not the best. He also played the bulk of his career in Dodger Stadium and Shea Stadium, two tough parks for hitters. Piazza hit .320/.389/.575 from 1993-2003 while catching. That’s insane. Piazza also was a better defensive player than he is generally given credit for. He had a flair for calling games and he blocked balls in the dirt very effectively.

Reggie Sanders: No

Curt Schilling: Yes

Bill, Platoon Advantage:

Look, I don’t like him any more than you do (or maybe you like him, in which case I like him a lot less). But he clears the bar pretty easily. He had a long career with a lot of good years. He had a stretch of absolute dominance, totaling 30 wins above replacement from 2001-2004 (not his fault that the only guy who may have [been] better in that span — though with a very nearly identical 30 wins — was his teammate for three of those years). He was a fantastic postseason pitcher. The only way to justify keeping him out is a slavish devotion to the pitching “wins” stat, which is to say, punishing him for pitching for a lot of pretty poor Phillies teams.

Aaron Sele: No

Sammy Sosa: No
Posnanski:

Sosa’s Hall of Fame case is mostly built around home runs . . . he hit only .273 for his career, and did not get on base. He did flash some speed and defensive talent as a younger player, but really it’s about the homers. It’s an interesting case that should be discussed for a while, I think. But this year, there are at least 10 more worthy players in my mind.

Mike Stanton: No

Todd Walker:  No

David Wells:  No

Rondell White: No

Woody Williams: No

As you may have noticed, I am not particularly interested in giving much weight to the question of performance-enhancing drugs, particularly for those players who may have used steroids before MLB instituted league-wide testing in 2003. (I didn’t always hold this view: When Bonds and the Giants made their first-ever regular-season trip to Washington in 2005, I and thousands of other fans at RFK derided the greatest slugger in the past half-century every time he strolled up to the plate.)

SB Nation’s Rob Neyer tackles the question head-on:

I do believe drugs did change the game. It’s the “how much” part that’s difficult to measure. It’s easy to say that steroids are like nothing else (true, literally) and that nothing else changes the body like steroids (I don’t have any idea, but will allow it anyway). But did steroids have a larger impact on professional baseball than spitballs? Larger than amphetamines? Anecdotes are not evidence. . . .

Again, the notion that baseball before steroids was a pure game, a fair game, is (to use one of [Tom] Verducci’s words) a canard. . . .

The character clause has never been used until now, with the arguable exception of Shoeless Joe Jackson. Nobody cared about Gaylord Perry throwing greaseballs between the lines, and nobody cared about hundreds and hundreds of players taking the field, between the lines, all hopped up on greenies. Competitive integrity, as defined right there by Verducci, has never been a factor in Hall of Fame voting. Until now.

Anyway, it remains to be seen if the writers give any of the candidates the three-quarters threshold required for induction. As of last night, Baseball Think Factory’s “Hall of Fame Ballot Collecting Gizmo” had accessed over 27 percent of the votes and projected that the BBWAA will vote in no one this time. (Biggio was in the lead with 68.6 percent.)

We’ll know for certain in a few hours.

In a Washington Post piece showcasing the differences and similarities between the Nationals’ decision to sit Stephen Strasburg at the end of last season and Redskins’ choice to play Robert Griffin III yesterday, Adam Kilgore writes:

The choices say more about the mores of the respective sports than the men making them. Football is brutal and vicious, and players are pumped with all manner of painkillers and drugs to get them through Sunday. You wonder if ANY coach would have pulled Griffin if he thought Griffin gave them the best chance to win. Baseball keeps counts on the number of pitches thrown. Baseball players are tough, but they can also walk when they are 60.

Both Griffin and Strasburg faced their dilemma with the same rub-dirt-on-it ethos. [Skins coach Mike] Shanahan said he based his decision on what Griffin told him — that he was “hurt” and not “injured.” Strasburg raged at the decision to shut him down and repeatedly told Nationals brass he felt fine. Players always want to play.

When [Nats general manager] Rizzo made his decision, he took all competitive considerations out of play and made what he believed was a purely medical decision. When Shanahan made his decision, he placed victory above all and, if Dr. James Andrews’s quotes to USA Today tell the full story, may have willfully ignored medical opinion.

