Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Trilogy

I don't think this math is right...
I experienced something of a first this weekend after seeing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: I was accused of not being a Lord of the Rings fanboy. Needless to say, this description wounded me to the quick, and I don't think it's fair to question my nerdly resolve just because I thought that the first third of the film adaptation of the tale was painfully long and stuffed with far too much meaningless filler. (Also that the high frame rate was a pointless, inexcusable gimmick that has no reason to ever catch on ever.) And even though I loved Peter Jackson's first Lord of the Rings movies, I loved J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels even more. So while I would still consider myself a fanboy, I would have to qualify that by saying I'm a fanboy with extremely high standards and who's fiercely dedicated to the source material.

And while there was undoubtedly a whole lot of source material packed into this newest film, there was also a lot of superfluous action added in there that slowed down the story and pulled me (at least) out of the experience. When I first heard that The Hobbit was being split into three movies - a book which, at 255 pages, is 65 pages shorter than the shortest book in the trilogy (without the appendices, Return of the King clocks in at 311) - I didn't immediately despair. With some interesting additions from some ancillary works and a nice, fast pace, I could definitely see Jackson & Co. coming up with three enjoyable movies. That is, until I heard the running time: a butt-numbing 2 hours and 48 minutes. It was at that point that I knew we were in for no shortage of Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens-inspired extras.

One of the few scenes that actually took place in the book...
You'll recognize these types of tacked-on time-wasting story points from the first trilogy: stuff like adding in a red-herring death for Aragorn in The Two Towers. Or completely altering Faramir's character to make him exactly like Boromir. Or having Frodo and Sam get in a friendship-threatening fight for no apparent reason at a critical point in Return of the King (as if that movie wasn't long enough already). And what's up with Elrond showing up at Dunharrow to deliver Aragorn's sword to him - a sword that defines his character and which he should have had at his side since the Fellowship left Rivendell? You'd think 1,086 pages would be enough out of which to adapt three three-hour movies without adding useless filler.

But you know these Hollywood types: always having to change stuff around and add their own stamp on things, otherwise they don't feel like they're doing their jobs. And the job that Jackson and his screenwriting team did on The Hobbit gets you yawning right from the start. I remembered thinking how much I couldn't wait until all three Hobbit movies come out on DVD, so that some clever, enterprising Tolkien nerd with film editing experience could put together a fan-edit of the trilogy, ideally clocking in at just under three hours for all three movies combined, with all the treacle cut out and the story arranged in a way that could actually hold an audience's attention.

First on my list to cut would be anything involving Saruman, Radagast, and the White Council. If you need material to pad nine hours' worth of movies, the story from the appendix dealing with the Necromancer in Dol Guldur is a good place to look, but a) there's no reason to make nine hours' worth of Hobbit movies, and b) according to said appendix, that storyline took place a full 91 years before the events of The Hobbit, with Gandalf the protagonist instead of Radagast. (How do you think he acquired the key that he gives to Thorin? He took it from his father, Thrain, who was imprisoned in Dol Guldur.) And don't get me wrong, I like Radagast as a character... for all of the three pages of Fellowship in which he appears. I just didn't like the comic relief gimmick with bird shit in his beard that he became for the movie. And I know that Christopher Lee is the biggest Tolkien nerd of the entire cast, the only member of which to actually meet J.R.R. himself, but it honestly looks as if it's time for him to hang up his staff and fake-ass looking beard. I don't think he's got much left in the tank (which would be understandable at 90 years old) since he looked absolutely miserable in his scene.

"Radagast the Brown. Radagast the bird-tamer. Radagast the simple.
Radagast the fool." - Saruman's description of the character in Fellowship.
Notice how my list of things to cut didn't start with the trudging prologue introducing the plight of the Dwarven city Erebor, which feels like it takes up an hour before the real action even starts. In fact if I had my choice, I would keep some of those images, but I'd move them to a little later on. The movie would start where the book starts, with Bilbo's narration explaining what Hobbit life is like. (This means we'd have to cut Elijah Wood's cameo as Frodo, because why the hell would Bilbo need to explain the inner workings of a Hobbit hole to someone who spent his whole damn life living in one?) No, I would intercut the visuals of the prologue with the Dwarves' song they sing by the fireplace. (Howard Shore's haunting melody, incidentally, and the leitmotif it becomes, is still in my head, three days later.) That song has a full ten verses in the book, only two of which appear in the movie. If that sequence was extended a little bit and beefed up visually, kind of like an epic music video, it would set up the Dwarves while also giving us some more nice music.

I would have also liked to see the elimination of Azog the Defiler except in flashbacks (his character, after all, died more than 150 years before The Hobbit took place), the stone giants (although they did appear in the book, for about a sentence's worth of time), and about three feet off the Goblin King's scrotum-chin (maybe it was just the high frame rate, but I swear I could discern at least one testicle floating around in there). But with two more of these epic mistakes coming down the pipeline, it's silly to agonize over each one. So until we finally get to see that fan-edit, I will do what I always do with a piece of entertainment I desperately wanted to like more than I actually did: I'll accept the good parts, and mentally replace the bad parts with what I would have liked to see. This doesn't always provide me with a crystal-clear view of the actual movie, but I sure do leave the theater feeling a lot happier...


Thursday, December 6, 2012

NL Central Divisional All-Stars 2012

Now for the final division before we get into the Wild Cards. This is the division that brought you the MLB's two worst teams in 2012, but also the NL's highest overall point scorer. Let's see if this team displays the same level of disconnect. I bring you:

NL CENTRAL DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS



The aforementioned NL high-scorer is the only player to appear on all four of my Divisional All-Star lists is the steroid-popping, guilt-sidestepping, former MVP and 2012 league leader in runs scored, HR, and OPS, Brewers slugging LF Ryan Braun. Now, Aramis Ramirez is no slouch - he led the league with 50 doubles and had an OPS over .900 while hitting behind Braun in the regular season, plus he earned the NL Central starting 3B job last year too while with the Cubs - it's just that he doesn't strike the same kind of fear into opposing pitchers that Prince Fielder did when he hit clean-up for Milwaukee in the recent past. It's interesting though that with Fielder and Albert Pujols signing huge contracts to move to the AL and with Joey Votto injured, a Brewer still ended up as the starting 1B on this team: Corey Hart turned in a fine season after shifting from RF (where he repped Milwaukee on the 2010 AL Central team). Andrew McCutchen continued his steady rise to superstardom with a trifecta of accolades: a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger, and his second consecutive All-Star berth - he even came in third in MVP voting, despite his Pirates' inability to log their first winning season in a decade. Starlin Castro, like McCutchen, has appeared on this team for the past three years, was named to his second All-Star team in 2012, and played for a losing team.

Two pairs of teammates from one of the league's biggest rivalries (and with 11 Divisional All-Star appearances between them) round out this squad: Yadier Molina had by far his best season ever, earning his fifth consecutive Gold Glove, his fourth consecutive All-Star appearance, and surpassing his previous career-high in OPS by 60 points. Matt Holliday obviously played second-fiddle to Braun, but makes it in as the DH. It's interesting to note that Holliday's first appearance in this feature in 2009 was for the AL West, as he spent the majority of his season in Oakland. Brandon Phillips reprises his leadoff role for this squad from last year despite nearly 200 fewer points. Jay Bruce is the only one from this paragraph with less than three appearances, and last year's was as the Wild Card's DH - hey, can you blame him for playing a deep position in a tough division?

