Vegas Watch

Comparing preseason predictions from various sources is a lot of fun, and also a pretty good way to get a feel for what's expected from teams from various sections of the media. What I've done here is take predictions from a few different places- 5 ESPN analysts in their season preview, three Yahoo! guys, the SI staff, Joe Sheehan (AL, NL), and PECOTA- and find the biggest discrepancies bewteen win totals for each team. The first largest differences are below, followed by a discussion of why there's such a lack of consensus, and who looks to be correct.

By coincidence, this ended up being all AL teams, which is fine by me.

Seattle Mariners
Average: 86.2
High: Steve Phillips (ESPN), 92
Low: PECOTA, 75

Do you think Phillips can spell "Pythagorean"? I don't.

That being said, 75 is really low. The PECOTA projection does come with something of a disclaimer, since it has Ichiro hitting .303/.346/.384. In 4774 career ABs, Suzuki has hit .333/.379/.437; this is his age 34 season, but thats a huge drop, and Ichiro has outperformed his PECOTA pretty much every year.

Still, even if we bump PECOTA's projection up to 77, that's a 15 win difference. And this is far from an isolated incident. The four ESPN guys (Stark, Kurkjian, Olney, and Phillips) and the three Yahoo! guys (Henson, Brown, and Passan) have the winning an average of 90 games. Sheehan, Law, and various computer projections predict an average of 79 victories.

They won 88 games last year, while being outscored by 19 runs. The high predictions employ the "88 wins + Bedard" logic. The others are starting with a baseline of 79, and giving them a boost for Bedard but factoring in some regression for their aging lineup. I don't think it's particularly hard to figure out who to side with here.

Tampa Bay Rays
Average: 77.3
High: PECOTA, 88
Low: Steve Henson (Yahoo!), 72

The thing you have to love about PECOTA is that it's 100% unbiased. When it runs the numbers and comes up with 88 wins for a team that's never won 70, it doesn't adjust that to something that seems a little more reasonable. This paid off with the White Sox prediction last year; considering its history of success (not limited to that one example, obviously), the extreme predictions for Seattle and Tampa are hard to ignore.

I don't really know who this Steve Henson fellow is, but that's okay- he's got some wacky predictions, which are always appreciated. Here is his analysis on the Rays:

"The Rays are improving but are still middle-school level to the Red Sox graduate students."

This is a little over the top, but I think that's the mainstream consensus. Personally, I have no idea how many games this team is going to win (although I'd certainly take the over on 72). There's no big Pythag gap here- last year their expected record was 67-95, and their actual record was 66-96. Three things are causing the huge expected jump- a vastly improved defense, additions to the bullpen, and the development of young players. They were a horrible fielding team last year, but PECOTA expects them to be a little above average this season. The biggest upgrade is going from Brendan Harris (-19 in Dewan's system) embarrassing himself at short to Jason Barlett's +18 glove. The also have Upton finally spending a full year in center, and the (eventual) addition of Longoria to the lineup will allow Iwamura to slide over to second.

Combine that with the addition of Matt Garza, and the progress of Kazmir, Shields, Sonnanstine and Co., and it's easy to see that their run prevention will be much improved. PECOTA has a team that allowed 944 runs last year decreasing that by a whopping 226 runs. Without looking it up, I'm going to go ahead and assume that that'd be the largest reduction in the history of baseball; that's about three months worth of runs for the Giants' offense.

Henson's prediction of 72 wins for the Rays is insanely low; 88 is high, but not that high. It's hard to both see and quantify these internal improvements- switching up defensive alignments, young players improving, old ones regressing- which is why PECOTA is so far off from the general consensus.

Texas Rangers
Average: 73.0
High: Joe Sheehan (Baseball Prospectus), 80
Low: Steve Phillips, 64

This is not a fair fight.

I watched Phillips' "analysis" of the Rangers on their ESPN season preview page, and I must say, he didn't really enlighten me. He doesn't think Millwood and Padilla are top of the rotation starters, which is reasonable. He goes on to explain that Texas is going to have to outslug their opponents. I don't know how he came to that 64 number (he probably doesn't either), but we should remember that they do get to play almost 60 games against that increasingly horrific division.

