Hey All,

I attended spring training this year for the first time, which was a blast. I discovered that my group of friends who go each year apparently set a wager on certain questions concerning the Giants performance in the upcoming season; the winner gets steak dinner covered by everyone else the next March.

This years' questions were:

* Total wins on the season
* Runs scored on the season
* Runs allowed on the season
* Combined strikeout total, Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain
* Home runs hit by first basemen (all players, only while playing first base)

Our submissions were:

Wins	RS	RA	Ks	HRs

====================================

95	707	595	411	20

92	666	578	389	21

91	615	575	397	23

90	683	611	396	26

89	640	620	389	27

88	645	610	380	26

85	655	630	335	25

83	633	593	333	33

(FWIW: the guesses that start with 91 wins and 89 wins both exceed their runs scored/runs allowed pythag by five wins, while the final guess (83 wins) falls three wins short of a 633 RS/593 RA pythag)

My guesses were the line that started with "85". I apparently expect the Giants to be a winning team, but not win the division.

As for runs allowed, the G-Men top three (four?) starters are of course studs, but with Eric Surkamp as our top option in the case of injuries or ineffectiveness, I am expecting runs allowed to rise compared with last year (I think I'd feel more comfortable with this season with Zach Wheeler in Richmond and Scott Barnes in Fresno :( ).

The offence can't help but improve over last year (Posey > Whiteside+Stewart, 2012 Crawford > 2011 Crawford, 2012 Belt+Pill+Huff > 2011 Huff), but I am not expected all the pieces to click all at once like they did in the second half of 2010. And I was cognizant that scoring has generally been dropping all around the league in the past few years, so that played some into my estimates.

Just looked it up, and Lincecum and Cain have averaged a combined 422.5 Ks the past four years, so my guess of 335 is probably too low. The number has been steadily declining though (451 > 432 > 408 > 399), and I was imagining a continued drop, and perhaps an injury. But such a steep drop off is more of a possibility than probability. A bounce back to 450 Ks is also of course a possibility.

As for first base homers, it looks like the team has three reasonable options, so, *ideally*, no one will get too much playing time if they are not hitting.

I am curious to tap the wisdom of the McCoven, and see what estimates people here would make for those five questions, and perhaps why.

The 2011 Giants remind me of a hypothetical guy whose father was a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and so the guy keeps trying to be a big-shot, keeping trying to make a big splash and entrepreneurially start a world-famous company ... and keeps going down in flames.  The guy would be less of a burn-out and macabre spectacle if he just lowered his expectations, and was simply content to be more of a normal person, a family-practice lawyer, an architect, whatever.

Similarly, I think that I would enjoy this season more if it seemed like the Giants management had accepted that simply finishing over .500 is a fine thing - if they seemed to understand that finishing second, or lucking into the playoffs and getting bounced in the first round, are fine outcomes.  It's better than having a losing record - which, it bears noting, is something about half of teams have.

Sabean said as recently as half-way though this season that the Giants are ”absolutely" aiming to repeat.  And, so it seems, the pressure is on.  I've seen quotes from the hitters all season, saying that they sometimes have been putting pressure on themselves, trying to hit nine-run homers with each swing of the bat.   And, with the exception of Keppinger-for-Sosa-n-Stoffel, the Giants' mid-season trades seemed to me desperate, forced, and heavy-handed - not clever, elegant, and economical, as I would have liked.

Yeah, we have a limited window of opportunity with the peak seasons of Timmy, Cain, and the rest of the great pitchers.   And yes I know that the Giants gained a lot of new fans (as well as national stature and revenue) since winning it all, and so there is an according pressure to put an entertaining product on the field this season.

But once Buster, Freddie, and so many others got injured, and once Huff and others started showing signs of dramatically underperforming, maybe it would have been best if Sabean and his lieutenants had just accepted that lightening rarely strikes the same place twice, and that the odds are that it's just not gonna be the Giants' year this year too.  Perhaps it would have been best to have kept our Wheeler and Neal, let the Brandon brothers play though some slumps, and just enjoy the ups and downs of the boys of summer doing their thing - without the heavy pressure and expectations.

