Offseason Notes for October 27th
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.
Red Sox Likely to Pick Up Scutaro’s Option
Ben Cherington believes Marco Scutaro would be “very coveted” this offseason if he got onto the market, said the new Boston GM in a recent press conference (according to notes from same by Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLB Trade Rumors). As part of our contract crowdsourcing series, 61.9% of FanGraphs respondents felt that the Sox would pick up the shortstop’s option, which now appears to be the likely outcome.
White Sox Restaurant Paid for With Millions of Public Funding
It will not shock you to learn that taxpayer dollars were used to construct a restaurant (called Bacardi at the Park) from which the Chicago White Sox are now the only profiters. What may at least make you giggle is how little regard former governor Jim Thompson has for your intelligence.
From the article by Jared Hopkins of the Trib:
The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority agreed with White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf that the agency should not share in any restaurant profits.
“We said to Jerry, ‘Jerry can we have part of the profits?’ and he said no,” former Gov. Jim Thompson, who was the agency’s board chairman when the deal was made, said in an interview. “We said, OK.’
“I’ve known Jerry for 52 years. He’s tough. He’s tough.”
That was a smart business move by Jerry Reinsdorf, saying “no” like that, yes?
SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League
Regarding the Venezuelan Winter League
Unlike the Mexican Pacific League, the leaderboards for which we looked at on Tuesday, the Venezuelan Winter League (VWL) is rich with minor leaguers from affiliated baseball — including, for example Minnesota’s Joe Benson, Arizona’s Collin Cowgill, and Seattle’s Alex Liddi. There are also former major leaguers from Venezuela, such as Met Edgardo Alfonzo and Astro Richard Hidalgo.
Batting Leaderboard
Here is the SCOUT batting leaderboard for the VWL. SCOUT is the average of a player’s standard deviations from the VWL mean in three important (and regressed) stats: walk rate, strikeout rate, and home-run rate. (Click here for more on SCOUT.)
| Name | Org | PA | xBB% | xK% | xHR% | BBz | Kz | HRz | SCOUT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seth Bynum | WAS | 46 | 12.0% | 17.7% | 2.8% | 0.25 | 0.16 | 0.26 | 0.22 |
| Luis Jimenez | SEA | 58 | 10.9% | 18.2% | 3.3% | 0.07 | 0.09 | 0.48 | 0.22 |
| Kole Calhoun | LAA | 53 | 12.2% | 18.2% | 2.7% | 0.27 | 0.09 | 0.24 | 0.20 |
| Gregor Blanco | WAS | 56 | 14.0% | 18.5% | 2.0% | 0.55 | 0.05 | -0.02 | 0.20 |
| Josh Satin | NYN | 47 | 15.5% | 20.9% | 2.1% | 0.78 | -0.30 | 0.00 | 0.16 |
| Darwin Perez | LAA | 37 | 11.0% | 15.5% | 1.8% | 0.09 | 0.48 | -0.10 | 0.16 |
| Jose Altuve | HOU | 41 | 10.3% | 15.7% | 2.1% | -0.02 | 0.45 | 0.02 | 0.15 |
| Alexi Amarista | LAA | 55 | 12.1% | 16.6% | 1.7% | 0.25 | 0.32 | -0.14 | 0.14 |
| Lorenzo Cain | KC | 37 | 10.5% | 16.2% | 2.1% | 0.01 | 0.38 | 0.03 | 0.14 |
| Bryan LaHair | CHN | 47 | 12.0% | 22.3% | 3.7% | 0.24 | -0.49 | 0.64 | 0.13 |
Pitching Leaderboard
For pitchers, SCOUT is the average of a player’s standard deviations from the VWL mean in (regressed) strikeout and walk rate.
| Name | Org | G | GS | IP | BF | xK% | xBB% | Kz | BBz | SCOUT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Owen | NYN | 4 | 2 | 13.0 | 50 | 23.6% | 8.4% | 0.50 | 0.05 | 0.28 |
| Sergio Perez | HOU | 3 | 3 | 13.2 | 51 | 24.2% | 8.7% | 0.57 | -0.03 | 0.27 |
| Deunte Heath | CHA | 3 | 3 | 12.1 | 54 | 23.0% | 8.3% | 0.43 | 0.07 | 0.25 |
| Josh Wilkie | WAS | 6 | 0 | 6.1 | 19 | 22.9% | 8.3% | 0.41 | 0.07 | 0.24 |
| Jarrett Grube | SEA | 2 | 2 | 11.0 | 41 | 22.7% | 8.3% | 0.40 | 0.06 | 0.23 |
| Frank Mata | FLA | 4 | 0 | 6.2 | 28 | 22.5% | 8.5% | 0.37 | 0.02 | 0.19 |
| Kendy Batista | IND | 8 | 0 | 8.0 | 28 | 22.4% | 8.5% | 0.36 | 0.02 | 0.19 |
| Chad Reineke | CIN | 3 | 3 | 14.2 | 66 | 21.6% | 8.3% | 0.26 | 0.07 | 0.16 |
| Josh Schmidt | NYA | 2 | 2 | 10.2 | 42 | 22.0% | 8.7% | 0.31 | -0.02 | 0.15 |
| Joe Bisenius | CHA | 2 | 2 | 9.2 | 39 | 21.7% | 8.5% | 0.28 | 0.01 | 0.15 |
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Do you 99 percenters never stop!? Jerry Reinsdorf is a job creator. : )
The sad thing about that convo by the ex-guv is that his summary he left out how these conversations really go these days:
Guv: “Jer, if we’re gonna – I mean if taxpayers are gonna put up the money, we need to get sometin’ back, maybe a partnership.”
Reiny: “No.”
Guv: “Well damn, Jer. I know you’re a Chi-town guy, but ya can’t just torch a nego like that before we even get started!”
Reiny: “Just did. Anything else?”
Guv: “Damn, yer tough! Tough I tell ya! …. well, I’m not runnin’ again, but did you see the papers where they said the party’s coffers are a little dry?”
Reiny: “Don’t care.”
Guv: “Ah! Tough, man! Come on now work with me here…. if you want to keep open state financing for a WHOLE NEW park in the future, surely you wanna kick in a few thou to the party, right?”
Reiny: “I’ll send over ten thousand. Note I didn’t say I’ll go to lunch with some party hack. I’m just sending a check.”
Guv: “Man, you are a tough guy, Jer. Good doin’ bidness with ya!”
Reiny: Click.