Multiple outlets, including Detroit Free Press, positioning the Cubs as possible players in the Granderson buzz this morning.

Oh, please, please, please, please....

I would be very sad to see Granderson leave the AL Central. My favorite non-Twin baseball position player (Johan still my favorite pitcher).

more on Fonteyes!

Fontenot is arbitration-eligible now, so the Cubs can't just renew him for $430K. He's coming off a poor season, but he'll still be more expensive in 2010. The Cubs are tight on payroll, so you have to wonder if they'll now trade or non-tender Fontenot.

I don't get the Granderson rumors. He's signed long-term with the Tigers with a very team-friendly deal. He's a young player that fans like. Why would they want to trade him now, and what would they trade him for? Trading Granderson would be like the Pirates trading McLouth. It was questionable when the Pirates did it with no chance of contention - so how could the Tigers ever do it, even if they were offered top-tier prospects? They would be putting themselves in fire sale mode.

Kind of skeptical there's anything to this.

When in need of entertainment to make it through a long work day, Keith Law chats never fail:

Awesome commercial!

Ha, thanks. If there's any kind of market for Joe Nathan, they might need to modify that one.

Kind of looks like a dairy's staff softball team. I thought having a straight type 'Minnesota' was a good contrast to 'Twins' in script. This script is also too small and tough to read if you take a couple steps back. I also liked the Twins being the only away team in pinstripes.





Hot. I used to like the Twins's away jerseys better than home jersey. Flip it.


If they had a baby blue version, I'd place my order for a #7 today. They changed their hats from the 'M' logo to the 'TC' with a red bill.



EDIT: Damn, that home jersey is just the once a week throwback. The new home jerseys look pretty similar to the old ones, just slightly modified script.

Nice! I like all three of those.


Regarding the Tigers' rumors, I don't buy for a second that they're this desperate to cut three or four million off the payroll. Given Illich's track record and the fact that they let Ordonez's option vest just a couple months ago, they can't possibly be as poor as they're letting on.

I think the whole thing got blown out of proportion and now they're choosing not to correct it for strategic reasons. (What those reasons are, i have no idea. Maybe they just want to draw as much interest as possible in guys like Jackson and Laird?) I'll be shocked if they trade Grandy, but i think if they move him or Jackson at this point, it'll be strictly for the pieces coming back and not at all about salary relief.

I agree that moving Jackson definitely has a "buy low, sell high" feel to it.

The only thing I can think is that, with the economy as it is, Illich decided to go for it last year and it didn't work out at all. Not only did they not go far in the playoffs (garnering a few more home dates and more $$), but of course they didn't even make it (and didn't even get the 163rd game at home!). So that, combined with the economy, the tail-end of some bad contracts, and a lot of holes to fill for 2010, means they don't feel like they can be competitive for 2010. If that's the case, then they might as well get some salary relief for 2010 where they can, concentrate on an extension for Verlander, and build on him, Porcello, and Cabrera as the long-term "re-loading" plan for the team going into 2011, when the Dontrelle/Bonderman/Robertson/Ordonez (hopefully) contracts will expire and they'll have a ton of salary to work with.

As great a person as Granderson is, he requires a platoon partner. That's not an ideal situation for one of your "building blocks."

I'm willing to give Grandy one more season to figure out lefites. He did pretty well against them in 2008 before trying to pull everything, so maybe he'll bounce back a little. At worst he's on the long side of a platoon and they have other guys who can hit lefties. Anyway, i agree with your logic that they should build around their core and re-load for 2011 but i think Granderson is part of that core unless they get an ideal package for him this offseason. I don't think they'll sacrifice one of their better pieces for 2011 simply to save a few million in the short term.

That being said, they have a lot of holes to fill, so i don't see the harm in exploring trade trade possibilities. I'll just be surprise if anything actually happens.

An LH needs at least 1,000 plate appearances (per The Book) against lefties to "prove" their split and Granderson is only two-thirds of the way there. Even if that is his true talent level, it's not drastically worse than plenty of other lefties (Ryan Howard has a very similar OBP split).

Question of the day: Who would you rather have Curtis Granderson or Denard Span?