Top free agent starter Zack Greinke's inclusion in this division (he had a 123 to 89 IP split between the Brewers and the Angels after a mid-season trade) makes this team one of only two clubs to feature four 2,000+ point-scorers in the rotation. (The other, as you'd know if you were paying attention last week, was the AL East.) But at the top of the rotation, we once again see the Reds/Cardinals rivalry manifesting itself. Leading the pack is my fantasy team's ace Johnny Cueto - whose pick in the 14th round ALMOST made up for Cliff Lee's no-win-itis. Another free agent (and, in my opinion, a huge candidate to see a drop-off in production) Kyle Lohse (of the ridiculous 18-3, .847 winning percentage) was not far behind. A couple newcomers to the division round out the rotation: Mat Latos overcame a slow start after coming from the Padres in a big trade to contribute to Cincinnati's dominant pitching attack, and A.J. Burnett returned to form upon leaving the Yankees and became the Pirates' unlikely ace.

The three Reds in this group proves that Cincinnati's pitching attack came at both ends of the game. Aroldis Chapman had one of the most dominant seasons out of the bullpen ever - his last for the foreseeable future, since he is likely to move to the rotation next year. Lefty Sean Marshall is the only reliever to have appeared on a previous Divisional All-Star team, and he's appeared on all of them - the last two years as a setup man and the year before that as a swingman for the Cubs. Mitchell Boggs will likely continue setting up closer runner-up Jason Motte in St. Louis and Jose Arredondo used to pitch for the Angels, but as for the other two, I couldn't have named them prior to (heck, even halfway through) this season. Brad Lincoln still qualifies for the NL Central despite having been shipped to Toronto for a former #6 ranked prospect by Baseball America - which seems kind of unbalanced (even if the ranking was from three years ago), but I guess when you need bullpen help, you need it bad and quick.


This concludes the six Divisional All-Star squads corresponding to MLB's six divisions. Before coming back with the Wild Card teams, I've got a little project that I've been waiting to unveil, which will likely take precedence over the weekend. Until then, keep watching that Hot Stove to make sure your pots and pans full of rumors don't boil over!

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

AL East Divisional All-Stars 2012

The polar opposite of yesterday's team in terms of division and league (but not talent level), I now bring you the:

AL EAST DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS



This lineup consists of three Yankee infielders who each have appeared on three out of the last four Divisional All-Star teams. Two of them will likely not return next year. Let's see if you can guess who. 38-year-old Derek Jeter showed no signs of slowing down last year, leading the league in plate appearances and hits, and winning his fifth Silver Slugger award... until he broke his ankle during the post-season, putting his opening day status in doubt. 29-year-old Robinson Cano is not so arguably the top 2B in the game, he reached the 30 HR plateau for the first time this year en route to his fourth Silver Slugger and second Gold Glove. 36-year-old Alex Rodriguez hasn't played 140 games in five years, he's only on this list because his injury-riddled 2012 season was less catastrophic than Evan Longoria's injury-riddled 2012 season, and he's about to miss the first half of 2013 with hip surgery. There might have been a fourth Yankee on this list: IF I had chosen to use only the points players scored in their respective division, THEN Mark Teixeira's 1,576 points would have ruled the day. But I chose to include the full season of now four-time Divisional All-Star Adrian Gonzalez - he moved back to his old division mid-2012 in the most epic waiver-wire blockbuster trade in history.


Blue Jays DH Edwin Encarnacion edged Cano by a mere 12 points to be the team's highest offensive scorer. Think of what Toronto's offense could have looked like if Jose Bautista's injuries hadn't made a mockery of my #1 pick in this year's fantasy draft. Taking his place in RF is the ever-versatile Ben Zobrist who this year added his original position (SS) back to his usual 2B-RF repertoire. His teammate Desmond Jennings becomes perhaps the least-qualified Divisional All-Star, but I just couldn't bring myself to move Curtis Granderson over to a position where he didn't play a single inning in 2012. He missed out in CF to the Orioles' $85 million dollar man Adam Jones who, along with Matt Wieters, looks to lead a competitive birds team for the rest of the decade.

Any starting rotation led by the Cy Young award winner is sure to be exciting, even though Justin Verlander had a slightly more impressive fantasy season. The fact that all five of these pitchers come from only two teams makes it somewhat less exciting, although David Price's fellow Ray James Shields could very well find himself changing uniforms before the off-season is over. The combination of Sabathia, Kuroda, and Hughes (who each tallied at least 15 wins for the Yankees last year) will be back together next year, although the star of New York's 2013 rotation just might be 41-year-old Andy Pettitte, whose 2.87 ERA in 12 games after his 17th comeback from retirement prompted him to re-up with the club that made him a star.

Where the rotation was comprised solely of Rays and Yankees, the bullpen has only Rays and Orioles. Comeback player of the year Fernando Rodney turned in the best year out of any reliever in 2012 - an ERA under 1.00 will best even a 105 mph fastball from a tumbling Cuban superstar. Relief stalwart Darren O'Day makes his third appearance after showing up two years in a row with Texas, but no other pitcher in this group has made a Divisional All-Star team before. The Rays have such a glut at starting pitching that they were able to let Wade Davis try his hand at relieving, which worked out quite well. Jake McGee fills that ever-important lefty role in the first season he's spent entirely in the majors. Carlos Villanueva reprises his role as swingman - a role I clearly don't count as part of the bullpen proper, since he pitched for the Blue Jays and showed up on this team last year.

Monday, December 3, 2012

NL West Divisional All-Stars 2012

With the Winter Meetings in full swing, some big changes to the Free Agency landscape have already occurred, some of them affecting this very team! With that in mind, let's change leagues but stay in the same geographical location as last time, to give you the division that brought you this year's World Series Champions:

NL WEST DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS



The World Champion San Francisco Giants are well-represented in all parts of the lineup: Angel Pagan, the erstwhile free agent who just re-upped with his former team in one of the above-mentioned transactions, leads off as he did for the 2010 NL Wild Card team while representing the Mets. Buster Posey bats third after winning the NL MVP, Silver Slugger, and batting title in a crucial year following a brutal leg injury. And Marco Scutaro serves as the team's DH after being both traded and acquired by teams in the NL West. (Usually when a good player changes team's midseason, I have to choose one division, based on where he played more or scored more fantasy points, whichever is more advantageous. It's a slightly questionable practice, but luckily in this situation there was no choice to be made.) The team's highest offensive scorer, breakout 3B Chase Headley, earned some hardware of his own (a Silver Slugger and Gold Glove) while becoming the first Padre to start on the NL West team since Adrian Gonzalez left the division after the 2010 season. Also from San Diego is surprise SS Everth Cabrera, whose league-leading 44 SB allowed him to fill in for injured Troy Tulowitzki, who had been the NL Wests's starting SS for all three years of this feature.