Sheehan is bullish on their offense; he has Texas scoring 840 runs, which is 60 higher than PECOTA. He seems to be high on Blalock who absolutely tore it up (.313/.405/.656) after returning after missing three months last year. Because of his disappointing '05 and '06 campaigns, PECOTA is very down on Blalock with a projected .263/.331/.436 line, so that's probably causing a decent amount of a difference. Because of how unique he is, Josh Hamilton is obviously a hard guy to find comparisons for; PECOTA has him going from .292/.368/.554 last season to .283/.349/.481 this year. This makes some sense, since last year was in the easier league and a better hitters park, but it still seems low. In writing this paragraph, I have convinced myself that the Rangers are going to score a whole lot of runs this season, and certainly win a lot more than 64 games.

Baltimore Orioles
Average: 63.6
High: Steve Henson, 70
Low: Buster Olney (ESPN), 56

Olney does love the extreme predictions- 49 wins for the Nationals last year is one I'll never forget. This one is much more sane though. They have a decent outfield, but they forgot about the whole "shortstop" thing, and that is a truly awful rotation in an impossible division. Our new friend Henson thinks they will win just two less games than the Rays; now that is a bet I'd like to make.

Toronto Blue Jays
Average: 86.2
High: Joe Sheehan, 91
Low: PECOTA, 78

This is very interesting- a third huge discrepancy in the East, but this time between two "people" that look at things similarly. These are the only two sets of projections that also offer RS/RA, which is helpful. PECOTA has Toronto at 762/775, while Sheehan predicts 761/676. So it's pretty clear where the disagreement is here.

This may be partially caused by different opinions on their defense- they are good, it's just a question of how good. But I think it's mostly their top 3 starters. Burnett can opt out of his deal at the end of the year (thanks, Keith). PECOTA has him throwing 185 innings with a 3.83 ERA; it's worth noting that in his last contract year he threw 209 innings with a 3.44 ERA in 2005, his last contract year. That's certainly too optimistic of an expectation, but it's been shown that players perform better in contract years, and I don't believe PECOTA takes that into account. So that's something to keep in mind. Staying healthy is the first step, obviously.

PECOTA has Halladay at a 4.06 ERA, which is certainly conservative, as his career ERA is 3.63- I'm assuming that's caused by his relatively weak peripherals.

Finally, PECOTA is very low in McGowan, with a 4.60 ERA. Obviously, it hasn't been reading The Baseball Analysts. Beyond that intriguing article, I've read a few other things on McGowan. I think he's expected to improve on last year's 4.08 ERA, and certainly beat his PECOTA projection. So yeah, it looks like Toronto will have some excellent run prevention this year, as one can reasonably expect their top three starters to be significantly better than what PECOTA suggests.

After thrilling us with their AL predictions yesterday, ESPN released their NL team capsules today. They're all linked from the MLB Index (although the Rockies' link is broken; their preview is here). I don't really care about the actual previews at all, but the win predictions for each team from ESPN's analysts sure are fun.

These previews have predictions from Jayson Stark, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney, Keith Law, and Steve Phillips. I'll get to the more interesting specific predictions next week, but first some more general stuff.

Average Win Predction
This is not complicated. If all 30 teams play a full season, the average team will win 81 games. I don't think this requires any further explanation.

Kurkjian: 82.1
Stark: 82
Olney: 81.3
Phillips: 81.1
Law: 81

Congratulations to Keith Law. The only ESPN analyst who can add. Give that man a raise.

That money should probably come out of the paychecks of Kurkjian and Stark. I would like to see the process these individuals go through when making their predictions. I am pretty sure they look at the list of teams, arbitrarily assign a win total to each one, and that's that.

Here is my question: what's the point? Clearly, the guys who don't consider numbers at all are not good at this. Would it be that hard to add up your predictions and make sure that they're, uh, possible? Also: do they not have editors? If they do, do they not know how to add?

PECOTA Correlation
Law: 0.93
Kurkjian: 0.81
Olney: 0.80
Phillips: 0.80
Stark: 0.78

This is not rocket science. Law's predictions will most likely do very well. He clearly at least put some thought into this. The others will do about as well as yours or mine would do if we arbitrarily picked numbers for each team. I find it amusing that ESPN trots out these predictions like they mean something. They do not.

Standard Deviation
Phillips: 10.7
Olney: 10.4
Kurkjian: 10.1
Stark: 9.7
Law: 9.0

For reference, PECOTA's standard deviation is 8.4.

Phillips is so absurd. Here's my favorite little stat from all of these: he has 14 teams winning 88 or more games. Think about that for a second- that's one team away from half of baseball. Here is my prediction: Steve Phillips' predictions will not fare well in this post at the end of the year.

