Bodog has published their early odds for the winner of the 2012 World Series. I’ve included the odds for each of the 30 MLB teams below. I’ve also included the break-even (BE) point (i.e. the likelihood of winning above which a team must have in order for a bet to be profitable) and a generic “projected” probability (i.e. what the odds suggest is the likely chance of each team winning the World Series) calculated by scaling the total break-even percentage for all 30 teams to 100%.

Numbers after the jump. Note: I’ve assumed, as I believe is custom, that the bettor gets his original stake back in a winning bet. So if the odds are 4/1 — as they are for Philadelphia — the bettor receives $5 in return for a winning $1 bet, making the break-even point only 20%.

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Andrew Brackman, who signed a major-league deal out of NC State, is no longer a Yankee.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
3. Prospecting: Baseball America’s Top 10 Atlanta Prospects

Assorted Headlines
Yankees Decline Option on Former First-Rounder Brackman
The New York Yankees declined the 2012 option on 25-year-old right-hander Andrew Brackman’s contract, MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch reports. Brackman signed a four-year, $4.55 million deal after being taken 30th overall in the 2007 draft. Though generally considered a top-ish propsect (he was ranked as the 92nd overall prospect by Baseball America before 2009 and 78th overall before 2011), Brackman missed all of 2008 after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow, and walked and struck out 75 batters a piece in 2011. He’s now a free agent, although it wouldn’t be shocking to see him sign a minor-league deal with New York. (Read Mike Axisa’s analysis of the Brackman Situation here.)

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League

Assorted Headlines
It’s Official: Mets’ Citi Field to Shrink
The Mets front office has announced Monday that the outfield walls of Citi Field will be altered before the 2012 season, Andrew Keh of the New York Times reports. You can see the new specifications by following the link, but the most notable change seems to be the placement of a new eight-foot wall in front of the 16-foot wall in left field. While, as the article notes, the move should aid the Mets’ power hitters, all signs point to the Mets’ opponents having the same exact advantage.

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Episode Ninety-One
In which things change and also stay the same.

Headlines
Look Inside!

Featuring
Dayn Perry, Baseball Writing Veteran

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 23 min. play time.)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Japanese sensation Yu Darvish pitched in the NPB playoffs on Friday (i.e. Saturday). More info here.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
3. Projection: ZiPS for New York (AL), Boston, Chicago (NL), Philadelphia

Assorted Headlines
Brewers Decline Options on K-Rod and (More Importantly) Betancourt
The Milwaukee Brewers declined Sunday to exercise the 2012 options for both Francisco Rodriguez and Yuniesky Betancourt, MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reports. Rodriguez would have been owed $17.5 million in 2012; Betancourt, $6 million. The pair’s buyouts were $4 and $2 million, respectively. While the Brewers will no doubt miss the offensive production of Prince Fielder, replacing Yuniesky Betancourt with someone who’s not Yuniesky Betancourt will go some way towards mitigating the loss of Fielder.

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In the sweat of Carlos Zambrano’s face shalt he eat bread — and also per the terms of his contract.

Assorted Headlines
Zambrano May Pitch in Venezuelan Winter League
Carlos Zambrano — who hasn’t pitched since an August 12th incident that saw him concede five home runs, attempt to hit Chipper Jones, and perform emotional hara-kiri — might pitch for Caribes in the Venezuelan Winter League, MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat reports. The right-hander, who posted the highest xFIP- of his career (113) in 2011, is owed $18 million in 2012. Reports suggest that he maybe also eats children*.

*These reports come from a dream I had last night.

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A couple of months ago, I submitted to these pages a piece in which I attempted to identify five-tool players by the nerdiest possible numbers. For each of the tools — hitting for average, hitting for power, etc. — I used an advanced metric that would serve as a sort of proxy for that tool. For average, it was contact percentage; for power, it was home runs per batted ball; for speed, it was Speed Score; for fielding, it was a combination of UZR and the WAR positional adjustment. The methodology, if imperfect, at least had the effect of framing the conversation.

There was some question at the time regarding what exactly is meant by the “hit” tool — and how we define it is likely to have an effect on the how we measure it.

Fortunately for all of America, J.D. Sussman of Beyond the Box Score actually wrote a meditation on the hit tool back in March — a piece for which he was able to elicit the following definitions of the hit tool from people who know a thing ot two about a thing or two.

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White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, seen here enjoying his vast wealth.

Assorted Headlines
Cardinals Exercise Wainwright’s 2012 and ’13 Options
During this postseason run, the Cardinals officially notified Adam Wainwright and his agent that his options for 2012 and 2013 have been exercised, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Wainwright will make $9 million in 2012 and $12 million in 2013. He’s scheduled to throw his final side session of the year today, and plans to do so at maximum effort.

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By a combination of brute force, cunning, and not a little bit of American-made whiskey, we’ve completed the contract crowdsourcing series, reader.

I have it on decent authority that Full-Time Employee Dave Cameron will do some science to the results on either Thursday or Friday. In the meantime, however, there are still a couple hours to enter your, uh, entries.

Below are links to each of the posts, by position. Entries will stop at 4pm ET today. Thanks!

Catcher
First Base (and DH)
Second Base
Third Base
Shortstop
Corner Outfield
Center Field
Starting Pitcher
Relief Pitcher

We conclude (!) our contract crowdsourcing today with relief pitchers. Noah Isaacs provided a summary of the options available as part of this offseason’s class of free-agent relief pitchers.

While we’ll reserve all contract information until the end of the present series (to avoid bias), data from yesterday’s polling reveals that only 11.8% of respondents know, off the top of their respective heads, how many consecutive 200-inning seasons Mark Buehrle has pitched.

Forms after the jump.

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