This turns out to be a lot tougher than I thought. Granderson has much more power, he's harder to throw out on the basepaths, and he's better defensively, but Deez'nards is much better of a hitter all around than Grandy. The almost even ratio of BB:SO, great OBP, and the fact that he can hit both lefties and righties makes quite a case for Span. Denard's not bad defensively, just average for a center fielder and very good for a corner man. Also, Span had 2 more triples last year than Grandy. And I LOVE triples.

I've got to start appreciating Deez'nards more. Good player.

It's not so much that he needs to be platooned as it is he can be handcuffed in key moments of the game.

It's fine to pinch hit for him like any lefty but that's quite different from platooning him entirely for a defensive downgrade with marginal payoff on offense.

And yeah, they've been very near even in value. But if you adjusted for age and had a choice between age 25 Span and age 25 Granderson, I would probably take Granderson for greater upside.

If we're talking AL Central CFers, here's my question - will the real Grady Sizemore come back?

I'd put money on it. If he's available after the second round in next year's fantasy draft, I'll grab him.

Speaking of that, I should probably get back into the SOMB league again next year if there's an opening. Haven't played in that since 2004.

I wonder where Zack is going to hang his Cy Young plaque. Unless his fiancee takes the initiative, that thing is going to be leaning up against a wall in his boiler room collecting dust.

That's pretty much how I pitch, to try to keep my FIP as low as possible.

Is it even possible to utilize FIP in practice to maximize results?



I guess it would help explain why he only had 13 more ground ball outs than strikeouts.

Translation: Even the pitching staff knows Yuniesky Betancourt is a terrible SS.

How does one give up over 100 more flyball outs than ground outs and only give up 11 HR?

I don't know, but I assume you've got to be a really good, smart pitcher to pull it off. I guess this takes "pitching to contact' to a whole new level. Joel Pineiro drastically increased his GB% this year while decreasing his strikeout rate, and his FIP lowered dramatically. With Dave Duncan as his pitching coach, I doubt the discussion had anything to do with FIP, but he's an example of someone who made changes to how he pitched that affected FIP. I also assume some guys will try to increase FB% in big parks or GB% in small parks and/or where they have big differences in quality of OF/IF ability, even if they aren't looking at advanced metrics that define those things.

I think it's helpful just to normalize luck, the same as you would do if you were playing poker online. FIP (or better yet, xFIP) would be a good way of figuring out if your high ERA means you're doing something wrong or just going through some bad luck. I think more specific stuff like pitch type linear weights and pitch/fx graphs would be of the most use to a pitcher in analyzing his performance. I assume he's sorta using FIP as a catch-all. And yeah, Greinke probably also knows that he was somewhat lucky on home runs and that may well regress next year.

The Royals should boot Dayton and just make Bannister MLB's only player/GM.

Yeah, I just can't help but think of Scott Baker. Baker gave up a ton of home runs in April and then became his usual slightly above average self down the stretch. He doesn't have the K rates Greinke has and is even more extreme of a flyball pitcher than Zack was, so I suppose he's more likely to be in for a swing. But still, Zack's ability to avoid bad stretches this year in the American League is remarkable.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Baker next year. Is Delmon a non-tender at this point or are there other presumed moves for the outfield? Young-Span-Cuddyer would be murder for Baker. He must have been sobbing at the same time that Blackburn was cheering for the Gonzalez/Hardy deal.

Seems like there is absolutely no buzz going into the FA period (starts at 12:01am). I guess everyvody is expecting the FA market to develop slowly, as teams wait out the arbitration deadline and see who gets cut or made available by trade.

Delmon's staying. He's going to be making under a million this year and the coaching staff said they finally started getting through to him about taking better at bats. That thought has crossed the collective mind in Minnesota. The hit in outfield range is going to be a concern for Baker, Blackburn, Slowey.

i can't say i'm surprised with lincecum's 2nd cy young. dude brings it.

but does this mean his press conference is going to be diluted with possession charge questions instead of questions about baseball?

Nah, but he's practically a shoe-in for High Times Magazine's sportsman of the year.



Congrats to the Cubs for getting more than a bag of balls for Aaron Heilman.