More Kilgore here, while the Dr. Andrews article he cites is here.

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make the first Monday of 2013 a bit more bearable:

• Grantland’s Jonah Keri explains that big-league teams that have not yet signed new deals for regional sports networks may discover that future deals will not be anywhere near as lucrative as those already inked.
• Even before Lance Berkman agreed to a one-year deal with the Rangers, Paul Swydan of Fangraphs was soothing the troubled among those who root for the Rangers:

Public opinion of the Rangers’ offseason seems to have taken a negative tone — they lost Josh Hamilton to free agency, and were unable to lure Zack Greinke into their clutches. But despite these two misses the sky is most definitely not falling in Texas. Between its additions around the edges, its addition by subtraction and the trio of prospects that it will graduate to the majors, the team should be primed for a fourth consecutive pennant chase in 2013.

• In news unlikely to greatly improve the mood of Mets fans, Rich Sandomir of the New York Times explores what the owners might do with the more than $160 million they received in funds from a recent round of loan refinancing.
• SB Nation’s Rob Neyer remains doubtful that the notoriously old-school front office of the Twins is embracing analytics to a significant degree.
• Those same fans might at least chuckle about three less-than-beloved former Mets now taking up space on the Mariners’ 40-man roster: Oliver Perez, Jason Bay, and, as of last Thursday, Mike Jacobs. In fairness, Jeff Sullivan of Lookout Landing points out that Jacobs is unlikely to see much time in the majors this season:

He swings hard, he strikes out, he doesn’t walk, and he’s clumsy in the field. He can slug somewhere in the neighborhood of .500 and that’s basically going to be his job. Also, he’s a veteran, so you can think of this as being the Tacoma equivalent of the Raul Ibanez signing. Jacobs’ greatest asset might be his knowledge of how the major leagues work, and next year’s Rainiers could and should be loaded with top prospects. If the Mariners believe that Ibanez can help the young guys in the bigs, they probably believe that Jacobs can help the young guys on the verge. Maybe he will help or maybe he won’t. Maybe Jacobs will be a replacement-level player in the PCL, too.

• Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald cites a Marlins source who is adamant that the team has no intention of dealing Giancarlo Stanton.
• Is Jose Canseco really considering running for mayor of Toronto? According to Daniel Dale of the Star, the answer is, um, no. 

• Brian Kenny interviews Cooperstown Confidential author Zev Chafets on the history of the Hall of Fame’s “character clause” and how it may impact this offseason’s vote.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to add a bit more joy to your New Year’s Eve:

• The Red Sox fortified their bullpen in a six-player trade that netted them Pirates closer Joel Hanrahan. SweetSpot’s Christina Kahrl gives the Pittsburgh front office kudos for the haul they received in return.
• Brad Johnson of the Hardball Times suggests that those free agents who have yet to sign with a club consider talking with the Astros or another seemingly hapless team.
• Also at the Hardball Times, Bruce Markusen writes about the tragic tale of Ryan Freel.
• Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs looks at 2012 strike zones based on pitch type and concludes:

The results are probably about what you’d expect. Fastballs are the easiest pitches to receive, getting the more favorable strike zones. There’s little difference between the sinkers, the two-seamers, the four-seamers, and the cutters. As pitches move more, we see less favorable strike zones. Of course it’s challenging to catch a knuckleball — nobody knows what the pitch is going to do. Of course it’s challenging to catch a big curveball, and maybe especially an A.J. Burnett curveball. Catching those pitches might require more movement on the catcher’s part, and of course the break can be deceiving. Pitches with more movement will be more difficult to locate, too, and there’s presumably a strike-zone benefit to pitching around your spots instead of unpredictably all over the zone.

