This isn’t an official recap of Saturday’s Live Discussion in NYC – that will come later, with photos and audio for those who weren’t able to attend. This is, however, a collection of thoughts on my experiences in the Big Apple this weekend.

1. My Trip To The Bronx

I only went to Old Yankee Stadium once. It wasn’t shiny or new, but I had a good time in bad seats because of the “I’m in Yankee Stadium” feeling, which was impossible to escape. On Friday night, I took in my first game at New Yankee Stadium, and my feelings were completely different. I still had a great time (in large part because of the terrific people around me), and while the park is now both shiny and new, there’s a feeling of history that didn’t move into the new building.

The stadium is remarkably impressive and downright beautiful in places, but I knew that the best player to ever take the field on that ground was probably Joe Mauer. It’s a great place to watch a baseball game, but I’m happy I got a chance to walk around the old park. There is nothing the Yankees could have done to have saved that “Babe Ruth played here” feeling, so this isn’t a criticism of the new park, but I missed that emotion, honestly.

2. The Conversation

As much fun as I had on Friday night, I was in town for Saturday’s event, and it was even better than I had hoped. The discussion panels were so good that it was painful to cut them off. The media panel, especially, was as engrossing a discussion as I’ve heard in a long time. Just a fantastic group, each with their own perspective, and a lot of intelligent disagreement going on. The group could have talked for eight hours and I wouldn’t have moved an inch.

While the discussions were the main event, the after party was also a tremendous time. When a guy who doesn’t drink spends 10 hours in a bar and has a good time, you know there’s some good people around, and that was certainly the case on Saturday afternoon. It was a lot of fun getting to meet many of you and talk baseball with a terrifically diverse group of people.

Perhaps my favorite conversation came with a 20-year-old named Evan (I think – if I’m getting that mixed up, sorry!). We covered nearly every topic you could think of, and his curiosity and intelligence were both impressive, but one comment in particular he made stuck with me – he started getting into our brand of analysis through Fire Joe Morgan, a site that was often tremendously hilarious and brutally vicious at the same time. After a while of reading hostile take-downs of various scribes, he began to realize that the end goal of all of this shouldn’t be angry rants, but humble attempts at education.

This wasn’t a new idea, but for whatever reason, it made more of an impact than before. As I discussed with several friends later, I have written enough things that I regret publishing, even if they were correct, true, or deserved. I don’t regret having an opinion, but I want my opinions to contain a healthy portion of respect. They haven’t always. They hopefully will more often in the future.

3. Appreciating What We Have

We are all incredibly lucky to have such a tremendous community that has formed around our shared love of the same game. I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to hang out with then the crew I spent the last 72 hours with. I have had conversations about so many different aspects of life with people who have seen tremendously different things, and seen them in different ways.

Anyone who thinks that the sabermetric community engages in groupthink should be required to attend a weekend like this. I don’t know of too many other places where people this different can gather and enjoy each other’s companies, even while we disagreed about things. I had a terrific lunch with MGL, Sky Kalkman, and Mark Simon, and you would be hard pressed to find four different people than our quartet. We argued more than we agreed. It was great. I left with more respect for each of them than I had previously. That we get along doesn’t mean we all think the same, and our ability to see things from a different angle gives the community as a whole a better balance.

It is a fantastic group to which we all belong. Don’t take that for granted.

With Kris Medlan suffering a tear in his UCL, the Braves are in need of a starting pitcher, and so they’re summoning Mike Minor from Triple-A to fill the rotation spot on Monday. The pitcher that Medlan originally replaced in the rotation, Kenshin Kawakami, was not an option to fill the spot because he’s thrown only one inning in the last six weeks.

Kawakami, however, has not been hurt, suspended, or otherwise absent from the team. He has just been chilling in the bullpen, waiting for Bobby Cox to summon him to the mound, an invitation that never materializes. And now that the Braves actually have a spot for him, he’s not stretched out enough to fill the hole, and is headed to Triple-A to get back on the mound. The entire saga of Kawakami’s usage is one of the more perplexing story lines of 2010.

While he is certainly no kind of ace, Kawakami is a perfectly serviceable major league starter. His performance is no different this year than it was last year, as his nearly identical xFIPs indicate. His ERA is up due to some BABIP fluctuation, but even that number isn’t overly high. He didn’t even pitch himself out of the rotation – his last start before being banished resulted in a strong performance against the Tigers.

