I'll give you an offer you can't refuse...

According to Joel Sherman of the NY Post, the Mets and GM Omar Minaya have a clear-cut strategy as the trade deadline looms:

“The Mets are trying to locate a pitcher (probably a reliever) who is overpriced and not having a particularly strong season”

That’s just awesome. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with that plan?

A few months ago, I went through a partial list of my favorite active player names. So to all of you who read it, I have but one question.

WHY THE HELL DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME THAT THERE IS A CONTEST TO DETERMINE THE BEST NAME IN THE MINORS??? This has been going on for over three years now, people. At least one of you must have known about it and chose not to tell me. Well screw you, random reader. Screw you, indeed.

To the rest of you who were as ignorant as I, it’s basically an NCAA-style bracket where viewers can vote on which names makes them giggle (for me, it’s Seth Schwindenhammer and of course, Rowdy Hardy).  Only one round has been completed so far and there already have been some upsets as number 1 seed Forrest Snow (who never should have been seeded so high to begin with) was predictably taken down by #16 Gookie Dawkins. So clearly, this seeding system is incredibly flawed and we need to right these wrongs.

So I ask you all to keep checking this page, just to make sure that a man named Sequoyah Stonecipher does not lose to Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Because let’s face it. Salty’s only there because he’s already a recognizable player among the MLB fanbase. You do not beat Sequoyah Stonecipher, sir. That is a name that belongs in a sci-fi video game where the character is voiced by Casper Van Dien.

At the beginning of this month the Arizona Diamondbacks fired highly regarded GM Josh Byrnes and replaced him with interim GM Jerry DiPoto, a former major league reliever who pitched for the Rockies as recently as 2000.

It took only a few weeks for DiPoto to drive his franchise off a cliff.

Haren will take his acery back to the AL West.

The news came down today that the Diamondbacks have traded ace Dan Haren to the Angels for pitcher Joe Saunders, two marginal prospects and a player to be named. Even before we know who the player to be named is, this trade is so unspeakably bad for the Diamondbacks that its hard to know where to begin.

If you only look at traditional statistics (wins, ERA), on paper Haren and Saunders seem to be fairly similar pitchers who are both having an off year this season. I’m sure Jerry DiPoto looked at Saunders’s 17 wins in 2008 and 16 wins last season and figured that compared favorably with Haren’s 16 wins and 14 wins, respectively, only at a much cheaper price.

The massive problem for the Diamondbacks going forward is that even the most rudimentary understanding of advanced metrics shows that Haren is a vastly superior player to Saunders, both in terms of absolute talent and in terms of value versus dollars going forward.

Both players are the same age (29), which is still fairly young for a pitcher, but Haren is under team control even longer than Saunders (2013 vs 2012), and whereas Saunders heads to arbitration this offseason, making his future cost unpredictable, Haren is signed at below-market and below-value rates.

Saunders had one great season in 2008, when he went 17-7 and posted a 3.41 ERA, but that season was largely an illusion created by an incredibly lucky .267 BABIP. Saunders’s xFIP in the best season of his career was a very mediocre 4.65.

Meanwhile Haren is having what appears to be an off-year this season, posting a 7-8 record with a 4.60 ERA, but all his peripherals are just as good as ever, and he has clearly been the victim of a very unlucky .350 BABIP – his xFIP is actually a sparkling 3.38, and the ZiPS projection system expects him to have a 3.33 ERA going forward over the rest of the season.

All told, Saunders has a career xFIP of 4.69, which is 4th starter material at best, whereas Haren has a career xFIP more than a full run better at 3.61, which is clearly at ace level.

Over the past three years, according to Fangraphs, Haren has been worth an average of $26 million per season, and thus seems a good bet to provide value even at his 2013 salary of $15.5 million, barring injury.

Saunders's underlying performance suggests a 4th starter on a good team.

Meanwhile, it is not even clear whether Saunders will be worth the big raise he is likely to get in arbitration this offseason. Over the past three seasons, which includes his strong 2008 campaign, Saunders has only been worth an average of $8 million per season. Last season Saunders was only worth $5 million, and he is on pace to be worth about $6 million this season. And while he earning a reasonable $3.6 million this year, he is likely to double that salary in arbitration.

