Dan Gould

Baseball Prospectus is dedicated to advanced statistical analysis, so to expect someone who writes for the site not to use WARP is foolish. Having said that, you need to understand some things about the statistic in question. Number one, "Replacement Player" is defined as how a scrub would perform. Its a AAAA player asked to perform full-time, a fourth outfielder journeyman who never amounted to squat. I am not sure what I think that "Replacement Player" is formally defined as about the 20th percentile performance of all players at a particular position. Now, having said that, all that you need to know about WARP is that in order to get "wins" you first have to calculate how many runs a particular player produces above that mythical replacement player, and then relate runs to wins. That is, let's say, for every five runs produced, a "win" is produced. Its somewhat similar to Bill James' "win shares". An alternative statistic is "VORP" which is Value over Replacement Player". It eliminates the rather tenuous and arbitrary extra step of calculating "wins". Understand too that, iirc, VORP and WARP are league and ball-park independent, so no player gets an advantage from playing in a band box like in Philly or disadvantaged by a huge park like Petco. So having said all that, this is the bottom line: Jones has been one of the very best centerfielders in the game, he is only 30 years old and it is more likely that last year was simply a bad year rather than the start of his decline phase. It makes perfect sense, given all of the facts, to expect that the Dodgers have locked up the final prime years of a future hall of famer, while having no financial obligation into his over-paid, under-performing decline phase. That is indeed a "great" signing. And whatever you say about such statistical analysis - nonsense, fool's gold, or sheer brilliance - Baseball Prospectus "PECOTA" projection last year for the White Sox roster as a whole was 72-92 - exactly what their W-L record was. In other words, these new-fangled way of looking at things can't be dismissed out of hand.

I'm not the only one who doesn't think this is a bad deal. Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus thinks its the "best deal of the winter": http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/base...ones/index.html

I was going to say "but of course" but I decided to grab another disc and extract with Goldwave - and what do I discover? Somehow I must have clicked the slider just a hair, and I extracted them at 24 bit. You are the man, John! Thanks a lot even if I now feel like

I have no doubt that my exploration will continue in the blues/R&B realm. As MG knows, I have recently discovered, and been blown away by, Junior Parker. I've now got several more of his later-era LPs en route, and after the holidays, I expect that I'll continue to search out other recordings, unless the near-impossible happens and I decide that his Groove Merchant era wasn't all that great. Aside from that, I plan - or at least hope - to cut way back on any additional purchases. I need to begin to explore last Christmas' gift to myself, which was the complete set of "Blues Collection" CDs. While I've already discovered a lot of the artists that were included, there are plenty I haven't encountered yet and its time that I dive into that set.

Very suddenly I have weird things going on with my Nero burning program. Since I sometimes like to edit the audio before burning, and because it seems to take less time if the audio is on the hard drive than on a disc in the DVD drive, I usually use Goldwave to extract CDA files into WAV files. I did this yesterday in preparation for producing a compilation of Junior Parker tunes. Well, out of the blue, Nero will no longer add these files when I try to set up the disc for burning. The error message it gives is: At first I thought that maybe the problem was my having saved the files with the full title instead of "track 1" "track 2" etc. But even the ones that I left with their cda file name gives me the same error message. I've gone to the Nero website and while there are plug-ins for MP3 things and crap like that, I can find nothing that suggests a plug-in for this heretofore never seen "problem". I am wondering if its a Goldwave problem - but the fact is that Nero sees the files as wav, it just refuses to include them as burn-ready files. In fact, I used the 'batch' option in Goldwave to encode these as mp3s - and Nero had no problem adding the MP3 files! I thought maybe being a wav file was the problem - but the LP tracks that I dumped into the PC and edited are also recognized as proper music files for burning. So what the heck is going on here?? Does anyone have any ideas what I can do? Its not a critical problem because Nero is allowing me to add files from a disc in the DVD drive, but its very disconcerting to have your CD burning program not recognize certain wav files as acceptable formats. Any advice is appreciated!

Couple of things to note: Its a super-short contract at only two years. Andruw ought to be very motivated to perform and then cash in for real in two years. Plus, at two years, if things aren't working out (LA is a bit tough on righty power hitters, more so than Atlanta is), he should be easier to move to a contender who needs a bat but wouldn't want to commit to a long-term/big bucks obligation. I actually think this is a pretty intelligently crafted deal, though certainly a tad more dollars than I'd have offered.

