I'll let the Angels keep Weaver if they give us Vlad Guerrero. I'm still smarting from the fact that he should have been ours instead of the Angels 2 years ago...

Nice post, Jon.

Does anybody know the history of this particular rule? What was the thinking behind not allowing teams to sign their players after the January deadline?

So, it's been argued out here that the Nationals should have kept Wilkerson and then used Soriano's money (and the money given to Ramon Ortiz) to sign Weaver.

All well and good, and I'm certainly in the should have kept Wilkerson camp. And I like Weaver just fine. But I can't say that I'll miss the chance to watch Frank Robinson manage Jeff Weaver.

Yup, it's a pretty dumb rule. And there's no doubt that I'd rather have Weaver than Tomko. Or Sele. Or Odalis Perez. Or Jay Seo (tho that one's closer).

As excited as I am that pitchers and catchers are reporting, I have a much greater feeling of dread this Spring than I had last year. And that's despite acknowledging that this team HAS to have a better record than last year just from reversion to the mean on the injury front.

Looking over all the transactions summaries that everyone is running, is it possible that no team got better in the offseason, with teh possible exceptions of Toronto (tho at a really high cost) and the ChiSox (marginally)?

I suppose the Yankees are a little better with Damon instead of Bernie out there, but probably not enough to make up for the age-related declines everywhere else. It's pretty remarkable. Who is obviously better than last year? The D-Rays?

I think Toronto may have improved the most this off-season

The Mets?

I think the rule about not re-signing with your original team if you don't do it by a certain date was supposed to prevent collusion (it didn't the first time). Team A has exclusive neogiating rights to Free Agent X for a certain period. Then everybody gets it. Presumably Team A has an inherent edge in signing a player because the guy doesn't want to move. But if Team A can string along the player indefinitely, they can keep lowering their offer.

This is a complete speculation on my part and has little basis in fact.

No guarantees or warranties are implied.

Offer void in Canada.

The Mets got a heart and soul injection but are they the most improved?

Adding Delgado dramatically improves them (for this year at least).

David Wright is one year older as well, which could be the biggest opportunity for improvement of all.

Right now I'm comparing the end of 2005 lineups with 2006 lineups based on PECOTA. I'm only done with the offenses of the NL West, Central, Braves and Mets, but some interesting things have popped up, namely that the Rockies have the most improved offense (ditching two offensive black holes in Ardoin and Miles for league average players will do that.) So far, the Mets are second, but their pitching took a huge hit (PECOTA hates Heilman).

The Dodgers have started a new blog that will include contributions by Josh Rawitch (Director of Public Relations), Mark Langill (team historian), and Roy Smith (VP of Player Development and Scouting). I have no idea what they plan on doing with it, but it might be worth reading considering the contributors. It should at least have some nice pictures. Plus it provided some news, Nomar, Werth, and Aybar have all showed up to camp early

http://insidethedodgers.mlblogs.com/

Also, in terms of overall offensive strength, the Mets are middle of the pack so far. Reyes and Matsui basically cancel out David Wright's contributions. Combine this with LoDuca projecting worse than Piazza, you have a team that went from being pretty terrible offensively, to middle of the pack.

Their bullpen looks much better with the addition of Wagner (and the subtraction of Braden Looper).

okay, so we have 7, 26, 31. who do you guys want? ill start

7- kyle drabek or jordan walden
26- chris parmelee
31- carmine giardina or colten willems.

okay your turn.

14
Give us any chance to select a player named "Carmine", we'll take it.

14.

How about Ian Kennedy? Can never have enough arms.....

cr

All pitchers and catchers, save Brazoban and Osoria, have reported to camp. Both of them have had visa problems, but they played in the DWL so it's not as big a problem. Colletti says they're due this week

Little also said Penny has a shot at opening day, along with Lowe, who seems to be the favorite

http://tinyurl.com/cjdlu

14.; 16.