When all is said and done the Dbacks traded that rarest of major league commodities – the true ace starter – in the even rarer package of a reasonable long-term deal, for a league-average starting pitcher and at best a grade B propect (depending on the PTBL, who is reportedly not top Angels prospect Mike Trout).

What has to terrify Dbacks fans, perhaps even more than the long-term implications of the trade itself for the team’s competitiveness going forward, which are horrifying enough, is what this deal indicates about the decision-making process in the Dbacks’ front office.

First, they fired Josh Byrnes, shocking the baseball world. Byrnes was one of the saavier operators in the game with a good grounding in statistical analysis. True, he had made the one mistake of hiring the unexperienced A.J. Hinch as manager and then compounded it by backing up Hinch despite the team’s struggles this season. But otherwise his actual player-personnel moves had pretty much all been good, which is pretty hard to pull off as a GM. Perhaps the sole exception was the 3-year deal he gave to gutsy, gritty, intangible-laden outfielder Eric Byrnes in 2007, but that move is widely held to have been forced on him by ownership.

Second, they fired Josh Byrnes in July. It’s got to be hard enough for even a competent and highly experienced GM to step into the role in the middle of trade deadline fever, but for a rather inexperienced hand like interim GM DiPoto it has to be even tougher. Was Byrnes such a danger to the team that he had to be fired, and thus the front office had to be thrown into chaos, right at the most crucial part of the season for a GM?

Third, the handing over of the reins to DiPoto, who as a former player is an “experienced veteran” who “knows the game,” along with the hiring of legendary grinder Kirk Gibson as manager and now this trade, suggests an ownership enamored of gumption, grit, and grizzled veteraneity over solid statistical analysis, or even scouting.

Gerard DiPoto completes the delicate transition from bullpen stalwart to front office chump.

Some people are postulating that this trade was a pure salary dump, but that does not make sense to me. The Diamondbacks already had one of the lower payrolls in the game, and they already had about $30 million coming off the books this offseason. Plus, the hasty firing of Hinch and Byrnes suggests that this franchise actually does care about wins and losses quite a bit. And it’s worth reiterating that Dan Haren is under team control until 2013! There was absolutely no pressing need to move him now, or t0 sell him off for cheap.

No, the much scarier prospect is that Jerry DiPoto, and presumably whoever is advising him, and presumably Diamondbacks ownership as well, actually think this is a pretty good deal. Sometimes it can be easy to forget what it’s like to evaluate pitchers pretty much only in terms of Wins and ERA. But if that is how you operate, and you have the chance to trade a player who has gone 16-8 and 14-10 for a player who has just gone 17-7 and 16-7, and the only slightly bothersome point is that the one you are getting has a career ERA of 4.29 (but is a winner), where as the guy you’re trading has a career ERA of 3.71 (put can’t always “put it together”) AND you have a chance to save a lot of money AND get some “prospects”?

Why then you take that deal and you think you just did awesome.

But obviously that kind of thinking is not what wins championships anymore, or even divisions. Which is why it’s a great day to be an Angels fan, or a fan of any other team in the NL West.

In September, 2008, Sarah wrote a post for MLB Trade Rumors speculating that the Braves might trade Jeff Francoeur to the Royals. She wasn’t the only one. Joe Posnanski and the AJC’s David O’Brien also said Frenchy would end up in Kansas City.

The speculation made sense. Frenchy never lived up to the hype in Atlanta and Dayton Moore, who drafted and developed Francoeur while with the Braves, had landed the GM job in Kansas City.

Obviously, that trade never happened and Frenchy was shipped to New York instead.

But now the Mets are looking to trade Francoeur, and the price is almost certainly very low, and Moore is still in charge in KC and…well, how could this trade not happen?

Since the day he was drafted, Frenchy was destined to be a Royal. Personable, athletic and completely unconcerned with his on base percentage, Francoeur is the ultimate example of the flaws of pre-Moneyball scouting.

