So who wants Baldelli?

[HoodGuy007]

Looks like the Rhode Island stallion is injured again...

Tampa Bay No. 3 hitter Rocco Baldelli left midgame with potentially troubling tightness in his right hamstring. Baldelli, sidelined into June last season with hamstring problems that popped up around the same time of spring, said he won't know the seriousness of this situation until he gets out of bed today.

-- St. Petersburg Times

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/scorecard/03/21/truth.rumors.mlb/1.html

I suggest we trade Chris Ray and Garrett Olson for a hampster... it may stay healthy longer

[Tx Oriole]

I would take him if he could stay healthy.

[DrungoHazewood]

125 games of Baldelli would be better than 162 of Payton.

[Frobby]

125 games of Baldelli would be better than 162 of Payton.

Fine, we'll trade Payton for him.

[sevens]

I think a better point of conversation in that article is

A woman accused of stalking Brewers' announcer Bob Uecker for nearly a decade

What, why, umm just plain funny Loved him in the Major league movies

[JTrea81]

Stick him in LF and he will stay healthier. His hamstring issue has to be conditioning related. Why the DRays don't give him an offseason workout to avoid this is beyond me. Maddon seems to think he can go in a couple days but Baldelli is more pessimistic.

I'd still rather have him than Payton in LF and would still deal Ray and someone else for him. With all these injury concerns, his price keeps dropping, so it may not even take Penn included in the deal to get him.

[Miller192]

This guy is David Segui, I'm telling you

[ScottieBaseball]

125 games of Baldelli would be better than 162 of Payton.

Can you prove it statistically?

Actually, I'm not joking entirely. I'm genuinely curious what the stats say about Baldelli spending 40 games hurt vs. Payton at full-strength all season. I wouldn't even know where to begin to compare statistics, Jon, so I'm interested to know if you were being facetious or for real.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Baldelli doesn't bring NEARLY the amount of veteran leadership to this clubhouse as Jay Payton.

[Fan4Life]

125 games of Baldelli would be better than 162 of Payton.

We all could express endless amounts of subjective criticism... the gamble is, will he play 125 games? And, would it be worth Penn and Ray (or more) to find out?

[Hank Scorpio]

Can you prove it statistically?

Actually, I'm not joking entirely. I'm genuinely curious what the stats say about Baldelli spending 40 games hurt vs. Payton at full-strength all season. I wouldn't even know where to begin to compare statistics, Jon, so I'm interested to know if you were being facetious or for real.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Baldelli doesn't bring NEARLY the amount of veteran leadership to this clubhouse as Jay Payton.

Prepare yourself for some mind blowing math.

[El Gordo]

Can you prove it statistically?

Actually, I'm not joking entirely. I'm genuinely curious what the stats say about Baldelli spending 40 games hurt vs. Payton at full-strength all season. I wouldn't even know where to begin to compare statistics, Jon, so I'm interested to know if you were being facetious or for real.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Baldelli doesn't bring NEARLY the amount of veteran leadership to this clubhouse as Jay Payton.

Sigh! So many veteran leaders, so few Rookies to lead.

[DrungoHazewood]

Can you prove it statistically?

Actually, I'm not joking entirely. I'm genuinely curious what the stats say about Baldelli spending 40 games hurt vs. Payton at full-strength all season. I wouldn't even know where to begin to compare statistics, Jon, so I'm interested to know if you were being facetious or for real.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Baldelli doesn't bring NEARLY the amount of veteran leadership to this clubhouse as Jay Payton.

I'm not going to go through all that again, but we had a discussion about JD Drew when the Sox signed him. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and I figured that 110 games of Drew at his career OPS, plus 50 games of a random, below-average OF like Jay Gibbons or Jason Dubois was about the same as 160 games of a .850 or .875 player like Carlos Lee. This wasn't a super-detailed analysis, but close enough for gov't work.

This almost certainly holds true for Baldelli (likely OPS in the mid .800s) and Payton (in the low-mid .700s).

[Sports Guy]

Can you prove it statistically?

Actually, I'm not joking entirely. I'm genuinely curious what the stats say about Baldelli spending 40 games hurt vs. Payton at full-strength all season. I wouldn't even know where to begin to compare statistics, Jon, so I'm interested to know if you were being facetious or for real.

It's worth pointing out, though, that Baldelli doesn't bring NEARLY the amount of veteran leadership to this clubhouse as Jay Payton.

It is actually pretty easy to do.

First of all, you see what Baldelli's normal production is and assume you get that for 125 games.

Then, you figure out who starts the other 37 games in LF and go from there. So, it will depend upon who starts out there(in this case, it would be Payton himself). You then, take those 2 figures and compare them against Payton alone.

Using WARP3, Baldelli was worth .5 win more than payton last year..However, WARP3 is a counting stat..In other words, his injuries hurt his WARP3 number. He accumulated a WARP3 figure of 4.4 in only 88 games and 364 ab's. Payton accumulated a WARP3 number of 3.9 in 557 abs and 142 games.

So, Baldelli is far ahead of Payton in terms of production...Probably anywhere from 3-5 wins better(if they both played a full compliment of games) and that is before you account for Baldelli getting better.

So, Baldelli for 125 games + Payton for 37 games is probably worth anywhere from 4-8 wins more than Payton for 162 games....Of coruse these numbers can vary slightly if you platoon and stuff like that but you get the idea.

[Moose Milligan]

Damn shame this kid keeps getting hurt. I hope it's not serious.

I know we're looking over our shoulder at Tampa Bay, wondering if they'll ever overtake us in the standings but I'm a baseball fan too. Baldelli is a good young talent and the game needs more of guys like him.

[ScottieBaseball]

I'm not going to go through all that again, but we had a discussion about JD Drew when the Sox signed him. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and I figured that 110 games of Drew at his career OPS, plus 50 games of a random, below-average OF like Jay Gibbons or Jason Dubois was about the same as 160 games of a .850 or .875 player like Carlos Lee. This wasn't a super-detailed analysis, but close enough for gov't work.

This almost certainly holds true for Baldelli (likely OPS in the mid .800s) and Payton (in the low-mid .700s).

Cool. Makes sense. "Back of the envelope" was all I was looking for.

Down with Payton! In with Rocco!!!!