Baseball America's first mock draft had these players drafted in the area the Dodgers are drafting:

Ian Kennedy, rhp Jr. R-R Southern California
Mark Melancon, rhp Jr. R-R Arizona (Dodgers drafted him in 2003)
Jared Hughes, rhp Jr. R-R Long Beach State
Blair Erickson, rhp Jr. R-R UC Irvine

You wonder how much the last 2 players under Boras' control (Luke Hochevar and Jeff Weaver) will impact the draft and re-signing Gagne. His comments about the Dodgers lack of offer to Weaver won't endear him at Chavez Ravine.

http://tinyurl.com/9ldrp

Any chance Lowe is becoming the Dodger's Bearded One to face off against Morris? The first Dodger Notes of spring also have some information on Werth, Saenz, Brazoban, Gagne, and Baez's dream

Meanwhile, Gurnick's other spring training article has a picture of Brad Penny strangling an assistant trainer in the clubhouse. Reports that he is trying to force the kid to drink a gallon of milk are entirely made up.

http://tinyurl.com/9cwgq

Also in the link from 19, Olmedo Saenz's mother died in Panama. Maybe that's old news; I hadn't heard it, though.

If I were a member of the Weaver clan, I would by very unhappy with Scott Boras. At minimum, he's been talking starry numbers to Jered and Jeff, and then not coming close to delivering. Boras can blame his failures on other market participants and imply they played dirty, but by demanding very high numbers and apparently not negotiating, he contributed to the big eventual drops in their contracts. Jeff Weaver's value may not have been 9x3 in January when the Dodgers pulled out, but I bet it was a lot more than 8.4x1. And even granting a perceived structural problem, a good agent is still supposed to be optimizing his clients' value. I hope Gagne is paying close attention.

There's more pictures in the photo gallery (which I happen to just have discovered). Along with the exciting photos of Lowe's beard and Penny strangling an innocent man, there's some exciting photos of a pile of batting helmets, Odalis Perez sitting, and Honeycutt standing next to a small table labelled "MLB Drug Testing."

http://tinyurl.com/aptbk

if the reports of lowe's beard are true (i havent seen it yet), he automatically going to be top 5 in the cy young voting at the end of the year. Oh yes, the beard is that magical.

Ian Kennedy, rhp Jr. R-R Southern California
Mark Melancon, rhp Jr. R-R Arizona (Dodgers drafted him in 2003)
Jared Hughes, rhp Jr. R-R Long Beach State
Blair Erickson, rhp Jr. R-R UC Irvine

Melancon and erickson are college relief pitchers, so i dont see logan white/dodgers drafting them with their top 3 pitcks. Kennedy has the boras taint on him. but if he did drop to pick #31, and if we did sign hochevar, i could see logan white taking him because he would be the BPA at that point. Hughes is a big question mark right now. he is more a finesses pitcher whos control has been off at the start of the college season. Ive read from people that have attened his games and talked to scouts and they say the scouts are not positive on hughes at all.

Ideally with our first pick, i want the top rated HS arm. with our other picks, i want high cieling HS players as well; 1 pure hitter from the prep class and maybe a lefty prep pitcher.

im not a big fan of the college prospects in this years class, i think the prep class has a lot more to offer us.

24.
Thanks Nate, not a big follower of the college scene, it does make sense with high school picks because the Dodgers system does need to keep reloading after the nice run of 2002-2004 drafts, lots of sleepers in 2005, unless the Hochevar camp comes to terms with the Dodgers.

[4] is it possible that no team got better in the offseason, with the possible exceptions of Toronto (tho at a really high cost) and the ChiSox (marginally)?

the oakland A's send their regards.

From what I've done so far (the NL and the A's) the following teams are definately better (at least from an offense and starting pitching stand point):

Colorado
Cincinatti
Philadelphia
Oakland

Didn't take long for the new official blog to gather its first troll (although a reasonably well-mannered one, compared to most).

Re: 12

I don't know if the Mets are most improved or not, but offensively they weren't terrible last year. In runs per game, they ranked 7th in the NL.

