ESPN Rob Neyer Blog

As Jack Curry writes in The New York Times, Johan Santana "speaks about a baseball as if he were discussing a person," which begins to get at the secrets of Santana's amazing changeup. Curry's piece is the best thing I've read about Santana's particular talents, but these two passages caught my eye for a different reason ...

Whether Santana fires a fastball that zooms in at 90 to 94 miles an hour or flips a changeup that lumbers in at 77 to 80, he does everything exactly the same. He uses the same delivery, the same release point and the same exertion. Then he does it again and again. That repetitiveness helps camouflage which of the drastically different pitches he is throwing. --snip-- David Cone, who won 194 games for teams that included the Yankees and the Mets, was renowned for his creativity while delivering pitches from an array of arm angles. Cone raved about how Santana's changeup was actually three pitches because "it goes down, in and out." By adjusting his arm angle, Santana can make the changeup dive down. He can also move it inside on right-handed hitters or move it away from them.

So which is it? Is Santana successful because he throws from the same release point with every pitch? Or is he successful because he's constantly adjusting his arm angle, thus giving himself not one great changeup, but three?

I don't ask these questions to criticize Curry, but because I see this all the time (though rarely within the same piece): One guy says a pitcher needs to repeat his delivery perfectly, again and again and again; and another guy says the key to pitching is deception, and one path to deception is changing your delivery.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. I'm sure that some successful pitchers do throw the same, pitch after pitch after pitch. And I'm sure that others throw from many different angles.

It's just odd to see one great pitcher described as doing both.

(Also, here's a nice visual look at Santana's changeup.)

Friday night, I read all 152 pages of Barry Bonds' grand jury testimony (pdf here), theoretically so you wouldn't have to. However, I don't trust my legal acumen and neither should you, as I'm not a lawyer and shouldn't play on the InterWeb. For that we've got real lawyers like ShysterBall. That said, ShysterBall also read all 152 pages and reached the same essential conclusion that I did: "Overall Barry seems evasive and defensive, but … not so much that there's perjury on the face of his testimony. If he's going to get got, the government has to put someone on the stand to call him a liar."

During his testimony, the government presented a number of exhibits tying Bonds to various drugs, the knowledge of which he denies in every case -- though he doesn't deny the possibility that Greg Anderson might have slipped drugs into the "flax seed oil" and the "cream" that Bonds acknowledges having been supplied. You may believe Bonds or you may not, but he seems capable of creating a great deal of reasonable doubt in the minds of any prospective jury. Which is why the goverment will, if this thing does go to trial, need a real good witness.

Leaving those issues aside, what I find most interesting about Bonds' testimony -- as I found most interesting about Clemens' testimony -- is what it says about him specifically, and what it says about the life of the coddled professional athlete generally. The entire document is fascinating in this regard, but I've picked out just a few particularly revealing passages.

From page 60, a question about Bonds' relationship with trainer Greg Anderson:

Q. Did you have a training regimen with the Giants as well as with Greg? or was it just with Greg? Or how does that work? A. The training regiment [sic] is my training. They actually work for me, you know? I'm the one who's going out there playing baseball; not them. It's kind of like one hand shakes the other, you know? You've got to understand about sports or just anybody successful, Bill Gates, anyone you want to talk about. If I took eight Advils before a game, you know, a player is going to take eight Advils and think that that's the thing to do. --snip-- You know, we -- Greg is just a loyal person, you know, he's there. And I need somebody that can be there. And the trainers I have can be there on a regular basis. So, if I want to train at night or in the morning or four o'clock in the morning, I don't have any problems with that. We've just all built a relationship that way. --snip-- Q. Did the Giants training staff have any involvement in working with you with Mr. Anderson? A. No way. Q. Okay. And back -- A. We don't trust the ball team. We don't trust baseball. Q. Why not? A. Because I was born in this game. Believe me, it's a business. Last time I played baseball was in college. I work for a living now. Q. Yeah? A. Yeah.

Now, imagine that you're running a young, up-and-coming team like … oh, let's say the Tampa Bay Rays. Is this really a guy you want in your clubhouse, setting a wonderful example for all your impressionable youngsters? I'm just asking.

From page 124, here's what Bonds thinks about his "friends":

Q. And you said something to the effect of -- I don't remember the exact language, but to the effect of that with regard to the subject matter of steroids, testosterone, you know, this matter, that you didn't want to get involved with any of that with Mr. Anderson so you wouldn't discuss anything about that. Do you remember something to that effect? A. I said we didn't discuss each others' personal lives. I mean, we're friends. That's how -- I mean, you have friends. Do discuss [sic] their personal lives all the time? No. I mean, we were friends, we grew up together. I mean, he works in a gym. I could suspect what goes on in a gym. I don't work out -- I don't work out in the richie gym where everybody is rich. I work out -- --snip-- I work in a dungeon gym. You know, my thinking of what they may be doing is their own business. I don't get involved into their business. That's what I'm saying. So, it never became a conversation.

Speaking of "friends," from page 134:

Grand Juror: Did you ever get Mr. Anderson a Christmas bonus or anything like that? The Witness: Yes, I did. I gave my -- all my friends a Christmas bonus. Not a Christmas bonus. I gave them a bonus after I hit 73 home runs because I couldn't believe it, and I was so excited. Even my publicist, my strength coach, my stretching coach. I met my bonus when I did that. So, I met my bonus and gave a bonus to everyone else. Grand Juror: And how much did you give Mr. Anderson? The Witness: 20,000. I gave everyone $20,000. Grand Juror: That was besides the 15,000? The Witness: Yes. --snip-- Q. Putting aside the $20,000 gifts, the thing with Mr. Anderson, $15,000 a year, how many people each year are there that, as a gift, you give them money, kind of in exchange for whatever favors they've done for you, things like -- A. Besides my family, who I give a lot of gifts to? Q. Yes, other than your immediate family. A. Probably -- there are some people who wash my car that I'll give them money, things like that. Q. I'm talking about the things like $15,000 a year. A. Oh, no, no, no, no. I ain't giving nobody -- Q. Just Mr. Anderson? A. No. I pay Harvey $15,000, too, for my stretching. I pay Raymond $10,000. Q. It's Raymond, Harvey, Mr. Anderson. Others? A. No. Those are my three trainers. --snip-- Q. Okay. The $15,000. Earlier, in response to one of the grand jurors' questions, you mentioned that you did not consider those individuals employees, that you considered as a gift. And so I'm just curious as to whether that's a gift, or if it's payment for work that they have done, or what? A. Well, Greg Anderson I grew up with. He's my childhood friend. So, when I said as a gift, I'm meaning it's because he's my friend. But I'm paying him for his work. Harvey I am paying as an employee for his work and Raymond. I just meant Greg. You know, Greg is my friend. And so it was more of a -- you know what I mean? Friend, but I'm paying you. However you want to call it.

A few pages later, a grand juror somewhat ridiculously asks Bonds if he'd ever thought of building Greg Anderson a mansion:

The Witness: One, I'm black. And I'm keeping my money. And there's not too many rich people in this world. And I'm keeping my money. There's more wealthy Asian people and Caucasian and white. There ain't that many rich black people. And I ain't giving my money up. That's why. And if my friends can help me, then I'll use my friends. --snip-- You know, that's why I have these people in my life, because they're motivating me to take that next step that I won't take the next step. And regardless of how many names I call them, how many times I say: "You're fired, I hate you," this and that, they're going to stay there, and they're going to irritate me. And Greg and Raymond and Harvey are those three people that I needed in my career.

So there you have it. Barry Bonds has just a few friends, and it's not apparent that he actually respects or likes any of them. It's not apparent that his friends like him, either. Obviously it's not easy to like Barry Bonds. I've never met him, and I don't much like him. There's a part of me that does feel sorry for him, though.

Granted, it's a very small part of me.

Uh-oh. According to Mlive.com's Danny Knobler, the Tigers may soon find a taker for Brandon Inge:

The Los Angeles Dodgers have contacted the Tigers about Inge, and while talks do not seem to have progressed far, a baseball official familiar with the situation said the Dodgers remain interested in making a deal. Inge would play third base for the Dodgers, who did not have a full-time third baseman last season and have been trying to decide between veteran Nomar Garciaparra and rookie Andy LaRoche this spring. New Dodgers manager Joe Torre is familiar with Inge from his time in the American League, and Torre and new Dodgers third base coach Larry Bowa are said to be Inge backers.

If you're a Dodgers fan this should be your worst nightmare.

The Dodgers already have two third basemen. One of them (Garciaparra) can't really play and apparently the other one (LaRoche) is handicapped by his new manager's unfamiliarity. What to do then? Of course: Trade for an American Leaguer who the manager is familiar with. Oh, and maybe pay him $6.2 million.

That's this year. Inge also earns $6.3 million next year, and $6.6 million the year after that.

You read that right. The Dodgers already have a young player who's significantly cheaper than Inge and better, and yet they're reportedly considering spending $19.1 million to ease Joe Torre's spring dreams.

Maybe this is just a lot of idle talk. Maybe the Dodgers really do know that LaRoche is a future star, and that Inge is a future stay-at-home dad. But if I were a Dodger fan right now I'd be very, very afraid. Because the only thing that's going to keep the Dodgers from playing important games in September is boneheaded moves like this one.

UmpBump.com's Sarah Green reviews the Rangers' offseason action and feels compelled to resort to "an old writerly device: the exclamation point!" Thus:

So I looked at the projected lineup of the Texas Rangers ... and one thing really stands out: only two players played 130 games or more last season, and only four topped 100 games! And when I looked at their starting rotation, I noticed that no pitcher on the list has an ERA of under 4.50! Oof! Texas is fielding quite a motley crew this season. Michael Young, arguably the only shortstop worse defensively than Derek Jeter! Josh Hamilton, who recovered from his crack addiction by finding Jesus! Milton Bradley, last seen causing himself a season-ending injury by trying to attack an umpire! Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who married his high school teacher!

In the interest of accuracy, I should point out that while Saltalamacchia did marry a gym teacher from his high school, she never taught his gym class (for details along with the obvious joke, read this.

Green continues: "Nonetheless, if I can set aside the ennui these Rangers induce in me, I have to admit there are some pretty interesting players on this team."

Agreed. They may not be much good but they should be fun to watch, particularly if Hamilton and Bradley somehow managed to play more than 200 games between them. The pitching's going to be ugly again, though. Which makes 2008 another last-place season, most likely. Still, let's finish strong with some exclamation points ...

The best that can be said for the Rangers is that they seemed to finally admit, last season, that they weren't going to win any time soon. They moved Mark Teixeira and Eric Gagne for prospects, and their farm system now looks better than most. 2008 is a throwaway year for the Rangers, but check back in 2010 -- if they haven't done anything stupid, they could be contending by then! You never know!

I do believe the Rangers will be competitive in 2010, as they really have loaded up on talented minor leaguers. That said, considering how long it's been since the Rangers developed a good young starting pitcher -- depending on your definition, it's been 12 years (Darren Oliver) or 19 years (Kevin Brown) -- one might start to wonder if there's an intrinsic issue down there in the heart of Texas. Anyway, Nolan Ryan just signed a four-year contract as president of the Rangers, and I suspect his supporters expect him to be a part of the solution.

Do you have Coliseum fever yet? I do, and with luck I'll be in Los Angeles for the March 29 game between the Dodgers and the Red Sox. And according to this blog, "the Dodgers are also considering playing a regular season game at the Coliseum sometime in the future."

I don't think that will happen. Why? Because the dimensions are nowhere near acceptable for a game that counts in the standings. Not with these dimensions:

"Our goal is to have the field look just like it did when people came here in 1958, and they'll be able to say, 'That's how it was,'" said Dodgers vice president of stadium operations Lon Rosenberg. "The biggest challenge that we have is that the Coliseum has lost 88 feet in diameter since we last played here because they took out the warning track, so we have to make some slight adjustments. We have 200 feet down the left-field line instead of 250, so we have adjusted the screen from 42 feet to 62 feet."

"Slight adjustments"?

I don't know how that's going to play out, exactly, and one exhibition game certainly won't tell us everything. But in 1958 the Coliseum was a strange enough place to play, and there's no way that raising the y-axis 20 feet makes up for shortening the x-axis by 50 feet. My guess is that the typical game there, with this new configuration, would make pre-humidor Coors Field look like Petco Park. Which is fine for an exhibition, but you don't want to turn a meaningful contest into a joke. At least not without a really good reason.

A few thoughts about a couple of items from Baseball America's blog (which is worth reading every day, especially now that the season's approaching) ...

Jason Neighborgall is retiring:

The modern-day Steve Dalkowski has retired. Jason Neighborgall has decided to step away from the game according to Baseball America correspondent Jack Magruder, ending a three-year career with the Diamondbacks that was legendary for his lack of control. Neighborghall was considered one of the top right-handers in the country coming out of high school, but he headed to Georgia Tech after the Red Sox couldn't meet his asking price as a seventh-round pick. While at Georgia Tech his once shaky command descended into full-bore wildness. Despite that, the Diamondbacks signed him for $500,000 as their third-round pick in 2004, enticed by his high 90s fastball. The Diamondbacks hoped that they could help him regain his control, but he never found the strike zone. The numbers for his pro career are shocking.

Indeed. You can see Neighborgall's numbers here, but here's everything that matters: 42 innings, 128 walks. Oh, and 60 wild pitches. Seriously.

Previously, Neighborgall managed only 101 innings in three seasons at Georgia Tech, and walked 103 batters. I can understand taking a flyer on a guy like that, but half a million dollars? Seriously? I wonder how many of these ultra-projects even reach the majors, let alone pitch effectively.

(One quibble here: Neighborgall isn't exactly analagous to the legendary Dalkowski, who lasted a lot longer as a professional and did have one good season in the minors before hurting his arm. Neighborgall's never done anything but struggle.)

Meanwhile, Brewers prospect Jeremy Jeffress spent some time in rehab this winter after drawing a 50-game suspension last summer ...

"I was in (rehab) for about a month. It was very beneficial. I'd recommend that people go there if they need help for anything. Now, I'm concentrating on baseball, getting my life straight and keeping my nose clean." Since the Brewers drafted him in the first round in 2006, Jeffress has tested positive on four drug tests for marijuana. The No. 4 prospect in the Brewers' system, Jeffress has a plus-plus fastball that makes him one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the minors. Jeffress, 20, had a 3.13 ERA, 94 strikeouts and 44 walks in 86 1/3 innings last season with low Class A West Virginia.

The issue here isn't marijuana. If every player who ever smoked pot was disqualified from the profession, you'd see Little Leaguers playing for the Yankees. The issues are judgment and intelligence. Failing one drug test is a kid having fun. Failing two is foolish. Failing three is self-destructive. Failing four and earning a 50-game suspension means you care more about getting high than pursuing your chosen career.

Which I suppose might be defensible if you hadn't signed for $1.55 million less than two years ago. Anyway, Jeffress recently said, "Baseball is a game I love. This is what I want to do for a living ... I had a problem. I've been to rehab to get it straight. I'm not I ashamed that I've been in rehab. I went there to get help. It's something that helped me."

Good luck to him. As we know, the odds already aren't in favor of young pitchers, and they don't improve when you're 20 and in rehab. And just in case anybody's not reading between the lines, a lot can happen to a pitcher with lightning in his arm between high school and Yankee Stadium.

This piece about the Steinbrothers runs nine (Web) pages, but doesn't the opening graf set the hook and reel you in?

Hank Steinbrenner was driving like he owned the place. "This thing's got no pickup," he said, gunning my midsize Hyundai down Steinbrenner Drive in Tampa, Fla. We had just finished lunch on a January afternoon at a Steinbrenner family favorite, an Italian restaurant called Iavarone's, and were on our way back to his new office at Legends Field in my rental car, which Hank had insisted on driving. As we approached the ballpark, he steered the car up onto the curb, drove it on the main walkway, between the Yankees merchandise store and a small memorial park devoted to Yankee immortals, and came to a stop just a few feet from the tinted-glass door marked "Executive Offices." "This is where I usually park," Hank said, stepping out of the Hyundai and tossing me the keys.

When I reached the bottom of Page 1 and discovered there were eight more on the way, I decided to wait until Sunday morning when the dead-tree version of the Times arrives on my front porch. But my guess is this'll be the best piece we read about Prince Hal and Hankenstein all year.

• Greg Rybarczyk -- maven of Hit Tracker Online -- writes about the next big thing in sabermetrics: Observational Analysis. I agree with him, absolutely, and we're all going to be amazed at the data that becomes available over the next few years.

• Joe Posnanski notes (as I have, with similar indignation) that there are only four general managers in the Hall of Fame, and that more (including the late Bob Howsam) should be in the Hall of Fame. Joe thinks their general absence is because we like stars and general managers, humble fellows that they are, aren't interested in stardom. Maybe Joe's right. I don't think it's because they're humble, though. I've read John Schuerholz's book. And Billy Beane's [jk]. They've got egos and insecurities just like the rest of us. I think GMs aren't stars because (1) they typically don't keep the job long enough to become famous, and (2) we don't have anything tangible associated with them. Baseball-Reference.com has just about everything you'd want to know about baseball history ... except records for general managers. What was the winning percentage of the teams Bob Howsam put together? I don't have the slightest idea, and to find out I'd have to compile the numbers line by line. If we really care about GMs, we'll actually, you know, give them the same attention we give to their relatively unimportant inferiors (i.e., the managers and the players).

• Writing in Slate, blogger Emma Span says Red Sox and Yankees fans are happy their teams didn't get Johan Santana. Money quote: "Baseball watchers have also gotten smarter about the importance of a solid farm system ... This is where the emotion comes in: Given how closely Yankees fans have already been following Hughes and Ian Kennedy and the way Sox fans have been mooning over Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester, it's no wonder they're reluctant to see them go." Minor quibble: I don't think most fans know how important the farm system is; rather, I think they love stars, and they've been told that Chamberlan and Hughes and Buchholz (and Jacoby Ellsbury) are going to be stars.

(P.S. I Googled Emma Span and discovered her blog -- Eephus Pitch -- which seems, upon first impressions, to be well worth a bookmark. Especially if you follow one of the New York teams.)

• Mostly for Mets fans, I guess, but if you (like me) can't get enough of Tim Marchman, you'll want to read this interview with him (Part 2 of the interview is here). Marchman on the Mets this year: "I predict 95 wins and a gut-wrenching loss to Boston in the Series."

• Nice long profile of Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper (worth reading for this photo alone). Take-home? Aside from the strange fact that Bob Brenly's into the Cold War Kids, it's that Kasper is well-prepared, humble, and ... well, just downright cool (which makes me wonder how he makes it through some of those lame seventh-inning guests, but I guess when you're cool you can make it through just about anything).

• So every first- and third-base coach has to wear some sort of head protection this season. Is it just me, or this one serious overreaction? In the long, long history of professional baseball, exactly one coach has been killed by a batted ball ... and now every coach has to wear helmets? And when that coach was killed, he was struck in a spot that wouldn't have been protected by a helmet? I know, I know: Safety first. But why not give the coaches a choice in the matter? More the point, where do we draw the line? I keep thinking one of these days it'll be illegal to let your kid leave the house without full body armor. (Late note: Larry Bowa's on my side.)

• As the Cubs continue to covet Brian Roberts, Eric Patterson might reasonably wonder about his future in the organization. As MLB Trade Rumors notes in a new series called "Blocked Prospects," Patterson is one of the young players "who seem to be buried on their current team's depth chart." The problem is that he's not good enough defensively to play second base and not quite good enough offensively to play center field. At least not for the Cubs, who already have Felix Pie. And at (almost) 25 he's not so young that we should expect him to improve significantly. Baseball America ranks him as the No. 12 prospect in the organization (not good for a player his age). If he's blocked, it's mostly by his own talents.

• R.A. Dickey Mania is getting out of control! First the New York Times and now he's being interviewed on NPR? There's really nothing left for him but a billboard in Times Square and the Time cover. Not bad for 33-year-old pitcher with a 5.72 lifetime ERA.

• Funny %@#& of the Week: Vintage Carell & Colbert, the most dynamic duo since these guys (and yes, I know it's more than seven years and nearly two Presidents ago, but I'm just now getting caught up with all the old stuff).

• Happy 64th to Steve Mingori (and to my father, who was born three days earlier; I hope Mingo's looking as good as my old man these days). In 1976, the season in which I fell in love with Mingori's Royals, he posted a 2.32 ERA in 55 games. According to Denny Matthews, Mingori "didn't overpower anybody, but he had a really good screwball with really good control ... He is one of the funniest guys the Royals have ever had on the team."

Francisco Liriano finally got his visa, and worked out in Florida yesterday. He's the key for the Twins this season, right? If he pitches anything like he did in 2006 -- in 14 starts before he got hurt, Liriano went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA -- the Twins have a real shot at being competitive. If he's just a guy, they're going to finish with consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1999-2000.

After dispensing with the good news about Liriano, Aaron Gleeman turns to darker thoughts about veteran Livan Hernandez and prospective (if not prospectful) center fielder Denard Span.

Shortly after the Twins signed Livan Hernandez to a one-year contract that guarantees him at least $5 million with another $2 million in reachable incentives, the Reds agreed to terms with a similarly mediocre veteran starting pitcher for a fraction of the price. Josh Fogg certainly hasn't been as durable as Hernandez, but averaged 170 innings over the past two seasons while posting a 5.22 ERA and 5.20 xFIP. Over that same two-year span Hernandez averaged 210 innings with a 4.88 ERA and 5.50 xFIP. Fogg will make just $1 million this season, which means that the Twins paid an extra $5 million or so for another 40 innings of what figures to be the same five-something ERA, all from a pitcher who's (at least) two years older and has shown major signs of decline. Like Craig Monroe earlier this winter and any number of washed-up, declining players before him, the Twins always find a way to overpay for veteran mediocrity while scrimping just about everywhere else.

Exactly. I've written many wonderful things about the Twins in recent years, as they kept churning out prospects and winning seasons while spending relatively little money. That's impressive, and a year or two ago I'd have ranked their front office among the best in the game.

No more. I'm not ruling out a comeback, but the Livan Hernandez contract is simply indefensible. And as Gleeman notes, it's not an isolated incident. As for Span, the bottom line is that while he's been considered the center fielder of the future for years now, "he simply hasn't been a very good baseball player and has done little to suggest that he's capable of becoming one since the Twins took him in the first round of the 2002 draft."

It hurts because it's true.

Pitching and Defense
Pitching and Defense
Pitching and Defense ...

We may not hear that mantra as often as we did 30 years ago, but it's certainly still around. Just listen: I promise that you'll hear pitching and defense a few dozen times in April alone. It's fashionable to mock the mantra, and generally appropriate because generally speaking a run scored is worth the same as a run prevented.

But you know, there is something to it. My long-ago STATS Inc. colleague Rob McQuown:

I play a lot of simulated baseball. And I'm a big proponent of pitching and defense. I have been since after my first Strat team, which had [one] good pitcher and butchers around the diamond on defense, was eliminated summarily in a playoff run (okay, okay, so Andy Van Slyke hitting two ballpark homer shots in the Astrodome was more to blame than my pitching or defensive shortcomings, but hey, it made for a good excuse to look at ways to improve things.) --snip-- One "secret" I've been sitting on, and trying to use to my advantage in sim leagues for years, is that preventing runs is worth more than scoring additional runs.

By way of explanation, McQuown works through some fairly simple math, only some of which my relatively simple brain fully understands. So let me see if I can accurately summarize, or perhaps explain with a different line of reasoning ...

If you're scoring 10 runs per game, adding an 11th won't add many wins because you're already winning almost every game anyway. But if you go from allowing three runs per game to two, you'll add a huge number of wins. And if you can go from allowing one run per game to allowing none at all, you'll go 162-0. That's why a run saved is worth more than a run scored.

But just slightly. As McQuown notes, "Some of these differences may not seem like much: 10 [percent] here, [one percent] there, but that's often the difference between winning and losing a few games over a long season and making the playoffs, or of winning a tight game in a playoff series." I suspect the difference probably wouldn't be detectable over the course of a playoff series, and that it's much close to the "[one percent] there" than the "10 [percent] here." The point isn't that you'd rather have Ozzie Smith than Cal Ripken. The point is that if you have two players who seem, all things considered, to be worth the same number of runs, the better defensive player is just slightly more valuable. And yes, those differences do add up over the course of 162 games. The trick is to find more than a few of them.

Who's the biggest center fielder you ever heard of? Gotta be Andruw Jones, right? ShysterBall noticed a hefty nugget buried deep within this story:

Jones gets a fresh start in L.A. He was one of the few veterans to volunteer to go to China for exhibition games against San Diego. He's in a locker next to good friend and former Braves teammate Rafael Furcal. He raised some eyebrows reporting to camp at 240 pounds. But he assured new manager Joe Torre he'll lose it as the season progresses.

As the season progresses? Or did he mean spring training?

Using the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia, I searched for center fielders, thoughout major league history, who weighed more than 230 pounds.

I found exactly one: Jeff Abbott, who got into 81 games as a center fielder, mostly with the White Sox from 1997 through 2000.

Of course, relying on listed weights is problematic. Baseball-Reference.com has Abbott at 190 pounds. The 2002 edition of The Baseball Register -- in which Abbott made his last appearance -- lists him as 200 pounds. And the aforementioned Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia? 235 pounds.

I don't have any idea where all those numbers come from, but I do know (1) players are often listed at the same weight for years, and (2) players typically gain weight as they age. I do not know if Andruw Jones can play Gold Glove-quality center field at 230-plus. But it'll be fun to watch him try.

According to the New York Post and Shawn Green, Green is retiring:

"I had planned on retiring at the end of this contract," the 35-year-old Green said yesterday in a phone conversation. "If something where I could live at home popped up, then I would have had to take that under consideration. But I still don't know what I would have done." That decision never really had to be made. The affable Green, a former member of the 30-30 club who once smashed four homers in one game, wrapped up his tenure with the Mets last season. He said yesterday that a bunch of teams then showed interest in him, but he indicated that he simply wasn't willing to be that far from his California home. "There was some real solid interest from maybe six or seven teams," he said. "A lot of teams were pretty far across the country." Green, who is building his dream house in Irvine with his family (wife Lindsay and daughters Presley and Chandler), added, "I wanted to stay here with my family. Not travel around the country anymore. I enjoyed playing a lot. I enjoyed New York. But for me, it was time to be home."

Like most players, Green peaked in his late 20s. At 26 he finished ninth in National League MVP balloting; at 28 and 29 he finished sixth and fifth (at 27 he had an off-year). After turning 30, Green went from great to good. And these last two years, he's been average (which means below-average considering that he's a right fielder who didn't play right field particularly well).

Which doesn't mean he can't still play. Money aside, Shawn Green remains better than hundreds of players in the major leagues today. He didn't quit because he had to; he really did quit because he prefers to spend time with his family and enjoy all those millions he earned.

This is something that writers began predicting 30 years ago when free agency first came into the game. It's never really happened, though. Not much. Look at the greatest players of the last 30 years. Mike Schmidt quit before he had to. So did George Brett, probably. But Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs, Craig Biggio, Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens ... go down the list, and all of them played until nobody would give them a uniform.

Granted, some players do retire early. Will Clark did. Green has, at least for now. There have been a few others. Which you would expect. When you've got literally hundreds of millionaires, you would expect a small percentage of them to prefer retirement to the daily grind -- and yes, it really is a grind -- of the baseball life. As salaries continue to move steadily upward, I think we'll see more early retirements. But not enough of them to make a real difference in the talent pool.

Oh, those kooky Cardinals: they're at it again! Seems there's a warrant out for Scott Spiezio's arrest. No big deal, really. Just driving under the influence, driving under the influence with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or more, hit and run, aggravated assault, assault and battery.

Irvine police responded to a report of a single-car crash at 12:20 a.m. on Dec. 30 in Orange County. Officers found a 2004 BMW registered to Spiezio had crashed into a curb and fence. The driver was seen running from the crash site, according to Lt. Rick Handfield. Police located a neighbor of Spiezio who told officers that he was assaulted by Spiezio at their condo complex a short distance from the crash site, Handfield said. The neighbor said Spiezio had arrived home appearing disheveled and apparently injured. Spiezio vomited in his condo and then allegedly assaulted the neighbor, causing significant injuries, Handfield said. Police believe Spiezio was driving under the influence at the time of the crash, Handfield said. Spiezio missed more than a month last season while receiving treatment for substance abuse.

I know the wheels of justice sometimes grind slowly ... but it took nearly two months for the police to issue a warrant? Don't you think if you'd done all that stuff, the cops would have had you in lockup the next morning?

Anyway, let's review this franchise's recent history ...

March 22, 2007: Cardinals manager Tony La Russa arrested for drunk driving (here's his mug shot, and here he was in happier times).

April 29, 2007: Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock was killed when his SUV slammed into a parked tow truck. Within a few days we learned he'd been drunk as a skunk.

August 9, 2007: Cardinals infielder/outfielder/pitcher Scott Spiezio is placed on the restricted list to free up roster space while he undergoes treatment for "possible problems related to substances." A few days earlier, Spiezio "received intravenous fluid ... He had an elevated heart rate, was sweating profusely and noticeably irritated and anxious ... When someone suggested that he be hospitalized and have a blood test, Spiezio abruptly disconnected the IV and left Busch Stadium."

Spiezio was gone for five weeks, but rejoined the club in mid-September and saw his usual part-time action. Three months after the season ended, he wrecked his car and may have beaten up his neighbor.

I'm not saying we should throw the guy into a cell on Alcatraz and suspend ferry service. But is he really the right player for the Cardinals, right now? I know La Russa loves veterans and he loves guys who can (sort of) play five positions. But there are other guys like that, right? Who aren't showing up on wanted posters?

From MLB Trade Rumors, this note about Garret Anderson's future:

One 2009 MLB free agent who's not getting a ton of attention yet is lifetime Angel Garret Anderson. The Angels are faced with a tough decision -- $14MM for '09 or a $3MM buyout. So Tony Reagins will need to ask himself if he'd sign Anderson to a one-year, $11MM deal. PECOTA says he'll be worth less than $2MM in '09. Finally free of injuries, Anderson had a big second half in '07. This year, the Angels will wisely give him a break by rotating him through the DH spot on occasion. As Mike DiGiovanna writes in the above-linked article, the Angels' decision on Anderson will be especially tough if he has a good but not great season (something similar to his last three).

I know I'm always the Tin Man (no heart) in these discussions, but is the decision really so tough? Granted, Anderson's been a good player and could change my mind (if not my heart) this season. But if the decision about his option has to be made today (it doesn't), there's no way you give him $14 million. Or even $11 million (which is the figure that matters). Is his long and valuable service to the club worth something? Of course it is. Someday the Angels will invite him back for the old-timers games, and maybe they'll even retire his number.

But there's never been a sentiment in baseball history worth $11 million (even adjusting for inflation). If the Angels wind up with an opening for a platoon DH in 2009, they might reasonably say to Anderson, "Look, we'd love to have you back for another season. So on top of the $3 million we have to give you, we'll top that off with another couple million just because we think you can still play a little and we don't want to see you in another uniform. Pretty please with sugar on top, stay."

If he wants to play every day and make more money? You can't blame the guy, and you move on. He'll be missed, but he can't play forever -- and the fans won't make a peep as long as the club is winning.

