He signed a one-year deal with the Yokohama Bay Stars, for 50 million yen (about $550k at current exchange rates), plus performance bonuses. The story indicates that he may get a chance to be their closer.

Yokohama also signed ex-Buc Jose Castillo, to a one-year deal for 30 million yen. Castillo, who is expected to start at second base for Yokohama, played in Taiwan in 2009.

The money quote:

What makes the changeup effective for most pitchers is the difference in speeds between it and the fastball. At 6.5 MPH in 2009, this difference was, unsurprisingly, the lowest of his career. It had a very noticeable effect on the pitch’s effectiveness, as measured by our pitch type values. From 2006-2008, the pitch had ranged in effectiveness from -3.21 to +3.12 runs per 100 pitches. In 2009, it plummeted to -5.35 runs per 100. It appears that Capps’s changeup lost much of its effectiveness after it no longer retained the 8.5 MPH difference that led to the +3.12 run value per 100 pitches in 2009.

This is a good point, and one I had not considered.

The notable sports blog host will be closing its doors in January. Many of their sites will be relocating to other hosts - no word yet on a destination for Pittsburgh Lumber Co.

Manuel ranks the top five and bottom five teams, then separates the remaining teams into a group of 6-15 and a group of 16-25. He placed us in the 6-15 group, with the following comment: "Impressive depth behind top prospects Pedro Alvarez, Tony Sanchez."

Barring a dramatic change in his thinking, before the book's date of publication, this will be our highest placement in BA's rankings in quite some time. We were 18th in 2009, 26th in 2008, 19th in 2007, 19th in 2006, and 18th in 2005.

It's nice to see the front office get some credit for all their hard work in rebuilding our farm system.

Stumbled across this on BA's site, and thought it might be of interest. It's the PitchF/X data for the fastballs of all the pitchers in the AFL this year (as of last week). The numbers for our guys:

Donald Veal: best 94.6, average 92.47
Danny Moskos: best 93.3, average 90.51
Tony Watson: best 91.3, average 88.96

For the player population as a whole, the median best fastball number was 93.3, and the median average fastball number was 91.04.

"Williams, 45, most recently served the Kansas City Royals as their Assistant Director of Scouting, a position he held since August 15, 2006. Prior to joining the Royals, Williams worked for the Detroit Tigers as their Midwest Scouting Supervisor (2000-01) and East Coast Supervisor (2002-06), overseeing a territory from Maine to Puerto Rico.

His scouting career began when he served as an area scout with the Minnesota Twins from 1988 to 1995. Williams also worked for the Toronto Blue Jays as their Midwest Area Scout from 1995-99, covering a seven-state region."

Williams was the scout who originally signed Mike Trombley and Orlando Hudson, among other players. He worked under current Pirates scouting director Greg Smith from 2000-2004, when Smith held that same position with the Tigers, and under current Pirates special assistant Larry Corrigan from 1992-1993, when Corrigan was scouting director for the Twins.

A list of all of this offseason's minor league free agents, for every franchise. We have 28, one of the highest totals in baseball, a reflection of the lack of system depth resulting from Creech's poor drafts. Most notably, our list includes Juan Mateo and Jamie Romak, as well as recent roster denizens Jason Davis, Eric Hacker, Steve Lerud, Ty Taubenheim, and Virgil Vasquez.

Which of our players would you like to bring back? Which of other teams' players would you like to snag?