With little news likely to drop today (other than maybe lesser-known guys like Matt Holliday and Aroldis Chapman), I wanted to wish all of you a very healthy and happy 2010. Thanks for taking some time to spend with us here at IIATMS.

Whatever you’re doing tonite, please be safe and smart. I want you guys back here on Monday!

Jason (and Will & Tamar)

There’s a lot of Bay-related articles today and there’s a good portion (a wide majority?) which are either anti-Bay, anti-Minaya or anti-Mets in nature. I found it a bit hard to bash Bay as it was the best deal he was going to see and the second best (from the RedSox) appeared to dissolve a few weeks back. I can’t fault him for taking the Mets money (even if it was more than obvious that he didn’t want to play there). Jason Bay is a good player who will not wilt in NY. He isn’t the best defensive OF but it’s not like he’s Jermaine Dye!

But Jeff Passan’s takedown of the Mets organization is as good as you will read:

• “All of this highlights an endemic problem with the Mets that they try to cover with their payrolls, which provided among the highest cost per win in baseball this past decade: Their player-development system is a mess, and not the kind of mess a toddler makes at dinner. It is whole-cafeteria-food-fight bad, and in that respect, the coupling of Minaya and the Mets seems perfectly matrimonious.”

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Many chuckles from my office upon reading this:

Jason Bay has decided to join the Mets, according to a report on WFAN, pending the results of a physical exam.

The Mets have a four-year offer out to Bay worth about $65 million.

Good for the Mets, I guess. However, wasn’t it said just last week (via Peter Gammons/WEEI) that Bay would rather play in Beirut than for the Mets:

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This is as about as absurd a headline as you will read in baseball circles:

No Rival to Red Sox in 2000s

No rival? C’mon Ed Price, you really don’t believe that? Especially when you yourself lay out the facts that, in fact, show that the Sox weren’t the best team in the 2000’s:

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It appears that Mark DeRosa is about to sign with the San Francisco Giants for a reasonable two-year, $12 million deal:

The Giants are poised to complete their first free-agent signing of the offseason on Tuesday, when they’re expected to announce a two-year agreement with Mark DeRosa.

[...]

DeRosa, whose contract is believed to be worth $12 million, has been one of this offseason’s most coveted free agents. Early last month, as many as 12 teams reportedly had expressed interest in him.

That’s not a heckuvalot of money for a guy with the ability and flexibility of DeRosa. He’s not in his prime (age 34 in 2009, and shares my birthday at the end of February) but seems to have come into his own with regular playing time the last two years, hitting 21 and 23 home runs the last two years, respectively. However, the contract does pay him 80% of his career earnings to date, so this is a big payday for him.

And before DeRosa signed, ever-young Mike Cameron signed with the RedSox for two-years, $15 million. Cameron turns 37 just after New Years and is a vastly superior defender than Johnny Damon.

What do these deals mean to Johnny Damon?

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Over the weekend, there was some chatter about the Yanks pursuing Jermaine Dye. Let’s get one thing straight: If the Yanks DO sign Dye on the cheap, he won’t need to bring his glove as he’s not going to “take over” LF ahead of Gardner. And he’s not going to bump Swisher from right to left, either.

Why?

1. He’s a TERRIBLE outfielder
2. He hasn’t played more than 1 game in LF since 1996. That’s, like, a long time ago.
3. His RF “ability” has bottomed out to the point of being consistently awful. Not bad, but awful.

Here’s the data:

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Since we’re into the slow news days leading up to the end of the year, I’ll start running a few more of the “Commish For A Day” suggestions that I have received. If you’d like to submit your ideas, please email me but make sure they are ready for posting (ie: they read reasonably well, contain the links you used to support your case, etc., as I’m not making any edits). Remember, I might not agree with every submission, but they are good for discussion.

