FanPost

Link Dump 1/4 : Nevermind

Murray Chass writes that A-Rod has changed his mind and will play for the United States in the WBC. He should have picked a team and stuck with that decision from the beginning, but unfortunately he set himself up for jokes and even more hateful comments by baseball fans. Personally...I DON'T CARE.

The Mets and Dodgers are close to finalizing a trade.

Unable to complete a deal for Tampa Bay's Danys Baez, the Mets have turned West to fill their void for a setup man. According to officials from two major-league clubs, the Mets had all but finalized a trade to land Duaner Sanchez from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In return for Sanchez, a 26-year-old righthander, the Mets will surrender righthander Jae Seo, the officials said. The trade will probably be announced by the end of this week.

Baseball By The Numbers

"I'm afraid to actually use PECOTA in a column," Stark says, "because I don't know if it's reached the level where you can casually drop it into baseball literature without the average fan saying, 'What is he talking about?' And you can't explain it.

"Another really interesting stat I'm familiar with is VORP. Value Over Replacement Player [in a nutshell: the number of runs contributed beyond what a replacement-level player would contribute to a team]. You can explain that to people. But PECOTA, how'd you explain that to people between commas?"

The White Sox are believers. According to spokesman Scott Reifert, PECOTA is one of several systems the team uses. He says the Sox's baseball operations people consider it "one of the top couple of projection systems out there." A Cubs spokesman said that the club uses a projection system, but declined to be specific. I laughed when I read the Cubs use a projection system.

The Mets, Rangers, and Padres are interested in Bret Boone.

...it's likely that Boone will sign a minor-league deal with one of the three clubs and get an invitation to spring training, the source said.