SB Nation - Login for mobile commenting

Lookout Landing

Winter Meetings Open Thread

weeeeeeee

The Red Sox do need a right-handed hitting fourth outfielder. The name of Willie [Ballgame] continues to pop up in many quarters. He would be much cheaper and more reliable than Rocco Baldelli, whose health makes his presence questionable.

0 recs  |  239 comments

Comments

Saw that earlier today.. Amazing that people think he has value.
Willie Bloomquist and Rocco Baldelli have the same skillet?
Willie Bloomquist is an outfielder?
The Red Sox are interested in Willie Blomquist?
Pedroia needs a pillow fight buddy.
Darren Oliver was a Type A!?
Who's going to get flipped for Derek Lillibridge?
Javy Vazquez
?

goddammit
Normally I don't even notice typos but this one was too good to pass up.
Everyone on this site is a dick.
Well you're a towel.
Not everyone.
Don't take GTE seriously
GTE anmesty has well defined parameters for acceptence.
a good skillet is a necessity when you go fishing.

or clamming.

I'm calling that skillet, black.

Oh how I missed thee Racist boy
This kid makes me smile every time i see him
Exact same skillset.

Both are gritty, hustle, and have the same amount of nominal mitochondrial function. The problem is that Rocco has more size and muscle, and therefore less function per unit volume. Like I said, same skillset.

oh you wanted to evaluate their kitchen wares! Willie has far superior skillets.
Playing around with WAR, it appears that Willie Ballgame and Yuniesky Betancourt share approximately equal value
Quiet fool, you will kill any chance we have at trading him.
Maybe we can get the Red Sox's interested in Betancourt as well?
They do need a Short Stop
No they don't
Ok.
Jed Lowrie is good
I was going off of what a coworker said this morning. He is a complete idiot fan so assumed he knew what is was talk about.

My Ok. was me taking your word for it.

I really meant to say he is NOT a complete idiot fan
I really don't want to believe this.

I’ve read reports that he probably won’t stick at short, but UZR thought he was good (in a tiny sample size, of course). And his BABIP was pretty high. And I have an irrational dislike of him so I don’t care what you say.

His BABIP was high because his LD was high

He’s not going to be a world wrecker or anything, but he’s a decent little shortstop.

Stop being reasonable.
The Red Sox aren't stupid
Perhaps we could offer teams a package deal

Rec'd for the use of the word "package"
Though their thrusting is much too slow for my taste.
the point of rec's are?

(other than knowing that e-people e-love you)

For some of us that knowledge is like a hug from the Easter Bunny.
Mad street cred
Which you negate by your drunk and uncalled for rantings and destruction of property/merchandise
Once you get a certain number of recs you become a mod.
A straight answer! 1/3 ain't bad from LL. Love this place.
0/3
also, gullible isn't actually in the dictionary.

Little known fact.

I see what you did there
Cash value of recs: 1/20 of one cent

so, 20 recs is a penny, 200 recs is a dime, and so on. Bonuses are paid quarterly.

Somebody owes me 68 cents
check's in the mail

*check may not in fact be in the mail

Yet you refuse to take my 2 cents.
If I can give Dave Cameron $15, I'll send you $0.68.
I would love to see Boom-Boom as a Red Sox.

I would attend each game hoping WFB plays CF.

So...

5:06pm: Cubs manager Lou Piniella asked Seattle reporters today whether Ibanez can play right field.

Yes he can.
I can play QB for the cowboys, then.
Now you're gettin it!!
Can you poorly hold field goals though?

I hear that’s a requirement for becoming a quarterback for the Cowboys is the non-ability for holding place kicks

Hopefully he's not asking his scouts.
Theo, Theo, Theo...

Two steps forward, fourteen steps back. Maybe you should have held on to Coco.

Willie doesn't suck

It’s just a funny image in my head.

But Coco > Willie?
They didn't give Coco away for free, though.
I thought Willie had delusions of grandeur about starting in the NL.

Of course....