Colorado has another NL West stalwart in Carlos Gonzalez, who has reached the 20-20 plateau in each of the last three seasons, although he hasn't come close to his ridiculous unreal 2009 in which he hit 37 HR and won the batting title, Silver Slugger, and Gold Glove awards. He actually picked up another GG this season... despite the fact that he cost his team nearly two whole wins with his defensive ineptitude (-1.9 dWAR, 9 Zone Fielding Runs BELOW Average in 2012). The remaining three spots are filled by Diamondbacks (no Dodgers in this lineup - that should change next year with (hopefully) full seasons from Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, and Hanley Ramirez). Aaron Hill showed that he can once again have a flukily-amazing season at 2B as he did for Toronto in 2009. Justin Upton maintains his spot in RF despite a drop of nearly 500 points from his output last year. And Paul Goldschmidt had his moment in the sun as the second-highest-scoring 1B in the entire NL (behind the NL East's Adam LaRoche).

Moving to the defensive side, Matt Cain is the only pitcher to have appeared in the NL West's starting rotation all four years of this feature. However, he's never been more deserving than in 2012, where he reached career highs in W's and K's, and career (full season) lows in ERA and BB's, not to mention his historic perfect game. His lefty compliment Clayton Kershaw didn't equal his astounding 3,000-point Cy Young-award winning performance from last year, but he was still the top fantasy LHP in the game, leading the league in ERA and WHIP. Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong are two Giants starters who jumped to the divisional rotation from the Wild Card rotation last year, while Rookie of the Year runner-up Wade Miley of the Diamondbacks makes his first appearance in his first full season.

After sporting five different 2,000+ point closers in the last three years (Jonathan Broxton, Heath Bell (once for the division and once for the Wild Card), J.J. Putz, and Brian Wilson (WC)), the 2012 NL West suffered from inconsistency at the back end of their bullpen with Kenley Jansen leading the pack - despite the fact that he didn't take over from Javy Guerra until the end of April and gave way to Brandon League in the middle of August. Luke Gregerson once again turned in a stellar setup season, as he also did two of the previous three years. David Hernandez also has two previous appearances - one last year as an NL West setup man and one in 2010 as an AL East swingman. Brad Ziegler and Ronald Belisario make their first appearances since 2009, with Ziegler making his first divisional appearance (he last represented Oakland on the AL Wild Card team). One weakness in this bullpen is the lack of a lefty reliever - Dale Thayer unfortunately earned the last spot due to his inflated stats from his short time as the Padres fill-in closer (which corresponded to the time he spent on my fantasy team). If I was really building this lineup, I'd switch him with COL LHP Rex Brothers. Josh Collmenter became a part-time starter after finishing 5th in ROY voting last year, and looks to remain there with top prospects Patrick Corbin and Tyler Skaggs waiting in the wings.

Friday, November 30, 2012

AL West Divisional All-Stars 2012

It's Friday, a new Undercover Boss airs this evening on CBS (if you liked Stephen Cloobeck from the Season 3 premiere, be sure to tune in), and I deserve to write about the division that houses my favorite team. So let's move out west but stay in the same league for today's installment of the 2012 Divisional All-Stars. Here's the lineup and analysis:

AL WEST DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS



As has been the case for the last couple of years, the offense on this squad is very Texas-heavy. We all know how well Josh Hamilton was doing before his famous caffeine overdose slowed the former MVP's production. What we DON'T know is what team will be willing to shell out for his services next year and beyond. Adrian Beltre, an All-Star with both his bat (5.5 oWAR) and his glove (1.4 dWAR), successfully defends his starting 3B crown from last year. Recent astrological research shows that Ian Kinsler, who had been incorrectly languishing on the Gemini team, actually belongs to Cancer, my own sign's team. That little gaffe on my part very well might have cost us the fantasy-astrology championship. Mike Napoli was named to his first actual All-Star team this year, the fifth in a row in which he reached 20 home runs - pretty impressive for a catcher.

The Angels are represented with two of the highest-profile players in the league. Last off-season, Albert Pujols went through the same free agent rigamarole Josh Hamilton is currently going through, although Mike Trout's Rookie of the Year presence in the Angels outfield will likely prevent his going to the same team where Phat Albert ended up. The A's also have two players on this team, but despite Josh Reddick winning a gold glove, Yoenis Cespedes finishing second in ROY voting, and each picking up some MVP votes, the players repping the Green & Gold flew much lower under the radar than their counterparts. You'll notice also that I was a little liberal with assigning positions, considering Hamilton played mostly in CF and Cespedes played in LF. However, both players spent enough time at their secondary positions to qualify in fantasy, and it wasn't worth relegating Hamilton to the Wild Card team in favor of Michael Young's 1,457 points at DH.

It took us the entire offense, but we finally have a Mariner on this list: in the year of his perfect game, King Felix Hernandez headlines this staff as he did in 2009 and '10. Last year he finished behind the trio of Jered Weaver, Dan Haren, and C.J. Wilson, of which only the first pitcher returns this year, after leading the league in wins and WHIP. First-time All-Star Matt Harrison makes the divisional team for the first time as a starter: in 2010 he made the squad as a swingman, and in 2011 he started for the Wild Card team. Yu Darvish also makes his first appearance, which is appropriate since it's his first year since coming to the majors from Japan. Jason Vargas has come into his own as a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter just in time for his last year of arbitration eligibility.

Joe Nathan hasn't been a star reliever since he dominated the AL Central with Minnesota in 2009, but a weak closer class this year gives him the crown once again at age 37. My close personal friend Jerry Blevins (he signed my book of stats during Spring Training 2011) and rookie Robbie Ross hold it down from the left side, while it's interesting that the three righty relievers in this bullpen have all spent time as starters earlier in their careers. Depending on what happens with free agents Zack Greinke and Dan Haren, Angels swingman Jerome Williams might find himself with an opportunity to start full time.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

AL Central Divisional All-Stars

In the past, I have always ordered this feature by league and geographically by division, but this year I thought I'd mix it up and jump around a bit. So without further ado, here's the 2012 version of the...

AL CENTRAL DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS



Three key positions from the AL Champion Detroit Tigers remain intact in this lineup - I guess you don't get to the World Series with schlubs in the 1, 3, and 4 spots in the order. Austin Jackson makes his first appearance in this feature in his third full season with an OPS more than 100 points above his previous career high. Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder on the other hand have never missed an appearance: Miggy was the AL Central's starting 1B the last 3 years running and the change back to his original position only seemed to increase his production, what with his MVP/Triple Crown performance. Fielder has bounced around a little: he started at 1B for the NL Central last year (ahead of both Joey Votto and Albert Pujols), was relegated to the Wild Card team in 2010 (behind Votto and Pujols), and earned a spot as the NL Central's DH in 2009 (behind Pujols, but ahead of Votto and the surprisingly resurgent Derrek Lee).

Sandwiched between those Tigers is one of two Twins to merit inclusion on this list (surprising based on how dismal their season was). While Joe Mauer will likely never approach his legendary 2009 that led to a record contract, but his high batting average and plate discipline still make him one of the top catchers in the game. Speaking of impossible-to-live-up-to contracts, Alex Rios has had two out of three good seasons since leaving the team that signed him and going to Chicago, even garnering some MVP votes in 2012 for the first time in his career. Back to the Twins, left fielder Josh Willingham returns from last year where he DH'd for the AL West team representing the A's. As Willingham's 2011 placement indicates, I tend to play fast and loose with the DH position even in the AL, since many teams are using it not as a full-time spot, but as a way to rest their veterans on a regular basis. But the Royals' regular DH Billy Butler happened to be the best candidate to fill that position on this team. Jason Kipnis just missed rookie eligibility (not that it would have mattered with the likes of Mike Trout in the equation), but he could develop the power/speed abilities worth building a team around.

