Baseball Digest Daily :: Roundup - Great Writing Abounds

- Everybody, I assume, knows about the rumors of Bedard being traded to the Seattle Mariners, but the deal is not official.

The 28-year-old left-handed pitcher was sensational last year and could have won the Cy Young if he had not been injured at the end of the season. He led the strikeouts race when he went down with a strained right oblique at the end of August.

Bedard attacks hitters with a fastball that can reach the mid-90s, a curve and a change-up that made the difference last year, between him being a great pitcher from a good one 2 years ago. He also has a cutter that he uses sporadically.

He added over three strikeouts to his K/9 average from 2006, now standing at 10.93, and he reduced his Walks/9 to a healthy 2.82. As I mentioned above, his change-up made all the difference for him (along with better command of his fastball), by being able to dominate right-handed batters and he shaved close to .150 off his OPS against them compared to 2006.

- Great piece on the NY Times website by Murray Chass called 'Revisiting the Past With Vincent's Book'.

"Gabe Paul, the Yankees' general manager, encountered Robinson in Puerto Rico, where he was managing in the winter league. Robinson says in a new book that Paul told him, "You know, if you just had a little bit of experience, I would hire you as the manager of the Yankees."

"What is this?" Robinson says he responded, alluding to his winter job.

"This doesn't count," Robinson says Paul told him.

So instead of replacing Ralph Houk, a move I advocated at the time, Robinson waited another year and became the Indians' player-manager.

Robinson relates the story in a new book, "We Would Have Played for Nothing," the second volume of Fay Vincent's oral-history project. Scheduled for publication in April by Simon & Schuster, the book has 11 stars from the 1950s and '60s talking about their careers and their competitors."

- The Baltimore Sun looks at the best twenty major league starters.

- An article on baseball and its chance to weather the recession, by...euh...you know...me, at The Biz of Baseball.

"The analysis leads us to question how advertisers typically react to a slowing economy, something that should have an even more meaningful and profound effect on the revenue the game generates. If fans don't flock to the ballparks across North America as much as they did when money was flowing in, will the advertising dollars keep up, slow down or just branch out to different media or opportunities?"

- Baseball's quest to expand the sport throughout the world comes with new responsibilities and warnings. Diane M. Grassi penned a great article about it here.

"But questions need to be asked, as the 2008 MLB season approaches, as to whether America's Pastime has bitten off more than it can chew in entering the world of global politics. In order to remain a successful and positive example worldwide, it must not alienate certain countries while at the same time disguise its craving for riches garnered off the backs of the impoverished.

For MLB was not originally set up to necessarily grow the sport globally. It was always assumed, perhaps naively so, that the best baseball players in the world would end up in the U.S. And to its credit, MLB has thought outside the box in the past couple of decades. But now it does so with the risk of discriminating against some groups or cultures while rewarding others at the behest of the almighty dollar."

- Ben Sheets, Mike DeJean and Brian West all weighted in on the steroids scandal at a Benefit this past Saturday.

- Rich Lederer and Buster Olney continue their debate about Jim Rice and his credentials for the HOF, with this 'Public Letter to Buster Olney'.

"In any event, in the spirit of Bob Rittner's guest column last week, I want to acknowledge our common ground as it relates to Rice. There is no question that Jim was a very good hitter for the vast majority of his career with the Boston Red Sox in the 1970s and 1980s. I would even go so far as to say that he was an outstanding hitter from 1977-1979 and in 1983 as well. Rice led the American League in total bases in all four of those seasons. That is a terrific accomplishment.

As you have pointed out on at least one occasion, Rice also topped the majors in RBI and hits from 1975-1986 and placed third in HR and fourth in OPS during that 12-year period. All of these rankings speak well of Rice's hitting prowess.

However, in order to fully understand and appreciate Rice's value and place in baseball history, I believe it is important to put his stats into their proper perspective. I would like to do that by focusing on context, consistency (in the application of the stats), and comparability (to other players). Allow me to refer to them as the three Cs."

- Roger Clemens' agent released a 18,000-word document that argues adjustments were the reason his client was so successful and going strong as he was getting older.

"Hendricks' report, which includes 38 charts, in some ways resembles a salary arbitration case. One of the charts shows Clemens' ERA was lower than the league average in all but two of his 23 major league seasons. The report also compares variations in Clemens' career with those of Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and Nolan Ryan, and maintains slumps often can be correlated with injuries.

"Of the six years that feature Clemens' best ERA margins, two occurred in Boston, after he had been in the major leagues for several years; two occurred in his two years in Toronto; and two occurred after he switched leagues and pitched for the Houston Astros,'' the report said."

- You, too, can be a scout.

- Mark Townsend, at Bugs&Cranks, tries to put a value on Colorado Rockies third baseman Garrett Atkins.

- Got the honor to be in contact with Michael Lynch of Seamheads.com this weekend and I will make it my lifelong purpose (ok, that's an exaggeration) to make you addicted this fantastic site (then you come right back here, ok?).

- Former Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal retires.

"I'm done," Lieberthal said on Saturday. "I decided a couple weeks after the season ended. If (the Dodgers) had picked up my option, I probably would have played one more year. But I didn't want to go anywhere else."

The 36-year-old Lieberthal, who grew up in nearby Westlake Village, played his first 13 seasons with Philadelphia before signing with the Dodgers last winter. He hit .274 with 150 homers and played in two All-Star games.

The Dodgers declined the option they had on Lieberthal for the upcoming season. Lieberthal played in 38 games last season as a backup to Russell Martin, hitting .234 in 77 at-bats."

- Slugger Jack Cust denies the allegations against him by Larry Bigbie that he took or offered steroids while they were playing together.

"In his first public remarks, Cust told Bay Area media that he has never used performance-enhancing substances.

"No. No. Not even one game," he said Saturday.

Cust then challenged the information Bigbie gave in a conversation with Mitchell's investigators.

"At the beginning of the 2003 season, Cust and Larry Bigbie were both playing for Baltimore's Class AAA affiliate in Ottawa," the report, released Dec. 14, read. "Bigbie's locker was next to Cust's. Cust eventually asked Bigbie if he had ever tried steroids. Bigbie acknowledged he had, and Cust said that he, too, had tried steroids.

"Cust told Bigbie that he had a source who could procure anything he wanted, but Bigbie informed him he already had a friend who could supply him," according to the report.

Speaking Saturday at the A's annual FanFest, Cust said the circumstances surrounding his inclusion in the report were "unfair," adding he doesn't remember speaking with Bigbie about steroids and that the two were not locker neighbors while playing for Ottawa."

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