BDD Offers -

New Article: Under the Radar: Morgan Ensberg and the Yankees First Base Situation, by Brandon Heikoop
New Series: The Baseball Research Project - Baseball Historians and HRs, by Dave Rouleau

What Did We Learn Today?  Not a Whole Lot..., by Eric SanInocencio
"Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League" - Excerpt #2, by Michael Lynch
Foundation of Solid Rock(ies), by Rob McQuown
Beyond the Diamond: February 10, 2008, by Pete Toms
Family Trees, by Geoff Young
The Return of Facts...Johan-Style, by Craig Brown
Detailed Pitch Analysis: Part II - The Curve Ball, by Jonathan Hale
Round 2: The Roger Clemens Saga Continues, by Gordon Berger
Out of the Spolight, by Dave Rouleau
The Bloggers Roundtable - Cincinnati Reds  (the Cleveland Indians are the next in line)

- John Brattain has done the unthinkable: he has moved his blog to BDD permanently!  Come back often to witness his daily struggles with reality.

- BDD is now associated with Heater Magazine.  You can check out their offerings with the link in the menu at the top of this page.

- Be sure not to miss top prospect Matt Laporta's player journals this season!

- You can hear the latest edition of the BDD Radio Show with Eric Walker, where he talks about PEDs and the effect they have on stats.

---

All Baseball Transactions

- A damaging typo for the Feds in Barry Bond's case.

Federal prosecutors mistakenly filed court papers Thursday that incorrectly stated that Barry Bonds failed a steroids test in November of 2001 -- one month after breaking the single-season home run mark.

U.S. attorney spokesman Josh Eaton now says that the reference in Thursday's government court filing regarding Bonds testing positive was actually referring to a November 2000 test that was previously disclosed in the indictment of Bonds and had already been reported.

That drug test was included in the indictment unsealed last year, when prosecutors said the test was for a player they called "Barry B."

In December, Bonds pleaded not guilty to lying to a federal grand jury in 2003 when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs.

The mistake prompted at least one erroneous report that was quickly posted to Web sites around the country.

The filing amounted to federal prosecutors defending their questioning of Bonds before a grand jury, and urging a judge to keep the slugger's perjury prosecution on track.

- Here's my take on the asking price for Joe Blanton, centering on the Reds rumored offer.

The main part of this deal is Bailey and him alone would already be too much if you consider all factors.  Yes, that's right, Blanton provides good pitching in 2008, but Bailey's ceiling make him a tough player to hand over to another team.  He still has a lot of years of arbitration in front of him and, depending on how he fares in Spring Training, he could be a central part of a winning team for the storied franchise.

Why not try and build a deal around Edison Volquez, the RHP they got in the Josh Hamilton trade?  Unless they know something we don't about Bailey and Cueto, they already know their track records and their bodies enough to feel confident in what can happen.  Volquez was groomed in another organization and remains a risk that they could trade along with another prospect or even Votto if the A's can supply a bullpen arm for the Reds.

If you look at it this way, considering they got Josh Hamilton in the Rule V draft, they could get Blanton for a Rule V pick and something to make it worthwhile for Billy Beane.

I wonder what the thinking is on the Reds side, when you have a potential 1-2 punch almost ready for the big show, with a good bat that can play two positions for you, with 2008 as his ETA.  Patience is a virtue and they would be well-advised to keep the three young studs for their future benefit.

Random Picture

I was sifting through BDD's Photo Gallery (which will be expanded with a ton of new pictures after Spring Training) and I found this shot of Rays LHP J.P. Howell:


- The Colorado Rockies and RF Brad Hawpe avoided arbitration with a $3.925 M contract for the 2008 season.

The Washington Nationals won their case in arbitration against infielder Felipe Lopez.  The 27-year-old will be paid $4.9 M to play in 2008.

- I wrote a small post two weeks ago at The Biz of Baseball about players removing the media filter by starting their own websites.  C.C. Sabathia showed the true impact of this way of doing things by talking about the state of his negotiations personally and for all to see...no intermediary:

This off-season, through my representatives at Legacy Sports Group, I have discussed the possibility of a contract extension with the Cleveland Indians.  At this time, we haven't been able to reach agreement.  Now that the reporting date for spring training is here, it is time to put aside contract discussions so that I can focus all of my energies and attention on preparing for the upcoming season.

I look forward to a successful 2008 season, both for myself and for the Indians as a whole.  I will do everything within my power to help the club to its first World Series appearance since 1997 and its first World Series Championship since 1948.

There will be time after the season for the Indians and my representatives to discuss my contract status.  I remain hopeful that these discussions will result in a contract extension that will keep me with the franchise for many years to come.  In the meantime, in order to avoid any distractions, my representatives and I will not make any further comment about my contractual situation beyond this statement.

- Pedro Martinez is having a field day boasting about his domination of the steroids era, while clean himself.  Good for him.

The three-time Cy Young Award winner said he hasn't paid much attention to the fallout from the Mitchell Report, and he didn't watch Roger Clemens testify before Congress on Wednesday. But Martinez said he'll probably get caught up on his computer now that he's in camp.