Except for 2009 when he played second-fiddle to Zack Greinke's unbelievable season, Justin Verlander has been the ace of the AL Central staff every year since I started this feature, and deservedly so. Chris Sale graduated from Divisional All-Star setup man to Divisional All-Star SP2, and his teammate Jake Peavy makes his first appearance on this list in his first injury-free season since before he joined the White Sox in '09. Scherzer and Fister are repeats (Scherzer is in fact a three-peat), although Fister's place on the '11 list is somewhat controversial: he pitched more innings for Seattle, which would place him in the AL West, but he scored more points for Detroit. I'm usually very scientific about these things, but sometimes the heart has to triumph over the head.

Talk about the volatility of Major League relief pitchers - exactly ONE member of this bullpen showed up on any other divisional All-Star team since 2009: Vinnie Pestano of the Indians. His teammate gained the closer role with a mediocre season after Jose Valverde (famously perfect in save situations in '11) flamed out and lost his job in the playoffs. Anthony Swarzak on the Twins can't seem to hold on to a starter spot, which makes it questionable why he needs to be included here, but I'm a sucker for a swingman.

With this new system I have in place, who can tell which team will show up here tomorrow? The only way to find out is to tune in!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

NL East Divisional All-Stars 2012

Since I'm taking a more casual, relaxed approach to my quest towards 100% completion of LEGO: The Lord of the Rings, it's going to be a while until I have anything of note to report on that front. Let's just say at this point I'm focusing my efforts on unlocking the score multipliers so I'll be able to purchase all the interesting characters at a much faster rate. The one time I strayed from this plan was to purchase the "8-bit music" upgrade, which, to my complete and utter disappointment, WASN'T an 8-bit rendition of Howard Shore's music that we love so well, but a dull, boring, generic background tune - at least for the overworld. I haven't tried it out in-level yet, so I may yet be pleasantly surprised.

My next project - a video Power Hour based on Batman: The Animated Series - is nearing completion, so expect a detailed analysis of that as soon as it's ready to hit the presses (by which I mean probably YouTube). So until then, let me return to a best-loved feature of mine, one that was not published last year due to my unhealthy yet creatively productive obsession with Batman: Arkham City - Major League Baseball Divisional All-Stars! To recap: these are lineups consisting of the best players at each position in each division (East, West, Central, and one Wild Card - screw the new two-team setup). I'll provide the lineup (arranged according to my projected batting order) and then provide some analysis, including mentioning runners-up when applicable. Hope you enjoy the first of eight painstakingly researched lineups!

NL EAST DIVISIONAL ALL-STARS



Jose Reyes may have played for a different team than in 2011, but he stayed in the same division, which allowed him to repeat as starting SS and leadoff hitter for the NL East squad. He hit 50 points lower than his league-leading .337 average last year, but not for lack of trying: his 716 plate appearances were the most of anyone in the league. The NL East is known for producing a glut of star shortstops, and 2012 was no exception: Jimmy Rollins was not only the 2nd-highest scoring SS, but he was also the team's 9th-highest scorer overall, allowing him to claim a spot on this lineup as the DH - which is ironic because J-Roll won a Gold Glove in 2012. I chose to bat him 6th (or "second leadoff") rather than 2nd despite his point advantage over Michael Bourn because, as an NL team, this squad won't have Rollins available to start every day and I didn't want to gum up the chemistry in such a crucial spot in the order. Plus, as table-setters go, Bourn is probably the better fit with a 30 point advantage in OBP.

I wanted the heart of the order to alternate handedness of the batters, so I sandwiched David Wright (who had a nice comeback after injuries kept the 2010 starting 3B off the list in 2011) between two power lefties making their first Divisional All-Star appearances: Jason Heyward (who flashed 20/20 power/speed after suffering through a sophomore slump last year) and Adam LaRoche (who took advantage of an injury to NL East 1B stalwart Ryan Howard to post Silver Slugger numbers). Carlos Ruiz's rise to prominence as an elite backstop perfectly coincides with runner-up Brian McCann's slide into mediocrity: the Braves' hometown hero missed inclusion this year for the first time since I started blogging this feature in 2009. In a similar vein, slugging 2B Dan Uggla (who had held the spot two years running, first with the Marlins, then with the Braves) fell to Danny Espinosa by the margin of one point.

Perhaps the most shocking development in this year's NL East pitching staff is the absence of 3-time ace Roy Halladay (twice for the NL East, once for the AL East). In his place is surprise Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey. The ulnar collateral ligament-less knuckleballer, ranked 303 by MLB prior to the season, ended up leading the league in innings, strikeouts, complete games, and shutouts. He's followed by a trio of lefties: Cole Hamels (who was supposed to be the Phillies' SP3, but was forced to take on the role of ace), Gio Gonzalez (who led the league in wins), and Cliff Lee (who couldn't buy a win with his $21.5mm 2012 salary, despite a league-best 7.39 K/BB ratio). I'm pleased to announce that Stephen Strasburg will make an appearance on this team, despite being shut down in the most controversial personnel decision of the year.

Craig Kimbrel was once again the closer to beat in the NL, pushing the division's newest bullpen addition (Jonathan Papelbon, 1,966 points) to the curb. Just when we had gotten used to seeing Tyler Clippard in the setup role, an injury to Drew Storen made him the de facto closer, but fortunately his replacement Craig Stammen did quite well. Despite Frank Francisco's 5.50+ ERA, the Mets never committed to making Bobby Parnell the full-time closer. This team has the luxury of having both a long lefty (Gorzelanny) and a situational lefty (O'Flaherty), which should make playing matchups that much easier. Kris Medlen was one of the best starters down the stretch after being a very effective reliever the rest of the season, so the swingman role is a perfect place to put him.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

True Adventurer, Part 2: Story Mode

Thanksgiving is a day for reminding ourselves what we have to be thankful for. Right now I personally am thankful that I had some time off work where I was able to play through the story mode of LEGO: The Lord of the Rings. I was going to review it piecemeal, similar to how I chronicled my journey through Batman: Arkham City, but I found that I just in fact couldn't bring myself to stop adventuring long enough to reflect. With the main story behind me, I'm ready to take a pause before embarking on my quest for 100% completion.

SPOILERS FOLLOW


Upon playing through Weathertop and finding myself at Rivendell, I realized I had to amend my previous statements about multiple hub worlds: there is in fact only ONE giant Middle Earth hub world, but the various cities are spaced so far apart that at the time I thought I was dealing with multiple locations. This feature sets up a nice dichotomy between the actual action-packed levels on one hand and the low-key hub world on the other, through which you have to travel in order to reach the next level. You can use the map to go directly to certain locations, but only after you've unlocked the "Map Stone" for that area, but it's more fun to wander through the landscape and listen to the majestic music pulled right from the movie soundtracks. Plus, if you quick-travel, you miss out on all the side-quests and hidden Mithril Bricks hidden throughout the land!

