Accardo’s strength as a pitcher is his ability to keep the ball in the park. For his career he allowed just 14.8 per 200 innings. In a park like Toronto, that favors home runs, that’s a useful skill. He was wild in 2009 however, walking 17 batters in 24 2/3 innings. That’s really out of line with his career; most seasons he’s been under 3.0 walks per nine innings.

The Jays didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in him coming back from his 2008 forearm injury. If he gets his walks under control again, he should be an effective reliever.

Abreu’s OBP bounced back to .390 in 2009 after two down (but very good) years. To Mike Scioscia’s credit, he batted Abreu second in the lineup as a table setter, taking advantage of his ability to set up the heart of the order. In what was possibly an audition as a hitting coach, Abreu influenced a hacking Angels lineup to take more pitches, leading to one of the best offensive years for LAnaheim.

Abreu is a very good base stealer, swiping 348 bases in 459 attempts, a 75.8% success rate. His main drawback lies in his defense, where’s he’s posted negative fielding runs for the last six seasons.

If he posted these stats in a career that started 20 years earlier, Abreu would be a sure Hall of Fame candidate. In this era of high offense, however, he’s going to go down as a very good player. I am curious to see how long he lasts on the ballot once he makes it. My guess is he’ll fall off more quickly than he probably should, but he sould be remembered as one of the outstanding players of his generation, one who hit for average, got on base, hit for power and ran well.

David Aardsma is the closer for the Seattle Mariners. He played for four different teams in four season prior to joining Seattle for the 2009 season. David’s strength as a pitcher comes from his ability to strike out batters. In 216 major league innings, he’s struck out 219 batters.

Prior to this season, two things held Aardsma back from being a successful pitcher. His high strikeout rate did not lead to a low opposition batting average (.269 BA), and his high walk rate allowed those hits to do more damage (.376 OBP). That changed in 2009 as he allowed a .190 BA and cut his walk rate from 5.6 per nine innings (career through 2008) to 4.3 this season, good for a .283 OBP.

Seattle also seems to be the perfect park for him. His percentage of fly balls went up this season, but his percent of fly balls on home runs were cut in half. The Mariners control him for three more years as he goes into arbitration this off season, so David picked a good year to become a quality closer. What needs to be watched is how much of a fluke this season was due to good defense taking away hits from batters.

Hudson missed a over a year with Tommy John surgery, but pitched well in his return, making seven starts and showing his usual great control. I suspect the Braves money he received from the Braves was very good, and his return gives them a very strong rotation for 2010 with Vazquez, Hanson and Jurrjens, barring a trade.

Update: AJC reports that the contract is worth about $9 million per year. I thought he would get closer to the $12 million in the option.

Joe Mauer. Photo: Icon SMI

Mauer remains one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, but this year’s numbers were down. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Mauer had a career-high nine passed balls (after having four in 2008) and caught 26 percent of opposing baserunners, compared to 36 percent last year and 53 percent in 2007.

“I think I might have said this last year — it was kind of a struggle, to tell you the truth,” Mauer said. “We had a very young staff. With a young staff it gets tough to control the running game, calling out pitches and trying to put them in situations where they can succeed. I wish I would have been a little better at throwing out runners and stuff, but I think we all know that takes a little more than the catcher.

“It was a frustrating year, but it was a very rewarding year also, to see those guys improve and definitely toward the end.”

The Twins as a team were very poor at stopping the running game, allowing a 77% stolen base percentage, 25th in the majors. However, as a measure of how little stolen base success hurts a team, the Angels ranked 24th, the Rockies 29th, and the Red Sox 30th. The only playoff team that was good at stopping the running game was the Cardinals, who allowed a 61.1% success rate, 2nd to Seattle.

The catcher’s primary focus should be to help the pitcher get outs as quickly and efficiently as possible. Keep your pitcher focused, and don’t let him get caught up in the thrill of making hitters look bad or the trap of trying to make a perfect pitch. Realize that the idea is not so much to “trick” hitters but rather to pound the strike zone in good locations, resulting in quick outs. Keep the pitch count down. Make the opposition swing the bat often and early by keeping your pitcher around the strike zone. I’ll take a first pitch ground out over a strikeout any day of the week. Both scenarios result in an out; however, the ground out requires only one pitch whereas the strikeout takes at least three. Over the course of a game, those numbers can really add up. Keep the pitcher focused on being efficient rather than wasting energy on something else.