How did the Padres steal Heath Bell from the Mets? It's actually pretty obvious, even if Kevin Towers won't get into the details. Tim Sullivan:

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Heath Bell's stuff was too good for his stats. There was a disconnect somewhere, and not only when hitters flailed at his fastball. He had too much velocity and too much variety to make sense of his numbers with the New York Mets. Following detailed analysis and diligent scouting, the Padres came to the unconventional conclusion that Bell was simply unlucky. "I can't really get into details," Padres General Manager Kevin Towers said yesterday, "but we have guys who do stat analysis who look at lucky versus unlucky. Heath had horrible numbers in the big leagues, but (based on) hard-hit balls versus non-hard-hit balls and balls that should have been caught that weren't, he just had rough, rough luck." If there is an art to assembling a bullpen, Towers has become its Renoir. He has shown a singular talent for taking one team's trash and transforming it into late-inning treasure. When he acquired Bell from the Mets on Nov. 15, 2006, the pitcher had finished consecutive seasons with earned-run averages in excess of 5.10. Then, as luck would have it, he joined the Padres, compiled a 2.02 ERA and led all major league relievers in both strikeouts and innings pitched. --snip-- Because the deal cost the Padres only fringe outfielder Ben Johnson and pitcher Jon Adkins, the formerly hard-luck Bell now qualifies as a bonanza. He is another in a series of remarkable Padres bullpen reclamations that includes Cla Meredith, Kevin Cameron, Justin Hampson, Joe Thatcher and the departed Scott Linebrink, whose eighth-inning role Bell has inherited. "KT definitely knows how to build a bullpen," said Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, baseball's career saves leader. "We have the good fortune of pitching in a pitcher's ballpark, but I'd put more emphasis on role definition. KT has been able to plug people in that he knows are going to be effective in certain roles ... There's a level of trust that's developed (too) that there isn't that knee-jerk reaction if things don't go real well."

It's astute of Hoffman to mention his home ballpark, but Bell actually posted a 1.46 ERA on the road last season, 2.64 at home. It was just an awesome season. And yes, he'd been terribly unlucky in his previous action (with the Mets). In three seasons, Bell struck out 105 batters and walked 30 in 108 innings ... but his ERA was 4.92 because he gave up 129 hits. Now, when a pitcher gives up that many hits while striking out that many batters it's not always unlucky. But almost always. I would take a long look at anybody with those numbers, just on principle.

But if you actually look at the batted balls individually to see exactly how unlucky he was -- as the Padres apparently did, and do -- well, then you're really ahead of the game. This gets back to something we talked about Monday: looking at events (home runs, for example) and drilling deeper for their fundamental qualities. Is every home run the same? In the box score, yes. But when doing qualitative analysis, there's a big difference between a home run that lands in the upper deck and a home run that just clears the fence in the corner. Similarly, when we're looking at pitchers, all hits allowed are not created equally. Even if they look that way in Heath Bell's stat lines.

Are you following this C.J. Wilson story?

In Jeff Pearlman's recent Page 2 column, Wilson essentially described his teammates as self-centered, politically apathetic, and intellectually stunted (who knew?). Subsequently, in posts (which have since been removed) on Lone Star Ball, Wilson tossed out a few more barbs, among which he "referred to the average major leaguer by an obscene remark." The obscene remark, in case you're curious, apparently was the plural form of a feminine hygiene product that begins with the letter d and was once featured in a memorable Saturday Night Live sketch (transcript here if you're really curious).

But wait; the plot only thickens.

Brandon McCarthy wrote a long post on Lone Star Ball responding to Pearlman's original piece. It doesn't read smoothly because McCarthy's formatting attempts failed. But if you read Pearlman first it'll make sense, and McCarthy comes off as a pretty sharp guy (and, it should be said, more articulate and thoughtful than your average major leaguer).

Also, Wilson has his own blog (which is rarely updated and consists mostly of YouTubes). And according to Evan Grant, Wilson "has a contract with the club to help brand the team to the 'hip' audience" (good luck with that).

What to make of all this? I don't know, except we should expect lots more where this came from. Aside from a few early adapters (like C.J. Nitkowski), baseball players haven't really kept up with the times. But today's young players and (especially) tomorrow's players have grown up with YouTube and all the rest, and if everybody else in the world is blogging, why shouldn't they? At some point in the next five years, so many young players will be blogging that we'll have somebody in Bristol whose only job is to comb through the blogs, looking for newsworthy items.

But of course, like 99 percent of the blogs out there, the great majority of the players' blogs will be interesting only to future sociologists trying to understand the early years of the 21st century.

• So it turns out Alfonso Soriano is afraid of brick walls. Which, considering this guy's fate, seems entirely reasonable to me. Soriano grew up as an infielder, and at 32 he may just be too old to learn about warning tracks. If so, the Cubs are better off if Soriano simply lets a few get away from him.

• USS Mariner's Derek Zumsteg (DMZ) runs through every team and lists (1) current DH (if applicable), (2) current left fielder, and (3) best "non-Selig reason" not to sign Barry Bonds. Eventually, Zumsteg comes up with four or five teams that could, and perhaps should, spend $10 million on Bonds, along with five other teams that should sign him if he's (almost) free. I have to admit, I'm at odds with most of my sabermetrically minded friends -- including Zumsteg and Joe Sheehan -- when it comes to Bonds' value in 2008. Yes, he's obviously better than Jose Vidro (who isn't?) and Zumsteg makes a compelling case that the Mariners should strongly consider Bonds. But $10 million? Between his defense and his gimpiness and his various off-the-field issues, I just think $10 million is too much. I might sign him for half that, were I the M's.

• Apparently the Twins have made no progress over the last three weeks in their negotiations with Joe Nathan. Oddly, Nathan, though he turned 33 last November and obviously ranks as one of the very best relievers in the game, is slated to earn relatively little money this season (after which he may become a free agent). Supposedly the Twins "are considering a three-year extension, with a bonus that would bring Nathan's 2008 salary of $6 million on par with the rest of the deal." Which presumably means something like $35 million for the three years, including this one (for comparison's sake, Billy Wagner makes $11 million per season on a deal he signed two years ago). A million here or a million there's not going to make much difference. But if Nathan wants a significantly restrictive no-trade clause, the Twins should trade him this spring. Actually, I think they should trade him this spring regardless. But if they do get his name on a long-term extension, they have to leave themselves the flexibility to make a deal if the bottom falls out this year or next.

• Over at Baseball Analysts, Rich Lederer, Patrick Sullivan, and two of our finest team bloggers tackle the National League West. If you don't have "time" to read all 4,517 words, here's my handy summary: Diamondbacks win again but are challenged by every other West team except of course the dreadful Giants. And we all seem to agree that if Joe Torre puts his available talent on the field rather than in the dugout, the Dodgers are as good as anybody.

• Ahhhh: Another season, another bunch of interleague inequities. Beginning a continuing series, Home Run Derby's Richie Rich checks the National League Central ... and man, it's ugly. The Reds? All 15 of their interleague contests are against teams with winning records last season: three apiece against the Blue Jays, Yankees and Red Sox; and six against the Indians. Meanwhile, the Cubs have three games against the Jays and 12 against teams -- O's, Rays and White Sox -- with losing records last season. Two things about this, though. One, just because a team had winning (or losing) record last year doesn't mean they'll do it again this year. And two, the Reds chose to play six games against the Indians. My understanding is that when teams stray from the division-vs.-division format, it's by choice. You can't blame the Reds for wanting those extra games against the Indians ... but you know, if they hadn't played those extra games against the Indians in 1999 they might well have been in the playoffs.

• I know I've already written about R.A. Dickey this month, but here's something I didn't know: "He does not have an ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. None. Dickey either was born without one, or the tissue simply disintegrated when he was a teenager." Alan Schwarz has all the gory details (along with a photo that'll look great in my long-planned book about knuckleballers).

• Via AOL FanHouse, we finally have color movies of Jim Bowden scooting around spring training on his custom-painted Segway. I know Bowden's been an easy target for mockery, but you know what? As long as (1) he's having a good time and (2) his employees don't think he's foolish, I say it's all good fun.

Forgot to make this a Tater this morning, so instead you get the full monty:

From Anthony Witrado's Brewers blog:

Manager Ned Yost has said for a week that he has a brain-full of ideas when it comes to his batting order, but it is way too early to commit to any one of them. But one of the most interesting of possible orders would have Ryan Braun batting second, a pitcher batting eighth and catcher Jason Kendall batting ninth. This idea isn't set yet, and it may not ever be used. It is just one of a flurry of ideas whizzing around inside the skipper's head. St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has done this some during the last few seasons. Yost's reasoning is that he wants Braun to have more plate apperances, but still be able to have guys on in front of him. So with Kendall's ability to see pitches and get on base, it would essentially translate to Braun still batting third while racking up about 40 more plate appearances, as stats show. In this lineup, Prince Fielder would bat third in the order, but it would be like having him in the clean-up slot. "Common sense tells me you want your best hitters to have the most at-bats," Yost said.

Yes and no. You don't want your best hitter to have the most at-bats if your best hitter is Babe Ruth or Ted Williams, because you don't want those guys coming up with nobody on base. The pitcher batting eighth, though? That's actually not a bad idea.

Yes, I have criticized Tony La Russa for doing it, but this is different. When La Russa's done it, he always seemed to be reacting to a bad situation rather than creating a good one. "We're not scoring runs? Yeah, well, just watch me pull this rabbit out of my hat!" But when you're in the middle of the season there aren't any rabbits. I don't know, maybe La Russa really is some sort of genius and his aim is actually to shift attention from his struggling players to himself.

Maybe. But probably not.

Doing it for a whole season, though? This issue has been studied. Most recently the authors of "The Book" wrote: "The second leadoff hitter theory exists. You can put your pitcher in the eighth slot and gain a couple of extra runs per year."

Yes, a couple of extra runs is a trifle. But once the manager figures out who should play, there's not much he can do except look for trifles here and there. Find five trifles and you've found 10 runs, and if you find 10 runs you've found one whole win. Do you know how many pennant races have been lost by one win?

I don't, either. But it's more than a trifle.

• You know who owns the single-season record for doubles? Earl Webb. Single-season record for triples? Owen "Chief" Wilson. I love stuff like that, meaningful records held by players you've never heard of. Consecutive innings without walking a batter? Old Kansas City Athletic Bill Fischer, and Joe Posnanski's got all the details.

• If you thought Jimmy Rollins didn't deserve his MVP Award last year, you're a VORPy. At least according to Jon Heyman, who writes, "The stat people seem to believe VORP -- a Baseball Prospectus statistic that stands for Value Over Replacement Player -- defines a player, but why haven't many of them championed last year's VORP leader (Hanley Ramirez) as MVP instead?" Answer: Because no real "stat people" believe that VORP alone defines a player. No statistic can define a player, but VORP is particularly ill-equipped because it doesn't consider a player's fielding skill. When we look at WARP -- which does consider defense -- Ramirez finished behind Rollins and David Wright. So maybe Heyman should call us "WARPies." If you're going to invent a pejorative, at least get the right one.

• When "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract" was published seven years ago, the cognoscenti fixated on three things: the introduction of Win Shares, Bill's description of Craig Biggio as "the best player in major league baseball today," and his decision to write one word ("Pass.") about Jeff Bagwell and (for example) 346 words about Will Clark. Well, Bill's got a new book and explains, in The Epic of Craig Biggio, just why he loved Biggio ... and grew tired of him. Good stuff, as usual. Now we're just waiting for an explanation of that Bagwell comment.

• Occasionally, I still get e-mail messages from well-meaning readers that go something like this: "Rob, has anybody ever rated hitters by taking the number of bases a player accounts for -- by hits, walks, steals, etc. -- and dividing them by outs? Because I've been fooling around with a formula and I think I might really have something here." Well, yeah: somebody has. Lots of somebodies, actually.

• Was Babe Ruth a great pitcher? Dugout Central's Jason Cook says he wasn't, and I concur. Ruth was great in 1916, but he was merely good in 1917 and '18 and his trend line was going in the wrong direction. When Ruth was in his prime (as a hitter), it was often said that he was one of the game's smartest players (on the field). I think maybe he was smart enough to know when to change jobs.

• Everyone's got their blind spots, I guess. One of Tony La Russa's -- aside from his own infallibility -- is Mark McGwire and every other player who's ever worked hard (and won some games for him).

• Baseballs are beautiful.

Last year at some point, I wrote about "pieces" … that is, the notion that all the things we think of as pieces -- hits, walks, groundouts, etc. -- can actually be cut into more pieces (financial analysts call these pieces "derivatives"). And further, the analysis of those pieces (and their pieces) that still has been largely unexplored by armchair sabermetricians and front offices alike.

Today's example: In Greg Rybarczyk's HitTracker, "Rybarczyk classifies all homers into three categories: 1) No Doubters: moonshoots that go well over the fence, 2) Just Enoughers: those that eke over the wall by the thinnest of margins, and 3) Plenty: all other homers.

With that information in hand, Chris Jaffe has come up with all sorts of interesting stuff. Herein, a few highlights (but I really do recommend RTFA):

Brandon Phillips is as likely as anyone to fall to earth. He had nearly half of his homers ever so narrowly escape the ballpark. He's young, so he could always see his power go up, but his 30 homers last year nearly doubled his previous best. Making his case extra interesting, the Reds just signed him to a fat new contract, at least partially because of his power numbers. He could be a disappointment. David Wright is another good bet to decline. Hit Tracker also tracks "lucky" homers -- those which left the yard only because of wind, weather and other factors beyond the batter's control. (Yup, Hit Tracker also notes those factors for all homers.) Wright had 10 and only one other batter in MLB had more than seven. --snip-- According to this, Geoff Jenkins, who signed a new contract with the Phillies this off-season, could be on the verge of a major collapse. He was terrific in 2005, but the next year -- at age 31 -- he lost 20 points off his batting average and much of his power. Last year his batting average fell by another 15 points, and only his flukey power bounce masked his continued decline. --snip-- Maybe the most impressive team total is the Phillies. They had the second-most homers in baseball last year despite getting screwed on the borderline blasts. They were the anti-Red Sox as almost all of their main boppers had few Just Enoughers: Burrell (five of 30), Chase Utley (four of 22), the departed Aaron Rowand (six of 27), and Ryan Howard (11 of 47). This team could score an absurd number of runs this year if things break its way. Last but not least are the Toronto Blue Jays and their comically low total of 18.8 percent cheap shots. They finished four games under their pythag record and lost another three wins or so based on their lack of lackluster homers. Given the nature of the division, I have trouble imagining them coming in higher than third under any circumstances, but stranger things have happened.

I'm not going to quibble with any of Jaffe's particulars, but some fundamental questions come to mind. Example: Do hitters with a high percentage of Just Enoughers in one season typically suffer a significant drop in home runs the next season? Example: Do teams with a low percentage of Just Enoughers in one season tend to score more runs the next?

If the answer to these questions are yes, then most of us have been missing out on quite a lot over the years when we put together our projections and predictions. I'm looking forward to Jaffe's follow-up (he's good about that).

As GM Jim Bowden zips around on his Nationals-logoed Segway, apparently one of the many things on his mind is a long-term contract for third baseman Ryan Zimmerman:

"If Ryan is willing to sign a contract that is similar to what all the other good young players are signing for … if he's willing to do a 'market signing,' we are prepared to do that with him," Bowden said Saturday at spring training. "We're not going set all new markets with him. We're not going to change the pay scale of Major League Baseball for one player." Bowden went on to reference deals signed by Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore ($23.45 million for six years in March 2006), Braves catcher Brian McCann ($26.8 million for six years in March 2007), Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki ($31 million for six years in January), and Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano ($30 million for four years this month). "There have been so many signings -- whether you look at Tulowitzki or Cano or McCann or Sizemore -- so many that are all in the same range, and our organization is prepared to do that," Bowden said. "We are prepared to do that, like everybody else," he continued. "And we have communicated that to Zimmerman's agent."

Sizemore's contract is essentially irrelevant because it's now two years old, McCann's because he simply didn't have the same sort of credential as these other guys. But Tulowitzki's new deal has a $5.2 million AAV (Average Annual Value), Cano's $7.5 million. Tulo's contract is depressed by his lack of service time (one season), Cano's is enhanced by his deep-pocketed employers. So if we take Bowden at his word, Zimmerman -- with two full seasons in the ledger -- has been offered roughly $6 million per season.

Is he worth it?

There are, at this moment, two outstanding young third basemen in the National League: David Wright and Ryan Zimmerman (Garrett Atkins disqualified himself when he turned 28 this winter; Miguel Cabrera disqualified himself when he let the Marlins trade him to the Tigers; Ryan Braun disqualified himself last September when he made three errors in one game).

If you could have one National Leaguer for the next five or six years, Wright is obviously your guy. Great hitter, good fielder, great base runner, good guy, smart guy. How far behind is Zimmerman, though?

Wright and Zimmermann, home games only:

Wright: .313/.392/.535
Zimmerman: .309/.360/.501

Pretty close, right? Here's the weird thing, though: Zimmerman's not done nearly as well as Wright in road games:

Wright: .310/.384/.530
Zimmerman: .252/.326/.435

Usually, upon discovering this fact, we might assume that Zimmerman had played his home games in a hitter's park and Wright had not. But we know better. Shea Stadium is a pitcher's park, but Washington's RFK is more of a pitcher's park. Over the last three seasons, Shea was the third-toughest park in the National League for hitters, and RFK was the second toughest.

So Wright's home/road splits make perfect sense, and Zimmerman's don't. Zimmerman's add a measure of uncertainty to our predictions for his future. And there are other measures. He's still exceptionally young: only 23 and nearly two years younger than Wright. He and his team are moving into their new home this spring.

Would I trade Wright's future for Zimmerman's? No, I wouldn't. Do I have any real idea of how good Zimmerman will be? Can be? No, I don't. I do have the feeling that if the Nationals are able to get his name on a long-term contract, they'll come out ahead on the deal. Whatever the figures look like.

Barry Bonds is still looking for a job? Maybe he's just looking on the wrong side of the Pacific:

Barry Bonds may end up playing baseball in Japan this year. "He's not retiring," Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, told Metro yesterday. "He intends to play somewhere. If a door doesn't open for Barry in the major leagues, as unbelievable as that possibility sounds, then Japan certainly is an option." Borris, remarkably, has been driving from training camp to training camp in Florida, hoping to persuade a general manager of some major-league club to give Bonds a new opportunity. At this point, frankly, it appears as though Bonds is being blackballed. He's the top home-run hitter in baseball history and arguably the finest offensive player ever, but he is 43, has a bad knee, is generally perceived as a steroid-user and is facing perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges. No interest is being expressed in him …

Has Bonds been blackballed? I don't think so. That term suggests conspiracy. I don't see one, nor have I heard any hint of one. As I think I mentioned recently in this space, there's a key piece of information to which we're not privy (at least not yet): How much does he want? I believe that if Bonds were willing to sign for nothing (i.e. just a few million bucks) he could find himself a roster spot.

I could be wrong. It's not like nobody wants him, but it may be that nobody who signs checks wants him. Which of course wouldn't include Tony La Russa, who does want Bonds. Or did:

This time around, a philosophical stance by the organization stopped the idea before it got very far. The Cardinals have a slew of talented young outfielders, and general manager John Mozeliak wants them to play. "The whole idea of what we tried to do this offseason was to give some of these younger players a chance to play," he said. "Obviously, when we brought in [Juan] Gonzalez, [he was] highly recommended, but there was no risk on our part. I think that's the one guy we'll give it a shot with, and other than that we want to give these younger players a chance to play."

When Mozeliak mentions risk, he's talking about financial risk, yes, but of course it's more than that. If Barry Bonds is on your team, he'll be THE STORY more days than not. The story will be about his frosty relationship with teammates, about his ability (or not) to play more than three or four games per week, and (especially) about his ongoing legal entanglements. For most teams, those risks just aren't worth taking. Hard to blame them, even if Bonds could roll out of bed tomorrow and create twice the runs that Juan Gonzalez would.

And Japan? That's tricky. Not impossible. But tricky. I checked with two of my favorite lawyers on the feasibility of Bonds playing overseas:

Keith Scherer:

The bottom line is that it's up to the judge. The court has already determined that Bonds needs his passport to make a living, and that the court's not going to interfere with that aspect of his life. Bonds has substantial ties to the area, is a universally recognized public figure, and will remain in the public spotlight no matter where he goes. He has the means to travel to the US for any required court appearance. There is zero risk that he will not appear in court when he has to, even if he plays in Japan. So I can't see any good reason to tighten the conditions of his release, but the court has the power to do it. As for required court appearances, there won't be many during the season. Federal criminal cases drag on for a long time, even most of those that end up in a guilty plea. Complicated cases, such as this one, particularly cases that appear to be headed for trial, drag on for much longer than 6 months. Bonds will not go to trial during the season, and while there will be court dates from April to October, there won't be many, and almost all of them will be routine. Any significant hearing will not take a significant amount of time. Whatever distractions there may be, Bonds should be available to play a full season or nearly so.

Craig Calcaterra:

It's not some hard and fast rule that you can't leave the country -- it's my understanding that it can be negotiated with the prosecutor and the court -- but you're right that it could cause some practical problems. Mostly in the way of pretrial hearings. His lawyers just filed that typo motion. That could lead to a hearing in open court in a month or two. Further on, I expect there to be motions about discover/access to prosecution documents and information, and no doubt some motions regarding experts and their testimony. Closer to trial, Bonds will no doubt move to suppress various pieces of evidence or exclude witnesses, and those will almost certainly result in hearings too. Now, Bonds could waive his appearances at such hearings -- criminal defendants often do -- but it's not the best way to (a) stay on top of your case; or (b) endear yourself to the judge. Bonds could almost certainly schedule around these things if he's DHing for Seattle. It would be much harder if he was playing LF for Nippon Ham. Another angle on this would be Japan's view of things. Who knows what their laws on this are, but it's entirely possible that another country won't provide a work visa to someone with an indictment hanging over their head. Less likely in a perjury situation, but they're also very touchy about drugs over there (they locked up Paul McCartney once), so it's hard to say whether the draw that would be Barry Bonds would outweigh those pesky issues of honor.

(By the way, Scherer and Calcaterra are a couple of ringers. Scherer has been writing about baseball for years, and most recently about the Bonds case. Calcaterra is better known in these parts as ShysterBall.)

Will Bonds play in Japan? I'd say it's exceptionally unlikely. Will he play in America? With each passing day it looks more unlikely … but I still say if some supposed contender is desperate for a DH this spring (or summer), Bonds' agent just might get that phone call.

(H/T to Larry Brown Sports.)

How good is Chipper Jones? As Mark Bradley writes, "At 35 he had one of his greatest years, hitting .337 with 29 homers, driving in 102 runs and scoring 108." Those numbers are particularly impressive for a third baseman. For whatever reason, great third basemen just haven't typically enjoyed great production into their middle and later 30s. Mike Schmidt was finished at 38, Eddie Mathews at 36, Brooks Robinson at 38 ... the list goes on. Apparently all that diving, and worrying about line drives from guys like Albert Belle and Dick Allen, takes a toll.

Chipper, though? When he's in the lineup he's still fantastic.

"Last year could have been my best all-around year. I was in the running for a Gold Glove -- my errors were way down, and my fielding percentage was up -- and I challenged for a batting title. And I hit .300 and drove in 100 and scored 100 just like I did when I was a younger cat." Sometimes it takes an outside observer to bring a familiar sight into sharper relief. Steve Phillips, once the Mets' general manager and now an ESPN commentator, called Jones "the Derek Jeter of the National League" a couple of years ago, and Jeter is the most respected player in the sport. To be likened to him is the ultimate compliment. Jones took it as such. "Jeter and I are good buddies," he says. "We've squared off in a couple of World Series, and I think he'll challenge 4,000 hits before he's through. He's a winner. I daresay I don't think he'll have any problem going into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot." And his own Hall prospects? "I'm one of the guys who, if I quit right now, I wouldn't make it. I'm on the cusp. The next five or six years will tell the tale."

Bonus points to Jones for saying "daresay." Debit points for mentioning himself and "Gold Glove" in the same sentence. I will also question his assumptions about Hall of Fame voters (though he might just be sandbagging). Hall of Fame voters appreciate batting average; Chipper's career batting average is .307. Hall of Fame voters appreciate home runs; Chipper's got 386 career homers, fourth all-time among third basemen. Hall of Fame voters appreciate RBIs; Chipper's got nine 100-RBI seasons, including (most impressively) eight in a row (1996-2003).

Right now, he's a Hall of Famer in my book. I'm not sure that 75 percent of the Hall of Fame voters would agree with me, but I'm sure he doesn't need anything like five or six more good years. Chipper turns 36 this spring and probably doesn't have five or six good years left. He might not have five or six years, period. But right now he's got 386 homers and 1,299 RBIs. If he reaches 450 and 1,500 -- three seasons' worth, basically -- isn't he a lock? And if not I'd like to know why.

(H/T to BTF.)

Our long national nightmare is over. Well, probably. We've been hearing about a "deal" for a new Marlins ballpark for years, but this time it seems that the deal is really done:

"Now this is a binding agreement," Miami mayor Manny Diaz said when he emerged from the meeting. "We have a deal to keep baseball in Miami." Later, Marlins president David Samson said, to loud cheers, "Fact is, we have a binding agreement for a new stadium -- the Marlins ballpark." It was a roller coaster ride of a day, to be sure. After appearing to have the votes for final approval, the Marlins saw their chances plummet when Commissioner Jose Diaz made an issue about which police department would have priority when it came to game-day work details. For the next 45 minutes, no deal appeared possible. Commissioners even appeared to shrug off a direct appeal from Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez, who told them at one point, with feeling, "I need your support." Then Robert DuPuy, Major League Baseball's president and chief operating officer, rose to bring perspective to the direction in which the commission appeared to be heading. "I just want you to know that if you decide not to make a decision tonight, that will be the death knell for baseball in Miami," DuPuy said. "We are out of time."

Really? The death knell? Hasn't DuPuy been making that threat for many years? Where exactly would the Marlins be going next year if the deal hadn't been done yesterday? Portland? San Antonio? Hoboken? I wonder what it's like to be DuPuy, making these empty threats in city after city, year after year. What's amazing is that the local politicians are so foolish that they seem to still take him seriously. Anyway, there are still a few details left, but this time they really do seem like minor details ...

Construction is scheduled to start by November, with the stadium ready for the opening of the 2011 season. The Marlins' Dolphin Stadium lease, long a problem because the club did not share in parking or concession revenues, expires after the 2010 season. The stadium cost is estimated at $525 million, and the city has agreed to build an on-site, 6,000-space parking lot at an additional approximate cost of $94 million. The county's tab adds up to $347 million, all but $50 million to be derived from tourist-tax revenues. The Marlins, who will contribute $155 million, will get $120 million in loans, and the other $35 million will be fronted by the county and paid back through yearly rent payments of $2.3 million. In addition to building the parking garage, the city picks up $23 million, including $10 million for the demolition and cleanup of the Orange Bowl, the site of the new stadium. The stadium, which the county will own, is slated to have 37,000 seats, including 3,000 club seats and 60 suites. It also will have a retractable roof, as it often rains -- or threatens to -- in the late afternoon during South Florida summers. As part of the Baseball Stadium Agreement, the Marlins will change their name to the Miami Marlins and not relocate for 35 years.

Well, that's at least one bit of good news. There are a million reasons why "Miami Marlins" is better than "Florida Marlins" (though it's a shame ex-Marlin Satchel Paige can't come back for one last game).

Here's the bad news: Yet again, the losers are the local citizens who don't want their money used to subsidize millionaires. The county's pitching in $347 million, the city another $94 million (at least), for a grand total of something like $450 million. Which would buy a lot of ... well, whatever they need down there. Last I heard, water was an issue.

Yes, a big chunk of that $450 million will come from "tourist-tax revenues" ... but if that money isn't spent on a ballpark, where would it go? Straight into the public coffers. Whatever you call it, it's still public revenue that could be spent on something else.

Anyway, we've almost reached the point at which good-government advocates can stop tilting at windmills, at least when it comes to new baseball stadiums. As someone pointed out somewhere, soon there will be only five pre-1990 ballparks in the majors: Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium and Kauffman Stadium. Assuming of course that the A's and the Rays both get their expected boondoggles (and for what it's worth, the Rays' boondoggle apparently may add a bit of elegance to the landscape).

Of course, time does run along its merry path all too quickly. Will it really be so long before the White Sox and the Orioles simply can't live without more luxury suites?

The Academy Awards aren't exactly like the Hall of Fame ... but they're close enough that we can have a lot of fun arguing about them, too.

What's a Best Picture"? I think when you leave the theater after seeing a Best Picture, you shouldn't be able to think of anything the director should have done differently. I think you should also leave the theater thinking you've just seen a movie that's going to hold up over the years. Ten years later, is anybody still watching "Shakespeare in Love"?

That's one's actually an exception, though. It's easy (and fair) to mock the Academy for honoring "Rocky" instead of "Taxi Driver," "Ordinary People" instead of "Raging Bull," and "Dances With Wolves" instead of "Goodfellas" (of course, in each of those cases the snubbed film was a Scorsese masterpiece). Looking at the list of winners, though, I see a lot of truly great movies. And when a non-great movie wins, it's often because none of the other nominees were great, either. No, "Driving Miss Daisy" isn't a great film. But look at the competition ... "Dead Poets' Society"? "Born on the Fourth of July"? "Field of Freakin' Dreams"?

With one exception, this year's crop is outstanding. And since this is the first time in my life I've seen all five Best Picture nominees before the awards were handed out, let's argue about them ...

• "Atonement": If you want to get a Best Picture nomination, there's just one sure-fire method: Hire a bunch of pretty actors and film them running around an old English manor house. Seriously: Would we be talking about this one if it were set in Canada or Russia? Not a chance.

• "Juno": Excellent, but hardly perfect. The first few scenes are loaded with so much gimmicky dialogue -- "Honest to blog"? really?) -- that it's really sort of a minor miracle that within 30 minutes you've mostly forgotten the clumsy start. I have other, more substantive quibbles, including this: The plot (and particularly its conclusion) is about as realistic as that of "Knocked Up" (a similar, if more age-appropriate comedy). Ultimately, though, the movie works because Ellen Page (as Juno) is excellent, because her parents are real people rather than caricatures, because Jason Bateman underplays his role, and because the amazing Michael Cera turns in yet another brilliant performance (for which he deserved serious Oscar consideration). Also, the song at the end is, well, perfect. I've seen "Juno" twice and I could see it again.

• "Michael Clayton": No complaints. Everybody in the movie is good or excellent, and I don't care why George Clooney went back to look at all the pretty horses (he just did, OK?). One of the five best movies of the year, though? I was moved more by "I'm Not There". And, frankly, it's a crime against art that "Ratatouille" isn't on this list.

• "No Country for Old Men": Huge favorite to win Best Picture, and I don't know why. The Coen Brothers have made some fantastic movies, and this is one of their best. Is this one perfect, though? Halfway through there's a massive hole in the plot, so obvious that it comes up every time I talk to somebody about the movie. I'm not saying it doesn't deserve to win, and in future years we might indeed consider "No Country" the best movie released in 2007. What I'm saying is that it's not obvious, today.

• "There Will Be Blood": Speaking of betting favorites, Daniel Day-Lewis is a 1-13 favorite as Best Actor. It's a big performance, exactly the kind of performance that voters love. It's not over the top, though. Not quite. He takes it right to the edge a few times ... but if he went over, those takes wound up on the cutting-room floor. My contention is that if there is a perfect movie among the nominees, it's this one. Day-Lewis is fantastic, young Paul Dano is solid. The script doesn't contain a single false note, the movie's beautifully shot, and only a technicality kept the musical score from an Oscar nomination. If our grandchildren are still watching two-dimensional movies in 50 years, they'll be watching "Blood."

I look forward to your thoughts (but for the sake of everybody else, please give spoiler alerts).

OK: Make a list of 10 major leaguers who would be least likely to forego eating meat.

Is Prince Fielder on it? Well, he should be. Anthony Witrado writes:

What else can one share about the 23-year-old first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers that hasn't been said or written? Try this: Prince Fielder is a vegetarian. That 6-foot, 260-pound build is powered by wheatgrass, soy and tofu nowadays. No meat. Not even fish. It wasn't always this way. Fielder used to enjoy a stacked burger or a juicy steak as much as any carnivore, but a few weeks ago he received a book from his wife, Chanel, that changed his outlook on what he puts in his massive frame. The book described how certain animals are treated and slaughtered for food. The youngest player to hit 50 home runs in a season was grossed out, so much so that he made his last meaty meal a salmon filet before quitting the animal game on Feb. 3. He has even dabbled in a vegan lifestyle but admits that might be pushing things a little. "After reading that, (meat) just didn't sound good to me anymore," Fielder said. "It grossed me out a little bit. It's not a diet thing or anything like that. I don't miss it at all."

