How’s this for a hackneyed-and-obvious opening: the Tampa Bay Rays aren’t going to sneak up an anyone anymore. Two division titles in three years, arguably the best front office in baseball, a 25-year old third baseman who is already one of the best players in baseball, and a farm system that continues to be one of the best around will do that. Despite their budget issues and the depature of Carl Crawford for divisional rival Boston, Tampa Bay isn’t packing it in for 2011, as exemplified the impressively affordable acquisitions of Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez. But it can’t all be about Evan Longoria, Damon (I hear he’s always wanted to be a Ray!), Manny, Jeremy Hellickson, and the rest. There are some less-frequently-discussed Rays who are going to have to produce in 2011 if Tampa Bay is going to make another run at the playoffs. How well (and how much) do you think these players will play in 2011?

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Sometimes the narrative reflects reality. In many cases it’s not true. Baseball is full of myths and stories that just don’t reflect the events that unfolded on the field. So early in the 2010 season, when the term “Year of the Pitcher” made its rounds, I had hoped that the numbers — that is, the record of what happened on the field — would prove something else. For some reason I forgot about it, but a recent conversation raised the topic again. Was 2010 really the year of the pitcher?

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When an elite player hits the open market, a select few teams have the will, and the wherewithal, to pay top dollar for his services. But the vast majority of teams cannot — or more precisely, will not — ante up for the biggest free-agent stars.

The structure of Major League Baseball’s service time and compensation system thus nudges bargain hunters over to younger players, namely those with zero-to-three years of service time. Players not yet eligible for arbitration are to Albert Pujols as Kiribati’s GDP is to America’s.

Of course, not all pre-arb players are created equal. So with a nod to Dave Cameron’s recent All-Minor-League-Contract Team, and to Carson Cistulli’s Dollar Sign on the Scout, we present the All-Zero-to-Three Teams.

Today, the National League.

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Yesterday, Orioles General Manager Andy MacPhail spoke to some students at the Baltimore School of Law, and among other things, he said this:

Alex Rodriguez to Texas was the worst signing in the history of baseball in my view,” MacPhail said, according to The Baltimore Sun. “Why? Because he played as well as you can possibly ask the kid to play. He had great years. And the needle didn’t move at all. … The team didn’t improve. Attendance didn’t go up. But hey, they got the lead story on ESPN. Well, if that’s what motivates you, you’re going down the wrong path. You want to put 35,000 people in the ballpark, win the games. That’s what (fans) are there to see. That’s what the Orioles need—to win some games.”

MacPhail is right on with one thing – Rodriguez did indeed play as well you can possibly ask anyone to play. His productivity gets lost in the narrative, but take a look at what Rodriguez did for Texas after signing The Contract That Changed Everything.

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The New York Mets have been in the news quite a bit this offseason. Unfortunately for their fans, most of the headlines have centered on the financial problems facing the franchise and not the on-field product. With most of their payroll tied up in a handful of players, new General Manager Sandy Alderson has had to make due with little resources.

With Johan Santana on the mend, Alderson’s main task was filling the remaining rotation spots behind Mike Pelfrey, R.A. Dickey, and Jon Niese. With few internal options (Dillon Gee) and limited spending money, Alderson was forced to make some risk/reward signings and hope for the best. One of those signing came in the form of Chris Young, formerly of the Alderson-led San Diego Padres.

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On Tuesday I talked about how we could Rethink the Standings in a visual way. And you guys responded with helpful reasons. For the most part, I agreed with what you said, and sought out to fix it and make it better.

I realized from your comments that I had failed to mention that I never meant to animate it; I just got carried away and animated it without explaining what I was after. Oops. My goal had been to just make it a single stationary image like this:
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Last week, Chris Cwik weighed in with his thoughts on the Royals signing Pedro Feliz, and suffice it to say, he wasn’t a big fan of the move. I have a somewhat different take on the signing.

First off, in a vacuum, yes, signing Feliz was a mistake if he logs meaningful at-bats. But to view any front office transaction in a vacuum, irrespective of any other forces at work, would be a mistake, a pattern of reaction of which we are all guilty. None of us can sit where we sit and expect to know all of the inner workings of a front office, Further, we need to be mindful that the Feliz signing was merely a minor league signing, which minimizes the impact Feliz could have on the Royals this season.

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Episode Sixty-Two
In which the guest is a real-live a doctor of philosophy.

Headlines
On the Royals’ Historic Futility
On the Royals’ Maybe Promising Future
The Case of Carl Crawford and the Antiquarian Bookstore
… and unparalleled insights!

Featuring
Will McDonald, Royals Reviewer

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 35 min play time.)

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About three weeks after the exchange of arbitration figures where Josh Hamilton requested $12 million and the Rangers countered with $8.7 million, the two sides have reached a contract agreement that will cover this and next season. It is being reported as a two-year, $24 million deal. In essence, this deal can be summarized as Hamilton “wins” his 2011 arbitration case and cedes any possible raise for 2012.

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What’s the hottest current sports business model? At least for the moment, a few days after the Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers’ nonprofit public ownership is looking a whole lot sexier than the traditional model of for-profit private ownership, especially when those owners aren’t exactly model. While Green Bay’s owners — Packer fans who bought shares in the team, an arrangement that goes back to 1923 — just won a Super Bowl last week, the Mets’ shoddy ownership has been perhaps the biggest story of the offseason. It’s hard to know exactly how much money the Wilpons have lost, but between the team’s debt and the allegations of Madoff-related malfeasance, some or all of the team is going to need to be sold.

A few days ago, Forbes’s Mike Ozanian noted that the aggregate book value of the Mets franchise is -$225 million: with $375 million in debt associated with the team and $695 million in debt associated with Citi Field, the franchise has $225 million more debt than assets. So while the Wilpons are trying to sell a piece of the team just to dig themselves out from under their Madoff-related mess, the team is in a pretty dire need for dough. What if they went public?
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