Bavasi knows value when he sees it. This doesn’t seem like such a longshot after all.

Is Jocketty that much of a fool to sign Willie?
I'm sure he'd rather play for the best team in baseball if given a choice
I dunno

Would he take a 4th OF/bench spot on the best team or a starting job with a lesser team? He’s always seemed hell bent on getting that chance to be a real starter.

Ya..

WFB would leave the Mariners and win a ring on the Sox. It’s sad how predictable yet possible that is.

What kind of deal will Rocco Baldelli get?
A very incentive-laced one, I would imagine.
Seems like he could be a steal this offseason.
Yes but he has tremendous collapse potential.
Nicely played sir

i would assume that his deal wouldn’t be too bad, but as said before, laced with performance incentives

I'm glad someone finally got this joke.
Yeah, I've been in class and just got home

I would have jumped on this earlier if I didn’t have an exam tonight, trust me

I'd love for GMZ to take a flier on Rocco.
Slightly offtopic

 but does anybody know the reasoning of A-Rod signing with the Rangers so late into the offseason

December 11?
Thats what I thought

but the wikimobile says January 26th 2001

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/2000/12/11/rangers_arod_ap/


“People are talking about the money, but you have to recognize the type of player he is and what he can accomplish,” Oakland general manager Billy Beane said. “And he’s only 25 years old.”

Billy Beane is a smart guy

I want Bloomquist to get a starting job somewhere.

I want all of the Bloomquist fans to see what he would do when “given his chance to start”. It would be great to see him in Texas or with the Angels for 150 games.
It wouldn’t change anything. People see what they wanted to see.

Yes it would be nice to see him hitting cleanup for the Angels.
Nah, couldn't happen.

With Willits, there’d be too much grit.

Stupid comma.

Meant to be a period. >:(

What?

Nah. couldn’t happen. = Two fragments, was a good sentence before
With Willits. There’d be too much grit. = Two fragments, comma works

It works better with a comma
Coach is just drunk
I hate the rules of grammar.

They can be so irritating. >:(

but you used them all correctly in this instance

even if inadvertently.

Maybe you should get better at writing
At least I don't use the British version

of English! Do you say aluminum that weird way they do?

What the hell are you talking about
How Graham always use the British versions of words?
British people speak the english that we do.
They spell words differently.

Like “Metres” instead of “Meters”, “Realise” instead of “Realize” and others.

Please tell me you're not really this dumb
Are you saying that they don't?
I'm saying that of course they do

but why the fuck does it matter?

It's a bit strange.

That’s just my opinion.

They were writing English before this country was even a concept
Yes but when you grow up learning to spell words

a certain way then it’s a bit strange to see it spelled a different way, no?

Not if you can get behind the idea that different cultures do things differently.
Coach just thinks that everything that doesn't fit into his incredibly narrow and off base perspective of the world is strange
Well it's just like getting used to the time difference

when you go to a different country. Your brain is so used to what you experience every day that it’s strange to experience something different.

That makes it strange to you, not inherently strange
I think that's his point.

Not everyone has to jump all over him because of that.

Coach jumping is one of my pasttimes though :(
I don't see what the point of making the point was though
It's just Coach being Coach, that's pretty much the only explanation.
Coach being Coach means he should get jumped on

That’s the only way to make Coach amusing

Meh, I guess it used to be funny...

It just seems like LL has become “How can I say something that’s just a little bit ruder than the last comment to get a laugh.”

Yeah, Coach’s argument was stupid, and this is a typical Coach type of meltdown that has become legendary in LL lore, but maybe it’s a combination of everything here lately that makes this seem unnecessary and like people are trying to force the humor. The whole being a dick to be funny fad was fun for awhile, but it seems like it’s a bit out of control these days.

Not that this is the worst example of dickishness or anything, just seemed like as good a place as any to mention it.

You should have waited for something more flagrant

because we were actually being pretty kind to Coach.

Brett thinks Tucker Max is funny

Brett is therefore not the arbiter of when things are funny.

