Time to finish this bad boy off! Parts 1, 2, and 3 can be found at the respective links, and there's a link to the spreadsheet I used for this business in Part Three. But, hey, all that really matters is the end anyway, right?

When last we left off, we'd painted the playoff picture and got as far as putting the Yankees into the World Series to face off against the National League champion. Fairly standard baseball procedure. But the NLCS featured two robust squads in the Cincinnati Reds and Montreal Expos, and my underinformed misguided simplistic-yet-effective method of advancing teams – WRF, explained in Part 3 (looks like you have to read it anyway!) - sort of ran into a snag where it failed to discern a significant difference between the two teams. To wit: the difference was .07, or .01 points of difference in z-score.

So, further investigation warranted, I took another look at each time. And then several other looks, 'cause it's really kind of a conundrum. The essential difference between the two teams is that the Reds could outhit the Expos, but the Expos were the superior team as far as pitching was concerned. Sound simple enough? Good. But come jump with me and we'll make it more complicated than it probably has to be...and also find out who wuz robbed of the chance to hoist the spectacular(ly ugly) World Series trophy.

Adam J. Morris at Lone Star Ball was watching Game 3 of the 2009 ALCS, and to turn it off after only five minutes:

Tim McCarver's incessant slobbering over Derek Jeter, treating basic plays by him as being the epitome of what winning baseball is all about, irritated me to the point that I couldn't listen any more, and I turned it on something else.

Now...one of the things I've talked about before is that MLB could give a rat's ass about hard-core fans like us, when it comes to nationally televised games.  Bud Selig & Company figure that we're going to watch the playoffs no matter what happens, so we have McCarver and his incessant Jeter manlove, paired with a guy whose sole credential for being a play-by-play guy is that his daddy was good at calling games, and the fact that the die hards don't like those guys is irrelevant to MLB.

But it does lead me to wonder...I don't think I'm the only one turned off when a Yankee game is treated as a Jeter lovefest, or a Florida football game is dominated by talk of how wonderful Tim Tebow is, or when a Monday Night Football game is treated by Ron Jaworski as secondary to talking about Brett Favre.

Announcers slobbering over star players in nothing special or new, it's been going on forever. These are the most popular guys on their teams and in the game, so the announcers feel the need to talk about them more than anyone else.

I got tired of the awful job the boys in the booth were doing in the playoffs this year, that I muted the TV for most of the games. This is not what MLB, FOX, or anyone else wants. At least TBS took a hint and canned Skip Caray after last year's debacle. It can't be long before Buck and Co. are out on FOX, right?

In my mind, the idea of the color man is to provide insight we could not hear anywhere else from anyone else. If they don't give me any new information, what good are they?

Dejan Kovacevic wonders if the Pirates would have been able to resign Jason Bay if they would have kept him instead of trading him to the Red Sox.

The answer now would look to be a resounding no, regardless of Bay's repeated and strongly expressed feelings in 2008, at least not unless the Pirates were to have offered him money equal to his free-agency value.

Consider that the Boston Red Sox had offered Bay four years at $60 million and might have gone higher. But, rather than stay in Fenway Park, with its left field virtually catered to his bat and glove, he chose to play in New York's new Citi Field, with its chasm of a left field that could engulf both. And, rather than stay in Boston, where he had his first chance to contend and likely many future chances, he chose the increasingly dysfunctional Mets.

Moreover, Bay's longstanding wish to play in Seattle -- he lives there in the offseason and hails from British Columbia -- never amounted to meaningful talks with the Mariners.

He wouldn't take a discount to stay in Boston where the Green Monster was made for him and he wouldn't have taken a discount to play in Seattle, something he wanted to do. It was all about the money for Bay. Nothing more, nothing less. Can we really blame him?

MLB rewards service time, that much is certain. Every year, you should make more money (in theory) until your play takes a significant decline and you take a pay cut. As a player, it would be crazy not to take the money while you can. When you think about it, a couple extra million every year is a lot of money to us normal folk, and to players. Most fans assume that the difference between $5 million and $4 million a year to players is the same as the difference between $50 and $40 to us. Not true, at all. $1 million is a whole lot of money, even if you are already earning $15 million in a year.

While that $1MM was ONLY a 6% raise, it's a million dollars regardless. And can we blame a player for wanting an extra million on his deal? I say no.