27 - Reg, not a fan of Jim Thome?

29 - And this year Beltran will be backed up by Delgado instead of...Dave Wright.

There was a crossword clue in our school's paper today, "Lady at a luau", - a - - n e . Any guesses?

Btw, there are few sports that match the overall sheer coolness of Olympic speed skating. Time to watch!

30 PECOTA isn't. Well, to be more precise, it really, really likes Ryan Howard.

WAHINE

Hey Jon, just a random fyi. At www.si.com there is a pulldown box for "Other si.com writers" -- Alex Belth is in there, but not you. Realize there may be a reason, or it just be a mistake. Or maybe East Coast bias. But thought I'd pass along.

Jeff Weaver has signed with the Angels for $8.5 million, or $200,000 less than the Dodgers have committed to Brett Tomko.

Ouch.

33 - As if I could possibly not have noticed that myself :)

LOLOL.

Maybe they're confusing Our Jon with Jon Wertheim.

33- His archive is up, though: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/jon_weisman/archive/index.html

Did I just destroy the page format? I left a space between the url and the colon, but it's sitting all on one line. I've got a widescreen, so, maybe it didn't wreck the 4:3s? My apologies, if I did.

"Weaver's on-the-field performance isn't worthy of intense affinity..."

That pretty much sums it up. Of course if Weaver had left with DePo still in charge, Plaschke would have flown back from the Olympics just to write a teary column saluting the newest Angel.

Plaschke's covering the Olympics? No wonder I haven't felt annoyed reading the Times' sports section lately.

All he wanted to be was a Dodger.

Jeff Weaver told me that.

He just wanted to be a Dodger.

The Dodgers had their chance to sign him, but cheapskate owner Frank McCourt couldn't fit him into his plans.

General manager Ned Colletti would rather waster money on a former Giant like Brett Tomko.

But Weaver wanted to be a Dodger.

Just a Dodger.

A Dodger indeed!

41-- Plaschke's last column filled with his righteous indignation over the "scoring system" in men's figure skating was a true howler.

The shock and outrage of Our Man Bill over this earth shattering topic is absolutely breathtaking.

Maybe he's found his true calling, and will stay far,far away from Dodgertown and Dodger Stadium.

42 That was an amazing and hilarious Plaschke imitation. Are you available for birthday parties?

After months and months, I finally updated the sidebar.

Anyone know if Henri Stanley is still in the organization?

There are a couple of other realy brilliant RepliPlaschke's buried in the archives. Maybe one by Enders, I think. Not findable by me unfortunately.

45 MLB may have "Truck Day," but Dodger Thoughts has "Sidebar Day"!

If you were me, you just don't put anything on the sidebar, so you never have to update it.

What does a "college relief pitcher" do? Come in in the sixth inning of 16-11 games?

Jon,

Excellent lead post on Weaver. The system seems to penalize the club that most recently employed the free agent. Wonder why.

As for the Weaver machinations, I'd still give Colletti a B/B-plus even with the wasteful Tomko deal.

Ned didn't drink the Boras kool-aid, which would've cost at least $27 million. I think Seo can be nearly as productive as Weaver for pennies on the dollar. We'll find out in a few years just how valuable the two compensatory draft picks were. Odds are again either of those draftees becoming a solid major leaguer, but L. White has shown he can generate at least trade value out of his draft picks -- and considerable upside remains for others of his high picks. After playing a short hand last June, White now has a better draft hand than any other NL West scouting director.

Getting rid another Boras client is also a small bonus.

No defense for the Tomko signing, though, which was related to jettisoning Weaver. I would've gone for BY Kim for peanuts, and maybe Jason Johnson too.

Question:

Would other Dodgers GMS have allowed Boras to finagle the $27 million for Weaver?

Depo? Maybe 50-50. Boras seemed to know how to play Depo.