And yet, Bobby Cox clearly has no faith in him. He kept him on ice, waiting for a low leverage long relief spot to let him soak up innings, but one never came, and he refused to use Kawakami in any game where the outcome was not yet determined. Why doesn’t he trust Kawakami? Your guess is as good as mine. His win-loss record isn’t pretty, but Cox has to be able to see how useless that number is, right?

So, instead of using a decent enough pitcher to help keep the Phillies at bay in a pennant race, the Braves now find themselves hoping he pitches well enough in Triple-A to generate some interest from another team, leading to an August trade. With a $6.7 million salary for 2011, he is sure to clear waivers, even though that amount isn’t much more than he’s worth.

Once the Braves find a team willing to look past wins and losses, Kawakami will likely have a new home – one where the manager is actually willing to give him the ball.  The Braves, meanwhile, will lean on a rookie to try to keep them ahead of the Phillies in the NL East. For their sake, I hope Minor pitches well, because otherwise, they’ll have a lot of reasons to look back and wonder why their manager simply refused to use a pretty decent major league pitcher in the middle of a pennant race.

Earlier in the week, we talked about Torii Hunter moving to right field, and it turns out that he was totally on board with the decision. He made a selfless choice for the betterment of the team, and should be lauded for his self awareness.

Last night, though, awareness is exactly what Hunter did not have. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the highlight. The shock of the announcers will key you in that this was bad, but it’s even worse than their reaction may suggest.

The situation – top the 9th inning, Angels trail 9-7, nobody out, and Hunter is on second base. Howie Kendrick is at the plate, representing the tying run.

At least, he would have been before Hunter was thrown out trying to steal third.

The Angels, previously down 9-1, had rallied back and given themselves a 17.5 percent chance of winning the game. When Hunter was thrown out, that dropped to 4.1 percent. It was a death blow to the rally, and to their chances of winning.

The play was all downside. There is almost no benefit from advancing to third base in that scenario. If Hunter had been successful, he would have pushed the Angels WPA up by just over half of one percent. Whether he was on second or third was, essentially, immaterial.

When you’re risking a 13.4 percent loss in win probability and the potential reward for success is .6 percent of win probability, the breakeven rate is off the charts. Hunter would have had to successfully steal third 22.5 times to create enough positive change in win expectancy to outweigh the loss of one unsuccessful attempt. Even when you factor in the possibility of an error that would have allowed him to score on the play, you’re looking at a break-even rate of nearly 95 percent.

His odds of success were obviously not that high. For a runner to have that kind of expectation of making it to third safely, the catcher would have to be Venus De Milo. It was an unbelievably bad play, and Hunter knew it:

“That was stupid,” Hunter said softly. “That was so stupid. Can’t take it back, killed the rally, terrible. They teach you that in Little League — don’t make the first out at third. [It] might have been the dumbest thing I’ve done in years.”

Yes, Torii, it was.

A hot topic in today’s chat was the AL Cy Young race. I think Cliff Lee is the clear favorite to win the award, but a lot of folks chimed in that they believe that David Price would win the award if voting were held today, due to his superior win totals and the way the BBWAA has voted in the past. To support their argument, they point to this article by Jon Heyman, in which he gives his mid-season Cy Young vote to Price over Lee.

I think most members of the BBWAA are smarter than Jon Heyman. And I think when they actually look at the facts, Price’s win total won’t be as impressive to them as one might think. Let’s take a look through the game logs and see just how he’s performed in the 14 games he’s been awarded a victory, using just basic stats that every sportswriter will look at.

April 9th, 9-3 win vs NYY: 7 2/3 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 7 K
April 14th, 9-1 win vs BAL: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 7 K
April 25th, 6-0 win vs TOR: 9 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, 9 K
May 7th, 4-1 win vs OAK: 7 2/3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 4 BB, 6 K
May 12th, 4-3 win vs LAA: 6 1/3 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 6 K
May 18th, 6-2 win vs CLE: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 5 K
May 23rd, 10-6 vs HOU: 5 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 2 HR, 3 BB, 2 K
June 2nd, 7-3 vs TOR: 8 IP, 9 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 0 BB, 3 K
June 9th, 10-1 vs TOR: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 5 BB, 4 K
June 15th, 10-4 vs ATL: 5 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 3 BB, 7 K
June 26th, 5-3 vs ARI: 8 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 HR, 1 BB, 11 K
July 7th, 6-4 vs BOS: 7 2/3 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 HR, 1 BB, 10 K
July 24th, 6-3 vs CLE: 7 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 4 BB, 5 K
July 29th, 4-2 vs DET: 6 1/3 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 2 BB, 9 K

In those 14 starts, the Rays have scored 96 runs, or 6.85 runs per game, including scoring 9+ runs on five different occasions. In those games, it really didn’t matter how Price pitched – if he went five innings, he was getting a win. In one of the starts, he got a win despite giving up as many runs as innings pitched.