I'll go into the rewards-collection process in my next post - before you can even begin thinking about collecting all the prizes in the game, you need to unlock more characters/items than are available to you simply from playing through the story mode. Suffice it to say, the game provides you with just enough resources to progress, but not to thrive in the treasure hunting business. For example, if you have to shoot down some boulders that are blocking your path on the Pass of Caradhras, you now have Legolas who's equipped with a bow. Or if there's a crack in the floor of the Mines of Moria that you have to smash through, Gimli's axe will do the trick. (And if that crack is situated high up on the wall, don't worry: one of the bigger characters can pick Gimli up and toss him! Just don't tell the Elf...) But forget about grabbing those orange handles or blowing up those shiny metallic LEGO bricks until way down the road.

Speaking of the mines of Moria, I was immediately struck by the lack of a boss fight with Gandalf vs. the Balrog - I guess you have to play The Third Age if you want to re-live that scene - but I was immediately gratified when we got to play as Gandalf as he plummeted through the chasm and fought the Balrog in free-fall. Plus we revisit the wizard's fight with the ancient demon on top of the peak of Zirak-Zigil two levels later, when Frodo sees the events in a dream while wandering through the Emyn Muil with Sam. But that doesn't happen until after you finish the levels associated with Fellowship and watch the game's credits roll, for the first of three times. At this point I was 10.8% done with the game.

Speaking of Frodo and Sam's adventures, it seems like this game struggles a bit with coming up with meaningful gameplay in the chapters that feature the Hobbits. For example, there's a long sequence where you have to search for fish to distract Gollum enough to punch him, and in the Dead Marshes using Frodo's Elven cloak to hide from the Black Riders over and over gets pretty repetitive. Thankfully the monotony is broken up by... Treebeard and the Ents! While these characters brought only minutes of slow-talking boredom to the table, it's much more fun to smash orcs and toss huge boulders while playing as them. Except for the missed opportunity to remove Aragorn's unnecessary red-herring death of falling off the cliff at the conclusion of the Warg Attack, the rest of The Two Towers plays out extremely satisfyingly, including an epic trip to Helm's Deep. My progress now stood at 19.7%.

Speaking of missed opportunities to remove superfluous bits added to the movie, I don't know why they found it necessary to keep in the whole bit of Frodo sending Sam away at the stairs of Cirith Ungol. I will speak out against that decision as long as I am able. On the other hand, a section of the movie that was cut but shouldn't have been was EVERYTHING THAT TOOK PLACE IN MINAS TIRITH! You don't meet Denethor, you don't get to play as Gandalf and Pippin inside the gates of the city, nothing! At least it's satisfying to fight the Witch King as Eowyn and to take out all the Oliphaunts with Aragorn and Legolas. The fight at the Black Gate was less so, as you basically just find three different yet similar ways to dispatch some trolls (which we'd already seen in Moria), before switching back to Sam and Frodo, who I'm glad to say get a costume change for their trek up Mount Doom. After completing Return of the King, I was 29.9% of the way through. That's a lot of ground to cover for my next post. But if anyone's up to the task....

Saturday, November 17, 2012

True Adventurer, Part 1: Live-Reviewing LEGO The Lord of the Rings

As we enter the holiday season, it's not uncommon for most Americans to have a lot on their plate. I am happy to say that at the moment I am no different. The Baseball season just ended, and rather than be content watching the World Baseball Classic qualifying rounds, I've taken it upon myself to create an extensive sortable database of every significant player in the Major Leagues this season. I was two teams away from completing said database when I came to realize that Part 3 of R. Kelly's masterful hip-hopera Trapped in the Closet is set to come out next week on IFC. So naturally we had to celebrate the occasion with a screening of Parts 1 & 2 accompanied by the drinking game associated with them: Trashed in the Closet. Also, I'm deep in the process of creating a Batman: The Animated Series video power hour - not because I'm unhealthily obsessed with drinking games, but because I consider making power hours an art form. And this is all on top of my day-career of producing unscripted television. If you're interested in seeing how that's going, you should tune in to A&E at 10pm on Sunday, December 2 for the uplifting competition show Be the Boss.

But sometimes there's an event that immediately circumvents every other project an obligation in one's life. Such an event was the arrival of my anxiously-awaited copy of LEGO The Lord of the Rings from Traveller's Tales and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. As soon as I was able, I eagerly fed the disk to my PS3 and dove into the experience. Right away, before you're even prompted to Press Start for the main menu, you hear Galadriel's immortal first lines lifted straight from the movie's audio: "I amar prestar aen... the world has changed..." Upon formally creating your file and starting the game, a cinematic takes you through the rest of the prologue, almost exactly as it appears in the movies except with LEGO minifigs instead of real actors. Of course you get the bits of LEGO humor - one of the seven Dwarf lords raises up a mug of (not)beer instead of his ring of power and one of the nine humans drops his on the ground - that are just subtle enough to remind players that they are not in fact watching a straight shot-for-shot LEGO adaptation of the films.

When gameplay starts, you are still in the world of the Prologue, controlling three of the Second Age's most distinguished characters: Elrond (of whom there was talk of receiving an exclusive minifig with the purchase of a "Special Edition" of the game, but to my knowledge that promotion never came to pass), Elendil the High King of Arnor (whose sword, Narsil, has the ability to destroy "Morgul" LEGO objects, the first taste of the character-specific abilities that are the hallmark of the LEGO games), and his son Isildur. The three parts of the tutorial-esque first level take you from the epic conclusion of the Battle of Dagorlad, through Isildur cutting the One Ring from Sauron's hand, to his refusal to cast the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom at Elrond's behest. Right around the time that we entered the Cracks of Doom (don't laugh, that's what it's called in the book too), a horn blast informed me that I had collected enough LEGO studs to achieve "True Adventurer" status, returning to the term from LEGO Indiana JonesLEGO Star Wars used "True Jedi" and in the LEGO Batman series you could become a "Super Hero," but they all mean the same thing.

Let me now take a pause from reviewing the game to write perhaps the nerdiest thought I've ever had: the events of the prologue take place in the year 3441 of the Second Age. Here's the entry on that year from Appendix B, the Tale of Years: "Sauron overthrown by Elendil and Gil-galad, who perish. Isildur takes the One Ring." Now towards the beginning the Fellowship of the Ring movie, we see Gandalf travel to Gondor to do some research into the matter of Frodo's ring by way of reading some ancient scrolls. As he mutters what he's reading out loud, we hear him say:
                    GANDALF
              (reading)
          The year 3434 of the Second Age...here
          follows the account of Isildur, High King
          of Gondor, and the finding of the ring of
          power.
Well, mishter Peter Jachshun should have read Appendixch B a little closher, cuz it CLEARLY SHTATESH that Shawruon washn't overthrown until shix yearsh later, OBVIOUSHLY!!1 I sure hope shomeone got fired for THAT little blunder. That is all...

Anyway, after the prologue - for the completion of which I earned the trophy "The Strength of Men Failed" - I was awarded the characters Elendil and Isildur, plus three more mystery folks that I could buy. I can already see the economics of this game taking shape. As I choose to continue the story, the cinematic takes us to the night of Bilbo's long-expected party. The star of The Hobbit has already decided to leave The Shire for one last adventure, and we see him reluctantly agree to leave his ring behind before he walks out onto the road. Immediately after that, Frodo comes in, and just as immediately after that, Gandalf explains the danger he's in and sets he and Sam out on his quest. No passage of 17 years between the two events. No confusion on Gandalf's part as to the true nature of Frodo's Ring. Dramatic break from the source material, but you know what? I have no problem with that.