Evans? Doubtful. He and Boras didn't get along. To his credit, Evans didn't drink the Kool-Aid on Chan Ho Park

Kevin Malone? He would've given Weaver $49 million and called it a steal.

A Sad Day....18 years ago Bill James announced he was no longer going to publish his annual Baseball Abstract and would instead be launching a new venture: Bill James Fantasy Baseball. STATS, Inc. took over the game that Bill invented about a decage ago and has run the game, online, until this year. Today, STATS, Inc, announced that due to their inability to reach a licensing agreement with MLB, they would no longer be able to operate the game.

I am bummed. I have played Bill James, now STATS, Fantasy Baseball for 18 years. It will be hard to let go. Anyone else here as disappointed as I am? Anyone know of a comparable game that is as realistic and sabermetrically oriented?

Theories on the resigning rule about free agents from people who know stuff like this better than I do:

Theory 1: Makes the market more efficient by removing the one team (the original team) that can slow down the negotiations

Theory 2: Players asked for clause in exchange for giving the owners exclusive negotiating rights at one point

remember a couple months ago when dayn perry came out with that article on how the dodgers farm system is overrated?

well, hes in the middle of his top 100 prospect list and from 30-100, he has put 6 dodger prospects, not even including laroche, guzman or billingsley yet.

so in dayn perrys top 100 prospect list, it will have 9 dodger prospects.

am i the only one that sense a little contradiction here?

You guys probably discussed this item from R. Lederer but would be interested in a reprise.

Lederer writes:

"Derek Lowe led the major leagues in unearned runs as a percentage of total runs with .212. That's right, more than one out of every five runs Lowe allowed was unearned. Lowe's high number of unearned runs is partly a function of the number of groundballs he induces. A secondary cause could well be the Dodgers' infield defense."

A few weeks ago, I was arguing, rather lamely, that Beltre's defense gets undervalued last year. The debate was part of my statment that Beltre returned greater value than Drew last year. (There's no defense for Beltre's brutal OPS-plus and I'm not saying the guy was worth his salary). I just gave more weight than others to his defense at a premium position and his durability.

Offensive stats are far more precise than defensive stats, too.

For what it's worth, Lederer's results seem to show that Seattle's infield defense was very good.

53
no.

45 He was released in January 2005 and as far as I can tell didn't play anywhere last year.

50 - DePo had no interest in retaining Weaver, in my opinion. When he was negotiating extensions for others, he ignored Weaver.

56 Whoops, looks like Henri Stanley played for the 51s last year. 255/325/463

54 - Interesting. Did the Seattle OF defense take a hit when they traded their star CFer last season?

32 - Bob, that one was all set up for everyone's favorite Hawaii'an to answer!

56 He played for Vegas last year, although wasn't especially impressive, or healthy. I've seen nothing about him being a FA (Does being on the 40 man roster affect 6 year minor league free agency? Last year was his 6th), nor being released, so I'd guess he's still a Dodger

54 Was Beltre undervalued, or did the Dodgers just have a problem keeping their 3Bs healthy? Saenz and Edwards both played 3B more than once, that couldn't have helped anything

It takes a lot to play 140-162 games. Beltre is one of the rare ones. He's able to stay in the lineup.

I prefer a holistic approach to talent evaluation -- get as much info as possible. The scout/stat discussions get polarized way too often. That said, Stanley is a classic case where the scouts were right and the statheads were wrong (at least so far). Played out that way in Houston, San Diego, Boston and LA. Wasn't surprising that Depo liked him.

54- Are you seriously taking the position that because three M's pitchers ended up at the bottom end of the unearned runs allowed as a percentage of total runs allowed scale (two of the three had ERAs over 5), that means the M's defense was good, and that by extension, that means Beltre's defense was underrated? That's like six leaps of faith, right? Or am I missing something?

Brad Penny is on the happy side of the %UER ledger, too. So, was it just Lowe that the Dodgers' 3B (who would, of course, have made all the difference) was dogging it for?