According to the Globe, Theo has left the building (I mean, Nashville) without a deal for Santana. In the end, I think its very obvious that the Twins have an expectation of what Santana should be worth in trade and that neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox ever offered what was required to move a 29 year old, two-time Cy Young winner. Plus it remains early in the process - one of those two teams or another big market team could decide to sweeten the pot in the future. The Twins still have time to make the decision they think is best, including keeping him for the 2008 season or hoping he'll approve a waiver-deadline trade if the Twins aren't competitive. Its real interesting though that both the Sox and the Yankees have stuck to their guns in refusing to give in on their prospects. Certainly a year or three ago, both teams would have probably made much bigger offers in order to land Santana. And I'm sure that if the Sox had another down season instead of winning the Series, they'd have made the offer the Twins wanted, and gone all out to sign Santana, regardless of the cost.

Having just finished wrapping the first gifts of the season - its a little early but I wanted to get them shipped out - I am curious the "wrapping style" of Organissimo folks. Do you obsess on making as perfect a wrapping job as possible, with clean corners, and perfectly straight lines? Or are you like me, who does what he can to make the package look OK but if he screws up a side and mash it in to make the corner look OK, who cares? Its all going to be in a ripped up pile on the floor anyway! Of course, on the other hand, if I was a little more careful with my wrapping attempts, I might not screw up the size of the sheet of paper quite so often.

Archive!!!! Anything can happen (server failures, etc)! I know that Jim already has the info, but it might be useful for him to have this particular list (now 79), so I could simply hand it over to him. If I get approval from list people, I am open to any protected disposition--give me guidance, Organistas. I didn't even bother to try to protect my email by using [at] instead of @, so do with it what you wish, Chris.

Despite Jim's pleas, I hope that between the checks that are in the mail and a few more days of paypal contributions, we can cover two full years of board expenses. My check won't do it, but I'm still putting it in the mail this AM.

Yeah, and no player chooses "very very short-term" over "very very long-term" cuz no one wants long-term security, right? What a joke Boras has become. Or maybe the "very very long-term" offers were for like a million a year. You know, 100 year, 100 million. take it or leave it.

Someone explain to me why he is making a stand over something that with three clicks, he can eliminate from view forever.

Let me add one more thing: Goodspeak bitches that I am refusing to abide by Jim's directives. Yet what is it that Jim said: Use the ignore function I am doing that; he can't seem to manage it himself. He now says that if he can change the settings to not see my avatar, he would do so. So here is the only message I will ever direct to Goodspeak: Click My Controls Click Board Settings (on the left column) Change Do you wish to view members avatars when reading topics? to "no" Done and done.

Now that someone has quoted Goodspeak's posts, I know now what his problem is. As I stated, he has been placed on the Ignore list. He also sent me two PMs, I moved to block his PMs before opening them. IMHO, his complaint, and apocalyptic threats, have no validity whatsoever. I will change my avatar, if and only if, Jim Alfredson asks me to do so. There has been a solution from the start - change your board settings to make avatars not visible - yet Goodspeak refuses to avail himself of this option. I like this avatar a great deal - and it has nothing to do with whether or not it continues to piss him off. I like it as a reminder to myself that whatever instinct I may have to "go medieval" on someone on this board, its really a bit silly to fly off the handle like that. I see myself in that gif of the angry, crazy person battering himself into oblivion over something he sees in the pixels. In short, that avatar serves as a reminder to me that there is no reason to post bitter hateful things. It reminds me of what I used to be, and why I intend to change. I intend to change - but the avatar stays.

Patrick, when paypal funds get withdrawn they get their cut - regardless of whether or not it was paid by C/C or checking account (I'm pretty sure that's the way it works). As to Conn.'s comment - We've got about $1900 dollars to cover. That's $20 to a hundred people. Not very much when you think about it as 1 regular priced CD at Borders, or a couple of mid-line CDs. My vote was for annual because when it comes up, it will have been quite a while since the last donation, and everyone should be well inclined to do their part. To avoid the New Year's-Christmas financial crunch, I'd start the pledge period in early November, give people a chance to round up the dough before they get stressed by Christmas shopping.

Nor had I, but I had a dog who loved bacon. Oh man ain't that the truth! In fact, when we make bacon with Sunday Brunch - not very often - we pour off the grease into a small glass and pour it over their dinner. Very healthy treat, highly recommended for dog owners. Healthy! Man our dog basks in the smell alone and that's about all he'll get except maybe a scrap or two of that dried pork belly. After that glass o' grease I'll bet that Coltrane makes like Brotzmann out in the yard. Seriously, dogs need fat calories as much as anything else. Plus, like I said, we don't make bacon very often, I'd say less than once a month.

No, I believe you are to be the Head of the New Member Welcoming Committee. But no skimming off whatever he extorts in "initiation fees".

