Happy Birthday, MTD

The man, the myth, the legend - at least that's what he keeps telling me. But he keeps allowing me to post dribble here, so I'm just going to go with it - ages another year today. That's one small step for man, one step closer to a prostate exam and a colostomy bag. Pro tip: Don't let the bag tear. Not even a little.

It should be a good day for MJ. The Angels are playing, meaning he can watch Mike Trout push his 9.4 fWAR closer to 10.0. I've also already arranged for all bars in the Biloxi area to fully stock up on bourbon for tonight. Most of the bar owners noticed my northern tier accent, told me to "piss of, you damn Yankee" and then hung up the phone. But I'm pretty sure that my message got through to them.


MJ likes to point out that he shares a birthday with Joe DiMaggio's brother, Vince DiMaggio. Also that Mitch Moreland and Mark Teahen were born on this day. But it is also the birth-date of Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution. Which, depending on whether you are for, or against, a monarchy, is either a positive or a negative. But it is definitely more interesting than me sharing a birthday with Carlos Mencia.

Other baseball players include current Oakland Athletics reliever, Jerry Blevins as well as former Marlin, Cub, Pirate, Derrick Lee. But bonus points are awarded for sharing a birthday with Leo Carillo. What? You don't know who Leo Carillo is? He's only the actor who played the Cisco Kid's sidekick, Pancho, in the popular 1950's TV show.

Only one baseball Hall of Famer was born on this date, and that is Red Faber. He was only good for an OPS of .401 for his career, but he did win 254 games for the White Sox from 1914 to 1933. If only he hadn't been sick with influenza during the 1919 season. Maybe Joe Jackson would never have been a part of that fix.

Also born on this date, an elder statesman in trippy rock music, Roger Waters. My calculator broke trying to correctly identify how many points this was worth. I guess this means that MJ wins the internet. But since my calculator is no longer useful, I'm going to have to use money that I was saving for the Mike Trout birthday cake I was having made for today. I guess we are going to have to go with the backup Daric Barton cake. Sorry, MJ, but dems da shakes.

Spiked fruit punch and hangover bloody Mary's for everybody. Happy birthday, MJ, enjoy some Grey Goose for me.

Reason No. 7,439 why the Royals are the Royals

The Mariners and Royals were tied at 6-6 in the bottom of the 11th in Thursday's get-away game at Kauffman Stadium.

Billy Butler, whose nickname on Baseball Reference is "Country Breakfast" meaning this was probably the last time I'll be visiting Billy Butler's BR page, is scheduled to hit with the potential winning run at first and one out.

Butler had been having another good season in a career full of good seasons - .285/.375/.418 coming in - and with 24 doubles and 14 home runs there was a decent chance he'd be able to drive in the winning run, or perhaps just get that runner to third with less than two outs. Instead, KC manager Ned Yost decided to pinch-hit with Pedro Ciriaco, whose nickname is "Doesn't Deserve Breakfast".

Ciriaco had been claimed off waivers from San Diego on July 16 after hitting .226 (26-for-115) for Boston and the Padres.

Apparently, THIS was the time to get the Pedro Ciriaco in KC Era™ underway. Chance Ruffin was out of the Seattle pen to make his first appearance since 2011.

"Finally, Ruffin vs. Ciriaco!"

- Baseball historian Darren Durly


Ruffin got the better of Ciriaco in their first match up, getting a three-pitch strike out. Kansas City wouldn't score in the inning.

Oh, almost forgot to mention one other thing about Butler: in his first five plate appearances he had gone 5-for-5.

Oswaldo Arcia's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). 

We will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Strike outs!

It had been a while since Off Base had picked apart a hitter's failures at the plate, but Friday Minnesota's Oswaldo Arcia struck out a whole bunch at the House That Boone Logan Built.

First, let's see how many different ways we can misspell/pronounce 'Oswaldo Arcia':

Hoswoldo Arsea
Oswaldiman Archeletta
Oswald Artsia
Old Halss Waldaborncia
Ozzie Canseco
Ozzie Garcia
Roy Oswalrcia
Ozzie & Waldo Garcia

OK.

In the second, Arcia faced Hiroki Kuroda, who recently was left off the American League all star team despite excellent numbers. As a Yankees fan I would've been outraged at Kuroda’s omission except that the all star game is really really stupid. Arcia struck out swinging.

The Twins had a runner at second with no outs in the 4th, but Kuroda got Arcia swinging again.

** Top of the 6th inning - Preston Claiborne vs. Oswaldo Arcia **

After the initial hysteria of Claiborne-Arcia I wore off, Claiborne picked up a swinging strike out.

In the eighth, Arcia completed his historic evening by going down looking against David Robertson.


One more: Oz Waldarcia

Team Value in Return or, How the Astros are Still a Laughing Stock

Casual baseball fans, think about the game on a semi-regular basis. How do I know this? I too was once a casual fan. Bloggers, are not casual fans. We spend our spare time thinking about what we can write about next and whether or not we wrote about it a week ago, or if some other blog has already tackled the subject. In other words, our bottles of soap and shampoo last much longer than that of a casual fan. So, in the spirit of blogging instead of showering, I decided to calculate the value that each team has gotten in return on their investments (players) up to this point in the season.


A couple of quick things about the table below.