Good luck to him, but I'm afraid that foregoing animal flesh for a few weeks is just a first step toward vegetarianism. It's not that I think "vegetarian" is some sort of badge that one should wear proudly (even though I've worn the badge for 15 years now). It's just that a lot of people go for two or three weeks without eating meat and most of them decide it's just not worth the hassle. Once the season gets going, Fielder's going to be in a lot of social situations where everybody's eating steaks and the only thing for him on the menu is green salads and mashed potatoes and he'll forget all about how poorly all those cows are treated.

Or maybe not. Some of us don't. Most of us don't spend seven months hanging out with dozens of dedicated carnivores. Anyway, what really matters is how well Fielder plays baseball, and he's quick to dismiss notions that his new diet's got anything to do with baseball, though he does talk about improving his defense:

Besides his food intake choices, Fielder would like to make another change in his life, like not being the National League's error leader at his position. He committed 14 last year and ranked in the cellar for fielding percentage at first base. Fielder did not know he was that bad until Chanel pointed it out. The stat bothered him. Fielder thought about gaining a reputation as a masher who could only crush a baseball, not field one. He gagged at the thought. So this spring training, he reported almost a week early with a new glove and the intention of hounding third base coach Dale Sveum, who instructs infielders. "I'm definitely going to do things more without Dale having to come get me," Fielder said. "I'll go grab him. I really want to become an all-around player."

All-around. Hmmm. That would presumably encompass hitting (check), fielding (oops) and running (double-oops). Fielder's listed at 6 feet and 260 pounds, and if you know how these things work you know that probably means something like 5-11, 270. I'm sure there have been all-around sumo wrestlers of similar proportions. But baseball players? Not so much. You can't help liking Fielder, especially now that we know he reads actual books. As long as he doesn't eat meat, the cows and the pigs and the little lambs have brighter futures. But I'll worry about Fielder's future when he takes off 40 pounds or grows three inches.

How hard is prospecting? Geoff Young was leafing through an old book and came across Baseball America's top 10 prospects from the Pacific Coast League, circa 1988:

1. Sandy Alomar Jr. (C, 93 games)
2. Ramon Martinez (RHP, 59 innings)
3. Juan Bell (SS, 73 games)
4. Cameron Drew (OF, 97 games)
5. William Brennan (RHP, 167 innings)
6. Greg Harris (RHP, 160 innings)
7. Mike Devereaux (OF, 109 games)
8. Jerald Clark (OF, 107 games)
9. Lance Johnson (OF, 100 games)
10. Matt Williams (3B, 82 games)

How many of those names do you recognize? I recognize all of them, but I was working for Bill James in 1989 so it was my job to know those things. I suspect that many of you are too young to remember more than two or three of them. Matt Williams became a superstar, Ramon Martinez won 135 games in the majors, and Sandy Alomar got a few at-bats with the Mets last year.

Here's another list of players, all of whom saw action in the PCL that same season:

Dante Bichette (OF, 132 games)
Craig Biggio (C, 77 games)
Jeff Brantley (RHP, 123 innings)
John Burkett (RHP, 114 innings)
Ken Caminiti (3B, 109 games)
Edgar Martinez (3B, 95 games)
Terry Mulholland (LHP, 101 innings)
Omar Vizquel (SS, 33 games)
Jay Bell (SS, 49 games)

I'll bet you've heard of most of those guys. Biggio's a Hall of Famer; Edgar Martinez and Omar Vizqel are both going to get plenty of votes. The rest of them were stars for at least a few minutes.

The name that really stands out is Edgar Martinez. He batted .363 that season. He'd batted .329 in the PCL the season before, and .353 (in 20 games) the season before that. He really wasn't one of the 10 best prospects in the league? He wasn't more impressive than Jerald Clark or Mike Devereaux?

To be sure, Martinez was not a perfect prospect. He was 25. In 91 games at third base his fielding percentage was .925 (which isn't good, but then it was nearly as good as Ken Caminiti's). But still: .363?

Actually, there were a lot of big averages in the Pacific Coast League in 1988. Edgar Martinez did win the batting title. But Francisco Melendez (remember him?) batted .361. Cameron Drew batted .356 and Mike Devereaux batted .340. In context, Edgar's .363 didn't particularly stand out. Looking just at the statistics, and allowing for a number of pitchers on the list, omitting him from the list probably is defensible.

It simply wasn't validated by future events. Which makes me wonder what we don't know, today, about all those minor leaguers we talk about with such authority. My guess is that Baseball America has become slightly better at predicting future performance because I believe Baseball America has become slightly more performance (as opposed to "tools") oriented. But as I said, a lot of guys put up big batting averages in the PCL in '88 and most of them did not enjoy productive major league careers. What I'd like to know is whether or not we, as a community, are significantly better at prospecting than we were 20 years ago.

Words fail me. So here are someone else's:

PORT ST. LUCIE -- Mets reliever Ambiorix Burgos had $270,000 in jewelry stolen from his hotel room here Tuesday after leaving it in a shaving bag, Port St. Lucie police said. Most of the bling was recovered last night, according to a police spokesman, but Burgos went to the police station today after the Mets' full-squad workout and discovered four to five pieces worth $20,000-$30,000 were still missing. The theft happened when Burgos, who made $415,000 with the Mets last season, switched floors of his hotel near the Mets' Tradition Field complex. Cops say Burgos left the bag with the jewelry in his earlier room, and when he went to get it back, it was gone. Burgos, 23, had a large diamond necklace and an assortment of bracelets, chains, watches and rings in the bag. The Dominican Republic native told The Post today that he stored the jewelry in the bag because the Spring Hill Suites doesn't have room safes.

Burgos wound up getting most of his stuff back, which seems a lot less interesting than this question: How and why does a guy who made $410,000 last year have $270,000 worth of jewelry with him? At the risk of displaying my cultural bias, I'm going to suggest that a young player who spends that percentage of his earnings on bling might not be a great bet for future stardom. Of course it's possible that Burgos exaggerated (for all the obvious reasons) the value of his lost (and found) stuff. Let's say he exaggerated by $100,000 ... Isn't $170,000 still quite a lot?

When the Royals traded Burgos to the Mets for Brian Bannister, it seemed like sort of a wash to me. Burgos had better stuff but was a reliever, and Bannister had been a successful starter in the minors but didn't have much of an arm. I didn't know anything else about either of them. But knowing what we know now, which pitcher do you want? The guy who spends all his money on diamonds and precious metals? Or the guy who says baseball is a game of randomness?

That's completely ignoring the fact that Burgos is recovering from Tommy John surgery. Which makes this an unfair fight. To this point, Royals GM Dayton Moore hasn't done much to impress me (granted, it's still early). But trading Burgos for Bannister is looking better every minute.

The Pirates are going to sign Byung-Hyun Kim today, assuming he passes his physical. Here's Charlie at Bucs Dugout on the move:

We'll have to see the financial terms, obviously. But Kim was one of the best relievers in baseball for several years in the early '00s. Since 2005, teams have mostly used him as a starter even though he has had little success there. Kim's only 29 and he still posts good strikeout rates; I like the idea of signing him to a cheap deal, moving him to the bullpen, and seeing if he can recapture some of his past glory. The fact that he seems to be a complete headcase perhaps makes that unlikely. But even if he doesn't get it back together, he should fill the B.P. Chacon role, filling in as a starter if Zach Duke, Matt Morris or someone else completely falls apart. I must admit feeling a bit of excitement when I heard about this -- I've always liked Kim in a Kip Wells, I-really-should-stop-liking-him sort of way. The movement Kim gets on his pitches is really funky; he's a really fun pitcher to watch. By the way, I don't mean to sound like I'm criticizing this signing, but anytime anyone says anything about how Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington are going to "change the culture" of losing, you can point to this signing. Kim pitched in the '01 World Series like he was trying to lose. As a Red Sock, he flipped off Boston's fans after they booed him. (I'm sure lots of us would love to flip off Boston's fans, but come on.) He seems to have self-esteem issues. And he is known for sleeping whenever possible. (Yes, really.) You don't "change the culture" by acquiring a bunch of ineffectual nice guys. You change the culture by winning. Short of signing someone who's clearly insane (like Elijah Dukes), the Bucs should be acquiring whoever can help them the most, regardless of personalities.

We've now seen the financial terms: $850,000 guaranteed with another $1 million in performance bonuses (which could mean just about anything). Seems reasonable.

Everybody talks about left-handed relief specialists; or in John Sickels' parlance, LOOGYs (left-handed one-out guys). But why not ROOGYs? I'd like to see seven-man bullpens outlawed (or at the very least discouraged). But while we've got them, isn't there room for a right-handed pitcher who's really tough on right-handed hitters? In his career, Kim's held righty hitters to a .221 batting average. I can't find the "double-split" but I'm guessing he's been even tougher against righties when working as a reliever (57 percent of Kim's career innings have come as a starter).

I guess I'm feeling a bit of excitement, too. I can't help it. You give me a hard-throwing submariner who took an incredibly tough loss in a huge game and I'll pull for him every time. Of course, that's just one guy: this one. So I'm pulling for him, and I hope he looks good in his new uniform.

Patrick Sullivan goes over some key American League position question marks, and leads off with the most interesting of them: Jacoby Ellsbury vs. Coco Crisp:

Crisp Ellsbury 2007 .268/.330/.382 .353/.394/.509 2008 (Pecota) .278/.338/.407 .287/.346/.395 2008 (Zips) .271/.333/.410 .297/.349/.392 This one will be interesting. With Curt Schilling likely out for an extended period of time (if not the entire season), it would not be surprising to see Crisp dealt for starting pitching depth before Opening Day. Barring such a deal, however, [Terry] Francona will be tested. Crisp is an appalingly frustrating hitter to watch and the vocal Boston fanbase is ready for a change. Not helping his cause is that his fielding prowess is not necessarily discernible to the naked eye. He is one of the very best defensive center fielders in baseball. Furthermore, Ellsbury dazzled in last year's playoffs, and Red Sox fans are chomping at the bit to see the kid get a fulltime shot. But have a look at the numbers above. Given his superior glovework, Crisp looks like he is the better option. If Theo [Epstein] and the Boston brass stand pat and head into the season with both players on the roster, Francona's resolve will be tested.

Baseball America's Jim Callis writes of Ellsbury, "He may not be as spectacular in center field as Coco Crisp, but he's a Gold Glover waiting to happen." Crisp really is spectacular. I rated him last year as the third-best center fielder in the majors, and Bill James (who probably knows as much about Crisp's defense as anybody) rated him No. 1.

Ellsbury, though? I'm sure that James knows a lot about his defense, too. Considering their hitting projections, if you see Ellsbury in center field on Opening Day we may assume that there's not a massive difference between Ellsbury's defensive value and Crisp's. But this isn't an either/or situation, at least for the moment. Ellsbury bats left-handed. Crisp switch-hits, and has done slightly better against left-handed pitchers in his career. The Red Sox probably don't expect Ellsbury to play 162 games. I'm not saying he shouldn't play against lefties at all, but giving Crisp one start every week, against a lefty, while also playing the part of a typical fourth outfielder, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Seems to me that Ellsbury simply has to open the season in the lineup. But he doesn't have to be there every day.

Yes, it does seem a bit odd that the Yankees, with all their money and all their talent and all their expectations, are relying on a 39-year-old pitcher who posted a 5.15 ERA last year. But as Bob Klapisch writes, that's exactly what they're doing with Mike Mussina.

Consider the math. The Yankees have three rookie starters, Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, all on a strict innings limit this season. Chamberlain will be capped at 140 innings, Hughes at 160, Kennedy at 180-190. Assuming 45 or so of Chamberlain's innings are in the bullpen -- he'll start the season as the eighth-inning guardian -- that leaves a glaring hole in the equation. The bulk of the innings have to come from Andy Pettitte, who still has to prove he can separate himself from the HGH scandal. Chien-Ming Wang is a likely bet to throw 200 innings, but the Yankees are still leaning heavily on Mussina, either as No. 5 starter or No. 6 starter (yes, a six-man rotation is one option being considered by the club's hierarchy).

Please tell me more about this six-man rotation of which you speak ... Seriously, as a sometime student of baseball history I'd love to see the Yankees try something that's never really been tried before. But I'll be shocked if they actually do try it. Two reasons. One, Pettitte and Wang are too good and too healthy to start just once every six (or seven) days. And two, such a scheme would last exactly until one of the six men tweaked an elbow or strained a hammy, which will happen well before Memorial Day.

That's the fundamental problem with any sophisticated plan involving one old pitcher and three young ones: things happen. As a great Prussian general once observed, "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." Yes, the Yankees should enter spring training and (especially) the regular season with a battle plan. But the simpler the plan the better, as it'll be easier to adjust when bad things happen.

Anyway, back to Mussina ... He's apparently healthy and poised for a comeback, but I wouldn't expect a lot from him. His ERA's the last four seasons: 4.60, 4.42, 3.51, 5.15. Which season was out of character? His 2008, or his 2007? Both, actually. But his 2006 seems to have been more out of character. Given reasonable health and luck, we may expect an ERA in the neighborhood of 4.50. We may also expect Moose, at some point this summer, to spend a few weeks in Tampa rehabbing. The Yankees probably are going to win 95 games like they always do. But watching them get there should be interesting.

• Hardest-throwing reliever in the majors last year? Right: Joba Chamberlain. Second-hardest, though? Would you believe Matt Lindstrom? You can find this fun fact and many more in Jonathan Hale's look at the fastest average fastballs of 2007.

• David Pinto cites yet another example of free agency boosting attendance.

• In his career, Placido Polanco has batted .260 after being burdened with two strikes. That's an outstanding figure; last year American League hitters batted .198 with two strikes. Also last year, Polanco batted .350 with two strikes. Even Jim Leyland, no stat-hound, knows that. I wonder if Leyland knows that among the reasons Polanco won't hit .341 again, his .350 with two strikes is probably No. 1.

• Baseball Analysts' Al Doyle runs through some of this spring's more interesting non-roster invitees. I'm pulling for all of them, but especially for Tim Raines, Mike Sweeney, and (of course) Maxim St. Pierre.

• Say what you like about Hank Steinbrenner, but give the guy credit for telling it like it is: "Everybody that knows sports knows football is tailor-made for performance-enhancing drugs. I don't know how they managed to skate by. It irritates me. Don't tell me it's not more prevalent. … If a sport is riddled with it, it's riddled with it. Why aren't they looking at the NFL?" The NFL will respond that they've got a severe testing program, but anyone with eyes or ears must know that's a joke. Shortly after Super Bowl 38 three-fifths of the Panthers' starting line were implicated in a federal investigation … and yet none of them had ever tested positive.

• Dave Niehaus is going to Cooperstown this summer, and I couldn't be happier for him. As it happens, Niehaus turned 73 yesterday, so news that he's won the Frick Award must have been a lovely birthday present. I suspect that if you haven't lived in the Northwest or don't watch M's games on Extra Innings, you may never have heard Niehaus call a single inning. I moved to Mariner country in 1996, though, and I can report that Niehaus is everything you'd want in a Hall of Fame broadcaster.

• Speaking of the Hall of Fame, Bill James went into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame last weekend, which got Joe Posnanski thinking. Oh, and from yet another of JoePo's record-breaking blog posts, much of it having nothing to do with baseball or any other sport, this wonderful little sidebar: "The color of the grass, which was reported in more than two dozen newspapers across America, is caused by chlorophyl that is used in a process called 'photosynthesis.' A quick survey indicates that the grass is a brilliant green at the Mariners complex in Peoria, it is a vivid green at the Rays camp in St. Pete, immaculate green in Clearwater, and, and officials are anticipating emerald green at Fenway Park. Sources in Surprise call the grass here viridescent, but those were sources with a Thesaurus handy."

• During the 2000 World Series, I visited the former site of the Polo Grounds. One thing I'll never forget is the view of Yankee Stadium from atop Coogan's Bluff, but I completely missed this, the last remaining vestige of the old ballpark. The good news, at least for history buffs, is that apparently the old staircase, complete with 85-year-old plaque, will be restored and preserved.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer's John Fay, Dusty Baker seems determined to find someone who's ideally suited to play center field and lead off. And it might not be phenom Jay Bruce:

"Everybody needs a good leadoff hitter," Baker said. "I think that is the most unappreciated, hardest to find quality position in baseball." The Reds haven't stopped looking outside. Baker said he's talked to Kenny Lofton and Corey Patterson recently. Both play center field. Lofton is the much better leadoff man. So is there a chance he'll end up with the Reds? "There's a chance," Baker said. "They're out there looking for jobs. You have to see how it fits in the budget." The hangup with Lofton is the Reds don't have a spot on the 40-man roster. "Kenny wants a big-league contract," Baker said. Signing Lofton would not necessarily mean that Bruce would start the year in the minors. But the Reds are reluctant to rush players. Bruce will have to show something in camp to earn a job. "I haven't seen Bruce play," Baker said. "You see Junior (Griffey) who came at 19. Corey Patterson was rushed a bit and didn't get time to mature. It's kind of like raising your kid: You don't know if you did it right until later. "It's something that is very hard to judge. When is now? It's not a secret Bruce is a star of the future. Who knows, he could be a star of the present. I'm very impressed talking to him."

Wow. I'm not sure where to start, exactly. So let's skip past Baker's mumbo-jumbo to this:

It's simple, really: If the Reds don't care about winning in 2008, they might as well let Bruce ripen in Triple-A for a couple of months. His arbitration/free-agency clock wouldn't start ticking until 2009 and they would control his rights through 2014. But they seem to be trying to win now, right? Isn't that why they hired Baker and committed $46 million to Francisco Cordero?

Here are 2008 PECOTA projections for five CF candidates:

Player	OBP	SLG
Jay Bruce	.336	.512
Ryan Freel	.334	.371
Norris Hopper	.334	.342
Kenny Lofton	.346	.382
Corey Patterson	.307	.402

Bruce is one of the two or three best prospects in the game. Ryan Freel's a born utility man. Norris Hopper's a born fifth outfielder who got incredibly lucky in the second half last season. Lofton was born nearly 41 years ago. And Patterson, well, I don't have a "born" for him. But Baker's already done his part in screwing up Patterson's career, and now it's someone else's turn.

Yes, you can bump Lofton's and Patterson's projections a few points because they'd be joining the weaker league. And Patterson's almost certainly better with the glove than Bruce. But is there any real doubt about which of these guys has more value in 2008? I'm not saying the Reds should give Bruce the job this spring. I don't think they're nearly good enough to win 85 games. But if they think they're contenders, the choice here is brilliantly clear.

P.S. Bruce gets bonus points for firing Scott Boras.

Last month I wrote about 12 deserving Hall of Famers, including Bob Howsam:

Howsam, having co-founded the American Football League's Denver Broncos and spearheaded the construction of Denver's Bears Stadium -- which eventually became Mile High Stadium -- took over as general manager of the St. Louis (baseball) Cardinals in August, 1964. The Cardinals stormed from behind that fall to win the pennant and the World Series. They struggled in 1965 and '66, but when Howsam left St. Louis early in '67 the Cards were on the verge of winning two straight pennants. He left for Cincinnati, where he built the Reds into a powerhouse that won four division titles and two World Series in his 11 years as GM. Howsam turns 90 next month, and I suppose it would be asking too much to see him in Cooperstown while he can still enjoy it.

In the event, it was asking too much, as Howsam died today in Arizona, just 10 days short of his 90th birthday. As I've written many times, the Hall of Fame has showed a great eagerness to honor players and managers, but little enthusiasm for honoring the executives with the foresight to hire the managers and sign and trade for the players. Granted, general managers, even the successful ones, often don't enjoy particularly long careers. But Howsam was a top guy for a long time, and I think if you're drawing up a list of the dozen or so best baseball executives, he's on it.

Just when you thought it was safe to stop thinking about steroids and start thinking about baseball, Andrew Baggarly reminds us that Barry Bonds is still out there, getting ready for his 23rd season. At least that's what his agent says ...

Jeff Borris told the Mercury News that Bonds "is in game shape right now" with the intent on finding a major league job this season. "The only thing he hasn't done is face live pitching," Borris said. "He's doing all the baseball drills he normally does as he works to get in shape for spring training. His legs are as solid as ever." Borris would neither confirm nor deny that he is talking with clubs about signing Bonds. Industry officials say there have been no indications any club has genuine interest in Major League Baseball's all-time home-run leader. "I don't hear any chatter, any rumors -- anything," one executive said. --snip-- Borris said Bonds believes he can still play, citing his .480 on-base percentage and 28 home runs in 340 at-bats last season. "He was an All-Star last year," Borris said. "His numbers were still off the charts, and for any team committed to winning, there's no reason they wouldn't want him on their roster."

I count 23 teams that seem to be "committed to winning" (not counting the Giants, who did commit a great deal of money to Aaron Rowand this winter but have publicly stated their non-interest in signing Bonds).

Could 23 teams really be so wrong? Sure. But it's not really 23 teams anyway. If you're a National League team, Bonds would be useful only if you're trying to win and you've got an opening for a part-time left fielder. Same for an American League team, except the DH slot is also a possibility.

Would one of those teams be happy to sign Bonds for, say, $400,000? I think so. Would one of them be willing to pay him $15.8 million, which is what he earned last year? I think not. And I suspect the upper limit for Bonds' future earnings is far closer to the former figure than the latter. In the end, I think, it's going to come down to how badly he wants to play.

I do not think he's radioactive. But he is toxic and comes with a great deal of risk, both on the field and off. So he's not going to get a chance to play unless he's willing to swallow a heaping healthy dose of pride. And I'm not holding my breath waiting for that one.

Yesterday in the Times, Jack Curry wrote about the amazing Jorge Posada:

After the Yankees drafted Posada as an infielder in 1990, they moved him to catcher in his second minor league season. Posada said that his longevity as a catcher had been aided by not playing the position full time until he was a professional. By the time most catchers are in the minors, their bodies have been absorbing abuse for more than a decade. During Posada's superb 2007, he was jolted when a reporter asked if he was getting "any help." Posada did not know the reporter and, at first, said he did not understand the question. After the reporter was more specific, Posada dismissed the question. "It's too bad that we have to deal with this, but this is the way it's going to be for 20 years," Posada said. "It might be this way for longer than that." When Yogi Berra was 35, he caught 63 games and began the transition to the outfield. When Gary Carter was 35, he caught 47 games. When Johnny Bench was 35, he caught five games in his final season. When Posada was 35 last year, he might have had the best season ever by a catcher that age. Among catchers 35 and older, Posada's on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, or O.P.S., was .970. Only Gabby Hartnett's .971 in 1937 was better. Posada's .338 average, 51 points above his career high, was second to Hartnett's .354 70 years earlier. Posada knocked in 90 runs, which trailed Carlton Fisk's 107 R.B.I. in 1985. Posada's 20 homers were the sixth highest.

This piece was sort of about Posada having to answer questions about steroids, but I find those questions a lot less interesting than this one: Was Posada's 2007 the best season ever by a catcher his age? Curry mentions Gabby Hartnett's 1937 season and Carlton Fisk's 1985, but doesn't make any adjustments for context. Let's do that, focusing on adjusted OPS (OPS+). Courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, here are the top six seasons, as ranked by OPS+ by catchers who were at least 35 and played in at least 120 games:

Player	Year	Age	OPS+	Games
Jorge Posada	2007	35	154	144
Carlton Fisk	1990	42	134	137
Carlton Fisk	1983	35	134	138
Elston Howard	1964	35	128	150
Mike Piazza	2006	37	122	126
Ernie Whitt	1989	37	121	129

How rare are good-hitting seasons by "old" catchers? There are only 17 seasons of 100-plus OPS+ -- that is, league average or better -- by catchers 35 and older. Fisk has four of those seasons. Ernie Whitt (Ernie Whitt?) has two of them. Nobody else has more than one. Not even Hartnett. He makes the list with a 114 OPS+ in 1936, but doesn't make (my) list in '37 -- the season Curry mentioned -- because he played in only 110 games that year.

The problem with Curry's analysis is that of course it stacks the deck in Posada's favor, comparing him to every player his age and older … many of them much older. A more meaningful comparison would consider catchers from ages 34-36. So here they are, same parameters as above:

Player	Year	Age	OPS+	Games
Jorge Posada	2007	35	154	144
Elston Howard	1963	34	140	135
Carlton Fisk	1983	35	134	138
Elston Howard	1964	35	128	150
Yogi Berra	1959	34	125	131
Lance Parrish	1990	34	123	133
Jorge Posada	2006	34	122	143

Is Posada the best "old" catcher ever? No. That title clearly belongs to Fisk. Best mid-30s catcher? I don't think I'm prepared to say that; it's a great battle between him and Howard. Which is appropriate because those two have a great deal in common. Both were Yankees. Both weren't worked particularly hard in their 20s; Posada because of Joe Girardi, Howard because of Yogi Berra.

How good was Elston Howard? In his Age 34 season (above) he was the American League's MVP; in his Age 35 season (ditto) he finished third in the voting. If he hadn't gotten that late start he might be in the Hall of Fame.

But you know what happened to Howard after he turned 36? He stopped hitting. Howard's OPS+'s from ages 32-35: 153, 113, 140, 128. Over those four seasons, his 133 OPS+ is No. 1 all time for catchers in that age range (minimum 500 games). And No. 2? Posada (130 OPS+), followed by Hall of Famers Hartnett (127), Berra (118) and Fisk (117).

Howard's OPS+'s from 36-39: 77, 98, 42, 92. That last number, while constituting an impressive rebound, 1) came in only 71 games, and 2) came in Howard's last season.

Will the same fate befall Posada? Almost certainly not. Howard's a sample size of exactly one, and certainly doesn't predict Posada's future. On the other hand, Fisk is essentially the only catcher who's remained a truly productive hitter into his late 30s. Who is Posada more likely to resemble, Fisk, or the many other good-hitting catchers in the game's long history?

The answer seems obvious.

More obviousness: Posada was incredibly lucky in 2007. Perhaps it goes without saying that when any player puts up numbers that are both historic and out of character with the rest of his career, he had a bit of luck on his side. It was more than a bit, though; when Posada put the ball into play he batted around .390, far higher than his career norms. This year he'll be back to normal, and should post numbers something like his outstanding performance from 2004 through 2006. But can he keep it going for more than another year or two? Historically speaking, it's terribly unlikely. And as great as he's been, one wonders if he'll really be worth $13 million per season from today through October of 2011.

The following is an excerpt of Andy Pettitte's deposition to Congress:

Q: What did you ever talk to Clemens about with respect to HGH?

Pettitte: I remember a conversation in 1999 where Roger had told me that he had taken HGH ... That's really all I can really remember, you know, about it. I can't remember specifics about the conversation. That's just, you know -- that's really all I can remember about the whole

conversation.

-- snip --

Q: Did you ever -- did he tell you about the pros and cons of HGH?

A: No. I want to think that he had just said that, you know, like that he had just heard that it helped, like helped your body recover and stuff like that. But again, you know, I hate to try to -- you know, I'm sorry as far as trying to -- I don't want to be inaccurate.

-- snip --

Q: Did there ever come another time after this conversation you're talking about in '99 where you talked to Clemens about his own use of HGH?

A: One other time.

Q: When was that?

A: In 2005.

Q: Do you remember what prompted that conversation?

A: Yeah. The congressional hearings. They were going on.

Q: The hearings into --

A: Steroids and baseball.

Q: And where were you when you had this conversation?

A: In Florida.

Q: Was it just you and Mr. Clemens?

[Mr. Farrell: You have to say out loud yes.]

A: Yes. Yes. I'm sorry.

Q: Can you sort of tell me the story there of what happened there, what you guys talked about?

A: Well, I knew that the congressional hearings were going on. And I thought for sure that someone was going to come up to me, a reporter, and start talking to me and asking me questions about it. And I was going to go ahead and just admit that, you know, I had used HGH when I had used it. And so we were, you know, in spring training in Tampa -- I'm sorry. In Kissimmee, Florida, when I was with the Astros. And I got Roger and just asked him, I said, dude, what are you going to say if anyone -- if any of the reporters ask you if you had ever used HGH? And he said, you know, he said well, what are you talking about? And I said, well, you had told me you had used HGH. And he said, I never told you that. And I said, you didn't? And he said no. I told you that Debbie used HGH. And that's -- that was the end of the conversation right there.

Q: Was he referring to his wife?

A: Yeah.

Q: Debbie.

A: And between '99 and '05, I mean, those 6 years is the only two conversations that I ever recall

having with Roger Clemens with regards to that.

Q: What was your reaction to what he said?

A: Well, obviously I was a little confused and flustered. But after that, I was like, well, obviously I must have misunderstood him.

Q: But he had never told you before that his wife had used HGH, that was the first you'd heard of that, is that right?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you understand that he was saying that as a way or sort of a strategy to handle the press inquiries? I mean, was that the nature of your conversation?

A: Not really. The conversation wasn't very long. That was really the end of the conversation. Just when he said that, I was like, oh, just kind of walked out. I wasn't going to argue with him over it. You know.

Q: It sounds like when you -- it sounds like your recollection of the conversation you had with him in 1999, you are fairly certain about that, that he told you he used it. Do you think it's likely that you did misunderstand what Clemens had told you then? Are you saying you just didn't want to get into a dispute with him about it so you dropped the subject?

A: I'm saying that I was under the impression that he told me that he had taken it. And then when Roger told me that he didn't take it, and I misunderstood him, I took it for that, that I misunderstood him.

A lot of people have been mocking Clemens for using the word "misremember," but while Clemens doesn't seem to have a brilliant grasp of his native language, misremember is a word. And while Pettitte did not, by his own account, actually misremember anything, he does say that he misunderstood. Which is close enough to support Clemens' case.

So now I'm back to 90-10.

Or would be, if not for this testimony that nobody seems to be talking about:

Q: I'll ask it again. Did you ever discuss Clemens' steroids use with Brian McNamee?

Pettitte: Yes.

Q: Do you remember when that was?

A: I don't remember exactly when it was.

Q: Can you give me a ballpark, a couple years or something like that?

A: It had to be in '02, '03 -- no. I would say '03. '03 or '04 maybe.

Q: And do you mind sort of telling me the story of that conversation, how it came about, what you said?

A: Well, we were -- we were at my -- we were at my house. You know we were in -- and I have a gym. We were training in my gym. And I can just remember, you know, Mac telling me that Roger, you know, that he had gotten steroids for Roger.

Q: Was it just you and McNamee there at the time?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you remember anything else about it?

A: I just -- I remember that Mac was upset. I just remember that Mac was upset and he was venting and he was -- you know, he was telling me that that, you know, that Roger, you know, had done steroids.

--snip--

Q: Did you have any reason to think he wasn't being straight with you about that?

A: No. I mean, I would -- I had no reason to think that. No.

This is just hearsay, of course. But now we've pushed McNamee's (alleged, by Clemens) perfidy regarding Clemens from his Mitchell report testimony in 2006 or '07 back to '03 or '04, and we might reasonably wonder why McNamee would have been lying to Pettitte four or five years ago. Now, again it's possible that Pettitte misunderstood. Or is misremembering.

But all these misunderstandings and misrememberings … they require a bit of misbelieving on our end, right? Too much, I think. So now I'm back to 95-5 … and I still know that Clemens doesn't know what "vegan" means. These are strange times in which we live.

• With the news that Jeremy Brown is hanging up his spikes, BP's Kevin Goldstein is done talking about "Moneyball" -- and so should we. I agree with everything Goldstein says ... except that we should stop talking about the book, which remains relevant in every professional sport. What we need to do is stop talking about it wrongly. If you know what I mean.

