Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 15-21. "I've bashed [John] Hart early and often in this space for what he hasn't done and what he does do poorly, but it's important to remember the things he has done well. Controlling costs for homegrown talent is something that has generally worked out exceptionally well for him in Cleveland. (Baseball Prospectus)

Keith Law: "The Twins are falling, and therefore, so is the sky, according to those who drink heavily at the fountain of MLB swill." (Baseball Prospectus)

Allen Barra: "Trend stories about 'What's wrong with baseball?' all have to have quotes from Doris Kearns Goodwin; it's some kind of rule, I think...Will someone please, please shut [Goodwin] up about the subject of the Brooklyn Dodgers and tell her that ballplayers don't change teams now any more than they used to? Will someone tell her that the concept of loyalty didn't enter into baseball until the players had a choice about where they could play?" (Salon)

John Solomon on corporate names for stadiums and teams. "If it saves government money, team naming is an option that pro leagues absolutely, positively have to consider. Oversubsidizing pro sports is much worse than overcommercializing them." (Salon)

In defense of Barry...

Joe Sheehan: "Barry Bonds's 2001 can be reasonably compared with Babe Ruth's best season. That's about the best single-sentence case for an MVP I've ever heard." (Baseball Prospectus)

Tim Keown: "Bonds...has been notoriously stubborn in his refusal to comply with the rules as they pertain to .230-hitting backup infielders. He goes his own way, and his production has always been worth the trouble." (ESPN Magazine)

Next scheduled post: August 29.

Bob Dutton: "What could be worse for Royals fans than seeing former favorites Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye reach baseball's promised land -- the playoffs -- with another club? How about seeing Damon and Dye sign multiyear contracts with the Oakland A's, a club that, from all available data, appears far more financially limited than the Royals?" (Kansas City Star)

Joe Henderson: "Under a plan actively being considered at the top levels of baseball, the Rays could be folded after this season and replaced at Tropicana Field by the Expos." (Tampa Tribune) (Credit to Clutch Hits for this link and the one above.)

Paul Sullivan gives a position-by-position outlook for the 2002 White Sox. (Chicago Tribune) (Credit to News and Views for the link.)

Keith Law: "The Marlins aren't losing money because they don't have a $385-million boondoggle in downtown Miami. They're losing because their owner is the mini-Selig, with a short circuit between his brain and his mouth; and because they continue to spend their meager payroll unwisely." (Baseball Prospectus)

Jim Baker's Daily Game Previews, previously available only by e-mail, can now be seen here. (Rotowire)

Rob Neyer on Sammy Sosa's remarkable career. (ESPN)

Greg Hall on The Brawl: "Mike Sweeney, the churchgoing, cookie-and-milk swilling, all-American choirboy snapped. No, 'snapped' doesn't quite describe it. He went Bill Bixby: He transformed into the Hulk in seven quick strides from home plate to the mound." (Pitch Weekly)

Larry Stone: "In baseball, teams travel the free-agency road at their own risk. The landscape is dotted with the carcasses of monumental flops…Then there are the Mariners under Pat Gillick, who are cruising down that treacherous highway with the music blaring, having the time of their lives." Here are the nine current Mariners who were signed as free agents: Nelson, Rhodes, Sasaki, Sele, Olerud, McLemore, Javier, Boone and Ichiro. (Seattle Times)

Rob Neyer: "I have as much respect as anyone in the world does for Bill James; I spent four years learning most of what I know from Bill, and he knows how I feel about him. But when it comes to the Royals, I think that he is the one who's biased." (Rob and Rany on the Royals, August 21 entry)

Fans boo Hampton's return to Shea. He is a "TRAITOR" and a "LOOSER", according to a guy holding two signs. (Rocky Mountain News)

Sunday column from Peter Gammons. "[The Orioles] were patting themselves on the back when they claimed [Tony] Batista, but now are looking for another third baseman and would love for someone to take Batista's $10.5M obligation for 2002-2003." (ESPN)

Rob Neyer on Williams/Kerrigan, Hudson/Mulder/Zito as the new Gooden/Darling/Fernandez, and the Astros' willingness to sign short pitchers. (ESPN)

The guest columns that filled Neyer's space last week seem to have disappeared from ESPN's site, except for the one by Bill James. I never did see the one by Chris Marcil.

