To jump on the theme suggested by the title:

Spending money wisely by refusing to ante up for Shea Hillenbrand types and instead improving the team's defense at 1B?

That's OK with me...

Trading away aging veterans in a clear sign that Cashman is finally in charge of the front office; making the team younger and more flexible in the long run?

That's OK with me...

Investing the Yankees vast resources not in overpriced 30-something free agents, but in scouting and developing amateur talent for free, to the point where Keith Law ranks the Yanks with the #5 overall farm system?

That's OK with me...
Politely letting our aging star know that his services are no longer required, but honoring him with Bernie Williams Day, a plaque in monument park, and ensuring that no one ever wears #51 for the Yankees ever again?

That's OK with me...

What? Don't tell me I'm the only Elliot Gould fan around here...

I doubt PH goes north with the big team, but even at 5 IP per start he could be a big help in the Bronx come summer. I do think RJ going deep into games is going to be missed.

Sigh. I love Bernie, but its time to move on. I really hope this doesn't become a soap opera.

only if bernie learns to play first will he go north this year

Question for season-ticket holders - what kind of season-ticket package (if any) entitles you to be able to purchase a ticket for a special event, say the All-Star Game?

I would love to see the All-Star Game, and if buying a pack of 10 or 20 tickets or whatever guarantees me being able to buy an All-Star ticket (or two) for face value, I'd gladly pay upfront for the season ticket package rather than try to get ASG tickets through a '(wink wink) respectable broker'. Seeing a bunch of games during the Stadium's swan song also has a lot of appeal.

In other news, Gorilla Boy gets married.

http://tinyurl.com/39w4ez

In NYC...?

At a hot dog stand....?

mussina has climbed on board the pavano backer bandwagon!

"(H)e can do it, we know he can pitch, and we know he can get people out. ...(H)e'll be an asset."

i didn't read the rest of the article (or that particular quote) but it's good to see pavano fever is as contagious as the norovirus.

6 speaking of theo, today is national gorilla suit day.

http://tinyurl.com/cb7k9

5 I was wondering the same thing. But I bet with all the tickets they have to set aside for other teams, I think only full season ticket holders get a shot. Partial plans may get a shot at the other events though.

I'm sure they'll have that worked out by next winter.

I just want to say that the Mientkiewicz signing is not nearly as bad as a lot of people here seem to think.

He is a replacement level player with above average defense making $1.5M.

He doesn't strikeout all that often providing us with some contact at the bottom of the lineup, and his OPS+ has improved each year for the past 3 years.

Over 162 games, for his career he put up a line of .270/.359/.405....or roughly what Melky Cabrera put up last year.

I will gladly take those numbers from part of a platoon on any given day when the rest of our lineup looks the way it does.

10 But, what if Robinson Cano gets hit by a meteor and Derek Jeter contracts Hantavirus?????

Bernie's my favorite Yankee all time, but Bernie at first??? I can just see it. Big Papi at the plate, yanks one down the first base line, cut to: Bernie still in expectent crouch, motionless... blink, blink.

Leave Ferdinand in the field where he belongs!

11 Well then we are clearly screwed because our back up catcher isn't above league average.

that's just it, 1 and 10, we've been shown here and on eleventeen other blogs that minty boy's defense prowess is mythical. he hasn't been any better than average in years.

sure, 1.5 mil is a small drop in the proverbially botomless yankee payroll bucket, but we could have gotten the same performance on both sides of the ball out of andy phillips. this is the waste of a roster spot.

11 At least they have 64 RHRP to deal from when necessary.

13 And Cairo, he can play anywhere on the field! Maybe Torre will let him catch a game or three.

15 but those pitchers are gritty. and cairo...

eh... i can't even pretend to defend the cairo signing.

14 I don't agree with that either. He may not be what he once was, but he is still above average and far above whatever else we had on the team and/or available to us.

Dialed In at the Baseball Think Factory hasd Mientkiewicz as the 2nd best defensive 1B last season and saved 12 runs per 150 innings.

http://tinyurl.com/yblbqa

Within that same thread, Mitchel Lichtman, the creator of UZR agreed with the findings of Mientkiewicz, that he saved 12 runs per 150 innings.

http://tinyurl.com/2ko9l4

The Fielding Bible went back and looked at all the 2005 innings for every firstbaseman with at least 1000 innings to see how many "bad throws" a player saved.