As for the Royals, the team actually has a semi-respectable .336 OBP this season, which places them right in the middle of the pack. But that OBP spike is totally at odds with Kansas City’s long and storied history of walk-hating teams. And it likely won’t continue. A pair of this season’s OBP heroes, David DeJesus and Jose Guillen, are unlikely to return in 2011, for various reasons. Their departures would, theoretically, make room for Alex Gordon and Kila Ka’aihue, who have both been raking at triple-A.

But wouldn’t it be too perfect if KC could postpone their promotions just a little bit longer, in favor of the free-swinging Francoeur? This was a trade whose time has come.

This morning I started my day by heading first to ESPN.com, then to MLB Trade Rumors, then to Philly.com, searching for any news about a possible trade that could help the Phillies get back in the playoff hunt.

Instead, I found this article by Philadelphia Daily News columnist Paul Hagen, who suggests the Phils trade struggling and elderly outfielder Raul Ibanez to the Seattle Mariners:

The pitch would go something like this.

You thought you had a contending team this year. It didn’t work out, but except for Cliff Lee (there’s that name again) you still have the nucleus you thought so highly of in the spring. Now that Ken Griffey Jr . has retired, you could use a veteran with World Series experience. Remember, when Ibanez departed Seattle as a free agent, several players left behind described him as the best teammate they’ve ever had. He’s wildly popular with your fans. He’s hitting a little better lately. And, as a bonus, we’ll pay half of the approximately $15.5 million he has left on his contract.

That’s quite a pitch, right? I imagine Seattle’s response, after the laughter subsided, would go something like this:

First of all, Ken Griffey Jr. never played in a World Series. Never. Moreover, we’ve already got Chone Figgins, who possesses a World Series ring and a .229 batting average, and that’s all the veteran leadership we can stand at the moment. What we need is offense. We’ve scored fewer runs than any team in baseball, and that’s a direct result of posting the lowest slugging percentage of any MLB team, and the lowest OBP of any team not named Houston. We need mashers, but you’re trying to convince us to take a rapidly declining outfielder who is struggling to hit for power in one of the most hitter-friendly parks around? There are five left fielders with a lower OBP than Ibanez this season, and only one guy (Carlos Lee) with a lower batting average. Also, guess what? We’ve seen Ibanez play defense in Safeco, and it isn’t pretty. But hey, no biggie, because he’s a great teammate! And he’ll only cost us $8 million! Where do we sign?

I’m honestly not sure if there’s a team out there that could find room for Ibanez on it’s roster, even if he were making the league minimum. There’s just not a huge market for light-hitting outfielders who play below average defense. The fact that Ibanez is scheduled to make $11.5 million in 2011 makes him untradeable, which Hagen confesses is the “conventional wisdom.”

The adjective “gritty” seems to be one of the highest complements one can pay to a baseball player. It implies a player who shows up every day, battles through injury, and is willing sacrifice the body to win. The kind of player who runs into walls and is not afraid to get his shirt dirty diving or sliding.

Dustin Pedroia is the reigning god of grit, with a grit index of 124.

I decided to try to find out who are the “grittiest” players at each position in the game today. To find this out, I used a method vaguely similar to that used in our “Crowdsourcing the Greats” series, whereby I Googled “gritty center fielder,” “gritty second baseman” etc. and totaled up the hits for each player to a number we might call that player’s “grit index.”

The currently active players with the highest grit index at each position made the starting lineup of our “All-Grit” team (number of hits in parentheses):

C Jason Kendall (5)
1B Kevin Youkilis (115)
2B Dustin Pedroia (124)
3B Mike Lowell (46)
SS David Eckstein (54)
LF Brett Gardner (5)
CF Aaron Rowand (105)
RF Jeff Francoeur (6)

Some other players who posted particularly high grit indexes during my search included 2B Chase Utley (53), CF Shane Victorino (87), and RF Trot Nixon (27), who would have easily beat out Jeff Francoeur in right field, but who would first have to come out of retirement in order to make the team.

