Its been called Moneyball, but really it is just Billy Bean (and others) applying statistics to the economics of sports to find where there are mistakes in other teams talent evaluation and to exploit those for your own team’s advantage. Beane has been doing this successfully for the Oakland Athletics for some time now, leading the team through the losses of MVPs and Cy Young contenders and still competing for the playoffs in most every year. Even as he tears down the 2008 club the fans of his team are convinced that they will win in the long run.

Beane is now entering a new era and new sport - Soccer or Football as the other 6.3 Billion people call it. He is applying his talents to MLS’ San Jose Earthquakes and statistical analysis of the Beautiful Game. I figure if this works for him, he just raised his value on the open market to tens of millions as Man U, Barca, Real Madrid and others are worth billions and have hundreds of millions of fans.

Welcome to the world’s game Billy, I’ll be able to hate you when I follow both of my passions in 2009 - Seattle’s expansion year.

What kind of impact will Beane have in MLS? That is yet to be seen, but you can start speculating now.

Heltonfan has used his projection system to come up with an analysis of the top free agents and attempts to quantify what their contracts should be.

Here’s who winds up as top 10 by Wins Added above Replacement and what their contract would be in light of market trends and projections

ARod 5.89 WAR - 7 years/201Million$
Fukudome 4.45 - 4/91M$
Bonds 4.44 - 1/18M$
M.Bradley 4.15 - 3/42M$
Posada 3.61 - 3/51M$
Hunter 3.43 - 5/73M$
Schilling 3.04 - 1/15M$
M.Rivera 2.44 - 3/37M$
Kuroda 2.27 - didn’t make the salary speculation
Lohse 2.08 - 3/29M$

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See the entire thread and comments on other projections

Recently added is his spotlight on the talented young Tamp Bay Rays.

The New York Yankees are reported to have made Alex an offer , this immense in effect 8/230 contract comes in light of past statements that we would never see another contract like his last, so much for the experts…

So it might seem that Braves fan speculation on whether they would want him might be moot.

Will he wind up signing that extension or will he explore the waters of Free Agency again winding up in a different market with a team with tons of cash available? Follow the rumors concerning A-Rod here and join the speculation about where he will wind up

I can’t remember the last time the Rockies lost a playoff game. Seriously, my own ball club was in its second best season of all time busy struggling past the Yankees. Plus back on October 7th 1995 I was starting my 54th week of studying Arabic full time for the US Army. I didn’t have space in my head for the Blake Street Bombers. A dozen years since a playoff loss - sure this is their first year back - but quit disrespecting the Rox (link to Rox fans feeling disrespected). These kids can play, and win. They’ve been doing it non-stop basically for two months.

On the other side of this World Series equation I see a club that has become the Evil Empire lite (props to Timberwolf). Once they got good they aren’t as much fun to love. But they aren’t definitely still fun to watch, with Manny being Manny, Schilling inserting himself into any drama, and two pitchers from Japan this club’s international appeal has fueled the Red Sox Nation with hopes of a second World Championship in just four seasons. Trying to erase a history of ineptitude are these Sox the new “comeback kids?”

AutomatedTeller (RedSox Mod) gives us this prediction in the Sox forum’s World Series thread

Ellsbury will be starting game #1. vs. a LHP. The Coco Crisp era is over. When was the last time a GG caliber CF for a WS team didnt’ start the world series for a rookie?

Carl Yazstremski will throw out the first pitch of game #1!!!! Unbeknownst to all, he is Jeff Francis’s godfather.

Predictions? I think Sox in 6. This Rockies team is legitimate. If you just compare numbers, the rockies have a better offense (remember, no DH) and the Sox have the better pitching, and they kind of cancel. However, the Sox had 2 guys who underperformed in the regular season and I don’t see that from the Rockies. Helton, maybe, but his numbers have been down for some years.

Heltonfan (Rox Mod) gets a little more technical/sabermetric in the Colorado Rockies thread

Here’s how my projections see the lineups (numbers given are projected Wins Above Replacement over a full season):

C: Varitek 2.37, Torrealba 0.21
1B: Helton 4.02, Youkilis 2.38
2B: Pedroia 2.57, Matsui 1.43
SS: Tulowitzki 2.59, Lugo 1.69
3B: Lowell 2.76, Atkins 2.59
LF: Holliday 5.10, Ramirez 3.22
CF: Ellsbury 0.95, Taveras 0.37
RF: Hawpe 3.06, Drew 2.26
DH: Ortiz 6.01, Spilborghs 0.97

So basically, Wolf’s analysis is right on. If we take these numbers, and weight them according to home-field advantage (four games with DH, three games without, and assuming that Ortiz replaces Youkilis at Coors), the Red Sox lineup totals 23.3 projected WAR, compared to our 19.9. So the difference in lineups amounts to a little over 3 wins per year.

Pitching:

Beckett 4.74, Francis 3.78
Schilling 4.34, Jimenez 0.50
Matsuzaka 4.73, Fogg 1.84
Cook 3.55, Lester 1.27

Projections are not kind to Ubaldo, and, as discussed earlier, they’re probably too kind to Matsuzaka. I think it’s reasonable in both of those cases to use 2007 stats rather than projections - in that case, the numbers to be used are 4.02 for Dice-K and 1.73 for Ubaldo. Repeating the process, weighting things by the number of starts we expect each pitcher to get, the Red Sox’ rotation is worth a projected 15.7 wins per year; ours is worth 10.4. Which is another way of stating the blatantly obvious: there’s a huge difference between Schilling/Matsuzaka and Jimenez/Fogg.