• Meanwhile, Beyond the Boxscore’s James Gentile observes data from 1993 to 2011 to determine which pitchers hurt their teams least with their walks. The top three are Rick Reed, Greg Maddux, and Steve Trachsel.
• Trish Vignola of Full Spectrum Baseball profiles the late Tom Cheek, the 2013 Ford Frick Award honoree. Cheek worked in the Blue Jays’ radio broadcast booth from the franchise’s first game in 1977 through late into the 2004 season.
• Joe Posnanski of Sports on Earth shares his fond childhood memories of a 1976 Boog Powell baseball card.
• The power-hitting outfielder known as “Godzilla” has called it quits. Hideki Matsui played ten big-league seasons in Japan and another ten in the States, posting a .282/.360/.462 slash line with the Yankees, Angels, A’s, and Rays.

• Above you will find selection No. 5 in “Baseball Nation’s favorite GIFs, part XII,” courtesy of Grant Brisbee. Oof!

That’s it. Have a walk-off 2013!

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make your Christmas Eve a bit less hectic:

• According to the defensive-runs-saved metric (DRS), created by John Dewan of ACTA Sports, the Blue Jays and Braves were the top teams in the field in 2012, while the Rockies had the most porous defense.
• Nick Swisher agreed to a $56 million, four-year contract, including a fifth-year vesting option, with the Indians. Let’s Go Tribe’s Jason Lukehart appears cautiously optimistic based on current player valuations.
• The Cubs inked Edwin Jackson to a $52 million, four-year deal shortly after giving Carlos Villanueva a two-year gig valued at $10 million. CSN Chicago’s Patrick Mooney points out:

Jackson is still young enough that he can be a factor when the Cubs project they’ll really start being contenders. But this at least makes the next two bridge years more interesting.

• In the press conference following Seibu Lion Hiroyuki Nakajima’s signing a $6.5 million, two-year contract with the A’s, the 30-year old shortstop revealed that he was interested in Oakland because he found general manager Billy Beane “extremely sexy and cool.” Perhaps he had the Moneyball general manager confused with Billy Bean?
• The Diamondbacks agreed to terms with Cody Ross in an agreement worth $26 million over three years, to which the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro sagely responds, “Huh?”
• In other select free agent news, Ichiro Suzuki elected to remain in the Bronx, Francisco Liriano signed with the Pirates, A. J. Pierzynski joined the Rangers, and Raul Ibanez will be on the Mariners roster for a third time.
• There were two trades of note over the past several days: Seattle sent Jason Vargas to the Angels in exchange for Kendrys Morales, while Joel Hanrahan went from the Pirates to the Red Sox in what appears to be a six-player deal. As to the fomer deal, Albert Chen of Sports Illustrated notes the Mariners’ offensive woes — the team scored a miserly 619 runs last season — and comments: “[General manager Jack] Zduriencik wasn’t going to find a power hitter of Morales’ caliber on the free-agent market, so this was a move he had to make.”
• I’ll have what Tim Marchman of the Wall Street Journal’s having: “The Mets Lineup Can Compete With Dodgers . . . Stop Laughing.”
• This is über-cool: On his personal site, Mark Willis dreams up what the AL East uniforms would look like if they were actually soccer jerseys.

• Via Nationals Enquirer, is that really you, Santa Danny Espinosa?
• According to Jacksonville police, former Reds player Ryan Freel, 36, committed suicide last week with a shotgun blast to the head. His big-league career as cut short by a series of injuries, including several concussions. May his memory be for a blessing.

That’s it. To those who celebrate, have a walk-off Christmas!

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make this mid-December Monday a bit more bearable:

• Dave Cameron of Fangraphs explains why, although the pending trade of R. A. Dickey to Toronto might look awfully similar to Kansas City’s controversial acquisition of James Shields, the former was a shrewd move by Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos:

The 2012 Royals were 72–90 and were outscored by 70 runs. The 2012 Blue Jays were 73–89 and were outscored by 68 runs. The talent exchanges are similar. The cost and team control of the acquired pitchers will be similar, assuming Dickey signs an extension with Toronto, which seems like a pretty strong bet. So, if we ripped the Royals for the Shields trade, how can we not rip the Blue Jays for making a similar trade?

In this case, the prior [offseason] moves make all the difference in the world.