In addition, look at how many “short” starts he had. In six of the 14 starts, he failed to finish the 7th inning, relying on the bullpen to get at least the final eight outs. He only got through the 8th inning three times, and has only one complete game in his 14 wins.

By comparison, Cliff Lee has completed at least eight innings in nine consecutive starts, throwing the full nine innings in six of those. In 18 starts, he’s only failed to finish the 7th inning once. While he may only have nine victories, his teammates have scored a grand total of 14 runs in the nine starts where he was credited with a loss or a no decision.

Regardless of what you think of BBWAA members, they are smart enough to realize that the difference in win totals between Price and Lee is entirely a function of the production of their respective teammates. Price has gotten a lot of run support and relied heavily on his bullpen, while Lee has given his relievers the night off nearly every time he took the hill and routinely got nothing from his hitters.

It’s no secret to anyone reading this site that Lee has pitched better than Price this year. But, I’d argue that even despite the win totals, that distinction is pretty clear to most of the baseball writers in America as well. Once they look at the game logs (and most of them do), they’ll see the picture above, and they’ll discount the difference in wins between the two. At least, all the ones not named Heyman.

My bet – there are more smart writers in the BBWAA than you might think. Assuming that nothing changes all that much over the final two months, I think Lee wins the AL Cy Young fairly easily. And deservedly so.

A little over a week ago, I suggeted that the Angels should change their outfield alignment by promoting Peter Bourjos and giving him playing time that was being allotted to Juan Rivera and Bobby Abreu (who could then both take DH time away from Hideki Matsui). By using Bourjos over the slow and aged, the argument was that they would get a significant improvement in their outfield defense and a peek at their future, as they’re staring at a pretty sizeable gap between themselves and the Texas Rangers.

Well, the Angels not only agreed with the assessment, but they’re taking it one step further; tonight, Bourjos will make his major league debut, and he’ll do so in center field. No, Torii Hunter is not getting a day off – the guy who has won nine consecutive Gold Gloves as a CF is playing right field for the first time since 1999.

Hunter has long been held up as an example of the questionable viability of defensive metrics by those who prefer visual analysis. His reputation is that of one of the game’s best outfielders, yet UZR has ranked him below average in CF for each of the last five years. The advanced metrics don’t think he’s terrible, just not anything special.

The Angels apparently agree, or at least don’t disagree very strongly. If they saw the difference between Bourjos and Hunter as minimal, they wouldn’t have bothered to upset the apple cart by shifting Hunter over in favor of the rookie. They’re taking the risk of offending their highest paid player, which isn’t something an organization does on a whim. That Hunter is moving to right to accommodate Bourjos, and not vice versa, is a pretty good sign that the Angels believe that there’s a big gap in defensive value between the two.

I think they’re correct, and they should be applauded for making a bold move that may not be particularly popular in some circles. Bourjos is exceptionally fast, and while we don’t have UZR for the minor leagues, the reports on him are very good, and players with his speed profile are often among the league leaders in range. This is the best use of resource that the Angels have.

This winter, we’re going to see a few guys become very, very rich. Cliff Lee is going to become one of the highest paid pitchers in the game; Carl Crawford will likely join the $100 million contract club, while Jayson Werth and Adam Dunn will get paid for their power. But, to me, the most interesting free agent of all is Adrian Beltre.

He’s going to be a fascinating case. He’s essentially a lock to opt-out of the player option he has for 2011 and go back on the market, given how well he has played for the Red Sox this year. Two more home runs last night pushed him up to the +5.0 WAR level for the season, and he’s legitimately in the discussion for American League MVP.

And, while the offense has been better than anyone expected, Beltre’s been one of the game’s best third baseman for quite some time. He’s now accumulated +48.6 WAR in 7,300 career plate appearances, or an average of +4 wins per season. We’re looking at over a decade of excellence, but it comes with inconsistencies.

Outside of 2004 and 2010, Beltre’s bat has been more average than exceptional. He has now had two monstrous offensive seasons, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Whoever signs Beltre will have to expect something closer to a .350 wOBA rather than the .403 he’s at currently. Of course, he also brings excellent defense to the table, and he’s one of the most durable players around, so you get value beyond simply what he does at the plate.