Bullpens:
Papelbon 4.32, Corpas 2.32
Fuentes 1.05, Okajima 0.75
Delcarmen 0.78, Hawkins 0.63
Timlin 0.72, Herges 0.55
Affeldt 0.76, Lopez 0.27
Speier 0.25, Snyder -0.01
Gagne 0.80, Buchholz 0.38

Totals: Boston 7.6, Colorado 5.9. We’ve got a slight edge after the closers, but there’s a huge difference between Papelbon and Corpas. None of this should be particularly controversial.

Add it all up, and the Red Sox are 10-11 games better than we are over a full season. And this is without considering any possible difference in the quality of the leagues. So the Vegas line, with the Red Sox as 2:1 favorites, is probably about right. But flip that around: there’s a one-in-three chance that we’ll actually win this thing. That’s plenty to get excited about, I think.

It is the World Series, hopefully seven full games of baseball at two unique settings, venerable Fenway and humidor aided Coors Field. I don’t know who will win. I know my heart yearns for the story that encompasses the Colorado club, but my head says the Boston club.

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For those that prefer the quick and dirty there’s a little poll for you. Want to follow the individual clubs’ fans? Rockies and Red Sox. For those who just want to see what baseball fans around FanHome think of the games here is the GameThread for Game One. In nine days we will know the answer as to which team gets the trophy, but if Colorado doesn’t lose, I’m betting that memory will last for all of us.

Dave Littlefield is already out as the Pirates General Manager, but he isn’t the type that an opposing organization looks at and wants to employ immediately. On the other hand Walt Jocketty is now the FORMER General Manager of the St.Louis Cardinals. After 13 years with the same organization, in which he lead brought in talent to get 6 Division titles, 1 Wild Card appearence, 2 National League Pennants and One World Championship Cardinal fans are getting ready for a new era. John Mozeliak is now the acting General Manager.

This isn’t the only worry for Cardinal fans though. After losing Jocketty, the fans now have to worry if their Championship manager might be gone soon as well. With things up in the air right now concerning whether or not Jocketty has been fired the future of the team - of LaRussa and Dave Duncan is also an unknown. One year champions with 83 regular season wins, only five less wins and less than a year later the future is in doubt.

Join Ewttexas, Bleacherbum, tulcard, BleacherBum and the rest as they ponder the uncertain future of the St Louis NL club.

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Come on, be honest Met fans (and those who paid close attention to the Mets fall down the stretch)… Does Willie Randolph really deserve the blame? How much of it goes to Omar Minya? Or do either of them deserve an iota?

Of course, Minya has already said Randolph’s job is safe… But what do the fans think in this instance? Cast your vote and voice your thoughts.

The Colorado Rockies will face the San Diego Padres in a one game playoff to determine which of the two teams will be the NL Wild Card winner. Newman gets the first post on the Rockies board. This active forum got to experience one of the longer winning streaks of the season late in the year. Many have postulated that the Rockies are a team of destiny, having faced playoff pressure for a full week.

Monday night the “team of destiny” will face likely Cy Young Winner Jake Peavy.

Other playoff match-ups are
American League
LAAA @ Boston
NYY @ Cleveland

National League
Cubs @ Arizona
Winner @ Philly

Your predictions?

Montreal Expos fans used to be the bread and butter of FanHome.com’s baseball community. Witness just a small example of their involvement via the Wayback Machine and you see a community that was anything but the stereotyped apathetic Expos fan that the US media played them for.

So my question is this — where have all those fans gone? Are there many (or any) fan sites or tribute pages still operating on the web (besides our own Montreal Expos forum)? And while we’re at it, are there any Montreal fans that would embrace another baseball team in the city?

Poster LouGehrig speculates that the Red Sox are in danger of collapsing as they are prone to in history. Now with only a 2.5 game lead, how would one expect a Beantown fan react? How ’bout calling for the team to just win enough to get to the playoffs and then forfeit the rest of their games.

Boston doesn’t deserve to win the division. The team obviously doesn’t care about exorcising old demons and delivering a division title to its fans for the first time in 12 years. Otherwise the club would take these September games a lot more seriously, and actually make an effort to win them.

It is amazing how ready to be disappointed the Sox fans are, but I don’t think Zen is the only one, just the most vocal. Will the Red Sox hang onto the division or wind up settling for the Wild Card spot?

So, my home town nine have been the worst contending team down the stretch in the history of the game. Once just a handful of games back from the AL West title, they managed to get swept by the LAAAngels and later went on a road trip to Toronto, NYYankees and Detroit that basically ended their chances. From Aug 25th on the Mariners have gone 6-17, and so like many other Fanhome communities (Atl and Col come to mind quickly) I have started to look towards next year. This is a big budget team with market conditions that give them the ability to spend quit a bit, but just how much is available? Thanks to Cot’s website I can glean the guaranteed money, options and arbitration eligible players and set up a nice simple table for our viewing. All numbers are in Millions of Dollars and represent Real Dollar Value or best estimate there-of, so there may be some discrepancies when comparing to data that uses only CBA Luxury Tax Valuation.

Now the Mariners have several players in their pre-arbitration that will certainly be on the club which raises that number a bit, but overall it looks like this somewhat weak Free Agent class the Mariners will have a couple dozen million to spend this coming offseason.

What should the Mariners do with this cash?
See the thread