1.) All the payrolls are prorated for the amount of games that each team has played so far this season. So, no, the Dodgers did not find a way to shrink their payroll down to $113MM without any news media outlet finding out. I will note however, that if I had left the salaries at the full season amount, some teams would already show up with a positive difference between the value earned and money spent. But I will touch on that later because I have to be fair to the Yankees

2.) The goal is to find the value earned based on Fangraphs' version of Wins Above Replacement. Emphasis on "Above." Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus explained to me that this exercise shouldn't penalize teams for players that are playing at replacement level and that since the league minimum salary is already priced into the concept of WAR, it should be removed, and that teams should be compared by what they spend above and beyond that. So the league minimum salary of $490,000 (side note: I should have kept playing baseball) has been removed for each player on a teams roster. And that has been prorated to adjust for games played by each team, or (490,000 * 25) * .52. Simple, right? In this case, that amount is $6,492,500.

3.) There is no "3." But everyone always has a third bullet point, and I wanted one too. So there it is.

First and foremost; Damnit, Jeffery Loria. So much damnit. He shipped off almost every player that was making any serious money before the season started and somehow, some way, the Marlins already have accrued more value then he has paid out in salary up to this point. Damnit.

Everybody say it with me: AstroLOLs. Their total payroll of $26.1MM for the 2013 season is the lowest in all of baseball. It is more than $200MM less than what the Yankees are spending this season per Baseball Prospectus. Yet there they are, in the negative by more than $4MM. Don't ever change, Houston. Don't ever change.

The Rays, Athletics and Pirates have three of the five lowest payrolls in baseball. The Rays and Athletics have recieved already in return, more than $100MM in value from their players. And the Pirates are right there at $97.68MM. 

The Yankees and the Dodgers are the only two teams with payrolls north of $200MM, and unless they go on serious tears to close out the season, they don't have a snowballs chance in H-E-double hockey sticks of generating positive value.

Mike Trout has accrued an fWAR of 5.1, just under half of what the Angels offense has been worth this season so far. Mike Trout is the best. Ditto for Miguel Cabrera who's fWAR is already at 5.7. The difference between the two, salary. Cabrera is making $21MM this season and is already worth $28.7MM. Trout is making $510,000 this season and is already worth $25.5MM. Miguel Cabrera has been better this season by fWAR, but Mike Trout has been far more valuable in terms of money.

Three of the four teams that are in the negative for value, have the three highest salaries in baseball (Yankees, Dodgers and Phillies). The other is the Astros. So, once again, LOL Astros. But unlike the Dodgers and Yankees, the Phillies have an outside chance of at least breaking even by seasons end. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not. But, possibly. And it serves as a great example that money spent does not necessarily equate to value in return.

So, in case you were wondering (and even if you weren't, because I was anyway) about how much value your team, or some other team may have generated during the season so far relative to whatever portion of $3.19 Billion being spent by Major League Baseball on player payrolls (Wow!), there's the table. At least, if nothing else, I finally learned how to use Microsoft Excel. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a shower. I'm sure I have plenty of soap.

Miguel Olivo Put on the "Go Sit in the Corner" List

The loosely considered professional baseball organization that resides in Miami, Florida was in the news today, thanks to one, Miguel Olivo. Olivo demanded a release from Jefferey Loria's team for the third time last night, and was denied for the third time last night. So in true professional style, Olivo watched the first inning from the clubhouse, then showered, then got dressed, then left. Totally fake Unofficial reports suggested that the list thing heard from the one time decent backstop turned third string catcher was, "Screw you guys, I'm going home." This, of course, is yet to be confirmed.

Bill Plaschke: Can't we all Just get Along?

“I think it's odd that grown-ups quarrel so easily and so often and about such petty matters. Up to now I always thought bickering was just something children did and that they outgrew it.” Oh, that Anne. She's a hoot. As long as their is red blood flowing through a man's veins, I expect bickering to forever be apart of his psyche. And with bickering comes fighting. So, my apologies, Miss Anne Frank, but some things never go away. And the escalation from bickering to fighting was on full display earlier this week when the D-Backs and the Dodgers go themselves into a bit of a scuffle. I guess, boys will be boys.

The Derwood Morris Fantasy Baseball Team

I hadn't played fantasy baseball since 2006, the year I drafted Derek Jeter first overall and the other people in the league (one claimed his name was "Dave", sounded made up) said I was a fool. Then Jeter hit .343 and I won the league (I also had Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran, but I think Vinny from Jersey would agree that Chewing On Derwood Morris' Fingers doesn't win without Jeetah).

From 2007-2012 I skipped fantasy baseball season. I just didn't have time because I get so wrapped up in the NFL Draft.




Anyway, fast forward to late-April, 2013, and we have Lavelle Rondo Apologists, the first Derwood Morris-led fantasy baseball team in seven years.

Today was draft day in the Federal League at cbssports.com, and Lavelle Rondo Apologists had the fourth overall pick. The following is a running account of how it went.

Jean Segura Doesn't Care About Direction

There are a few certainties in life, guarantees if you will. The sun will rise in the east and, subsequently, set in the west. Your taxes will be due on April 14th every year. Ed McMahon will not be coming by my house anytime soon to deliver a giant check. When running the bases, you will not go back a base after advancing to the next one. These are guarantees in life that we can all rest our laurels upon. At least, they all were until today, when Jean Segura - the rookie shortstop for the Milwaukee Brewers - went and disrupted the space-time continuum by, essentially, stealing first base against the Chicago Cubs.