ESPN now has their AL team capsules linked on the MLB page. Each capsule has five anlalysts' predictions on how many games that team will win. For example:


88 Wins + Bedard = 92!! The man does have a history with this team, I suppose. It's the predictions of the first three that really surprise me. Law's "voice of reason" title has never been more appropriate.

Much more on these after the basketball this weekend.

Breaking down some NHL futures odds, and some Super Bowl prop bets that are actually football related.

"Chris Berman Is Somewhat Perturbed With The Help". Very old, but worth watching.

Our old friend Marty Noble, at it again.

Larry Johnson advises a blogger on how to get rich.

Gasaway with a great analysis of conference play thus far. How is Duke still so underrated? (I understand the answer is that they don't have anyone taller than 6'8", but still- it's the Dookies!)

Scott Van Pelt is a funny dude.

Brian Bannister is an interesting dude.

Keith Law's Top 100 prospects. I miss the days of the Indians having a good farm system.

Lozo gets interviewed.

I thought this was pretty funny (Sheehan on the Twins, pre-Santana trade):

"You can win, in baseball, if you have a donut-hole construction—lots of middle, nothing on the outside. You cannot win as a donut."

The Mets traded Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber, and Kevin Mulvey to the Twins for Johan Santana today. If you are relying on this site for such breaking news, you are in trouble.

There will be plenty written about this elsewhere (start here), but I figured I'd add a few thoughts.

-The Mets didn't even give up their #1 prospect (Fernando Martinez). The Red Sox and Yankees were never offering either of their top guys (Buchholz and Joba) either. But those two are a tier above Martinez, prospect-wise. Many people said the Mets didn't have enough in their system to get Johan, yet they did it while keeping Martinez. Seems like Bill Smith waited too long on this.

-I think trying to value Santana in 2009 and on is very interesting. He is going to be getting paid a lot of money (6yrs, $150MM is the figure everybody throws out there). It's difficult for a player to be worth much more than that. But as MetsBlog points out, when you have an opportunity to acquire a guy of this caliber, you almost have to. This is just so far beyond what you can get via free agency. For example, would you rather pay Barry Zito $18.5MM in 2009, or give Santana $25MM? Even after factoring in the prospects/draft picks that you give up, this is not a difficult decision.

-At first I thought that Santana's numbers will get a huge bump because he's switching to the weaker league without a DH, and moving to an extreme pitcher's park. He'll certainly get quite a boost from moving to the NL, but not so much from moving into Shea. The Metrodome treats pitchers pretty well, and it's 2007 park factor was extremely low, at 93 (its multi-year PF was 96). Shea's multi-year PF is also 96, so that's pretty much a wash. PECOTA projects his '08 ERA as 3.32 with the Twins, and 2.94 with the Mets. The majority of that has to be a league adjustment.

-It's interesting that Silver has him at 227 IP in Minnesota, but only 225 in NY. I would've guessed his IP projection would have increased now that he'll be facing the pitcher every few innings. The only thing I can think of is he gets pulled for a PH more often, but that has to be outweighed by the easier opposing lineups.

-Going from the AL's 12th best offense (and that was with Hunter) to the NL's 4th best will certainly help Santana's Cy Young chances. I had forgotten that Johan finished only 15-13 last year. I blame Punto.

-Having Pedro and Johan in the same rotation is pretty cool. I don't believe I've ever seen Santana pitch in person but that'll certainly change this summer. He's out of the Indians' division, and out of their league, which is nice.

-At this point, I think Sabathia would be crazy to accept the deal that The DiaTribe has proposed. He'll be able to get both more years and a higher AAV on the open market.

Edit: Paul makes it clear in the comments that he doesn't think C.C. will accept the deal either. Which I understood, but completely failed to make clear. Here's my response for you non-comment readers, and RSS people:

My point (in theory) was that what the gap between Indians can reasonably offer and what Sabathia can get elsewhere is so large, that his return really seems unlikely.

It's obviously still possible that he wants to stay, and will take a substantial discount. I don't know why this would be the case (although at least Oakland isn't a feasible option), but it would be nice.

If he leaves it'll certainly be disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. They will have ended up paying the guy ~$35MM for something like 1600 innings of a 118 ERA+. They'll only get a couple draft picks at the end of it, but that's okay. The value there is unbelievable, and that's how you win baseball games in the Indians' situation. Not by signing pitchers to six year, $140MM contracts.

Check out the Memphis write-up in Luke Winn's Power Rankings this week. Pretty cool.

" Jacobs Field, the home of the Indians since 1994, will now be called Progressive Field." Well that sucks.