• At 6 Pound 8 Ounce Baby Joba, Conor Cashel gives his thoughts on the Yankees and Red Sox top three starting pitchers, and Kevin Seefried breaks down the Yankees infield.
• Amanda from Swing and a Long Drive goes through the Phillies bullpen.
• FanGraphs and BDD colleague David Golebiewski breaks down and projects Felipe Lopez at The Hardball Times.

Hey everyone,

Just so you aren't wondering why nothing new will be up for awhile, it's because of the Holiday season. I will be on a "vacation" until January 4th, so I probably will not be able to get anything new up on the site. It's unfortunate the hot stove season runs through the holidays, but that's the way it goes.

If a big move goes down, I may be able to find some time to analyze it.

Happy Holidays,

Zach Sanders

Yesterday, Sky Kalkman (of Beyond The Box Score fame) made a comment on Twitter to the effect of “Is a free agent coming off his best season? If so, try to resist signing him.” I believe it was in response to the Nationals giving Jason Marquis a 2 year, $15 M contract after he had (by far) the best season of his career with the Rockies in 2009. It sounds like perfectly good advice, but it also sounded like an interesting topic to look into, so I went through the 2009 rosters and found 19 players who had career years in the recent past and then were signed to free agent contracts (excluding 2008 and 2009 so that there’s more data about what happened after the fact).

A career year was defined as a season in which the player posted the highest Wins Above Replacement mark up of that point in their career. The WAR was taken both from BaseballProjection.com and FanGraphs.com (going back through 2002), and only counted if both were in agreement that the player had his top season. I’ll go through them here to try to get a flavor of what happens when a guy is given a nice shiny new contract after playing his best baseball.

[Note: There are certainly more qualifying players than this – both because I likely missed someone and because some of those players were already out of baseball by this year. I think I got a pretty good selection though. Dollar figures based on production are all from FanGraphs, as well as any WAR figures unless specified otherwise.]

Late last night, Ken Rosenthal floated a rumor out there that Brandon Morrow is being traded from the Mariners to the Blue Jays for reliever Brandon League and "a prospect". This deal seems confirmed, but we still have no idea who the prospect is.

The reaction this trade got from myself, national writers and Mariners bloggers was "that better be a damn good prospect". Morrow has 4 years of team control left, has the potential to be a middle (and maybe top of the) rotation starter who at worst is a setup man. League has the potential to turn into a below-average closer, and is a setup man in Seattle. This deal makes little sense without a big prospect being included.

Blue Jays beat writer Jordan Bastian tweeted that he hears the prospect is Johermyn Chavez, a free swinging outfielder who may not have the potential to start everyday in the bigs.

A starter with setup man downside for a setup man and a fourth outfielder? No thanks. I have advocated bringing in another good bullpen arm to friends/family, but this is not what I had in mind.

Rumors were that the Mariners were going to swap Morrow for a corner infielder, possibly Mat Gamel of the Brewers. I would not be surprised if the prospect the Mariners receive is coveted by someone else and they plan on flipping him to another club in a deal. That would make more sense. This trade, as is, is not looking good for the M's.I might have to give my first "thumbs down" to a move made by JackZ.

Reports are coming in that the Yankees have acquired RHP Javier Vazquez and LHP Boone Logan from the Braves for CF Melky Cabrera, RHP Arodys Vizcaino, and LHP Mike Dunn. So...how bout them Yanks? Assuming that Vazquez is a top-of-the-line starter like he was last year, and doesn't revert to Javy-in-the-Bronx form that we saw in 2004, then one of the best rosters in baseball just even better.

As for the Braves, they apparently felt the need to deal a starter, as they had six capable guys in the rotation. I, and probably every other Braves fan, would have preferred they dealt Derek Lowe, whose contract looks to be breaking albatross territory, but of course it's hard to sell other teams on big money for little performance. And since paying six starters isn't an option but shelling out eight figures for two bullpen guys is, Vazquez ended up being the guy packing his bags. He certainly pitched up to his $12MM contract and then some, with a sterling 2.83 ERA, 2.77 FIP, 1.026 WHIP. He set or tied career-lows in hits per 9 (7.4), HR per 9 (0.8), and posted a career-high 9.8 strikeout rate. It rather goes without saying that he also had a career best K:BB ratio (5.41), and many of you likely remember the flap Keith Law caused by voting for Vazquez as the Cy Young runner-up this year, leaving off Chris Carpenter in the process.

