The Sweet and LOWV Down News Hour: Intervention in Dodgertown

It's that time again, so sit back and and soak in the Sweet and LOWV Down. This week, the dastardly duo breaks down the last few weeks of baseball: Selig declares martial law in Dodgertown; Mets are asked to SAC up; Bonds raises OBP with free pass; Braun gets rich and weepy; another Red Sox championship tainted; and updates on the hottest bats and arms races.

The hosts then turn their attention to the LOWV, discussing each matchup from the last week of action: LU learns that fortune favors the bold; Flash reacquaints self with earth; it's no rumor, VR is back; unB tests the limits of offensive futility; FC shows Guap where he can put his slider; short-armed BB squeaks by BI; DLBP and Ship lose beauty contest; PMF subprime bubble continues to swell; and Snatty gets an intervention.

Got an hour? This is the finest LOWV talk you'll find until Mike Jones gets back from the candlelight vigil in honor of Ryan Braun's contract extension. As always, if you're pressed for time, just skip ahead to listen to us besmirch you, uncork your slouch and write us a wingeing email.

Trouble with the link above? Try downloading from here or here.

The Sweet and LOWV Down News Hour: Ex-Mistress Sweeps the Leg!

Gather round, the Sweet and LOWV Down returns for its long awaited third installment. This week, the crew breaks down the first week of baseball: Manny intentionally walks, the absolute worst case outcome for an affair, Turtle and E to the rescue of the Mets, and early picks for MLB playoffs, MVP, Cy Young and ROY.

The hosts then turn their attention to the LOWV, discussing each matchup from the first week of action. PMF's radical day trading approach pays early dividends; BB opens Lost Ark, melts faces; the Bonoma Touch turns arms to shit; Lasorda catches ARod playing snookie; Snatty visits wrong end of the kill room; unB - sergeant of arms; and Equipe wins 9-9!

Got an hour? This is the finest LOWV talk you'll find until Mike Jones ends his run on Broadway as the lead in Warhorse. As always, if you're pressed for time, just skip ahead to listen to us defame your squad, unbunch your panties and write us a reactionary screed.

Trouble with the link above? Try downloading from here or here.

The Sweet and LOWV Down News Hour: On Bended Knee with a Girl Named Nelson

The Sweet and LOWVdown returns for its highly anticipated (by about three GMs) second installment. Spring training storylines are analyzed, injuries are bemoaned and Coco Crisp's weird exploits are related. Is Mike Piazza the white knight owner the Mets need, or just a sketchy paisan with backne? Will Alcides Escobar ever recover from his bug bite?

The hosts then turn their attention to the LOWV, discussing each team in the league. Auction and draft pickups go under the microscope, the Commissioner's Nostradamus-like predictions are decoded, and the hosts give their own crystal-ball view of every team's 2011 finish.

Got two hours? This is the finest LOWV talk you'll find until Mike Jones emerges from the pit of the latest Duncan Sheik tuner. If you're pressed for time, just skip to the part where we discuss your team and defame your GMsmanship, then write an incendiary email to us and call it a day.




Trouble with the link above? Try downloading from here or here.

The Sweet and LOWV Down News Hour: Debut Episode

The Sweet and LOWV Down News Hour debuts: your best source for LOWV scuttlebutt and speculation. The biggest gossips in the league sit down for a frank and balanced discussion of recent events around the League. This week, Andrew and Neil discuss the ballad of James Buchanan, grilling with the Sabathias, arbitration amnesia, VR: Behind the Music, the unBeleaguerable new trade model, the LOWV's possible entre into outsourcing, and the much anticipated auction and draft.



Trouble with the link above? Try downloading from here or here.

How Do You Harvest a Top xFIPman?

RJ Anderson of FanGraphs ran a blog post today that addressed the following issue:

For the majority of major league teams, this is the final week of their season. This means back to the planning board for the front offices as they decide whether to buy this off-season, sell, do both, or attempt to remain static moving forward. One thing is for sure: every team in the league – barring perhaps the Yankees – could use more star power. So how do you acquire stars?

Let’s start with the starting pitchers. Obviously “star” is a word with ambiguous meaning. For some it means a guy who will move tickets, sell jerseys, and land them a marquee spot in the highlights on nights he pitches. For others it means one of the best pitchers in the league whose performance should bring the attention and spotlight, but everyone knows that’s not always a guarantee.