I thought it was interesting that Rice's BA/OBP/SLG are nearly identical to his HoF comps; the difference comes in OPS+, where he's 13 points behind. No wonder the voters are having so much difficulty with him.

More Rice: Sheehan observes that people "feared" Rice because of his '75-'80 performance; he really wasn't that scary at all in the second half of his supposedly dominant stretch.

Last one: Shaughnessy explains to us that Rice was "capable of inducing an intentional walk when the bases are loaded," and a better hitter than Wade Boggs. I mean, I guess I am *capable* of running a marathon, but it's never, you know, *happened*.

Posnanski forces "Brilliant Reader Dan Gould" to eat his hat.

"Mike Downey discussed Goose Gossage's HOF legitimacy by citing his win total."

Keith Law is the Stephen A. Smith of baseball. I wonder how he feels about Cheese Doodles.

Boras, on Ankiel:

"You have a player whose contributions came first as a pitcher, then as a position player. The last player you’re really talking about is Babe Ruth.”

(I wanted this post to have the same background as the BBWAA site, but have no idea how to do that, which is extremely unfortunate.)

Here are the full voting results:


It is frustrating that each individual ballot isn't made public. The person who voted for Todd Stottlemyre should not be allowed to vote in future elections. Does anyone disagree with this? The same goes for the person that checked Shawon Dunston's name. And so on.

Rice will almost certainly get in next year. This whole thing is so strange for me. I honestly don't understand how 8.7% of the voters can vote "no" for Rice for 13 years, and then suddenly change their minds. It is not like we've all come to some greater understanding of how valuable Jim Rice was. I guess people were bombarded with enough "dominant" and "feared" nonsense that they finally gave in. Next year, a few others will inevitably do the same. I should really stop trying to understand these people.

Morris got 101 more votes than Raines. What is there to say?

From Baseball Crank, some trends:


Everybody on this list did better this year, which is not surprising given the relative weakness of the first timers (from the voters' perspective, at least).

Morris was as low as 19.6% in 2001. He has six years of eligibility left; he's got a chance of eventually getting in. This is horrifying.

It also looks like Dawson and Blyleven will reach 75% at some point. Blyleven's 14.2% increase is probably the best news to come out of this year's voting (there's not much competition).

Finally, comparing Keith Law's 120 ballot sample to the official results:

Not surprisingly, Law's sample overestimated the "new school" candidates (Blyleven, Raines, Trammell). This seems unavoidable; I can't imagine too many retired voters fully appreciated Raines' .385 OBP and 85% SB%. When doing this in the future, it's hard to know how much of an adjustment to make, as the sample was pretty close on Blyleven, but way off on Raines.

I am surprised that Morris did worse in the full voting, but it's becoming quite obvious that I don't understand any aspect of this man's candidacy. Morris is similarly mystified (and by similarly, I mean oppositely):

"I think a 3.90 ERA today is worth $25 million a year. ERA had nothing to do with it. There are writers who know nothing about how the game is played, and they look at ERA. My point is, who was in games and in at the end of games? I was in games to win. I played to win the game."

Okay, Herm.

Not that the Blyleven over Morris case needs more ammunition (and not that this is particularly meaningful), but:

Morris Career CG: 175
Blyleven Career CG: 242

Raines' weak showing is definitely the most disappointing part of this year's voting. He's got a large hill to climb, but at least he has a strong support group.

Related: F You Baseball Writers of America, F You [Defensive Indifference]

Apparently, there was a hilarious argument on ESPNews Tuesday afternoon involving Sheehan, Law, and Steve. It seems like ESPN has taken down any parts that may be deemed controversial from its Video section; if anyone has video, or a transcript, or anything, that'd be great.

Hall of Fame edition, because there wasn't a whole lot else going on this week.

Looks like Gossage is in, while Blyleven, Rice, and Dawson all have a shot. Raines does not.

Dave Studeman's imaginary ballot.

OMDQ's imaginary ballot.

Heyman's ballot really was bad.

Jay Jaffe on this year's SP candidates (subscription only).

Posnanski on Morris, and the Pozcars results.

More on the Blyleven-Morris "comparison".

I finally purchased the new domain name that we voted on like two months ago. As you may have noticed, you are automatically redirected to vegaswatch.net when you type in the old URL. All the Blogspot stuff (bookmarks, RSS) should still work; please let me know if they don't.

