March 11, 2010

No Pepper

Against the Fence

by Tommy Bennett

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You're the Twins. You've lost one of your most valuable players. What do you do?
The fact is, torn UCL doesn't automatically mean Tommy John surgery, though it is by far the most common result. There is always the possibility of rehab, the dubiously effective PRP. Even within Tommy John surgery, there are several variations (Altchek? Jobe? Andrews?). Stay tuned folks, this could be an interesting case.

Now is the hour of Zduriencik hagiography. 
If Zduriencik were a financial asset, I would be shorting him with every dime I had. Put it this way, could any GM be as good as some are making him out to be? (Subquestion: is there any way to securitize GMs?) It's worth noting that Tim Marchman recently ranked Zduriencik the fifth best GM in baseball.

Daniel Moroz argues it may not be so bad to play in the AL East.
After making some assumptions, he shows how we'd expect a 70 win true talent team would win 69 games in the AL East. Of course, the high average number of wins required to make the playoffs from the AL East probably does more work in terms of the disparity, but it's still a neat finding.

Like R.J., I too have a bizarre fascination with failed relievers who can't find the zone.
I once drafted Runelvys Hernandez, Denny Bautista, Andy Sisco, and Zack Greinke for the same fantasy team. Hey, it looked like the Royals' year! Who's your favorite never-even-got-to-be-Mark-Wohlers?