• Yes, Yovani Gallardo's going to miss some time after knee surgery. No, it's not a significant blow to the Brewers' realistic pennant hopes. Gallardo could use a break anyway, and the Brewers -- with Carlos Villanueva, Claudio Vargas, and especially Manny Parra and Chris Capuano -- have a number of solid options until Gallardo is ready.

• Nothing's official yet, but the Marlins do seem, finally, to have their deal for a new ballpark nearly in place. Here's ShysterBall:

Last I heard, the Orange Bowl site is difficult to get to and isn't serviced by mass transportation. Opponents of the stadium deal have suggested that while such a situation was tolerable for six or seven Hurricanes games a year, it will be a nightmare for eighty-one baseball games. That's just silly, of course. This is the Marlins we're talking about. Everyone interested in going to their games can just meet in a Winn-Dixie parking lot and carpool there in a couple of vans.

One of my failings as a blogger is that I too often fail to see the humor in a situation; instead, I just see the tragedy, and this one's got disaster written all over it. I know baseball's supposedly recession-proof, but what's going to happen to unpopular teams playing in the middle of nowhere when gas costs four or five bucks per gallon? And by the way, the spin you'll hear from the Marlins and the politicians is that the citizens aren't paying for this boondoggle because it's funded by "tourist taxes" ... but that's still revenue that could be spent on something else that would benefit the locals, right? There might be free lunches somewhere, but this is not one of them.

• Wow. I don't understand everything in Joe P. Sheehan's assignment of runs saved to pitchers' specific pitches, but I understand enough to know that 1) Brandon Webb's sinker is one of the best pitches in the game, 2) little-known Kason Gabbard is worth watching this season, and 3) Sheehan's opened a fascinating line of inquiry.

• John Sickels is running a continuing series called "Not a Rookie," and his most recent offerings include the Braves' new shortstop and the Cubs' new center fielder, both of whom figure to become significant figures this summer.

• Ryan Dempster says the Cubs are going to win the World Series and Jimmy Rollins says the Phillies are going to win 100 games. I don't think it really hurts anything for players to engage in these sorts of rousing predictions. But as Homer Derby's Richie Rich points out, both predictions are unlikely to come true now that Johan Santana's joined the National League. Just to pile on, I'll note that the projections have started coming in, and the Mets are easily the best-looking team in the league, with roughly 95 wins on the proverbial paper (the Cubs are next, just short of 90).

• Slate's Hart Seely has gone through the testimony and the deposition, and emerged with poetry of Roger Clemens. Good stuff, but here's the thing: There's plenty more where that came from. In fact -- and this is completely unofficial -- I'll send a copy of my new book to the best new haiku (or near-haiku) that someone gleans and posts in the comments. I'm the judge, but I'll certainly take your opinions into consideration (so vote early and vote often).

Henry Waxman: "I'm sorry we had the hearing. I regret that we had the hearing. And the only reason we had the hearing was because Roger Clemens and his lawyers insisted on it."

Insist? Sure. But does Waxman convene a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform every time someone insists that he does? And if so, I've got a few dozen hearings I'd like to insist be held ...

It's easy to castigate politicians, but for the most part they are merely mirrors. The primary system results in congressmen generally more partisan than the typical voter, but essentially politicians are followers rather than leaders. We don't have good and responsive government because we don't demand it (because we're too self-absorbed and distracted to know what it is). Waxman and his colleagues were on TV Wednesday because they thought that's where we wanted them. Simple as that.

Further down, though, we learned more about the partisan nature of Wednesday's questioning (with a few notable exceptions, the Democrats grilled Clemens and the Republicans grilled McNamee). Yesterday I wondered about this, and my No. 1 explanation was that it was all about partisan politics. Seems that's now the CW:

A Republican staff member of the committee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the hearings, said the partisanship arose Wednesday more because of Waxman than because of Republican support for Clemens. Waxman is a tough Democrat who can take on a prosecutorial tone, he said, and some of the Republicans reflexively did not want to help him. Some Republicans also thought it was good for them to argue that the Democratic-controlled Congress was wasting time with baseball. That was a theme on Fox TV news coverage Wednesday, even as the news channel broadcast hours of coverage of the hearing. "Only Congress could take a Clemens-McNamee controversy and turn it into a political controversy," Earl Ward, a lawyer for McNamee, said after the hearing. The Republican staff member said that party leaders on the committee instructed members not to attack Waxman, partly because that could also be viewed as an attack on Davis, who chaired the 2005 baseball hearing that featured Mark McGwire's denials and who has worked closely with Waxman over the years. "Criticisms of the chairman were not fair game," the staff member said. So the Republicans held back from attacking Waxman in the committee room and attacked McNamee as a proxy, the staff member said. And a day later, Waxman was unhappy with the whole thing.

By the way, Waxman was unhappy because his guy (McNamee) got hammered by Republicans, and not because the whole thing was a tremendous waste of everyone's time. We get the government on which we insist.

Why did home runs increase so dramatically in the early 1990s?

We already know, right? Between expansion and all those steroids-fueled sluggers, the only surprise (in retrospect) is that more home runs weren't hit. Right?

Wrong. Probably wrong.

Tom Tango -- "Tangotiger" among the cognoscenti -- really is a brilliant guy. I sometimes worry that all the brilliant guys will be snapped up by canny organizations, thus depriving the rest of us. For example, last May the Indians hired Keith Woolner. But the continuing presence of Tango in the public sphere is heartening. I don't know why nobody's hired him, and if he actually wants to work for a team, I wish him the best. But I'm selfishly glad that he's still ours, if only for the moment.

Today Tango looks at the incredible jump in home-run rates in 1993 and '94, and finds something completely different. The jumps in those seasons? After you strip away the new ballparks and the new players -- by using "matched" plate appearances -- you still find the massive increases in home runs. So what does that leave?

That leaves the baseballs, as Tango works some mathematical magic and finds a perfect match.

• Over at River Ave. Blues, Ben K. explores his conflicted feelings about The Boss. (P.S. If I were a Yankees fan I certainly would wear one of these t-shirts.)

• I don't know about the steroids, but this Brian McNamee story strikes me as entirely credible. Ah, what a lifestyle.

• I haven't linked to Joe Posnanski this week, so it's not easy to choose my favorite. I'll just go with the latest -- Clemens-Pettitte: The Misremembered Conversation.

• Speaking of the Rocket (yes, again), R.J. Anderson offers a comparison of Clemens and Greg Maddux, which has become a bit more interesting now that most of us believe Clemens had some extra help, on top of all his hard work.

• Ray King reported to camp having dropped 23 pounds, and "hardly has a gut." Apparently he saw video of himself from 2003 and realized he might have been a better pitcher when he wasn't a cartoon character. Really?

• David Pinto points out the most interesting item in this article about Josh Beckett: Beckett believes his great postseason run was due to his 16-day stint on the disabled list in May, and is open to another "rest" this season. Is this where we're at now? Clay Buchholz, who turns 24 during the season, probably won't be allowed to throw more than 180 innings. And Beckett, a top Cy Young candidate, might take a two-week vacation at the first hint of physical discomfort, if only to keep him fresh for October. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying it's really, really interesting.

• Weird @$%@ of the week: James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti. Seriously. (Or not. I really can't say for sure.)

Good news, Twins fans! Sure, Johan Santana and his 219 innings have left the building. But they've replaced him with Livan Hernandez, who's good for 219 innings every year!

Right?

It's not yet clear exactly how much money Hernandez will earn; might be $5 million, might be something like $7 million if he eats as many innings as he usually does. But for the sake of argument, let's say it's $5 million. Let's also say (because it's true) that the Twins have signed Craig Monroe for nearly $4 million.

Monroe's projected 2008 on-base percentage is roughly .300. Hernandez's projected ERA is roughly 5.5 … and that was before he switched from Quadruple-A to the major league.

Remember, the Twins had to trade Johan Santana because they couldn't afford to pay him the market rate. Granted, it's possible that he wouldn't have signed with the Twins even if they'd offered him exactly what the Mets did. Granted also, it's one thing to blow $9 million in one season and quite another to commit more than $100 million over the course of many seasons.

If this colossal waste of money is limited to $9 million in 2008, well, it's not really so colossal. But this seems to be a pattern with the Twins, doesn't it? Last year they blew $4 million on Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson, and this year they're doubling down. Anyway, that's $13 million (so far) over two seasons spent on four players whose performance could have been purchased on the open market for roughly $3 million, for the grand total of $10 million utterly wasted.

Let's assume the Twins waste another $5 million next season (which is, if anything, a conservative estimate). Wouldn't an extra $5 million per season have been enough to keep the best pitcher in the game? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's a question worth asking.

As Joel Sherman reports, Joba Chamberlain will open this season in the Yankees' bullpen, on his way to joining the rotation at some point in the summer.

Joba Chamberlain will prepare during spring training as a starter, but will begin the season in the Yankee bullpen barring injury to any of the other five main rotation members, team officials confirmed to The Post. It had been speculated throughout the offseason that Chamberlain could open in the 'pen as a way to restrain his innings from going beyond the approximately 140 the organization wants to limit him to in 2008. The Yanks believe that at Chamberlain's age (22), he should not be asked to exceed his innings total of last year (112.1) by much more than 30 innings, or else he would be put at a greater likelihood for an arm injury. -- snip -- Of course, these plans are fragile. Pettitte must show his publicized link to HGH has not impacted his pitching. Mussina, 39, must demonstrate he has something left after a poor 2007. Hughes and Kennedy must prove they are ready to be major-league starters from the outset of the season. The Yanks must believe Horne, Marquez, Jeff Karstens or Kei Igawa can be an extra starter if need be early while Chamberlain relieves. Rivera must stay healthy so the Yanks are not tempted to move Chamberlain into the closing job.

This is simply where we're at now, with young starting pitchers. We are not going to see Joba Chamberlain throw 180 innings in his first season as a major league starter, and we are not going to see Clay Buchholz throw 180 innings in his first season as a major league starter. What makes this even trickier, for the Yankees and the Red Sox, is October. They have to plan for seven months of high-intensity baseball rather than six.

Continuing our series, below are my candidates for the best starting pitchers of the next five seasons. The stats cover 2006-2007; the listed ages are seasonal ages in 2008.

Pitcher	ERA+	Age	IP	K/W
Brandon Webb	154	29	471	3.1
Johan Santana	145	29	453	4.9
Roy Oswalt	144	30	433	4.9
C.C. Sabathia	142	27	434	4.7
John Lackey	139	29	442	3.0
Scott Kazmir	135	24	351	2.9
Erik Bedard	132	29	378	3.1
Roy Halladay	131	31	445	3.3
Carlos Zambrano	126	27	430	1.8
Cole Hamels	126	24	316	3.5
Justin Verlander	125	25	388	2.4
Jake Peavy	123	27	426	3.5
Chien-Ming Wang	122	28	417	1.6
Danny Haren	120	27	446	3.7
Josh Beckett	114	28	405	3.1
Felix Hernandez	104	22	381	3.0

That's a big list, for one simple reason: If I left any of those guys off the list, I'd hear about it. And I'm sure that I will hear from supporters of Kelvim Escobar (currently injured) and various National Leaguers (currently National Leaguers). Sorry, but I had to draw a line somewhere.

You might look at the younger pitchers on the list -- Kazmir, Hamels, Verlander, especially Felix Hernandez -- and think they are the future of pitching. Some of them are. Some of them are not. None of them have proved they can give their teams 200 innings. Until they do, I have a hard time placing them among the game's elite.

First my list, and then my half-hearted justifications:

1. Santana

2. Webb

3. Peavy

4. Beckett

5. Sabathia

6. Lackey

7. Oswalt

8. Haren

9. Verlander

10. ???

• You were expecting someone else in the top slot? No, Santana's no fresh-faced kid. But great pitchers -- and Santana is a great pitcher -- often suffer little or no dropoff when they hit their early 30s. It's all about health, and over the last four seasons no pitcher's been healthier than Santana.

• Why Webb higher than Peavy? Ballparks. They're both great National League pitchers, and Peavy's probably going to post lower ERAs over the next few seasons. But put them in the same, neutral environment, and I give Webb and his super-sinker the smallest edge.

• Why Beckett over Sabathia, when Sabathia 1) was better in 2008, and 2) has been better over the last two (and three) seasons? Because I'm still not quite convinced that a pitcher built like Sabathia is going to hold up, physically. No, I'm not saying he's going to collapse at some point. I'm saying that his big build is a small negative, just enough to drop him a spot or two on my list.

• Why Lackey over Oswalt? Because of the difference between the leagues.

• Why Verlander? Because I think if you're looking for a Cy Young candidate in the American League, you could do a lot worse than him. Because he hasn't been overworked as a professional, and because his home ballpark isn't hurting him.

• So who gets the last spot? If someone can make an overwhelming case for any one of the other dozen or so solid candidates, I'll be pretty impressed. But please give it a shot.

From Ben Shpigel's piece about David Wright in yesterday's Times:

At age 25 and preparing to enter his fourth full season in the major leagues, Wright is in a unique position. Already admired by his peers for his professionalism and accountability, Wright, for the first time in his brief career, will be expected to assume part of a leadership void created when Lo Duca and Tom Glavine were not re-signed. -- snip -- "I've tried to emulate Glavine's professionalism and the way he carries himself. John Franco's leadership, the way he could get everyone on the same page. The one thing that all these guys had in common was that they had the ability to bring together people from different backgrounds and languages."

Is this guy for real?

True Story: Last year I thought Wright was the best player in the National League. His numbers were brilliant, and from Sept. 2 through the end of the season he batted .365 with devastating power. I spend most of my time 3,000 miles away from the National League East battles, but from here he looked like the MVP. So that's what I wrote. He finished fourth.

Right around Thanksgiving the phone rang. We had visitors so I let the machine pick up. It was David Wright, or at least it was someone identifying himself as David Wright. He said he'd read what I'd written and just wanted to say thanks. Later I checked an ill-used e-mail account and discovered that the Mets' PR director had asked for my phone number. So it really was David Wright.

Obvious Question: So is David Wright really, in addition to being probably the best player in the National League, also an incredibly thoughtful guy? Or is he merely a fantastic player who thinks his life might go a little better over the next 25 years if the writers are on his side?

Simple Answer: Both. Or rather, all three. David Wright really is the best player in the National League. He really is smart enough to know that one quick phone call to a writer might lead to something good down the road. And that really is the mark of someone who's both thoughtful and emotionally mature, and perhaps worthy of our admiration as not only a hard-working professional athlete, but also a person.

Next fall, if I think Wright wasn't the best player in the National League in 2008, I will write passionately about who was the best. But if Wright is the best player, again? I'll write with exactly the same passion … and a bit of pleasure tacked on.

• U.S.S. Mariner's Dave Cameron makes a pretty good point: Even considering how terrible the back end of the Mariners' rotation was last season, the M's went 32-36 in games started by their No. 4 and 5 starters. So can Carlos Silva and Erik Bedard really make a huge difference this season? Probably not, and so Cameron still hates the trade for Bedard.

• Saturday at the MIT-Sloan Sports Business Conference, I moderated the Baseball Analytics panel and David Pinto was there, live-blogging.

• Today I'm just going to link to Cardboard Gods generally, rather than to a specific post. Josh Wilker's recent posts have been so good -- so historical, so personal, so subversive, so unexpected -- that I recommend starting at the top and just reading as much as you can read before you have to do something that pays the bills (or gets the grades).

• How unpredictable is this game? This weekend both Sweeneys signed new deals: Mike with the A's and Mark with the Dodgers. Mike's 34, Mark's 38. Mike's a five-time All-Star, and in one season he drove in 144 runs. Mark has never driven in more than 40 runs in one season. Yet here they are in 2008, both hoping to hang around for a couple more seasons as bench players.

• Home Run Derby's Richie Rich points out that Willard Mitt Romney might have fared better if his middle name was "Glove."

• Actor Roy Scheider died yesterday. Oddly, his obituary in the Times doesn't mention his role as slugger Billy Young in "Tiger Town." Scheider supposedly was a good athlete when he was young, but by 1983 he was 50 years old and didn't look remotely like a professional baseball player. The movie was made for kids, though, who probably couldn't tell the difference between 50 and 40. And someday "Tiger Town" is going to be a popular piece of nostalgia, as Sparky Anderson, Ernie Harwell and Tiger Stadium (my all-time favorite ballpark) all play prominent roles.

• Happy 63rd to John Paciorek, one of three Paciorek brothers who played in the majors. John, the oldest Paciorek, will forever be a favorite of trivia hounds. He debuted in 1963 with the Houston Colt .45s -- when he was only 18 -- went 3-for-3 with two walks ... and never played in the majors again.

Every time it seems like knuckleballers might be nearly extinct, there's a new hope. Today it's R.A. Dickey, as Steve Kelley writes:

This winter the Mariners surprised much of baseball, including Dickey, picking him out of the Rule 5 draft that usually is designed to take gambles on younger players. The thinking is that, although Dickey is 33, in knuckleballer years, he is closer to 27. Last year he and his knuckleball had a breakthrough season in Nashville. He was virtually unbeatable the second half of the season, finished 13-6 and was named Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Year. About 80 percent of his pitches were knuckleballs. "I still have enough of an arm to be able get hitters out without having to throw a knuckleball to survive," he said. "But for me, the interesting thing has been to balance my pitching personality with trying to become this knuckleball pitcher.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I'd sort of given up on Dickey. I began to track his knuckleballing ways in 2004. But his Triple-A numbers in '05 were awful, and in '06 they weren't much better. I figured he was finished. Somehow I never saw his name mentioned in 2008. Then again, looking at his season, it's not hard to figure.

After a lousy start on May 13, he was 1-4 with a 6.17 ERA and got yanked from the Nashville rotation. He got back in there on June 17, though, and really was almost unbeatable the rest of the way: 9-2, 2.52 ERA. He last pitched on the 1st of September, giving up a run in six innings. The Brewers, desperately trying (and ultimately failing) to fend off the Cubs, did not add Dickey to their expanded roster.

So are two-and-a-half months enough to make us think Dickey's finally mastered the knuckleball? Well, it's a start. At this point, talk of Tim Wakefield is terribly premature; Dickey's demonstrated upside probably is more akin to Dennis Springer, who never had a good year in the majors but did hang around for eight years and started nearly 100 games.

Oh, and something else about Dickey: He says he threw 80 percent knuckleballs last season, which of course means he threw 20 percent non-knuckleballs. A lot of old knuckleballers will tell you that if you're going to throw the knuckleball you have to throw it nearly all the time, if only to maintain consistency with the pitch. Maybe they're right. But I've made a study of knuckleball pitchers going back to the early 20th century, and until the 1970s most knuckleballers mixed in fastballs and curveballs and sliders. So I would advise Dickey to stick with what he did last summer until it doesn't work.

So a guy heads over to the ESPN cafe for a nice lunch, figures nothing important is going to happen this afternoon, gets back to his temporary work space and discovers … this?

According to Tony Massarotti, Curt Schilling might miss this season with a shoulder injury and the Boston Red Sox suspect he hid the injury before signing his latest contract.

While neither Schilling nor Sox officials could be reached for comment, baseball sources have indicated that the club has at least inquired about the possibility of voiding the one-year, $8 million contract Schilling signed last November. It is not known to what lengths the Sox have gone on the matter, but their threat has been serious enough to create a conflict between Schilling and the Red Sox. While the precise nature of Schilling's injury is not known, it is believed that the right-hander is suffering from an injury to the rotator cuff and/or labrum that might require surgery. It is possible that the sides disagree on how to treat Schilling's ailment and that a course of treatment, too, is a part of their disagreement.

Boston can forget about that $8 million. If the Rockies couldn't get their money back from Denny Neagle, the Sox aren't getting theirs from Schilling. It's gone, and for the Red Sox, $8 million basically is a rounding error, anyway.

The question is what this means for the Red Sox in 2008. Can they live without Schilling in the rotation? Consider this: On the depth chart, Clay Buchholz, the kid who threw the no-hitter last year, isn't listed among Boston's top five starters. Granted, the nice thing about having more money than Scrooge McDuck is you can afford to pay more than five good starting pitchers, because, of course, it's almost impossible to get through a season with only five.

But don't you think most teams would be thrilled to open the season with a rotation consisting of Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Wakefield, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz? Granted, there are some real question marks there, as only Beckett seems like a lock for 15-18 wins. But it's not like Schilling, at 41 and with a falling strikeout rate, wasn't a question mark himself.

When the Red Sox need help, they might turn to Justin Masterson, probably their No. 1 pitching prospect, once Buchholz is up in the bigs for good. And, of course, they have the resources to deal for a starter if things get rough after Memorial Day.

Does losing Schilling hurt? Sure. My guess is that with Schilling, we'd have projected 96 wins for the Red Sox in 2008. Without him, we'll probably knock that all the way down to 94 or 95.

Heading into the home stretch now ... Today we're looking for the best catcher of the next five seasons, and this time around there aren't many candidates from which to choose (as always, the stats are from 2007 and the last column is a projected Wins Above Replacement Player, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections).

PLAYER	AGE	OBP	SLG	OPS+	'08 WARP
Geovany Soto	25	.433	.667	175	4.7
Victor Martinez	29	.374	.505	127	6.0
Joe Mauer	25	.382	.426	117	6.2
Russell Martin	25	.374	.469	113	5.7
Mike Napoli	26	.351	.443	107	3.6
Brian McCann	24	.320	.452	100	5.2

Soto's presence at the top is a bit of a lark, obviously; he posted those big 2007 numbers in only 18 games. But as you can tell from his 2008 projection -- fueled by incredible stats in the Pacific Coast League last season -- he's no fluke, either.

Which isn't to say he's got a shot at No. 1 on our list, considering he's actually (slightly) older than established stars Mauer and Martin.

1. Russell Martin
2. Joe Mauer
3. Brian McCann
4. Victor Martinez
5. ????

Does Martinez belong on this list at all? He's past his prime and he's an occasional first baseman. And who do you like for that fifth slot? The competition probably is between Soto and Napoli, but there's also Texas' Jarrod Saltalamacchia (if he's a catcher), Colorado's Chris Iannetta and Seattle's Jeff Clement. Oh, and Houston's J.R. Towles, who spent most of last season in Double-A but seems to have the inside track on the No. 1 job with the big club this spring (as long as Brad Ausmus is around, though, one wonders how often Towles will actually play, particularly if he doesn't get off to a good start in March or April).

The choice between Mauer and Martin is a tough one. Mauer's projection is better than Martin's because PECOTA projects more playing time for Mauer. Now, PECOTA's a lot smarter than NEYER, but I can't figure that one. They're the same age. Counting time in the minors, Mauer over the last three seasons has played 131, 140 and 110 games; Martin has played 129, 144 and 151 games. I'm not saying Martin will play more often than Mauer this year ... but doesn't he figure to play just as often?

Which still doesn't necessarily make Martin as good as Mauer, considering the difference between the leagues. I just can't quite trust Mauer to play a full season until he does. And I just can't resist a guy whose middle name is "Coltrane" -- Russell Nathan Coltrane Jeanson Martin.

There are so many talented young right fielders that I fear getting lost in all of them. Remember, though, we're looking for the best right fielders over the entire next five seasons (which I mention with apologies to Magglio Ordonez's many fans). In the table below, the listed ages are seasonal 2008 and the next three columns are all from 2007 (and the last column, I'll get to in a moment):

PLAYER	AGE	OBP	SLG	OPS+	'08 WARP
1. Travis Buck	24	.377	.474	130	4.5
2. Brad Hawpe	29	.387	.539	129	3.0
3. Nick Swisher	27	.381	.455	127	6.0
4. Corey Hart	26	.353	.539	126	5.9
5. Matt Kemp	23	.373	.521	125	4.6
6. Jeremy Hermida	24	.369	.501	125	4.6
7. Alexis Rios	27	.354	.498	122	5.3
8. Nick Markakis	24	.362	.485	121	5.8
9. Lastings Milledge	23	.341	.446	105	3.7
10. Jeff Francoeur	24	.338	.444	103	3.6
11. Franklin Gutierrez	25	.318	.472	103	3.3
12. Andre Ethier	26	.350	.452	103	3.3
13. Delmon Young	22	.316	.408	91	4.7
14. Carlos Quentin	25	.298	.349	63	2.9

Yes, there's a big OPS+ gap after those first eight candidates. But one year ago, Carlos Quentin looked like a future star. One year ago, Delmon Young was the No. 2 prospect around (behind Alex Gordon and not counting Daisuke Matsuzaka). Jeff Francoeur is still young, and everybody raves about this arm.

Still, though: We're talking about the next five years, and I don't think you can choose a guy who hasn't yet demonstrated that he's a superior major league hitter. For the next five years only, would you prefer Young or Francouer over Vladimir Guerrero? I don't think so. Jeremy Hermida, though? Perhaps.

And I've thrown a new wrinkle into the proceedings, as Baseball Prospectus has released their 2008 PECOTA projections (at least to those of us willing to pay for them). That last column in the table lists each player's projection for Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP), which includes defensive value. This is the first time I've run projections … and it sure does make a difference, doesn't it?

Corey Hart and Nick Markakis both move way up; their projected WARPs are higher than every right fielder except Swisher, higher even than Guerrero (4.9) and Magglio Ordonez (5.0), both of whom drop because of their defense.

Does that mean Hart's going to be the best right fielder this season? I think you'd still take Guerrero and perhaps Ordonez because they play in the better league. But for the next five seasons? Maybe Hart's our guy. Throw in Prince Fielder (49.3) and Ryan Braun (60.6) and it's not hard to understand why people are excited about the Brewers. My guess is that when we run our team projections next month, the Brewers will come out two or three wins ahead of the Cubs. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Maybe it's not Hart. Maybe it's Markakis. If one of them were going to be 25 this season, he'd be my pick, because the next five seasons would perfectly straddle his Age 27 season (27 is the age at which hitters most commonly peak). But Markakis is going to be 24 this season, Hart 26. So who's No. 1? It's all about the league, my friends:

And the top RFs over the next 5 years are …

1. Nick Markakis

2. Corey Hart

3. Matt Kemp

4. Travis Buck

5. Jeremy Hermida

6. Nick Swisher

7. Delmon Young

8. Vladimir Guerrero

9. Lastings Milledge

10. ???

I do realize that Milledge is the Nationals' new center fielder. He should have been in that discussion last week, and I'm going to leave him here just so he's mentioned somewhere in this process. If I've gotten anything else wrong, please tell me. Eventually I'm going to present a 2008-2012 All-Star team, and I'd like to get most of them right.

Writing in New York Magazine, Jonah Keri presents some lovely graphs of Roger Clemens' performance next to a few of his fellow power-pitching greats. The contrast is stark. Keri:

Last week, Clemens's management agency released a report presuming to explain how his performance could have occurred naturally. While it is correct to note the strong records of aging-power-pitcher contemporaries like those below, the fact is no one pitched as well, as late, as Clemens. Nor is he cleared by research from the blog Sabernomics, which found little evidence of jumps in performance after the injections McNamee alleges. The problem with this analysis is there's little information on the effects of PEDs on pitchers. They can increase muscle mass and thus fastball speed; some also believe they speed injury recoveries and allow one to work out more often, increasing durability. Clemens could have taken PEDs preemptively -- preventing falloffs rather than triggering spikes -- or taken doses too small to have an effect. And, of course, he could've taken PEDs on other occasions.

Our own statistical comparison is itself flawed -- we can't be sure the pitchers we compared Clemens to were themselves "clean," though none have ever been accused of using. So it's a piece of completely circumstantial evidence which might be the most damning. There's one other player -- a hitter, rather than a pitcher -- who recently enjoyed success far beyond what any other player his age had ever achieved. The evidence suggesting this player used steroids, though, is quite strong and comes from a wide variety of sources. That player's name is Barry Bonds.

Exactly. Defenders of professional athletes love to complain about circumstantial evidence, but our prisons are filled with victims of circumstantial evidence.

By the way, the credibility of the Clemens Report took another hit last week when Jim Bunning noted (and I can't believe I just wrote those words) a deadly error in the report. Toward the end, we read: "Finally, it is noteworthy that the following Hall-of-Fame pitchers pitched during or after the year of their 40th birthday." Next came a list of 31 pitchers, with age attached. Yes, there's Bunning at 40, along with seven others who topped out at 40.

Did those eight actually pitch at 40? Three of them -- Carl Hubbell, Fergie Jenkins, Herb Pennock -- did. The other five -- Bunning, Mordecai Brown, Bob Gibson, Walter Johnson, Robin Roberts -- did not. So those five pitchers were incorrectly named as 40-year-old pitchers, right?

Go back and read the quote. It says during or after the year of their 40th birthday. All five of those pitchers did turn 40 late in the same year that they last pitched, so technically the list is exactly correct. Of course, the list also is intentionally misleading. When we say a pitcher was 40 when he pitched, we mean he had actually turned 40. Alternatively, we mean he was 40 on July 1; that was his "seasonal age."

But "during or after the year of their 40th birthday"? That's a trick. That's the sort of thing you stick into an arbitration case and hope nobody notices in time. But this isn't an arbitration case. This is the Internet, and everybody's got plenty of time for fisking. Those five pitchers who were actually 39 when they last pitched in the majors? They combined to go 20-39 with a 4.99 ERA. So the Report is putting those guys in a group with Clemens, who went 13-8 with a 1.87 ERA in the year during which he turned 43.

I know the whole point of the Report was to sow those seeds of doubt. But what happens when everyone else sows seeds about the seeds?

At some point soon, we'll simply discuss Johan Santana as if he were any other greatest pitcher in the universe, but for the moment let's focus on what his absence means for his old team:

• The Star Tribune's Joe Christensen has details on Santana's new contract. Its average annual value (AAV) is $22 million, which doesn't seem like a lot compared to Barry Zito's $18 million AAV. Also, there's a good chance that salaries will continue to rise at roughly 10 percent per season. So believe it or not, Santana's $24 million salary in 2012 may well seem a bargain. If he's still winning Cy Youngs, of course.

• With so many prospect lists arriving last week, the Baseball Analysts Staff plugged those lists into analysis of the big offseason deals for young players. Question: Did the Twins make the best deal? Conclusion: "I am not sure they did. In fact, I think they may have received more for Garza and I think the Mets may have gave up more for two middling players from Washington. I know there are many variables that enter into a deal of this nature but I remain astounded that in this market, one in which top prospects have been changing hands for solid, established talent, Minnesota could not get more in return."

• Mike Radcliff, Minnesota's vice president of player personnel, says of the players the Twins got from the Mets, "The reality is they all fit profiles of things we need." Now, I realize that's probably just the company line, and you can't blame a guy for hewing. But I hope nobody's fooled by this. What every rebuilding team needs is talent. When you have talent you can either put it on the field or trade it for other talent. Of the four ex-Mets, only Philip Humber has a decent shot at helping the Twins in 2008. And if you're not worried about the immediate future, there's no reason to think much about "need" … except for the need for talent, at whatever position.

• As the Star Tribune's Jim Souhan notes, the Twins' real future is still a couple of years away: "In 2010, the Twins will enter their new stadium. They should be willing to expand their payroll. Most of their best young pitchers will have three or four years of big-league experience. Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer and Young should have sorted themselves into the middle of a dynamic lineup. &133; And the teams currently ruling the AL Central -- Detroit and Cleveland -- might have come back to earth, because of the Tigers' aging position players and Cleveland's imminent payroll problems."

• Well, maybe the lineup will be dynamic and maybe it won't be. Here's what the Twins PR department came up this weekend, in an e-mail message sent to their contact list: "These acquisitions only add to the Twins impressive nucleus of young, impact players. Ron Gardenhire can take comfort in knowing he has a lineup anchored by some of the game's best young offensive stars in Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer and Delmon Young; a veteran bullpen led by all-star closer Joe Nathan; and a young emerging starting rotation featuring Scott Baker, Boof Bonser, Kevin Slowey and the return of Francisco Liriano. The pitching rotation will be young, but talented, and we are confident that Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson will mold this group into a successful unit."