Shyster with a hilarious post looking at his 1973 Topps set. He goes over about 70 of the cartoons on the backs of the cards. A few favorites:

"Steve does volunteer dentistry work." You can just do that?
"Dennis enjoys attending sporting events." Given his job, I would hope so.
"Ron loves New York for its fine knishes." First draft: "Ron is a Jew."
"Gary is a freeswing batter." In 1973 Maddox was a Vietnam vet and was already a supernatural centerfielder, yet Topps decided to comment on his .293 rookie on-base percentage. Nice.

Tracy Ringolsby:

"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."

In the comments, Tangotiger helpfully points out that Raines' five worst years were better than Coleman's five best.

The top 40 sports figures of 2007.

After a brief hiatus, one of my favorite college basketball blogs, Rush the Court, is back.

Looks like Gossage is going to be voted into the HoF this year.

Yes, I am going to link to Carl on a weekly basis. This week, his locks of the century. The analysis of the UGA-Hawaii game is absolutely stellar.

Posnanski relays an excellent Belichick story.

An interesting look at SLG% on different pitches in different locations.

The following is a list of the members of the BBWAA (from Wikipedia, so don't even think about questioning it's accuracy; although Wikipedia does say it's incomplete).

• Peter Abraham, The Journal News
• Dave Albee, Marin Independent Journal
• Maury Allen, New York Post, retired
• Dom Amore, The Hartford Courant
• Mel Antonen, USA Toda
• Phil Arvia, Daily Southtown
• Bill Ballou, Telegram & Gazette of Worcester
• Mike Bauman, MLB.com
• Ira Berkow, The New York Times
• Jeff Blair, Toronto Globe and Mail
• Barry Bloom, MLB.com
• Ron Blum, Associated Press
• Paul Bodi, MLB.com
• Hal Bodley, USA Today
• Thomas Boswell, Washington Post (non-voting member)
• Pat Borzi, New York Times
• Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Steve Buckley, Boston Herald
• Don Burke, Newark Star-Ledger
• Jim Caple, ESPN
• Mike Celizic, MSNBC
• Bill Center, The San Diego Union-Tribune
• Murray Chass, New York Times (non-voting member)
• Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Bill Conlin, Philadelphia Daily News
• Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Jerry Crasnick, ESPN
• Ken Davidoff, Newsday
• Jose de Jesus Ortiz, Houston Chronicle
• Mike Dodd USA Today
• Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune
• Rich Draper, MLB.com
• Gordon Edes, Boston Globe
• Bob Elliott, Toronto Sun
• Mark Faller, The Arizona Republic
• Jeffrey Flanagan, The Kansas City Star
• Gerry Fraley Dallas Morning News
• Tom Gage, The Detroit News
• Peter Gammons, ESPN
• Pedro Gomez, ESPN
• Ken Gurnick, MLB.com
• Mark Gonzalez, Chicago Tribune
• Jerry Green, The Detroit News
• Tony Grossi, The Plain Dealer
• Paul Hagen, Philadelphia Daily News
• Jim Hawkins, The Oakland Press
• John Henderson, Tampa Tribune
• Lynn Henning, The Detroit News
• Jon Heyman, Sports Illustrated
• Jerome Holtzman, Chicago Tribune
• Jeff Horrigan, Boston Herald
• Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer
• Rick Hummel St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle
• Chuck Johnson USA Today
• Richard Justice Houston Chronicle
• Dick Kaegel, MLB.com
• Ann Killion, San Jose Mercury News
• Bob Klapisch, ESPN
• Mike Klis, Denver Post
• Gwen Knapp, San Francisco Chronicle
• Michael Knisley, ESPN
• Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Doug Krikorian, Long Beach Press-Telegram
• Tim Kurkjian, ESPN
• Joseph Liao, World Journal
• Paul Ladewski, Daily Southtown
• Mike Lefkow, Contra Costa Times
• Bill Livingston, The Plain Dealer
• Seth Livingstone USA Today
• Bill Madden, New York Daily News
• Tony Massarotti, Boston Herald
• Sean McAdam, ESPN
• Hal McCoy, Dayton Daily News
• Dan McGrath, Chicago Tribune
• Paul Meyer Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Bernie Miklasz St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Scott Miller, CBS Sportsline
• Larry Milson, The Globe and Mail
• Jim Molony, MLB.com
• Carrie Muskat, MLB.com
• Bob Nightengale USA Today
• Mark Newman, MLB.com
• Marty Noble, MLB.com
• Jack O'Connell Hartford Courant
• Dave O'Hara, retired
• Buster Olney, ESPN
• Rob Parker, The Detroit News
• Jeff Peek, Traverse City Record Eagle
• Mike Peticca, The Plain Dealer
• Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times (non-voting member)
• Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Star
• Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle
• Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News
• Phil Rogers, ESPN
• Bob Rosen, Elias Sports Bureau
• Ken Rosenthal, Fox Sports
• Roger Rubin, New York Daily News
• Jim Salisbury, The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Alan Schwarz, Baseball America
• Chaz Scoggins, The Sun of Lowell
• Dan Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe
• Bud Shaw, The Plain Dealer
• John Shea, San Francisco Chronicle
• Joel Sherman, New York Post
• Claire Smith, The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Jim Sohan, Minneapolis Star Tribune
• Lyle Spencer, MLB.com
• Jayson Stark, ESPN
• Kit Stier, The Journal News
• Larry Stone, Seattle Times
• Joe Strauss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Jim Street, MLB.com
• Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune
• T.R. Sullivan, MLB.com
• Dave van Dyck, Chicago Tribune
• Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

