First of all, yes, I’ll admit it: I’m eating my words right now. After writing my aggressively-headlined “Good Luck Shopping A.J. Burnett, Yanks” piece on Wednesday, it turns out the Yankees have found at least one potential suitor for Burnett in the Pirates. The two sides are still haggling over how much money the Yankees should eat, but considering the Yankees’ incentive to get rid of Burnett, it seems likely that a deal will happen eventually.

Trading Burnett is a no-brainer for the Yankees; they would be freeing up payroll space while simultaneously opening up a spot in their rotation for Phil Hughes or Freddy Garcia. But why would the Pirates be interested in adding Burnett?

As it turns out, the Pirates are in a unique predicament that makes them one of the few teams in the majors in a position to add Burnett. They have a weak rotation, headlined by the enigmatic Charlie Morton (who had off-season surgery and is doubtful for the beginning of the season) and the injury-prone Erik Bedard, and they have been rebuffed by numerous free agent pitchers this offseason. They offered Edwin Jackson a three-year deal, but he turned it down in favor of taking a one-year deal with the Nationals; they also attempted to woo Roy Oswalt, but he has limited his search to a handful of contending teams.

Burnett is no Oswalt or Jackson. He has upside in Pittsburgh’s park — which is considerably less home-run-prone than Yankee Stadium — but he’s still only a +2 to +3 win pitcher who is under contract for two more seasons. He’s not the final piece that will allow them to put together a competitive team, and he’s not going to be able to compensate for the other holes in the Pirates’ rotation. He’s an improvement and will likely come at a good value — although the Yankees had better be ready to pony up more dough — but why are the Pirates spending their resources on a mediocre upgrade?

Teams that have struggled for a long period of time have a vicious cycle holding them down, making it difficult for them to become contenders. Losing teams generally have weaker revenue streams than successful teams, and they face the added challenge of the top free agents typically don’t want to go to a perpetually losing team, even if they are offering boatloads of money.

Based on this offseason’s progression, it seems like the Pirates are stuck in that position. They have some exciting young position players, but they desperately need to add pitching depth if they want to take their club to the next level. And even if A.J. Burnett doesn’t solve all their problems, he’s got three things going for him: he’s a step in the right direction, he’ll come at a fair value, and he isn’t going to say no. Even an incremental upgrade might make it more likely that the next player the Pirates pursue will say yes.

It is a simple question.

What is sabermetrics?

Not the history of it, but what is it, right now? What is, in our nerdiest of lingoes, its derivative? Where is it pointing? What does it do?

Last Tuesday I created no little stir when I listed the 2012 saber teams, delineating them according to their perceived embrace of modern sabermetrics.

Today, I recognize I needed to take a step back and first define sabermetrics, because it became obvious quickly I did not have the same definition at heart as some of the readers and protesters who gathered outside my apartment.

I believe, and this is my belief — as researcher and a linguist — that sabermetrics is not statistics. The term itself has come to — or needs to — describe more than just on-base percentage, weighted runs created plus, fielding independent pitching, and wins above replacement.

Sabermetrics is the advanced study of baseball, not the burying of one’s head in numbers.
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As pointed out by MLB Trade Rumors, Joel Sherman mentioned in an article this morning that the Yankees are attempting to trade A.J. Burnett in order to free up some roster flexibility. As he spells out:

They know no team will take all of Burnett’s remaining two years at $33 million. But if they could save, say, $4 million this year and next year, it would provide some wiggle room to finish off their roster heading into spring training. (Sherman, NY Post)

The Yankees would like to sign two more players in order to round out their bench, but according to Sherman, only have about $2 million in wiggle room at the moment. Ignoring the whole “The Yankees actually have a budget?” thing, what are the odds the Yankees actually manage to deal Burnett? And should teams actually want him, even if it’s at a discount?

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In recent weeks, the Yankees have made it clear that they’re interested in adding one more bat to help them fill their DH spot. This hitter would ideally be a left-handed hitter who could platoon with Andruw Jones and provide the Yankees with a valuable bat off the bench.

It just so happens that there are a number of left-handed hitters still left on the market: Raul Ibanez, Johnny Damon, and Hideki Matsui. The Yankees have reportedly been considering all three, and as of last night, they appear to be leaning toward Ibanez:

Sources: #Yankees in serious discussions with Ibanez. He is willing to take less to play for them than he could get elsewhere. #MLB

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 7, 2012

Are the Yankees right to prefer Ibanez to Damon or Matsui? Judging from the their regressed splits, it’s a toss-up.

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Yesterday, as Part 1 of this post, I looked at the accomplishment that was Michael Pineda’s 2010 season in the minor leagues — an accomplishment, specifically, for his ability to limit walks while simultanously throwing a fastball with excellent velocity.

As was noted in that piece, no other starter with 50-plus innings in either Double- or Triple-A (again, in 2010) was able to sit at around 95 mph with his fastball while also walking fewer than 7.0% of batters faced. Pineda, in fact, accomplished this feat at both Double- and Triple-A, walking 5.4% of opposing batters in 77.0 innings at Double-A West Tenn and then 6.5% of opposing batters in 62.1 innings at Triple-A Tacoma.

