The Last Off Night Before The Offseason

First and foremost, huge congrats to a good friend of the blog, Craig Calcaterra.

After graduating from Blogspot to The Hardball Times and leveraging that into a part-time gig at NBC Sports, the Shyster is quitting his day job and moving to NBC Sports full-time. Like many others, I found Shysterball through Rob Neyer and have enjoyed his work for a long time. A while back, I used him as an example of the kind of blogger we would benefit by paying a small monthly fee to, in order free him from the legal world and make his content even better. Fortunately for us, NBC has agreed to foot that bill, so Craig gets the cash and we get the pleasure of reading a talented full-time writer for free.

So from one bald baseball blogger to another, well done, sir.

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Okay, back to our regularly scheduled linkaround.

Barring any sort of foul weather, this will be the last off night of the season. Of course, off nights will be in no short supply soon enough, but this is the last one where we are going to have anything immediate to look forward to for a very long time.

If the series goes 7 games, the Yankees will have played 16 games in 32 days since the end of the regular season. As Joel Sherman points out today, the Yankees didn't have their 16th day off during the regular season until after their 147th game. And that includes the All-Star break. It's obviously not the intention of Major League Baseball to ween us off our dependence on the game with the spacing of the schedule (that would be to make as much money as possible) but it's kind that it works out that way.

It's official, Andy Pettitte will start Game 6. That's not much of surprise but the fact that Joe Girardi is apparently toying with the idea of starting Jerry Hairston Jr. in RF certainly is.

Guess who disagrees with the decision to start Burnett on 3 days rest? I'm not going to print his name because he's an admitted compulsive self-Googler.

A list of World Series contributions measured in WPA. Could there possibly be a batter more valuable than Chase Utley? Yes and another Yankee isn't far behind. (via Joe P.)

Rob Neyer wonders if the Yankees' desire to get younger means we're seeing last of Hideki Matsui in Pinstripes. David Pinto speculates that the Yankees might let go of Matsui and Johnny Damon in favor of signing Matt Holliday.

Am I the only one fundamentally opposed to Matt Holliday? I was not high on his prospects at the beginning of this year, and if you'll recall, he wasn't all that great in 400 PAs in Oakland before getting dealt to St. Louis. Yankee Stadium is certainly a hitter's park but he has hit 77% of his career home runs between the left foul pole and center field. That's not where you're going find the easy taters in the Bronx. Oh and Scott Boras is his agent. No thanks.

Dan Levy at the Sporting Blog looks at Chase Utley's chances of winning the World Series MVP if the Phillies lose. Follow the discussion over here. Sean Forman (also of Baseball-Reference) writes a piece for the Bats Blog dissecting Utley's place in World Series history from several different angles.

It looks like Shane Victorino is going to start in Game 6 after his Paul Pierce moment last night. Props to commenter Steve who gave Shane a new nickname today "The cryin' Hawaiian." Jack Moore at FanGraphs tries to determine how much it would hurt (no pun intended!) the Phillies if he had to sit out.

Not an article, but just wanted to point out that Cliff Lee's postseason ERA is no longer lower than Mariano Rivera's and probably never will be again. Ha.

Brett Myers was totally joking with Cole Hamels about saying he quit. I, however, refuse to retract the response I wrote for Hamels earlier.

And finally, on the lighter side of things, Joe Posnanski continues his ABC series which I hope will go on as long as there are mindbendingly stupid advertisements for shitty light beer being shoved down our throats.

FanGraphs Salary Values

When trying to quantify a player's contributions to their team, sometimes Matt and I link to FanGraphs because in addition to Runs Above Replacement and Wins Above Replacement, they also translate that player's value into salary dollars. According to their calculations, here are the 15 most notable Yankees and their respective values:

• Derek Jeter -$33.3M
• CC Sabathia - $27.8M
• Mark Teixeria - $24.2M
• Robinson Cano - $19.2M
• A-Rod - $19M
• Jorge Posada - $18.1M
• Nick Swisher - $17.1M
• Andy Pettitte - $16.1M
• A.J. Burnett $14.1M
• Johnny Damon - $12.1M
• Hideki Matsui - $11M
• Phil Hughes - $10.3M
• Mariano Rivera - $8.8M
• Brett Gardner - $8.3M
• Joba Chamberlain - $7.1M
• Melky Cabrera - $6.6M
• Alfredo Aceves - $5.9M
• Phil Coke - $100K
  
  
• Total: $259.1M

Seems pretty high, doesn't it? That's not even all of them. There are part-time contributors like Chien Ming Wang (yes, he actually had positive value) and Hinske and Hairston and Bruney and Cervelli and Pena that add to that number incrementally as well.