Since becoming a story producer, I've come to realize that sometimes the best story you can tell isn't the most faithful retelling of what happened in reality, but rather an amalgamation of truth, exaggeration, and fiction. The story flows much quicker this way (even if it makes Frodo a much younger character) and gets players into the first open world section of the game: Hobbiton. Now this is next to impossible to prove, but long ago, back when the LEGO Lord of the Rings licensing agreement was nothing but a twinkle in Kjeld Kirk Christiansen's eye, I jotted down some preliminary ideas of how I'd like to see a potential LEGO Lord of the Rings video game play out. This was back in the day where they only had hub worlds from which you could access all the levels, such as the Mos Eisley Cantina from LEGO Star Wars II, or the Batcave from LEGO Batman. I wasn't sure if the technology would support it, but I thought the only way to adequately express the scope of Middle Earth was to have multiple hub worlds after each level, so that we could have the characters spend time in all the different locations that don't necessarily lend themselves to a whole level's worth of gameplay.

But at this point in my playthrough, all I had seen was Hobbiton, where Frodo and Sam could run around the countryside, using the special items in Sam's inventory to light LEGO fires, dig LEGO dirt patches, and grow LEGO plants. The inventory is another new feature in this game, which really helps expand the possibilities, however it's a little frustrating in that I couldn't figure out how to put an item away once I'd pulled it out. From there we meet Merry and Pippin, and enter the second level, which consists of sneaking away from The Black Rider (which is also the name of the level). But this sneaking is interspersed with a short mini-boss fight where you play as Gandalf as he does battle with Saruman. Another short word about the timeline: Appendix B CLEARLY SHTATESH that Gandalf is imprisoned in Orthanc (Saruman's stronghold) on July 10 of the year 3018 of the Third Age, where he is held prisoner until September 18. Frodo and his party don't leave Hobbiton until September 23. In my opinion, it's another good change to have these events happen simultaneously.

The level ends with a frantic race to the Buckleberry Ferry, where we control Frodo as he flees the Black Riders and runs straight towards the camera (think Batman fleeing from Killer Croc in Arkham Asylum). After a cinematic introducing us to Bree, I was absolutely thrilled to find that my idea of multiple hub worlds was indeed applied to this game! I was delighted that I was on the same page as the game's eventual developers, but somewhat disappointed that my obviously good ideas didn't directly impact the development of the game, except for inasmuch as they became part of the collective unconscious...

In Bree I was fortunate enough to have a friend join me, so I could check out the split-screen multiplayer mode. We were able to embark on a couple of sidequests, one of which involved forging items at the blacksmith's shop in exchange for upgrades that were available to buy. I opted not to purchase the "Quest Finder" for 50,000 studs (a little less than half my bank at the time) since I was pretty sure I'd want to save my studs for more interesting prizes ahead. Next time I'll pick up with how multiplayer and the events of Weathertop translate into an actual gameplay level. Until then, never stop adventuring!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

The Arc of Frodo

As the lowest-rated World Series in history (and one of the most boring in recent memory) draws towards its inevitable conclusion, it's time to turn our thoughts away from the baseball diamond for a spell, and focus on some more exciting real-world pastimes. LEGO The Lord of the Rings - the latest videogame installment in the popular partnership between Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, and the LEGO Group - doesn't hit shelves until November 13, but the brick and... brick sets have been out since May, which has given us fans plenty of time to get excited about once again controlling our favorite Middle Earthlings in an interactive entertainment setting.

Way back before the above-mentioned sets were even released, I wrote about the impending possibility of a LEGO LOTR videogame, and wondered whether it would be based solely on the movies, or more directly on the source material. That question has firmly been answered: it's the former, which is undoubtedly the easier, more recognizable, and more marketable choice, and I have no problem with that. And as the books and the movies (and thus the LEGO game) follow pretty much the same timeline, I'd like to pictorially examine the progression of the lead character (or at least the lead Hobbit) Frodo Baggins over the course of said timeline.

9/21/3001 (year 1401 of the Shire Reckoning)
We first meet Frodo on the eve of his Uncle Bilbo's 111th birthday party. At this point he's 33 years old, which is the "coming of age" year for Hobbits. He's wearing just a regular party shirt and has the boyish smile of youth. In both the movies and the LEGO sets, they make a big deal of him reading a book when we first see him, and maybe it was just for the sight gag of seeing a tiny Hobbit-sized minifig next to a giant tome nearly his own height. It is at this time that he takes over ownership of Bag End and comes into possession of the Ring.

9/23/3018
One of the most confusing timeline jumps in the movies comes between the night of Bilbo's disappearance after his party and when Gandalf returns to Hobbiton to warn Frodo of his imminent danger. In the books, 17 years pass between those two points, and Frodo is now 50 - the same age as Bilbo when he undertook his big adventure in The Hobbit. Ostensibly the same amount of time passes in the movies, but it's tough to pick up with the absence of explanation or timestamps, and given that Frodo doesn't appear to age at all during that time (the Ring gives its owner unnaturally long life). He wears this outfit (the addition of a jacket and dark green cloak) from when he sets out with his three Hobbit companions, through Bree, Weathertop, Rivendell, the Mines of Moria, and up to the gates of Lorien.

2/16/3019
When the Fellowship takes refuge in the Elven city of Lothlorien, they are all given special Elven cloaks that help conceal them from unfriendly eyes. It's hard to see in this picture, but Frodo is now wearing this slightly different-colored cloak, and his encounter with the Mirror of Galadriel has given his face a sterner, more focused look. He wears this outfit during the battle of Amon Hen, while wandering through Emyn Muil (where he and Sam first encounter Smeagol/Gollum), their ensuing passage through the Dead Marshes, and his first encounter with Faramir.

3/7/3019
I'm taking my cue from the movies for this costume change (hence the actual action figure inspired by the movies), since from the time we see Frodo and Sam are taken by Faramir in Ithilien, neither of them are seen with their jackets on for the remainder of the journey. I guess the southern portions of Middle Earth start to get hot with the first onset of spring. This is his costume when Gollum guides the Hobbits up the pass of Cirith Ungol and into Shelob's Lair. Just a quick word about a major inconsistency between the books and the movies at this point - it's both nonsensical (plotwise) and extremely out of character to add the "Parting of Sam and Frodo" vignette to an already crowded 200-minute third film. Gollum's plan to deliver the Hobbits to a frighteningly murderous giant spider is already evil and deceptive enough without adding a lesser deception involving framing Sam for eating their remaining food supply. It adds unnecessary time and complications to a part of the film that has to move the story along quickly and it makes no sense based on everything we've seen Sam and Frodo go through at this point. This is a scene worthy only of the extended edition DVD that should have been cut from the theatrical version. I sincerely hope it's not included in the upcoming videogame.