[shanghaijim posted his meditation on the meaning of Cooperstown a couple days ago that got people talking.  I wrote the post below a couple weeks ago but have been sitting on it as a draft, and it's funny the correlations with the discussion in that thread.  So - posting it now.]

About five weeks ago, I drove across the USA with my father, moving my sister's furniture from Providence RI to San Diego. 

My dad behind the rental truck wheel

Ready to roll

We stopped at Cooperstown on our way.  I have wanted to see the HoF for decades, and am glad that I finally did.

I was surprised by it though - I guess I expected something different.  First off, it took about two hours on snowy twisty anonymous back country roads to get to into town at all.  I'm not sure how all the VIPs get there for the induction ceremony each year.  Also, I imagined the museum would be some sort of grand pavilion situated in an epically landscaped park.  Turns out, it was more like just a building, on one of the streets of a small town. 

Cooperstown street

Me at the front door

Pops makes the entrance

Many of the exhibits were cool and interesting, and it was of course great seeing the real (jerseys, bats, cleats, game balls, rings, etc) from historical events.

Mays and McCovey jerseys

When I was a kid, my family lived in NY, and my dad was a Seaver fan

Overall, however, the exhibits felt to me not very well maintained or presented, kind of slipshod messy and haphazard, and the museaum as a whole was smaller than I thought it would be.  As much as I have read about the great honor of memorabilia being "sent to Cooperstown," I expected more.  Frankly, my dad and I had a better time at Graceland in Memphis.

The one thing I did enjoy the most was the plaque room - it had a deep, solemn, and reverential feel to it. 

My dad digging the scene

Forty-year San Diego resident with Tony Gwynn plaque

Of course, there were many plaques for people who mean nothing to me - writers, GMs, and the like, and many of the old-tymie players.  And the plaques themselves usually list some numerical accomplishments that were interesting to my Dad - but not so much to me, given the hundreds of hours I've spent perusing Baseball Reference.  Still - I loved being in that room.

We slept that night in Seneca Falls, and there was a nasty snow storm the next day as we set out.  We saw scores of spun out cars and big rigs, including one massive pile up that haunts me to remember the sight of.

Anyway, the next day, driving through Kentucky, my dad asked me who I thought currently isn't enshrined in the HoF who I think should be.  I told him that I don't have much to say about players from before 1965, but I gave my thoughts on more recent players. 

Since getting back to normal life, I've been giving it some more ponders, and, on reflection, the list below is what I'd say about more recent players

Absolutely:

C - Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Piazza
1B/DH - Albert Pujols, Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome
IF - Alan Trammell, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Larkin, Bobby Grich, Chipper Jones, Craig Biggio, Derek Jeter, Lou Whitaker
OF - Barry Bonds, Ichiro Suzuki, Ken Griffey, Manny Ramirez
P - Curt Schilling, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine
Manager/GM - Bobby Cox, Dusty Baker, Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa

Nate Silver recently posted a great article saying that modern baseball is dramatically underreprisented relative to players from before 1945.  Using that logic, I'd be fine with letting these guys in too:

C - Jorge Posada, Ted Simmons
1B/DH - Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Keith Hernandez, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro
IF - Buddy Bell, Jeff Kent, Graig Nettles, Ron Santo, Scott Rolen, Willie Randolph
OF - Andruw Jones, Dick Allen, Dwight Evans, Gary Sheffield, Jim Edmonds, Kenny Lofton, Reggie Smith, Sammy Sosa, Tim Raines, Vladimir Guerrero
P - Andy Pettitte, Kevin Brown, Jamie Moyer, Luis Tiant, Rick Reuschel, Tommy John, Trevor Hoffman
Manager/GM - Billy Beanne, John Schuerholz, Lou Pinella, Walt Jocketty

Obviously, I don't give that much of a shit about ye olde steroids.  I mean, I think that they are bad, glad there are tighter standards now, they're probably what really killed Jesus, etc.  But, regarding 1995-2005: it wasn't against MLB rules, seems like both pitchers and hitters were doing it (so it retained competitive balance), players did it to try to get better and help their team win (in contrast with, say, Shoeless Joe or Pete Rose's gambling), and players from past eras (Hank Aaron, etc) had their speed and coke to pump themselves up.