More than one person now! For the record, considering the relatively exhaustive choices above it, option 6 was the "I'm not going to pay a stinking dime for this place, if he wants to keep the board, don't buy the kid any new shoes for a couple of years. If he doesn't want to keep the bird, c'est la vie." I thought that option 2 was fairly distinct since it depends on a set group of people to cover the expense for everyone, at a set rate, while the other options assume that a much larger group will donate what they can. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Anyway ... it now appears that yearly and semi-annual or quarterly pledge drives are equally popular, so Jim may want to think twice about what he posted in that other thread. I honestly expect that this current crisis situation is going to result in sufficient funds to cover 2008. Jim said he was over $600 in paypal, so there was more coming snail mail I'm sure, and that was before the determination was made that he should be relieved of the burden of funding the board. So, we will most likely be looking at a fund drive starting say, October-November 2008. I'd suggest that at that point we see if the full-boat can be raised again, and if not, Jim can announce that a second drive will start in May for the second half of the year. I totally agree with Paul that a monthly drive, while easy to meet the goal of $175 or so, would be so omnipresent as to become too easy to ignore.

If, and I emphasize if, the Yanks are out of the Santana sweepstakes, what's to stop the Bosox from walking away from it all? If you take the view that the Bosox were in it primarily to drive the price up for the Yanks, if the Yanks are out then the Bosox can just tell the Twins to either go away or "Here's our package(reduced from previously)- if you want it, OK, if not, see ya." Thsi has largely been a two team market for this deal. If no one else makes a good offer for Santana, then maybe the Twins have overplayed their hand and they may get only the draft pick when Santana flies the coop after the season. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. What's to stop the Sox from walking away? Uh, probably the likelihood that the Yanks will sweep back in? Why would the Sox offer a reduced package? See the above answer.

Nor had I, but I had a dog who loved bacon. Oh man ain't that the truth! In fact, when we make bacon with Sunday Brunch - not very often - we pour off the grease into a small glass and pour it over their dinner. Very healthy treat, highly recommended for dog owners.

A check will be en route tomorrow - I'd rather Jim get all of my contribution.

Well, as time continues to go by with no deal announced, its harder and harder to believe that the Twins really are satisfied with any of the packages the Red Sox have offered. Now both Gammons and the Boston Herald consider it more likely that the Twins will hold onto Santana ... but does anyone else have the nagging suspicion that the Yankees are going to swoop in, make a slightly better offer - but not give up their third best pitching prospect - and get him in the end? That's been their M.O. before, and the Star-Tribune reported that the Twins never heard from the Yankees that they were out of it, either. Hankie Steinbrenner keeps saying that they don't pay any attention to what other teams do, least of all the Sox, but his baseball people have to understand that without a big move, they've fallen behind both the Sox and the Tigers for next year's pennant race. They need Santana more than ever, because none of those youngsters are going to dominate right off the bat - and now I think they are going to get him.

I've never understood ketchup on a hot dog, or worse yet, ketchup and mustard. For me, if there is mustard available, its gotta be spicy; yellow mustard at a ballgame just makes me want to eat the dog plain. The best mustard I've found is a honey mustard that starts sweet but finishes very sharp, its great on hot dogs and ham sandwiches. Otherwise, melted cheese and onions always work for me, but I'm not a fan of relish or sauerkraut.

OK, as Joe G. said, it looks like a consensus is emerging, so let's see how the membership as a whole feels. Understanding that it is Jim's board and his final decision, the ongoing thread and the responses here should show him how important the board is and the preferred way forward. I think that solving the financial side of things will ease but not eliminate the strains of running the board, but its a big start if we can formalize a system whereby Jim will no longer be responsible for the financial side of having the board continue. Beyond that, decisions need to be made about admin functions, specifically the question of volunteer moderators as well one or two people empowered to interact with the hosting company regarding service outages and the like, plus installation of any software updates. I suggest that people willing to perform these duties should volunteer in this thread; otherwise, Jim can choose to use the "tap the shoulder" method that we once had in place for the BFT and approach people he'd like to have on the team himself. Either way, its all going to be his decision, this poll is just meant to get a formal sense of what the group supports.

One other thought regarding moderators: We don't need gorts who will make unilateral decisions. A group of people should be chosen as moderators, one for each sub-forum. Those people should do things like they do at Blindman's: if something comes up, the moderators discuss it amongst themselves and then make a decision, whether to close a thread or delete or edit a post. In all honesty, I don't think that this type of moderation is necessary, if the decision is made to keep the board essentially as it is. Moderators will change the feel of the place. The best choice may be to remind people what is expected in their posting behavior, and when people deviate with excessive profanity or personal attacks, perhaps posting privileges get suspended? I know it sounds a lot like getting a "time out" but when you think of the way Jim has run the place, it really is a lot like a house over-run with kids and then out of the blue, the fist of doom comes down and people say "whaaat? Why??? I didn't do anything!" Think of the Babe thread when Jim suddenly closed it. I'm just throwing out ideas here ...