• Dugout Central's SOX1FAN is skeptical. So am I, just a bit. Michael Cuddyer is a "young offensive star"? He turns 29 next month, and aside from hitting 41 doubles in 2006 he's never done anything remotely impressive. Joe Mauer? Brilliant talent, but in three seasons he's averaged 127 games. I thought he had a good MVP case in 2006, but in his other two seasons he's been good rather than great. Delmon Young? In 192 games as a major leaguer he's got 27 walks and a .319 on-base percentage. And Justin Morneau? He did win the MVP in '06 that (I thought) should have gone to Mauer (or Cap'n Jetes). How good is Morneau, though, really? He did have a great 2006. But in most objective, situation-independent measures he comes out eighth in the league that season; eighth in adjusted OPS+, eighth in runs created, eighth in adjusted batting runs, eighth in batting wins, and ninth in offensive winning percentage. In 2007 he didn't finish in the top 10 in any of those categories.

Morneau is one of 44 players with at least 500 games in the American League over the last four seasons. His 120 OPS+ is 16th on the list. That's not bad, but of course Morneau's a first baseman. He's supposed to hit. And he's considerably behind other 1B types like David Ortiz (159 OPS+), Travis Hafner (155) and Mark Teixeira (135).

I don't mean to overstate the point. Morneau's a real good player who's certainly young enough to improve. Mauer's still got tremendous upside if he can just stay healthy. Young's so young that we really don't have any idea what he'll do, but any team would be thrilled to have him.

Can I imagine Detroit and Cleveland coming back to earth? I can. In addition to the Tigers' aging lineup and the Indians' "imminent payroll problems," neither club has much in the minor-league cupboard. The Tigers' cupboard is now essentially empty, while the Indians' isn't empty but is at least two years away from producing a good major league hitter.

Can I imagine the Twins winning 90-some games in 2010 and taking advantage? I can. There are a lot of moving parts here, though. The Twins may actually have, in two or three years, three or four of the game's best young hitters. They might have zero. If there's one thing we know, it's this: It's very hard to win 90 games if you don't two or three great players.

Before I present the list of candidates for Best Center Fielder of the Next 5 Years, I'll tell you this: there are only three serious candidates for the No. 1 spot. Maybe four. See if you can spot them ...

Player	Age	OBP	SLG	OPS+	WARP
Curtis Granderson	27	.361	.552	136	10.4
B.J. Upton	23	.386	.508	136	5.7
Josh Hamilton	27	.368	.554	131	3.3
Hunter Pence	25	.360	.539	130	6.2
Nick Swisher	27	.381	.455	127	5.6
Carlos Beltran	31	.353	.525	126	8.4
Aaron Rowand	30	.374	.515	123	7.8
Torii Hunter	32	.334	.505	122	5.5
Ichiro Suzuki	34	.396	.431	122	8.7
Grady Sizemore	25	.390	.462	122	6.3

Those are the top 10 center fielders of 2007, OPS+-wise (and it's a long drop from Sizemore to No. 11 Marlon Byrd). Looking at a list of players with at least 50 games in center field last season, I see three others who should be considered, if only because of their youth: Arizona's Chris Young, New York's Melky Cabrera and Chicago's Felix Pie. One might also argue for Vernon Wells, who certainly is paid like a top-10 guy and should bounce back this year from his shoulder injury.

Running through the guys in the table ...

• As a hitter, Granderson was a bit over his head last season, but he's obviously an outstanding player. What shocks me is that Upton, four years younger, was just as good with the bat. The Rays spent far too long realizing that Upton's not an infielder, and it's impossible to know how he'll fare in center field, long term. But he's always looked like a center fielder to me, and I have a faith-based belief that he'll be just fine out there.

• Speaking of impossible, does anybody have any idea if Hamilton can do for a whole season what he did last season in roughly half a season? Hamilton turns 27 this spring, and he's never played more than 101 games in a professional season. I suspect we're all pulling for him, and he's one of the reasons we think the Rangers have a real shot at second place this year. But we simply need to see him stay healthy and stay clean for a year or two before we consider him among the best in his chosen profession.

• There's little point in questioning Pence's bat, as he's hit everywhere he's played. Is he a center fielder, though? The Astros don't seem to be sure; he didn't become a full-time center fielder until late in the 2006 (minor league) season. The scouts don't seem to be sure; at least when he was in the minors, opinions were divided. The numbers aren't sure; he did well in BP's Fielding Runs Above Average last season, but not well in John Dewan's +/-. Earlier I mentioned that maybe there are four candidates for No. 1 on our list of future center fielders. Pence is the maybe, and it's because of the questions about his defense.

• Beltran's also one of the smartest baserunners around, which doesn't necessarily show up here. The guy's just a great baseball player, period. Injuries remain a concern.

• Swisher played mostly right field with the A's, but according to this story he'll get most of his action with the White Sox in center. Initially, at least. My guess is he winds up in one of the corners within a few years.

• Rowand's a fine player, but he's 30, his style of play doesn't generally lead to productive 30s, and ditto for his .343 career OBP. He may still be a good and valuable player in 2011 and '12. But one of the 10 best center fielders in the majors?

• Same goes for Hunter, who's older than Rowand, just as OBP challenged, and not as good with the glove as his reputation suggests.

• If we're looking out five seasons, Ichiro obviously doesn't belong here ... but among the 34-year-old stars in the majors right now, I think he might be the most likely to retain much of his value for another five years. I'm not saying he's going to keep hitting .350 and stealing 35 bags and winning Gold Gloves every season. I'm saying he's better than Kenny Lofton ever was, and Lofton's still playing at 40.

• And finally we come to Sizemore, and the most controversial thing I'm going to write today ... Sizemore is not a good center fielder. Am I sure about that? No. But I've got two systems in front of me -- BP's Fielding Runs and Dewan's +/- -- and both suggest that Sizemore's average with the glove. At best. Yes, they could be wrong. But these days the metrics have become sophisticated enough that if they come to a consensus about a player and you disagree, you have to figure out why they're wrong (it used to be the other way around).

Last summer I wrote something about the Granderson-Sizemore comparison, and I came down (just barely) for Sizemore because he's 17 months younger. But his defense now gives me pause. While I think they'll be roughly the same hitter in 2008, I also think Granderson will play Gold Glove-caliber defense and Sizemore won't. If the Indians had a good center fielder in the minors, I might even predict that Sizemore will find a new position in a few years. Which leads to my top 10 ...

1. B.J. Upton
2. Curtis Granderson
3. Grady Sizemore
4. Hunter Pence
5. Chris Young
6. Carlos Beltran
7. Melky Cabrera
8. Felix Pie
9. Josh Hamilton
10. Jay Bruce

Perhaps I've been too aggressive here with the youngest players. I do feel good about Upton, but the others -- Young, Cabrera, Pie -- really haven't been good yet in the majors. Hamilton's obviously a wild card, and perhaps there should be a place on this list for Wells. Meanwhile, there are a bunch of hot center fielders coming up, and so I've strayed from convention and filled in that last slot myself. It just seems to me that when you've got a player who's the consensus No. 1 prospect, he's your guy. Better, though, over the next five years than Wells and Rowand?

As always, I invite your thoughts ...

Just a few random items while wondering if all that stuff we wrote about Santana is moot ...

• Home Run Derby offers two video clips of the Cubs' new right fielder. This guy can throw.

• Dugout Central's Steve Caimano takes a machete to the Clemens Report and gets to hacking.

• Speaking of which, I'm afraid I'm a little late posting Sean Cunningham's timeline of the Rocket's sage quotes over the years. My favorite:

Clemens is traded to the New York Yankees and quickly realizes he loves his new team so much he announces he will only permit the Hall of Fame to induct him if allowed to enter as a Yankee: "I play 20 years, work my tail off, they're not going to tell me what hat I'm wearing. I promise you that. There might be a vacant seat there. I'll take my mother and we'll go to Palm Springs and invite all y'all and we'll have our own celebration." Because Roger Clemens' mother + Palm Springs = Par-tay!

• ShysterBall takes the umpires/KKK/MLB story and puts it exactly where it belongs.

• Do chicks dig the long ball? I don't have the slightest idea. I sure hope not, because I'm sick of that line (and also because I'm a singles hitter). But THT's David Gassko finds that somebody sure does like home runs.

• Jesse Spector takes a good look at the players who, one year ago, were said to have been in the best shape of their lives.

• Russ McQueen's essay about a great pitcher has nothing to do with the Hall of Fame. It's just a great baseball story.

• What's that? You don't think professional sports is interesting? Obviously you're wrong; it's very interesting.

My favorite thing about winter is having the time to read something other than box scores. My second favorite thing about winter is prospect lists. Today Baseball Prospectus released Kevin Goldstein's annual Top 100 Prospects. As it happens, I've also got John Sickels' prepublication lists -- from his forthcoming annual -- and I enjoy comparing the lists (Sickels separates his, top 50 hitters and top 50 pitchers).

Goldstein and Sickels both have Cincinnati's Jay Bruce and Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria as the No. 1 and No. 2 hitting prospects. Sickels has St. Louis' Colby Rasmus No. 3 and Goldstein has him No. 4. But Goldstein's No. 3 is Toronto's Travis Snider, who Sickels has all the way down at No. 23. Sickels' No. 4 is Cincinnati's Joey Votto, who Goldstein has all the way down at No. 12. Goldstein has Kansas City's Mike Moustakas at No. 11; Sickels has him at 26.

While both analysts pay a great deal of attention to both performance and (supposed) potential (i.e. tools), I suspect that Sickels tilts just a bit toward performance, Goldstein just a bit toward tools. I'd love to see a backward-looking analysis of their picks, but of course that's problematic because (1) you'd need to look back four or five years, and (2) in the intervening years they might have changed their approaches somewhat, which limits the utility of your findings.

NEWSFLASH

I see that our own Keith Law has just posted his list, too. I see that he's right in line with the other guys on Longoria, Bruce, and Rasmus (though he's got Longoria and Bruce flipped). And he's got Snider No. 4 among hitters. But Law doesn't track right along with Goldstein; he's got Moustakas all the way down at No. 31 (among hitters). It's inappropriate for me to analyze Law's work any further. Suffice to say, his list is just as legitimate as any other you'll find.

Anyway, when I look at these lists I'm looking for extremes. Which teams have the most names? Which have the fewest?

• The Reds don't have a lot of prospects ... but the ones they've got are outstanding. In addition to Bruce and Votto, of course, they've also got right-hander Homer Bailey. I know the Reds are sort of a hip pick to surprise us in 2008, probably because of their kids. But as often as kids surprise us in a good way, they surprise us in a bad way. And it'll probably be another two or three seasons before all of Cincinnati's kids play well together.

• The Royals are also supposedly a team on the come, and they do have two excellent young hitters in the majors. But those guys aren't going to be enough, and otherwise the organization is terribly short of good young players. We've already seen that opinions about Moustakas differ, and anyway at Class A he's a few years away from helping the big club. He's the only Royal among Sickels' top 50 hitting prospects, and among his top 50 pitchers, only Luke Hochevar appears. And he's all the way down at No. 44. Same with Goldstein's overall list: Moustakas No. 11 among hitters, Hochevar No. 29 among pitchers. Essentially, the Royals have two of the 100 (or so) best prospects, which doesn't seem like nearly enough.

• Similarly, the Indians have some work to do. Ideally, the franchise will compensate for the likely departure of C.C. Sabathia with young talent, as that's the way cash-poor organizations are supposed to remain relevant. But like the Royals, the Indians have only two guys on Goldstein's list, and they're pretty far down: No. 52 is righty Adam Miller, No. 78 is third baseman Wes Hodges. Sickels has Miller No. 33 among pitchers and adds lefty Chuck Lofgren at 42, but doesn't have Hodges among his top 50 hitters. You know how rarely Grade B pitching prospects become good major league pitchers.

• But wait, it gets worse: the Giants have only two names on Goldstein's list. The Giants, who haven't developed a good young hitter since ... Rich Aurilia, maybe? The only hitter here is third baseman Angel Villalona, at 29 (19 among hitters). Sickels has him considerably farther down, at No. 36 among hitters. If you're a Giants fan, I'm sorry to be the bearer of more bad tidings, but I'm afraid you're going to be looking up at everybody else in the West for a long, long time.

• And then there are the five teams with only one prospect among Goldstein's Hot 100: the Astros, the Blue Jays, the Mets, the Tigers and the White Sox.

Those latter two teams do have a pretty good excuse: this winter they traded some of their best men to immediately bolster their 25-man rosters.

The Mets, believe it or not, have just one top 100 prospect before completing their trade for Johan Santana. But of course they can spend their way out of that mess (though as the Yankees have proved and may prove again in 2008, even a super-rich team can occasionally benefit from a super-cheap player).

The Blue Jays and the Astros, though?

When J.P. Ricciardi took over as Toronto's GM in 2001, he radically reconstructed his scouting and player development departments. I was right behind him all the way. But this is it? Travis Snider and Brett Cecil (No. 29 on Sickels' list of pitchers)? Sickels also gives letter grades to all the prospects in his book. Snider and Cecil both get B+'s. Third baseman Kevin Ahrens gets a B-. And that's it; no A's, three B's and a whole bunch of C's, most of them pitchers whose fame will never extend past mentions by Sickels and Baseball America.

The Astros are in the same spot, with only catcher J.R. Towles -- No. 32 among Sickels' hitters, No. 54 on Goldstein's overall -- making any sort of dent. Not a good sign as they try to avoid challenging the Pirates for last place.

And yes, here I go again, accentuating the negative. But of course there is a flip side: on Goldstein's list, three teams are tied for top honors with seven prospects: the Red Sox, the Rangers and the Athletics. But I think the Rays actually win this contest, because while they've got "only" six on the list, five are way up there: Longoria (3), lefty David Price (6), righty Wade Davis (15), outfielder Desmond Jennings and shortsop Reid Brignac. Even their last guy, lefty Jacob McGee, is No. 40 (and he's fifth, right behind Price, among Sickels' top pitchers). The Yankees are also loaded, relative to most clubs. You want some straight talk? That's a tough division, my friends.

I think that's enough for now. I sure do like lists. Dig in and have fun.

Correction: I wrote that the Mets had only one prospect on Goldstein's list before the (pending) Santana trade, but that's not true. I conducted a faulty search (for "Mets" rather than "Twins") and thus I missed Carlos Gomez (No. 65) and Delios Guerra (79). Which makes the Mets look better and the Twins worse.

What's the deal with left fielders, anyway? When we looked at first basemen and second basemen and shortstops and third basemen, it was easy to be impressed with the depth of young talent at each position.

Left fielders, though? Yuck. Last year a dozen left fielders posted VORPs higher than 28. Only three of them were in their 20s, and none of those three -- Matt Holliday (75.0), Adam Dunn (45.5) and Carl Crawford (38.0) -- are what you'd call fresh-faced kids. So I think in our question for the best left fielders of the next five years, we'll have to consider a few players in their (early) 30s. Which leaves out Manny Ramirez and Moises Alou, but lets in Pat Burrell and Alfonso Soriano. Below are some candidates for serious consideration (but most of them marginal). Remember, the listed ages are seasonal 2008, while everything else is from 2007 (and if you have a question about the stats, drop me a note in the comments).

Player	Age	OBP	SLG	OPS+	WARP
Matt Holliday	28	.405	.607	150	9.7
Adam Dunn	28	.386	.554	136	4.4
Pat Burrell	30	.400	.502	127	4.1
Carlos Lee	32	.354	.528	126	4.6
Matt Diaz	30	.368	.497	124	4.3
Alfonso Soriano	32	.337	.560	123	7.1
Carl Crawford	26	.355	.466	117	5.6
Chris Duncan	27	.354	.480	115	2.8
Josh Willingham	29	.364	.463	115	2.4
Ryan Church	29	.349	.464	114	5.4
Jason Kubel	26	.335	.450	109	3.0
Jason Bay	29	.327	.418	93	2.3

You see what I mean?

• Dunn, Burrell, Lee, Willingham ... All of them can hit and none of them can field, which knocks down their WARPs.

• Duncan and Kubel both were part-timers last season, or else they'd look better in the last column.

• Bay was awful last season, but his WARPs the two previous seasons were 10.6 and 9.8, so it would be foolish to ignore his considerable talents after one lousy year.

• You have to like Crawford, but it's worth mentioning that he has not showed a normal growth curve. At 22, he was roughly six wins better than a replacement player ... and was roughly six wins better than a replacement player at 23, 24, and 25. I'm not sure what to make of that, except there's no obvious reason to think he's suddenly going to become a great player (though I do believe he'll have a few great seasons).

Remember, we're looking at the next five years. Will Lee be a good player in 2012? I don't think he will. Not in left field, anyway. Same with Dunn, etc. Which makes it tough to come up with a top 10 (as I've done at the other positions). Fortunately, we can throw Ryan Braun into the mix. No, we don't know how long he'll be in left field. But considering the presence of Prince Fielder, we can guess that Braun won't be moving to first base anytime soon.

1. Crawford
2. Braun
3. Holliday
4. Soriano
5. Bay
6. Kubel
7. ????

Who's in line for that last spot? The super outfield prospects -- St. Louis' Colby Rasmus, Cincinnati's Jay Bruce, Florida's Cameron Maybin, Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen -- are center fielders. Yes, there's probably some excellent young hitter who will switch from some other position to left field in the next year or two ... but again, we're looking only five years ahead, and most young players, even the best of them, need a few years to establish themselves among the elite.

It's just not a good time for left fielders, and I think once you get past Crawford, Braun, and (arguably) Holliday, there's not much to get excited about. Among the younger guys, at least.

More reaction to the (pending) Big Deal ...

Tim Marchman:

[Johan] Santana is, stylistically, a very good fit with the Mets. Despite his gaudy strikeout numbers and lively fastball, he's a junkballer at heart, a changeup pitcher with terrific control, and so he gets a lot of flyball outs. Both Shea Stadium and Citi Field, due to open next year, have large outfields, and with [Carlos] Beltran in center, Ryan Church in right, and Endy Chavez on the bench, the Mets should have their usual fine outfield defense. Santana will be pitching in one of the more forgiving environments in baseball, and he'll take advantage of it.

While Santana is in some sense a replacement for Tom Glavine, and in a much more significant sense one for the aging [Pedro] Martinez, it's probably best to think of him as replacing Mike Pelfrey, until yesterday the nominal fifth starter. This is a lot of why this is not just a transcendently good trade, but a savvy deal dollar-wise.

The difference between Santana and what the Mets could expect from Pelfrey and a revolving door of No. 6 starters is worth something like six to eight wins, depending on your terms. According to sabermetrician Tom Tango's research, the going rate for a projected win above what a No. 6-type would likely do is $4.4 million. This suggests not only that Santana is well worth $25 million a year, but that the Mets will be getting the full advantage of the expense. He'll be worth less in future years, but so will $25 million, as baseball salaries inflate about 10 [percent] every year. And the wins here in question make the difference between the Mets being a strong contender and a strong favorite, greatly increasing the team's chances of saying goodbye to Shea in style and of ringing up even more cash when Citi Field opens.

Marchman also notes of the four prospects the Twins will receive, "Baseball America ranked [Deolis] Guerra as the Mets' No. 2 prospect, [Carlos] Gomez No. 3, and [Kevin] Mulvey No. 4, with [Phil] Humber No. 7; prospect analyst John Sickels had them in the same spot." So the trade does leave the Mets' cupboard bare (except for No. 1 prospect Fernando Martinez, and he's still a baby). But don't get too excited if you're a Twins fan; the cupboard was mostly bare before this deal. Guerra, their erstwhile/supposed No. 2 guy, doesn't turn 19 until this spring and has all of 179 professional innings under his belt. And it's downhill from Guerra unless Gomez's tools turn into skills.

This deal isn't exactly what he had in mind, but Twins blogger Aaron Gleeman has been screaming "Free Johan Santana!" for more than five years. Today Gleeman's not thrilled, but he's not ready to jump into the Mississippi, either ...

It seems natural that a team should be able to have its pick of elite prospects when trading away baseball's premiere pitcher, but from the Twins' perspective all they were truly shopping was one season of Santana. While that's plenty valuable, getting four solid prospects for one season of any player seems reasonable. Of course, had the Twins kept Santana this season and simply let him walk as a free agent, they also would have gotten a pair of first-round draft picks as compensation.

Given that, what the Twins really gave up was one season of Santana and a pair of draft picks. That complicates things a bit, but four solid prospects still seems like a relatively palatable return given the added cost and uncertainty of draft picks. Still, my suspicion is that the Twins could have done better and perhaps cost themselves a chance to get the maximum return for Santana by attempting to squeeze extra value from teams.

Well, they also gave up the exclusive rights to negotiate a long-term contract extension with Santana, and that's got some value too, right? By all accounts the Twins could have done better and should have. How badly will it hurt them? The real test comes in 2011. Of the four prospects they'll get from the Mets, the two potential stars (Guerra and Gomez) need more development time. So they won't help much in 2009 or '10. In '11 the Twins move into their new ballpark and the fans will show up regardless of the team's performance? In 2012 and beyond, though, the Twins will struggle to attract customers if they're not winning games.

One good thing: Say what you want about owner Carl Pohlad's unwillingness to dip into his own large pockets, but he's run his franchise with a steady, patient hand. Assuming you've hired the right people, organizational stability is a great asset, more valuable than some other team's Grade A prospect. In our rush to judgment it's tempting to cry that the sky is falling. It's not. Yes, it would have been nice for the Twins if they could have acquired the next Grady Sizemore, and that's probably not Carlos Gomez. You know what, though? It's probably not Jacoby Ellsbury or Melky Cabrera, either. We shouldn't forget that predicting the collective future of four young baseball players is neither easy nor precise, and we should allow for the distinct possibility that in five years Bill Smith will smell like a rose.

So what are the Mets getting (if the deal goes through) in Johan Santana? We know they're getting the best pitcher in the American League. Over the past four seasons, Santana leads all AL starters in ERA (by a wide margin), innings, starts, wins, winning percentage, and (by a huge margin) strikeouts. As The New York Times' Ben Shpigel notes, though, there's at least one lingering question:

The one note of caution for the Mets is the fact that he took a step backward last season, with a record of 15-13 and an earned run average of 3.33, and seemed to struggle after a standout game Aug. 19 in which he struck out 17 Texas Rangers in eight innings. Over his final seven starts, Santana went 2-4 with a 5.11 E.R.A., raising some questions as to whether he was hurt.

The physical exam by the Mets will address such concerns, although the Mets might not feel fully relaxed about their investment until Santana truly demonstrates he is healthy by pitching effectively in spring training.

No team should feel fully relaxed about a pitcher, ever. Are Santana's last seven starts something the Mets should be particularly concerned about, though? In those seven starts he struck out 44 batters in 44 innings, just shy of his career average. His walk rate was up some, and he gave up nine homers. That was his problem all season; he gave up 33 homers, a career high that directly led to his 3.33 ERA, his highest in a season since becoming a starter.

Normal statistical fluctuation? Probably. And one can't help but wonder: If Santana can strike out 240-260 hitters each season, pitching half the time in a decent hitter's park and most of the time in a good hitter's league, what's he going to do in a pitcher's park in a pitcher's league? And, how well will he perform on a team that's going to score some runs for him? My guess is that Santana will dominate the National League like Greg Maddux did in the mid-1990s and Randy Johnson did five years later. But maybe we shouldn't assume any limits.

I like what Baron Von Awesome said about the (pending) trade sending Johan Santana to the Mets for a quartet of prospects ...

The Twins just nailed their own coffin shut today. They're doomed to irrelevance for the next five years, at least.

This is the worst baseball trade I've seen since... I don't know. Kearns and Lopez for a bunch of relievers, I guess, but even then, Kearns and Lopez turned out not to be much to worry about. The Astros trading Dan Wheeler for Ty Wigginton and then releasing Morgan Ensberg comes to mind, but there wasn't nearly as much at stake; the Astros were already doomed to suck for the rest of the decade.

This trade is horrible.

I agree. As someone else said in the thread, the Twins would have been better off if they'd traded Santana straight up to the Mariners for Adam Jones. Why? Because potential superstars like Jones are precious, and Grade B prospects -- all the guys the Twins may get for Santana -- are not.

I've got John Sickels' new book, and Sickels rates only right-handed pitcher Deolis Guerra higher than Grade B ... and he's a B-plus. And a B-plus pitcher at that.

Now, it would be one thing if this deal was the best one available. But we know that it wasn't, right? The Red Sox were offering Jacoby Ellsbury (Grade A-minus) and Jed Lowrie (A-minus), along with a couple of lesser lights. The Yankees were offering a package including Melky Cabrera and Phil Hughes.

So what happened? Both teams made strong offers because, yes, they wanted Santana for themselves, but also because they didn't want the other to get Santana on the cheap. But there wasn't anything to distinguish either offer; both were outstanding, so the Twins figured they would wait until somebody upped the ante. And of course nobody did, perhaps because they realized they didn't have to. And then those offers just sort of ... faded away, like tender wisps of smoke.

Why? The Red Sox have been in these things before, and (with the exception of Daisuke Matsuzaka) they've eventually deferred to their richer cousins. Seems to have worked out OK for them so far. Meanwhile, the Yankees have, in Hughes and Joba Chamberlain, two of the best young (untested) pitchers in the game. Bottom line? Thanks to the wild card, the American League East is not a zero-sum game, and entering the 2008 season both the Red Sox and the Yankees figure they'll wind up in the playoffs again. With good reason.

So if the deal goes through, it sure looks like a rough start for Bill Smith, the Twins' new GM. When you trade someone as good as Santana, you simply must come away with a future star. It's not clear that Smith has done that. One caveat, though: No team has been better than the Twins, over the past seven or eight years, evaluating talent. Although it looks like they're trading the best pitcher on the planet for nothing but a bunch of Grade B prospects, we must allow for the possibility that they know something about these guys that we don't.

So, doomed to irrelevance for five years? I wouldn't go that far. We've seen franchises turn around their fortunes quickly. In the short term? The Twins are lacking good young hitters in the minors, but in the majors they've got Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer and Jason Kubel. If Francisco Liriano comes back strong and Kevin Slowey develops (I think he will), the Twins are capable of surprising us. I just think they'd have a better shot if they'd added Ellsbury or Melky Cabrera to their lineup.

With the release of the final 2007 payroll, Rich Lederer "thought it might be instructive to analyze payroll efficiency by comparing team salaries to wins."

To that end, Lederer graphs payroll vs. wins, which really is the best way to look at the numbers.

I'm optimistic about the Dodgers' chances this year, but a quick look at the graph shows just how poorly they fared last year, compared to their rivals. The Dodgers did finish with a winning record, but they also finished well behind everybody else despite spending substantially more money. Of course, that's the terrible impact of contracts like this: You're spending money and losing games.

Anyway, the graph is a lot of fun, but I do have a suggestion: I'd like to see the format adapted to show multiple seasons, as that would give us a better idea of the franchises' general competence over a period of years.

Last year, three-fourths of the Phillies infield were MVP candidates.

And the other one-fourth? Train wreck. Last season the Phillies' third basemen -- mainly Abraham Nunez, Wes Helms and Greg Dobbs -- combined to hit .255/.321/.368 with 11 homers. If the Phillies do sign Pedro Feliz, as reported, he'll almost certainly do better. So it's a good move, right?

As usual, it's not really that simple. As Philliesflow's egrissom points out,

Offensively overall on the year, Nunez was terrible, Helms was terrible and Dobbs was okay. But in the at-bats Dobbs got as a third baseman, he was just wretched ... I think you can make the argument that it was simply a fluke that Dobbs was so much worse offensively when he played third base in 2007 than when he played other positions. In the same way, Helms is virtually guaranteed to produce more offense in 2008 than he did in 2007. The Phillies got some miserable production out of third in '07, but there was a good chance that Dobbs, Helms and Bruntlett of '08 were going to outplay Dobbs, Helms and Nunez of '07 by a lot offensively.

Here are 2008 projections for those three players, plus Feliz, courtesy of Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster:

PLAYER	OBP	SLG
Dobbs	.313	.402
Helms	.326	.455
Nunez	.310	.285
Feliz	.290	.416

At the risk of sounding unkind, Nunez has absolutely no business playing in the major leagues. He's a sort of fluke, and someday students of baseball history will spend many hours trying to understand how he played more than 1,000 games at the highest level of professional baseball.

But Dobbs and Helms can play a little bit. Especially Helms. He's a better fielder than Dobbs, and a better hitter. So why don't the Phillies just give the job to Helms? Because he got off to a terrible start last season; in the first half he batted 168 times and hit just one homer. He did rebound somewhat in the second half, but it still was a terrible season: .294 on-base percentage, .368 slugging. So it's hard to blame the Phillies for not trusting him.

The numbers, though? The numbers say Helms will be a better hitter than Feliz in 2008, even with Feliz's new home ballpark giving him a boost. That, plus Feliz's big edge with the glove, probably makes him roughly as good as Helms this season, maybe a touch better. Is that touch worth $8.5 million over the next two seasons, though?

Over at Dugout Central, Steve Caimano delves into the run support for the best pitchers of the 1970s and '80s. He starts with Jack Morris and Bert Blyleven and finds about what you would (or should) expect: Morris got a great deal more support from his mates in the lineup than Blyleven did. For example, Morris's teams scored six or more runs in 35 percent of his starts, against only 27 percent in Blyleven's. As Caimano writes, "Wow!" Further:

If we dig into the individual numbers a little deeper, one of the things that stands out is that Blyleven and Morris were not as good as their HOF contemporaries at turning three runs of support into victories for their team. While the difference is relatively small with some (Niekro, Hunter, Carlton), a few of these guys blow the rest away. Namely, Jim Palmer and Don Sutton who both managed to convert more than 60% of the time when given three runs to work with. And then there's Tom Seaver. Seaver posted a .500 record when he had only two runs to work with. That's just insanity!

Seaver really was incredible. I suspect that if you polled today's fans, Seaver would finish behind Nolan Ryan and perhaps Steve Carlton, too. But Seaver certainly was the best pitcher between Warren Spahn and Roger Clemens, and here's just one more piece of evidence.

I think most hardcore fans understand that run support matters, in principle. But I also think we too often forget what it means, in practice.

Yes, the Clemens Report (pdf here) has arrived. Penned by Clemens' management agency, the report contains no mention of "steroids" or "HGH" or any other (supposed) performance-enhancing drug, but then that's obviously the point: One doesn't need to refer to drugs to explain the Rocket's brilliant career.

Do we need 49 closely argued pages to make the point, though?

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for information, and this is a valuable document because it contains a great deal of information. But the authors of the report have a long and successful history of making the case for their clients in arbitration hearings (I worked, in a peripheral sort of way, on some of their cases in the early 1990s), and their report reads more like a one-sided arbitration case than rigorous analysis.

Here's one representative passage:

One simply does not find straight trend lines in performance in major league baseball. A baseball career mimics life, in that there are good days and bad days, hot streaks and cold spells, as well as good years and bad years, both within and across seasons. A wide variety of factors determine the success of a player, including the player's health, the quality of his team, and the pitcher or hitter he happens to be facing in a particular at bat. As the chart and graph above demonstrate, Roger Clemens' baseball career is no exception.

What's graphed is Clemens' "ERA Margin" season by season. ERA Margin -- the raw difference between a pitcher's ERA and his league's ERA -- isn't great, but it's simple and that's how arbitrators like their statistics.

It's true: One doesn't often find "straight trend lines" … but you know, some trend lines are straighter than others. Clemens' shows one decline for three straight seasons, and one improvement for three straight seasons, but otherwise his line's up and down with no apparent pattern.

Which isn't so interesting. What's interesting? According to the report, "The year-to-year variations of Roger Clemens' ERA Margin are by no means unusual. An analysis of two distinguished contemporaries of Clemens, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, shows that year-to-year variations in ERA Margin are to be expected throughout the career of a starting pitcher."

