I've come up with a new, extremely complex statistic that I think will revolutionize baseball.

Let me go over how to calculate this statistic. Bear with me for a moment folks because it gets a little messy. First, you look at all the times a hitter comes up to bat. Give the hitter one point for every time they get on base by hitting the ball, except if the scorer feels like the fielder *probably* should've made the play (they get a point if the fielder is too lazy or inept to make it to the ball on time though). That's right, this statistic gives equal credit for home runs and singles, even though about 70% of the time a batter hits a single, he won't score, but a home run guarantees one run at minimum. We also don't give hitters any points for walking, because frankly, it's boring to watch, and who wants to tire out opposing pitchers and create run scoring opportunities anyways?

Then we divide the number of points accrued by the number of opportunities a batter has to get points, except we ignore some of these opportunities. Walks didn't count for anything at the beginning, so there's no reason to start counting them now, it's just easier to pretend they didn't happen. We WILL, however, count errors as opportunities, because even though the hitter succeeded in every way by getting on base, advancing runners, and not making outs... well we'll still hold it against them. If the hitter gets out but advances a baserunner, then we also don't count it as an opportunity, but only if the hitter did it on purpose, or if it's a fly out that leads to a run scoring. Ground outs that "accidentally" lead to a run scoring count as opportunities. The scorer will judge how pure the batter's heart was to decide if it was intentional or not.

To recap:

"Points"=Times on Base-BB-HBP-FC-RBOE-Dropped 3rd Strike-CI-SH

"Opportunities"=Plate Appearances-BB-HBP-SH-SF-RBOE-FC-Dropped 3rd Strike-CI-SH

Now to calculate this ground-breaking statistic, we divide the number of "Points" by "Opportunities". I shall call this "the batting average".

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Rays Talk

First up, I'm late getting to this story, but the Florida legislature has uncovered an old law that requires publicly-financed sports stadiums to serve as homeless shelters while not in use. They're attempting to push a measure through that would enforce said law while also tacking on some extra provisions -- one of which includes fines a team for blackouts. If the bill passed, any stadium that hasn't been operating a homeless shelter while receiving public money would have to pay back millions of dollars.

I doubt anything comes of this, as it seems like a lot of grandstanding. But still...might Maddon get inspired to take his Thanksmas idea to a whole new level?

Jeff Keppinger has been talked about in these parts an insane amount these past couple days -- Spring Training can't come soon enough -- but there are another couple good pieces on him if you haven't already hit your #KeppTalk quota. Bradley Woodrum tackled how he fits in on the Rays current roster over at FanGraphs, and the tossed around the idea that signing Kepp could open the door for a trade of B.J. Upton.

And finally:

New #Rays reliever Fernando Rodney was wretched tonight for Leones del Escogido in DR:0.1 IP, 2 H, 3 BB, 4 ER, 1 K, BS Yuck.

— John Gregg (@RaysDigest) January 27, 2012

It's only one game. It's only one game. It's only one game....

MLB Chatter

Prince Fielder's new contract has already had one great side-effect: it has served as inspiration for many of us writers who were struggling to come up with interesting things to write about. Jay Jaffe took a look at how the Tigers new infield will shake out defensively (hint: quite poorly), and the BP staff uncovered an old article from 2007 on the "worst contracts" in baseball.

What would it take for the Washington Nationals to sign Ryan Zimmerman to an extension? Wendy Thurm takes a look.

So remember that monstrosity of a home run feature that's going to be in the Marlins' new ballpark? It's under construction, and apparently it's massive.

Thanks to Marc Topkin (Tampa Bay Times) for tweeting out the full list. You can find this list in the Baseball America Prospect Handbook:

1. Moore
2. Lee
3. Archer
4. Guerreri
5. Colome
6. Torres
7. Beckham
8. Romero
9. Vettleson
10. Mahtook
11. Guyer
12. Hager
13. Dietrich
14. Brett
15. Bailey
16. Markel
17. Suarez
18. Goeddel
19. Bush
20. Snell
21. Lara
22. Vogt
23. W. Rodriguez
24. Linsky
25. Martin
26. Carter
27. O'Conner
28. Rivero
29. Bortnick
30. Thompson
31. Malm
32. Lobstein

So Josh Sale and Robinson Chirinos both didn't make the list. Any other notable omissions or odd rankings that you notice?

There wasn't much that happened in the baseball world yesterday, so this is going to be a short Tank. Jeff Keppinger was one of the biggest news stories of the day, so that should tell you something.

• Tim Beckham and Hak-Ju Lee have been given Spring Training invites, so they'll be playing in major league games and workouts at the beginning of camp. This doesn't mean they actually have a chance at winning a major league bench spot, but it does means we'll get to see a bit more of them than we would otherwise.
• Baseball Prospectus 2012 is finally available for purchase, and I heartily recommend it. If you're looking for a preseason baseball fix, this is one of the best preseason publications out there.
• In the aftermath of the Prince Fielder signing, Dave Cameron wrote up a refresher course on the win curve and how it should affect teams' strategies. In short, this helps understand the Tigers' actions somewhat...but they're still crazy.
• I missed this earlier in the week, but David Eckstein is contemplating retirement. Am I the only one that can't think of David Eckstein without also thinking of Fire Joe Morgan? I wrote up something on Eck's career over at FanGraphs, and I highlighted the fact that I think saberists gave Eck too much grief back in the day.
• Speaking of Eckstein, Larry Granillo has a post up at BPro looking at how certain ballplayers grew (and shrunk!) over the course of their careers. Really funny stuff, and I love how he then compared the players to NBA players. If nothing else, it puts Eckstein's 5'7" height into perspective.
• If you didn't see it already, Whelk made a great Excel tool for everyone: a regressed splits calculator. If you love playing around with data, this should keep you busy for a while.

What was a rumor as early as last week gained steam yesterday afternoon and was finally completed very late yesterday, pending the required physical per ESPN's Jerry Crasnick. We know that Andrew Friedman loves to do work in January, but potentially making two moves official in the same week is a breakneck pace for him after a December that seemed like it was 57 days long.

Let's assume that passing the physical is as routine as accepting a four-pitch intentional walk and look at why the Rays were interested in acquiring a player that will be playing for his sixth major league team in eight seasons of professional baseball.

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