Martinez did have some pointed words, however, for the reporter who once called him a prima donna.

"I have a small frame and when I hurt all I could do was take a couple of Aleve or Advil, a cup of coffee and a little mango and an egg -- and let it go!" he said.

Martinez's point: He wasn't going to try human growth hormone or any other performance-enhancing substance. In fact, he would welcome a more stringent drug-testing program in baseball.

"I wish that they would check every day. That's how bad I want the game to be clean," said Martinez, who had his best years with Montreal and Boston from 1997-2003. "I would rather go home (than) taint the game."

- The Chairman of the hearing Wednesday, Henry A. Waxman, is sorry the event took place.

The chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said the four-hour hearing unnecessarily embarrassed Clemens, who he thought did not tell the truth, as well as the trainer, Brian McNamee, who he thought was unfairly attacked by committee Republicans.

"I think Clemens and McNamee both came out quite sullied, and I didn't think it was a hearing that needed to be held in order to get the facts out about the Mitchell report," Waxman said.

"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."

The decision to hold the hearing had been made in early January, as Clemens was publicly challenging the veracity of the Mitchell report. But Waxman said he and Tom Davis of Virginia, the ranking Republican and former chairman of the committee, decided by last Friday that they did not need to conduct the hearing as scheduled because depositions taken last week from Clemens, McNamee, Andy Pettitte and others were thorough, as was the committee staff's own investigation, and that a hearing would not provide a great deal more insight.

"Roger Clemens's lawyers told us he wanted the opportunity to make his case in public," Waxman said. "He had his opportunity." Now, Waxman added, 90 percent of the people being asked their opinion of the hearing were stating that they did not believe Clemens.

- Clemens vs. Maddux

- The Globe and Mail sat down with Jays new hitting coach, Gary Denbo.

If you think Denbo's occupation of throwing baseballs and watching for imperfections in a player's swing is safe activity, think again.

"I've got a couple of broken noses from working over here in the cage over the years," he said with a chuckle. "It goes with the business."

Denbo said he had an opportunity around Christmas to meet personally with several of the Blue Jays' players, including star centre fielder Vernon Wells, who is reportedly recovering nicely from surgery in late September to repair a partially torn labrum in his left shoulder.

Wells, who has not yet arrived in Dunedin, had his offensive production plummet last season. His batting average slipped to .245 from .303 in 2006.

"He looked very good, he looked strong," Denbo said of his meeting with Wells. "He said he felt good. There's a guy, one of the top, most talented guys around baseball, I think. This guy, I think he's going to be a pleasure to work with."

Denbo said he compared video of Wells's swing last season to his swing in 2006, when Wells stroked 32 home runs, and the differences were noticeable.

Denbo would not offer an opinion on which Blue Jay has the sweetest swing, but he said he has a couple of rules of thumb when it comes to the makeup of a good hitter.

"There are two things, I think, that really stick out when you're talking about the best hitters in the game," he said. "One, they all get good pitches to hit and, two, when they hit, they use the entire field, meaning they're not just pull hitters. That makes them harder to defend.

Another Jays-related news: catcher Sal Fasano is not happy with Barajas as the big-league backup.

"If I knew actually they were going to go after another catcher, I probably would have explored other options," Fasano said yesterday during a frank interview at the club's complex at the Bobby Mattick Training Center.

When he and Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi came to terms on the new deal, Fasano said, it was with the understanding he would be the backup catcher this season to Gregg Zaun.

"We had a verbal agreement," said Fasano, who joined the Jays' organization for the 2007 season after more than a decade of bouncing around in the major leagues with Kansas City, Oakland, Colorado, Anaheim, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the New York Yankees. "He gave me his word that I was going to be the big-league backup."

- Batter's Box came back to life with a Keith Law interview published yesterday.

- J.C. Bradbury examines a report about Jose Canseco's trail of steroids.  Good read.  Here's the premise of the whole post...

Last week, I became aware of a study by economists Eric Gould and Todd Kaplan that evaluates at the impact of Jose Canseco on his teammates. They examine the belief that Canseco distributed his knowledge about steroids throughout baseball by introducing many of his teammates to performance-enhancing drugs. If this was the case, the authors hypothesize that he ought to have left a trail of improved performance among teammates in his wake.

The authors look at the careers of Canseco's teammates to investigate this claim. Their method is to examine players to see how well they perform as a Canseco teammate and afterwards, relative to the years preceding involvement with Canseco. The idea is somewhat similar to what I did with my analysis of Leo Mazzone's impact on pitchers (see Chapter 5 of my book).

After reading the study, I am not convinced by the authors' conclusions. It's not just one thing, but a collection of issues that form my opinion. I have problems with both the study's design and the interpretation of the reported results. My disagreement does not mean that the effect does not exist, only that I do not see a pattern consistent with Canseco spreading steroids to his teammates.

Tim at Cubby-Blue impresses again...