Then we see Johnson's and Schilling's trend lines, and of course we do see those year-to-year variations … but they're not nearly as dramatic as Clemens'!

This is an old lawyer's trick: Say something that's true but not particularly meaningful, and then hope nobody pays a great deal of attention to the actual evidence. But if you actually look? Schilling was roughly the same pitcher for 10 years (1995 through 2004), was hurt in 2005, and in 2006 and '07 was again good (if obviously aging). Johnson improved for a few years when he was young, maintained a general level of excellence for 10 years (1993-2002), was hurt in 2003, and since then has suffered the typical fate of pitchers in their early 40s.

Next up is Nolan Ryan, and here's where Clemens' lawyers might rest their case. As the report notes, "The graph of Ryan's ERA Margin most closely resembles that of Clemens. … As with Clemens, Ryan posted two of his highest ERA Margins after the age of 40, from 1987 to 1993."

Well, OK. So in our imaginary courtroom, Clemens' defender can point to Nolan Ryan … and his prosecutor can point to nearly every other pitcher, ever. If you're the jury, who do you believe?

This of course is just a portion of the report. In the interest of getting something posted here, I've just skimmed the rest of it. The central conclusions are obvious, though:

1. Pitchers' careers do not follow a predictable path.
2. Clemens' career path has not been extraordinary, considering his talents.
3. Thus, we needn't look to steroids to explain that career path.

Points 1 and 2 both are arguable, but an arbitrator might buy them if skillfully made. Point 3 is certainly true, as there have been plenty of odd-looking career paths that had nothing to do with drugs.

Does the Clemens Report prove anything? No. But of course it's not meant to prove anything. It's meant to sow a few more seeds of doubt. The Clemens Report essentially says, "You think he used steroids because his career was strange. But really it wasn't so strange. So why would you think he used steroids?"

We think he used steroids because his career was unusually strange. And because a fairly credible witness says he did. Which doesn't mean he did. I just don't know that an arbitration case is really going to convince anybody.

In response to the rumored Mariners-Orioles deal, USS Mariner's Dave Cameron offers his 22 things I believe about this trade. Here are 7 of the 22 things:

1. Erik Bedard is awesome - one of the five best pitchers in the American League.

2. Erik Bedard and Felix Hernandez are both candidates for the 2008 AL Cy Young Award.

3. Two great pitchers and mediocre everything else is not a formula for consistent success.

4. The Mariners are going to miss Adam Jones. Badly.

5. The Mariners' right fielder in 2008 is going to suck.

9. The Mariners improved themselves by, at most, 2-3 wins in 2008 with this deal.

22. The M's have, once again, taken a bad path to a good goal. It will, once again, not work.

One detail worth mentioning: Nobody's actually been traded yet. I do believe the M's will miss Jones (if they do trade him), and I do believe the Mariners will be 2-3 wins better with Bedard (if they do trade for him). Are the Mariners about to travel down a "bad path"? It does feel that way. Between Bedard's demonstrated fragility -- he's never pitched 200 innings in a season, and has averaged 167 over the last four seasons -- and the likelihood that he'll become a free agent after 2009, there are a lot of things here that could go wrong for the Mariners. If.

And the funny thing about all of this? Supposedly it's the Orioles' owner who's holding up the deal.

• As more and more analysts dig into the evidence, the question remains: Do steroids and HGH leave any observable impression in the record books? As Alan Schwarz reports, now we can add Eric Walker to our list of analysts.

• From Bleed Cubbie Blue, a nice interview with Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper, one of the guys I actually go out of my way to enjoy.

• Recently the baseball-research community lost a shining star when Dick Thompson passed with no warning. Thompson was one of SABR's top researchers, and among other things he discovered who taught Christy Mathewson his famous fadeaway pitch.

• The Hardball Times' John Beamer writes again about MLB's rules and quirks.

• Theo and Cash got together Friday night, and it was Cashman who made news with less than kind (though perhaps fair) comments about Bernie Williams.

• The great Ernie Harwell turned 90 last Friday, and apparently he's still in fine fettle. During the Tigers' last season in their old ballpark, I spent a few moments with Harwell in his broadcast booth before a game, and one of my fondest memories is listening to him describe Al Kaline in right field, grabbing a ball off the wall and turning to fire a strike to second base.

• Jack Morris has grown up a lot in the last few years. Just ask him. Meanwhile, ShysterBall notes that Tom Glavine seems to have grown up a long time ago.

I mentioned this last week in passing, but Slate's Josh Levin now has a nice piece about Randy Newsom, the baseball-playing entrepreneur who's offering investors a small piece of his (potential) future income. Is this the wave of the future?

Let's assume that Real Sports Investments survives MLB scrutiny and recruits some more players. Will it work as a market? Jeff Ma, the co-founder of ProTrade and the leader of the Vegas-busting MIT blackjack team, says it's a winning concept for minor-league ballplayers like Newsom. A ballplayer's career carries substantial risk, Ma says, and it makes sense to shave off potential wealth in exchange for insurance against never getting a major-league payday. (If Newsom doesn't make the majors, his investors get nothing.) Ma is skeptical, though, that players with higher earning potential will care to participate, and without these higher-tier prospects, the market won't be as attractive to investors. "You're not talking about Barry Bonds or [future stars like] Billy Butler or Tim Lincecum selling their future upside," Ma says. "How many people will want to speculate on the Randy Newsoms of the world?"

My guess? Not many. Buying into Randy Newsom's career is not a particularly good investment. I bought five shares, which means I now own -- theoretically, at least -- 0.008% of Newsom's future major league earnings. For me to merely get my money (including fees) back, Newsom will have to earn $1.5 million as a major leaguer. Considering that if he does reach the majors he'll earn the minimum salary for at least two seasons, he'll have to pitch in the majors for at least four seasons before I see my $120 again.

As you probably know, most Grade C prospects don't spend anything like four seasons in the majors.

So why invest in a Grade C prospect? For the same reason you might buy stock in the Green Bay Packers: because of the "psychic income" that comes with the shares, if you're a Packers fan. And there are a lot of Packers fans. But there just aren't a lot of baseball fans who are devoted to the hundreds of Grade C prospects in the minors.

Last week, Newsom offered 2,500 shares of himself. As of last night, there were still 2,130 available.

This winter, the Johan Santana "story" has been written mostly as an East Coast story. Red Sox, Yankees, Mets ... Who's going to get him? But isn't this really a Minnesota story? The Red Sox and the Yankees and the Mets will likely be successful over the next five or six years whether they get Santana or not. The Twins, though? If they don't do the right thing, or one of the right things, they may be consigned to third or fourth place for some years. And as Sid Hartman writes today, don't assume the Twins won't just keep Santana for a while ...

So maybe the Twins' offer is a pretty good one. Santana will be paid $13.25 million in 2008 and the Twins offered him a four-year deal at $20 million or a total $80 million guaranteed. The Giants signed pitcher Barry Zito to a seven-year contract for $126 million last year, and the result was the former Oakland lefthander had an ordinary record of 11-13. The experience the Giants had might dissuade clubs from giving that type of contract to Santana.

I don't think smart teams factor Zito's contract in the equation much, if at all. Zito's contract was obviously foolish (for the Giants) before he signed it, not just after. Considering that Santana's got the profile of a future Hall of Fame pitcher, the notion that he'll be a great pitcher for the next six or seven years is hardly outlandish. It's a hard bet to make, though. Even if you're likely to win the bet, the consequence of losing is terribly embarrassing (if not embarrassing enough to cost Dan O'Dowd or Brian Sabean their jobs).

So yeah, maybe Santana will have to settle on $80 million, give or take. And you know what? The Twins can afford that. They don't play in a large market, but it's not really small, either. The Twins play their home games in the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, just behind Seattle-Tacoma, just ahead of San Diego, and well ahead of St. Louis. The Twins' new ballpark is scheduled to open in two years. We've seen that a new building isn't a panacea -- just ask Pirates fans -- but the Twins' financial situation obviously will improve relative to the other teams. I'm not saying the Twins should sign Santana to a long-term deal; if it were my team I'd trade him for three young players. But paying him $20 million per season needn't be debilitating.

News, notes and whatnot while wondering why a bunch of baseball writers don't get together and bribe Jose Canseco to not publish his book at all ...

• Joe Posnanski writes the story that should warm the hearts of small-market fans everywhere: The Royals have a shot at Johan Santana. (Also, Joe's book about Buck O'Neil just won the Casey Award. You know what's scary? His next book, about the Big Red Machine, is going to be even better.)

• No matter what anybody says, John Sickels is sticking with his A- grade for Red Sox prospect Jed Lowrie. I agree with John. Yes, Lowrie's almost 24. He's also a middle infielder with mid-range power and a .386 career on-base percentage in the minors. Right now, the only thing holding Lowrie back is Julio Lugo's $36 million contract.

• Yeah, Keith Hernandez comes off sometimes as your typical crotchety old ballplayer who knows only enough Bill James to get himself in trouble. But he's still, you know, Keith Hernandez. He was in Game 6 (and if you're wearing this T-shirt, I apologize).

• As the Jim Rice Show continues, an interesting fact: Rice walked exactly as often whether there were runners in scoring position or the bases were empty. Does that mean anything? Depends on your perspective, I suppose.

• Speaking of perspective, MGL wants to up the stakes in the challenge to identify clutch hitters. There might actually be real money involved. So if you 1) think clutch hitters really exist, and 2) are willing to bet on your ability to identify them, your big chance has finally arrived.

• Home Run Derby's wondering if the Cubs ripped him off. Three things: 1) I voted NO; 2) either way it doesn't matter; and 3) if bloggers worry about only things that matter we'll be out of business before sundown. (Meanwhile, the Cubs' ad campaign, of which they're apparently quite proud, isn't universally admired. I love history, but 1945 was a long, long time ago. And it's not like we didn't exact plenty of revenge at the time.)

• As I admitted last week, eight years ago I predicted that Nick Johnson would become the best first baseman of this decade. He didn't. But man, he sure has been hurt a lot. And this piece reminds me that he was, in 2006, one of the best first basemen in the National League. Maybe he's been pacing himself. Maybe he'll be the best first baseman in the next decade.

• Happy 63rd to Wally Bunker. As a 19-year-old Orioles rookie in 1964, Bunker pitched 214 innings and won 19 games. He never won more than 10 games in a season again.

Update: Original version of this post included incorrect slugging percentage for Ramirez, and incorrect OBP and slugging for Kouzmanoff and Zimmerman. All have now been corrected.

Today, we turn to the best third basemen of the next five years. As you might recall, I've been ignoring players older than 30, but if there's a time to ignore that rule -- more of a guideline, really -- this is it, because the best player in the American League still has plenty of good seasons ahead of him. Here are my 10 holdovers from 2007; the given age is 2008 seasonal age, while the other numbers are from 2007, including adjusted OPS (which is how the players are sorted) and Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP).

Player	Age	OBP	SLG	OPS+	WARP
Alex Rodriguez	32	.422	.645	177	11.0
David Wright	25	.416	.546	150	10.6
Miguel Cabrera	25	.401	.565	150	9.2
Aramis Ramirez	30	.366	.549	129	7.3
Chone Figgins	30	.393	.432	117	3.4
Adrian Beltre	29	.319	.482	112	4.5
Garrett Atkins	28	.367	.486	112	3.7
Mark Reynolds	24	.349	.495	111	2.8
Kevin Kouzmanoff	26	.329	.457	109	1.5
Ryan Zimmerman	23	.330	.458	107	7.7

Missing from the list? Chipper Jones (who five years from today will be nearly 41 years old), Ryan Braun (who one month from today will be a left fielder) and Mike Lowell (a gamer who might have three or four good years left in him).

A few notes on that list:

• Last year there was a big space between No. 1 and Nos. 2 and 3, and a big space between Nos. 2 and 3 and everyone else. I expect No. 1 to drop off some, but absent injury I don't see any reason to think the top three this season will be different from last season. Yes, Cabrera will be facing better pitching in the American League. He'll also be a year older and it's hard see him not being one of the three best- hitting third basemen in the majors.

• You might be surprised to see Atkins even with Beltre in OPS+, but that's Coors vs. Safeco. When you consider Beltre's age in years and defense, he's clearly going to be a few slots ahead of Atkins when we make our final list.

• I was surprised to find Kouzmanoff with a higher OPS+ than Zimmerman, but Kouzmanoff's defense numbers are simply horrible, easily the worst on the list. If he doesn't get significantly better with either the bat or the glove, the Padres are left in an awkward position, because a 1.6 WARP means he's significantly worse than an average MLB third baseman.

• Meanwhile, Zimmerman's WARP is fourth-best on the list. This is partially due to his excellent defensive numbers, and I suspect there might also be a difference in how WARP and OPS+ utilize park effects. Regardless, I believe Zimmerman's youth and his defense clearly move him into the top five on our final list. In his three seasons with the Nationals, he has an .861 OPS in road games, which gives you an idea of what he'll do with the Nats moving into their new home this spring.

• It's hard to know what to make of Reynolds. Just one year ago, Baseball America opined, "Reynolds will probably begin the season as the second baseman in Double-A." He did spend roughly a month in Double-A but mostly as a third baseman, and spent the balance of the season with the big club. His defensive stats weren't good, but he has little experience at the position and figures to improve.

With all that (and some other stuff) in mind, our tentative list:

1. Wright
2. Cabrera
3. Rodriguez
4. Zimmerman
5. Beltre
6. Ramirez
7. Reynolds
8. Atkins
9. Andy LaRoche
10. ????

Figgins and Kouzmanoff didn't make this list because Figgins probably will continue to be a utility guy, and because Kouzmanoff's defense last season was just so awful. If he gets a handle on that problem, though, he certainly should rank among the top 10 over the next five years.

As you probably noticed, I've tossed Andy LaRoche into the mix, but there are plenty of other young candidates for the last three or four spots. Kansas City's Alex Gordon struggled last season but is still considered a future star. Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria hasn't played in the majors yet, but he's still quite young, has power and patience, and figures to take over at third this spring. Colorado's Ian Stewart hasn't moved quite as quickly as Longoria (or as quickly as we expected), but soon the Rockies will have to figure out how to use both him and Atkins in the lineup.

Your thoughts?

• ShysterBall exposes elements of the New York City Council for the dishonest panderers that they are. (Yeah, I know: Stop the presses!)

• Tim Marchman adds to the list of writers who recently have observed that baseball is, for the most part, recession-proof.

• Another fine effort from Rich Lederer, whilst discussing Messrs. Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven. Lederer observes that when it comes to Hall of Fame candidates, we just need to keep asking questions. Assuming of course that we're still interested in the answers.

• The Red Sox are going to wear ugly corporate logos when they open their season in March. I'm sure the Athletics will be wearing ugly patches, too. This is nothing new: the Mets wore them in 2000 and both the Devil Rays and Yankees wore them -- plus huge helmet logos -- in 2004. Frankly, back in 2000 I figured that within a few years we would see the same stuff on uniforms throughout the season. But even as advertisements have covered practically every square inch of the ballparks, to this point they've been kept off the uniforms and the actual field of play. For which I will happily thank Bud Selig and anyone else who's stood firm.

• Bay City Ball uses PITCHf/x data to analyze Barry Zito's 2007. Takeaway: It's not easy to retire major league hitters when you're throwing 86 with limited command of the strike zone. At this point it's only Zito's outstanding curveball that allows him to post a league-average ERA. No problem, though: The Giants only owe him another $116 million.

• MetsGeek's Dan Scotto writes about Billy Beane and baseball's new economics (?). What does that have to do with the Mets? Lately it seems there aren't as many great free agents available to the super-rich teams.

• Derek Jacques watches Bartolo Colon pitch Monday so you don't have to, and he's not impressed.

• Happy 46th to Benny Distefano, MLB's last lefty-throwing catcher!

Reading the message boards, one sees Heath Ledger's death described as a "tragedy."

No doubt. But for whom, exactly? He was someone's son, and the father of a two-year-old daughter. It's tragic for his parents, and for his daughter. In the grand scheme of things, though? Every day there are tragedies that would, if you could figure all the equations, rate larger than this one.

If you think Ledger's death is a tragedy, it's because of how it affects you, not his parents or his daughter. It's because he meant something to you. It's because you found his performance as Ennis Del Mar incredibly affecting and you wanted to see if he'd ever get another role as good. It's because you've been jazzed about seeing his take on The Joker since you first heard about that (presumably) brilliant bit of casting.

Or maybe that's just me. I just know I felt the same yesterday as I do when some long-ago major leaguer has died. It's my tragedy. I don't feel sorry for his wife or his children, or his grandchildren. They're mostly just abstractions in my mind. I feel sorry for me, because Johnny Podres and Tommy Byrne and Gerry Staley were all small-but-important pieces of my life.

Speaking of baseball, it occurs to me that anybody who thinks it's appropriate to make a player wait a few years for the Hall of Fame should be strung up (or drawn and quartered, or tarred and feathered; whatever's legal). A couple of years ago, Ledger was nominated for an Oscar Award that went to Philip Seymour Hoffman. Don't get me wrong; I've been a big fan of Hoffman's since Boogie Nights, and if there was a more impressive actor in 2007 -- he was great in three different movies -- I'd like to know who it was. That said, Hoffman's Oscar-winning role in Capote (as Capote) was, I suspect, not among his half-dozen best performances. But, you know: Excellent Actor + Good Script + Funny Glasses = Oscar.

Meanwhile, Ledger carried Brokeback Mountain. With him, it's a classic. Without him, it's a beautifully shot curiosity.

Now, this is just a guess, as the Academy doesn't release complete voting results. But I have to think Ledger didn't finish that far behind Hoffman. And I can't help but think some of the voters figured, "Ah, the kid's only 26. He'll have plenty of chances."

Except he didn't. So, Hall of Fame voters, if you're reading? Distribute your honors while ye may. Time is still flying.

My, how things have changed in the Wonderful World of Shortstops. Remember five years ago, when Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra and perhaps Miguel Tejada all looked like Hall of Fame shortstops? Today, only Jeter remains a shorstop and only he and Rodriguez remain future Hall of Famers.

Which should, if nothing else, suggest just how dicey the prognosticating business can be. So how do we sort out the best shortstops of the next five years? We do the best we can and hope for the best.

Last season, 27 shortstops played at least 100 games at the position, and 16 of them were in their 20s. With the exception of Omar Vizquel, all the rest were in their early 30s (which makes Vizquel's longevity all the more impressive).

Here are my eight favorites. Their age is 2008 "seasonal" (June 30) age, and the other columns you know already (unless you skipped last Thursday's post on second basemen).

Player	Age	OBP	SLG	OPS+	WARP
Hanley Ramirez	24	.386	.562	145	8.9
Jimmy Rollins	29	.344	.531	118	9.2
Troy Tulowitzki	23	.359	.479	108	8.5
J.J. Hardy	25	.323	.463	100	4.7
Jose Reyes	25	.354	.421	103	7.3
Jhonny Peralta	26	.341	.430	100	5.7
Khalil Greene	28	.291	.468	100	4.3
Stephen Drew	25	.284	.394	72	2.1

Where is Edgar Renteria? He was fantastic last year, but that was a big surprise and this year he'll be 32. Carlos Guillen? He'll be a first baseman this year. Jeter? He'll be 34, and one of these years he won't hit or the Yankees will move him to a position for which he's better suited. Tejada? He'll be 32 and could soon become a third baseman.

All of which left me with only eight candidates. Not that it's easy to sort them out. Ramirez blows everybody away with the bat ... but his poor defense drops him below Rollins in WARP. Will Ramirez still be a shortstop five years from now? Probably not, but then I said the same thing about Jeter five years ago. Will Drew become the hitter we all think he will? Will Reyes rediscover the power that made him one of the National League's best players in 2006?

Rather than try to answer all of those (ultimately unanswerable) questions, I'm going to plunge ahead and offer you the following list, my top 10 shortstops of 2008-2012:

1. Ramirez
2. Tulowitzki
3. Reyes
4. Rollins
5. Peralta
6. Hardy
7. Drew
8. Greene
9. Michael Young
10. ???

As usual, I've reserved the last spot for the next great shortstop. As usual, I invite your thoughts on that and all other questions.

• Over at River Ave. Blues, Ben K. points out that Robinson Cano has a bright future, and I'm certainly not going to argue (I can't, considering that just last week I anointed Cano the best second baseman of the next five years). But Ben concludes by arguing that the Yankees' arbitration figure should have been higher than $3.2 million, lest they annoy their young star. Which is silly. Cano and his agent know how this game is played, and everyone will be smiling within a few moments after everything is settled.

• Nice interview with John Sayles, who directed "Eight Men Out" and once wrote a novel about a barnstorming softball team. I've been a fan of Sayles' movies for a long time. When he was finished filming "Eight Men Out," I sent him a letter asking if there were any props left over (yes, I was hoping he'd reward my fawning letter with a gift). Sayles responded with a gracious note, explaining that all the uniforms and such had been sold to help finance production. He did enclose a baseball card featuring himself. (I'm still a fan, and if I could save only 25 American movies, "Lone Star" would be among them).

• ShysterBall notes that John McHale -- like every other significant figure associated primarily with the Montreal Expos -- might as well never have existed. At least according to the Washington Nationals.

• Yet another outstanding George Vecsey column about baseball's drug problem.

• You think you know minor league prospects? Minor league pitcher Randy Newsom offers the chance to invest in young players. I'm not going to link to his company's Web site because there's not much information available unless you register, but Newsom talks about it here.

• I'm tardy with this one, but everything Voros McCracken wrote about the Rays last week is, I suspect, still true this week.

• Via Out of Left Field, longtime BBWAA member Stephen Brunt explains why he declined his Hall of Fame ballot this last time around.

• Has Ron Gardenhire gone off the deep end? With the news that Michael Cuddyer might be the Twins' new center fielder, Twinkie Town thinks maybe he has.

• Basic stuff for many of you, I'm sure, but if you're late to the sabermetrics party, I recommend Brock for Broglio's 5 Pitching Statistics You Can't Afford to Ignore Anymore (with a hat tip to BallHype).

• The only thing that's missing from John Beamer's review of the Andy Marte-Edgar Renteria deal is the why; as in, why did so many analysts -- including me, I'm sure -- get it so wrong? According to all the smart guys, the Braves got the short end of the deal ... but of course, they wound up with the long end. And by quite a healthy margin. I enjoy reading after-action reports like this, but they're even more valuable when they teach us something other than that ballplayers are humans, too.

• Weird $%@&# of the Week: Tom Cruise on Scientology. (Disclaimer: I do realize that Cruise's zeal is not fundamentally weirder than that of billions of others around the world; it's just fun watching someone express his zeal with the tricks of an accomplished actor. At great length.)

Today we continue our series of ranking the best players at each position, with an eye on the next five years ...

Last season there was one great second baseman and a passel of good ones. Chase Utley was the great one, but aside from him there were 10 everyday second basemen with OPS's between .805 and .875, and worthy candidates Howie Kendrick and Ian Kinsler weren't far behind. How to sort through all of them? Well, fair or not, I'm going to summarily dismiss (for the moment) anybody who's 30 or older this season, which eliminates Jeff Kent (40), Placido Polanco (32), Brian Roberts (30) and Orlando Hudson (30). That still leaves nine candidates.

Player	Age	OBP	SLG	OPS+	WARP
Chase Utley	29	.410	.566	145	9.3
Robinson Cano	25	.353	.488	120	9.2
Kelly Johnson	26	.375	.457	117	6.7
Dustin Pedroia	24	.380	.442	112	5.3
Ian Kinsler	26	.355	.441	109	5.4
Howie Kendrick	24	.347	.450	108	2.0
Dan Uggla	28	.326	.479	108	7.9
Rickie Weeks	25	.374	.433	108	3.5
Brandon Phillips	27	.331	.485	105	7.6

That last column is a new one: WARP, Wins Above Replacement Player, arrives courtesy of Baseball Prospectus and incorporates defensive value (in the form of Fielding Runs Above Replacement, which I believe is a generally worthy metric). Kendrick and Weeks both drop quite a bit with the inclusion of FRAR, while Uggla and Phillips both move up quite a bit.

The biggest mover, though, is Cano, who's credited with 50 FRAR, a gigantic number for a second baseman. Even if you don't believe he was that good with the glove, he still has to rank as one of the two best second basemen in the majors, right? Considering the league in which he plays?

For me, the options are clear: If you're looking for a second baseman for the next five years, you must choose Utley's bat or Cano's youth, and all the rest is just fighting over table scraps.

I'll take Cano, because I don't think we've yet seen his best work and because he plays in the toughest division in the toughest league. So here's how I've got them, with (as usual) the last spot held open for the next great second baseman who hasn't established himself yet. Remember, we're talking about value over the next five seasons ...

1. Cano
2. Utley
3. Pedroia
4. Phillips
5. Johnson
6. Kinsler
7. Weeks
8. Kendrick
9. Hudson
10. ????

One could definitely make the case for Roberts instead of Kendrick or Hudson, and maybe even Weeks (because of the latter's poor defense). The real surprise here is Johnson. He got a late start, but his hitting seems to be legitimate and defensively he's better than most. I'm not at all sure he'll have a better career than Weeks or Kendrick, but I do think he'll have a better next five years.

Looking forward to your comments ...

Scott Miller writes that Brewers GM Doug Melvin thinks all the defensive changes will work wonders, especially after new center fielder Mike Cameron finishes serving his 25-game suspension. Even before then, though, Bill Hall will be at third base, with Ryan Braun shifting to the outfield. Which is a tacit acknowledgment that Braun simply wasn't going to improve fast enough. Miller:

As for the patience level in Milwaukee, as a rookie in 2005, Rickie Weeks committed 21 errors in 95 games. Then he raised that to 22 in 92 games in '06 before improving to 13 in 115 last year.

Now in position to win, however, the Brewers simply can't give Braun an endless window to improve at third base. Thus, the Cameron move, which should play a big role in making Milwaukee better in the field and on the bases.

"In the old days, Don Baylor or Bobby Grich used to get sent back to the minors to improve their defense," Melvin says. "Today's game is so offensive-minded, though, that you bring guys up for their bat and then I think it takes two or three years for their defense to catch up.

"You can guarantee at-bats in the minors, but you can't guarantee total chances and tough plays (to accelerate defensive improvement). You can take all the fungoes you want, but it's not the same as game conditions."

I don't doubt that. Game conditions bring certain pressures, along with the occasional odd play that simply can't be simulated in practice. But when it comes to fielding grounders and making throws, isn't it mostly about repetition? I mean, assuming the natural ability is there?

It's interesting that Melvin would reference Baylor and Grich, because for years those two were intimately linked in Baltimore's organization. In 1967, the Orioles used their first draft pick on Grich and their second on Baylor. They spent most of the next four-and-a-half years together as minor league teammates before establishing themselves as major leaguers in 1972.

But were they really "sent back to the minors" to improve their defense, specifically?

In 1970, his first season in Triple-A, Baylor batted .327, drove in 107 runs, and was Minor League Player of the Year. Grich opened the season with Baylor in Rochester, but was promoted to the big club after batting .383 in 63 games. And the next spring? Both players were sent back to Rochester, which didn't go over so well. As Baylor later wrote in his autobiography:

When Orioles general manager Harry Dalton broke the … news to Grichie he had to shout it through a locked hotel-room door because Bobby refused to let Harry in. Bobby was close to losing it. When it happened to me, I just tried to keep up a brave front, telling reporters, "If they tell me to go back to Rochester I'll do the best I can." But I felt like I was falling into the same quagmire in which I had seen other prospects fall …

It was just that, in a talent-rich system, the policy was strictly "no room, no need." So Orioles prospects were left down in the minors to become not just qualified, but overqualified.

Were they left in the minors to work on their defense? By 1971, Baylor was already regarded as a good outfielder limited to left field by his weak throwing arm. Grich was still playing shortstop, which might not have been his best position; eventually he'd become a Gold Glove second baseman. But the real problem, as Baylor suggests, is that there just wasn't anywhere for them to play regularly. In 1970 the Orioles had four good outfielders on the roster and the middle of the infield was manned by Mark Belanger and Davey Johnson, both of them excellent defensively. Oh, and the Orioles won the 1970 World Series. So in the spring of '71 nobody was calling for big changes in the lineup.

(Grich and Baylor finally got their shots in 1972. Grich was still stuck behind Belanger and Johnson, but got into 133 games as a super-utility infielder and took over as the everyday second baseman in '73. The Orioles traded Frank Robinson after the '71 season, which opened up right field for Merv Rettenmund (who almost immediately stopped hitting) and opened up a roster spot for Baylor.)

(Tip of the cap to BTF.)

So anyway, I'm still trying to figure out the Blogging Rules. Maybe it's like jazz: The only rule is that there aren't any rules. But today I'm wondering if it's appropriate to link to something that itself is primarily a link to something, like this ShysterBall post.

Yes, I could instead just link to the original post, but I want to respond to ShysterBall's take on why Congress seems to care so much about PEDs in baseball when nobody else does:

I suppose it's possible that it's only Henry Waxman who thinks this is important, but Diesel makes a good point in noting that almost all Congressional action is calculated, and someone in Washington has calculated that PEDs still has some legs.

Yes, most congressional action is calculated. But I think Shyster and Diesel both are thinking too hard about this. Waxman doesn't care about this stuff, and we know Chris Shays doesn't care. What do they care about? They care about getting their mugs on TV. Unlike U.S. Senators, Congressmen toil for the most part anonymously -- quick, name five Congressmen! -- and hearings involving MLB might be the only time in 2008 that Waxman is seen by anyone but his constituents and die-hard C-SPANers.

I'll say this, though: While I certainly agree with those who throw up their hands and wonder why Congress is wasting time on Bud Selig and Donald Fehr when there are so many other, far more serious problems our politicians might be addressing, Tuesday's hearing did make headlines. Apparently those serious problems are less interesting to us than what men in tights are injecting into their posteriors. Or as a French politician once explained, "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader."

• I've linked to a fair amount of studies utilizing MLB's PITCHf/x data, but Mike Fast offers a PITCHf/x primer that should serve as a great boon to anyone out there who'd like to do their own work with the data (and the primer's worth reading even if you, like me, are merely a consumer of the studies).

• Home Run Derby offers this super-cool series of ballpark demolition videos (YouTube bonus: 2:30 into a video about the Brooklyn Cyclones, footage of Ebbets Field under the wrecking ball).

• Still thinking about the Troy Glaus/Scott Rolen trade? Mop Up Duty is, and while their conclusion -- Cards win! Cards win! -- is not new, their graphical comparison of the two players is unlike anything I've seen. And I hope to see more.

• BP's Joe Sheehan offers his list of nine breakout candidates. In my chat yesterday, I said David Wright is going to be the best player of the next five years, but Sheehan reminds me that Wright might not even be the best third baseman of the next five years.

• I don't particularly like the Yankees, which I come by honestly (video here). I don't particularly like Yankee Stadium, which is a matter of taste. But I love baseball history and you can't write baseball's history without the Yankees and Yankee Stadium, and this photo does send a happy shiver up my spine (even as I think about what lousy public policy this is).

• Steven Goldman makes the Hall of Fame case for Goose Gossage and wonders why it took so long for him to be elected. I've been arguing for Gossage for years, but I also believe that one can make the case that the bar for relief pitchers should be set extraordinarily high, and (further) that no reliever has done enough to deserve election. That horse is long out of the barn, though, and once Rollie Fingers and Bruce Sutter established a bar, the Goose cleared it with ease.

• Weird $@%&# of the Week: As you watch this -- and I promise you, it'll be your most rewarding five minutes of the week -- please respectfully remember: this man has won an Emmy Award.

Update: First version of this post was missing the key link in the last item, but it's been added.

We didn't learn a whole lot Tuesday, except that most members of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee don't know anything about labor relations and Chris Shays (R-Conn.) doesn't know anything about baseball (or as King Kaufman puts it, "there were times Tuesday when the only possible conclusions were that the member who had the floor was either grandstanding or just plug stupid").

