Unloading junk again. Baseball follows the lists.

Sites

• Franchise Location and Relocation Under the Major League Rules — Doug Pappas helps sort this one out over at Baseball Prospectus
• saintaardvarkthecarpeted.com — I have no idea what this is, but it’s pretty entertaining if you’re in the right frame of mind

Books

• Pat Pattison, Writing Better Lyrics. Hands-on, with plenty of exercises. Probably better in a group setting.
• Stephen Citron, Songwriting. Similar in scope to Jimmy Webb’s Tunesmith but not quite as inspired. Still a good read for anyone interested in creating songs or understanding the craft behind the art.
• Carl Sandburg, Selected Poems (edited by George and Willene Hendrick; no, not that George Hendrick). Current fave is Soiled Dove.
• Cole Porter, Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter (edited by Robert Kimball). Includes songs from his days at Yale and those for which no music survives. Good source of inspiration.
• Arthur Taylor, Notes and Tones. Interviews from 1969-71 of top jazz musicians by a top jazz musician. Interesting is the reaction of black artists to the Beatles at that time.

Tunes

• Bjork, Post
• Bill Frisell, Is That You?
• Rush, Vapor Trails
• Nickel Creek, This Side

Mark W. Davis and the HOF

Yep, my second article is up at Baseball Primer. It applies the Keltner list to Davis’ career in an attempt to determine the likelihood of his entering the Hall of Fame. The short version is, there is no chance in hell. And to those who think that trying to apply the Keltner list to a guy like Davis is pointless, it’s not. First, it gives us a chance to re-examine a player who had a pretty substantial career. There’s always value in that. Second, and more importantly, it serves as a test of the system itself. The Keltner list says that Davis absolutely doesn’t belong in the HOF. Given what we know about Davis and the HOF, this matches our expectations. So in this case, the Keltner list has been validated.

Enough philosophy. Go read the article and remember a guy who had two great seasons in a Padre uniform surrounded by years of mediocrity. Try it, you’ll like it.

Jeremy Fikac to A’s

Pads traded RHP Jeremy Fikac to the A’s for the ubiquitous PTBNL. While researching some possibilities of who that might turn out to be (rumor has it that it’s going to be the ever-popular "cash"), I stumbled across this line:

 AB  H 2B 3B HR BB  SO  BA OBP SLG
404 85 14  1 31 57 195 210 324 480

Kid’s name is George Soto, and he’s a catcher. I don’t know whether he’ll ever amount to anything but that is one of the most interesting stat lines I’ve seen since Rob Deer was playing.

Sickels 1996 and Win Shares

And now back to our regularly scheduled obssession. Today’s installment: (cue dramatic music) the minor-league years.

Minor-League Stats

Let’s a look at the average minor-league stat lines (through 1995) for each of the different grades assigned by Sickels. To save space, I’ve only included rate stats here (full stats are also available).

hitters

Grd   BA  OBP  SLG BB/PA K/PA BB/K  ISO XB/H
 A  .294 .369 .470  .106 .177 .601 .177 .341
 A- .288 .357 .454  .096 .146 .661 .166 .329
 B+ .290 .363 .439  .102 .157 .650 .149 .308
 B  .281 .355 .429  .102 .160 .635 .147 .308
 B- .277 .346 .415  .094 .158 .596 .138 .303
 C+ .276 .351 .422  .104 .166 .625 .146 .318
 C  .273 .348 .406  .103 .166 .616 .133 .296
 C- .271 .340 .390  .094 .161 .587 .119 .273
tot .277 .349 .415  .100 .162 .614 .138 .300

Note. PA is AB + BB.

Prospects in the Grade A group hit an unusually large number of triples. This is due primarily to Bob Abreu (50 triples, 1952 at-bats) and Johnny Damon (44, 1599). They also had the highest batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. They walked a little more than average, and struck out a lot more.

pitchers

Grd  ERA  H/9 HR/9 BB/9  K/9 K/BB
 A  3.14 7.80 0.56 3.50 9.10 2.60
 A- 2.63 7.11 0.56 2.93 8.51 2.90
 B+ 3.22 7.67 0.51 3.57 8.10 2.27
 B  3.33 8.01 0.54 3.06 7.86 2.57
 B- 3.43 8.10 0.60 3.42 7.63 2.23
 C+ 3.56 8.17 0.56 3.73 7.79 2.09
 C  3.58 8.47 0.59 3.34 7.19 2.15
 C- 3.83 8.60 0.61 3.63 7.10 1.96
tot 3.55 8.27 0.58 3.48 7.51 2.16

Members of the A- group had the best ERA, were hardest to hit, and allowed the fewest walks. The Grade A group struck out the most batters. Generally speaking, the pitchers with the higher grades were harder to hit and struck out more batters than those with lower grades. Interestingly, there was very little difference from top to bottom in terms of home run rates.

On Monday, we’ll see how these guys have done in the big leagues…