Along those same lines, it’s important for the catcher, coach, and pitcher to realize that there’s rarely a pitch you just can’t throw to someone. Usually, even a “bad” pitch selection thrown in the right spot will work. From years of experience seeing thousands of outs, I can tell you that more often than not success or failure depends on the location of the pitch. I will say that again: location, location, location. It’s like real estate. that being said, don’t fall into the trap of setting up on the corners too much or letting the pitcher get too “fine.” If he is obsessed with throwing the ball in the perfect location (i.e., down and right on the corner), then unless his name is Greg Maddux, he is not going to be throwing a lot of strikes. You don’t want to put the hitter in the driver’s seat by getting yourself in counts where you have to pipe a fastball. Again, make hitters swing the bat and get quick outs by pounding the strike zone early with quality pitches.

The whole article is worth the read.

Correction: Fixed the spelling of Mayne’s first name.

Based on the way he went about business last offseason it seems like a lot of fans are looking at the high profile free agents and trade targets and saying they’re not Zduriencik’s type of players without giving any followup reasoning beyond the price tag. Well, Zduriencik has a lot more money to work with this offseason after having several major contracts expire and he’s going to spend it. And then he’s going to try and get the payroll expanded so he can keep dealing. Zduriencik wants to win a World Series in 2010 and sincerely believes he can pull it off.

The Griffey signing, however, seems to be at odds with his building a championship team. I understand the PR aspect of the move, but it’s a slot that could go to a better hitter or fielder.

Chicago Cubs infielder Mike Fontenot earned the last arbitration spot for players with between two and three years of major-league service, beating out Baltimore centre-fielder Adam Jones and Cincinnati pitcher Micah Owings on a tiebreaker.

All three had two years, 139 days of service time, and ties are broken by service time in each immediately preceding season.

Arizona third baseman Mark Reynolds, who had 44 homers and 102 runs batted in, had two years, 138 days.

…

Fontenot made $430,000 US last season, while Owings earned $420,000, Reynolds $422,500 and Jones $435,000.

Arizona figures to save several million dollars next year because Reynolds fell short.

Funny how it worked out that the club that could afford the money ended up with the player in arbitration.

The Washington Nationals have promoted interim manager Jim Riggelman to a permanent role as skipper, according to former Nats general manager Jim Bowden.

Bowden, reporting for Fox Sports, cited no sources in his tweet Wednesday reporting the move, and he added that he was awaiting confirmation. He did, however, say that a deal was “done.”

If this turns out to be true, it’s not much of a surprise. The Nationals didn’t seem like they were trying that hard to find someone else.

In this little corner of the internet, we’re concerned primarily with two things: the post-nup and the McCourts’ net worth. Resolution of the asset-transfer issue will pave the way for the permanent disposition of the Dodgers. If Frank wins on the post-nup, he probably keeps the Dodgers. If Jamie wins, we’ll have to wait to see if one has enough money to buy out the other. Based on the very limited information I have in front of me, I like Frank’s chances more today than I did yesterday.

Stay tuned.

Granderson, 28, is a product of Thornton Fractional South and the University of Illinois-Chicago. He’s also a terrific center fielder and the type of hitter who can help in the leadoff spot or the middle of the order. He’s got only $25.75 million on his contract for three years, not including a $13-million option for 2013.

In short, he’s the perfect player for a Chicago team.

There’s no way that the Tigers would be willing to trade him to a division rival, so the White Sox are out of the question. The Cubs should do absolutely everything to get him, if he is available. There’s no debate about this.

Well, yes there is. Granderson had a breakout season at age 26 in 2007. The last two years were good, but disappointing by comparison. The thing that bothers me most, according to UZR, is that his defense took a huge dive. If he ends up with his 2008 defense and his 2009 offense, he’s not that good of a player. However, at that price, the Cubs would be happy for him to have three more years of 3+ wins over replacement level.

When the Padres hired Jed Hoyer, I was joking with a friend of mine that the Red Sox were working to get one of their guys into as many front offices as possible such that a few years from now Epstein could yell “ACTIVATE” and all of his splinter cells would work to turn Boston into a super team.

Unfortunately, Theo’s henchmen ended up in places without a lot of talent.