Anyway, I can understand the argument that doping knocks Piazza and Manny from "definite" to "maybe", and that it knocks Pettite, Shef, Mac, Sosa, and Palmiero from "maybe" to "no" (I don't like those last three guy's "vibe" anyway).  As I told my dad many times, though, if Bonds, Rocket, and ARod don't get into the hall of fame, then, for me, membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame really has little meaning.

Also: no Helton, and no Larry Walker - call me when you can hit in anywhere besides one single pinball-game park (also: fuck the Rockies).

My dad said over email that he thinks Dusty Baker doesn't deserve to get in.  He also kept arguing that Mike Scioscia deserves to be inducted, and that Scoscia compares favorably with Torre.  He said, "How about the fact that five of Scioscia's staff have gone on to be major league managers (e.g., Buddy Black, Joe Maddon etc)?" 

I countered that the manager spawn are not really relevant, and pointed out that

Torre - player - 55.6 WAR, manager - 2,326 wins
Dusty - player - 34.8 WAR, manager - 1,405 wins
Scioscia - player - 23.7 WAR, manager - 980 wins

A 55.6 WAR is higher than the scores of many HoFers - Torre would be a fine HoFer just as a player, even if he never had managed a single game.  With his four world championship team managed, and fifth place in all-time managerial wins, he should get in on his first vote.

Scoscia is not on the same planet as Torre, either as a player or as a manager, and Dusty is clearly superior in both categories too (2002 WS not withstanding).  Mike Scioscia is not currently worthy of the Hall of  Fame.  You're demonstrating a SoCal bias.

Anyway.  I imagine that HOF-worthyness has probably been tossed around on other McC threads that I haven't read.  But I am curious to see what the HoF list of other McCoven would look like, and what changes folks would make to my list.

Now the truth can finally be told.  If you've seen the movie "Munich", then you have an idea of how it's gone down.  It all started last year, during the 2009 season ...

We let Hunter Pence hit some dingers off us.  It all seemed innocent enough.  But little did most people suspect, we took the damage on purpose ... just so that it would influence the Astros to release Darren Erstad's sorry goggle-wearing, football-punting ass.  

And then some behind the scenes, back-channel phone calls were probably what convinced the Mariners to ship Jarrod Washburn off to the Tigers.  Washburn, of course, promptly proceeded to completely shit the bed, and get his ass shipped out of organized baseball too. 

And a year before he was recalled back to home base, top-secret sleeper agent Pat Burrel snuck around the Tampa Bay clubhouse when no one was around.  The surreptitious muscle relaxant that "The Bat" slipped into Troy Percival's gatorade ensured that Percival's 6.35 ERA would be the last he would record in the majors.

The Giants then topped off a fine 2009 season off by releasing Ramon Ortiz out of our minor league system - sending him on his merry way with a jaunty, "Sure, man, you go ahead, why don't you go and totally embarrass yourself by posting a 6.30 ERA with the Los Angeles Bums of Los Angeles next year." 

The secret plan really heated up and came into fruition in 2010, however.  The plot planners rejoiced when they saw that Garret Anderson was going to play for the Bums this year.  In fact, they were all like, "Here, Misssster Anderson, how bout our Giant pitchers hold you hitless in fifteen at bats.  This will be part of the negative WAR you get on the year, one of the lowest WAR scores in the majors.  In fact, come to think of it, let's also have these events be part of the glorious occasion of the Bums coming in FOURTH PLACE on the season."

Not all the Giants moves in 2010 looked like so smooth and successful, though.  To many people's confusion, the team seemingly needlessly got rid of a couple fine and useful players, Fred Lewis and Kevin Fransden.  To the uninitiated, it seemed that the Giants sent these young warriors off to exile, for nothing in return. 

