As a followup to Peter Hjort's Chipper Jones piece below, I wrote a blog post about a recent Tim Marchman list ranking baseball's 30 general managers. As I wrote:

Wren came in 17th, just behind Jim Hendry.  Somehow, Andy MacPhail is 12th, Dave Dombrowski is 13th, and Tony Reagins is 15th... I feel that Marchman’s list gives too much credit for Lifetime Achievement.

Marchman wrote a small followup on his blog that Peter pointed out to me, in which he acknowledges that "General Manager" in his piece "is a metonym for the work done by dozens of different people under certain specific conditions... it is a contrivance." He doesn't really address my point, but he makes a valid point nonetheless. He's a good writer, even if he totally hosed Frank Wren.

I've been on the Braves blogosphere for quite a few years now, and there are few writers I respect more than Peter Hjort. We go back a long time on Mac Thomason's Braves Journal, and he and I both started blogging on our own around the same time. He runs Capitol Avenue Club, the best sabermetric Braves blog on the web. We're trying out a content-sharing agreement between our two blogs, to see if we can both benefit. Let us know what you think!

Chipper Jones is a Braves legend. Whenever he hangs up the spikes, his number is going to be retired, he'll immediately go into the Braves hall of fame, and he'll be headed for the Baseball Hall of Fame shortly there after. It's a blessing to have such a gifted player on your team, period--much less for sixteen years--and watching Chipper develop and rake over the past two decades has been a delight for Braves fans, team mates, executives, and owners alike.

However, stated plainly, Chipper is getting old. 2010 will be his age 38 season and players don't hit forever. After Chipper suffered what was probably the worst season of his career since 1995 (his rookie year) in 2009, it's appropriate to question how much Chipper has left in the tank. In order to come up with a good answer as to what to expect from Chipper going forward, it's important to understand where he's been.

Chipper's success has been primarily a product of his balanced offensive production. He's the rare type of player that hits for a high average, walks a lot, and hits for power. He's one of 14 players to play 2,000 career games and post a batting average of at least .300, an on base average of at least .400, and a slugging average of at least .500*. The kind of offensive balance and production Chipper has been able to sustain over the years is beyond remarkable, it's legendary. However, said balance in production leads to complications when attempting to isolate, quantify, and predict the various offensive attributes.

Rather than trying to separate the components of on base average or slugging average, I prefer to start from scratch and examine this as a problem of primary and secondary production. The metrics I've chosen to represent the two components are, naturally, batting average and secondary average. Quite simply, how much a player produces via hit and how much a player produces via anything other than a hit--on a rate basis in both cases. The linear combination of these two metrics yields a metric called APS (average plus secondary). Think of APS like OPS, only it doesn't double-count for hits (so the totals are going to be lower) and isn't a pile of mathematical gibberish. The formula for APS is (TB+BB+SB-CS)/AB.

Chipper Jones owns a career .307 batting average and a career .411 secondary average, good for a .718 APS. For perspective's sake, last year the average NL 3B posted a .261 batting average and a .271 secondary average (.532 APS). In 2009, however, Chipper's APS experienced a sharp decline. His .643 mark still rated about 110 points above league average for an NL 3B, but it rates 74 points below his career average and 145 points below his 2008 mark of .788 (the second highest of his career). But, looking at one year trends isn't particularly productive and I could explain this until I'm blue in the face, but, instead, I'd like to present the information visually:

Click to see some spectacular charts, and even more analysis...

I liked Jon Sciambi's Baseball Prospectus piece so much, I wrote about it twice: once here, and again today at Fangraphs. Here are my suggestions:

Sciambi’s a good broadcaster, and he clearly has his heart in the right place: his goal is to enhance the viewers’ experience of the game, by giving them useful information that they can understand, neither dumbing it down nor sailing it over their heads. That’s a tricky assignment, because it’s always hard to be all things to all people, and it’s hard to be part of any movement pushing a paradigm shift. It’s hard to please a casual watcher who doesn’t know the acronyms or methodology of advanced sabermetrics at the same time that you’re trying to say something that Dave Cameron doesn’t already know. (As Will Carroll notes, last year ESPN tried to make OPS a regular feature of their baseball broadcasts, but apparently their viewers thought it was “too complicated.”)

So what can be done? I think a lot of non-saberheads get hung up on the constellation of acronyms that we use, getting so hung up at all the capital letters that they miss the meaning behind them. (Like Jim Bowden, creator of “OBPATUZXYZ,” or Jon Heyman, inventor of “VORPies.”) So, pace Will Carroll, we need to be willing to let broadcasters be stupid — but with a purpose. The stats around here are pretty easy to read, because they’re all scaled to look like things we’re more familiar with, but we’re not going to see a broadcaster talk about FIP any time soon. However, everyone understands runs and wins, and, as Will Carroll says, anyone can understand a statement like “Albert Pujols was two wins better than Zack Greinke last season.” It has to be justified, but we’ve all heard broadcasters make unsupportable assertions about how many more wins a player adds to his team, or how many runs he saves with his glove. These are just numbers that add support to things they already say. And it can easily be understood. Both by the Jon Sciambis of the world, and the Russ Smiths.