The Yankees' Opening Day payroll was $201.5M, which is roughly what the top 10 most valuable guys on the team add up to (Damon and above on that list). Are the Yanks actually getting that much more than their money's worth?

Well, that depends on your view point.

As David Pinto of Baseball Musings points out, FanGraphs calculates player value based the value of marginal wins, and thereby attempts to valuate all players as if they were free agents. So, when you add up the value of all the batters and pitchers on FG, it comes out to $4.6B, whereas the total payroll of the MLB is roughly $2.7B.

With the obvious disclaimer that the folks behind FanGraphs are much smarter than I am, I would like to respectfully disagree with this methodology.

They use a system that corrects for the artificial forces depressing the salaries of players who are not available to the free market, which makes sense in it's own right. But we are all familiar with these artificial constraints and understand that is the reason why guys like Tim Lincecum are paid a fraction of what they are actually worth.

Instead of creating a system where the value of players is always going to far exceed the payroll, why not base it in reality? When I look at that dollar figure on FanGraphs, I want to know how much a player was actually worth in relation to what other players throughout the MLB are getting paid. I want to be able to tell who is getting their fair share or the pie. Part of that is the fact that guys like Phil Hughes are able to contribute at far beyond their pay grade but someone like CC Sabathia is unlikely to be worth the checks he's cashing, even during a very productive season.

I want to look at salary on a scale that is familiar to me, not one that is based on a contrived scenario in which everyone is a free agent and would make far more than they really do or even would make under those circumstances. It's not like the owners would suddenly shell out an extra $2.1B dollars if everyone hit the market over the next offseason.

Here is that list above, based on the MLB's actual payroll:

• Derek Jeter -$19.5M
• CC Sabathia - $16.3M
• Mark Teixeria - $14.2
• Robinson Cano - $11.3M
• A-Rod - $11.2M
• Jorge Posada - $10.6M
• Nick Swisher - $10M
• Andy Pettitte - $9.4
• A.J. Burnett - $ 8.3
• Johnny Damon - $7.1M
• Hideki Matsui - $6.5M
• Phil Hughes - $6M
• Mariano Rivera - $5.2M
• Brett Gardner - $4.9M
• Joba Chamberlain $4.2M
• Melky Cabrera $3.9M
• Alfredo Aceves $3.5M
• Phil Coke - $59K
  
  
• Total: $152.2M

Seems like a better approximation of their values. At least to me it does.

How High The Moon

Yesterday, on the long drive out to Darien Lake (which is just outside of Buffalo) to see Phish, I was tooling around on my iPhone and came across the unfortunate news of Les Paul's passing on Baseball Musings. I only say "unfortunate" because when someone dies, it's always unfortunate, but Paul lived a fantastic life and died at the ripe old age of 94.

If you're a guitar player or fan of rock music, you probably recognize his name from the famous line of Gibson guitars he endorsed, played by legends such as Duane Allman, Dickey Betts, Warren Haynes, Pete Townshend, Peter Frampton, David Gilmour, Keith Richards, George Harrison, Slash, Jimmy Page, Neil Young and Frank Zappa, to only skim the cream of the crop. Chances are, if fancy yourself a guitar player, you either have a Les Paul or have wanted one badly.

If his only accomplishment was pioneering the solid body electric guitar by crafting it out of a four inch thick piece of a railroad track, he would have had an incredibly successful career in the music business. However, that was only the tip of the iceberg. He also invented multi-track recording, which allowed multiple instruments and vocal arrangements to be stacked on top of each other, which is how virtually every album is recorded in the modern day. A musician in his own right, Paul played his regular gig at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York city until within just months of his death, a performance that we urged you all to experience and one I'm ashamed to say I never did.

To learn more about his long and rich life, head over to the Gibson website for a full scale tribute.

There is also a great PBS special on him, which I'm guessing will be re-aired in the near future. Keep an eye out for that as well.

Last night at the Phish show, they stopped briefly before setbreak to acknowledge Paul's passing, explaining that if he hadn't decided that guitars weren't just for background filler in a band, rock and roll as we know it may never have come to fruition. They played a short version of "How High The Moon", which was perhaps Paul's biggest hit and led into Golgi Appartus, a song replete with lead guitar and a beautiful quiet jazzy solo, a signature of Paul's own music. It was a great moment and I thought of all the other concerts going on simultaneously with similar tributes prompting burts of cheers in outdoor amphitheaters across the country and around the world.