The sixth “Commish For A Day” submission is from Sean McCulloch, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Ohio Wesleyan University. Our very own smarty pants with an idea that’s sure to be controversial:

I’m not sure my idea is 100% implementable at the moment, but I’m sure that if it’s not, it would be soon if we tried. Here goes:

We have QuesTec, PitchFx, and similar things to analyze where the pitch went and whether it _should_ have been a strike. Most television broadcasts have an automatic pitch tracker that goes on screen right after the pitch. Are we really that far from having an automated ball/strike detector that determines if a pitch was in the strike zone right away, and communicates the correct call to an earpiece used by the home plate umpire, who then makes the call verbally? I think that the only technological restriction is the delay in computing the location of the pitch, and that’s important- even one second would feel like a long time. But I think it can be done soon, if not now.

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Reminders are out there that baseball is experiencing something close to parity, if not completely (via Tyler Kepner):

At the start of the decade, eight franchises had never been to the World Series. Now there are only three: the Texas Rangers, the Washington Nationals and the Seattle Mariners. The Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Angels won in their first appearances; Houston, Colorado and Tampa Bay lost.

[...]

Twenty-one of the 30 teams reached the league championship series, with 14 advancing to the World Series and eight different winners. There was still outright failure, of course, in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and elsewhere. But hope nourishes sports fans, and few teams have been hopeless very long.

Here’s the B-R listing of the playoff participants; browse thru and notice how many different teams you see.

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Thus far this offseason the Red Sox and Yankees have both splashed the pot rather dramatically, with the Yankees pulling off trades for Javier Vazquez and Curtis Granderson and bringing in Nick Johnson, while the Red Sox have reeled in free agents Marco Scutaro, Mike Cameron and John Lackey. Chit chat around the internets still gives a pretty heavy edge to the Yankees in 2010, but this is based on lineup strength. The Yankees are perceived to have a juggernaut offense, with a very good rotation. On the other hand, the murmers around baseball regarding the Red Sox generally give them the edge rotation-wise, but a fairly big gap to make up offensively. Some examples can be found here and here.

After the tremendous expenditures by Cashman and Company last offseason, this struck me as a bit odd. Could Lackey really offset Javier Vazquez enough to actually give the Red Sox the edge? That got me working, and as I expected, the Yankees still have a significant edge.

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After the changes of the past month, the Yankees are just about restocked. They have four starting pitchers who could arguably head up many major league rotations and two talented youngsters fighting for the last spot. They’ve got 8 batters who could smack 20 home runs (and a number of whom will challenge 30 and 40). And they’ve got a solid bullpen between Rivera, whichever pitcher doesn’t win the #5 spot in the rotation, Robertson (led the AL in K/9 last season), Aceves, Marte (who was great for us in the playoffs), Melancon and Boone Logan.

The team has gotten cheaper, younger and better all at once. It appears the bullpen is sorted (pending Joba/Hughes’ competition, and possibly one of Gaudin/Mitre as swing man). That leaves one spot still in flux–the final outfield starting position (which will either be LF or CF, depending on the Yankees’ defensive analysis of Curtis Granderson). As of right now, that’s taken by Brett Gardner, with Rule V draftee Jamie Hoffman taking the 4th outfielder role (rated the best defensive outfielder in the Yankees’ system by Baseball America).

Twitter and the blogosphere is alight with discussion of who could take that final spot away from Brett Gardner. The wide assumption is that the Yankees are out of the Holliday and Bay sweepstakes based on cost (both in years and dollars). Frankly, either would be overkill offensively, and Bay would be disastrous defensively. Both have offers currently on the table for $16 million+ per season at least four seasons–and Brian Cashman has made it clear that any additions hereafter would be small in nature. Granted, he also called the concept of signing AJ, CC and Tex “candyland”, so who knows.

The names being considered at the moment: Reed Johnson, Jonny Gomes, and Xavier Nady. All three have seven years of ML experience, and all three have a single good season hidden amongst mediocrity (or worse). Let’s take a look:

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