Ben and Sam discuss why prospect Alex Meyer isn’t the Twins’ usual type, then wonder why teams didn’t think Russell Martin was worth more than the Pirates paid him.

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This article was originally published on May 17th. With Meyer’s trade to Minnesota today, we’re re-running it in order to give Twins fans a look at what they’re getting.

With rain being a scouting nemesis for much of early April, having Nationals first rounder Alex Meyer fall into my lap in Rome, Georgia after consecutive postponements was a welcome surprise. Meyer’s start marked the beginning of a three-day stretch of scouting which included four top-100 pitching prospects (Trevor Bauer, Tyler Skaggs, Nathan Eovaldi, Allen Webster), along with two former first rounders in Chris Withrow and Meyer. And while the former University of Kentucky Wildcat held his own against this group in terms of raw stuff, Meyer’s poor command pushed him to the back of the line compared to other prospects scouted that week.

Video after the jump.

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Episode 281
Dayn Perry, contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and author of two books (one of them serviceable), answers questions from concerned readers.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 54 min play time.)

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Another day, another NL East team solves their center field problem. Yesterday, the Braves spent $75 million to sign B.J. Upton to a contract that is perfectly fair and should provide them with a quality player going forward. Today, the Nationals spent $21 million — and, to be fair, a solid pitching prospect — and got a similarly valuable player in Denard Span. Advantage, Nationals.

Similarly valuable doesn’t mean similar, of course. The similarities between Span and Upton pretty much end after you note that they’re both athletic center fielders. Upton derives a lot of value from hitting for power, while Span has hit nine home runs in the last three years combined. Span derives most of his value from making contact and running, using his speed to help him get on base, score runs, and save them in the outfield. And yet, at the end of the day, they end up with results that are about equally effective at winning games.

For his career, Upton has a 107 wRC+ while Span checks in at 105. Interestingly, both players produced a wRC+ in 2012 that was an exact match for their own career average. Span struggled a bit the previous couple of years — and his issues were compounded with a mid-summer concussion that ended up costing him about half of the 2011 — but he rebounded nicely last year and showed some of the production that made him such a dynamic player earlier in his career.

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[O]ne thing a trade union leader learns to do is how to count votes in advance. Whenever I took one look at what I was faced with, it was obvious to me it was not gonna happen…
[General Sherman] basically said, ‘I don’t want to be president. If I’m nominated I will not campaign for the presidency. If despite that I’m elected, I will not serve.’ Without comparing myself to General Sherman, that’s my feeling. If considered and elected, I will not appear for the induction if I’m alive. If they proceed to try to do this posthumously, my family is prepared to deal with that…
What [Groucho Marx] said was words to the effect of, ‘I don’t want to be part of any organization that would have me as a member.’ Between a great comedian and a great general, you have my sentiments.
   — Interview with Marvin Miller, 2008, after asking the Hall of Fame to stop nominating him

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Last time, I said this didn’t need any introduction, then I wrote a three-paragraph introduction. That’s probably going to happen again, because if I know anything, I know me. See? I’m wasting words already. Here’s the background:

• The 2012 Season In Inside Home Runs
• The 2012 Season In Outside Home Runs
• The 2012 Season In Low Home Runs

I’m looking for pitches in extreme locations that were hit for dingers. Following will be the highest pitches that were hit for dingers this past season. I’m fascinated by what happens at the extremes, and if you aren’t, I guess that just makes us two different people, which we already knew beforehand.

This, as you can tell, is the fourth part of a four-part series. There are virtually limitless ways that you can sort all the season’s home runs, and I might go on to look at, say, the fastest and slowest pitches that got hit out, but I’d consider that a different but related series. Like a sibling, but not a twin.

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In case you hadn’t heard, The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2013 has hit internet bookshelves. You can read all about it here in Dave Studeman’s post, or you can listen to Carson Cistulli and myself discuss it here on a FanGraphs Audio podcast.

Because we’re giving folk, and since it’s the beginning of the holiday season and all, we want to give you a chance to win yourself a free copy of the book. So each day this week, we’ll be running a trivia contest based on one of the articles in the book. You can find the previous contests here, here and here, if you’re into that sort of thing. The first person to post the correct answer in the comments will win a free physical copy of the book (sorry, no free Kindle or Nook versions). It’s just that simple!

Today’s question comes from the article entitled “Fishing For Expansion Supremacy.” Written by FanGraphs’ prospect wizard Marc Hulet, it takes a look back at the 1992 expansion draft for the Marlins and Rockies. In it, Hulet details the significant players selected in a family-tree style. Each player was his own branch, and the players that came to the respective teams as a result of trading that player away helped fill out those branches on each team’s expansion team tree, so to speak. And that brings us, dear reader, to the trivia question before you today:

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The BBWAA released the 2013 Hall of Fame ballots yesterday, and in a related story, writers from around the country made it clear that they weren’t going to vote for players that have been implicated in PED usage. Some even find it an annual tradition to be celebrated.

Oh, the joy I will have snubbing Sosa, Bonds and Clemens (plus McGwire and Palmeiro, natch) on my HoF ballot.

— Philip Hersh (@olyphil) November 28, 2012

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of PEDs and the Hall of Fame — and hopefully we can all agree that reasonable people can disagree on this — it should be pretty obvious that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are not getting inducted into Cooperstown this year. Jeff Bagwell probably won’t either. The contingent of voters who want to keep these guys out is large enough to block them from getting 75% of the vote this year, and probably for the foreseeable future.

However, the contingent who wants them to be voted in based on their on field accomplishments is large enough to keep them on the ballot. Even inferior performers with ties to PEDs — such as Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro — have a large enough base of support that they remain on the ballot. And so, as the Hall of Fame ballots go forward, they’re going to run into a significant overcrowding problem. They might be there already.

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Let’s not forget: Jonathan Broxton was sharp with the Reds this season. The hulking righty recorded a 2.82 ERA and a 2.42 FIP. The strikeouts shot up to 8.0 per nine innings from 6.3, the walks were slashed to 1.2 per nine innings from 3.5.

From September on, we saw shades of the exceptional Jonathan Broxton who dominated hitters in Los Angeles from 2007 through 2009. Broxton pitched 13.1 innings after September 1st, allowing just a .192/.224/.277 line against and a 1.35 ERA, striking out 14 and walking just one. It would just be another on the pile of small reliever sample sizes, except for one detail: he added a cutter in late August.

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