I’m stating nothing new when I say that the popularity of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball did much to introduce its readers to the splendors of quantitative analysis in baseball. Nor is it inaccurate to say that Lewis — whose capacity for narrative is more or less unrivaled — characterized the sport’s older guard of talent evaluators (read: scouts) less as invaluable members of baseball’s front offices and more as mouth-breathing luddites.

For a number of reasons — most of them having to do with common sense — this image of scouts has disappeared almost entirely. Scouts are very clearly essential to the health of a baseball organization, and, generally speaking, it’s those teams that seek to use the best possible information — both visual and quantitative analysis — that experience the most success.

Still, even as the sabermetric community has acknowledged the importance of scouts and the act of scouting, there’s been no attempt (so far as I know) to measure the actual worth of individual scouts to their respective organizations.

This represents an attempt to do just that — to put a dollar sign on the scout, as it were.

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The Red Sox plucked away a Yankee yesterday, signing 28-year-old right-hander Alfredo Aceves to a $650 thousand dollar contract. Aceves was only a key player for the Yankees for one season, 2009, when he racked up 1.3 WAR in 84 innings with the eventual World Series champs. For his MLB career, 126 innings of primarily relief work with New York, Aceves has a 3.21 ERA, a 4.13 FIP, and a 4.21 xFIP. The Red Sox, however, plan to convert Aceves into a starter.

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UPDATE: It’s a Christmas Bug Holliday Feast Day miracle! All players have been accounted for!

I’m working on a project that builds (veeeeeeeery modestly) off of work by Victor Wang of THT, colintj of Beyond the Boxscore, and probably many others whom I grievously neglecting.

Said project requires having bonus data for some 300-plus players. I’ve been able to find most figures via a combination of Cot’s, Baseball Cube, and Baseball America, but have about 40 names left over. (Note: to the best of my knowledge none of the remaining data is available behind Baseball America’s pay wall, nor is it my intention whatsoever to make public data that they make available only behind same.)

Below are the 40 or so players whose signing bonuses (boni?) I’ve been unable to locate. Many of them, as you’ll notice, are either Latin American or late-ish round signings. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you could provide a link to your source, that’d be ideal.

Thanks!

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These are crazy times, folks…. Crazy times. A social networking idea is now worth $50 billion, gas prices could hit $5 a gallon by 2012, and MLB is the poster child for labor peace.

That’s right, the folks that brought you the 1994-95 work stoppage – the one that very nearly killed baseball – is now what other leagues should aspire to. Next thing you know, Sarah Palin and Ralph Nader will be running together on the next presidential ticket.

Here’s what we’ve come to: The National Football League, who pulled in revenues of $9.3 billion last year, and just saw Super Bowl XLV become the most watched television event in U.S. history with a staggering audience of 162.9 million viewers is about the lockout the players on March 4 the day after their current CBA expires. Their contention? Players got a better deal than they should have when the late Gene Upshaw was at the helm of the players and Paul Taglibue was headed out the door as commissioner of the NFL. Now, owners like Jerry Jones of the Cowboys, Robert Kraft of the Patriots, and Jerry Richardson of the Panthers want concessions from the players – $1 billion’s worth, due to what they are saying is “cash flow problems”. The NFLPA has asked for the league to open their books, to which the league has said, ”That’s none of your business.”

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When projections begin to be released, everyone seems to have there own opinions on how the projections are wrong. With Tom Tango just releasing his 2011 Marcel Projections, here is a look back at how some various players performed compared to their 2010 projections.

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Yesterday, Atlanta Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez suggested that fireballer Craig Kimbrel and left-handed Jonny Venters might share closing duties this season barring a surprising return by Billy Wagner from presumed retirement. The Braves certainly aren’t unfamiliar with this strategy: Bobby Cox used both the right-handed Rafael Soriano and left-handed Mike Gonzalez in save opportunities in 2009 before Cox went primarily with Soriano. So while the 22-year-old Kimbrel was supposedly slated to be the team’s primary closer after quite a September run and a brief role in 9th inning situations, this option reveals an adaptability that the Braves management is willing to take.

Since the ‘save’ became an official Major League Baseball statistic in 1969, teams and fans have overused the term, misguidedly limiting a team’s best reliever into a closer’s role. Not to say that it isn’t beneficial to have some sort of consistency, but when you save your best reliever for last and don’t employ the flexibility to bring him out during high-leverage inning situations that often occur in the 7th or 8th innings, you do your opponents a service by not optimizing your reliever usage.

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Every morning when I was a kid, I would wake up and grab the sports pages to see how my team was doing. Millions of people across the country do the same — they wake up and reach for a paper to sift through something like this:

I always go straight for my division and my team, and see how many games behind they are. I then look longingly at the Wild Card standings to get an idea of how far behind they are. But most of the information gets completely ignored as I eat my breakfast. I’m guessing that millions of people across the country are doing the same.

Chris Spurlock over at Beyond the Box Score made a noble attempt to animate a division race here. But a few things didn’t sit well with me. First of all, it was out of context — you can see how your team is doing in comparison to the division leader, but not in relation to the rest of the league.
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The situation the Rangers face with Mike Young has little to do with Young’s abilities as a player. In the past six seasons he has accumulated 19.6 WAR, which places him among the best shortstops, second basemen, and, to a lesser degree, third basemen in the league. Rather, the issue stems from the team’s decision in 2007 to extend Young’s contract by five years and $80 million. With three years and $48 million remaining, Young is a decidedly overpaid player. That means the Rangers will either have to eat some money or get creative in a trade.

An hour ago Dave wrote about why a Young-for-Carlos Lee swap made sense. The potential trade, at least in part, centers on the contracts changing hands on both sides. Might one of the other seven teams on Young’s approved list have a similar contract swap situation?

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Over this off-season we rolled out a slew of new features to the leaderboards including splits, multiple seasons, and additional fielding stats.

Now, for batters and pitchers if you are looking over multiple seasons you can break out each individual season. For instance, maybe would you like to know which position player had the highest single season WAR total since 2002.

Or maybe which American League batter had the highest single season wRC+ since 1990.

Or which National League qualified-starting-pitcher in the past 5 years had the lowest single season BB/9.

Anyway, there’s lots to play around with here. Remember that this only works for batters and pitchers and does not currently work for any of the splits.

Michael Young does not want to play for the Texas Rangers anymore – he made that clear with his public assailing of their front office last night, and essentially changed the incentives for Jon Daniels to move him. Now, instead of creating some long term financial flexibility, the Rangers are also motivated to move him to avoid the circus that would ensue if Young reported to spring training with the team. While the Rangers have said publicly that they’ll only move him in a deal that makes sense for their club, Young changed the calculus, and the bar for an acceptable deal has to be lower now than it was a few days ago.

The Rangers, however, aren’t really in a position where they should be dumping talent just to free up future payroll. They’re the favorites in the AL West and need to be re-enforcing the strength of their roster, not dropping useful (even if overpaid) players for nothing in return. So, while most of the rumors to date have focused on shipping Young to Colorado, I think there’s a deal that makes more sense for the Rangers.

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