The video below was captured during the advent of multi-tracking at which point it was still a novelty, not the standard industry practice. Most songs don't have 26 tracks (except maybe this one) but this video depicts a man far ahead of his time, bright an vibrant, which is exactly how he should be remembered. Rest in peace, sir.

Somewhere there's music,
It's where you are,
Somewhere there's heaven,
How near, how far.

The darkest night would shine,
If you would come to me soon,
Until you will, how still my heart,
How high the moon.

Another Link-A-Roo

It's been a slow couple of days around here, Fackers, and we hope you understand. I know Matt's been swamped at work and I have had a lot of irons on the fire as well. Here are some more links that will hopefully tide you over.

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PeteAbe rounded up the Yankees' farmhands' stats from the MiLB All-Star games last night.

David Pinto from Baseball Musings continues his look at all 30 teams during the All-Star break today. Yesterday he examined the Yankees. Looking at where in the AL the Yanks rank it terms of pitching and offense, it becomes pretty apparent who hasn't been holding up their end of the bargain thus far.

Tommy Craggs over at Deadspin rounded up some experts on pitching mechanics to try and fix Obama's lollipop curveball. It was a pretty respectable toss, and when you compare it to his golf swing, he looks downright coordinated.

Cliff from Bronx Banter grades the Yankees based on their first half performance. On the whole they seem a little generous to me, but hop over and see for yourself.

Matthew Pouliot at Circling the Bases takes a level-headed sabermetirc look at the AL MVP. You can probably guess who comes out on top so far, but it's interesting to see how Matthew came to that conclusion.

Ben K. from River Ave. Blues talks about what the Yankees might have to give up in order to get Roy Halladay and why front officies and fans likes their own prospects better than others do. In his article, Ben links to Trenton Thunder blogger Mike Ashmore's case for trading Jesus Montero, which is well reasoned, but still doesn't make me want to see him go.

Jason Stark looks at the divergent possibilites of the Phillies signing Pedro Martinez. Joel Sherman compares him to David Cone. My thoughts... Pedro + Citizen's Bank Park = Yikes.

Before the season began, Lar from wezen-ball collected predicitons from seven bloggers (including me), Lar and a few of his friends. Click through to see how we are doing. (Hint: I'm not looking very good).

Could Pettitte Win 300?

David Pinto ponders the question: 

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced Andy Pettitte could easily win 300 games. He’s eighty wins away right now at age 37. He talks about retiring, but his competitive spirit (and large paychecks) keep bringing him back.

He’s a left-hander who induces ground balls. The way balls are flying out of Yankee Stadium to rightfield, the probability exists that Andy’s combination of physical attribute and pitching skill will prove very valuable to the Yankees (although he’s allowed seven of his eight home runs in the Bronx this season).

Finally, Pettitte has the potential to remake himself into a slower pitcher, to become Jamie Moyer. Moyer didn’t start winning game in earnest until he was 33. He totaled 59 wins at that point and now has 250. Andy might get some coaching from Mike Mussina in this regard. That will allow Andy to be effective as age takes it’s toll.

I don't think the fact that Pettitte seems to toy around with retirement just about as much as anyone this side of Brett Favre can be glossed over. He's a family man and it's often said that being away from them for so long takes a toll on him. I get the feeling that Pettitte is thisclose to hanging up the cleats at the end of every season, but Pinto is right... he does keep coming back. 

Logistically, let's see how this would work: Pettitte is on pace for 15 wins this year which is reasonable considering he had 14 and 15 in his past two, respectively. That would leave him at 230 and 38 years old after this year. Even if he continued to win 15 games a year, it would still take him nearly 5 years to get to 300. Does anyone think Pettitte is going to keep trucking 'til he's 43? He has admitted to being injured for the second half of last year and his back acting up as we speak.  

Lastly, Jamie Moyer is the exception to the rule, a total outlier who shouldn't be used as a comparable to anyone. How many pitchers in the majors are older than 43 right now? Two: The Big Unit (45), Moyer (46). Kenny Rogers (another lefty) turned 43 last year and seems like a better comparable for Pettitte than either of the other two (B-R doesn't think any of the three are in Pettitte's top 10). The Gambler won 61 games from 2004-2008 (ages 38-43) playing in Texas and Detroit but his effectiveness steadily eroded towards the end.  

I suppose anything is possible, and it's fun to imagine someone on the Yankees becoming a 300 game winner (I'm not counting Clemens since he only won a relatively small portion in pinstripes - 83). But if I had to bet, I'd put my money on Joba Chamberlain before Andy Pettitte.