If for some reason you have been under a rock for the past week or perhaps you’ve been cranking up the INXS, putting on your mother’s coke bottle eye glasses, and hollering “Where’s the cat at” until the Right Field Positional Power Rankings were unveiled, be sure to acquaint yourself with the methodology of the following. The quick and dirty is that the projections are a hybrid of Steamer and ZiPS, it takes into account expected playing time and players at multiple positions.

Right field seems like a place you put slow-footed sluggers that can murder the ball at the plate, and yet I remember playing a lot of right field because it was thought that I would do the least amount of defensive damage at the position. The combination of big offense and bad defense at the position might be changing — look closely at this year’s crop and you could be underwhelmed by the bats, and you’ll also see some players that produce despite low-powered plate production. And yet, one of the most exciting young (and, yes, powerful) players in baseball is atop the chart at the position — at least the Marlins have one thing going for them.

Right field — maybe not as sexy as your father’s right field, but still fairly attractive.

Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Gomez will be a Brewer for another four years, it looks like.

With 3 year $24 million extension thru 2016 #Brewers have committed 4 years and $28.3 million to Carlos Gomez over next 4 seasons.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 13, 2013

There aren’t many players that fit his contract situation perfectly — Gomez is being extended for three years with one year of arbitration left, and not at a superstar rate — but we can talk about him as a player and whether or not the Brewers will remember this deal fondly anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes it’s worth unpacking something that seems like it’s fairly cut and dry. Like, for example, the Mariners are showing quite a bit of power in spring training right now, but it seems like folly to put too much stock in those numbers. That statement alone can send you on a journey.

Read the rest of this entry »

It might be hard to believe this after Sergio Romo closed out the World Series and probably wrapped up the stopper role going forward for the Giants and Team Mexico, but there was a time when the prognosis for his career was much more negative. After all, he’s a small righty (five-foot-ten and a buck-eighty-five) with a fastball that doesn’t normally crack 90 miles per hour who throws his slider more than half of the time. Given what we might know about injuries and platoon splits, there was probably one role waiting for him in the bigs: ROOGY.

But Sergio Romo is not a Righty One-Out GuY. I asked him why.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Los Angeles Dodgers have many stars. The Los Angeles Dodgers don’t have a star third baseman, at least not one that is slated to start third base this year. The Dodgers *do* have many good defensive shortstops, and none of them is starting at shortstop. The weirdest thing is that it might all make sense, at least for now.

Read the rest of this entry »

First, Tigers’ general manager Dave Dombrowski said young fireballing right-hander Bruce Rondon would be given “every shot” at closing this coming year. Then there were rumors that the Tigers were “targeting relievers capable of closing.” Last week, the manager said he doubted that anyone would be “anointed the closer out of spring training.” Whether or not there’s a real difference in the team stance at any of these points, there do seem to be some different ideas being put forth about the team’s perception of the closer’s role.

Read the rest of this entry »