What most people didn't see, however, was Agent Fred arriving in Toronto to secretly pour tabasco in Jose Molina's jock, making sure that the veteran catcher only OPSed .681.  Agent Fred also got some lumber on John Lackey's pitching (to the tune of a Bonds-ian 1.250 OPS), helping Lackey along to his famously disappointing year with the Red Sox.  Lackey's teammate Scott Schoeneweis never had to face Agent Lewis, but apparently crapped out a 7.90 ERA just out of fear of doing so.

Simultaneously, across the country, Agent Kevin was slipping MDMA into Scot Shield's coffee, so that all that the veteran pitcher could think of all day was, "Why doesn't every one else seem to notice how dreamy and hunky Mike Soscia actually is, all I wanna do is nuzzle his salt n pepper stubble, and, oh another walk, who cares, maybe that will get Mike out here and close to me quicker ...".  This helped ensure that the distracted, love-struck Angels' pitcher had his second straight ERA over 5.

Schields was well on his way towards being involuntarily returned to civilian life.  A few former players who had preceded him into retirement were also suffering from odd misfortunes.  Scott Spezio was shocked at being rejected for yet another auto financing loan, despite his eight patient, persistent, repeated attempts.  Kevin Appier stared incredulously the email from his former fiance; she didn't mention finding anything out about all the hookers, so, Jesus Tapdancing Christ, why would the woman just suddenly dump him and fall in love with a foofy-looking Korean pop star with a single letter name?  And the tech support guys were just as confused as Tim Salmon was.  No one could figure out why, whenever "The King Fish" did a web search from any computer anywhere in the world, his browser would always redirect to an animated gif of Charles Schultz' "5" , doing a janky little shuffle-dance. 

These men were all, understandably, confused by their misfortune.  In a secret secured meeting room, deep within 24 Willie May Plaza, however, knowing smiles of satisfaction were being exchanged. 

The damn thunder sticks had been collected, deflated, shredded, and sent to Sunset Scavenger's plastic recycling.  And the damn monkey was shipped off to a biotech experimentation supply company.

Meanwhile, back between the chalk of the playing fields of the National League, the Gmen's "Main Battle Force" got a bunch of baserunners off Francisco Rodriguez, leading to a couple blown saves, helping cement Frankie's torturous reputation as a head case with the vicious New York press.  The Giants also scored some runs off of Brendan Donnelly, helping him along to the shitty year he had with the Pirates.  And the Giants allowed Adam Kennedy only a few anemic hits (and apparently managed to convince the rest of the NL, when they played the Nats, to also hold Kennedy to a few anemic hits).

That was all good.  Mission accomplished.  Good work, Men. 

But the hardest part was yet to come. 

This is where things got serious ...

DEADLY serious. 

All season long, super-underrated mighty-mite David Eckstein used his heart, spirit, and goddamned playing-the-game-the-right-way grit 'n' guts to battle, tussle, and generally be a complete pain-in-the-ass.  But, as Dirty and the boys lowered the boom on the Madres on the last day of the season, nobody's tears tasted any sweeter than "Eck"'s.

A week later, in the game that eliminated the Braves from the NLDS, MadBum was instructed to strike Troy Glaus out, and generally hold Glaus to an 0-fer.  So sorry, Troy, but MadBum's arm was young and healthy (ie not hanging on by its final tendon).  So: hope you enjoyed sitting there in the dugout after the game, ELIMINATED.

We then of course proceeded to kick the Phillies' ass, just cuz they were in the way.

And now ... after years of patient planning and execution ... it has all almost come to fruition ... the plan is almost complete ... one final step to go ...

BENGIE: WE GOT YOUR T-SHIRT, YOU DONE LEFT FINGERPRINTS AND ALL, YOU DON HAVE TO COME AND CONFESS, WE LOOKIN FOR YOU.  YOU CAN'T HIDE, AND (LORD KNOWS) YOU CAN'T RUN.