Joe Sheehan: "Ichiro may be a worthy Rookie of the Year, but he has company, and he shouldn't be ceded the award based on the shape of his season or his level of fame." The company is C.C. Sabathia. (Baseball Prospectus)

Gary Huckabay offers a plan for getting the Royals back on track. "Bill James . . . basically says that this kind of exercise is so much narcissistic wheel-spinning. Personally, I don't like to miss an opportunity to waste time narcissistically." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 12-14. "If [Terence] Long doesn't develop as well as the A's expect, he's under contract for a low enough salary for enough time (and the right times during a player's career) to make him attractive to a majority of teams in trade; after all, even Garret Anderson has his believers." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chat wrap with Joe Sheehan. "[Tino] Martinez has an excellent chance to be a free-agent disaster for someone . . . He's around the 20th-best first baseman in the majors." (ESPN)

Bill Simmons on baseball brawls. "Don't you love when announcers and writers break out the thesaurus for basebrawl recaps? Where else can you hear words like 'donnybrook,' 'fracas' and 'imbroglio'?" (ESPN)

Another team-specific blog: The Detroit Tiger Weblog.

Joe Sheehan: "There's a segment of informed, intelligent baseball fans who would prefer that performance analysts spend less time criticizing the management of MLB teams. The notion that "they may know things we don't" is popular in some circles, and is used as a defense for decisions that we, as informed outsiders, find bizarre or even infuriating. I don't buy it." Case in point: Hal McRae's inept handling of Paul Wilson in the Rays-Yankees game last night. (Baseball Prospectus)

Williams out as Red Sox manager. It's surprising that a team would fire its manager in the midst of a pennant race. Then again, why isn't it done more often? Mid-season managerial changes often result in a short-term upswing in the team's performance. In the vast majority of cases, the team is way out of the race, so it makes a nice story but that's all. In some cases, a floundering but not quite out-of-it team gets a needed boost (cf. the 1988 Red Sox). Can it work for a team that's in the thick of the race, but fading, in mid-August? And should Tom Kelly be worried? (ESPN)

Bill Peterson on Eric Davis. "Davis hasn't approached those [early] expectations, but he has exceeded others. Once questioned for his fortitude as a ballplayer, he's demonstrated remarkable fortitude as a human being." (Cincinnati CityBeat)

Joe Sheehan: "What agitates me is when someone writes in to tell me that my only motivation must have been to promote someone or something, or to degrade someone or something. They disagree with the content, and rather than address it, they simply decide the content reflects a bias, and they attack that." Yep, he got a bunch of "Yankee-hater!" e-mails after his Cy Young column. (Baseball Prospectus)

Jim Baker's Baseball Preview. Fun topic: Verbs that are specifically appropriate for baseball scores, as in "The Twins hawaiied the Royals, 5-0," or "The Phillies eighty-sixed the Marlins, 8-6." Baker lists a bunch, and asks for suggestions. Here are mine:

8-6: Maxwelled
7-6: Tromboned
5-4: Pateked
6-4: Crayola-ed

Joel Sherman argues that Yankee fans should root for the Red Sox to win the wild card, so the Yankees won't have to face Seattle in the first round. Makes sense if the Yankees' only goal is to reach the ALCS, but if they're trying to win the World Series (which I think they are), they still have to get past the Mariners, or get past a team that's fresh from beating the Mariners. (Credit to Curse of the Bambino for the link.)

Rijo ready for MLB return in Cincy. Next up: Mario Soto. (ESPN)

Joe Sheehan on the AL Cy Young race. Sheehan would rank Tim Hudson first, with Mark Mulder and Mark Buehrle close behind. "The guy with the best record in the league, Roger Clemens, really hasn't been one of the league's five best pitchers." (ESPN)

Ready to accuse Sheehan of anti-Yankee bias? Read this first. (Baseball Prospectus)

Please pardon our occasional disappearance while Blogspot experiences technical difficulties.

Baseball Primer discussion of James's article. Closing in on 100 posts. Bill James = William Shatner. Rob Neyer = Isaac Asimov.

Chris Karhl's Transaction Analysis for August 9-11. "The Tribe is basically stumping along with only two starting pitchers worthy of the title, Bartolo Colon and C.C. Sabathia, so Chuck Finley's return is good news on the level of hoping that he can't really be any worse than Jaret Wright or Dave Burba or Charles Nagy. The problem is that, so far, Finley also hasn't been any better." (Baseball Prospectus)

Bill James tells Rob Neyer to stop being so critical. (ESPN)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 7-8. (Baseball Prospectus)

Derek Zumsteg on Pete Rose's apologists. (Baseball Prospectus)

Bob Klapisch (ESPN) on the Yankees' first-base dilemma: Keep Tino Martinez, or go for an upgrade like Jason Giambi. A real head-scratcher! Paul O'Neill: "Tino doesn't get as much notoriety as Bernie (Williams) or Derek (Jeter), but we wouldn't be where we are today without him. You talk about an MVP for the season, it's Tino, no question." Good thing O'Neill doesn't get an MVP vote.

Jeter (SS): .313/.385/.461.
Williams (CF): .304/.395/.503.
Posada (C): .301/.390/.519.
Martinez (1B): .264/.309/.476.