So, what’s fair market value for a 32-year-old with a true talent level of about a +4 win player? In this market, where a lot of teams are still scared to add long term payroll, probably something like 3 years, $45 million. But, with so many other quality player on the market this winter and limited teams with spending power, I have a feeling he’ll get less than that – maybe something like 3/36 instead.

I’m curious, though – what would YOU pay Adrian Beltre this winter? Do you see this as just another fluke year, and he’ll regress back to something closer to what he was in Seattle, or have you seen enough to believe that he’s a different player outside of Safeco Field?

Last week, we gave you an in depth preview of our first live event, which will be held on Saturday, August 7th in Manhattan. It was already shaping up to be a great event, but now it’s getting even better.

We’ve now added three additional guests to the roster, all of whom should add an interesting perspective to the discussion.

Jon Sciambi, currently an announcer for ESPN Radio and formerly a broadcaster for both the Florida Marlins and Atlanta Braves, will join us to share his thoughts on baseball, statistical analysis, and translating these numbers into a form that can be digested by the more casual fan. He’ll offer a unique view from someone who understands and appreciates the kinds of metrics used here at FanGraphs, but also is well aware of the need to package intelligent analysis in a way that can be consumed by people who are used to BA, HR, and RBI.

Matthew Cerrone, founder and owner of MetsBlog.com, and one of the more successful baseball bloggers on the web. He’s seen his site grow into one of the largest team-specific baseball sites on the internet, and his partnership with SNY.tv has blurred the lines between new media and old media. He has experience as a hobbyist blogger and a full-time baseball writer, and will be able to share his thoughts on the challenges of the two differing roles. Oh, and he might also have an opinion or two about the team that plays in Queens.

Sky Kalkman of Beyond The Box Score will also be joining us to share his thoughts on sabermetrics and where this type of analysis is heading. As a blogger who has been around for a while and worn a few different hats, Sky will bring his own take on the internet baseball community and where it should head in the future.

These three will join the likes of Will Leitch, Mitchel Lichtman, Alex Speier, Michael Silverman, Jonah Keri, the entire gang from River Ave Blues, and a collection of FanGraphs authors to offer up a wide variety of opinions on the game.

Additionally, we’re going to host a game-watching party for attendees to gather at a local watering hole and view that afternoon’s Boston-New York match-up together. Those who make it to the event will be invited to join us for several more hours of fun later in the afternoon.

Advanced tickets can be purchased here for $15. They will be $20 at the door, so save a little cash and buy ahead of time. You won’t regret it.

As of this morning, the Boston Red Sox are in third place, 6 1/2 games out of first place, with an estimated 18 percent chance of making the playoffs. The Los Angeles Dodgers are in fourth place, 8 games out of first place, with an estimated 4 percent chance of making the playoffs.

In the lead up to the trade deadline, the Red Sox laid fairly low, acquiring Jarrod Saltalamacchia and shipping out Ramon Ramirez, both minor transactions that will have little effect on how the team plays the rest of the year. The Dodgers did the opposite, engineering a trio of trades that saw them ship out Blake DeWitt and six minor league players in exchange for Ted Lilly, Octavio Dotel, Ryan Theriot, and Scott Podsednik.

The contrast in approaches couldn’t be any more striking. While Boston may not be resigned to finishing as an also-ran, they also refused to throw good money after bad, making a trade that would have, at best, pushed them from longshot to unlikely. The Dodgers, however, pushed their chips in to the middle and bet on the the team justifying the investment over the final two months of the season.

While inaction is usually looked at with scorn during deadline time, I would imagine the Dodgers will look back on their moves and wish they had exercised a little less aggressiveness.

No, they didn’t give up any sure things. Both James McDonald and Andrew Lambo have lost some sheen from their prospect status of a few years ago, and those are the two most talented players they surrendered. But the general rule with prospects is “the more, the merrier”, as a sheer quantity approach will usually result in a positive outcome or two. By giving up this much young talent, it’s likely that the Dodgers will eventually wish they had one or two of these guys back.

For a team with a one in 30 chance of playing in October, that just doesn’t seem like a wise use of resources. You could probably make a case for these deals if LA was a couple of games back and just trying to overcome one team, but they’ve got three clubs in front of them in their own division, two of whom have significant leads.

There is a time for bold action, and there’s a time to accept that it probably isn’t your year. The passive approach that the Red Sox took to the trade deadline was probably the better course. Barring a miracle, neither team will make the playoffs, but at least the Red Sox will still have their farm system mostly intact.