A game I used to see on McC (and, before that, the Giants Usenet group) was to construct a roster based on only dudes that came out of  the Giants' farm system.  The lineups a few years ago used of course to be amazingly bad - Bill Mueller and Marvin Bernard as the heart of the order, etc. 

I haven't seen a post like that in a couple years (although I certainly don't check in here every day, and have my suspicions ...).  Nonetheless, Grant's recent post about our good fortune with first round draft picks got me thinking (also, playing against Yorvit again; also, the continuing success in Minnesota of The One That Got Away).

The way I set up the game is, what roster would I construct for opening day 2011.  I don't imagine the squad below would be on track beat the Yankees in October.  I think the team would instead rack up a bunch of frustrating 3-2 and 2-0 losses all season long.  But at least the Giants have finally produced some viable, even awesome-ish position players, and, with a pitching staff in the running for the best in baseball, the 2011 team would probably win a lot of 3-2 and 1-0 games also.  They might even be contenders; they certainly wouldn't lose 125 games, like a team from the Mueller/Damon Minor/Calvin Murray/Russ Ortiz years probably would have.

I am curious what suggestions or changes you would make to construct the best team possible:

Lineup
2B - Two out of K Frandsen, M Downs, E Burriss, and/or T Denker
LF - F Lewis
3B - P Sandoval
C - B Posey
1B - B Belt and T Ishikawa
RF - J Bowker and N Schierholtz
SS - R Rohlinger
CF - T Graham
   
Bench
* Y Torrealba
* E Velez
* One from C Ransom, B Bocock, I Ochoa, B Crawford, or A Chavez
* One from T Neal or J Guzman

Rotation
* T Lincecum, M Cain, F Liriano, J Sanchez, M Bumgarner

Bullpen
* B Wilson, D Aardsma, S Romo
* Some combination of J Nathan, T Walker, E Threets, M Palmer, D Runzler, P Misch, N Bump, J Taschner, J Accardo, K Correia, J Martinez, W Joaquin, O Matos, A Hinshaw, S Muntner

p.s. Reading some of the PGT posts by "Cap'n Banhammer" at Gaslamp Ball had me appreciate Grant's constant awesomeness even more than I already did ...

I have been traveling in India for the past three months. People here are crazy about cricket yes cricket. In fact, I would not be surprised if India has more cricket fans than there are baseball fans in the whole world.

Cricket used to be this aristocratic thing that took four days to play a match and where the players wore starched Bermuda whites. Today, though, the one big pro sports league here in India (the "India Premier League") has repackaged cricket for the modern sensibility with condensed one-day three-to-four-hour games (just like baseball), flashy uniforms, and American cheerleaders (not "American-style cheerleaders" - *American* cheerleaders).

The games (and their recap) are on TV everywhere, all the time. When a game is on in a bar, restaurant, or other place with a public TV, it is not unusual to have huge crowds of poor people lined up on the street "ooh"ing and "aah"ing with every move.

I have taken the time to learn a little bit about the rules of cricket, and am stunned with how similar it is to baseball. I have felt a genuine sadness that baseball didn't make it here first - it would be so lovely I think to have baseball be even more of a world sport than it is already (in the USA, Canada, Latin America, far East Asia), it would be so lovely to have the 1.6 billion people of the subcontinent be baseball maniacs. I suppose it could not have been any other way than it has been, given India's history with the Brits and not with Abner Doubleday's USA. The Premier League has had players from mostly India, but also Australia, the West Indies, the UK, Africa, Canada, even (until the attacks on Mumbai last year) Pakistan - the whole former Empire.

An Indian asked me a couple weeks ago (concerning baseball): "You have your own version of cricket, yes? You call it, maybe, 'American Cricket'? ... you Americans always have to do it your own way."