Stanley probably isn't much worse than Repko. I don't think DePo liked him all that much. He wanted to get rid of Roberts (which, in retrospect, worked out pretty badly for us), Stanley was on offer and at least had some chance of being useful. Not a great moment in DePo history. But relatively small stakes if the 2005 OF doesn't fall off the cliff that they did. Oh well.

64 Lowe has a history of leading the league in unearned run percentage. (As far as I remember) I think this is one of the few times where "Derek Lowe is a head case" is a perfectly valid argument.

66- I'll drink to that.

The question that never gets asked let alone answered in these situations is how does Weaver feel and how much influence does the player have on the agent. The issue for the the Dodgers with Weaver was always the length of the contract. Since Boras/ Weaver should have seen this and decided to take the Dodger offer they ended up I think in a less desirable situation. As far as the way the arbitration rule is and if denied the player loses the chance to either sign or sit out the year. I think it can help prevent collusion.

59, re: 32 ... who me?
Actually, I know I'm not who you were thinking of. And I'm sure Bob or some other language expert could tell you as well, but the 'okina (') is not necessary in "Hawaiian", but permissible in "Hawai'i". Has to do with the way that it's sounded out. Anyway, that could've just been a typo... (but I don't mean to be nit-picky)

50. "Would other Dodgers GMS have allowed Boras to finagle the $27 million for Weaver?

Depo? Maybe 50-50. Boras seemed to know how to play Depo.

Evans? Doubtful. He and Boras didn't get along. To his credit, Evans didn't drink the Kool-Aid on Chan Ho Park"

How can you give credit for Evans for not signing Chan Ho Park, but at the same time suggest Boras knew how to play DePo, even though DePo passed on signing Adrian Beltre?

I think passing on Adrian Beltre (considering the season he was coming off of), is more of an accomplishment than passing on Chan Ho Park...

And which Boras client did DePo sign for above their market value? I seem to be missing that said client.

Wby do you suggest DePo would have signed Weaver, when in fact he had chances to during mid-season and didnt. If anything, DePo wouldnt have even offered Weaver a multi year deal like Collettie was rumored to have done, bc DePo only signed guys to multi-year deals that were good to begin with. OP, Lowe, Kent, Drew all have had good seasons in the recent past. Jeff Weaver never has. I think Evans might have signed Weaver to a 3yr deal. He did trade for him afterall. And gave Encarnacion a 2yr deal.

61. Beltre could never be undervalued when he makes 13mils and OPS's just above .700.

Maybe the Marineers overvalued Beltre's great defense. Bc what value did Beltre's defense really have on that team? Did Beltre's defense keep them from being a 100 loss team, as opposed to mid 90's loss team?

If thats the expected bullpen(on the sidebar) its scary, the only reliable relievers are gagne and baez(don't like what we gave up for him), i'd much rather have broxton and osoria vs carter and houlton.

I'm still surprised why people still mis-understand the JD Drew option...

"The Drew option is bad bc if he gets hurt, were stuck with him. If he does good, then he can leave"

#1. If Drew gets hurt, it doesnt matter what contract he has. THe Dodgers are stuck with him regardless anyway. Drew's player option has no bearing on this.

#2. If Drew does good, yes he might opt out. But how does that hurt the Dodgers? Wouldnt most people have been ok with signing Drew for 2yrs 22mils? Again, if he has a great year and leaves the Dodgers, the Dodgers will have gotten the better end of the contract.

#3. Drew's option was a good move for the Dodgers bc it allowed them to sign a player for less than his market value. Drew signed for 11mils, less than Beltre's 13, Magg's 15, and Beltran's 17.. If the option wasnt in there, he would have needed a 12-13 mils guarantee for those 5 yrs.

#4. Its ok to disagree on Drew's contract, in the sense that people might think he's not worth 11mils a year, or that contracts shouldnt be given out for 5yrs. However, the option has nothing to do with either argument.

Plea for help from the east coast-I can't decipher our next 3 draft picks after #7 in the first round. Now that Weaves settled can anyone help? I'll ask this again later today. Thanks.