Pujols was leaps and bounds better than anyone, but Mientkiewicz was 3rd with saving 20 "bad throws" in only 675 innings.

http://www.actasports.com/sow.php?id=85

For 2006, the Fielding Bible rated Mientkiewicz as the 2nd best firstbaseman behind only Teixeira.

TangoTiger also believes that Mientkiewicz is worth between $4M and $6M.

http://www.tangotiger.net/salary.html

Surprised no one's commented on the Steve Goldman article.

Was Pecota smoking crack this offseason? It has Posada's Marginal Lineup Value at .036 and Varitek's at 0.47! While I don't doubt that Posada will decline from his excellent 2006 season, why does Pecota think that Tek will bounce back?

Not to mention a steep decline for Cano to the point where he's scarcely better than th boy wonder Pedroia. Apparently they see Cano's 2nd 1/2 last season as a fluke rather than a breakout, which, given his age, seems ludicrous.

There's more I could quibble with, but those are the most egregious.

18 It was in the last thread. But most folks would rather be drunk on Kool-Aid.

I agree though that many of the projections seem strange. But I agree with his overall point is that it's closer than you'd think and 1B for the Yanks is certainly not helping things (no matter how drunk some folks are).

Bullpen goes one way, the rotation goes the other. It's going to be a very fun season.

The three first basemen is another problem keeping Bernie off the field. It is painful to see him being treated like a journeyman but until the Melky trade comes in, that's what perceptions are going to be.

Notice how the Yanks pulled the Melk out of winter ball so he could have an awesome spring.

The 3 First basemen, the fourth outfielder getting regular playing time on some rotation -- how does that work (Sorry Johnny, knew you were 5 for 6 yesterday but it's your turn to sit down). DH is going to be one busy position this year. Besides, Giambi hits better when he fields. I know it's not pretty, but I like to see the big guy happy.

I frankly just don't get alot of this. The upshot of it all is we put in Minky for Bernie? Say it ain't so, Cash.

In fact it's all so nonsensical, it only gives legs to JohanMyJohan arriving at the close of spring training.

I've seen Minky play outstanding defense, so that ain't myth or legend.

Meanwhile, Murcer continues his fight against cancer, and gets a visit from Andy ...

http://tinyurl.com/ysmghs

18 I said this in the last thread:

"PECOTA doesn't say Varitek will be better than Posada. When you look at projected defense and playing time, Posada's PA, VORP, and SuperVORP beat Varitek's across the board: 480/20.4/22.4 versus 405/15.5/17.4."

In fact, looking at the weighted mean PECOTA projections, except for MLVr and batting average, Posada's projection beats Varitek's across the board. Its sometimes close, and playing time is a factor, but its in Posada's favor.

Last thing - the BP folks themselves continually point out that PECOTA is often pessimistic on a number of players, and produces some strange projections for some guys. But, IMHO, in the aggregate, its a pretty good system (markp I know disagrees).

21 thanks for the link. i missed that today. good news.

22 Let me ask you guys this:

Do we really need projection systems to figure out what guys will do?

Cann't we just rely on our heads and:
1) the player's age
2) their career stats
3) their stats from the previous three seasons

Doesn't that "formula" do pretty well? Sure, it won't give you numbers, but when there's going to be inaccuracies any ways (and I haven't seen any one with a projection system also report anything close to confidence intervals based on their past accuracy) why worry about the numbers?

I guess what I'm saying is it's at that point that I just look forward to the games.

9 I've been looking into in for SF this year. It seems like there's really only 2 ways to get them and most required a commitment already or a $500 deposit per ticket to get the lowdown. I imagine in a swan song season for The House coupled with already heavy demand will almosst certainly require a 40 game package. Start hitting your fellow YF's up for $ now. At the very least unattentable games probably won't be hard to unload for face or better.

BTW: I hope I'm wrong and Ohlendorf is successful just so we can call him Dorf and add it to every part of our vocabulary.

"Man, Dorf was lights out yesterday."

"His sinker really dorfs batters."

"The young rotation is quite dorfy."

"Y'all are a bunch of drunken dorfs."

26 one more thing to get my hopes up. (as if igawa's interview and the return of igawa weren't enough...)

26

If he is homer-prone, we'll just have to call him Walldorf

27(replace the 2nd igawa with a pavano.)

