2012 Cape Cod League Standouts: Falmouth Commodores

The Falmouth Commodores were more or less my home team this year. I attended 26 games this season; twelve of them were Commodore home game. Fourteen had Falmouth as one of the two teams. Part of it was their position as underdogs; they haven’t won a Cape League title in 32 seasons now, eleven years longer than the next longest drought. The Commodores got off to a strong start, and it looked like this might be the year they finally changed that. Unfortunately, injuries hit them at the wrong time; they fell to third place in the Western Division on the final day of the season (finishing 21-23), and were swept by the Wareham Gatemen in the first round of the playoffs. They definitely had bright spots in 2012, though.

Stephen Strasburg's Inning Limit and October

I know the topic has been beaten to death. But I have some sort of interest in the Nationals (even if I don’t fully understand why), so I might as well weigh in on the Stephen Strasburg inning-limit story.

I can understand the desire to keep Strasburg healthy. I trust the Nationals have looked into the topic. But I think there are plenty of problems with the “keep pitching him until he hits 180 innings, then shut him down for the year” plan.

Cape Cod League Award News

Hyannis Harbor Hawks lefty and Indiana State sophomore Sean Manaea has won both the league's Top Pitcher Award and the Outstanding Pro Prospect Award. Congratulations to him, and good luck over the next year!

As a side note, Fangraphs has already looked and determined that Manaea's chances of making the Majors now sit at around 70%, even a year before the draft.

How Big Should the Hall of Fame Be, Part 2: What Would a More Appropriately-Sized Hall Look Like?

I know I’ve done a lot of Hall of Fame stuff lately. This will be the last piece for now, at least in this vein. This is more or less the direct sequel to “How Big Should the Hall of Fame Be?”.

As a quick recap, I looked at historical trends in the Hall of Fame voting and determined that voters just aren’t inducting players like they used to. At least, not at the same rate. I then decided to predict who would make the Hall of Fame among active players, applying the standards of past times. It was fun, and highly speculative, but it didn’t match up with the original premise.

I wanted to say “What types of players would we be inducting if we applied past Hall standards?”. Speculation is fun, but I should have been doing something more analytic. If we just went by old standards and inducted the top 4%/5%/etc. of players in given years, who exactly would we be inducting? What would a Hall of Fame with those sets of players look like?

In that sense, I should have been straying towards more established players. Modern players are always fun, but there’s too much prediction and projection involved. If I took a year and added the top 37/50/64/however-many players to Cooperstown, what would that get us, Hall-of-Fame-wise? In that sense, I’m going to try one more thing: what active players in 2000 would make the Hall, now that we have sizable careers to use for comparisons?

2012 Cape Cod League Standouts: Hyannis Harbor Hawks

The Cape League Playoffs start this evening, so before I move on to that, let’s take another look at the other team that was eliminated.

Yesterday, I covered the Brewster Whitecaps, who finished last in the Eastern Division. Their counterparts in the West were the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. At 17-27 (good for 34 points), the Harbor Hawks actually tied for last place in the division. However, the Bourne Braves had the advantage in the tiebreaker, and moved on to face the top-seeded Cotuit Kettleers.

Kind of Interesting? Maybe?

Well, this is new. The Pirates are letting fans pay to become part of a fan-run think-tank of sorts.

Well, I'm not sure what to think of this. On one hand, it sounds kind of silly. Are they really outsourcing team decisions to fans? (And haven't we seen something like this before? Granted, it worked then; maybe the Pirates are on to something here.) What will that entail? Polls?

"Who should the Pirates sign? Winner will be offered a competitive contract.
_ Zack Greinke
_ Kevin Youkilis
_ Michel Bourn
_ Other"

2012 Cape Cod League Standouts: Brewster Whitecaps

The Cape League Season is starting to wrap up; playoffs start on Thursday, with eight teams proceeding into a three best-of-three round tournament to determine the champion. To finish off the season, I thought it would be good to take a final look around the league and the stand-out players. I’ve been covering stars throughout the summer, but there’s only so much I can do looking at players one by one. So, I figured the best thing would be to go over each roster and the players on each team that made a name for themselves in 2012.

I’m going to try and cover each team as they drop from contention. The end of the regular season spells the end of the line for two teams: the Brewster Whitecaps and the Hyannis Harbor Hawks. I’ll be starting with the Whitecaps, the first team that was eliminated.

Retired Number Series: Post-Script 2

Who called it?

This guy right here.

