TNT: Thursday Night

Apparently, money won't be an issue if the Jays want to make a run at it. This is fantastic news for Jays fans but when did this all come about, where is this money coming from? They must be selling a lot of season tickets in Toronto. I don't mind, at all, but I hope it's not a two year run at it and then ten years of mediocrity. It's an incredibly difficult division but at some point, this team needs to be an almost annual contender. I hope the money will also be spent in draft bonuses and player development for the Minor Leaguers. Building from within is the answer, not for this season, but for long term success.

A great article about MW/MP from baseball prospectus. Exploring it deeper and finding that almost every team in MLB would probably be better off fielding a team of minimum wage players for revenue's sakes. But then wouldn't these minimum wage players cost more as the other better players would be unattractive. And then wouldn't someone take a flyer on a now cheaper better player, and then another, and another...until payrolls escalated? Yeh It's a nice thought but it doesn't work...

Sports Illustrated profiles the creater of baseballreference.com. I could not live without this site, so bless him!

Updated update

Wanted to add to this post a little bit. Not much going on in baseball land, one week away from pitchers and catchers reporting.

First of all, if you haven't read Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, go read it, seriously it's $15 for the paperback... Second of all, here's a great article using a concept from the book. Analyzing the best lineups constructed by stats, intuition and ahem blind intuition. I love this kind of analysis, I know it doesn't add anything to the analysis of the game itself but it does research a theory utilized in a non-sport context to see if it applies in sport. I can't wait to see the result of this at the end of the season. Somehow I don't think Aria will do well. This is what research is all about, testing research by building upong it in different situations.

And here's an interview with super-agent Boras. I find it interesting that he has 30, 40 people and a million dollar computer system just to track statistics and information, this guy doesn't just negotiate well, he knows the facts that maybe some teams don't even know. The information he has since 1871 is absolutely incredible...He comes off as a bit egotistical but you can't argue with results. Of course this could have easily been the beginning of a good book about Scott Boras...There isn't as much money for him but you have to wonder how useful he would be as consultant/GM for a Major League with all that information his company has at it's fingertips. Being a general manager is knowing the value of a commodity in a market, and no one has done that better than Boras in the past few years.

Pecota, ZiPs and the Jays...

So Pecota is out for the Jays…and the hitters are an interesting bunch…There’s some variance from the ZiPs numbers but some are very close such as Wells (.845 OPS to .846 OPS) and Clayton (.666 to .663). After struggling with Blogger and their stupidity when trying to insert HTML code with tables, I finally just posted everything HERE.

I'll do the pitchers tonight most probably, and then there are other places coming out with previews that should be discussed. A few links here and there:

• Jayson Stark discusses the business of baseball
• And Rob Neyer discusses VORP and it's utility. Personally, I think everyone knows...I LOVE this stat...I like how basic it is as a measurement tool. Win Shares don't do it for me and OPS+, ERA+ can't tell the whole story...
  

Saturday morning update

I'm working on the update...Blogger could not suck more for tables, even when I write them out in HTML, they never work in here...

First of all, Mr. Gammons comes back with an article about starters and their importance. It's INSider so I'll sum up the parts affecting the Jays...

But while much of the baseball universe sees the AL East only in terms of that American phenomenon known as the Yankees and Red Sox, Toronto can get into the tournament, as J.P. Ricciardi and Bill Parcells like to say. To do so, the Blue Jays have one essential requirement: They need Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett to start 60-70 games between them. If they are healthy and starting two out of every five days, the Jays have two of the division's most dominant starters.

I think that says it all about the Blue Jays season...they can't afford an injury to either of these guys. And they need one of their signings to step up whether it be Thomson, Ohka or Zambrano. In other news, the Jays will once again avoid arbitration, signing Johnson, Rios and Downs yesterday. I like only paying the corner outfielders $5 million combined dollars, that's the importance of home grown talent, to help the Jays afford bringing in expensive free agents like the Big Hurt.

Phil Rogers speaks of the Indians loading up for contention. Obviously I stated here that I loved the book Dealing about Mark Shapiro and I really like this team right now. They've got a good young team and have brought in Barfield for second base and 4 new bullpen arms without really losing much off their roster.

More updates throughout the day, I just know that blogger is going down at 11am for a bit so I don't want to lose any work

Back...Zambrano?

Alright, the first post of what should be a bunch hopefully. I'm hoping to do something real nice with a post tomorrow because I'll be in the office for about 8 hours with two games being played at ScotiaBank Place. If anyone is in the Ottawa region, head to the Civic Centre tonight to honour a legend, when Brian Kilrea coaches his 2000th game. I'll be there for the ceremonies before I go catch some shut eye.

On to baseball, the Jays kept stockpiling arms by signing Victor Zambrano to a minor league deal. He's a very average guy coming off Tommy John surgery and a guy who walks a lot of batters. Surprisingly, Zambrano agreed to have a team option for 2008 which could be huge if ever he pitches well this year. If not, it's only a minor deal so not much investment. I like what J.P. has done, he wasn't able to sign or trade for a great SS or SP so he stockpiled as many options as possible to bring a competition to the positions. His pitching signings look great when Tony Armas signs for $3.5 million...

I can't wait for Spring Training at this point, have there ever been this many positions up for grabs? I'm going to one game in late March and I'm hoping to see a lot of these starters give it their all in one final stretch. Zambrano should not be ready until mid-season but by that time either Thomson or Ohka could be injured so it will be great to have him around...stay tuned for more.

Rising from the ashes

I hate doing these posts that don't say too much but I'm just updating everyone. I've had a really weird last week that pretty much ended with a hospital stay yesterday. I apologize for the lack of updates but I will get back on the horse with talk about Pecota, Zambrano and more..again my apologies for the lack of updates, I hope it doesn't happen again.