Is anyone here the arbiter

Of what is or is not funny?

I'd like to think so
That is some pride
There have to be rules for everything
He's certainly dead on with this though
The whole being a dick to be funny fad was fun for awhile, but it seems like it’s a bit out of control these days.
I dunno

I’ve just come to the conclusion that rather than acting like dicks to be funny, people are acting like dicks because they’re dicks.

That's entirely possible.
Not that I want to get into this but it's also worth pointing out that Brett was one of the first non-Graham people to start acting like a dick to others
Posting your comment twice seems kinda dickish.
I used "people" twice in the first one so I deleted it
I'm jealous of your powers.

I type too fast.

Or just because your opinion of whats funny changed doesnt mean our has.
Ok

Then what is your opinion? Is being a dick to other people funny to you?

I dunno, what do you think about this one?

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/7/25/579191/series-preview-seattle-mar#7630882

Don’t make a big fuss unless you have a clean record.

Point taken(and I still stand by that)

I’ll rephrase:

Is being a dick to other people, for no particular reason, funny to you.

Should be a question mark there I suppose.
I can only answer by saying

it’s case by case. What’s funny is funny.

True.

I’m just asking in general though.

It's sad that I haven't paid enough attention to fully understand the story here, but I get the jist
I wish LLLJ were actually dead
Their English came first
We tend to bastardize languages here.
They invented it, we perfected it, right Coach?

After all, we have more people working on it, so it’s gotta be better.

Tell that to the lovely people in former British India
The English invented cricket, the Indians perfected it

so that’s a nice consolation prize for them.

That's true

Indian Speed Cricket is the coolest game ever

Actually...

If you believe linguistic theories, U.S. English is actually closer to the original English since colonization and isolation from other linguistic influences kept it purer…

Isolation from other linguistic influences?

you mean influences like the, oh I dunno, Irish, Germans, Swedes, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Indians, Italians, West Africans, Carribes, Cubans, Scots, Armenians, Poles, Latinos, Portuguese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Arab, Persian and some other immigrants who have come here and influenced the way American English is spoken? Yes, yes I suppose you’re right.

I believe that is the English as spoken in Appalachia
No they don't.
Canadians spell words funny too

That’s why our healthcare is superior and our currency is worth more.

No it's not

C$1=US$.80

whoops, missed the sarcasm
Maybe because he's English?

Don’t show your age so much.

Coach isn't Coach unless he's Coach
My cousin's husband is from England.

He doesn’t wrote like that.

how does he wrote?
How do you not capitalize the first word in your sentence?
He probably also uses correct verb tense
Benedict Arnold slept with George Washington.
DON'T EVER TALK THAT WAY ABOUT G-DUB
Wow O is not even close to I on the keyboard
Not on a British keyboard anyway.
Al-yoo-min-ee-um

I believe he is eluding to that.

He should have spelled it in British fashion then

It’s aluminium if you’re British

Never seen it spelled. Just have heard it.
Alluding, since we're being pedantic
Arrraghh!

Dammit.

no harm no foul
So in Coach-world, not knowing how grammar works > writing properly in a common variant of English.

Ok then.

Sounds about right for Coach.

facepalm

I hope you don't have to grade papers later in your life
Works even better with neither
It's optional there

It looks nice for separation but you don’t speak it

Nope. No comma needed.
Not necessary but grammatically acceptable
Perhaps, but if you had a teacher than was paying attention they'd make you down for inserting and extraneous comma.
mark

:(

an

:)

"that" too
I wish I could edit comments here so I could start deliberately inserting them into JI's posts
I'm good at editing comments but I never edit my comments.
I could leave more comments at USSM

but I can fix those.

So I guess you’re boned.

I agree that it reads better with no comma

But I’m not sure that you’d get marked down- it’s sort of an archaic usage of the comma, one that would be indisputably acceptable about 50 years ago, but I think it’s still acceptable enough that you would not get marked down, particularly by an older teacher

You'd get marked down if you were writing in a English class
On the grounds of Corco vs. Matthew, 9/22/2008

You’re correct

Legal precedent!
It's hard to argue against myself

and I realized if I were arguing with you that’s essentially what I’d be doing

I want either this to happen or him to not even manage a guaranteed deal
"The name of Willie [Ballgame] continues to pop up in many quarters."

