DIGGING A HOLE "There was no need to. It was paid." —Bob DuPuy, MLB executive vice president of administration, to the Minnesota Star-Tribune on why a $3 million loan by a company owned by Twins owner Carl Pohlad to then-acting commissioner and Brewers owner Bud Selig wasn’t subject to baseball’s Rule 20(c), which requires owner…
Part One Part Two Part Three As the long-time owner of an unsuccessful small-market team, Commissioner Bud Selig has 30 years of practice arguing that "small markets can’t compete." (The Brewers’ mediocrity surely couldn’t be management’s fault.) Inevitably, Exhibit A in this argument is a table similar to the first two columns below, which show…
For those of you who may have missed the Associated Press article, Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.) has called for the resignation of Allan H. "Bud" Selig as the commissioner of baseball. Conyers is apparently upset about a bridge loan for $3 million received by the Milwaukee Brewers in 1995. The loan was made to the…
This is a bittersweet column for me, as I write now to announce to the Baseball Prospectus readership my departure from the writing fold. On January 2, I joined the front office of the Toronto Blue Jays, working for General Manager J.P. Ricciardi on matters of player evaluation. For me, this marks the end of…
The start of a new year is a time of reflection and renewal, a time for making resolutions and resolving to make this year a better one than last. In Kansas City, though, the new year looks depressingly like the old. There is no sense of renewal, only a sense of repetition. Last year began…
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN I remember seeing an ESPN report during spring training on Joe Kerrigan’s disdain for the slide step. Instead, the Red Sox use an unusual amount of pitch-outs. How much of a factor do you think this is in Hatteberg’s case? A quick answer might come from looking at the…
Anyone want to guess which Web site will use the headline "Mr. Smith Goes to Cooperstown" after the BBWAA Hall of Fame results are announced on Tuesday? It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that first-time eligible Ozzie Smith will be elected by the writers. The big question is whether any of the other 27 players…
The booth is now closed, and tomorrow we’ll be announcing the honorees in the 2002 STATLG-L Hall of Fame balloting. As much as I’d like to say that I’m running my personal ballot now because I didn’t want to impact the voting (as if it would), the truth is that I’m only getting to it…
Part Two Part One From 1946 though 1993, National League Most Valuable Player awards could be safely predicted, with only a handful of exceptions, using just a few indicators. Since that time, however, the system has already made three major mistakes (the MVP was not selected as a candidate by the system) and one minor…
It’s time to present the inaugural Golden Gun award, given to the league’s best catcher at shooting down would-be baserunners. The winner is the major-league leader in Stolen Base Runs Prevented (SBRP), which is calculated from the number of opponent steals (SB), the number of runners the catcher throws out (CS), and the number of…
BOTTOM OF THE NINTH "When you’re a little kid, you think about the seventh game of the World Series. It didn’t matter how the hit came." —Luis Gonzalez, Diamondbacks outfielder, on his Series-winning hit in Game Seven BEST SEASON EVER "To talk about it on May 21 is ridiculous. I could be hit by a…
In the spirit of holiday cheer, Bud Selig has suggested that MLB may operate the Expos for the 2002 season while the franchise awaits contraction. His comments ran in the Chicago Tribune on December 23rd. Now, this whole problem has come about because Jeff Loria–the New Yorker who bought the Expos after the last ownership…
In part one of this series I identified a set of seven criteria by which "candidates" for National League MVP can be determined, and a quick tiebreaker to tell which of several candidates will be selected. You’ll recall that from 1969-1993, the system identified the eventual winner as a candidate in all but two cases:…