Base Hits: 2/6/2008

With all the trades going down this offseason, I decided to add a few modules to track how all these trades are working out for the Baltimore Orioles. I am measuring them in Win Shares accumulated after the trade by the players involved and then showing an advantage to one team or the other. What's a Win Share (WS)? More on that can be found here.


For perspective, in the ill-fated Glen Davis trade, the players Baltimore traded away (Finley, Harnisch, Schilling) went on to accumulate 437 WS while Glen Davis contributed a meager 12. That would be a 425 WS advantage for Houston!

And that would be the standard for a bad trade.

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Jim Palmer just won a malpractice suit against an opthamologist who, among other things, tore Palmer's retina during cataract surgery. Eeesh.

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The big club could take a lesson from one of its minot league affiliates. The Frederick Keys have been voted by Frederick Magazine readers as one of the best entertainment values in town. Why? In part because they have not raised ticket prices in eight years.

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I keep hearing the Orioles might trade Erik Bedard. Could this possibly be true?

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Former Oriole Javy Lopez is back with the Braves trying to resurrect his major league career.

Book Review: The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers

The offseason is when I usually do my baseball reading so I figured it would be interesting to write my Oriole-centric observations of these books. Got it? Good.

Bill James breaks the book down into decades and determines the best managers of each decade and then tells you about their styles, tendencies, innovations and the like. There were really great writeups on two Oriole managers: Ned Hanlon and Earl Weaver.

Everybody knows Earl Weaver but do you know Ned Hanlon? Ned Hanlon managed the great Oriole teams of the 1890's, back when the O's were still a National League team and winning pennants like mad.

Anyway, James details how Hanlon's influence is still felt in the game today and can trace the lineage of influence back from current mangers to Hanlon. For instance, Tony La Russa played for Dick Williams, who in turn played for Walter Alston, who played for Frankie Frisch, who played for John McGraw, who played for Ned Hanlon on the old Baltimore Orioles.

Furthermore, you can trace the "lineage" of many Oriole managers of the modern era back to Hanlon and the Baltimore Orioles of the National League. Earl Weaver, Paul Richards, Hank Bauer, Joe Altobelli and Davey Johnson all spring from Hanlon's disciples. It a tangible link between the Orioles of the 19th century and the club that was reborn in 1954.

The analysis of Earl Weaver is one of the most entertaining reads I've had in awhile. Weaver was dedicated to the idea of platooning players, this we all know. What I didn't know was after the advent of the DH, Weaver would routinely carry only 9 pitchers on the roster so he could carry 16 hitters to fuel his various platoons!

To Weaver, it was all but impossible to get every situation covered with just 25 men on the roster. It wasn't a question of having 25 men and only 18 of them playing; if he'd had 30 men, he'd have started pinch hitting in the 4th inning, and he'd have used all 30.

Truer words were never written.

Weaver was also a huge proponent of the big inning and hated giving up outs. His success in this area drove the sacrifice bunt to near extinction in the American League.

But my favorite assessment was this:

Weaver wasn't interested in what a player couldn't do. He was interested in what a player could do. If he can't hit a breaking pitch, you don't play him against Bert Blyleven. If he can't run, you pinch run for him-but you don't let that stop you from developing what the player can do. It's the things that a player can do that will win games for you.

Isn't that great? It's this characteristic that I see in Dave Trembley. Sam Perlozzo used to worry about his player's flaws or the type of player he felt was missing from the lineup. Trembley isn't like that. He needed a cleanup hitter and turned to Kevin Millar, not because he is a classic cleanup hitter but because he was the best suited for the job of the players on the roster. He didn't worry about Corey Patterson's strikeouts and low OBP, he saw his speed and bunting ability and stuck him in the 2 slot to good effect.

Anyway, I recommend the book to anybody. A great read and an interesting look at how the game has evolved over the last 120 plus years.

Base Hits: 2/4/2008

Keith Law on ESPN.com has released his list of 100 top prospects in baseball and there are a few (OK, three) Orioles on the list.

Matt Wieters is listed as the #14 prospect in all of baseball and the top catching prospect on the list. No big surprise there.

Mildly surprising is the inclusion of Nolan Reimold at #39 and the fact that he is listed as the #5 corner outfield prospect in baseball. Reimold has power and, after watching the AFL Championship game, more speed than I had previously given him credit for. But he has so little to show for it on the field, I was surprsied Law thinks so highly of him. I'll take it though. Maybe he's better than I thought.

The other Oriole on the list is SP Chorye Spoone at #96. Says Law:

Spoone has the potential for three plus pitches, with an explosive fastball with good bore that generates a lot of groundballs. Definite sleeper.

Only having 3 prospects out of a list of 100 is not great but we must crawl before we can walk...


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Some minor league signings for the O's last week including the return of relief pitcher Esteban Yan. Yan's signing has caused some minor howling in the O's blogosphere but it's only a minor league contract and, hey, sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle. But in reality, this guy's never going to see the major league roster. Catcher Chris Heintz has a better shot at seeing significant playing time in 2008 than Yan.

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Erik Bedard is likely to be traded this week, blah, blah, blah...

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Enchanting Sunshine went north to Baltimore to meet some of the '83 Orioles. Here's the story.

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A very good, very concise guide to Oriole Spring Training that I not only enjoyed but may render a post I was working on completely redundant. Good stuff.

10 Days until Pitchers and Catchers Report

UDC Editions and translations

This is just to inform that the bibliography of last reported UDC translations and editions is now updated and can be accessed from http://www.udcc.org/bibliography.htm.

Although I have a couple of references still in preparation I think many will find this useful as it is.

I created an overview of various editions by year in a single table for all 39 languages (http://www.udcc.org/files/

UDC Editions and translations

This is just to inform that the bibliography of last reported UDC translations and editions is now updated and can be accessed from http://www.udcc.org/bibliography.htm.

Although I have a couple of references still in preparation I think many will find this useful as it is.

I created an overview of various editions by year in a single table for all 39 languages (http://www.udcc.org/files/

The new issue of the Extensions and Corrections to the UDC

The new 29 (2007) issue of the Extensions and Corrections to the UDC has now been published.

The Annex of the issue (pages 159-321) contains Proceedings of the International Seminar “Information Access for the Global Community”, 4-5 June 2007.

See the table of contents and ordering information.

The new issue of the Extensions and Corrections to the UDC

The new 29 (2007) issue of the Extensions and Corrections to the UDC has now been published.

The Annex of the issue (pages 159-321) contains Proceedings of the International Seminar “Information Access for the Global Community”, 4-5 June 2007.

See the table of contents and ordering information.