I’m pretty sure those quarters aren’t the Red Sox GM’s office, though.

I would think Scott Boras has better things to do than run around pimping Willie Bloomquist

Local press chats with Zduriencik

* Zduriencik said that Brandon Morrow’s conversion to a starter will continue, but admitted that it could change if personnel moves were made. He said that’s the case with any player. But as of now, they are looking at Morrow as a starter. If they trade Putz, maybe that changes.

Hmmm… I don’t really know how I feel about the idea that Morrow starting and trading Putz may be mutually exclusive.

I think he's mostly just saying that to please the media

Since they seem hellbent on him being a closer.

I’d be shocked if Morrow weren’t a starter come opening day

It's like if we somehow ended up with a rotation of Felix/Halladay/Webb/Santana/Lincecum

He’d be in the bullpen

If you believe in WPA then closers should be really valuable

I’ve been wanting a little explanation on this for a while.

Closers have high WPA because the team is able to leverage the innings a pitcher is in and since he is very good, is able to accumulate high WPA totals which makes him valuable to the team.

Starting pitchers operate in lower leverage situations but pitch many more innings so if they are above average, they too can rack up a good WPA but only the top SP can do this.

Starting pitchers can often get better “runs allowed” metrics because they pitch so many innings. If pitcher A has 220 IP and RA of 4.25 and pitcher B has 60 IP and a RA of 2.50 (with the average RA being 5), pitcher A will be 18 runs above average and pitcher B will be 17 runs above average.

If you use WPA to put a value on a player then isn’t it easier to justify making Morrow a closer. If you use “runs above average” then it is probably easier to justify using him as a starting pitcher since just looking at runs ignores the impact of leverage.

(In the discussion above a closer is defined as a very good relief pitcher used in high leverage situations. Todd Jones is not a closer. Carlos Marmol is a “closer”.)

That's exactly why WPA is a fun way of looking at what happened during a game

but should not, not, not be used for any sort of player evaluation

Morrow may indeed be more valuable as a closer than as a starter

but for one thing, his repertoire suggests that this may not always be true, and for another, a good reliever is a lot easier to find than a good starter. So for these reasons the team owes it to itself to give Morrow as many chances to start as it can, I think.

If good relievers are easier to find than good starters

should WPA take this into account and control for this.

I agree with you. I’m mostly just wondering about which way is better for evaluating player contribution because not all runs are made equally. I bet the runs saved by a bullpen are probably 50% more valuable than the runs saved by a team’s defense or starting pitching. A team full of cheap relief pitching can easily be an average bullpen if you have an intelligent GM but there might be a real advantage to actually investing in great relief pitching.

You'd just have to look at the leverage values

If I recall from memory, innings thrown by upper-level relievers tend to have ~twice the leverage of innings thrown by starters.

We can't really ask WPA to be something it's not.

Which is an accounting of a single game. By design, the late innings are going to be more crucial because of the limited opportunities that remain.

I can at least understand the argument that WPA helps you figure out which hitters were more “valuable” if you think that’s actually how you should vote for MVP (which many people do). Using it for pitchers doesn’t seem wise.

WPA for pitchers is totally valid (except it doesn't take into account defense)

It has more uses than just the MVP race.

Late innings are more critical but to cash in and earn high WPA you need to perform well. Relief pitchers can only take advantage of the high leverage situations if they are better than the average relief pitcher used in high leverage situations.

Dont forget, though

That its a lot easier to find a Carlos Marmol or Pat Neshek than it is to find a James Shields or Jon Lester.

Its harder to find good solid SP than good solid RP.