As you can see, certain positions seem to be more prone to “gritty” performances than others. There obviously aren’t too many “gritty” corner outfielders, and catchers seem not to be labeled “gritty” too often, despite all the hard knocks they receive.

You will also notice that David Eckstein is the shortstop, despite the fact that he mostly plays second base nowadays. But the the fact is that the reputation for grit that Eckstein built up over his years as a shortstop still earn him 54 hits, blowing all other shortstops away, and I have no doubt that the gritty manager of Team Grit (I nominate Arizona’s Kirk Gibson) would not hesitate to shift Eckstein back to short, because grit cares not for range and arm strength.

Lastly, you will notice that this entire team is pretty much of the Caucasian persuasion. It has often been remarked how sportswriters and fans only seem to apply labels like “gritty,” “scrappy,” “gutsy,” and “tenacious” to white players. In fact, the only non-white players who came up in my searches were SS Jimmy Rollins (6), 2B Orlando Hudson (5) and OF Juan Pierre (3), all of whom are African American.

It seems that in the minds of most of the people on the internet, Latino players can never be “gritty.”

According to the Chicago Sun-Times’s Joe Cowley, White Sox GM Kenny Williams is doing his best to trade for Adam Dunn, but the price is just too high.

“The problem Kenny is finding out is that [Nats GM Mike] Rizzo is acting like Dunn is Ryan Howard,” the source said.

Guess what, source? Rizzo isn’t crazy. Because Dunn is just as good as Howard.

True, Howard’s slugging percentage is slightly higher (.551 over the last three seasons, compared to .540 for Dunn). But Dunn’s OBP is much better (.386 over the last three seasons, compared to .352 for Howard).

Both players hit a ton of homers. Both strike out a ton. Howard tends to hit for higher average, but Dunn walks more. Both players hover around 30 runs created above average, park adjusted (according to wOBA).

They’re both big guys who don’t figure to age particularly well. And speaking of age, they were born 10 days apart.

The real difference between Dunn and Howard: for most of his career, Dunn’s value has been killed by his crappy defense. There really hasn’t been anybody in recent memory who played a worse outfield than Dunn. Someday they’ll write books about how bad he was in left.

But this season, Dunn has played exclusively at first base and he’s been perfectly mediocre. And that’s done wonders for his value, because a guy who plays average defense and hits 40 homers each and every season is incredibly valuable.

Moreover, as Rob Neyer pointed out earlier today, we can’t really fault Dunn for the fact that his managers were playing him out of position for most of his career. Can you imagine how bad Howard would be if the Phils stuck him in left field?

Finally, we get to the biggest difference between Dunn and Howard: Dunn is making $10 million this season and will be a free agent this winter. Howard is signed for the next seven seasons for more money than anyone not named A-Rod.

Dunn is looking to sign an extension, and while he won’t come cheap, he’ll likely accept a fraction of what Howard got.

So before Wiliams (or a source) complains too loudly about the price for Dunn, they should ask themselves: what would I pay for Ryan Howard, if Howard had a much cheaper and shorter contract? Because that’s basically what Dunn represents.

According to the title of an article in today’s edition of the New York Daily News, Mets’ CFer Carlos Beltran “vows to boycott Arizona All-Star game, if selected, over law.”

You got that, Arizona? Carlos Beltran would rather change his grandmother’s diapers before playing at an All-Star game in your stinking state and spits in the face of your immigration reform.

Even though he just played a game in Arizona against the Diamondbacks last night (and will again tonight), he will never, ever participate in an All-Star game in Phoenix until Mexican laborers can live and work there in peace.

It's Carlos Voltron. Get it?

He would rather be the lowest rung of Spencer Pratt’s entourage ladder.

He would rather be the musical guest on “The Tonight Show”, sing Bob Marley’s “War”, and burn a photo of Conan O’Brien following the performance.

If given a choice between playing in a game in which he is not being paid, and being Bronson Arroyo’s groupie, he would think really, really hard, and then put a wig on and follow Arroyo and his musical genius around across the country (but not in Arizona).