So we didn't learn anything, actually, because we learned those same things the last time these clowns hauled Major League Baseball into Washington.

But that's not precisely accurate. We did learn something. We learned that, according to MLB, baseball players suffer from attention deficit disorder a great deal more often than the general population.

Amid discussion of steroids and human growth hormone, amid an atmosphere more tame than tempestuous, it was Rep. John F. Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, who caught everyone's attention when he asked why the number of major leaguers claiming therapeutic-use exemptions for attention deficit disorder had mushroomed to 103 this past season from 28 in 2006.

To Mr. Tierney, the implication of the sharp increase was clear. Players were brazenly getting around the ban on amphetamines by making attention deficit disorder claims that allowed them to use stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall. Based on the 2007 numbers, Mr. Tierney said, the use of such stimulants among major leaguers was "almost eight times the adult use in our population."

In response, both Selig and Fehr offered their own versions of Ralph Kramden's homina-homina-homina-homina ... MLB's doctor approved the prescriptions, so what are they going to do?

That's actually a good question. What are they going to do? Fire their doctor? There were 103 exemptions last season. Did one doctor really administer this ADD test (or something like it) to every player who applied for the exemption? Or did he simply rubber-stamp prescriptions written by the players' own (cherry-picked) physicians? And even if a conscientious doctor administers the test, what's to prevent a player from simply giving whatever answers are likely to result in the desired diagnosis?

This problem doesn't have any easy solution. And that's assuming you think it's a problem at all.

ShysterBall notes that the Tigers are selling so many tickets, they might have to stop.

There are a couple of lessons to take from this: First, the notion that attendance is a function of winning and investment in the product on the field has once again been proven to be true. Second, given how rough Michigan's economy at the moment, the Tigers' good fortune is further evidence that, compared to most other things, baseball is extremely recession-resistant (other smart people have already noted this).

It's coincidental, of course, but yes, it's an odd juxtaposition: At the same time politicians are running around Michigan trying to reassure everyone about the nation's highest unemployment rate, business in Comerica Park is absolutely booming. I'm sure this says some interesting things, though I don't know if I'm smart enough to figure out any of them. Baseball attendance did drop precipitously during the Great Depression, but on the other hand, movie attendance boomed. This is from memory (so I'm sure it's not quite right), but I read somewhere that during the 1930s, an average American went to the movies two or three times every week. The ones with jobs, anyway.

Of course, when they weren't at the movies, they were huddled around a radio listening to "Amos 'n' Andy." That was a different time, and probably not all that instructive when it comes to how Americans spend their dispensable income. Better to stick to 2008, when it's clear that if you're competitive and you spend money, the fans will happily fork over their currency, even as it's becoming quickly devalued.

In the winter of 1999-2000, I spent a few weeks trying to come up with a "Team of the Aughts" -- you know, the best first baseman of the coming decade, the best second baseman, etc. I might as well get this out of the way: My choice for the best third baseman of the '00s was Fernando Tatis. I know. Seems crazy now. But look at what he did in 1999.

As near as I can tell, my ESPN.com output from that long-ago century is gone forever. So I don't have to do this. But I will. Here were my choices, from pitcher to right field, one through nine: Pedro Martinez, Jason Kendall, Nick Johnson, Edgardo Alfonzo, Nomar Garciaparra, Tatis, Ben Grieve, Andruw Jones, Vladimir Guerrero. Oh, and at closer, I chose Billy Wagner instead of Mariano Rivera (and instead of Rivera in second place, I had Ugueth Urbina).

This perhaps is the perfect time for a week of self-reflection (if not flagellation), wherein I try to understand just how I could have been so wrong about so many things. But life's short. Reading those old columns, I don't think I've improved much as a writer. I do think I'm a bit humbler than that guy. Maybe a little smarter, too. Either way, this time around, I'm going to make things easier and look five years ahead instead of 10. We'll start with the first basemen, just like last time, and should finish right around when pitchers and catchers report next month.

*******

Last season, two first basemen posted four-figure OPS numbers. Only five others topped .900, and I think it's almost safe to summarily eliminate everybody else from contention. There is one other first baseman who I'd like to include, if only for the sake of argument. But I'll give you a few minutes to guess his identity while we run through the list of last season's .900-plus OPS guys.

Player	Age	OBP	SLG	OPS+
Carlos Pena	30	.411	.627	172
Prince Fielder	24	.395	.618	156
Albert Pujols	28	.429	.568	157
Ryan Howard	28	.392	.584	144
Mark Teixeira	28	.400	.563	150
Todd Helton	34	.434	.494	133
Derrek Lee	32	400	.513	131

About the terminology: (1) Age is actually "seasonal age," the player's age on July 1, 2008; (2) OPS+, as you probably know, is a park- and league-adjusted metric that sets 100 as average (roughly speaking, Todd Helton's OPS was 33 percent better than the average National League hitter).

Here's something that absolutely blows me away every time it pops into my head: Albert Pujols is younger than Ryan Howard -- 58 days younger, to be fairly precise. Granted, there have been questions about Pujols' birthday for some time ... but nobody's yet come up with a different answer.

Something else that blows me away: Carlos Pena in 2007. At-bat for at-bat, he was every bit as good as David Ortiz (who actually should have been listed above, and we'll discuss him in a moment).

May we dismiss Todd Helton and Derrek Lee immediately? They're both fine players, but statistically, they don't match up with the others and they're both on the wrong side of 30. I just don't think there's a general manager alive who would take one of these guys ahead of (for example) Pujols. So let's call them non-contenders.

That leaves five. Running through each of them quickly ...

Teixeira: Two-time Gold Glover in five seasons, including two great ones and two good ones.

Howard: Older than Pujols (and Teixeira), doesn't run or field well. In Howard's favor, while he does play half his games in a good park for power hitters, his career stats are almost exactly as good in road games as home games.

Pujols: If there's a negative, it's awfully hard to find. He's an outstanding fielder and a fine base runner. While his hitting last season was not up to his usual standards, that was due mostly to a poor (for him) April; from May 1 through end of the season, he batted .342 with 61 extra-base hits.

Fielder: It's not hard to like a 23-year-old with a .618 slugging percentage. It's hard to love a 24-year-old who carries something like 275 pounds on his six-foot frame.

Pena: It was thrilling to watch him, overnight, become the best-hitting first baseman in the American League. In fact, look at that list ... Pena's the only American Leaguer. (Teixeira opened the season with the Rangers, but his numbers improved a great deal after he joined the Braves in early August.) If we account for the AL's superiority, Pena simply blows away all the other first basemen here. In 2007, that is. But as well as he played, we have to remember that he entered 2007 with a .789 OPS -- .331 on-base, .459 slugging -- in nearly 2,000 plate appearances.

We should consider David Ortiz, because a lot of teams would be thrilled to play him at first base. He's 32 and not getting any faster, but he does play in the better league, and his three best seasons were his last three.

We should also consider Adrian Gonzalez, who's now been quite good for two straight seasons, and his numbers would be significantly better if he didn't play half his games in the toughest hitters' park in the majors. I will argue that right now he's the equal of Helton and Lee, hitting-wise, and he's also a lot younger and has a good defensive rep.

My list, looking five seasons out:

1. Pujols
2. Fielder
3. Howard
4. Ortiz
5. Teixeira
6. Gonzalez
7. Pena
8. Lee
9. Helton
10. ????

I've reserved that last spot for the next Prince Fielder or Ryan Howard. Any ideas? If Ryan Braun had tried to play third base for almost any team but the Brewers last year, I'd give him the slot. But he's not moving to first anytime soon. So who's the next great first baseman?

Update: A reader found the "missing" columns with all my picks for the "aughts" (along with all my "reasoning" therein). They're here and here (and I'm a little perturbed to learn that so much ammunition is still so readily available, but at least I was right about Mike Hampton: He never has won 20 games since the Astros traded him, and in retrospect, it's hard to believe that was a controversial prediction).

Hall of Fame balloting does not exist in a vacuum.

Now that Rich Gossage is in, more people will wonder about Lee Smith.

Lee Smith did save 168 more games than Gossage. But a lot of guys saved more games than Gossage, who's just 17th on the all-time list. What sets Goose apart is not his 310 saves (roughly the same as Tom Henke and Jeff Montgomery), but rather his 1,809 innings, an immense number of innings for a relief pitcher. Innings, outs, have value. By way of comparison, Bruce Sutter -- who somehow was elected to the Hall before Gossage -- pitched barely 1,000 innings. And those were good innings that Gossage pitched, valuable innings. Even as he was padding his career stats in his late 30s and early 40s, Gossage still was effective.

Gossage was a truly great reliever for roughly 10 years, and a good one for another decade or so. If Sutter and Dennis Eckersley are in the Hall, Gossage belongs there, too. But he should be the last of his contemporaries. There's not room for Lee Smith or Jeff Reardon. Not John Franco, either. Reliever-wise, we just have to wait a few years for the best of the next generation.

Spoiler alert: If you don't want to know the results of the Hall of Fame balloting, stop reading immediately.

No, not really. I want you to keep reading. Really, there's still plenty of suspense even after consulting Keith Law's survey of 120 Hall of Fame voters. Here are the only four candidates drawing more than 50 percent (75 percent needed for election):

Player	Votes	Pct.
Goose Gossage	108	90 percent
Jim Rice	82	68 percent
Bert Blyleven	79	66 percent
Andre Dawson	79	66 percent

Keith concludes:

1. Goose Gossage will be elected to the Hall of Fame this year. He will be the only candidate elected.

2. If there are two players elected, the second one will be Jim Rice. However, it's more likely that he will be elected in 2009 as he gains sympathy votes for his final year on the ballot.

3. Of the other players on this ballot, [Bert] Blyleven, [Andre] Dawson, and [Tim] Raines will all eventually earn induction, but no one else will.

Addressing those in order:

1. Agreed. I do not believe he'll get 90 percent, or even close to that. I believe Keith's survey generally has picked up the ballots of (relatively) younger voters, and it's the (really) older voters who typically won't vote for a relief pitcher. But once they put in Bruce Sutter, who's demonstrably inferior to Gossage, the latter's election became assured.

2. This -- if anybody joins Gossage, it'll be Rice -- certainly doesn't follow from Keith's survey, as only three votes separate Rice from the other guys. But I do agree that Rice is No. 1 among those three, as last year he outpointed Dawson by 37 votes and Blyleven by 86.

2a. If Rice doesn't make it this year, will he receive enough sympathy votes next year? Well, of course, it depends on how many he needs. Superficially, at least, Rice is comparable to Ralph Kiner, a top power hitter for a number of seasons before flaming out early. In 1960, Kiner's first year of Hall of Fame eligibility, he got three votes.

That's right: three.

By 1974, Kiner's penultimate year of consideration (by the BBWAA), he was doing quite a bit better: 215 votes, which still left him 59 votes short of election. But Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford were on the ballot that year, and stole everyone's thunder. There were a great number of future Hall of Famers on that ballot -- including all-timers Eddie Mathews and Duke Snider, who both managed to draw support from only 30 percent of the voters -- and Mantle and Ford were the only two elected.

In 1975, whether due to sympathy or something else, Kiner picked up 58 votes, which put him just over the 75 percent threshold. If Rice doesn't make it this year, will he pick up 58 votes next year? I don't think so, as between now and then we'll only see more analysis like this. I do think he'll be elected, though. If not next year, then another year.

3. I'm not at all sure about Dawson and Raines. Dawson's not a great candidate, and Law's survey has Raines pulling only 35 percent support. I think he'll actually do worse than that this year because Keith's missing the older voters (who certainly won't vote for the guy with the great on-base percentage). Due to pages like this, Raines will only do better as the years progress, but I have absolutely no confidence that he'll move from 35 to 75 percent in 15 years.

Craig Calcaterra -- aka ShysterBall -- is not only an excellent baseball writer, he's also a lawyer. So his analysis carries a little more weight when TNP (The National Pastime) strays into the courtroom. Calcaterra says Roger Clemens is steaming toward some sort of victory …

The end game of this three week chess match is near, and Roger Clemens is poised to win handily. He has denied [Brian] McNamee's charges, McNamee has now blinked when challenged, and unless [Andy] Pettitte or someone provides first-hand, eyewitness testimony calling Clemens a liar -- fat chance -- Congress will have no basis for questioning whatever story Clemens decides to tell them, true, false, or otherwise. The cement that constitutes the record of this whole affair is beginning to set, and given what will appear to be effectively unsubstantiated charges forcefully rebutted in numerous contexts, it is setting in favor of Clemens.

That was written before the news that Clemens is suing McNamee, and the gloves are off as the complaint includes a scandalous item I hadn't seen reported before. As Shyster writes, "Get your popcorn kids, this one is going to be a humdinger."

You know what's disappointing to me?

It's not that Roger Clemens might have cheated. If he did cheat, he was just one of hundreds, and he's still a Hall of Famer in my book. It's not that if he did cheat, now he's lying about it. Most of us will dissemble about our misdeeds if we think there's a decent chance we won't get caught.

What's disappointing to me is that Clemens, with all his money and having been a family man for many years, still behaves like someone who never has grown up. A few snippets from the "60 Minutes" interview:

"I'm angry that what I've done for the game of baseball and the personal, in my private life, what I've done, that I don't get the benefit of the doubt," Clemens says. "The stuff that's being said, it's ridiculous."

"It's hogwash for people to even assume this," Clemens says.

"Twenty-four, 25 years, Mike. You'd think I'd get an inch of respect. An inch," he adds. "How can you prove your innocence?"

…

[Wallace voice-over:] Clemens may appear as requested at a congressional hearing in 10 days. His challenge is getting people to believe him.

"I don't know if I can defend myself, I think people, a lot of people, have already made their decisions," Clemens says.

"Well, a lot of people have made …," Wallace says.

"And that's our country, isn't it? Guilty before innocent. That's the way our country works now. And then everybody's talking about sue, sue, sue. Should I sue? Well, let me exhaust. Let me just spend. How about, let's keep spending," Clemens says. "But I'm gonna explore what I can do and then I want to see if it's gonna be worth it, worth all the headache."

It's not fair to expect our sports heroes to be articulate and emotionally mature. After all, nobody ever told Clemens to grow up. Why should he? Becoming articulate does take time, and it's not as if Clemens wasn't working hard at his craft all those years. It strikes me, though, that if the Rocket really does want to defend himself, change the minds of a lot of people, it sure would help if he'd learned at some point to come across as something other than a spoiled, petulant millionaire who thinks he did something for baseball. Rather than the other way around.

P.S. If those snippets seem like sparse evidence, here's plenty more.

Just a few links while waiting for Billy Beane to trade Joe Blanton …

• In the New York Sun, Tim Marchman argues that Alan Trammell was better than Jim Rice (and reminds me that Trammell -- he did have some help from Doyle Alexander -- essentially carried the Tigers to a division title in 1987).

• I'm not saying Roger Clemens is lying. But if he were lying, isn't this exactly how you'd expect him to do it?

• Joe Posnanski's Pozcar results are in, and I have to admit: I'm pleased. I'm also jealous, as Joe seems to have a great number of right-thinking friends. (And yes, I mean that as a joke. Sort of.)

• ShysterBall points out questions the Mitchell report didn't answer; on a related note, Shysterball -- when he's not wearing the cape and the tights, he's a lawyer -- looks at Rger Clemens' current imbroglio from the legal perspective.

• People will argue about why the InterWeb exists. Some say it's for sex. Some say sports. Some say it's about trading and selling Pez dispensers. I say it's Josh Wilker and all the wonderful things he does.

• But the InterWeb's not perfect. One big problem: By the time you think of doing something, somebody else has probably done it already. Case in point: For next week I was planning a sidebar listing the best players, one for each position, who have failed to gain election to the Hall of Fame. But of course somebody just beat me to it. I do have to disagree with three of Patrick Sullivan's choices, though. I have Keith Hernandez ahead of Will Clark (who had a lot of problems staying in the lineup), Ron Santo ahead of Dick Allen (ditto, plus he really didn't play many games at third base) and Dale Murphy ahead of Andre Dawson (who, among other things, played more games in right field than center).

Upon the A's trading Nick Swisher to the White Sox on Thursday for three prospects, Athletics Nation asked John Sickels about the young players the A's got. Here's Sickels on the better two, Gio Gonzalez and Fautino De Los Santos:

Gonzalez is a left-handed power pitcher with two Double-A seasons under his belt at age 22. He projects as a number two starter at the major league level, and showed much improved command this year. He could use some Triple-A time, but should be ready for a spot by 2009. De Los Santos is further away, but he's got a terrific arm and had a breakout season in the Sally League. He'd be more of a 2010 guy depending on how fast they want to rush him, but his upside is terrific.

Three weeks ago, A's GM Billy Beane picked up a bunch of prospects when he traded Dan Haren to the Diamondbacks. So what have these deals done for the organization? These were Sickels' top dozen Athletic prospects before the Haren deal:

1. Daric Barton, 1B, Grade B+
2. James Simmons, RHP, Grade B
3. Henry Alberto Rodriguez, RHP, Grade B
4. Trevor Cahill, RHP, Grade B-
5. Corey Brown, OF, Grade B-
6. Andrew Bailey, RHP, Grade B-
7. Sean Doolittle, 1B, Grade B-
8. Javier Herrera, OF, Grade C+
9. Dan Meyer, LHP, Grade C+
10. Greg Smith, LHP, Grade C+
11. Sam Demel, RHP, Grade C+
12. Andrew Carignan, RHP, Grade C+

Frankly, that's a pretty lousy list. There are plenty of teams that don't have any Grade A (or A-) prospects, but not many have just one prospect above Grade B.

And now? Here's the Top 10, with recent additions in bold:

1. Carlos Gonzalez, OF, Grade B+
2. Gio Gonzalez, LHP, Grade B+
3. Fautino De Los Santos, RHP, B+
4. Daric Barton, 1B, Grade B+
5. Brett Anderson, LHP, Grade B+
6. Chris Carter, 1B, Grade B+
7. James Simmons, RHP, Grade B
8. Henry Alberto Rodriguez, RHP, Grade B
9. Trevor Cahill, RHP, Grade B-
10. Aaron Cunningham, OF, Grade B-
11. Corey Brown, OF, Grade B-
12. Ryan Sweeney, OF, Grade C+

This must rank as one of the more dramatically quick transformations of a farm system in major league history. The A's have immediately gone from having one of the weaker systems in the majors to one of the best, with only the absence of a Grade A prospect preventing it from ranking among the very best.

Analytically, Beane had no choice. Last season the A's won 76 games. If they brought back the same team next season, they'd have been lucky to win 86 games, which almost surely wouldn't qualify them for the postseason. Essentially, 85 isn't much better than 75, and if you're going to win 75, you might as well win 65. Assuming, of course, that winning 65 puts you on the road to 95.

Five years ago, the A's were MLB's model franchise. They won a lot of games with just a little money.

The A's are no longer a model franchise. Now, that's the Indians. In 2003 the Indians won 68 games. In 2005 they won 93, and in 2007 they won 96. Their two best hitters? Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner, both of whom were picked up in trades.

I don't know if the A's will win 95 games anytime soon. But this is the way to try.

Next week I'm going to present for your consideration a list of 10 deserving Hall of Famers, including a few ex-players, but mostly non-players (because that's where the process has truly failed for the last decade or two).

In the meantime, Nick Kapur presents a list of 33 men (and one woman) who are in the Hall of Fame … but shouldn't be. I can't run through the entire list in this space, but Kapur's right: Every name on the list is questionable, and most of them clearly were mistakes.

A few quibbles, though.

1. Here's the note about Phil Rizzuto:

26. Phil Rizzuto, SS - His top comp is Jose Offerman. The only other Hall of Famer in his top ten comps is the even more undeserving Johnny Evers. Even Phil Rizzuto didn't think he should have been in the Hall of Fame. But he had the unbeatable combo of being a Yankee and also being a lovable Yankee. Eventually, the Veteran's Committee just couldn't resist.

That's fair, mostly. I think it's true that if Rizzuto hadn't been a Yankee, and more to the point a longtime Yankee broadcaster, he wouldn't have finally been elected. That said, I think it's irresponsible to discuss Rizzuto's Hall of Fame credentials without mentioning World War II. Without checking, I'm pretty sure Jose Offerman didn't lose three full seasons of his career to a global conflict.

Absent the war, Rizzuto would have finished his career with roughly 2,000 hits (and probably a few more). Defensively, he was truly outstanding and would have won a bunch of Gold Gloves if they'd existed when he played. He did win the MVP Award in 1950 and might well have deserved it. I'm not saying Rizzuto's an obvious Hall of Famer even with the 2,000 hits. What I'm saying is that if not for the war, Rizzuto's right up there in career value with Hall of Famers Lou Boudreau and Luis Aparicio. And nobody's complaining about them.

2. Kapur lists Orlando Cepeda as an outfielder and writes, "His career stats have become a popular low-end benchmark for people to compare with when trying to make the case for putting other marginal outfielders in to the Hall." Cepeda spent the vast majority of his career as a first baseman. I agree with the general sentiment, though. Cepeda was a fantastic player, but no more fantastic than Keith Hernandez or Norm Cash.

3. Kapur lists 11 pitchers, and he's right: Most of them were poor choices. Ted Lyons, though? Lyons finished with 260 wins over 21 seasons with the White Sox. How many pennants did the White Sox win in those 21 seasons? Zero. How many winning seasons among those 21 seasons? Seven. How many second-place finishes? Zero. How many third-place finishes? Two.

If Lyons had pitched for a decent team instead of the White Sox he'd have won around 300 games. Oh, and then there was the war. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Lyons was three weeks shy of his 41st birthday. But he came back and pitched in '42, and -- this is one of my all-time favorite stats -- he started 20 games, completed 20 games, and went 14-6 with a 2.10 ERA that was No. 1 in the American League. By then Lyons was throwing mostly knuckleballs, and he looked like he might pitch forever.

Except he enlisted, and spent the next three seasons a United States Marine. He came back in the spring of '46 and started five games, posting a fine 2.32 ERA, but quit in late May when ownership asked him to take over as manager

You're going to kick that guy out of Cooperstown?

Anyway, if you get a chance to look at the entire list, we'll discuss below …

Monday in this space, I wrote: "I suspect if you solicited ballots from five nonvoters (say: Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, Keith Law, Rich Lederer and David Pinto), you would find a great deal of uniformity. I suspect that we all would vote for [Tim] Raines, [Bert] Blyleven, [Alan] Trammell and [Goose] Gossage."

Well, no. At the very least I should have checked to see if Joe Sheehan had already written about his (theoretical) ballot. He had, last week (members only). And indeed, Joe would vote for Raines, Blyleven and Gossage (and Mark McGwire, as I suspected). But not Trammell ...

Once again, Trammell's candidacy is the most difficult one to evaluate. He was one of the best players in baseball at his peak, and was part of the bridge from shortstops as singles hitters to the better players we see out there today. On the other hand, he had a fairly short peak and a short career. I'm wary of the defensive numbers on him, as his home park was notorious for its high infield grass. With so much of Trammell's statistical case built on very good defensive stats at his peak, the twinge of doubt I feel about their validity makes me nervous. My bigger objection, though, is to the way his career ended. Trammell was done as a full-time player at 32, which is awfully early for a 20th-century position player being pushed for Cooperstown. Like [Jim] Rice, Trammell would have been a Hall of Famer with a more typical decline phase. Instead, he had 10.2 WARP, total, after 32. I'm leaving him off, again.

A few things about this.

One, while it's true that a typical decline phase would make Trammell's career stats look a lot better, I don't think Trammell's (apparently) atypical decline is a reason to leave him out of the Hall of Fame. Joe mentions 20th-century position players, but I think the more relevant point of comparison is 20th-century shortstops. And they typically suffered early declines. Most of the best ones, anyway. Arky Vaughan, Lou Boudreau, Phil Rizzuto, Pee Wee Reese, Ernie Banks, Robin Yount ... All these Hall of Fame shortstops were either finished as productive everyday players in their early 30s or moved to an easier position.

I'm afraid I don't have an easy way to check, but I believe Trammell, even with that atypical decline phase, ranks fourth in hits among 20th century shortstops -- considering only hits gained while actually playing shortstop -- behind Hall of Famers Luis Aparicio, Luke Appling and Ozzie Smith (and for what it's worth, Trammell hit more home runs than those three guys combined).

I am not saying that Trammell's 2,365 career hits constitute, by themselves, a great case for the Hall of Fame. I'm saying we shouldn't hold Trammell's decline phase against him, because his career accomplishments are right in line with plenty of Hall of Fame shortstops.

Two, while I'm intrigued by the notion that Trammell's solid defensive credentials -- he won four Gold Gloves, and Bill James has him as a Grade B-minus shortstop over his entire career -- are partly the result of the high grass in the Tiger Stadium infield, I'd sure like to see somebody do some actual work on this one. Yes, sinkerballer Walt Terrell's home/road splits were massive when he pitched for the Tigers, particularly from 1985 through '87. But did other sinkerball pitchers fare particularly well in Tiger Stadium during Trammell's career? Were Trammell's fielding stats significantly better at home than on the road? If the grass was long and did lead to more plays for Trammell, did it cost him anything as a hitter?

Five years ago, Joe Sheehan did a great deal of work and concluded that Jack Morris did not "pitch to the score" -- that's the excuse often given for his relatively poor career ERA.

Maybe Sheehan and roughly 85 percent of the Hall of Fame voters have been right about Trammell, which means I've been wrong. Someday, though, Trammell's going to get another hearing before a different set of judges. I hope by then we know more about that Tiger Stadium infield grass.

• Colby Cosh explains, better than I did a couple of weeks ago, why comparisons of the Mitchell report to McCarthyism are facile at best, and Cosh aptly summarizes the double standard regarding steroids, baseball, and football.

Cosh does stumble, as so many do, when he writes, "Few of those named in the report ever broke any specific rule of baseball ..." That is absolutely false. As the Mitchell report concisely notes: "Beginning in 1971 and continuing today, Major League Baseball's drug policy has prohibited the use of any prescription medication without a valid prescription. By implication, this prohibition applied to steroids even before 1991, when Commissioner Fay Vincent first expressly included steroids in baseball's drug policy. Steroids have been listed as a prohibited substance under the Major League Baseball drug policy since then."

Got that, everybody? 1991.

• So much great stuff from the Amazing Joe Posnanski over the holidays that I can't even begin to enumerate the wisdom, but I have to heartily suggest you read this one about what's a Hall of Famer and this one about the best pitcher in the 1980s.

• Speaking of which, Vegas Watch offers the worst Hall of Fame arguments of 2008.

• Speaking of which, yesterday another ballot was published. It's Dave Buscema's first ballot ever, and he spent a week agonizing over all those serious candidates. At the end of the week? He voted for two: Jim Rice and Goose Gossage. "Amazingly, they are the players my instinct initially told me to select." Of course, as any psychologist will tell you, this really wasn't so amazing at all. Once we humans believe something, we tend to interpret all subsequent information as confirmation of our original belief. Which is the best explanation for Buscema, even after all that research, leaving Blyleven and Raines off his ballot.

• It doesn't happen nearly often enough, but as ShysterBall notes, sometimes bad things do happen to ridiculous people.

• Rick Morrissey says if the Cubs sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field, everybody will keep calling it Wrigley Field, and anyway it doesn't matter as long as the Cubs are still playing games at the corner of Clark and Addison. Well, I guess. But a new corporate name will be quickly used just about everywhere except in the scribblings of crotchety old columnists (for example, me), and I believe we lose just a little something every time something hallowed is sold to the highest bidder. No, it's not the end of the world. It's just another small sign that we're heading in that direction.

Reading about Hall of Fame voter Gerry Fraley's 2008 ballot, I'm reminded again of just how subjective the process can be.

Fraley's voting for seven candidates. Among the seven are four who have been unfairly ignored by too many voters for too long: Bert Blyleven, Goose Gossage, Alan Trammell and Dale Murphy. I have written many times about the compelling credentials of Blyleven, Gossage and Trammell. While I haven't done the same with Murphy, he probably ranks as one of the top 15 center fielders in major league history, and thus it's hard to argue against him.

Fraley's other three? Andre Dawson, Jack Morris and Dave Parker, all of whom I have written negatively about (regarding the Hall of Fame, that is). How does one vote for Blyleven and Morris? For Murphy and Parker?

Well, obviously Fraley has a different idea of the Hall of Fame than I have. He's a "big tent" guy, and I'm not. I believe that if a player is among the best dozen or so at his position, he belongs in the Hall of Fame; or, alternatively, that if he's better than half the players at his position already in the Hall, he belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Actually, I don't think that makes me a "little tent" guy. It makes me a "standards" guy; if my standards dictate the addition of another 20 Hall of Famers at once, then so be it. The difference between me and Fraley is that he simply doesn't seem to have any particular standards. Or at least none that he could articulate, other than "he feels like a Hall of Famer," which is really no standard at all.

I have been labeled a "sabermetrician" in some quarters, which is (A.) intended as an insult, though most sabermetricians I know love the game and spend a great deal of time trying to learn more about it, and (B.) not particularly accurate, as I merely dabble in sabermetrics and not all that successfully.

Anyway, one thing sabermetricians do is begin with a question. For example: "What is a Hall of Fame player?" Or: "What should a Hall of Fame player be?" After answering one or both of those questions, one may then apply the standard to particular candidates.

That seems to me a reasonable approach. Many Hall of Fame voters take a different approach. Instead of beginning with a question, they begin with an answer ("Tim Raines doesn't feel like a Hall of Famer") and then cast about for evidence that supports that answer. Here's Fraley on Raines: "Raines' case was hurt by his reluctance to run in all situations, as Rickey Henderson did. Raines seemed at times too concerned about preserving his stolen-base percentage."

No, Raines wasn't Rickey Henderson. That's setting the bar pretty high, as Henderson was merely the greatest leadoff man ever. Raines did a great deal to help his teams win, though. His .385 career on-base percentage helped his teams a great deal. His 808 stolen bases helped his teams a great deal. And his 85 percent success rate on steal attempts -- I'm sure that's the highest ever for a player with an appreciable number of attempts -- also helped his teams a great deal.

Keith Law's been tabulating Hall of Fame ballots. Gossage looks like a sure thing, with Blyleven, Dawson and Rice the only other viable candidates this time around. But one thing I've noticed, looking at the ballots as they've come in, is how different they are. I think you'd have a tough time tracking down two ballots that are exactly the same. Now, of course, we wouldn't expect uniformity, nor would we welcome it.

That said, I suspect if you solicited ballots from five nonvoters (say: Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, Keith Law, Rich Lederer and David Pinto), you would find a great deal of uniformity. I suspect that we all would vote for Raines, Blyleven, Trammell and Gossage.

There's a saying: "When everyone thinks alike, nobody is thinking."

But I will argue that there should be more uniformity in Hall of Fame voting, that there should be some reasonable standards around which a general consensus might be formed, and on the margins of which there is still room for argument. My five nonvoters? I promise we'll find plenty to argue about, as some of us would also make compelling cases for Mark McGwire and Dale Murphy (and even for a few players who have fallen off the ballot due to lack of support). I'm not suggesting we should all think the same. I'm suggesting we should all think.

I just don't understand how a Hall of Fame voter can even begin to approach such a responsibility without objective standards in hand.

(Tip of cap to BTF.)

Dan Shaughnessy's revealed his Hall of Fame ballot. He's voting for Rich Gossage and Bert Blyleven, which is mighty enlightened of him. I wish Alan Trammell and Tim Raines were on the list, too. But Shaughnessy apparently hails from the less-is-more school, and I wish there were more voters like him.

He's also voting for Jim Rice and believes (as I do) that Rice will finally be elected this time.

Two years ago, Rice received more votes than any player who didn't earn enshrinement, but last year his chances diminished because of the introduction of new candidates Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn. The best new names on this year's ballot are Tim Raines and David Justice. Rice beats both. ...