Q: What about Martinez's team-leading 87 RBI? A: He hits behind those other guys.

Rolen unsure what his future is with Phillies. Red Sox fans, start calculating: Lansing is gone next year, that frees up $6.25 million. O'Leary, $4.6 million. Valentin… (ESPN)

Michael Silverman on Trot Nixon's perfectly executed ball-in-the-cup play last night. Just in the last few days, we've seen a batted ball become lodged in a plastic cup for a ground-rule double; a team come back from a 12-run deficit to win; a player hit into a triple play and hit a grand slam in the same game; a game won in the bottom of the 9th on a botched rundown; and a team score 13 runs in the 9th. If you want to go back about 12 days, you can add the Pirates' 2-out, 7-run rally in the 9th against the Astros. What a strange year. (Boston Herald)

Joe Sheehan on everyday players who ought to be platooned. (Baseball Prospectus)

Stuart Shea interviews Bob File, a converted infielder who has turned into an effective reliever for the Blue Jays. "The quick rise of File to the big-league level is a credit to the 24-year-old's willingness to learn, and to the Jays' scouting and minor-league development people, who saw something in File that no one else did--not even File himself." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 5-7. "[Arizona] is a team built to win now, if ever, and while D'backs fans deserve to feel good that Joe Garagiola Jr. didn't use Erubiel Durazo to fix the team's problems, it's frustrating that when things start to go sour, the only thing that they can think of is to trade for Albie Lopez and to turn to Tony Womack and Bobby Witt." (Baseball Prospectus)

Bill Simmons lists the 20 most annoying fans at a baseball game. The work buddies who have no interest in the game, the loud guy rooting for the other team, the guy with the giant head, et cetera. I'd like to add one: The guy in the front row who leans over the railing to interfere with a batted ball. (ESPN Page 2)

With Jermaine Dye now in Oakland, the Royals fansite Dye-O-Meter has been put to rest. "This site is now available to any A's fan who wishes to maintain it," says the front page. There is a link to Damon-O-Meter, "The only site on the web dedicated to tracking Johnny Damon in his pathetic attempt at baseball immortality. A sub-.200 batting average." Apparently that site has been put to rest, too, because the meter has Damon at .232. He's up to .258 now. Damon since June 19 (46 games): .328/.381/.489, for an OPS of 870.

Cubs take advantage of botched rundown. "I thought their guy did a great job of scoring," Colorado manager Buddy Bell said. "I think you have to give credit to him rather than put blame on anyone else." Bell is probably just being diplomatic, and good for him. Larry Bowa (to name one) would have been happy to bad-mouth his players to the press after a screwup like that. (ESPN)

David Davis interviews Marvin Miller. "'The owners have almost concealed the fact that Major League Baseball is enjoying its healthiest, most prosperous times,' says Miller, his voice rising. 'This is baseball's golden age. The league has more clubs, more new ballparks, more admission-paying fans and more revenues from sales, licensing and luxury suites. The value of baseball's 30 franchises is at the highest ever.'" (Salon.com)

Attendance decline may affect Rockies' payroll. Another franchise cries poor. (Rocky Mountain News)

Dean Chadwin rates the trades made by Mets GM Steve Phillips. Wilson, Goetz and Yarnall for Piazza gets an A-minus. Trammell for Wall is a D. (Village Voice)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 31-August 4. "Hats off to Gerry Hunsicker for having an outstanding deadline. He needed help in the rotation, and he acquired the best starting pitcher available, nabbed a reliever to boot, and it didn't cost the Astros anybody who was under consideration for a major role down the stretch or any of their top prospects." (Baseball Prospectus)

A's, following winning trip, face big test from Red Sox. The Mariners are off the charts. The Yankees look good enough to win 95-98 games. The Twins and Indians look like they will stumble to the finish line, with only the division champ going to the playoffs. This series is huge. (Unfortunately, the teams won't meet again this year.) (San Jose Mercury News)

"We're making some changes at SportsJones. Please sign up for our newsletter to receive an announcement." Uh-oh. Looks like the X10 pop-under ads weren't generating enough revenue. It was a good site while it lasted.

Peter Gammons presents his annual watch-out-for-the-Angels column. (ESPN)

Last year's edition. (ESPN)

Chris Kahrl on the deadline deals. (An ESPN guest column, not a Transaction Analysis.)