I was kind of hoping it gets shortened like A-Rod's to "Oh-Dorf"

Let's hope its not D'oh!(rf), a-la Homer J. Simpson.

Its time we cut ties with Bernie. It should have happend after '04 when Beltran was free.

24 IIRC, that's what Tom Tango's Marcel forecasting system essentially does. Its very simplistic, I know that.

For me, I just like the numbers, 'cause it gets me thinking about the games.

28 Will whoever the catcher is then become Statler?

22 My objection is not whether Pecota says/does not say that Tek will be better, but with the fact that it has them even in the same league.

His Mlvr last season was -.109. (Posada's was .154 on the plus side)

That not only seems a substantial difference, but as I noted I see no reason why they think that a 35 year old catcher will bounce back rather than continue his decline.

Likewise with Cano, a very young player who came back significantly bulked up after his midseason injury and proceeded to absolutely mash the ball. I know that the knock on him is that his stats are driven by his ba, but in the 2nd 1/2 of last year that wasn't true, he didn't just hit for avg, he slugged the eff out of the ball.

Yet they have Cano, a young player who's just learning the league and hasn't even peaked yet, declining from a .252 mlvr to a .083. I think that's ridiculous.

A couple of questions for PECOTA fans:
1. What's the formula? How can you rely on it if you don't know what "it" is?
2. Have you ever compared PECOTA to any other method? The one given here (look at their age and past several seasons) has, from my observations, been far superior in predicting what a player's going to do than PECOTA.

35 Here's a link to a BBTF post concerning player evaluation for 2006:

http://tinyurl.com/ye7znp

I wouldn't call myself a PECOTA fan, but they certainly did something right last year, at least more right.

12 Ferdinand! Good one, Ben. I'd actually prefer the "blink blink" Bernie scenario you presented to watching Doug Out snuff another Yankees rally with his BELOW AVERAGE BAT (for a 1B).

14 Right on, Murph. Doug's a waste of space.

17 So what if Stinky saves 10-15 runs over an entire season with his magical glove, it's his broken back which concerns me?
The first time A-Rod launches a throw toward the box seats, will Stinky's surgically repaired back hold up?

And does Tango (assessing Stinky's worth $4-$6 million dollars) also project that he will grow 7 feet taller and become thrice as nimble before the season begins?

The only saving grace here is that Stinky comes cheap and will be easy to trade, or flush when the time comes.

37 the fact that his is cheap and easy to trade/flush should not be underestimated. I think of him as a stopgap... If he's starting in the playoff, I'll be surprised and unhappy. But think of it this way, we could trade some of the live-arms for a 1B now, or we could wait a while and see how the team shakes out. Never know, Moose and Wang could get injured and those live-arms might need to be traded for a starter. The point is, the live-arm guys are a comodity, and be be traded for whatever's most necessary down the road a piece. I realize many are concerned about getting over a barrel'd at the deadline if we have a glaring hole, but that's just life - if we traded some of the chips for a 1B now, and needed a solid started at the deadline, we'd still be in a position of weekness, and would be shorter trading chips to boot.

35 You know the answer to number 1, and I honestly don't understand why that matters.

The basic factors that go into the PECOTAs are known. The basic methodology is known. Is PECOTA a black box? Sure, but I'm OK with that; I have an engineering background, so I'm used to black boxes. Much like my computer and my cell phone, I can't tell you every detail of every level of how they work - physics wasn't my best subject - but I rely on them nonetheless.

As for number two, no, I personally have not. But other people much smarter than me have, and its been found to be pretty equal.

In fact, a very interesting roundtable at the Hardball Times from August 2006 (Part 4 at http://tinyurl.com/2ztpdp) had leading sabermetricians and projection guys discussing the different systems. While its clear that similarity score-based systems like PECOTA have their limitations, and in particular probably cannot be refined as much as regression-based systems, noted sabermetrician Mitchel Lichtman (MGL) - creator of Ultimate Zone Rating and co-author of "The Book" said, and I quote:

"As far as I can tell, PECOTA is an excellent system overall."

It is perfect? Of course not. But its good enough for me.

BTW, if you have research that clearly shows that Jim's 'off the top of his head' system has been 'far superior' to PECOTA, I'd like to see it. I'd also like to know what this system thinks Scott Baker of the Twins is going to do this year; I'd like to keep him on my fantasy team, but PECOTA is not very optimistic on his performance this year.