So I love the coronaries Keith Law and Will Carroll are giving the old guard over their CY votes. They both left Carpenter off their ballots. If they both had put him anywhere on their ballots, I believe he would have won. If the AL and NL CY votes are a sign of an impending changing of the guard, you can expect the old-timers won't go down without throwing a few knives at the new kids who know nothing about "real baseball." You know, the Rob Dibble, "if you aren't the winning pitcher you suck" types. I love XM's Baseball channel, but listening to that guy makes me sick.

These selections are looking good for Joe Mauer, but we'll see...

And how.

The real heavy lifting is moving He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named...sources adding Toronto to the Tampa Bay, Texas interest.

Yeah, what a close race that was. Wainwright had the most 1st place votes and finished 3rd. That hasn't happened before.

I haven't been following the Cy races at all, but what's wrong with Carpenter from a sabr/forward thinking viewpoint? Is it his strikeout rate? BABIP? I absolutely support the Lincecum decision, but Carpenter deserved to be on the ballot if you ask me.

They voted for some combination of Lincecum, Wainwright, Haren, and Vazquez. It's highly debatable, but my guess on what made the difference was that Carpenter had 30-40 innings pitched less than those guys, and consequently fewer strikeouts (quite a bit fewer since he also had a bit lower K rate). So he contributed a bit less to his team overall.

Maybe they'll come out and say something different as to their reasoning but that's my guess. Carpenter was great and I'm guessing he would have been #4 or #5 on both their ballots, but I think there's reasonable arguments for those others over him.

Law and Carroll may have just started with WAR (wins over replacement) and then tweaked based on their own math/reasoning. WAR goes Lincecum-Vazquez-Haren-Wainwright as the top four, which lines up neatly with their votes. Carpenter is sixth (behind the rather underrated Ubaldo Jimenez).

But the difference between Wainwright and Carpenter is only a tenth of a win. So a stathead certainly could have slotted Carpenter in at the #3 spot without any misgivings. It was a deservedly close race to make the second and third ballot slots (although Lincecum was clearly a good bit better than everyone else and deserved to win).

Re: AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay got robbed.

He totally won more games than Greinke.

I assume he's referring to the fact that Halladay actually had a slightly better xFIP than Greinke. TMC, while you can argue that Halladay was a bit underrated overall in the voting, I think you're placing too much emphasis here on one stat.

Huh? I couldn't care less about wins. He pitches in the AL East in a fairly offense- and homer-friendly park. Greinke just made a better story, but frankly Halladay was the unsentimental better pitcher.

For 2009 ESPN ranked Kaufman Stadium with the fifth-most hitter-favoring park factor. Rogers Centre was 23rd.

What exactly is sentimental about a guy who doesn't really like pitching or people cheering for him when he pitches on a team whose owners leech off revenue sharing instead of making any real effort towards developing their team?

Greinke's ERA+ was 213. Holy shit. That's like Pedro Martinez in his prime.

Halladay's ERA+ was 151. ftr.

Vs. Boston, NY (AL), Tampa

compared to

Vs. Twins, White Sox, Indians

Rogers has been a pretty big homer park for years, and Kauffman is a home-run suppressing paradise. I know Greinke has the holy terror of facing Scott Podsednik 2 or 3 times a season...so I do take that into account.

Frankly, what Halladay does in the AL East year in and year out is nothing short of astonishing.

I guess we should call it the AL East Cy Young if only guys who pitch in that division deserve to win it. Which seems to be what you're suggesting if you're saying the division outweighs Greinke's considerable advantage in the actual numbers.

I'm saying context matters.

I mean, Halladay's definitely astonishing, yeah, and he and Verlander and Hernandez all deserved serious consideration. But Greinke was superhuman. He was the best.

Yep, and Toronto is still friendlier to pitchers, imagine that?

Halladay had a great season, but Greinke's 2009 was likely the best pitching season of the decade.

Hm, I didn't think about that. Yeah, I bet that really padded Zack's stats. Oh wait.

Scott Podsednik v. Zack Greinke, 2009: 14 at-bats, 8 hits, 4 doubles, one triple, 1.571 OPS

lololol