Miami Marlins Upping the Crazy

According to just about every baseball beat writer, the Marlins are close to a deal with the Cubs for Carlos Zambrano¹. As of this moment, it appears that the Marlins would be giving up Chris Volstad. Also of note, the Cubs would be responsible for all of Zambrano's contract, save for around $3 million.

This is awesome². We'll get to the baseball aspect in a moment, but from a pure blogging and entertainment perspective this move is great. Big Z is well known for his rabid emotional outbursts, both good and bad. You can bet Ozzie Guillen will try to reign him in and focus on the good energy, but there should certainly be some explosions that will provide real entertainment value.

From a baseball sense, meh? I like the move. It was hard to expect anything out of Chris Volstad anymore, so that's not a loss. In fact, some are suggesting a parade just for being able to unload him. What does Carlos bring to the table? Well, he still has stuff. He does walk a lot of guys and give up the long ball (gee that does sound like Volstad, ugh), but he possesses a live fastball and movement on all of his pitches. He should be able to eat innings (pun intended) and maybe rack up 10 wins. Actually if you are a fan of Bill James projections, he has Zambrano going 10-10 with a 3.89 ERA in 181 IP in 2012. I'd do cartwheels if he can match that. Carlos probably would as well, except I doubt he can perform a proper cartwheel. Maybe he'll celebrate with a beer chug³.

¹I was away from Twitter for most of the day, so I don't know who had it first. Was it Ken Rosenthal? Fuck it, my money is on Ken's bowtie breaking the news.
²Unless you are a water/Gatorade cooler. If you are, then you may want to find a safe house and lay low.
³Beer chug is much better idea.

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Someone had to say it

Via

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Food for thought

Negative effects of highly dispersed pay are even seen in professional sports. Studies of baseball teams are especially interesting because, of all major professional sports, baseball calls for the least coordination among team members. But baseball still requires some cooperation—for example, between pitchers and catchers, and among infielders. And although individuals hit the ball, teammates can help one another improve their skills and break out of slumps. Notre Dame's Matt Bloom did a careful study of over 1,500 professional baseball players from 29 teams, spanning an eight-year period, which showed that players on teams with greater dispersion in pay had lower winning percentages, gate receipts, and media income. 

-from Pfeffer and Sutton, "Evidence Based Management," Harvard Business Review, January 2006.

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Prepare to have your mind blown

While weighing in a Fish Stripes' best third-baseman in Marlins history poll, I discovered the following about inaugural Marlins third-baseman Dave Magadan (via Baseball Reference):

June 27, 1993: Traded by the Florida Marlins to the Seattle Mariners for Henry Cotto and Jeff Darwin.
November 9, 1993: Traded by the Seattle Mariners to the Florida Marlins for Jeff Darwin and cash.

Traded twice in the same year, for the same player, by the same teams. I'm not sure that's ever happened before or since, but you'll have to ask Tim Kurkjian for verification on that one.

Also, according to B-R, Magadan's closest comparable is another former Marlins, Jim Eisenreich. So there's that.

Image via Marlin Maniac

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A Very Short Chat with Jesse Thorn

Something different to kick of 2012. My favorite public radio show, The Sound of Young America, relaunches this week as Bullseye. To promote the new show, creator and host Jesse Thorn (America's radio sweetheart) promised to accept any interview request, so we took him up on that offer. We briefly discussed baseball (of course).

Both times the Marlins won the World Series, they ended up beating the Giants in the NLDS. Which of those Marlins teams ('97 and '03) irritated you more as a Giants fan?

One of my closest friends, a San Franciscan, became a baseball fan the year the Marlins joined MLB. I was 11, he was 10. He picked Jeff Conine as his favorite player, and the Marlins as his favorite team. I never heard the end of those two series.

I will say that I've never had anything against the Marlins, and the 2003 edition even had the cool addition of Dontrelle Willis, a Bay Area guy my age who'd played against my friends in Little League and gone to high school with a good college buddy of mine. Still, I thought that was the Giants' year. And the stupid MARLINS messed it up. So I'm going 2003.

Which baseball player or manager (alive or dead) would you most like to appear as a guest on Bullseye? My choice: Earl Weaver

I was just thinking that I'd love to have Bill Veeck on the show sometime, were he not dead, but he never played or managed, so I suppose he doesn't count. I did have his son Mike on once, many years ago. A couple of the folks I'd most like to have on have been on: most notably Bill "Spaceman" Lee, whose autobiography The Wrong Stuff was almost certainly too influential on me as a child.

It's often hard to tell who in baseball is genuinely funny or eccentric, and who is just eccentric compared to baseball players, who seem to be the most boring people in the world. Only in baseball can you find black guys whose only hobbies are hunting and golf.

Earl Weaver's not a bad choice. I read his great book "Weaver on Strategy" as a kid, and loved it. I might choose the man who inspired Weaver, though, Branch Rickey. There'd be a lot to talk about.

Great choices all, and now Ted and I know who to recruit for social chair when we start our Earl Weaver Appreciation Society. The fact that he has actually read Earl Weaver makes him the most qualified cultural Sherpa on public radio.

Here's Bullseye's social media particulars, and a link to the show's podcast in iTunes. Below, the promo for Episode 1, which airs this week. Also, links to Jesse's interviews with Bill James and Mike Veeck. Bullseye is not carried by any public radio stations in Florida, so by all means, pester your station into carrying it.

Image via GQ

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