So tell them, Carlos. Scream it from the mountaintops.

“Would I come? I don’t know,” Beltran said

Wait, what?

“Would I come? I don’t know,” Beltran said

But… But… The article… Title… “Vows”… “Boycott”…

“Would I come? I don’t know,” Beltran said

What the hell, Daily News? And here I thought that you guys were honest, straight-shooters. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Pratt needs to get his shoes shined so I’ve got to be his shoe-shine guy’s stool.

It’s time to continue our ongoing series wherein we derive rankings for the top players of all time at each position on the diamond by adding up each player’s rankings on the first ten top-10 lists to appear in a Google search, on the somewhat suspect assumption that millions of clicks and thousands of links cannot be too far wrong.

With 8 first-place finishes, the Splendid Splinter easily ranked as the greatest LF of all time.

In this edition we turn to the left fielders. As with previous posts, each player was ranked on a 1000-point scale by subtracting their ranking on each list from 101, such that a first place ranking would be worth 100 points and a 10th place ranking would be worth 91 points, and then adding the results for all the lists. As in the past, ties were broken by adding in points earned from lists ranking more than 10 players, after a decimal point.

So without further ado, here are the top 10 left fielders of all time, according to the collective wisdom of ye internets (first place votes in parentheses, *=HOF):

1. *Ted Williams – 997 (7)
2. *Stan Musial – 988 (2)
3. Barry Bonds – 981 (1)
4. *Rickey Henderson – 971
5. *Carl Yastrzemski – 953
6. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson – 850
7. *Al Simmons – 838
8. Manny Ramirez – 653
9. *Ed Delahanty – 464.6
10. Tim Raines – 464.3

Once again it is fair to say that this method has produced a surprisingly good top-10, given the seeming randomness of the method. Or perhaps I should stop being surprised at this point and just accept that this is actually about as reasonable a method to rank all time greats as any.

The one name I was surprised to see make the top 10 was Tim Raines. Raines actually tied Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty for 9th place, but was not ranked quite as high on the longer lists that left him out of the top 10, so he fell to 10th place on the tiebreaker points. But still, if Tim Raines is one of the top 10 players of all time at his position, then he unquestionably belongs in the Hall.

And it wasn’t as if he just squeaked into the top 10 either. The drop off between the top 10 and 11th place was quite large, with Raines appearing in the top 10 on 5 lists whereas 11th place Jim Rice made the top 10 on only 3 lists.

Speaking of which, a total of 20 players appeared on at least one top-10 list. Here are the next ten players:

11. *Jim Rice – 282
12. *Willie Stargell – 191
13. *Lou Brock – 185
14. *Joe Medwick – 182
15. *Ralph Kiner – 93
16. Albert Belle – 92
17. *Billy Williams – 91.86
18. *Jesse Burkett – 91.51
19. Minnie Minoso – 91.48
20. *Monte Irvin – 91.17

So what do you think? Was anyone left out? Does someone else belong in the top 10? Is Tim Raines really one of the 10 best left fielders of all time? Let us know in the comments.

And finally, here are the lists from which these rankings were derived (again, these were the first 10 lists that came up in a Google search):

“Top 50 Left Fielders of All Time” (The Baseball Page)
“MLB’s 10 Greatest Left Fielders of All Time” (Bleacher Report)
“Top 10 Left Fielders in Major League Baseball History” (About.com)
“20 Greatest Left Fielders in MLB History” (ShareRanks.com)
“Best Left Fielder in History” (Rate it all!)
“ALL-TIME TOP 100s: Left Fielders” (Seth Speaks)
“Left Field: The Top 10” (Answers.com)
“Greatest Left-Fielders” (Baseball Fever)
“Top 10 by position: round 6 ” (Baseball Fever)
“Top 10 by position: final round ” (Baseball Fever)

Willie Mays was the prototypical 5-tool player.

On Thursday, I was watching the Cubs-Phillies and one of the Cubs announcers said: “Jason Werth is a 5-tool player. There aren’t too many of these guys around.”