Who Are the Hall of Famers Playing Today? 2012

First, I looked at the Hall of Fame and determined that it may not be inducting enough players, compared to years past. Anywhere from 40 to even as high as 90 active players at any one time may be Hall of Fame-worthy, going by past standards. So, I looked at the active players in 2006 to come up with a list of (40 to) 80 players who fit the bill as most likely future Hall of Famers. As stated in the last article, starting with 2006 was three-fold; it let me examine the up-coming Hall ballots while lowering the amount of guesswork needed in projecting players, and it gave me a start on looking at this year’s players. If you have any questions on why I put a player somewhere and there’s nothing present here, go check to 2006 articles.

Cape Cod League Profile: Tyler Horan, OF/DH

History was made Sunday night in the Cape Cod League. The Wareham Gatemen and Falmouth Commodores were engaged in a slugfest in Falmouth’s Guv Fuller Field. In all, the two teams combined for seven home runs, including a go-ahead one in the top of the ninth by reliever and eventual winning pitcher Daniel Palka.* However, that one may not have even been the biggest home run of the night. That honor belongs to Gateman and Virginia Tech outfielder/designated hitter Tyler Horan.

Knee-Jerk Reaction to a Non-Deal: White Sox Might Not Keep Youkilis?

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe is reporting that the White Sox probably won't be picking up Kevin Youkilis' 2013 option. That’s actually pretty strange, I think. Youkilis has a $13 million option for next season, so the issue might be tied to money. Still, I can’t figure out why keeping Youkilis wouldn’t be one of their priorities.

Cape Cod League Profile: Sean Manaea, LHP

The Hyannis Harbor Hawks stand a game and a half behind the Bourne Braves in the standings. Whichever one finishes on top continues on to the the playoffs. And there are only four (for Hyannis) or five (for Bourne) games left in the Cape Cod League season. Thankfully, the team had their ace on the mound for the second game of a double header on Friday.

And not just any ace; Indiana State University left hander Sean Manaea. Manaea* has been making a bit of a buzz in the draft world recently. Baseball America just ranked him third in the 2013 draft class in their first rankings.** And for good reason; despite pitching in what’s been the best year for Cape League hitters anyone can remember, Manaea’s been absolutely dominant.

Matt Holliday: Under-Appreciated Superstar

If someone came up to you in the streets and asked you "How good has Matt Holliday been this year?", what would your response be?

I'm kind of hoping it would be some sort of confusion, at least. That would be the normal response, I would think. Maybe some sort of unwariness. Why are random people on the street asking you about Matt Holliday? But how about if I asked you that now, where it's not totally unexpected? I mean, he's good at least. He made the All-Star Game (although he was an injury replacement). I put him on the All-Star roster without using injury replacements, so that should move him up a few notches.

Re-Run: Can NL MVP Ryan Zimmerman Get Some Attention?

I'm already posting one article about an underrated player, why not post one of my older ones on the subject? It's a completely different player, but still, any excuse to talk about Ryan Zimmerman is good. You know what else is good? Ryan Zimmerman. I need to write more about him soon.


Anyway, this piece was originally from the 2010 season.

The race for Most Valuable Player in the AL looks to be dominated by Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton. But what about in the NL?

As you may or may not know (depending on whether you’ve read any of my articles), I’m pretty found of a stat called Wins Above Replacement, or WAR. WAR is is a stat that takes a players offensive and defensive numbers and determines how many wins a player has been solely responsible for over a replacement player. Conceivably, we can use this stat to get an idea of who should at least be in the running for NL MVP.

Who are the Hall of Famers Playing Today? 2006, Part 3

Finally, after a two day delay (who knew that so much news would happen on the trade deadline?), we return to the Future Hall of Fame topic.

Okay, so a quick recap. First, I looked back and determined that the Hall of Fame had sort of stopped inducting players at a reasonable rate (at least, compared to what they had done historically). Then, I decided to look at some players who were active in 2006 to get an idea of candidates to make the Hall in the future, that way we might get an idea of what a slightly larger Hall might look like. However, my two-part retrospective didn’t really organize the players in any way, other than the order that they came to me.*

*If you were able to pick up on an order, please let me know. I’ve been trying to figure it out for years now with minimal luck.
However, that order may not be the order that they’re most likely to be inducted into the Hall. And so, I took that list and decided to organize it into something shorter and more coherent here. Also, in case you’re curious/don’t want to go find the numbers in the older pieces: 37 players is the traditional average and about 3% of the players at the moment; 43 and a half is 3.5%; 50 is 4%; 62 is 5%; 74 and a half is 6%; and 82 anda half is 6.643%, the average from 1901 to 1982.