3/14/3019
After Sam rescues Frodo from the Orcs of Cirith Ungol, they set out for Mount Doom disguised as orcs themselves. They trek across the plain of Gorgoroth for 11 days before they reach their destination, whereupon at the very Cracks of Doom, as Frodo is about to fulfill his mission, his mind is overtaken by the Ring and he claims it as his own. The shirt should be a shade of white rather than green, but this is the crazed look that Frodo would have had on his face as he exclaimed, "The Ring is mine!" It's only due to Gollum's fearsome attack and fortunate loss of balance does the Ring end up being destroyed.

So this is the progression through which Frodo goes over the course of the three movies. I don't know if players of the game will get a different minifig version of him for each one of these costume changes or if we'll just have to use our imagination. But rest assured come 11/13, I'll have a full report. Until then, I guess I'll watch the Tigers try to start an improbable comeback tonight. It would be disappointing (yet altogether fitting) if Justin Verlander only managed one start against the Giants in the Fall Classic after shutting down the A's and the Yankees. At least he gets to go home to Kate Upton after they lose - I wonder if she makes him put on the Randy Johnson moustache so she can angrily tear it off his face...

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Fantasy Points = Real Life Wins /boggle

Hey everybody, the World Series starts today! The San Francisco Giants are coming off the momentum of having completed their postseason's second improbable three-game winning streak in the face of elimination while the Detroit Tigers have enjoyed six full days of inactivity while they waited for their Fall Classic opponent to be decided. I wonder who has the momentum going into this one? But Game 1 starter Barry Zito has his work cut out for him, since there's one very important game-changer that the Giants don't have: Justin Verlander.


But enough about what's happening in the actual world of baseball, let's talk more about the fantasy point system I've been using to evaluate players all season. It is indeed the same system I've been using for the last decade, but has now become infinitely easier to calculate thanks to ESPN's fully-customizable fantasy baseball program. I've mentioned those guys so many times that they should seriously be sponsoring this site by now... maybe my chances would be better if I used their standard scoring instead of my own system. But this is what I'm used to, and furthermore, I'm setting out to prove that the aggregate point totals of all the players on a team pretty accurately reflects that team's wins. First, here's how the point system shakes out:


I know baseball is a game of 3's, but this fantasy point system is essentially based on 5's. Batters get 5 points each for runs scored and driven in. Then we move to the basic building blocks of run production: Total Bases. Each one is worth 5 points: 5 for a single, 10 for a double, 15 for a triple, 20 for a home run. The progression makes sense - the more bases you reach per hit, not only do you put yourself in a better position to score, but the more potential runs you stand to drive in. Scoring position also plays a part in why steals are worth so many points - if you successfully steal a base, you at least put yourself in scoring position, whereas if you are caught, you erase yourself as a baserunner in a nonessential play. You lose a point every time you have a hitless at-bat, with an extra point lost for a strikeout (because in that situation you can't even advance the runner). A walk is worth three-fifths of a base hit, which is somewhat of a compromise, considering it puts you on base, but gives you very little chance of driving in a run in turn.

I'll be the first to admit that win-loss percentage is overvalued in this system, but in fantasy you want to make sure you're drafting the top pitchers on each team, which in terms of starters, are generally the ones in the position to rack up the most wins. The measure of the top relievers on each team is generally saves, hence the big point value there. Hey, I'm not saying it's a perfect system. Keeping with the motif of 5, each pitcher gains 5 points for each out pitched (which works out to 15 per inning) but loses 5 points for each baserunner allowed (via either a hit or walk). In another three-fifths compromise, a strikeout gains a pitcher an extra 3 points, which essentially makes each batter struck out worth 8 total points. Each run allowed costs a pitcher 10, because allowing runs is how a pitcher loses games after all.

Normally this point system is used to evaluate players personally, but for this experiment, I ran the combined stats of each team through the program to see how total points scored (both batting and pitching combined) corresponds with how many games that team won. However, I didn't use the exact same formula when calculating the team statistics - or, rather, I did and then I quickly realized where I went wrong and made some adjustments. The first adjustment was for batters: sure runs are important (scoring them is, after all, how you win games), but that's no reason to count them twice - i.e. for both runs scored and runs driven in. And while I don't think it's fair to exclude unearned runs as if they don't count, I removed RBI from the scoring. For pitchers, it doesn't make sense to include in the scoring system the very statistic you're trying to test for, so I removed wins and losses. There is also no reason a team should be rewarded for winning a close game, so saves had to go as well. This next chart contains the new points for each team in terms of both batting (BPts) and pitching (PPts). The most important column for our purposes are the last two: total points (TPts) and points divided by total team wins (TPts/W). Check out the results:


Lots of numbers, I know, but here's an overview of the important stuff we learned to look for in math class:

  • BPts range from 13,787 (NYY) to 9,668 (HOU) with an average of 11,692. This number speaks volumes about the Yankees' offense, as their park ranked just 17th in terms of ESPN's park factors. The median is 11,803 (the average between KCR and TOR) - just slightly higher than the mean.
  • PPts range from 12,354 (TBR) to 5,507 (COL) - a much larger spread. I guess the effects of the humidor in Denver are finally wearing off as we're starting to return to the batting/pitching discrepancies of the pre-2002 days. The average team scored 9,424 PPts, with the median at 9,657 (between PIT and CHW).
  • TPts range from 24,105 (WAS) to 17,153 (HOU). Notice, much to my delight, that the highest point total corresponds to the team with the most wins and vice versa for the team with the fewest wins. In the old system (including all the stats) the Astros were still on the bottom, but the Yankees had the top spot. These two teams also occupy the top and bottom spots respectively in terms of points per game. The average is 21,116 and the median is 21,583 (ARI and LAD).

Now for the new and exciting category: TPts/W, which shows how many points each team scores per win. The first thing we notice is that the team with the fewest wins (55) has the most TPts/W (HOU with 311.873). However, BAL has the fewest TPts/W with 229.204 and they managed 6 fewer wins than the top squad (WAS with 98). This anomaly kind of makes sense, considering this was a team that was not expected to play well. Plus, they vastly outperformed their run differential - based on their runs scored vs. runs allowed, they should have managed only 82 wins. It might be the case that fantasy points have a better correlation with a team's expected performance than their actual performance, but that's a question for a different day.

Not that there isn't a decisive pattern emerging already as it stands: teams with the six lowest TPts/W all won at least 90 games, while the teams with the six highest TPts/W all won fewer than 70 games. It seems that teams that win more games use their points more efficiently in that it takes fewer of them to get a W. However, there's a lot more work to be done: the average of all 30 teams is 263.117 TPts/W, and the 3 teams closest to that figure won 88 (STL, 261.136), 73 (TOR, 265.110), and 90 (TBR, 265.378) games, respectively. So there's clearly not a precise correlation. However, that analysis will have to wait, as we've just had a sighting of the Justin Verlander we've come to expect in the playoffs in San Francisco. Let's watch some World Series!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

2013 Free Agents

It's been a week and a weekend since the 2012 playoffs started with the inaugural Wild Card Games, and a whole lot has happened since then. We saw 20 out of a possible 20 Division Series games, and now four games into the Championship Serieses, the Giants and Cardinals are in a dead heat, while the Tigers don't appear to be losing any momentum (especially since the Yankees will be welcomed to Detroit tonight by Justin Verlander). While there is decidedly still a lot of playoff baseball left to be played in the next two weeks, I'm going to leave coverage of those games in more capable hands and look ahead to what excitement this offseason might bring.