For this set of exercises I’m choosing to define star as the latter. I’ve taken the top 30 starters as told by THT’s xFIP metric. Why xFIP? Because it normalizes home run rates and saves time in noting certain pitcher performances in ballparks like those Oakland and San Diego. From there I noted how each was acquired by their current team.

Anderson ends up concluding that signing an ace in free agency isn't the way to go, because few of the top-30 xFIP pitchers were obtained via free agency (11 pitchers acquired via trade, 13 in the draft, 3 as international FAs, and 3 as veteran FAs).

I decided to examine this same list of 30 pitchers in the context of LOWV, because like major league GMs, many LOWV GMs will be looking to pick up an ace this offseason -- witness the overheated Harden auction for evidence of that.

(Granted, it would be dumb to shell out for an ace without taking into account the park and defense he's dealing with, but at the same time players are known to change teams without warning, so ideally your ace will be a stud whether he's pitching in Metco or Yankee Stadium.)

So -- how did this crop of primo SPs end up with their current teams?

1. Javier Vazquez – 2007 auction
2. Tim Lincecum – free agent
3. Dan Haren – trade with Guapo (offseason)
4. Roy Halladay – trade with PMF (offseason)
5. Zack Greinke – free agent
6. Jon Lester – trade with LM (in-season)
7. Josh Johnson – free agent
8. Justin Verlander – free agent
9. Ricky Nolasco – trade with LM (in-season)
10. Adam Wainwright – free agent
11. Chris Carpenter – waiver auction
12. Felix Hernandez – 2007 auction
13. Josh Beckett – waiver auction
14. Joel Pineiro – free agent
15. Ubaldo Jimenez – free agent
16. Cole Hamels – free agent
17. Wandy Rodriguez – trade with ERdR (offseason)
18. Yovani Gallardo – waiver auction
19. Gavin Floyd – trade with unB (offseason)
20. Brett Anderson – trade with Guapo (in-season)
21. Jorge de la Rosa — free agent
22. Jason Hammel – *unsigned free agent*
23. CC Sabathia – 2006 draft
24. Ryan Dempster – free agent?
25. Roy Oswalt – 2006 draft
26. Aaron Harang – trade with VR (in-season)
27. Max Scherzer – JRL draft
28. Chad Billingsley – waiver auction
29. Joe Blanton – free agent
30. Clayton Kershaw – JRL draft

2006 DRAFT: 2 (Sabathia, Oswalt)
2007 AUCTION: 2 (Vazquez, Hernandez)
WAIVER AUCTIONS: 4 (Carpenter, Beckett, Gallardo, Billingsley)
TRADES (offseason): 4 (Haren, Halladay, W. Rodriguez, Floyd)
TRADES (in-season): 4 (Lester, Nolasco, Anderson, Harang)
FREE AGENTS: 10 (Lincecum, Grienke, Johnson, Verlander, Wainwright, Piniero?, Hamels?, de la Rosa, Dempster?, Blanton)
JUNIOR LEAGUE: 2 (Scherzer, Kershaw)
SHOPPING WITH FOOD STAMPS: 1 (Hammel)

These results are both quite interesting and mildly misleading.

The first thing that jumps out at you is that fully 1/3 of these pitchers were signed to minimum contracts as free agents, who at one point were available for anyone to snag. However, this number includes two sets of players: scrap-heap finds, like de la Rosa and Blanton, and rookie pitchers turned aces, like Lincecum, Verlander, Hamels and Grienke. My guess is that in the future, ace-provenance lists will show fewer FAs and more Junior League draftees (whether developed by their organization or traded for, a la Brett Anderson). Still, it seems as though in any given year, several top pitchers will go into the season with low expectations and little hype, ready to be snared by the watchful GM. Keep that in mind before you splurge on an SP.

Eight top pitchers came via trade, four in midseason (defined as occurring after the draft/auction) and four in the offseason. Ace pitchers shouldn't get too comfortable in any LOWV city, because they may be traded at any time. If you're looking for a sweet starter, it seems advisable to hit up LM or Guapo, who have shown a propensity for shipping those dudes out of town...

Only a few pitchers who demonstrated 2009 brilliance have been with their teams since the 2006/2007 inaugural draft and auction, respectively. It appears that ZERO SPs of serious 2009 distinction were acquired in the 2008 or 2009 auctions. Again, expect this trend to reverse itself as the pinch of the salary cap boots quality SPs into the marketplace (and 2009 auctionee Tommy Hanson rises to prominence).

Finally...Jason Hammel? Highly underrated!