Laurel Krahn has collected some links relating to Kirby Puckett's induction into the Hall. (Windowseat Weblog)

Art Martone: "Williams has been on the job longer -- in terms of consecutive years -- than any Red Sox manager since Joe Cronin. It could simply be that we've reached his expiration date. Let's hope that date is October, and not August." (Providence Journal)

Rob Neyer defends Ray Lankford. (ESPN)

Cardinals send Lankford to Padres. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Jeff Gordon: "Seldom has a $2.8 million salary lunch tasted so good to a baseball franchise. That's how much money the Cardinals had to eat to move hapless, disgruntled outfielder Ray Lankford to the San Diego Padres Thursday for pitcher Woody Williams. But it was money well spent, compared to the prospect of paying Lankford another $8 million plus next season to either strike out at a mind-boggling rate or sit on the bench." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Rolling Giants notch eighth straight victory. They didn't even need Bonds. (ESPN)

Reds Sweep Dodgers in Los Angeles. Everything is going right for the Giants. The Diamondbacks have been free-falling for a month, and now the Dodgers are showing cracks. (AP)

Joe Sheehan says that Dodgers manager Jim Tracy is "not prepared to take on the difficult task of reducing the role of a popular, but unproductive, veteran." Guess who. (Baseball Prospectus)

Quantrill extension worth $9.6 million. Yet another middle reliever gets a big contract. (ESPN)

Sean McAdam asks 10 questions in the aftermath of the trade deadline. An anonymous source says that Rey Sanchez is "the perfect No. 2 hitter … because he can hit behind the runner and move guys over." (ESPN)

Joe Sheehan on the five teams that didn't do anything at the deadline (Mariners, Angels, Marlins, Blue Jays, Reds). (Baseball Prospectus)

Take a look at this excerpt from the Brewers/Mets game of April 26. (Credit to Gustavo Bagattini for discovering this incident and passing it along to Jim Baker for his newsletter.)

MILWAUKEE 3RD : Jenkins singled to center. J Burnitz walked, Jenkins to second. Jo Hernandez reached on infield single, Jenkins to third, J Burnitz to second. [Brewers 3, Mets 1] Houston homered to right, Jenkins, J Burnitz and Jo Hernandez scored. [Brewers 7, Mets 1] Echevarria homered to left center. Blanco singled to left center. Tom Martin relieved Brett Hinchliffe. Rigdon sacrificed Blanco to second. D White singled to center, Blanco scored. [Brewers 8, Mets 1] D White to second advancing on throw. D White stole third.

Did Davey Lopes threaten to "drill" anyone that day? White? Himself?

To subscribe to Baker's newsletter, send an e-mail to buick8@aol.com with "Baseball Preview" in the subject line.

Bill Madden: "Most baseball people feel the Red Sox grossly overpaid [for Urbina], as Ohka has already had success in the majors and the 20-year-old Rendles had a phenomenal 94 strikeouts and just 10 walks in 115 innings at Class A Augusta this year." (NY Daily News)

Art Martone: "I'd like a case of whatever 'most baseball people' are drinking." (Providence Journal)

Bill Simmons: "You probably don't remember Tom Seaver's aborted comeback in 1987, but I remember ... probably because he hummed a fastball at my head." An interesting brush-with-greatness story. (ESPN Page 2)

Tribe brings Milton Bradley aboard. I like this headline - they use a pun, but don't hit us over the head with it. If the Red Sox had gotten him, the Herald headline would have been "RED SOX BRING MILTON BRADLEY A 'BOARD'", with a subhead that read "Get it? Get it? A 'BOARD'???" (Akron Beacon-Journal)

A'S SOLD, SAY CITY OFFICIALS. Team denies deal, but Oakland says Vegas investors to buy club. The Las Vegas A's? Before anyone gets too excited one way or the other, remember the San Jose Giants, the St. Petersburg Giants, the Washington Padres... (SF Gate)

Andyzipp is pleased with the Astros' deadline deals. (Astrosconnection)

The Baseball Primer folks have found a few good team-specific weblogs I didn't know about: The Cub Reporter (great name), News and Views (which focuses on the White Sox but covers all of baseball), and Braves Journal.

Rob Neyer analyzes the deadline deals. (ESPN)

A's onslaught leaves Indians dazed. A perfect day for the A's: They won, the Indians lost, the Twins lost, the Yankees lost, and the Red Sox lost. (The Mariners lost, too, but that hardly matters.) Eight of the A's' next 12 games are against Cleveland, New York and Boston. Crunch time. (ESPN)

The Wall Street Journal says kids aren't interested in baseball any more. Allen Barra begs to differ. (Salon)

Red Sox acquire Urbina for Ohka, Rundles. I'll miss Ohka (I like his book club), but Urbina will help. The Sox' bullpen has been stretched to the max. (ESPN)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 30. Perspective on the Lawton trade, the Hitchcock trade, and the Vander Wal / Schmidt trade. (Baseball Prospectus)

John Sickels looks at the prospects who were traded in the late-July deals. (ESPN)

Hugo Lindgren proposes a trade: Mike Piazza to the Yankees for Nick Johnson. (Slate)