39 I'd like to see that resarch too, cause I could increase my bravado 100% and really make definitive statements.

Hmmm, Scott Baker ...computing...

Looks like he won't get alot of time in the Twins rotation or pen. And he's too susceptible to the long ball. If a better option could be had, I say dump him.

40 See, that's basically what PECOTA was saying (weighted mean projected ERA of 4.81). I was hoping I had a sleeper on my hands. C'est la vie.

41 And my head is an even worse black box! Shoot, I don't even understand it.

36 Wowser! That's mighty good for PECOTA and position players. Still that's the aggregate and leaves room for alot of variability of individuals - like Cano and Jorge and Varitek.

But nothing seems to do great for pitchers. And those are all guys with established MLB stats.

I suppose even more reason why position players are more valuable :).

Zone rating-I'd like to hear someone's explanation of how it isn't subjective. It's based on what the observer perceives the feilder's zone to be, his judgment of how hard the ball was hit, etc. Using the guy who developed that to praise PECOTA doesn't impress me.
PECOTA has been compared by several, disinterested parties and the results weren't close. There have been articles about PECOTA that disagree with what you're saying happened at Hardball Times. The use of phrases like "projection based systems" and "regression based systems" seems at odds with what every one of these formulas (including PECOTA) are: attempt to predict what a player is likely to do. The only distinctions are their accuracy and their transparency. PECOTA falls short on both counts.

And now for something completely different ...

John Kerry to question FCC on Extra Innings / DirecTV deal ...

http://tinyurl.com/3bpx45

43 normally, i am good at googling but i can't find those articles you are talking about.

Can you post some links?

I'm thrilled to hear the news about Melky.

Thrilled, I tell you.

He's going to be a monster.

No, I don't mean he'll hit 40 home runs and drive in 140, but he's going to be the guy I want to see up when the tying run is on second base in the eigth inning.

He's going to be the guy who goes up there each and every time with a solid, quality at-bat.

He's not going to be the one to strike out or pop up when wood needs to be put on the baseball.

I look for him to hit around .310 or even .320.

This kid is that good.

44 Also, this idea that MLB is making more money by picking DirecTV is simply incorrect. Cable (through InDemand) offered $70M/year for non -exclusive broadcast rights. That means that MLB can still sell rights to DirecTV and the Dish for additional money. Surely they can get at least $30M a year from both of those companies combined. I think the sticking point is that cable companies want to put the MLB channel on their sports tiers as opposed to basic cable. MLB sucks.

32 Speaking of Beltran, that was a terrible at-bat.

What a frustrating way to end a fine season.

I found a Baseball Prospectus article:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2515

They compared PECOTA to the following:
1. BBHQ Ron Shandler's Baseball HQ
2. DMB Diamond Mind Baseball forecasts created by Tom Tippett
3. Primer Baseball Primer/ZiPS Projections
4. RotoTimes
5. RotoWire
6. Warren Scoresheet guru Ken Warren's projections

For 2004 data (and all caveats of using only one year apply here), they found:
PECOTA 77
DMB 62
Warren 55
BBHQ 54
Primer 43.5
Times 30.5
Wire 14

But I guess you would say that they are not a "disinterested" party.

Reading Wikipedia's entry on PECOTA, we find that for 2006 PECOTA beat Las Vegas (among others) in predicting team wins.

44 That's good news, I guess... As long as the "Swiftboat Veterans for DirecTV" don't get involved and Senator Kerry doesn't tell the FCC that he was actually for the DirecTV deal before he was against it. ;-)

Thanks for the link dianagramr. The following line was at least encouraging:
"Meanwhile, cable executives close to the negotiations said the industry has not been notified by baseball that it's out of the running to secure rights to the package."

Maybe there's hope yet...

43 Not Zone Rating, markp - Ultimate Zone Rating. Widely acknowledged as the best fielding system anyone had seen (this was back in '02 or '03, IIRC). MGL stopped doing it publicly because I believe he was using it for the Cards when he worked for them.

"The use of phrases like "projection based systems" and "regression based systems" seems at odds with what every one of these formulas (including PECOTA) are: attempt to predict what a player is likely to do. The only distinctions are their accuracy and their transparency. PECOTA falls short on both counts."

You first sentence makes no sense - every projection system that I know of is either similarity score-based, or regression-based. Those phrases