Vazquez has always had talent, but a propensity for allowing a big inning or two and a high home run rate has often found a way to submarine what would otherwise have been a stellar season. He looked to have put that behind him this year, but if he goes back to serving up gopher balls, the potent AL East lineups could have their way with him again. In 2004, which was the only season in his career since 1999 that Vazquez threw less than 200 innings (198, to be fair), he posted a 4.91 ERA and a 4.78 FIP, the former his worst since '99, the latter since '98. And his BABIP in '04 was a lowly .283, so the teams could stand to do even worse against him this year.

The return the Braves got isn't as bad as I first thought upon seeing it. Melky, aside from providing near-endless fodder for name jokes, still has some upside as a 25-year old centerfielder; a .276/.336/.416 line last year demonstrates acceptable plate discipline and hopefully a power stroke that's on the rise, as his .416 SLG is a career high. Arodys Vizcaino, though you won't hear as much about him on SportsCenter, is apparently the real prize for the Braves. He's 19, but apparently sits at 90-94 with a nice curveball. He's something of a project, and is several years off from reaching the majors, but the Braves' scouting team has done pretty well for the team in the past. As for Mike Dunn, he's a lefty that strikes out more than a batter per inning. That sentence right there sums up his value; lefties with stuff like that don't exactly grow trees. His control could use some improving, as he walks an even 4.0 batters per 9, but you could do worse than to have a back-end lefty who can miss bats. All that said, this looks to me like the Braves are practically conceding the division this year. Adding an outfielder who can hold down the fort until Jason Heyward and Jordan Schafer arrive was an imperative, but in order to compete, so too was maintaining the rotation that posted the best FIP in baseball last year.

Here we go with the penultimate part of my in-no-way-inaccurate-or-misguided recreation of the lost 1994 season. Parts one and two can be found at the respective links. Also, since I'm going to be getting into some of the math I used, feel free to peruse the spreadsheet I made for this business so that you can point out my various and sundry mistakes. There's also some stuff in there that I don't talk about here, so if you have some time, feel free to poke around.

http://spreadsheets0.google.com/ccc?key=taQ3k7jke8UQFoOZOFCYL_g&hl=en

Anyway, now that we've got our eight playoff teams, let's get to know them a little better. Take a little taste with the A's, who are like the appetizers of the bunch (because they're the worst, see), then jump with me for the main course.

Oakland Athletics

.322 wOBA (21^st), 5.17 QERA (25^th), 41 Special Sauce (14^th), -40 Run Differential (17th)

The best I can say about these guys is that they had some big names on the team. Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Dennis Eckersley...um...Todd Van Poppell...Steve Sax...alright, so I'm stretching it a bit. Let's put it into other terms: no one slugged so much as .500, and Geronimo Berroa led the team with a .864 OPS. But not only were they not too skilled with the stick, they couldn't even put good pitchers on the mound; the only starter you could even reasonably call “good” was Steve Ontiveros, who posted a 2.65 ERA and 1.03 WHIP...in 115 innings. My point is that the A's were lucky to get into the playoffs. But, hey, I suppose exceptions must be made when you play in what is one of the worst divisions in baseball history.

While the Phillies worked to obtain Roy Halladay during the July Trade Deadline and came away with a consolation prize in Cliff Lee, the team already had an ace. He just wasn't pitching like one at the time. That pitcher would be Cole Hamels. Soon after being named the 2008 NLCS MVP and 2008 World Series MVP, Hamels struggled throughout 2009. Even after enduring the first losing season of his career, the Phillies remain confident in Cole Hamels. Yet, he has been the Phillies forgotten ace as all the rotation news and speculation this winter has surrounded Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay.

After going 14-10 in 2008, Hamels followed his career year by going 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA - the second lowest win total and worst ERA of his career. Opponents hit .273 against Hamels - another career worst. His 3.71 FIP was only 0.01 above his 2008 FIP. Hamels struggled in the playoffs, going 1-2 with a 7.58 ERA. He pitched over 5 innings in only one of his four playoff starts. That start lasted 5.1 innings. Had Hamels pitched better during the playoffs, the Phillies would have made the World Series more competitive. By contrast, Hamels went 4-0 in the playoffs with one no decision and 1.80 ERA in 2008. He pitched fewer than 7 innings once during the Phillies run to the World Series. 2009 provided a stark contrast to Hamels' stellar 2008 season.