Well, there’s nothing truly offensive about the list of National League Gold Glove winners. Rather, it’s just the usual laziness that you would expect from voters who don’t take the process seriously. If you’re a voter and you really don’t care who wins the Gold Gloves, your job is easy: You simply vote for who you voted for last year, or you vote for the player with the highest fielding percentage. Jimmy Rollins scored on both points, and one wonders if the voters have any idea that Troy Tulowitzki was again the best shortstop in the National League, just as he was in 2007 (when Rollins won his first Gold Glove).

Again, the way the Gold Glove voting is conducted means you need to take the results with a huge grain of salt.

Los Angeles – The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) announces its third set of postseason votes, naming the 2009 Cy Young (CY) and Most Valuable Player (MVP) award winners.

The AL CY was won by Zack Greinke, of the Kansas City Royals, with the NL CY going to Chris Carpenter, of the St. Louis Cardinals. AL MVP and NL MVP winners were Joe Mauer, of the Minnesota Twins, and Albert Pujols, of the St. Louis Cardinals, respectively.

Results are as follows:

IBWAA American League (AL) CY:

Winner: Zack Greinke (Kansas City Royals)
2nd Place: Felix Hernandez (Seattle Mariners)
3rd Place: CC Sabathia (New York Yankees)
4th Place: Justin Verlander (Detroit Tigers)
5th Place: Roy Halladay (Toronto Blue Jays)

IBWAA National League (NL) CY:

Winner: Chris Carpenter (St. Louis Cardinals)
2nd Place: Adam Wainwright (St. Louis Cardinals)
3rd Place: Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)
4th Place: Josh Johnson (Florida Marlins)
5th Place: Javier Vazquez (Atlanta Braves)

IBWAA AL MVP:

Winner: Joe Mauer (Minnesota Twins)
2nd Place: Mark Teixeira (New York Yankees)
3rd Place: Derek Jeter (New York Yankees)
4th Place: Kendry Morales (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim)
5th Place: Miguel Cabrera (Detroit Tigers)
6th Place: Zack Greinke (Kansas City Royals)
7th Place: Evan Longoria (Tampa Bay Rays)
8th Place: Ichiro Suzuki (Seattle Mariners)
9th Tie Carl Crawford (Tampa Bay Rays)
9th Tie: Kevin Youkilis (Boston Red Sox)

IBWAA NL MVP:

Winner: Albert Pujols (St. Louis Cardinals)
2nd Place: Ryan Howard (Philadelphia Phillies)
3rd Place: Hanley Ramirez (Florida Marlins)
4th Tie: Prince Fielder (Milwaukee Brewers)
4th Tie: Troy Tulowitzki (Colorado Rockies)
6th Place: Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)
7th Place: Chase Utley (Philadelphia Phillies)
8th Place: Andre Ethier (Los Angeles Dodgers)
9th Place: Chris Carpenter (St. Louis Cardinals)
10th Pl: Ryan Braun (Milwaukee Brewers)

Voting took place between September 15 and October 4, the final day of the regular season.

The IBWAA was created in July 4, 2009 by Howard Cole, editor of BaseballSavvy.com, to organize and promote the growing online baseball media, and to serve as an alternative voice to the Base Ball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).

Among others, IBWAA members include Kevin Braun, freelance writer and former copy editor at Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Tim Brown, YahooSports, Peter Golenbock, baseball author; Tom Hoffarth, Media/General Columnist, Los Angeles Daily News; Tony Jackson, former Dodgers reporter, Los Angeles Daily News; Ron Kaplan, New Jersey Jewish News; Kyle Lobner, Managing Editor, BrewCrewBall.com; David Pinto, owner/author, BaseballMusings.com; Gabriel Schechter, of Never Too Much Baseball; Dan Schlossberg, baseball author; and Gary Warner, Travel Editor, Orange County Register.

Association memberships are open to any and all Internet baseball writers, with a yearly fee of $20. Discounts for groups and scholarships are available.

IBWAA selections for Hall of Fame, class of 2009, will be announced January 5, 2010.

For more information on the IBWAA, please visit the temporary webpage here, http://www.baseballsavvy.com/internetbaseballwriters.html. In the coming months, the IBWAA can be found at www.InternetBaseballWriters.com.