Writers looking at the new ballot want to vote for somebody and it's clear that Gossage and Rice -- so close in recent years -- have better resumes than any of the new names.

The presence of second-year candidate Mark McGwire helps Rice, too. With 583 career homers, Big Mac would have been a slam dunk for Cooperstown if not for the steroid scandal. His name came up for the first time last year and voters categorically rejected him. With memories of his de facto congressional confession still fresh, only 23.5 percent of the electorate went for McGwire.

It can only help Rice. He was a dominant power hitter before steroids polluted the game and skewed the numbers. Rice hit 46 homers in a season back when it meant something -- before 50 became the province of guys like Brady Anderson and Luis Gonzalez. People who played and watched major league baseball from 1975-86 know that Rice was the most feared hitter of his day. Managers thought about intentionally walking him when he came to the plate with the bases loaded. He played hard and he played hurt. His managers loved him. Opponents feared him.

Let me return to something I wrote about a few weeks ago: the Morris Test. Named after Jack Morris, the test simply asks: If we take a player's two prime Hall of Fame credentials and downgrade them just a little, does he still have a solid case?

Actually, I don't believe the Morris Test even applies to Rice, because I don't believe he has two prime Hall of Fame credentials. Nobody cites his 382 career homers, because 382 is paltry for a player whose best-known attribute was power. He wasn't a "dominant power hitter" (as Shaughnessy says); he did lead the American League in home runs three times, but finished in the top five in his league only twice more. Mike Schmidt led the National League in home runs eight times. That's dominant. Yes, Rice hit 46 homers in a season. This was not an exceptional figure in his time. The year before Rice hit 46, George Foster hit 52. The year after Rice hit 46, Dave Kingman hit 48. Rice never hit as many as 40 home runs in another season.

Nobody cites his other career stats, because by the standards of Hall of Fame outfielders they're nothing special.

Turns out Rice has one credential: As Shaughnessy and so many others have said over the years, he was "the most feared hitter of his day" ... but was he, really? I'm still waiting for someone, anybody.

Shaughnessy cites intentional walks: "Managers thought about intentionally walking him when he came to the plate with the bases loaded." Well, that's an interesting bit of untestable trivia, but for the moment let's ignore all those imaginary intentional walks and talk about the real ones. Because yes, a great number of intentional walks would suggest that a player really was feared.

Rice's 12 best seasons -- 1975-1986 -- are usually mentioned because the rest of his career was not good. Did Rice draw more intentional walks than anyone else over those 12 seasons? From 1975 through 1986 -- remember, that range of seasons has been chosen specifically to make Rice look his best -- 32 major leaguers drew more intentional walks than Jim Rice.

Yes, he batted right-handed, and right-handed batters generally are intentionally walked less often than left-handed batters. So let's be fair. Let's ignore all those left-handed batters. Did Rice draw more intentional walks than every other right-handed batter over those 12 fearsome seasons?

Twelve right-handed batters were, by this standard, more feared, including (but far from limited to) George Foster, Ron Cey, Greg Luzinski, Jack Clark and Dale Murphy.

I've run through other stats before. Even if we limit ourselves to Rice's 12 good years, we still find that he doesn't look good next to non-Hall of Famers Keith Hernandez and Fred Lynn and is dead even with Ken Singleton. If we include the massive edge he gained from Fenway Park and his lack of defensive value, he falls farther down the list. Rice not only fails the Morris Test, he fails it spectacularly. His Hall of Fame case rests solely on an argument that wouldn't be particularly compelling even if it were true. Which it's not.

You know what? I get it. I understand that Shaughnessy and nearly every other writer in Boston have to support the local guys. With Rice clearly lacking objective Hall of Fame credentials, they're forced to fall back on the ill-founded, untestable notion that he was the "most feared" hitter for more than a year or two.

What I don't understand is why so many voters in so many other cities believe it.

In the wake of the recent news about the BBWAA opening the doors (if just a smidgeon) to non-newspaper writers, Rich Lederer asks BBWAA stalwart Tracy Ringolsby some tough questions and Ringolsby answers them in good order. Really, things don't get hinky until nearly the end of the long interview ... when Lederer asks about the names on Ringolsby's Hall of Fame ballot.

Tracy: Alphabetically, Bert Blyleven, Dave Concepcion, Rich Gossage, Jack Morris, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell. The biggest debates for me were Tim Raines, who obviously was overshadowed by Rickey Henderson, but also if you take Vince Coleman's five top years, I would say he outperformed Raines, too, and I don't see Coleman as a Hall of Famer.

[snip]

Rich: You sent me an email last year, saying that you had come around on Blyleven. I commend you for being open minded on the subject and changing your vote. My next project is to have you see the light on Raines. I would be remiss if I let the comparison to Coleman go by without comment. Yes, they both played left field, led off, and stole a lot of bases. But, other than that, the difference between Raines and Coleman is like night and day. Raines hit .294/.385/.425; Coleman, .264/.324/.345. That's 141 points of OPS. Over the course of their careers, Raines got on base twice as often and had twice as many total bases as Coleman.

I know you referenced their top five years, but the truth is that Raines (.334/.413/.476 with an OPS+ of 151) was a much better player than Coleman (.292/.340/.400 with an OPS+ of 104) at their respective peaks, too. I don't think the five-year numbers are much different. We agree on Coleman. He's not a Hall of Famer. But we disagree on Raines. I believe he is very worthy. I hope you keep an open mind on Raines and give him a closer look next year.

First, let's strip their careers down to the simplest hitting statistics: runs and runs batted in. Raines scored 60 percent more runs than Coleman. Raines drove in 183 percent more runs than Coleman.

Five top years? "Top" is somewhat subjective, though choosing Coleman's five top years is actually easy; his first five years (1985-89) were the only years in which he played more than 125 games. Choosing Raines' top five is almost as easy; his also came consecutively: 1983-87. In those five years, Raines batted .318/.406/.467 and scored 568 runs. In Coleman's top five, he batted .261/.323/.329 and scored 493 runs. Actually, Coleman's not all that far behind in runs. RBIs, though? Coleman drove in 178 runs. Raines drove in 302.

Maybe Ringolsby got Coleman mixed up with another, better player. I don't know. But baseball's Hall of Fame is the highest honor in professional sports. It's perfectly appropriate to argue about what a Hall of Fame player is. Some voters believe that Blyleven is not a Hall of Fame player, but Jack Morris is. I vehemently disagree. That's essentially a philosophical argument, though, about what a Hall of Famer is supposed to be, and philosophical arguments are healthy.

But suggesting that Coleman was a better player than Raines is not a philosophical argument at all; it's simply counterfactual. We should, at the very least, ask the Hall of Fame's gatekeepers to get their facts straight.

As the Baseball Economist notes, statisticians have turned their attention to the Mitchell report. I'm not particularly impressed with the work that's been done, and I think it's too limited, anyway. Why not look at all of the players, whether they've been outed or not?

Nearly two years ago, upon the publication of "Game of Shadows," Malcolm Gladwell suggested pre-emptive strikes: "I think we should loose the forensic economists on all record-setters, and require that athletes pass a statistical plausibility test in the wake of their achievements."

"Will raising the bar this way mean we occasionally deny a genuine record? It's certainly possible. … I think if we're smart about it, we can learn to distinguish the fluke performances from the phony performances.

"One obvious objection to this idea is that we have a tradition of presuming people innocent until proven guilty, and prima facia statistical tests violate that. But the presumption of innocence is a legal principle. We're dealing with sports records here, and it seems reasonable, particularly in this day and age of advanced athletic chemistry, to ask a bit more of record holders."

This is where I have to part ways with Gladwell (or at least the 2006 version of Gladwell). Perhaps because I don't find records all that interesting or important, I don't have much interest in asking "a bit more of record holders." Even leaving aside the fairness issues, and anyway we can't be that smart about it.

That said, I do believe it's worthwhile to analyze performance with an eye toward drug use. Such analysis would be useful to general managers, to Hall of Fame voters, and (yes) to rotisserie players, too. Also, it's been suggested that MLB should establish its own investigative arm to track down users, and its detectives will need somewhere to start, right?

Fair? Maybe, maybe not. But if anybody's serious about getting drugs out of the headlines -- and superstars' names out of indictments and affidavits -- perhaps fairness must become a secondary consideration.

If you don't have time for all 12 of Joe Posnanski's Twelve Random Thoughts of Christmas, I still must insist that you read Joe's thoughts about Sweet Lou Whitaker (vs. Ryno Ryne Sandberg) and the Can't Miss Snowball Trick^TM. And here's Posnanski on Buck O'Neil about the steroids:

It's funny, there have been several million words written in the past couple of weeks about steroids in baseball (and also HGH which is very different -- but let's use "steroids" here to describe the entire set of drugs). People are so hot-headed about the topic, you can't really talk to anybody. More and more, though, I think back to what Buck O'Neil used to say. He would shock people all the time. They expected him to be outraged about steroids and cheating, and he really was not. He used to say, "The only reason we didn't use steroids in my time is that we didn't have them." He said baseball players -- premier athletes in general -- look for that edge. It just in the nature of competitive athletes.

Then he said something else: He wondered why people didn't talk more about the health risks. If steroids really are dangerous enough to be illegal without prescriptions -- more dangerous than, say, cigarettes or alcohol or other over the counter legal drugs -- then he wished people would talk about THAT rather than talking about how many more home runs you could hit using steroids. He despised the phrase "performance enhancing drugs." He would have preferred something like "life-threatening drugs."

Of course, it seems that the long-term health risks for steroids, HGH and other PED's are not especially clear cut -- people argue about the dangers all the time. So maybe that's why I cannot remember the last steroids story I read that actually detailed the health risks. In any case, with all the hysteria surrounding steroids and baseball now, I really wish some more people could just express some of the common sense that Buck always expressed. Let's try to remember what this is all about anyway.

Right on. The common criticism is that steroid use is "cheating," which is true but, for a variety of reasons, doesn't necessarily resonate with everyone. But while it's true that the health risks are "not especially clear-cut," that's not an argument for ignoring the risks. So yes, the health risks should be stressed, even without specifics. There's another risk that should be stressed: the risk associated with getting mixed up with drug dealers, some of whom will eventually get busted and embarrass a lot of people.

At this point, between the testing and the suspensions and the nebulous health risks and the investigations and the indictments and the affidavits, I have to think that using illegal drugs without the utmost care is a losing proposition for most professional baseball players. I'm just not sure anybody's made that case strongly enough.

• The big story this weekend was Roger Clemens defending himself, with no middle man this time. Like Curt Schilling, I hope Clemens is sincere, and maybe someday we'll know for sure.

• If you want to know everything about the Josh Hamilton-Edinson Volquez trade, your best bet is the Newberg Report. This doesn't qualify as a "challenge trade" because they don't play the same position, but both Hamilton and Volquez are young and have tremendous upsides, which means either team could look really bad in a few years. Of course, both players also have tremendous question marks. Volquez is a pitcher, which is scary enough, but he's also hit some bumps along the way to the majors. And while everybody mentions Hamilton's drug problems -- he's supposedly been sober for two years now -- his extensive history of injuries is also a red flag. My guess is that neither one becomes a big star, but Hamilton would seem to have the better chance.

• Ex-Twin and Yankee Dan Naulty writes about his terrible times with steroids, amphetamines and HGH, and I don't doubt his sincerity. That said, I have to think that plenty of players have used or abused the same drugs and are perfectly glad they did.

• John Walsh has been doing brilliant work with pitch-f/x data, and his latest is a basic -- but utterly essential -- look at the four basic pitches: fastball, slider, changeup, curveball.

• I'll admit that it's been a while since I've looked at a George Vecsey column; seems that he's always writing about sculling or fly fishing or football or some other insignificant pursuit. But his take Sunday on steroids is one of the best things I've read on the subject.

• Officially, Festivus (video here) was Sunday, so I hope you'll excuse my tardiness in posting a Yankees version of the holiday, courtesy of Scott Proctor's Arm.

Yesterday I received the following from one of my favorite writers:

Jeff Bagwell was NOT on the Mitchell list.

Yet you talk about him in your recent chat as if he were. He was on the WNBC "fake" list that circulated prior to the report, but not mentioned in the actual report, and his name has never surfaced in any investigation connecting him with PEDs. You may have your suspicions, but he doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Mark McGwire or any of the legions of users who have been publicly identified via one avenue or another.

Please, Rob. There's too much misinformation and witch-hunting in progress to start tarring players without any evidence. Your readers and your peers expect better.

Best,
Jay Jaffe
Baseball Prospectus

So until a player is actually mentioned in an investigation or fails a test, we're not allowed to voice any suspicions at all? Or, alternatively, we're not allowed to use them as a hypothetical example?

I played by those rules for a long time. But we've learned enough that I think it's OK to at least entertain the possibility that what our eyes and our brains are telling us is true. I think the burden of responsibility now lies mostly with the players. They got themselves into this mess, right? Even the players who didn't cheat facilitated the cheating. The clean players could have gone public with their concerns. They could have pressured the union to implement a drug policy with teeth. They could have gone to their favorite baseball writers and anonymously ratted out their cheating teammates.

All of those things would have been problematic. But the players who weren't cheating could have done something, and instead they seem to have done nothing. So while I feel sorry for the clean players, and I feel especially sorry for the clean players who have been tarred with the steroids brush, I don't feel too sorry for them. You know?

I'm sorry ... Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's return to the source material; in Tuesday's chat, much of which was spent hashing out the Mitchell report and its ramifications, I mentioned Bagwell three times, but those references were inspired by this:

Tod (Houston): You mentioned on your blog about judging Hall of Fame players on their merits if they would be good enough without steroids. Even if you could judge this accurately, isn't the bigger issue determining who was actually clean? Could anyone take a list of 10 Hall of Fame caliber players and accurately say who used and who didn't?

Rob Neyer: Of course it depends on how you define "accurately," Tod. But you have to realize that Hall of Fame voters -- well, at least the ones who actually cover the games, which might be a minority, I'm sorry to say -- are wired in, and they know that steroid rumors have attended many players over the years. My rule would be that if I have a serious question about a player, I simply wouldn't vote for him initially. If we get five years, or 10 years down the line and his name hasn't been linked to steroids in a meaningful way, then I figure maybe the rumors were unfounded. But remember, the voters have 20 years to decide.

Two things here. One, I should have called it the Neyer Test -- Would he be a Hall of Famer without illegal drugs? -- but I think somebody's now grabbed that for himself. I know that some voters simply will not vote for any player who used steroids for even the briefest of moments, but I simply cannot support that position. And two, I don't understand the rush to judgment. Fifteen years is a long time, and the voter's responsibility is to the institution and its future inhabitants, not to a single candidate. If it takes somebody 15 years to get in, that's just how long it takes, and we may just hope he's still around to enjoy it for a while. Anyway, that led to this:

John, Philly: Rob -- with regards to your response to Tod, don't voters get 20 years to respond if they obtain sufficient votes? But by your standard, they would not get those votes. Please address.

Rob Neyer: Well, that's a good point. I'm just sort of assuming that Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell or whoever else, will get at least five percent every year and remain on the ballot.

So here's where I get in trouble, introducing Bagwell into the discussion. Jay would prefer that I didn't mention anyone who hasn't already been implicated in some fashion, but my point is that when a Hall of Fame voter is initially considering candidates, "he hasn't been suspended or implicated" is setting the bar too low. If a voter has heard rumors about a player using steroids, shouldn't he consider those rumors? If you don't vote for a player in Year 1, you can always vote for him in Year 2 or Year 15. But the Hall of Fame's rules don't include a provision for recall elections; no do-overs.

Onward:

Scott (NYC): Given that some of these names in the report were surprising and just the tip of the iceberg regarding use. How can you pick and choose from the past 20 years in deciding on the HOF? Don't you have just two choices -- No. 1 to ignore the issue and vote on baseball accomplishments, or No. 2 exclude everyone from the past 20 years? And if you exclude everyone, isn't that the same as saying baseball over the past 20 years somehow doesn't count?

Rob Neyer: Not reading the blog lately, Scott? Can't afford the three bucks per month? That's, what, one domestic beer in Manhattan? Kidding. Anyway, I always have more than one choice. If I'm a Hall of Fame voter, I grit my teeth and I make some hard choices. If I don't vote for Bagwell (sorry to keep picking on you, Bags!) and he doesn't like it, he can take a lie-detector test.

My apology aside, this one might have crossed a line. For one thing, I need to end my silly fixation with polygraph tests, as they're terribly unreliable and (at best) a reasonable measure of last resort. And to make my point that I was considering Bagwell as merely a hypothetical, I probably should have come with another example.

Jon (New Orleans): Since you've already brought Bagwell up a couple times, and he happens to be my all-time favorite player, what are your thoughts on if he used steroids and his HOF chances?

Rob Neyer: Ten or 11 years ago I wrote a column about Bagwell, to which I gave the unfortunate title, "The Real, Genuine Ballplayer." Seems naive now, huh? Given Bagwell's body type and playing style, he seems like an obvious candidate for a list of suspected drug users. I hope my suspicion is ill-placed, and I don't have the slightest idea what the Hall voters will make of him.

So was it fair to mention Bagwell? I don't know. Like most of you, I'm still struggling with these issues. But Bagwell was a teammate of enthusiastic drug abuser Ken Caminiti. As a 23-year-old rookie, Bagwell hit 15 home runs in 156 games. Three years later, he hit 39 homers in 110 games. Physically, he looked nothing like the power hitters of the 1970s and '80s, and he looked a lot like the power hitters of the '90s and '00s, many of whom we know were juicing.

Yes, it's all circumstantial evidence. I'm always amused when people say, "All they've got is circumstantial evidence." Sure, and at this exact moment, somewhere in America somebody's just been convicted of a crime thanks to nothing but circumstantial evidence. I don't know if Bagwell cheated. I hope he didn't, because I've always loved him as a player. But when casting about for an example of a player whose accomplishments should be reviewed with some care, he's the first one who came to mind.

It's easy to talk about witch hunts, but witch hunts are about powerful people destroying the careers and lives of (usually) innocent people who can't defend themselves. I'm not powerful, and Jeff Bagwell is wealthier than any baseball writer who ever lived. He's a big boy, and I'm almost certain that he can take care of himself.

Two good things about the offseason: I have more time for books and movies, and Curt Schilling has a lot more time for blogging. Otherwise, how could he have written 3,676 words about Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens?

It's not easy to blog something that long. Where does one start? Well, let's begin with Schilling's take on Canseco:

As far as Jose goes, my opinion on what he's done is, I guess, rather convoluted. On one hand, Jose lied about every aspect of his professional career as a player. His entire career, all of it, is a sham. He never belonged in the big leagues and anything he ever did in the major leagues is a hoax. He made it clear that he would not have been the player he was had he not cheated. His statistics should be erased, his MVP given to the runner-up, and he should go down as the guy who broke the silence on a horrible period of the game, period. He was never in his life a major league player.

The problem I have, and the opinion I have, is based on the fact that he lied his entire career, every single day of it. He cheated his entire career, and lied about it. He spent his entire career on the record claiming he didn't use PEDs, yet only when his life was in shambles and only when it served Jose Canseco the most, did he 'come clean.' Only then did he become this bastion of truth and honesty. Is that not the scam of scams? He made his hundred million or so, and when he was no longer good enough to compete up here, only when cheating stopped being enough to keep him competitive, only then did he scream "blackballed" and vow to get his revenge. Only then did he tell the truth, or his version of the truth.

Whether you like Schilling or not, it's both fascinating and refreshing to see one player call out another player like this, though one may wonder what offends Schilling more: the lying, or the truth telling. And I hope Schilling understands, in his more thoughtful moments, that one cannot simply "erase" statistics. Could the BBWAA revoke Canseco's MVP, though? I suppose they could, which would make Mike Greenwell (Mike Greenwell?) the winner instead. That's an awfully slippery slope, though, and I'm 100 percent sure the BBWAA wants nothing to do with revisiting old awards.

To Schilling's credit, he doesn't stop with an easy target like Canseco.

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. I know both of these men. Roger had a profound effect on my career from a very early point. His 'undressing' of me and lecture were a major turning point. I've always respected his career accomplishments and regarded him as the greatest pitcher to ever play the game. Now I, like every other Yankee [and] Clemens fan, am faced with a dilemma. The two men that fingered multiple players, from my understanding, both testified with immunity, but only if they told the truth. So these guys had every reason in the world to NOT lie. That doesn't mean they didn't, but there is an immense amount of incentive for them to NOT lie when they gave their depositions, because lying would have seen them open to legal actions beyond what they are already facing. So the question to me then becomes this. It's no mystery that Roger and Andy are as close as any two teammates I know of. Andy makes no bones about Roger's influence in his career. Their personal trainer, the trainer Roger took to Toronto, then to New York, has admitted to administering PEDs to both men. Andy has admitted he did, and that it was a mistake and he never did it again. Roger has denied every allegation brought to the table. So as a fan, my thought is that Roger will find a way in short order to organize a legal team to guarantee a retraction of the allegations made, a public apology is made, and his name is completely cleared. If he doesn't do that, then there aren't many options as a fan, for me, other than to believe his career 192 wins and [three] Cy Youngs he won prior to 1997 were the end. From that point on, the numbers were attained through using PEDs. Just like I stated about Jose, if that is the case with Roger, the [four] Cy Youngs should go to the rightful winners and the numbers should go away if he cannot refute the accusations.

For the record, if we take away Clemens' last four Cy Youngs, the new "winners" would be Randy Johnson (1997), Pedro Martinez (1998), Mark Mulder (2001) and Johnson again (2004). Also for the record, one can't just wave a magical wand and make the numbers "go away." But I admire Schilling's courage here. He'll probably wind up in the Hall of Fame. So will Clemens, if only because of those pre-1997 192 wins and three Cy Young Awards. Schilling and Clemens' paths probably will cross many times over the next few decades, in Cooperstown and various other places where our heroes congregate.

So it takes courage to be honest about his feelings, and I also find his analysis fairly cogent. Roger Clemens can afford the finest legal assistance. Yes, I understand that the odds are against winning a libel suit against his accuser, because the standards in this country are tough (as they should be). But wouldn't the effort suggest that he is, at the very least, serious about his innocence? As Schilling concludes,

No one named in Jose's book that he claims has used has taken the effort or made the commitment to clear their names, and with the exception of Dave Justice and Roger Clemens, every person named in the Mitchell report has either already been caught, or admitted to using since the report was issued. I am hoping that every person that was named and did use admits to it, admits it was a mistake (where applicable) and asks for forgiveness (if they want it) and moves on.

At the same time, I pray that ANYONE in this report that is innocent steps up and clears their names, now, today. No one has, and through today, no one has done anything but issue a crafted statement in someone else's words denying their guilt or association in any of this.

That sort of cuts to the quick, doesn't it? If you cheated and you don't think you'll get busted, best to stay quiet. If you cheated and you've been busted, or you think you'll be busted, best to confess and take what's coming. To this point, most of the players who have confessed have apologized, and acknowledged their mistake. A few -- Canseco, David Segui, Ken Caminiti -- have admitted what happened but offered no apologies, and there's a certain integrity in that, too, because we have to assume that a lot of players making apologies are sorry only about being caught.

So what happens if a player gets out in front of this thing? For most of them, not much. I recently read somewhere that Jason Giambi was "destroyed" after his confession. Really? He's heard a lot of cheers and earned a lot of millions of dollars since then. Was Jose Guillen "destroyed" after being implicated in an HGH scandal? Shortly afterward, he signed a $36 million contract. I would argue that through all of this, only one player has tangibly suffered: Mark McGwire would be in the Hall of Fame today if not for his involvement with steroids.

Why aren't players more forthcoming, then? Because most of them never have been forced to mature beyond adolescence. It's often been said that baseball is about men playing a kids' game, but all too often the men are actually kids themselves. Clemens is like a little boy with a full stomach and an empty cookie jar. His mom knows those cookies went somewhere, and she knows her little boy loves cookies. But he'll never admit that he ate them.

• With the Mariners hot after Carlos Silva, USS Mariner's Dave Cameron looks at Silva and doesn't like what he sees. Spending $44 million on a successful contact pitcher is one thing, but if the M's trade Adam Jones (and Brandon Morrow), the USS Mariner guys might start following some other team.

• Joe Posnanski reviews the Hall of Fame credentials of Jim Rice, Andre Dawson and Dale Murphy; for most bloggers this would be quite enough for one post, but of course JoPo ain't most bloggers.

• I've been remiss in not linking to Cardboard Gods before today, but now I'm thinking maybe it was just dumb luck, as yesterday's entry was as fine an introduction as we'll ever have.

• John Sickels offers the top 20 Yankee prospects, and I'm sure you already know plenty about the top three. But if No. 4 (Alan Horne) is a mystery, John offers a quick scouting report.

• By the way, I know I've mentioned this before, but why doesn't anybody like Red Sox prospect Jed Lowrie as much as I do? Sickels ran a poll (actually, it's still running), asking his readers to "grade" Lowrie as a prospect. Only 16 percent of the respondents rate him above B+. We're talking about a 23-year-old middle infielder who, while splitting his time between Double- and Triple-A last season, rapped 68 extra-base hits in 133 games. I'm not saying he's the next Dustin Pedroia (though the Sox might probably be better off with Lowrie at shortstop than with Julio Lugo). I'm saying the guy can play and play well, and a prospect who is likely to be a solid everyday major leaguer deserves, by definition, an A in his grade.

• Maybe you heard: Roger Clemens says he never used steroids, HGH or any other banned substance. Well, he didn't exactly say it. With great care, his people crafted a statement that was released with his name attached. Which is fine. That's how it's done when you've got that much money and that many people. Do you believe him? I'll say what I've said before: If Clemens really wants to clear this up, he simply needs to take a polygraph test.

• On a related note, C.J. Nitkowski -- who, by the way, has popped into our comments at least a few times -- has worked with Clemens' accuser, and sticks up for him.

• For Yankees fans who aren't thrilled with the Mitchell report ... h-e-e-e-re's Carl! (Rated PG)

If you read and remember just one of my blog posts this winter, I hope it's this one, with video! (you need to register first, though) ...

What is the truth about HGH?

HGH has some definite and proven medical benefits. It is currently approved medically in the United States for two primary indications, short stature in children and growth hormone deficiency in adults.[2] All of these HGH benefits, however, are in individuals with growth hormone deficiency. In people with normal GH levels, HGH does not improve athletic performance in terms of muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance. In fact, several placebo-controlled studies have been negative.

A 4-week, double-blind Swedish study using 2 doses of HGH and placebo found no differences in subjects exercising on a bicycle in terms of power output and oxygen uptake.[3] In another study, a single injection of HGH increased plasma lactate and reduced exercise performance.[4]

[snip]

In addition to the lack of effectiveness for enhancing athletic performance, HGH has a downside. It can cause dose-related side effects including diabetes, carpal tunnel syndrome, fluid retention, joint stiffness, muscle pain, and high blood pressure.

It turns out that, like Paul Bunyan, the athletic benefits of HGH is a myth.

That's my opinion. I'm Dr. George Griffing, Professor of Medicine at St. Louis University and Editor in Chief of Internal Medicine for eMedicine.

Dr. George Griffing might be wrong. But his analysis seems to be based on the best science available at the moment, which means unless you're some sort of super-genius your best bet is to believe the Conventional Wisdom.

Actually, not the Conventional Wisdom. According to the CW -- as espoused by sports columnists and quack dentists, among others -- HGH is some sort of super serum that will turn you into Captain America.

Apparently it's not. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be frowned upon, as it may be unhealthy and is often, as obtained by professional athletes, illegal. But it now seems quite possible that not a single home run or strikeout has been gained from the ill-gotten, illusory benefits of human growth hormone.

I like Jim Bouton. Always have, always will. He's responsible for one of our great works of literature, and to this day he remains a delightful storyteller. But man, when he gets to talking about steroids it's like he's possessed by some nutty old-timer like Jim Bunning. Last week in the New York Times, Bouton offered two suggestions.

One: "Take annual blood samples from the players and keep them for future reference." I'm not sure about that one, and I suspect the players would rather walk picket lines for two years than agree to it. But I can at least see the argument.

Two: If you get busted you pay "the price" …

What kind of price? A lifetime ban from baseball.

Why not? Far more games have been illegally impacted by drugs than by gambling. Why give suspensions? Do players accidentally inject themselves with steroids? No. It's a conscious decision to cheat. I say treat performance-enhancing drugs just like gambling. One strike and you're out!

Seems a bit Draconian, doesn't it? What if a player takes something without knowing it? What if a test gets messed up? What if a kid simply makes a mistake? In all these situations, we're going tell a player that he's finished forever?

Right now, the suspension for a first offender is 50 games. That's a lot of games. So many games, in fact, that in 2007 exactly one major leaguer -- the immortal Juan Salas was suspended for 50 games. The current policy has been in place for two seasons, and zero players have been busted more than once. So if the goal is simply to establish a policy that discourages players from being dumb enough to get caught … well, it looks like MLB already has that one figured out.

Oh, and before I let Bouton off the hook, I'm truly tired of people conflating drug use with gambling. For one thing, players during Bouton's era (and for many years afterward) gobbled pep pills like they were so many M&Ms, so I wish he's spare us the sanctimony. For another, there's a huge difference between drug use and gambling. Say what you want about steroids, but you have to admit that players willing to shove a needle into their backside probably are helping their teams -- or trying to. The problem with gambling -- the reason it's considered baseball's No. 1 offense -- is that players who gamble might not be doing their best to, you know, win.

Nearly 90 years ago, the men running the sport realized that the biggest threat to baseball's continuing health was the notion that the players on the field weren't playing to win. There's a reason, a good reason, why Pete Rose was banned from baseball and Jay Gibbons was suspended for 15 days.

(For more on the Hit King and why gambling's in a category of its own, here's an old column I forgot I wrote.)

No, the Mitchell Report has not and will not "change baseball" (as so many have suggested). It's certainly given Hall of Fame voters something to think about, though. ESPN Radio's Mike Greenberg isn't a voter, but last week on his show he said what a lot of voters are thinking …

I think when all of the dust settles and you look back on the era in it's totality, you will have to come to the conclusion that an overwhelming number of players were using performance-enhancing drugs. … You either will have to put in absolutely no one; you will have to vote for no one who played between nineteen eighty-pick-a-year, 1985, 1988, whatever, it is, and … you could say, from 1988 through the time when they instituted the testing. But look, we all know, all of these guys, none of them tested positive, or very few of them. Roger Clemens name is in here: he didn't test positive. These guys know how to beat the testing, the smart ones. Barry Bonds never failed a drug test. So the point is, you will either have to put in absolutely no one in, or after several years have gone by, you will look back at the thing rationally and say, "Okay, there was a colossal problem -- not just in baseball but in all sports -- and the reality is, we still have to separate the very best players from the rest and put them in the Hall of Fame." Let's put it this way: at the very least, if it was me, I would do it that way, and I would put in Bonds and Clemens.

A number of Hall of Fame voters have weighed in lately, and this is not an uncommon sentiment: "We must vote for none of them, or all of them."

In baseball, if a batter's struck by a pitch but made no effort to get out of the way, the umpire's not supposed to give him first base. But you'll rarely see that call. Why? Because umpires don't like to use their judgment unless they absolutely have to.

Performance-enhancing drugs offer a chance for Hall of Fame voters to use their judgment, and some of them would rather not. Some of them would prefer to keep things simple, and vote only for hitters with 3,000 hits and pitchers with 300 wins. Or for their friends. But good grief, shouldn't we expect more from those entrusted with the highest honor in professional sports?

My measure (at least for the moment) is this: If PEDs had never been invented, would this player have finished his career with Hall of Fame numbers? In the cases of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, I believe the answer is yes. In the case of Mark McGwire, I believe the answer is no. Granted, most cases aren't nearly as easy as those. But if choosing Hall of Famers was supposed to be easy, they'd let all of us do it.

(tip of the cap to BTF)