Ben and Sam talk to Field of Schemes author Neil DeMause about the Braves’ proposed new park and public financing for sports stadiums.
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One of the most remarkable things about the Internet is the speed with which news finds its way to updated Wikipedia pages. Even during the MLB playoffs, you can usually find notes about player achievements or umpire errors within a matter of minutes. MLB.com does not operate like Wikipedia, in that not just anyone can go in and change things around. But there is one similarity, in that here’s a screenshot of part of the Twins’ official roster from earlier Monday:
Somebody’s conspicuously absent. Let’s scroll down just a bit:
The St. Louis Cardinals need a shortstop and have a surplus of talent with no obvious places to fit onto their roster. The Colorado Rockies have a superstar shortstop but need more good players than they currently have. These facts have people — including noted scribe Ken Rosenthal — speculating about what a Tulowitzki-to-STL deal might look like. In fact, it is probably now the most interesting trade rumor of the off-season.
For their part, the Rockies say that they aren’t interested in trading Tulowitzki. When you have one of the best players in the game signed to one of the most team-friendly contracts in the game, there shouldn’t be a huge sense of urgency to unload said player and contract. Over the summer, I rated Tulowitzki as the 13th most valuable trade chip in baseball, sliding in between Miguel Cabrera and Stephen Strasburg. For the Rockies to move Tulowitzki, the offer would have to be substantial.
The Cardinals have substantial talent though. Matt Adams looks like a nice player, but he’s blocked by Allen Craig at first base. Trevor Rosenthal wants to start, but there isn’t an obvious spot for him in the rotation at the moment. If Jaime Garcia is healthy by next spring, the Cardinals won’t even have room for all the starters they already have, not even counting the potential for Rosenthal or Carlos Martinez to transition back out of the bullpen. The team also has Kolten Wong now blocked by Matt Carpenter at second base, and if they end up re-signing Carlos Beltran, they’ll probably have to trade Jon Jay whenever Oscar Taveras proves ready for the big leagues.
So, yeah, the Cardinals have expendable talent that is basically the envy of every team in the sport. They have enough depth that they can probably target any player they want and make a serious offer that at least forces the other club to listen. The real question, though, is should they?
Episode 398
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he analyzes all manner of offseason intrigue and suspense and intrigue.
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 36 min play time.)
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| 11:59 |
: And heeeeeeeeeere come the pretzels!
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| 12:00 |
When will ZIPS projections start getting rolled out? |
| 12:00 |
: 12/1, I believe.
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| 12:00 |
In a Diamond Mind dynasty league format would you rather have Puig or Myers? |
| 12:01 |
: Puig. Not that I don’t like Myers, but you gave me a beer n’ tacos q.
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| 12:01 |
What do you think of home plate collisions? Part of the game? |
If you squinted hard enough, you could have seen this winter being the beginning of the road back to success for the Mets. Matt Harvey was establishing himself as a superstar in his first full season, highly-touted rookies Zack Wheeler & Travis d’Arnaud were getting their feet wet, and they’d be finally free of the disastrous contracts handed to Johan Santana, Jason Bay, & Frank Francisco. With what appeared to be a talented starting rotation and more prospects on the way, if they could just add another bat or two around David Wright, well, maybe they’d have something going.
But then Harvey’s elbow blew up, and d’Arnaud looked overwhelmed in his first crack at the bigs, and Ike Davis & Ruben Tejada proved that they probably aren’t part of the future, and even the team’s COO is saying that there are only four players who they “are sold on” right now (Wright and pitchers Dillon Gee, Jon Niese, & Wheeler). Suddenly the road back appears delayed by at least a year, if not two. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, this is a bit of a surprise. This morning, the Braves have announced that they’re going to move to a new ballpark in 2017 following the expiration of their lease with Turner Field. Citing traffic problems and the fact that Turner Field would require “about $150 million in infrastructure work, including replacement of seats, upgrading lighting and plumbing, etc., to remain viable”, the Braves are instead just going to relocate out of a 20 year old stadium in search of something shinier and newer.
Also, importantly, the location for the new stadium is in Cobb County, which is adjacent to Fulton County, where Turner Field is located. Without the threat of potentially losing the revenues that come from having the Braves stay where they are, Fulton County is very unlikely to kick in public money to make the kinds of upgrades the Braves would like to see. Cobb County is almost certainly going to pay a significant chunk of the cost of this proposed new stadium, so now the Braves have some real leverage to get more public funding, either from Cobb County or Fulton County.
The terms of the project and who pays for what haven’t yet been released — though the Atlanta Journal Constitution is reporting that the stadium includes $450 million in public financing, nearly 2/3 of the cost of the project — so it’s impossible to make specific statements about this particular deal, but in general, publicly funded stadiums are a terrible deal for the taxpayers, and the people of Cobb County and Fulton County are likely to be the real losers of today’s announcement. For some more in depth reading on why these deals are so bad for the public, here’s one of the many papers that have been written and tackle the topic.
When I looked at this toward the end of August, a lot of baseball had happened. Enough baseball that I felt it worthwhile to take a look at this. Since that point, the rest of baseball happened, so now that we have season closure, it seems like it’s time for a second and final update. We can now officially answer the question: which individual pitch was the most unhittable during the 2013 regular season? Beyond that, which were the most unhittable pitches from relievers, and which were the most unhittable pitches from starters?
Of course, in updating the first post, I have to issue all the same caveats as in the first post. So in a sense I’m just writing the same thing again, with some different numbers and pictures. What this really is is a post containing contact-rate leaderboards. The pitches you’re going to see are the pitches that yielded the lowest rates of contact, getting therefore the highest rates of whiffs. That seems like a good way to explore unhittability, but as you understand, pitching is complex, and every pitch depends in some way on every other pitch.
It’s hard not to be excited about Kris Bryant. The 21-year-old Chicago Cubs prospect stands 6-foot-5, weighs 215 pounds and has monster power from the right side. Drafted second overall this year out of the University of San Diego, where he hit a best-in-the-nation 31 home runs, he profiles as a bigger version of Ron Santo.
Based on early returns, that doesn’t qualify as hyperbole. The young third baseman hit .336/.390/.688 between Low-A Boise and High-A Daytona this summer. Assigned to the Arizona Fall League for further seasoning, he is currently leading the circuit with six home runs and a 1.182 OPS.
Bryant realizes he’s not ready for the big leagues. A student of hitting, he’s aware he needs more at bats before he’s fully prepared to take aim at the Wrigley Field bleachers. How many more is yet to be determined, but given his raw talent, he should be a force once he reaches Chicago.
Bryant talked about his offensive game — including wisdom passed to him via Ted Williams — in the final week of the minor league season. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben and Sam select 20 minor league free agents with decent chances to see big league playing time in 2014.
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