Hey Friends,

I am travelling in India right now, so have not been reading game threads or watching games.  But, from a distance, it sure looks like something changed in the team after Rowand went down:

Before : 7-2 W-L, 5.7 RPG, 2.6 RAPG
After : 1-5 W-L, 3.7 RPG, 3.5 RAPG

Two things:

1. F the Dodgers

2. Those of you watching the games - does the team look different?  Have balls been falling into the outfield gaps on Torres and Vroom! that Rowand might have gotten to?  Is the rhythm of the offense disrupted?  Or is it just coincidence that one of the constants on the team the past three years was taken out in an ugly way, and the team got cold?

(Hank reports it differently at sfgate : "Huff said he believes Sunday's game-winning homer by Manny Ramirez sucked a lot of wind from the Giants.")

Wait, did I say "two things"?  I meant "three things":

3. F the Dodgers

Last week I went to Fenway for the first time, for a cousin's bachelor party. I now see what y'all mean about Sox fans (although the Sox do remain my third favorite team, after the Giants and A's, just cuz I hate the Yankees so much, and don't trust the Rays or Jays to accomplish the job of slaying the beast).

Anyway, driving me to Logan Airport few days later, a cousin-in-law, a big baseball fan who had lived in Walnut Creek for a while, was telling me how much he thinks Sabean is an idiot. I found myself in the strange position of actually defending Sabean - the man has made some good trades over the years, drafts pitchers well, Zito's been pitching better lately, the senior citizen love of 2000-2007 was probably a result of a "win now" mandate from ownership, etc. Then, finally it was my turn to say what I have long hated about Sabean : glove over extra base hitting at the infield corners, won't give rookies a solid couple months or playing time to get settled, and, worst of all : seems to have almost ZERO comprehension of the value of walks for an offense.

Which is a roundabout way of bringing up, I have been amazed for months now that we have Winn, Velez, Torres, Nate, etc. starting at the corners each day, while Bowkermania has been picking grapes in the Valley, or getting better acquainted with the pine benches at The Phone.

I crunched a li'l numbers today, taking the 2009 Major League Equivalents from Baseball Prospectus.  Those numbers, of course, take all major and minor leaguers, and do the best to translate them to how a playa would have done in a hypothetically neutral major league park, against major league competition. The 2009 numbers for Giants players (plus Jermaine Dye) are below. Where a dude played on more than one level, I aggregated their performance (and I also included Garko and Sanchez' numbers w Cleveland and Pittsburgh). As may be obvious, the numbers are sorted by position, by descending EQA (that being a BP metric that is supposed to be a single number to measure offensive performance - not sure if it takes into account baserunning).

I know that there are folks here that don't trust MLEs. In fact, I know there are folks here who don't trust BP. And yes I know that these numbers don't take into account defensive value. All that said, I'd say that these numbers simply point to the fact that the Giants currently have approximately two good hitters - Panda and Bowker. They gots MLEs of .311 and .307, respectively, while no other Giant is over .279 (and, again, that number for Bowker includes both his poor performance with the Giants this year, and the AAA-to-MLB translation of his AAA numbers).

John Boy can get on base, and he can slug, and those are the two parts that go into scoring runs.  It's crazy he that isn't getting any starts, while we lose games 1-0, 2-0, 2-1. I'd say, again, it points to a lack of valuing walks/OBP/batting patience the part of the GNATSZ BRAZZ (or however you kids write it).

via i117.photobucket.com

P.S. As I write, we seem to be losing 2-1, wasting a great start from Timmy.  Haven't been watching the game, but, damn - 0 BB/9 K, 87 pitches / 7 IP for Pedro - looks like we could use at least one more patient hitter in our lineup ...

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Rajai for Dan Johnson two weeks ago? Made too much sense. Sabean's not nearly the genius his trade a couple years back with the Twins and his failure to develop any hitting talent to would have you believe.

From the Chron, re: Rajai:

"He plays left, center and right," A's manager Bob Geren said. "He's a good runner. Having a speed guy is something that's a nice addition."

Fun fact : Rajai's from Norwich CT, home of the MIGHTY NORWICH DEFENDIGATORS.

Anyway, the deets:

Link #1

Link #2

Link #3

NYN close to signing Yorvit Torreabla.

