Ain't Superstitious

Well, these are slow times in the Hot Stove League, and even slower times on the Fack Youk factory floor. Unfortunately, things like "real work" sometimes get in the way of semi-coherent content. Or we just got an early start on the weekend....

A few things before we go:

• AL Silver Sluggers were announced yesterday and both Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter picked up some additional hardware to add to their Gold Gloves. Silver Sluggers, Gold Gloves, what's next for these two? Bronze Cleats?

• Earlier this week we touched on former Yankee closer John Wetteland. Emergency personnel were summoned to his Texas home yesterday. Depending upon which story you read it was for something as simple as an elevated heart rate, or something as serious as him being suicidal. The good news is he's home now and all appears to be well. We certainly wish him the best. Eerily, fellow 1996 World Series hero Jim Leyritz had a similar incident at his Florida home earlier this year.

• Check out Walkoff Walk's classic TV post from earlier today. Some cool stuff there with The Mick, Hank Bauer, Billy Martin, Joe D., Lefty Gomez, and Tommy Henrich.

• We're a little late on this as it's made the rounds throughout the blogosphere already, but check out No Mas' excellent video about the notorious Doc Ellis LSD no-hitter.

• Big college football game on ESPN2 at 8:00 tonight, as #25 West Virginia visits undefeted #5 Cincinnati. The Big East will likely come down to Cincy and Pitt, but the Mountaineers are hanging close with just one conference loss. They need to win tonight to have any realistic shot at the conference title, and if they do, maybe they can screw Pitt's season in two weeks in the Backyard Brawl, just as Pitt did to them two years ago.

That's it for today. We'll be back in the AM with far, far more college football, though perhaps some would prefer that we do nothing again rather than do that. Anyway, sorry about the lack of content today. It certainly had nothing to do with it being Friday the Thirteenth.

Some Evening Links

While the General Managers' Meetings continue at the O'Hare Airport Hilton, there's not much worthwhile to pass along other than irresponsible rumor mongering based on vague and non-specific quotes. MLBtraderumors.com can keep you up to date with what's going on outside the nation's busiest airport. Here are some links to get you through the night:

• AL Gold Gloves were announced today. Mark Teixeira took home his third, Derek Jeter his fourth. The gnashing of teeth over this has already begun, but let's remember, the Gold Glove is largely popularity and reputation based and not steeped in the evolving, if imperfect, defensive metrics. Hey, at least a designated hitter didn't win this year.

• Joel Sherman reports that Johnny Damon won't give the Yankees a home team discount. I'm not going to put too much stock into this at this point. First of all, it's based on what Scott Boras says. Secondly, this is typical early posturing in free agent negotiations. Thirdly, we'll continue to discuss this at length here as the Hot Stove League moves on.

• Over at River Ave. Blues, Joe Pawlikowski expresses far more succintly what I was driving at yesterday morning. This morning, Joel Sherman wrote that it appears to be the Yankees' current preference.

• Our buddy Jason at Heartland Pinstripes has a great look back at his favorite moments of this very enjoyable 2009 season.

• Rebecca Glass at This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes has an in depth four part series in an attempt to quantify just what Mariano Rivera has meant to the Yankees in the post-season. She consolidated all four parts into one post over at RAB.

• This one came through BBTF over the weekend (I swear on all that is holy that I don't read OK Magazine). A-Rod's special lady friend's kind-of-dad, Kurt Russell, weighs in on the Yankee third baseman. Normally I would dismiss this as just another Hollywood asshole giving us his opinion on something we didn't ask for in the first place, but Russell actually knows a little baseball, spending three years in the Angels' organization until a shoulder injury ended his career. He's also the uncle of former Met Matt Franco.

• Hideki Matsui reportedly will not return to Japan for next season. Be that as it may, his former club - the Yomiuri Giants - won their 21st Japan Series over the weekend. The Giants have often been called the Yankees of Japan, and not surprisingly, the two clubs have had a collaborative agreement over the past seven years.

• In non-baseball news, the Hockey Hall of Fame held its induction ceremonies yesterday. Earlier this year I took a look at the two inductees with area ties: former Rangers defenseman Brian Leetch and Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello. You can watch the acceptance speeches here, or read about how these two nearly teamed up after the lockout.

That's it for tonight Fackers. See you in the AM.

It Ain't The Scoops

We all knew Mark Teixeria was going to be a gigantic improvement over Jason Giambi in a number of ways when the Yankees signed him just before Christmas. He figured to hit for a higher average, have an equal or better OBP, hit as many home runs or more, run the bases more effectively and perhaps most obviously, be able to play first base almost daily and field the position well.

In my post about Derek Jeter's defensive improvements this year, here is what I said about Teixeira's positive impact on him:

Teixeria's glove probably helps, but Jeter has never made many throwing errors. He is on pace for 5 this year and has averaged 6.5 per season since 2001.

It was a pretty blunt measurement, and it turns out I might have actually oversold Teix's influence on fielding throws to first.

John Dewan, author of The Fielding Bible II, contends that there isn't much evidence to suggest that Teixeira is better at rounding up errant throws than the Big G: (h/t BBTF)

In fact, in 2008, Giambi's 29 scoops for the Yankees were good for 0.26 scoops per game started, while Teixeira's 2009 scoops for the Yankees are only 0.23 per game.

Dewan's Plus/Minus System keeps track of positive and negative fielding plays made by each player in every game and recently added "scoops" by a first baseman which would have prevented an error by an infielder as a positive play. These stats are tallied by actual people watching the games, so there is a human element involved, but on the whole would figure to be pretty accurate.

The only thing I can think of which would skew the results is that Teixeira can cover more territory with his foot on the bag than Giambi, and this extended range allows his to field balls Giambi would have had to reach for without scooping them. But I don't think that could occur often enough to make much of an impact.

So where does Teixeira surpass Giambi?

The true difference between Gold Glover Mark Teixeira and Jason Giambi is in handling grounders. In the last two years Teixeira has saved his teams 18 runs fielding grounders, while Giambi has cost his team 18, a 36-run difference in Defensive Runs Saved.

Keep in mind those numbers are over the course of two years, but that is a massive gap in terms of fielding ability. To put it another way, Teixeira's career UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating averaged over 150 games) is 2.2 while Giambi's is -7.2. Giambi might think he's a great defender, but that's obviously not what the numbers say.

Defensive performance is never going to be as easy to put a numerical value on as offensive production, but this should at least help us appreciate what Teix brings to the table on both sides of the ball.