Well, it’s my first assignment as a real writer, having been promoted for my Community Research articles on pitcher BABIPs and ERA estimators, and I’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool: linear weights.  It’s a tricky subject, but I’ll try to walk you through both the problems with linear weights and how they can be overcome.  This article series mainly draws from various works of Tom “Tango,” a.k.a. “tangotiger,” the creator of wOBA and FIP, as well as from David Smyth’s BaseRuns.  I’ll go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of stat geekishness as the series goes on, eventually emerging with a spreadsheet version of Tango’s Markov run modeler that I made for you all to play with.  Where the Markov mainly shines over wOBA is when it comes to extreme run environments, such as unusual offenses or extreme ball parks.

Who cares about extreme run environments?

Nerds like me, I guess?  Tom Tango cared enough to come up with ways to address the shortcomings his original wOBA formulation.  If you’ve ever wondered how valuable a certain player is to your favorite team, maybe you should care too; that low-OBP slugger might be more valuable than wOBA might suggest to your low-OBP team.  On the other end, a typical walk last year was worth considerably more to the high-OBP Cardinals than it was to the low-OBP Mariners (around 0.04-0.065 more runs each… which adds up over a season).

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Last night, the Indians signed Michael Bourn to a four year, $48 million deal. It’s less than he was asking for, but still a pretty significant investment for a low power/high strikeout guy headed into his thirties. I’ve already written about my questions over how much of his value he’ll retain, both on offense and on defense, but 4/48 isn’t paying Bourn to retain most of his skills. At that price, the Indians just need him to be an average or slightly above average player for the life of the deal, which gives him a lot of room to decline and still be worth the contract.

As others have already written, this was a deal worth doing for the Indians, even if they aren’t necessarily expecting to keep up with the Tigers in 2013. Value is value, and adding good players to the organization at reasonable prices is something every team should be interested in doing. But, perhaps more than just Bourn’s role on the team, the more interesting story is how the acquisition of one of the game’s elite defensive players actually solves the void the Indians had at DH.

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On Monday, I looked at a few ballparks that, in the past, had moved in their fences in an attempt to make the park more hitter-friendly. The Royals did it in the mid-90s, the Tigers did it between 2002-2003, the Padres did it between 2005-2006, and the Mets did it between 2011-2012. This very offseason, the Padres are doing it again, and the Mariners are doing it as well. Based on data, the home-run factors for each ballpark went up after the adjustments, but the run-scoring factors didn’t, which I found to be of interest.

This post, as indicated, is a follow-up, made necessary for two reasons. For one, I overlooked the White Sox, who, between 2000-2001, moved in the fences in what’s now known as U.S. Cellular Field. I don’t know how that escaped my attention before. For two, if we’re going to look at places that moved in the fences, we should also look at places that moved out the fences, because we can learn from those examples too. Between 2003-2004, the Royals moved the fences in Kauffman back to where they were long before, prior to the adjustments in the 90s. And, between 2005-2006, the Phillies made adjustments at Citizens Bank Park, in response to the feeling the place was a bandbox. Once again, we examine the data, in order.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
2. Table: Top-Five Remaining Crowdsourced Contracts
3. Potentially Irrelevant Video: Michael Bourn, Diving Catch

Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
Before the end of the season, FanGraphs asked readers to project what sort of contracts the league’s free agents would receive, both in terms of years (Yrs) and average annual value (AAV). Now, as we approach the middle of February, the largest portion of those same free agents have received actual, real-live contracts.

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Arizona has some impressive depth, as well as a few high-ceiling players at the top of the system. The organization has added some solid up-the-middle talent to go with an enviable group of pitching.

#1 Tyler Skaggs (P)

Skaggs, 21, reached the majors in his fourth professional season. The southpaw has the potential to develop into a top-of-the-rotation starter. He has an above-average fastball for a lefty and a contact I spoke with said, “He gets a lot of extension out front and the fastball jumps on hitters.” Skaggs also has a curveball with plus potential and a changeup that could be average or better. The talent evaluator feels the changeup has plus potential, as well. “He throws it with good arm speed… He was just learning to believe in it [in 2012] and I think he does now.”

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Ben and Sam preview the Rangers’ season with Jason Cole, and Pete talks to ESPN Dallas staff writer and blogger Richard Durrett (at 20:48).

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Michael Bourn was supposed to become a very highly-paid player. Then all the teams with center-field vacancies started filling them with other guys, leaving Bourn on the market. It was an impossible market to read, and, per usual, people started wondering if Scott Boras had overplayed his hand. Eventually there was talk that the Mets would be interested, if they could negotiate to have their first draft pick protected. So, for a short while, it looked like Bourn could sign with the Mets. But, instead, Bourn has now signed with the Indians, joining fellow free-agent acquisition Nick Swisher. And Bourn is going to be a very highly-paid player, if to a lesser extent than expected.

The terms are as such: four years and $48 million, guaranteed, with a vesting fifth-year option worth $12 million. Ages ago, the FanGraphs audience — that’s you! — projected that Bourn would sign for five years and $70 million. So, relative to expectations, Cleveland has done pretty well.

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Episode 305
Though many have said it couldn’t be done, managing editor Dave Cameron — in this edition of FanGraphs Audio — analyzes baseball, entirely. Of note: reviewing some first principles from Cameron’s 10-best and -worst offseason transaction posts; everything regarding the Felix Hernandez extension; and the Francisco Liriano deal with Pittsburgh, if it’s a bargain in the way the Cubs’ Scott Feldman signing is.

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 35 min play time.)

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Last summer, Major League teams had to operate under the new rules imposed on amateur signings put in place by the CBA last winter. While international free agents had previously signed for whatever the market would grant, MLB imposed a $2.9 million spending cap on each Major League team. As Ben Badler noted over at Baseball America today, however, the Rays exceeded the limit and are going to face some significant penalties for doing so:

The CBA limited every team to a $2.9 million bonus pool for the 2012-13 international signing period that began on July 2. The strongest penalty in the CBA is that any team that exceeds its international bonus pool by 15 percent or more will pay a 100 percent tax on the overage and won’t be able to sign a player for more than $250,000 during the 2013-14 signing period. Since July 2, the Rays already have spent more than $3.7 million (not counting players signed for $50,000 or less, since there are exemptions for those players), which is 28 percent beyond their international pool.

As a result, the Rays won’t be able to sign anyone next year for more than $250,000 and probably won’t make any major international splashes until July 2 either because of the tax. Going well beyond the bonus pool is a curious move, but the Rays did pull in a considerable amount of talent, including arguably the two best 16-year-old pitchers on the market. Given that their 90-win season last year will give them one of the lower bonus pools for the 2013-14 signing period, which many scouts believe is shaping up to be a down year for international talent, perhaps it will be a worthwhile gambit.

The 100% tax means that the Rays will owe the league an extra $800,000, which isn’t a huge penalty, but the inability to sign any player for more than $250,000 next summer is a significant issue, and continues to show why the current international limits simply don’t work to promote competitive balance.

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