My votes are as follows:

AL Cy Young: Greinke, Verlander, Hernandez, Halladay, Sabathia
NL Cy Young: Lincecum, Carpenter, Ubaldo Jimenez, Javier Vazquez, Adam Wainwright
AL MVP: Mauer, Greinke, Jeter, Abreu, Zobrist, Verlander, Longoria, Youkilis, Miguel Cabrera, Figgins
NL MVP: Pujols, Utley, Hanley Ramirez, Lincecum, Adrian Gonzalez, Tulowitzki, Carpenter, Matt Kemp, Ryan Zimmerman, Matt Holliday

I agreed at the top of each ballot, but not down the list.

Despite being portrayed as someone with no ownership claim and not fit for duty, she says she has a plan to buy the team and “absolutely” sees herself as owner of the Dodgers.

“My dream would be to have a coalition of people,” she says, “people who want to be involved investment-wise from every single demographic in L.A. When you have partners and you have equity, you have an opportunity and the wherewithal to have an expanded budget for player compensation.

“And I don’t need to be the controlling interest, I just love baseball that much and want to stay a part of it and lend my expertise any way I can.”

It’s a good read, and there are suggestions that Jamie has plenty of ammunition to use against her husband.

According to this, there is no federal inheritance tax in 2010. Which brings up a rather morbid question: Should George kill himself next year so his children avoid the tax? If he dies in 2011, the children would pay 55% on everything over $1 million. If you’re in bad shape and rich, I can see where those people might commit suicide at the end of 2010.

Of course, that’s only true if his wife also dies. I believe spouses inherit without taxation. Maybe they’ll do a whole Romeo/Juliet thing. There’s an idea for an aspiring playwright, The Tragedy of the Death Tax. An old rich man struggles with the idea of killing himself so his children can inherit more. They beg him not to, but in the end he drinks the poison. Maybe there’s a beautiful, young gold digger involved. The Petrified Forest meets ‘Night Mother.

…gonzalez will cost a fortune… like i said last week, his price will be bid up significantly because of his low salary, and so a small-market teams like the Marlins and Rays can be in on him, in addition to big-market teams like the Mets and Red Sox… at minimum, a team the Marlins or Mariners can get him for two full seasons at a reasonable price, and not be forced to consider a contract extension until two off seasons from now…

Gonzalez will make a little over $10 million over the next couple of seasons, and he’s probably worth four times that. This deal would be easier for the Mets if they were allowed to buy Gonzalez. Would the Padres take $25 million in cash for Adrian? Before Bowie Kuhn put in a rule to disallow large cash sales of players, small market teams could sell off their star players and recapitalize for another run at a pennant. Fans didn’t like it much, but it was another way of building a winner every few years. I’m guessing that $25 million in the bank today would make the Padres a lot more comfortable as an organization in meeting payroll this year and having the ability to sign a pretty good draft pick.

Another team might offer them $25 million worth of players, but if they are prospects, that’s a huge unknown. Under the current rules, however, neither the Padres nor the Mets have the option of what could be the best deal for both teams.

Hat tip, Sabernomics, who points to other studies confirming this trend.

I wonder how much of it was GMs reading Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game“>Moneyball, compared to the proliferation of GMs from the Sandy Alderson/Billy Beane school.

“The draft has to be fixed,” Brewers GM Doug Melvin said, citing how teams willing to spend the most money signing players wind up with the best players. “… No other sport has a draft manipulated by agents, where decisions are made on signabilty, not the ability of the player.”

I’m sorry, didn’t Eli Manning manipulate the NFL draft to end up with the Giants? If baseball allowed draft picks to be traded, I think most of these problems would disappear. How many teams would have been willing to trade the Nationals four players to get a shot at Strasburg?

MLB should lift the ban on trading draft picks at a minimum. I still think they should abolish the draft altogether, but that’s not going to sell.

The Yankees did more than that, however. They used the equity in the team to keep investing and growing their revenue stream. That made the franchise more valuable, letting them invest more and grow more, etc. If someone were to buy the franchise, they’d still have the revenue stream, but they would be mortgaged to the hilt. Revenues the Yankees can stream to salaries, a new owner would need to use to pay interest.

I also doubt that the new owner would be quite so obsessive about winning. I sometimes get the feeling that if George had bought the Indians instead of the Yankees, they would have dominated the baseball landscape over the last 30 years.

So sell the Yankees. If you want to really stick it to Yankees fans, sell it to someone like Loria who would pocket as much of the profit as he can.