• Grantland’s Jonah Keri offers a thorough analysis of last Tuesday’s three-way deal between the Diamondbacks, Indians, and Reds, which includes a questioning of Arizona’s offseason moves.
• The Red Sox inked starter Ryan Dempster to a two-year contract totalling $26.5 million. While hardly overwhelmed, Marc Normandin of Over the Monster is satsified:

Dempster will be 36 in 2013, but has been as good as his younger brethren on the free agent market whether you look at the last five years, three years, or whatever number of years. Considering the alternatives on the market — worrying about Shaun Marcum’s elbow, Kyle Lohse’s transition to the AL, and Anibal Sanchez’s overzealous contract demands — Dempster might not be perfect, but he’s likely the best relative fit, especially given it’s for two seasons.

• Writing in SB Nation, Normandin also explains why Anibal Sanchez will remain a good fit inside the Tigers’ rotation, even though the $80 million, five-year contract is hardly a bargain.
• With ground-ball southpaw John Lannan now in Philadelphia, Crashburn Alley’s Bill Baer posits that perhaps a defensive platoon at third base would be a smart move for the Phillies.
• Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times was the first to reveal that Matt Bush, the No. 1 pick in the 2004 MLB amateur draft, may serve at least three years in prison following a plea deal with prosecutors over a DUI hit-and-run charge. The Devil Rays’ draft choice had been arrested in March for allegedly hitting a motorcyclist with his car and then leaving the scene before police arrived.
• Via Tom Tango of Inside the Book, Kincaid of 3-D Baseball discovers that in 2011 there was a position player in the American League who enjoyed a better season than Miguel Cabrera’s 2012 Triple Crown MVP season. The position player’s name? Yup, it’s Miguel Cabrera.

• Clubhouse Confidential host Brian Kenny puts Josh Hamilton and his $125 million, five-year contract with the Angels “into the Shredder.”

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Last off-season, the Angels poached free agent ace pitcher C. J. Wilson from the division rival Rangers. Los Angeles did it again today, as general manager Jerry DiPoto reached an agreement with the agent for Texas’s star outfielder, Josh Hamilton, on a contract reportedly worth $125 million over five years.

Hamilton, 31, hit .285/.354/.577 and posted a 4.4 fWAR in 148 games with the Rangers in 2013. He was the most coveted position player in this year’s admittedly shallow free-agent pool.

More here.

Via Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, Kevin Youkilis (.235/.336/.409) is poised to shave his trademark goatee to play third base in the Bronx next spring. According to “major-league sources,” Youkilis has agreed to a one-year, $12 million contract to play for the Yankees, who have a longstanding policy against players’ sporting too much facial hair.

The corner infielder, who will turn 34 in March, was a huge fan favorite in Boston (while much despised among Mike Francesa’s listeners) for eight-plus seasons before the Red Sox traded him to the South Side of Chicago last June.

So the question that everybody in New York and New England will chew on for days is who detests this signing more: Sawx fans who now have to see him in pinstripes, or Yankees fans who have no choice but to root for him?

More here.

Yesterday I looked at the James Shields trade from the Royals’ perspective.

How does the trade impact the Rays for 2013?

Tom Jones of the Tampa Bay Times sees a parallel with a trade from nearly two years ago:

This is not unlike when the Rays dealt Matt Garza in 2011. Ultimately, they really didn’t miss Garza, who, in 2010, went 15–10 — the exact record that Shields had last season.

Price, Hellickson, Moore and some combination of [Jeff] Niemann, [Alex] Cobb, [Chris] Archer and Jake Odorizzi, also acquired in the trade with the Royals, will make up a rotation that remains among the best in the majors.

The Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo sees a downside:

The problem is that prospects are not sure things, but the hope is that [Matt] Moore, {Jeremy] Hellickson, and Cobb, all under 25 years old, will continue to develop into significant starting pitchers. There’s no reason to believe they won’t.

Meanwhile, Steve Slowinski of DRaysBay shares his projection of the 2013 Rays’ roster. Here’s his view of the B. J. Upton–less lineup:

I’m filling in the Rays roster under the assumption that [Wil] Myers won’t be with the team for at least half the season. Even then, though, the Rays have filled most of the holes on their roster by acquiring Yunel Escobar and James Loney. They allow the Rays to slide Ben Zobrist into a dual platoon at second base and the outfield, or simply play him and Matt Joyce full-time-ish in the outfield if they desire. Either way, the Rays can fill most of their positions internally and only need to make one more major signing (DH).