I continually hear this but I don't know if finding elite RP is much easier than elite SP
Elite RP's are just as hard to find as Elite SP's

But it’s easier to find that stop-gap guy who will fill a role for a year or two while you either farm an elite pitcher or find one on the market

Zduriencik's a smart dude and a scout at heart. And Brandon Morrow is a scout's pitcher.

He’s big, he’s young and he throws in the high 90s. I can’t imagine Z looking at that dude and all his potential and deciding to put him in the bullpen. Especially if he’s trying to put together a plan for long-term success, which I think we can assume.

Hard to see Morrow's transition to being a starter not continuing at this point.

And “maybe” that changes if Putz is moved but I don’t see it happening. Wouldn’t be hard to find bullpen help.

Zduriencik can't be that dumb.

I don’t know anything about baseball and I know that would be a dumb idea.

BAD BAD BAD
WAOOOOOGA...WAOOOOOOGA
Rotoworld
Free-agent Jason Giambi has told friends that he expects to sign with the A’s, but his former team has him “way down on its list of priorities,” sources told FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal.
Giambi supposedly wants a three-year deal, though that’s completely unrealistic. Two years might be possible, but one year remains more likely. He seems like a much worse fit with the A’s in the wake of the Matt Holliday deal. Perhaps there’s a chance they could use him at DH, Jack Cust in left field and Holliday in right, but it’s not likely at all.
ESPN
Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti told ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark on Monday that he ran into [C.C. Sabathia] agent on Sunday night in a hotel lobby and the left-hander told him that he wants to be a Dodger.

No real surprise here, but at least it’s not Anaheim.

Why is it important that the agent is a left-hander?
Yeah, I screwed up the editing.

Dammit!

I was just giving ya crap...I did laugh at the thought of them including that in the quote though.
ARGH!

The Diamondbacks are working to re-sign Tony Clark, presumably to a one-year deal.

Again? AGAIN? God, why do they keep fucking bringing this guy back!?

easy.

he’s a Good Clubhouse Influence™

He's our Ibanez, just cheaper and without the ability to hit.
Tony Clark's a good dude

At spring training he was the one guy who’d talk with every single fan and sign stuff for everybody. But yeah probably done as a hitter.

I prefer to think that they're just signing him to do commercials and come up with slogans

Like this one

Worth taking a flyer on if he gets that far?
Because of his elbow woes, Takashi Saito could be non-tendered by the Dodgers if he doesn’t agree to terms this week.
Saito is eligible for arbitration for the first time and would be a very interesting case, given both his extreme success and his recent health issues. The Dodgers would have to give him a raise from the $2 million he made last season in order to re-sign him, but they wouldn’t want to risk him being awarded $5 million or more by an arbitrator.
YES BOB YES!
Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said he plans to open 2009 with Chad Tracy at first base, Conor Jackson in left field and Eric Byrnes in a reserve role.

$11M for a 4th outfielder. Wooo!

Also, K-Rod to the Mets?

SI.com’s Jon Heyman expects the Mets and Francisco Rodriguez to agree to a three-year deal worth about $37 million.
K-Rod certainly would have had more earnings potential if he had elected for a one-year deal with the chance to go back on the market next winter. However, the difference between $12 million per year and $15 million per year has a lot more to do with status than any real world consequences. At least this deal is still bigger than the three-year, $34 million contract he turned down from the Angels a year ago.

Baker playing GM..

discussing trading Beltre for Delmon Young. Brilliant Geoff, just brilliant.

Trade Putz for Fielder?

On Steve Phillips ESPN winter meetings blog:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=winter_meetings_2008

The Mariners need a power hitter. The Brewers need a closer. There is speculation that the two teams are discussing a package involving J.J. Putz and Prince Fielder.

Phillips is an idiot and that wouldn't happen in a billion years.
But what if that billion year time period began 999,999,999 years and 364 days ago?
think

of how sad Willie would be without his thriving fanbase of 60 year old retired soccer moms. And who would they love now?!!? WHERE’S BRET BOONE?!?

hmm.

Willie’s fans all seem to be middle-aged or older guys…

You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of Lookout Landing to post a comment.