First - Keith Law in a recent chat...

"I've never been a big fan. Saw him on the Cape in '03 ... no real out pitch, stuff is all fringe-average ... plus command/control, which gets him to the big leagues, but he's a fifth starter, maybe a four if everything works out."

Second - PECOTA - Breakout Rate (0%), Improve Rate (7%), Collapse Rate (75%)

With Jeremy, it's fewer than average strikeouts, walks, homeruns, and hits allowed.  I wonder how many guys can claim that (small sample size caveat).  

What do we think?

Anyone else have this yet?  Some really interesting stuff in here.  For example:  

BASERUNNING

James and the guys at Baseball Info Solutions come up with a plus/minus "bases" system which go a long way to determine who are the best and worst baserunners.

1st to 3rd on a single; 1st to home on a double

2nd to home on single (Grady the best % guy in the majors)

Bases taken on wild pitch, passed ball, balk, sac flies

Baserunning outs and other factors

Conclusions?  The best baserunner by this method was Chone Figgins at +28.  Sizemore was twelfth at +19.  Jason Michaels of all people was 17th at +15.  

The other thing I found interesting was Travis Hafner was 7th worst at -21 and Victor was 9th worst at -20.  If you project Garko's -7 out to a full season, you begin to wonder if there's another (admittedly small) reason the brass isn't as high on Garko (perhaps they think that these 3 hitting 3, 4, 5 may not be the best lineup construction).  

MANAGERIAL USE

All kinds of stuff like # of times a manager used a reliever on consecutive days (Wedge did this 48 times, the fewest in all of baseball).  He also used the fewest relievers in all of baseball (377, while Dusty set an all time high with 542 relievers used.  

You also have a ton of stuff like the usual 2007 James player projections, a panel of 10 experts ranking the fielders at each position, the win shares, James does a study on manufacturing runs.  

All heady stuff.  And to end with a completely unrelated note, what an unbelievable sequence of plays by Boise State to win that Fiesta Bowl.  

Word on the street is Ben Broussard to Seattle for the AAA outfielder Choo according to the Indians Ink guy on the scout.com forum.  

You got hand it to Shapiro if this is true.  One piece at a time, folks!  Lots of steals in AAA, and apparently Seattle DFA's their DH this morning.  And the word is that Broussard doesn't have to go anywhere because Seattle is coming to town.  

I'm curious what everyone thinks about the 2007 bullpen.  Obviously one of the big disappointments of 2006, nonetheless some interesting raw material there to lay the foundation for 2007.  

There's a lot to filter through for the rest of the season and into next year:

No set closer for 2007 (and not much in terms of free agent options)
Can Betancourt/Cabrera straighten themselves out from their WBC-induced comas this season?
Will Matt Miller be healthy again (scheduled to pitch again in late Aug/early Sept?)
A lot of fringy guys who (I think) are out of options next year in Stanford, Guthrie, Davis, and Brown.

I don't even know who the absolutes are at this point, beyond Betancourt and Carmona.  Cabrera has been pretty bad this year, but he's out of options already so he has to fix things on the big club.  Perez seems on track to lock down a spot if he just keeps doing what he's doing.  Mujica looks great but he's got options remaining.  

Even if they don't go outside the organization to get a "proven closer", it seems like the front office would have to add at least one free agent reliever with somewhat of a track record (unless the Howry contract is the new standard for decent set up men).  But then again, everyone right now is looking for bullpen arms and there's not a lot out there.  

I had momentarily forgotten that Will Carroll had organized one of those BPro Pizza Feeds in Cleveland this past Friday until I saw it as his lead-in to his column today.  Anybody attend and care to share their thought?  I understand Antonetti, Huntington and others were in attendance to watch Sabathia dominate the Pirates.

I don't know what it is, but for some reason I'm starting to get the feeling that management may actually be thinking about keeping BP; this despite his recent history and that fact that Vazquez has a guaranteed MLB contract.  

I realize Vazquez hits left handed, has the better track record of semi-tolerable OBP stats, etc.  I guess I agree that he's the better backup; but I wonder if he's the better option if pressed into action for any extended period of time?  I don't know if management would re-think that the marginal sunk cost of losing Vazquez is worth keeping BP around or not.

Again, nothing at all to base this on.  They'll probably deal BP for a PTBNL tomorrow.  

I didn't even know we had Andy Tracy.  

I was at Winter Haven today (I live about 45 minutes away in Orlando).  Right in front of me, some guy gets a phone call and then goes up to Tracy and lets him know that he has to report to Baltimore by Monday (they train in Ft. Lauderdale).  Victor and Einar were signing autographs for about 25 people in the background.  

Certainly a first for me.  Present as the deal goes down!  

The DiaTribe has a superb recap of Shapiro's surprisingly candid conversation with Les Levine.  Good stuff on the 4 B's, the bullpen, the free agent market, literally everything.  Thanks man.  

Ken Rosenthal leads off his MLB notes article with discussing how Coco Crisp value is higher to other teams (as CF and leadoff man as opposed to LF and second hitter) than the Indians.  He further talks about the Indians would have to be blown away to deal him.  

[Ryan] Added the links.

Just browsing through a few chatroom boards, there was some talk that yet another possible outfielder target might be Jorge Piedra from the Rockies.  

Another left-handed hitter who has played some center field and some left field with what seems to be league average defense.  Of course, there's the Coors effect which has ballooned his home stats and severely diminished his road stats.  

Admittedly, this sounds like Ryan Langerhans-lite to me.  And it seems like this guy would be close to the same service time as Langerhans.  Anyone know anything about this guy?  I confess that I had never heard of him before I heard his name come up in a blog.  

For what it's worth, the Rockies have had noted interest in Josh Bard, but that would seem to be out the window since they have Torrealba (sorry, I don't feel like looking up the correct spelling).  Matt Miller was also a name mentioned.  

Rosenthal (as Ryan pointed out, does this guy ever sleep?) just reported it is likely, pending passing of a physical.  

Little known fact about Jason Johnson.  According to The Hardball Times, he was 2nd to Westbrook in the A.L. in groundball/flyball ratio.  

The much needed and always popular "rotation-depth" signing.