The current roster above has a total projected salary of $52 million. If we assume the Rays can have another payroll like they did last season, that leaves them with about $10-11 million in room to sign additional players.

Slowinki also thinks the bullpen needs a little strengthening:

Sign some bullpen depth, as the losses of Burke Badenhop and Wade Davis have thinned out the ‘pen considerably. All of a sudden, there are lots of question marks there outside of [Fernando] Rodney, [Jake] McGee, and [Joel] Peralta.

More here and here and here.

Rob Neyer at SB Nation writes, “This is a desperate move by a desperate team.”

The headline to Ken Rosenthal’s column at Fox Sports reads, “Royals made right move with trade.”

Who’s right?

Dayton Moore has been general manager of the Royals since the middle of the 2006 season. In his first six seasons with the club, Kansas City has finished fifth (69–93), fourth (75–87), fourth (65–97), fifth (67–95), fourth (71–91), and third (72–90) in the not-very-good American League Central Division.

Neyer and others speculate that another subpar season would likely lead to Moore’s ouster. If so, it is not unreasonable to conclude that last night’s trade with the Rays for a no. 1 starter was a panic move.

Here is why I don’t slit my wrist if I’m a Royals fan:

The previously awful starting rotation has been upgraded.

While one can debate whether he greatly benefited from a rangey defense in Tampa, James Shields is a really good pitcher and Kansas City now has him under contract through 2014 at a reasonable price: $21 million.

Wade Davis is under team control through 2017 and has reasonable upside, although his best work to date has been as a reliever.

Here’s why I drive my car off a cliff instead:

Corner outfielder Wil Myers is as blue-chip as prospects get. As Neyer points out, of the last ten position players to earn Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year award, only two failed to become big-league stars.

Jake Odorizzi, 22, is a pretty good prospect in his own right. Last September, Chris Mellen of Baseball Prospectus indicated that Odorizzi was capable of becoming a no. 2 pitcher in a rotation, although more likely a no. 3.

Mike Montgomery had a disappointing 2012 in Triple-A, but according to Michael Valancius of DRaysBay, the 20-year old southpaw was generally viewed as a better prospect than Myers before his regression. Power-hitting third baseman Patrick Leonard is also 20 but has no experience beyond rookie ball.

Having signed Jeremy Guthrie last month, Moore could have pursued one more free-agent pitcher, such as Ryan Dempster, Edwin Jackson, or Shaun Marcum. Had he done so, Myers would have been his starting right fielder next season, an almost-certain immediate upgrade over Jeff Francoeur.

In his defense of the trade, Rosenthal argues: “I’m sick of low-revenue teams that are scared to make a move, fixated on their place in the Baseball America organization rankings, content in their mediocrity.”

What he overlooks is that the Royals, who last visited the postseason in 1985, have been worse than mediocre since Moore took the reins on June 8, 2006. The club was 72–90 last season in a division that also included the lowly Twins (66–96) and Indians (68–94). Sure, the addition of Shields, Davis, and Guthrie, combined with a young, maturing lineup, ought to provide enough juice to push the club into .500 territory, but it’s unlikely to yield a wildcard berth, let alone seriously challenge the two-time defending division-champion Tigers.

Either way, the upgrade comes at an excessive price.

As Craig Brown of Royals Review protested overnight:

This move is from a [g]eneral [m]anager who is, as I’ve noted before, on the hot seat. His contract runs out in 2014 and the clock is ticking. He’s had a longer tenure than Allard Baird with less major league success. Dayton Moore is fighting for his job. When that happens, you sacrifice the long term plan for the short term gain. Yes, we are talking about dealing away prospects in Myers, Odorizzi and Montgomery. Unproven players. No, Wil Myers alone wasn’t going to get the Royals to the postseason in 2013, but he was a piece of the puzzle that would have definitely improved the team. And regardless of what the Royals think, I’ve heard plenty of scouts who feel that Myers has the most offensive upside of the Royals big three bats.

