Colby Rasmus

St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Colby Rasmus expressed some displeasure over his playing time this year. Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols responded using less-than-cordial words. The latest news out of Cardinals camp appears to be positive regarding the situation, but who really knows with LaRussa headed out of town. He surely doesn't want to get involved in a feud mere weeks before he hit the massive manager market. Colby Rasmus would look absolutely fantastic in left field for the Mariners. He's really cheap, and productive. Put his left-handed bat in the lower-middle portion of our lineup, and his glove in our expansive left field, and this team has the makings of a real young core. Offer some package of Michael Saunders, Greg Halman, and David Aardsma. Players like Nick Hill, Stephen Hensley, Rob Johnson, Mike Carp, Brad Nelson, Matt Tuiasosopo, David Pauley, Garrett Olson and Luke French are always available to round out a trade. Perhaps I'm underselling Saunders or overselling Rasmus, but I think Rasmus is a star and has already proven so at the major league level. The Mariners need to capitalize on inefficiencies like this random clubhouse spat.

Dave Cameron of USS Mariners and Fangraphs has already lobbied for plucking Kevin Frandsen and Matt Downs from their respective crowded infields, neither of which ended up happening. His ideas were also predicated on exploiting inefficiencies, namely abnormal infield depth. While the Moneyball era of On-Base-Percentage is long gone, the basic tenet of finding the undervalued trait still holds. Perhaps durable pitchers than throw over 200 innings like Jon Garland, Joe Blanton, MarkBuehrle, or Dan Haren, super utility players like Ben Zobrist, Omar Infante, the Izturis brothers, or Felipe Lopez, or relief pitchers with either very extreme or very non-extreme platoon splits are the next inefficiencies. Whatever those inefficiencies are, I hope Tom Tango, Tony Blengino, and Jack Zduriencik will find them first.

MLB Trade Value

Dave Cameron, who writes for USS Mariner, Fangraphs, and the Wall Street Journal, among others, is concluding a fantastic series on Fangraphs. He is ranking the top 50 assets in Major League Baseball. Players amass Wins Above Replacement (WAR). A team composed entirely of replacement level players wins about 50 games, so it takes roughly 35-45 WAR to be a playoff team. This past offseason, teams paid roughly 4.5 millions per WAR on the free agent market. As you can see, teams cannot buy their way to the playoffs; their payroll would be at least 180 million. So players that are within their six years of team control and quite valuable. Taking into account WAR, projected WAR, current and projected salaries, date becoming eligible for arbitration, date becoming a free agent, risk, potential, and scarcity, Cameron is exposing the masses to a new way of valuing baseball players. No longer are Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, and Manny Ramirez the most valuable players to their teams. Evan Longoria, Hanley Ramirez, David Wright, Albert Pujols, and Matt Wieters hold those spots now. I've included links to the series below. The top 5 will be revealed Monday on Fangraphs.

Introduction

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#30-26

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Player Valuation

In this article, Dave Cameron points out something that most baseball fans would be shocked to know. Because of the Mariners' black hole at shortstop composed of Yuniesky Betancourt and Ronny Cedeno, the Mariners would be well served to trade Erik Bedard for Rays shortstop Reid Brignac. Now the common fan would think the Mariners are getting ripped off. But digging below the surface, Cameron points out how this is not the case. The crux of the argument lies in relative value, something that is ignored in real baseball and fantasy baseball alike. The difference between Brignac and our current shortstops is roughly equal to the difference between Bedard and whoever we would plug in there to replace him. Absolute value is irrelevant. In fantasy baseball, the top catchers are drastically undervalued. The top catchers will put up lowers numbers in almost every category compared to outfielders and first basemen. But this difference is irrelevant. The difference between catchers is the important one. There is a distinct "top tier" of catchers, led by Joe Mauer and Victor Martinez. The value of owning Joe Mauer over Bengie Molina is greater than the value of owning Albert Pujols over Paul Konerko. Show me an owner who owns Bengie Molina and Albert Pujols, with Konerko available on the waiver wire, who trades Pujols for Mauer, and I'll show you someone who will do well. Relative value people. Learn it and succeed.

BABIP pt 1

Here are the players whose difference between their BABIP and BA are the greatest:

0.032 Albert Pujols

0.030 Adrian Gonzalez

0.012 Mark Teixeira

0.010 Jay Bruce

0.008 Ian Kinsler

0.007 Carlos Lee

0.007 Raul Ubanez

0.004 Brandon Phillips

0.004 Chase Utley

0.003 Robinson Cano

0.001 Hank Blalock

-0.002 Jose Lopez

-0.003 Bengie Molina

-0.006 Yadier Molina

-0.007 Juan Rivera

-0.007 Miguel Tejada

Pitchers should be downright scared of these players. These hitters will likely see their Batting Averages rise, ceteris paribus.