MLB Chatter

Today's excellent long-form piece: a profile on Orioles' owner Peter Angelos. I never knew the extent of Angelos' contributions to the city of Baltimore, and this piece made me feel almost sorry for Angelos. He can't get out of his own way, and it's ruining what would otherwise be a sterling reputation in the city. He's his own enemy these days, and it's sinking the Orioles.

Aaron Darowski unveiled a new Hall of wWAR, which is his version of what the Hall of Fame would look like if you used WAR to measure performance. The visualization is fun to play with, but click the link at the top if you want a description of his methodology.

With the Marlins rumored to be interested in nearly every big name free agent on the market, I got curious: how close are the Fish to competing? Where do they fall on the Win Curve? Brad answered that yesterday by doing some WAR projections based on potential moves they could make, and he came to the conclusion that they're around an 82 win team if they make no significant move. With every free agent signing, though, they push themselves closer and closer to competitiveness.

We all thought sabermetrics was a newfangled thing, but it turns out that the rudiments of wOBA were actually discussed 100 years ago. Go figure. 

Rays Talk

The most recent rumor surrounding the Rays involves...wait for it...Joey Votto. Check it out:

#Rays concentrating on 1b, DH, 2 rlvrs. Want to hold SP depth, but would change if Votto became available #Reds (Joel Sherman)

Well then. Votto would certainly be an impact bat, although his contract is pricey enough that I wouldn't expect the Rays to actually complete a deal. It's always worthwhile to kick the tires, though.

Tommy Rancel has been busy over at ESPN Florida. Last week he looked at why the Rays might be interested in Jonathan Broxton and Guillermo Mota, and he has a piece up now on how the Rookie of the Year award likely affects Hellickson's future salary. They're all excellent reads, so be sure to check them out.