A longtime Royals friend and season-ticket holder was a bit more succinct when he texted me this morning: “Worse than I dared imagine. Worse than my worst-case scenario.”

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make the Monday after the winter meetings a bit more bearable:

• Zack Greinke is switching Southern California addresses. The cream of the free-agent crop agreed to a six-year free-agent contract worth $147 million with the Dodgers. On his website, Chad Moriyama chooses this time not to run the numbers for the 2009 Cy Young Award winner, who is poised to spend what may be the heart of his career — age 29 to 34 years — pitching in Chavez Ravine:

If you’ve followed me in years past, you’d know that I usually do some type of efficiency analysis in terms of whether the deal makes sense on a dollars per WAR basis, but at this stage, with the 2013 payroll already around $235 million, I’m not sure it matters as much.

• Less than 24 hours later, the Dodgers reached an agreement on another rotation piece: 25-year old Ryu Hyun-jin. In addition to a $25.7 million posting fee, the Korean southpaw will receive $36 million over six years.
• Now that the Indians and Mark Reynolds have reached agreement on a one-year deal, does this increase the likelihood that Kevin Youkilis will play third base for the Yankees next season?
• Other signings of note: The Giants re-upped Angel Pagan and Marco Scutaro for four years at $40 million and three years at $20 million, respectively; the Reds re-signed Ryan Ludwick for two years and $15 million; the Diamondbacks gave Brandon McCarthy two years and $15 million; and the Nationals gave Dan Haren $13 million for one year. In his evaluation of the Haren signing, Eno Sarris of Fangraphs cautions: “The projections up on this site are upbeat about his chances at a bounce-back, but those projections aren’t privy to the doctor’s reports.” (By the way, congratulations to Sarris and Fangraphs colleague Carson Custilli, as well as to Joe Hamrahi and Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus, on their admission into the Baseball Writers Association of America.)
• Nick Swisher is not returning to the Bronx, so where might he sign, wonders SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee?
• One week after dealing starting center fielder Denard Span to the Nationals, the Twins traded his presumed replacement, Ben Revere, to the Phillies. Peter Lyons of The Good Phight approves of this deal for the Phils; Rany Jazayerli of Grantland thinks that Minnesota got a “very healthy return.”
• Over at Going9Baseball.com, Jessical Quiroli interviews Cliff Lee about his experiences years ago at a community college in Mississippi, at the University of Arkansas, and in the minor leagues.
• The Veterans Committee chose three individuals from the pre-integration era for induction into the Hall of Fame: Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O’Day, and barehanded catcher Deacon White.

• Michael Young will not spend his entire big league career in north Texas. The infielder, who joined the Rangers in 2000, was traded to Philadelphia and is expected to play third base next season. Adam J. Morris of Lone Star Ball ponders the look of next season’s roster in Arlington.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Good morning.

Here are several go-to links to make the first Monday of December a bit more bearable:

• Writing in Businessweek, Red Sox front-office executive and sabermetrics godfather Bill James shares his thoughts on Marvin Miller, the players’-union icon who died last week at age 95. (In case you missed it: NRO’s Nick Frankovich remembered a conversation he had with Miller here.)
• The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham reveals that his views on the use of performance-enhancing drugs and the Hall of Fame voting process have changed:

This will be my third year voting. In my first year, I mustered up a mighty wave of self righteousness and decided that no player I suspected of using PEDs would get my vote. I’ll show them.

Last year I moved my line and decided that unless there was some kind of tangible connection to PEDs, I would consider voting for a player. I changed because of Jeff Bagwell, a guy who sure looked the part of a drug user but was never linked to it. It seemed unfair to exclude him based only on suspicion.

Now I’ve decided to erase the line completely.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and the rest of the scoundrels will get my vote. I’ll look at the players based on their statistical merit, how they compared to other players of their era and to other players in the Hall of Fame. I won’t sit at my desk and do Google searches to decide who is clean and who was cheating.

If you think that is a cowardly way out, I can’t argue with you. But it beats stabbing around in the dark and hoping to be right.

