Oscar Gamble Society

Below is the NL MVP tally for this year; Prince Fielder was a not-too-shabby fourth. Given how much of the book Moneyball was devoted to Billy Beane’s mocking of Prince Fielder, and preference for Nick Swisher, does this constitute another blow to Beane’s reputation for astute judgment, if not to sabrmetrics in general? Swisher was a valuable contributor for the Yankees this year, but hardly worthy of MVP consideration like Teammates Jeter and Teixeira, both of whom were in the top four of the AL balloting IIRC.

The complete ballot: Roberto Alomar, Kevin Appier, Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Ellis Burks, Andre Dawson, Andres Galarraga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Ray Lankford, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Shane Reynolds, David Segui, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile

Who should get in?

I see several names, a couple new ones and some that have languished for years now. Oh how I wish Mattingly were among them, though I confess its really not even a close call.

Others are an even greater stretch, though, unless there was another David Segui of whom I’m not aware.

My ballot would definitely include votes for Blyleven, Dawson, Larkin, and McGwire, and possibly for Lee Smith, Jack Morris, Tim Raines and Alan Trammell.

A bumper sticker that read:

“Jeter Drinks Wine Coolers”

I have to admit, that’s pretty good.

At Fox Sports, Jon Paul Morosi asks whether Ichiro has achieved enough to be a lock for the Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, Jeff Passan at Yahoo looks at Ichiro’s prospects for reaching 4,000 career hits.

Of course, astute followers of baseball could have examined these issues with the OGS back in 2007 and 2008.

At least these guys are in good company in lagging the OGS.

Interesting article by Chris Ballard in SI asks the question.

And it seems like a very good question, the sort of thing a team like Oakland could wring some mileage out of now that the rest of the league has caught up with Mr. Beane on the value of a) walks and b) happening to develop two Cy Young candidates at the same time.

On a related note, the Yankees are even taking walks again; I haven’t seen so many good at-bats by them since the Paul O’Neill/Tino Martinez teams of a decade ago.

But since coming off the DL Chien-Ming Wang has cut his ERA by more than half… to 16.07. Two earned runs in eight innings pitched; maybe he’s fixed. If the Yanks keep this up I may start hoping for more than a week of post-season play in the Bronx.

I’ll spare you the details (thus the “abridged version), but suffice to say that when examining defensive metrics, surprisingly Manny is generally measured to be a better LF than Jason Bay - though both are below average.  Many fans and media use “hustle” as the lone metric when assessing defensive value.  Manny doesn’t usually appear to be hustling, so the general conclusion is he’s not that good defensively - and he’s not, but…. Bay does usually appear to be hustling, so the general conclusion is that he *is* good defensively.  Unfortunately, he’s actually not very good in absolute terms (based on the actual, unbiased defensive metrics) and probably not even as good as Manny (based on the actual, unbiased defensive metrics).
 
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Anybody know what happened to Hank Steinbrenner?  Is he in witness protection or something?  Is he stranded on a deserted isle?  Where’d he go?  Is he like Super Joe Charboneau, a one-year wonder who burst onto the scene and steals the show (and the RoY from Dave Stapleton, but I’m not bitter)… only to do nothing after that?
 
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Why would the Yankees charge up to $2,500 for a seat amid the worst economic downturn since the 1930’s? And faced with scores of embarrassingly visible empty seats, why would they cut prices on less astronomically-prices seats while leaving the $2,500 price point intact? Wishful thinking undoubtedly played a role, but for the primary driver I suspect one need look no further than the tax code.

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Manny Ramirez was just suspended for using drugs for his lady parts that were on the list of banned substances. MLB told him what he tested positive for, which was on the list, and has no legitimate utility to Ramirez (unless he really does have lady bits) and most people can probably agree that the process was reasonably fair.

Contrast that with the experience of NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield. He was just suspended by NASCAR for failing a drug test. For what drug? NASCAR won’t say. Was it on the list of proscribed substances? Well, no, because no such list exists. Mayfield says he is on a prescription drug and also took Claritin D for severe allergies; there is seemingly credible speculation that NASCAR’s silence is in part due to an unwilingness to offend Schering-Plough, whose Claritin brand is a sponsor of driver Carl Edwards.

Each sport is effectively “run” by someone for whom I have little regard; Bud Selig is a liar and a scoundrel, but Brian France strikes me as a truly Faulknerian idiot man-child. I guess the difference is the legacy of Marvin Miller in baseball, compared with the largely unchecked power of the sanctioning body in racing (as evidenced by the pathetic obsequiousness of EVERYONE in the sport when discussing the sanctioning body and the France family).