In baseball, a five-tool player is one who excels at hitting for average, hitting for power, baserunning skills and speed, throwing ability, and fielding abilities.

Truth be told, Werth’s career batting average (.267) is a little low to qualify him as a 5-tool player.

Who does qualify? I’ve made a list of candidates:

• Carlos Beltran — Career average 28 HR, .283 avg., 30 SB. Beltran missed the first half of this season following knee surgery and is plum out of cartilage. It’s hard to imagine he’ll continue stealing bases.
• Carl Crawford — Career average: 13 HR, .297 avg, 55 SB. He plays an above average LF and he’s on pace to have a career-year this season. His arm is above average, according to Fangraphs.
• Josh Hamilton — Career average 32 HR., 303. avg., 10 SB. Hamilton is above average in right field but below average in center. He has a big arm
• Matt Holliday — Career average 29 HR, .317 avg., 15 SB. Holliday has stolen as many as 28 bags in a season, but so far this season he’s only swiped 6. Moreover, while he’s always played a decent left field, no team has ever tried him in center field. One reason for that is his arm is below average.
• Matt Kemp — Career average of 23 HR, 292 avg. and 29 SB. He plays a below-average CF, with a -20.1 career UZR. But he’s got an above-average arm.
• Evan Longoria — Career average 32 HR, .282 avg., 13 SB. Longoria is an elite defender with a big arm. So far this season he’s hitting .300 and he’s already stolen 13 bases.
• Hanley Ramirez — Career average 27 HR, .314 avg., 42 SB. Ramirez doesn’t have a reputation as a great fielder and he’s living up to that reputation this season, with 12 errors already and a -6.1 UZR. His career UZR is -35.8.
• Alex Rios — Career average 17 HR, .283 avg., 24 SB. Plays an above-average CF and has a plus arm.
• Scott Rolen — Over his career Rolen has averaged 27 HR, .284 avg. and 10 SB, but this year he has yet to steal a base. It’s a safe bet he’s lost that tool.
• Grady Sizemore — Career average 25 HR, .272 avg., 26 SB. Sizemore’s career batting average is a little low, but he’s hit as high as .290. He plays fantastic defense in center field, but has a below average arm according to Fangraphs.
• Troy Tulowitzki — Career average 24 HR, .286 avg., 12 SB. Tulo is still only 25 and last season hit .297 with 32 HR and 20 SB. Plus he plays outstanding defense and has a great arm.
• Chase Utley — Career average 28 HR, .294 avg., 15 SB. Utley is arguably baseball’s best defensive 2B and an an elite baserunner (though not necessarily a big base-stealing threat). As a 2B, his arm strength is probably minimal.
• David Wright — Career average 27 HR, 309 avg., 23 SB. Last year was a generally crappy year for Wright, but in 2007-2008 and so far this season he’s been very good at the plate and in the field, with a plus arm.

Conclusion: Rolen used to be a 5-tool player, but no longer is. Utley probably doesn’t steal enough bases, nor does he have a big enough arm. Rios is pretty close, though it’s a bit of a stretch to say he “excels” at hitting for power. Kemp’s defense isn’t good enough. Same goes for Ramirez. Sizemore’s arm is suspect and his batting average is a little low. Crawford doesn’t historically have great power, but he’s had plenty so far this season.

There are problems with all the guys on my list, but I suspect by the end of this season Longoria will have convinced us of his five-toolsiness. Ditto Crawford and Wright. And while injuries have plagued him, I’m sold on Tulo, too. If we want to stretch the definition a bit, we can probably lump Hamilton in there, though his defense only plays well in a corner outfield spot.

Yankees fans wondering about Derek Jeter — stop right there. He’s a great player, but even if you’re willing to concede that he’s a good defender (and I’m not), he’s certainly not a guy with a plus arm. So he’s out.

Guys who might qualify in the near future: Shin-Soo Choo, Andrew McCutchen, Colby Rasmus, Carlos Gonzalez, Justin Upton, Grady Sizemore.

Did I forget anyone?