The most newsworthy proceedings that occur during the Hot Stove season has to be the filing and signing of free agents. Everybody loves to see high-profile players jump over to new teams, and free agency is the perfect stage on which to display that spectacle, what with the tense negotiations, multi-million dollar contracts, and the press conferences with the new jerseys awkwardly worn over suit jackets. And then of course there is the always exhilarating potential surprise appearance of the Mystery Team.

I'm so excited about this year's free agent class that I've been keeping track of them throughout the season - along with many other things in my extensive Baseball Database work-in-progress. I last updated this document with stats and info through the All-Star Break (7/9/12), and while teams are free to negotiate and sign contract extensions with their own impending free agents at any point during the year, I thought a lineup made of the best potential free agents as of the Midsummer Classic would help put this offseason's complete list in a little perspective:



Just a few short words about this preliminary list (because the real analysis will come later) - notice that four of these 18 players ended the season on different teams than the ones they were on at the All-Star Break. This should give you some insight into the types of players GMs like to move at the Trade Deadline - it makes sense to try to get something in return for the dudes whose commitment to the team is coming to an end. Now let's see what happened to those four players as well as the rest of the rest of the top free agents of 2013.



For this lineup, I've included two more columns: one that details the type of contract the player has just completed and one describing the monetary value linked to said contract. But before we run the numbers, you should notice three players missing from the previous list who were re-signed to extensions before the end of the season. Edwin Encarnacion got his 3yr, $30mm deal to remain Toronto's 1B/DH on the last day of the All-Star break, Cole Hamels signed a 6yr, $144mm deal just before the trade deadline to keep Philadelphia's monster rotation intact, and in September Texas brought Colby Lewis back for next year, despite the fact that he missed the entire second half of the season with forearm issues.

It's uncertain what the All-Star Game MVP will make in his first year
of free agency after being suspended for 50 games to end the 2012 season.
Now to the money column. Five players are coming off arbitration-eligible years, and are thus hitting free agency for the first time. For those of you not well-versed in the nuances of baseball's financial system, salary arbitration is a way to ensure that young players are paid somewhat close to market rate for their services before hitting the open market. I'm not going to get into the details here, as I'm planning another post that will feature a lineup consisting of the offseason's top arb-eligible players. And, yes, it will contain an explanation of the "Super 2" status, which is why Melky Cabrera and Brandon League (above) enjoyed four years of arbitration before free agency instead of the customary three.

Despite his issues with over-caffeination this season, Hamilton still
promises to be the most sought-after free agent this winter.
Only two players (Josh Hamilton and Kyle Lohse) were signed to their most recent contracts by the teams that still employ them. Both have been given the green light to test the free agent market, which all but guarantees that their clubs won't make any offers during the period where teams can exclusively negotiate with their free-agents-to-be. Four players are just now reaching the ends of long-term extensions they signed with teams OTHER than the ones they suit(ed) up for in 2012. Nick Swisher signed a 5yr deal with the Athletics, but has since played for both the White Sox and the Yankees (who were kind enough to pick up his option for 2012). Zack Greinke only spent two years of the four year deal with the team that signed him (Kansas City) before moving to Milwaukee and then Anaheim. Ryan Dempster signed with the Cubs four years ago and then proceeded to pick up his own player option for '12 rather than become a free agent last year - a decision that I'm sure Theo Epstein appreciates, since he was able to flip the pitcher to the Rangers for a couple prospects at the deadline. And Marco Scutaro is finishing up the deal he signed with the Red Sox only after having played for two different teams since then.

While Swisher's deal+opt has the most total money attached to it, the highest-paid player on this list in terms of average annual value (or AAV) is superstar DH David Ortiz (his 1yr deal pays him more than $14.5mm). Big Papi was set to become a free agent last offseason, but he stayed with the Red Sox by accepting their offer of arbitration (there's that term again - I would mention something about a team's ability to offer arbitration to an impending free agent in my aforementioned future post, but they're in the process of changing this rule anyway). Dempster is a close second with an AAV of $13mm+, while Hamilton's $12mm AAV is third. After his monster season, I would expect him to earn much more than that over a multi-year deal, despite the slow finish.

First year Yankee jitters? Apparently no one told Kuroda about them!
Four players were brought in (or brought back, as the case may be) on 1yr deals, including the two big-name pitchers who replaced the two pitchers from the All-Star break list who were signed to extensions. Hiroki Kuroda adapted well to the pressure-packed environment of Yankees baseball, but I have it on good authority that he would prefer to pitch on the west coast. Edwin Jackson was passable for the Nationals, but the journeyman appears likely to be headed for his seventh team in six years. Jonathan Broxton's fantasy value took a hit when he traded his save opportunities with the Royals for hold opportunities in front of Aroldis Chapman with the Reds, but I'd say he's pretty successfully reestablished himself as a dominant reliever. And the fact that Eric Chavez has started a playoff game for the Yankees says more about the utter un-clutchitude of A-Rod than it does about Chokey's prowess on the field - although he did churn out a surprising 12 HR as one of the main players in New York's DH rotation.

Looking ahead, I'd say that Michael Bourn and A.J. Pierzynski are good bets to re-sign - as the Braves look to remain perennial contenders, I think they'd be loath to part with their marquee top-of-the-order table setter, and I don't think any other team would want Pierzynski. Swisher (who replaced Encarnacion after becoming eligible at 1B from all that work he got subbing for Mark Teixeira) is basically a lock to return - free agency for the Yankees is basically just a period of renegotiation. After his October meltdown(s) expect Jose Valverde to be in a similar position to Broxton going into last off-season. Greinke got off to a shaky start to his time in southern California, but he had a solid finish and the Angels certainly don't balk at the big free agent deal. I wouldn't be surprised if they brought him back and let Dan Haren walk rather than pick up his $15.5mm option - I would be surprised if they kept both pitchers around for 2013.

Your fans are all praying for a speedy recovery
and to see you back on the mound in 2013!
There's a couple of honorable mentions I feel like I should... mention. Shane Victorino will hit the market with the Dodgers, and it's a good bet he'll return. I don't see Ichiro on the Yankees as anything more than a rental since Brett Gardner will likely be returning to the Bronx Bombers next year. Carlos Pena will likely try to bring his sub-Mendoza line average to a team other than the Rays. Mariano Rivera is a lock to return to the Yankees if he deems himself able to pitch. And then there are a couple of A's pitchers coming off no end of uncertainty: Brandon McCarthy has been making good progress in his recovery from a brutal line drive to the head, while Bartolo Colon has yet to prove he can survive in the majors with just the hormones that his 40-year-old body can produce on its own. I'd say incentive-laden deals are in store for these two, the former back with the A's, the latter with a young club desperate for some veteran leadership (see the pre-2012 A's...).

This year's free agent class lacks the star power of Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Jose Reyes, CC Sabathia (although see above regarding Yankee free agents), C.J. Wilson et al. But there are some very solid players out there who have the potential to make some new teams very happy. I'll be following all these free agents and more as soon as they're allowed to file on the day after the World Series. Until then, keep watching the games and try not to be too disappointed at the dearth of interesting teams left out there...