In this post, I’ll be looking at which players performed similarly in the high minors last season to how Pineda did in 2010.

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Silly monkey, BRAINS ARE FOR ZOMBIES.

Casey Kotchman is in many ways a man without a home — a player equal parts under-appreciated and over-valued, who irks both old and new schools at the same time. Old school analysts say his defense is amazing, but they cannot quantify it, and in 2011, they claimed his cleared vision meant he finally learned how to aim the ball “where they ain’t,” but he’s still a .268 hitter with little power. The new school says he’s worth about 7.6 runs per season defensively, but worth ~1.1 WAR per 600 PAs — not good — and his BABIP was high 2011, so he should not be able to repeat his success.

Despite his inability to build a consistent following of fans in the baseball outsiders communities, Kotchman seems to have some insider communities very much interested in him, as Tom Tango points out:

Kotchman’s last four teams: Redsox, Mariners, Rays, Indians. Can we say that a team that signs Kotchman is saber-leaning?

Indeed, after spending five and a half seasons on the Angels’ and Braves’ rosters, Kotchman has begun to shuffle around with the Nerdz, most recently signing with the Cleveland Indians. It makes sense too — Kotchman’s lack of power keeps him cheap, and his strong defense keeps him amorphous for the old school teams, while the new schools might have different valuations on Kotchman, they can at least quantify his contributions and better know how he fits.

Then, on Monday, the Houston Astros signed Justin Ruggiano, long-time Tampa Bay Rays outfielder who was never good enough to stick on the Rays’ roster, but who possesses strong defensive chops and above average patience. His lack of power and ~.290 batting average, however, must make him a mystery — or at least an undesirable asset — to the old school teams.

Upon Ruggiano signing with the Astros, a once highly old school team, my reaction was all: “Welp, that’s one more team to compete with” — and then it occurred to me! No only have the Astros entered the realm of, so to speak, saber-minded organizations, but so have the long-backward Chicago Cubs.

Suddenly the league looks very different.

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Ideas for this post came from conversations with Dave Cameron on recent episodes of FanGraphs Audio. Most scouting info is courtesy Baseball America.

Allow me to establish immediately that the title of this post is, in part, disingenuous: insofar as every player is unique, there is no “Next Michael Pineda.” There are pitchers who will surprise us with their success in 2012, for sure — some of them in a way similar to how Michael Pineda surprised us in 2011 — but none of them, obviously, will do it in precisely the same way that Pineda did.

Having said that, allow me to also submit that Michael Pineda absolutely represents a type of pitcher who is perhaps more likely to succeed than we (or, at least, than the present author) has, at one point, assumed.

To get a sense of what I mean, let’s consider the relative prospect statuses, over the last three years, of Pineda and the player (Jesus Montero) for whom he was traded this offseason.

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It is officially February when baseball news is reduced to vague rumors about teams from which Roy Oswalt and Edwin Jackson may or may not be considering one-year offers. Well, that and that Mark Teixeira saying he might bunt to beat the shift this season. Hoo boy.

There is something of interest in the Teixeira report, though. Sure, we do not know whether he is actually going to do it or not. Remember, this is the time of year when players say things like “I’m going to steal 20 bags this year” even if they have never stolen more than 10 in any season. Still, it is not a crazy idea. While sabermetric writing on the internet went through a phase of arguing that bunts are counterproductive to scoring and winning, research has progressed to show that bunts are not as bad as all that. In certain situations, they can be a good idea in terms of getting the win in a close game or simply “keeping the fielders honest” (also known as “game theory,” a term I am pretty sure Bruce Bochy uses frequently).

But what about power hitter like Teixeira? Isn’t bunting always a bad idea for them? To answer this properly would require a great deal of complex thinking and programming. For now, let’s take a simple approach by looking at some data from 2011 to see whether Teixeira is simply blowing smoke or making sense.

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Jorge Posada officially announced his retirement earlier this week, to the surprise of no one who was following the baseball beat the last lately. The career Yankee may have finished with a whimper, but his career was mostly a series of bangs with which FanGraphs readers are probably familiar. From my perspective, it often seemed that Posada was under-appreciated in his prime. However, the force of nostalgia (even for relatively recent eras) seems to be asserting itself a bit as some are arguing that Posada should make the Hall of Fame.

A short blog post is not the place to address every aspect of one player’s Hall of Fame case. What piques my interest is the idea that while the shape of Posada’s Wins Above Replacement total and peak may not measure up to the average Hall of Fame standards, he may merit more consideration because WAR is somehow unfair to catchers. Obviously, if you hate WAR and similar metrics, you probably are not going to read much further. But even if you are open to them, you might think they have limitations, perhaps such as this one. For this post I simply want to argue that while there are some anomalous cases with respect to using the WAR to measuring Hall-worthiness, such as the case of great relief pitchers, I do not think that the same is true of catchers like Posada.

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Episode 125
Jeff Sullivan is the editor of SB Nation’s wildly popular Seattle Mariner blog, Lookout Landing. In this episode, we discuss the most obvious thing — i.e. the trade that sent Michael Pineda to New York in exchange for sorta, kinda catching prospect Jesus Montero. We also celebrate life and liberty — inadvertently, at least.

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 27 min. play time.)

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