I looked it up and it's true. Adrian Beltre is the only U.S. President to have ever won the Nobel Peace Prize.

74 Not sure if this is 2/3's of what you're asking, but in comment 14 smart Nate says we have 7, 26, and 31.

76,14 Thanx- I think that give me the whole thing. Sorry I didn't notice it while scanning the disc.

"He's a horse," Scioscia said. "If you break down his splits, as the game went on and he was facing hitters for a fourth time, he had a rougher time. But through six innings he was terrific. Hopefully with our bullpen, he won't have to be extended to where he has to pitch into the eighth or ninth inning fatigued." from the L.A. Times

Now was that so hard?

Scioscia just went up about three notches in my book.

73,

Let me break it down for you:

2 year contract
Positive= Reduced liabilty if he gets injured

Negative= Reduced benifit if he doesn't

4 year contract
Positive= Higher potential reward.

Negative= Higher risk.

4 year contract with player option after second year.

Positive= Um, I guess that's what it took to sign him.

Negative= You get the high risk of the 4 year and the low reward of the 2 year.

I can understand if you think that the option was worth it if that's what it took to sign him, but I don't understand how you can fail to see that it's a big negative element of the contract from the Dodgers perspective.

It's a negative element from the perspective of the Dodgers, just not a big one. That's (I'm pretty sure) the only argument, here. That he has an out next year doesn't make him less likely to be worth the total contract, it just means that he's less likely to be a huge bargain, which was never likely to begin with.

80. I fail to see how a 2yr contract has a 'low reward'...?

I think if you could ask any GM in baseball, they'd want to sign players to 1yr and 2yr contracts every single time.

Ideally, if I was GM i'd want to sign every player to a 1yr contract.

And how do you figure a 4yr guaranteed contract has a Positive of a: higher potential reward...???

82- The higher potential reward is in locking in a player at a lower rate than he'd get on the free market half way through the contract.

There are three likely outcomes (unless I'm wrong, in which case I trust Steve will explain that I am) to a five year, second year out, contract:
1. He's worth his contract and stays. (everybody wins)
2. He's worth more than his contract and leaves, so that the additional benefit of the potential for him to be worth more than the extra three years of his contract is lost. (he wins, Dodgers lose)
3. He's not worth his contract and stays. (he wins, Dodgers lose)

I get the feeling that, were there a fourth option (he's not worth his contract, and gets forced out after two years) this wouldn't be a big deal to the people who think it is one. That it's a sense of fair play that causes some to bristle? Could be completely wrong, but whatever.

DePo bet that that option wasn't worth the dollar value Boras ascribed to it. And he bet that the Boras's dollar value ascribed to the second year out wasn't worth what Boras thought it was. Clearly, he could turn out to have been wrong on either or both counts. But it's not obvious that he was.

Oops, on outcome two, the parenthetical part should read (he wins; Dodgers win, but not by as much as they might have). Because it's still a win, objectively. If he leaves after this year, it means that he was likely worth what was paid to him. If every contract DePo signed worked out like that, he'd have been the best GM in history.

83 What if you look at it from this point of view: Either the Dodgers could sign Drew to 5/55 w/option or to, say, 5/62.5 w/o an option (dollar values are, of course, speculative). Let's see under your three scenarios (plus one) which contract is better for the Dodgers and which is better for Drew:
1. Drew worth contract and stays: Drew prefers 5/62.5, Dodgers prefer 5/55
2. Worth more than his contract and leaves: Drew probably prefers 5/55 (because he left), Dodgers might prefer 5/62.5
3. Not worth contract: Drew prefers 5/62.5, Dodgers prefer 5/55
(4.) Not worth contract but bolts anyway: Drew apparently prefers 5/55, Dodgers prefer 5/55.

So, it seems like an insurance clause, really. The Dodgers prefer the cheaper contract with the player option in every scenario except the one where Drew outperforms h