Archive for Daily Graphings

Yahoo! Sports reporters Jeff Passan and Tim Brown reported late on Tuesday that they had obtained records of now defunct anti-aging clinic Biogenesis and that three of the documents contained the name of Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun. Last week, the New Times of Miami reported that Biogenesis and its founder Anthony Bosch had allegedly provided performance-enhancing drugs to other MLB players, including Alex Rodriguez, Nelson Cruz, and Gio Gonzalez. Rodriguez, Cruz, and Gonzalez have denied receiving PEDs from Biogenesis or Bosch.

According to Yahoo!, one of the documents includes Braun’s name among a list of other players, including Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera, Francisco Cervelli, and Danny Valencia, but without any notation about drugs or other substances banned by MLB. Another document has multiple references to Chris Lyons, one of several attorneys who represented Braun in 2011 and 2012 in his appeal of a positive drug test. That appeal was ultimately successful when the MLB arbitrator, Shyam Das, found that the urine sample obtained from Braun had not been handled in accordance with the process set forth in MLB’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program and was, therefore, invalid.

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The Marlins traded away a bunch of their players. They didn’t trade away Giancarlo Stanton, though, so someone will hit some home runs in Miami. Will he be the only one? The ZiPs projections for the Marlins came out last week and they suggest he’ll really be the only power source in Miami this year. It even looks like he could be legendarily lonely.

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Earlier Tuesday, word got around that the St. Louis Cardinals had called an afternoon press conference. Word got around because the Cardinals spread it. Immediately, there was some speculation that the Cardinals had made an acquisition. There was also speculation that the Cardinals were going to announce a long-term contract extension for a player or coach. But then there were whispers that the news conference would have to do with Chris Carpenter’s future, and many began to expect a retirement announcement. Carpenter has not retired, but retirement doesn’t appear to be far off.

Carpenter’s coming off major surgery, and he started throwing early on this offseason to test his body. Recently, he informed the Cardinals that he’s feeling similar symptoms to the ones he experienced a year ago. He’s going to get himself examined, but the Cardinals all but wrote him off for 2013, and they repeatedly referred to Carpenter in the past tense. This is not a Chris Carpenter retirement article, but you can consider it just one step below.

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One of the most often cited criticisms of WAR is that replacement level is essentially an arbitrary construct, making the entire model just an act of theoretical speculation. The idea of replacement level is to essentially set a baseline for expected performance from a team that invested the absolute minimum in putting together a Major League roster. This replacement level team wouldn’t have a farm system, so that they didn’t have to spend money on draft picks, coaches, equipment, or facilities. They would rely entirely on league minimum veterans to build out their roster, thus allowing us to see how approximately many wins a team could expect if they did the absolute bare minimum in terms of organizational investment.

That team doesn’t exist, obviously, as even organizations that completely tear down their big league roster work to rebuild through accumulation of young talent, and no team actually spends the league minimum on its Major League payroll. Thus, the criticism that the entire exercise is a thought experiment, not applicable to the Major Leagues and incapable of serving as a baseline against which Major League players should be judged.

However, that argument misses out on the fact that MLB teams give us a pretty great list of replacement level players every winter, thanks to the processes of minor league free agency and the waiver system.

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Play the player-profile game again tomorrow — in this case, at 1:00pm ET. We’re giving away a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).

As Eno Sarris announced yesterday, FanGraphs+ is once again available to the sexy, teeming masses.

In celebration — and to the end of nearly relentless promotion — we’re playing the player-profile game I introduced in these pages a few offseasons ago.

The game is easy: one person (me, in this case) offers the text of single player profile, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The other person (you, the reader) attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.

First reader to guess correctly (in the comments section below) gets a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ — approximately a $1000 value!

Today’s entry comes to us courtesy of Mr. David Wiers.

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There was the Reggie Bar, named for and endorsed by Reggie Jackson. There was Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle in a prominent ad for Yoo-Hoo Chocolate Drink. Stan Musial was on the back of the Wheaties box and paired with Ted Williams in ads for Chesterfield cigarettes. Roger Clemens was in a Zest soap commercial and Rafael Palmeiro talked about erectile dysfunction for Viagra. Okay, maybe that last one isn’t the one to highlight.

But why aren’t there big major league stars on today’s Wheaties boxes?

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When I think of expectations, I think of a line an old college buddy used to say regarding just about any undertaking: “Aim low and miss.” Olympian, he was not.

But that line came back to me when I was thinking about Kevin Millwood, not because Kevin Millwood aimed low, but because I think many observers had unreasonable expectations for his career. Millwood, as you probably are aware, decided to hang it up and do the spend-more-time-with-the-family deal. And from what I’ve read about him across electronic and print pages, he “failed to meet expectations” during his 16 seasons in the majors. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.

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Some weeks ago, there was talk that the A’s were interested in trading for Jed Lowrie, while in return, the Astros were interested in getting Chris Carter and a young pitcher. Sometimes rumors reported in such a way are based in fact, and sometimes rumors reported in such a way are based in fantasy. Monday evening, the A’s swung a trade to get themselves Jed Lowrie. As part of the return, the Astros got themselves Chris Carter and a young pitcher.

The actual, complete specifics:

To Oakland: Jed Lowrie, Fernando Rodriguez
To Houston: Chris Carter, Brad Peacock, Max Stassi

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The last time Brandon Webb pitched in the major leagues was Opening Day 2009, as the Diamondbacks hosted the Rockies on April 6. Webb lasted four innings, and via Brooks Baseball, here’s what his velocity chart looked like:

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For at least three franchises, this offseason could have taken a very different path. When Justin Upton vetoed a trade to the Mariners, he altered the direction of Seattle, Arizona and Atlanta, at the very least. Such negated transactions make for fascinating what-if’s, and now that we are edging into the time of year when all we will read is “best shape of my career” posts, I thought we could step back and take a look at some of these.

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