The plan is to pair him up with Ramon Castro, to replace the previously unreplacable Paul "Heart, Soul, and Godamned Guts of a Hero" Lo Duca.

I take a morbid fascination with Yorvit's career, because of my fixation on the question, if only Sabes has made him the starter during the 2004-05 season. Maybe Sabes can go for a repeat performance, and trade Misch, Sanchez, and Wilson for Ron Belliard, so I can develop a similar fascination with Fransden's future adventures.

[This is my first Diary post, so please forgive if I don't post it totally right]

El Senor Sabean has always seemed to me to be muy bueno at certain things : scouting and drafting pitchers, finding one last harrah out of vets who everyone else had given up on, getting offensive production out of the middle of the infield, and, before 2003,  fleecing other teams on the trading market.

And he has always seemed muy malo at certain other things : scouting drafting and developing position players (duh), understanding the value of OBP in building an offense or K/BB ratio in predicting future performance for pitchers, or letting anyone under 27 get a starting job.

The thing that bugs me the most about his game plan, however, has been his failure to get much production out of the corners of the infield.  In the last six years (2001-2006), all Giants third basemen have hit a combined to hit .259/.313/.406, and first basemen have combined for .262/.340/.418.  Ugggh.  Subtract Snow's immaculate miracle of a second half of 2004 out of the aggregate, and those first base numbers probably look kinda Nefi-esque.

At the start of each off season, I say to myself, OK, first base sucked this year.  But, next year, I am certain we'll have some sort of middle-of-the-order guy in there, if not Carlos Delgado or Lyle Overbay or Frank Thomas, then at least like Kevin Millar or something.  I mean - right?  Nature abhors a vacuum and all?

And each year, opening day comes, and the best that we can hope for from the first base guy is that hey maybe he'll crack 20 homers, or, if the stars all align, hit .270 and not .230.

In writing an article for today's baseball prospectus, Nate Silver didn't think that he was trying to get me mad at Sabean again.  But he did:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5848

He said:

Fortunately, writing about first base prospects gives me something of the day off, since there aren't very many of them. A lot of this flows from sabermetric first principles; first base is the endpoint of the defensive spectrum, which not only means that you have to hit a whole lot to make a name for yourself at the position, but also that there's nowhere to go if your defense gets any worse.

First basemen are also hurt by our use of the Upside metric, which only gives players credit for the probability that they're able to turn in a performance above league average. When Keith Woolner did his initial research for VORP, which was based in part on identifying the worst regulars in the league at any given time, he found that there was a particularly large difference between league average and replacement level for first basemen. Generally, if you look around the league at any given time, you'll find a few pretty bad starting first basemen (think Travis Lee or Jeff Conine or Doug Mientkiewicz), but the overall standard of competition is very high.

I suspect the reason for this stems from the fact that almost anybody can play first base. Teams sometimes use first base as a dumping ground when the roster has other problems: let's throw Travis Lee or Ty Wigginton out there ... hopefully he'll hit .270 ... we've got bigger fish to fry. But this solution rarely sticks once a team has the chance to jigger up its roster in the off-season--it's just too easy to find a Erubiel Durazo or a Chris Shelton. Or, you can move your aging third baseman over to first base, and target a solution at the hot corner instead. The work I did on freely available talent last year suggests that it's quite a bit easier to find an adequate first baseman for next to nothing than it is an adequate corner outfielder.

Put differently, perhaps the reason why there's a large difference between the very worst first basemen and an average first baseman is precisely because decent first basemen are so easy to find. When a team settles on an inadequate solution at the position, it's giving up a lot of ground; the cost of making inefficient decisions is high. Not coincidentally, Keith also found that there is a particularly small difference between league-average catchers and replacement-level catchers. Since it's very hard to find someone who can play catcher, in some sense it's more difficult to mess that decision up. It's sort of like this: the difference between the worst meal and an average meal at Chez Panisse is larger than the difference between the worst meal at McDonald's and the average McMorsel.