• In Fangraphs, Bill Petti explains why the David Wright’s contract extension worth $138 million over eight years will probably work out well for the Mets. 
• Across town, the Yankees welcomed back Mariano Rivera for one season in pinstripes for $10 million but said goodbye to catcher Russell Martin, who signed with the Pirates for two years and $17 million. Charlie Wilmoth of Bucs Dugout sounds cautiously optimistic about the signing.
• It appears that playing league-average center field pays off handsomely this offseason: B. J. Upton signed with the Braves for $75 million over five years. Ben Duronio of Capitol Avenue Club believes that Upton, for all of his frustrating tendencies, is worth the price tag.
• There were two trades of note last week: C. Trent Rosecrans of CBSSports.com offers details on the Tommy Hanson–for–Jordan Walden swap that the Braves completed with the Angels, while David Brown of Big League Stew has the dish on the Denard Span–for–Alex Meyer deal that the Twins made with the Nationals.
• According to the Cincinnati Enquirer’s John Fay, the Reds have decided to make southpaw fireballer Aroldis Chapman a starter in 2013, albeit with an innings limit. 
• James Gentile of Beyond the Boxscore looks at how the role of the leadoff hitter has matured over several decades.

• At Sports on Earth, Joe Posnanski tracks the demise of the relationship between Frank White and the Royals organization.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

An ankle injury has not been kind to 38-year old Derek Jeter, seen here without his pinstripes.

I guess it’s safe to say that a lack of aerobic activity and a plethora of gift baskets make for a toxic brew.

About three years ago I was editing The Baseball Research Journal and putting together a section on baseball and law. Several articles involving the history of free agency in MLB were in the mix. The subject cried out for a photo or two of Marvin Miller, the man who served as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) from 1966 to 1982 and built it up into what it is today, arguably the most effective labor union in American history.

My go-to source for photos was the Hall of Fame, which is well stocked, ready to send you dozens of jpegs of Ted Williams or Branch Rickey if that’s what you’re looking for, but they were short on images of Miller. I never knew whether that signified some unofficial chill between him and MLB. My own beef against what he wrought is that, while free agency has obviously been a boon to players, it’s magnified the disadvantage of small-town clubs in the labor market, where they find it increasingly hard to compete against their bigger-town co-franchisees. Miller was not on your side if you were an Indians fan.

The Hall had a photo of Miller, but AP owned the rights, and the price on it was too high for the nonprofit that published BRJ. So I checked with the MLBPA, but they were no help either. I asked a baseball friend if he had any ideas. He gave me Miller’s home phone number (area code 212), which I dialed warily. This friend, a historian whose center-left politics easily aligned with all that the leading figure in the history of sports labor stood for, was predisposed to admire Miller but didn’t. He had described for me on several occasions his dealings with a Marvin Miller who in person proved to be as arrogant and disagreeable as the Marvin Miller of legend. My friend had no use for him, personally.

Miller answered the phone. I introduced myself, but he couldn’t hear, so with a brisk “I’m sorry, hold on,” he interrupted to turn down the volume on the TV, which was blaring, as is the way with old people. He resurfaced after a good 15 seconds, our line of communication now clear, and chuckled when I told him that evidently no image of him existed that cost less than a thousand dollars. He had no idea.

He offered to poke through his personal effects for something that might work, though he doubted he’d find anything suitable. “And if you did,” I thought to myself, “how would you send it?” From our minute of conversation so far, I just assumed he’d have no patience for scanners, PDFs, or e-mail attachments and no inclination to trouble the proverbial son-in-law who’s good with computers. He would do due diligence in any case, or so he promised, and so I trusted. Did I follow up with another phone call? An e-mail? I forget how it ended. Bottom line: No photos, but also no guff or drama. Prepared for an encounter with Darth Vader, I was grateful enough for common decency. Fox News is right: He really was soft-spoken. I had no idea.

The Father of Free Agency gave me five unrushed minutes of his time on a weekday evening near the end of his life. He was warmer than I had been led to expect. Would he have been a few degrees cooler if he knew that this stranger presuming to call him up at home during prime time usually voted R and was all for salary caps and increased revenue sharing? I like to think the answer is no.

In April, Miller spoke at an event at NYU. He was 95 and still in the game. He died yesterday morning at his home on the Upper West Side. Requiescat in pace.