Heading into the 2007 season, outfielder Travis Buck and third baseman Josh Fields were primo prospects. Baseball America ranked Buck, the Oakland Athletics’ supplemental first-round pick in the 2005 draft, as the 50th best farm talent in the game. A standout quarterback at Oklahoma State, Fields gave up throwing spirals to sign with the Chicago White Sox for $1.55 million as the 18th pick in the 2004 draft. He entered 2007 as BA’s #45 prospect.

By now, Buck and Fields were supposed to be franchise bulwarks. Instead, they’re merely looking to land bench jobs and avoid the trainer’s table in new cities. A Super Two player non-tendered by the A’s, Buck inked a minor league deal with the Cleveland Indians. Fields was similarly humbled; Kansas City non-tendered him, and the Pirates extended him a minor league contract with small incentives based on major league plate appearances.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Milwaukee Brewers re-signed Craig Counsell yesterday to a one-year pact worth $1.4 million. Counsell spent last season primarily at shortstop while seeing time at second base and third base as well. Despite Counsell’s age – he turned 40 in August – there’s a case to be made that he should find himself in the lineup more often in 2011.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this afternoon’s impromptu chat session, I was asked which team I thought had the best rotation in the National League Central. This question was clearly inspired by the Brewers recent acquisitions of Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum, giving them three formidable starters to match up with the group down in St. Louis. However, I didn’t choose either of those rotations as my pick for the best in that division. Instead, I went with the Reds, with the caveat that Aroldis Chapman ends up starting for them. Am I nuts?

Read the rest of this entry »

In Microeconomic theory, there are two factors in production: capital and labor. Labor is the manpower used to create output, and capital is the machinery and technology that makes that labor work more effectively.

At its core, there are two main factors in scoring runs: getting runners on base and knocking those runners in. By looking at these skills as capital and labor it reveals much about each team’s offense, and can give insight to where a team needs to invest.

Read the rest of this entry »

The story on the news feed is that Rick Ankiel has signed with the Nationals on a one-year $1.5M contract, but the story of Rick Ankiel cannot be told without the letter K. Though moving from the rotation to the lineup is an amazing feat, it’s worth wondering where Ankiel would have been without that special K.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had hoped to report out on MLB’s end-of-year player payrolls for 2010 (here’s last year’s), but the numbers haven’t been released yet. Instead, here are the free agency dollars spent to date this off-season, which includes total dollars as well as salary for 2010

Read the rest of this entry »

The Oakland Athletics
2010 MLB Record: 81-81 (2nd in the AL West)
Minor League Power Ranking: 21st (out of 30)
Click for: Last Year’s Top 10 Prospect List

The Prospects

1. Grant Green, SS
Acquired: 2009 1st round (University of Southern California)
Pro Experience: 2 seasons
2010 MiLB Level: A+
Opening Day Age: 23
Estimated Peak WAR: 5.0

Notes: Green, 23, made his full-season debut in 2010 after signing with the club in ’09 as its first round draft pick. Playing in a strong offensive league in ’10 at high-A, the shortstop hit .318/.363/.520 in 548 at-bats. He showed good power with an ISO rate of .203. Green’s approach at the plate is still a little raw, as witnessed by his walk rate of 6.3% and strikeout rate of 21.4%. He has all the tools, however, to be an offensive-minded shortstop at the MLB level. He shows a nice, level swing and utilizes the whole field. He clears his hips well and has strong wrists, which helps him hit with authority, although he has more line-drive power right now than home-run strength. Defensively, he has quick feet and hands, but he needs better positioning with his feet. His range is average and his arm is fringe-average for the position. Green may have to move to second base.

Read the rest of this entry »

At any given time during a baseball off-season, there are essentially two different ways to acquire talent – sign players via free agency or trade for another’s team’s player who is already under contract. We often refer to the combination of both as the market of total available players, but given the pricing differences we’ve seen in each, perhaps we should reexamine whether these are really just two very different markets altogether.

Read the rest of this entry »

Alcides Escobar didn’t hit at all in 2010. Lorenzo Cain hit better than expected once he reached the big leagues. In both instances, I think we can say that their 2010 performances were among the chief reasons they were traded to Kansas City over the weekend. If Escobar had hit like he was expected to, Milwaukee would have been loath to give him up. If Cain hadn’t hit .300 upon reaching the majors, his stock probably wouldn’t have been high enough to make him a main piece in a trade for Zack Greinke.

However, a look beyond their slash lines shows that Escobar and Cain weren’t all that different offensively last year. Escobar’s walk rate was marginally better, but that difference is just the intentional walks he was issued as an occasional benefactor of the eighth spot in an NL line-up. Escobar struck out a little less, but their contact rates were basically the same. Neither showed much power, as they combined for a whopping five home runs.

The difference in their batting lines is almost entirely due to their rate of hitting singles. In some cases, this is a skill, as some players are simply better singles hitters than others. In this case, however, it looks a lot more like luck.

Read the rest of this entry »