If the Bartolo Colon trade was some big Selig conspiracy, how come Minaya offered Colon a $50-million, four-year extension? Bud had to approve that contract. Only after Colon rejected it, did Minaya trade him. Why wasn’t that mentioned? Oh, I get it – if it’s A FACT but it doesn’t fit the conspiracy template/make Bud look bad in EVERY situation template – just ignore it.
The end always justifies the means when it is Bud we are attacking. I don’t mind opinionated journalists, but when you ignore important facts to make your argument look better, it destroys your credibility. Is BP’s urge to bash Bud that strong that you must always embellish your pro-MLBPA side and ignore facts that might weaken your argument?
–KS
Featuring Jonah Keri, Jeff Bower, Chris Kahrl, Derek Zumsteg, Nate Silver, Jeff Hildebrand, Gary Huckabay, Dave Pease
Thanks to everyone who suggested that
we post the HACKING MASS results for 2002 and let people figure out how
they did themselves–something we completely failed to consider–here are the
complete 2002 results.
The 2002 HACKING MASS Results: All Players, By Name
We list the 2002 HACKING MASS Results: All Players, By ESPN
This edition of From the Mailbag includes comments on the AL Cy Young and Barry Bonds.
From your Transaction Analysis page:
Anaheim Angels – purchased the contract of RHP Francisco Rodriguez from Salt Lake. [9/15]
I thought a player had to be on the active roster (or disabled list) as of August 31 to be eligible for post-season play. Does this mean that the Angels have to forfeit his 5 wins?
–PG
The Angels pulled the oldest roster trick in the book to make this work: They placed someone from their 60-day DL (Steve Green) on their postseason roster, effectively leaving a roster spot open for somebody else, or in this case, Francisco Rodriguez.
The Baseball Prospectus staff discusses the latest playoff matchups.
Watching the playoffs the last two nights, the Prospectus staff sounds off. We pick it up at the end of Angels-Yankees, Game 1.
[Just after midnight Eastern time Friday morning, the Prospectus staff starts discussing the coming agreement]
Derek Zumsteg: It appears that if the owners gave in right now, just said “sure, we’ll take your last offer”, they’d have won more in this negotiation than in any previous one since free agency. Why did the players move so far? Are they that afraid of the NLRB and implementation? Do they believe that if they give in this time, they’ll be able to win it back in four years when it’s apparent none of this did any good for competitive balance?
I’m baffled.
We plan on making the Mailbag a regular BP feature, but we can’t do it without your input. If you’ve got questions about any article on the site, click the e-mail link at the bottom of the page to write to the author and we’ll do our best to reply. If you’ve got a general…
Here’s what we’ve been able to dredge up on the 29 guys we’ve identified as being on an Opening Day roster but not in Baseball Prospectus 2002.
There are 30 teams in MLB, 25 players per team, for 750 roster spots total. We put out a book with nearly 1,600 players in it. You’d think we’d be able to cover those 750 roster spots, but no, every year MLB teams manage to find players we didn’t cover and give them uniforms Opening…
Our best guess at 2002’s winners and losers.