So these 119 guys are apparently qualified. Included on that list are sixteen Web writers, who were recommended for approval yesterday:

"Sixteen of the 18 nominations were recommended for approval: Scott Miller from CBS Sportsline; Jim Caple, Jerry Crasnick, Peter Gammons, Tim Kurkjian, Amy Nelson, Buster Olney, and Jayson Stark from ESPN; Ken Rosenthal from FoxSports; John Donovan, Jon Heyman, and Tom Verducci from SI; and Tim Brown, Steve Henson, Jeff Passan, and Dan Wetzel from Yahoo. "

Who are the two that missed the cut, you ask? Oh, nobody you've heard of. At least there's a good reason for this (from comment #90):

"One of the requirements for membership in the BBWAA is the need to be at Major League ballparks. Several members questioned whether Rob and Keith meet that requirement.

Some board members informally contacted folks at ESPN with this question and were told neither Rob nor Keith regularly attend big-league games and do not need to do so in order to do their jobs.

I can guarantee you that if my supervisors reported that to the BBWAA about me, I wouldn't have a card.

Also, this is how the system works. Newspapers designate candidates for membership. Reporters don't apply on their own. We followed the same basic procedure in adding internet reporters.

One difference: Candidates have always been reviewed each year by a chapter chairman, but since the internet sites were applying through the national office, they were reviewed by the national board of directors.

I've been in contact with Keith and Rob since the vote. Keith said he does attend games on a regular basis and expects to increase his attendance in the coming year.

If that's true, and I have no reason to doubt Keith, I hope ESPN confirms this and resubmits his name next year for consideration. If so, I would expect him to be approved.

I haven't heard back from Rob at this point, but if the view on his need was similarly misrepresented, I hope ESPN also resubmits him as a candidate.

Bob Dutton
BBWAA president"

Oh. Nevermind. Because attending lots of Tigers games allowed Gage and Hawkins to make such informed selections in this year's MVP voting, right?

Just another addition to the long list of votes pathetically screwed up by this organization, I guess.

Update: FJM chimes in:

"Mr. Neyer, Mr. Law: you are not "beat" enough to be beat writers for the BBWAA. You do not spend enough time smelling players' sweat and managers' chaw. Your brand of writing -- writing about facts, information, and data -- will not be tolerated within their ranks. Gentlemen: congratulations."

Update 2: More debate in the comments of Law's blog.

Update 3: Another BBTF thread.

First of all, the Mets are about to trade Lastings Milledge for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church (or, if you prefer, Ryan Schneider)? How is this a good idea?


I think it might be time to hang it up, Bill Conlin. Although the Thome/Conlin combo is quite something.

This is pretty cool: pitch f/x cards for everyone in the majors.

Is it really too much to ask to not irresponsibly speculate and jump to conclusions about the cause of Sean Taylor's death?

"College is for losers- in football, and in life". Sure is, Carl.

Tim Raines should be in the Hall of Fame.

Posnanski's excessively long (4200 words) but brilliant post on Herschel Walker's college career.
Someone should probably tell St. Paul Pioneer Press writer Bob Sansevere that the Twins aren't exactly in a position to trade Carlos Silva.

I don't know how to quote this and have it actually make sense, but I'm going to try anyway:

"[Kurt Streeter, L.A. Times:] Arte Moreno, be careful. Don't be tempted by Miguel Tejada. I don't like his downward trend.

[KT, FJM] I hear you, Kurt. Look at this guy's stats. I mean, he's 32, he doesn't walk much, he plays a high-stress position which makes him prone to break down...yikes. Stay away. Stick to Torii Hunter."