Sciambi surprised my in his compliments of Joe Simpson, whom he described as an old-school guy who was completely open to slightly more granular splits and analytic techniques. I hadn't thought of Joe Simpson as particularly open to new-school methods. With Sciambi gone, though, I'm not sure who on the Braves' team will introduce smarter stats to the booth. I like Don Sutton a lot, but he's never struck me as a guy on the cutting edge, and you all know how I feel about Chip Caray. Can Jim Powell be the guy?

I doubt it, but I'll be listening.

Just when I was starting to feel like I knew the guy, Jon "Boog" Sciambi moved from working the play-by-play for the Braves to a cushy job at ESPN. He deserved it -- he's a good broadcaster, a little bland, but well-meaning and adds to the action rather than detracts from it, unlike Chip Caray. Unfortunately, what's good for him is bad for us, because it means that we lost one of our best guys. He just wrote a very good, very thoughtful guest piece over at Baseball Prospectus about trying to introduce more advanced stats into baseball broadcasts.

The goal is not unveiling newfangled stats; it's about getting people to understand basic ideas and concepts. To achieve that, we can't just slap stats up on the screen and explain them. Understanding has to come in the form of analysis. We have to use the stat and explain it. Sometimes it needs to be the PBP guy playing analyst and getting the color guy to react:

If Ryan Howard is up, I can talk about RBI and why dependent stats don't evaluate individual performance well; RBI aren’t what reflects Howard’s greatness, his SLG does. I can mention that Howard's massive RBI totals may be due to the fact that no player has hit with more total men on base than Howard since 1492 (I believe this is a fact but didn't feel like looking it up). Point is, there are dead people who could knock in 80 runs hitting fourth in that Phillies lineup. (OK, I probably wouldn't say that on-air.)

The metrics are getting so advanced that we're in danger of getting further away from the masses instead of closer. We, as broadcasters, have to find better and entertaining ways of explaining the math in bite-sized terms. Simplified, we need to explain that one of the problems with batting average, as opposed to slugging percentage, is that batting average values a single and a home run equally. We can't assume that's understood just because we understand it. And the only way it gets embedded is to keep beating the audience with it so that it becomes ingrained the way ERA eventually did, even though that once passed for advanced math.

Plenty more good stuff over there -- go read it. Let's all pray that Chip Caray does too.

Hank Aaron visited the Braves' spring training camp today, and Dave O'Brien and Charles Odum of the AP took down a number of his quotes. He had a lot to say about the low number of African-Americans in baseball. (By my count, and I apologize for the implicit tokenization, Joe Thurston is the only other African-American player in camp. Obviously, there are also Latino and Caribbean players of color, not to mention our Asian pitchers, on the roster and in camp.) Aaron said he was glad to see Heyward in camp, but that "it dampens my spirit when I come up to spring training and I look at the kids – I’m not talking about tomorrow, I’m talking about right now – and don’t see any black kids."

I envy Heyward the chance to meet Hank Aaron -- the greatest right fielder in baseball history -- but what Hank's saying isn't new. And, as Hank points out, it's about economics. In this country, football and basketball are the major scholarship sports, so unless you come from a well-heeled background (as indeed Jason Heyward does, the son of Dartmouth grads), those two sports are your best ticket to college and ultimately the pros. In Latin America, the economic incentive is entirely in baseball's favor: in towns like San Pedro de Macoris, D.R., the biggest money on the landscape comes from the scouts with American checkbooks handing out millions of dollars in signing bonuses. There are no other jobs, no other industries, and certainly no other sports that can compete with that.

Otherwise, he had many nice things to say, praising Tommy Hanson ("a bubbling superstar in their pitching") and Jair Jurrjens, Jason Heyward ("I think he’s going to do well") and Bobby Cox ("Bobby’s just been wonderful, not only to this organization and the city of Atlanta, he’s been good for baseball").

Ultimately, there wasn't a ton of red meat in the interview -- no scoops, bombshells, or other surprises -- but it’s just nice to hear the man talk. He still passionately loves baseball and the Braves, and carries himself with dignity, grace, and humility. He was my first hero. He still is.

Bringing you some interesting discussion pieces this Sunday afternoon, courtesy of our old friends at the AJC and MLB.com:

First, and most important, the Braves are reportedly close to making a landmark signing.  Looking back at the previous post, no, it's not Johnny Damon.  It's not even a player who will play in the majors in 2010, or even 2011 (probably).  Mark Bowman of MLB.com says the Braves are "nearing a deal" with 18-year-old Dominican shortstop phenom Edward Salcedo.  Salcedo has been on the radar for a couple of years now: back when he was a Scott Boras client, he inked a deal with the Indians north of $2 million.  That deal was voided over concerns about his age, but this time around, MLB has conducted an official investigation to verify Salcedo's age.  The Braves reportedly initiated the investigation.  He's expected to command a similar bonus this time around, so it would represent more than double the biggest bonus the Braves have ever handed to a Latin American signee.

He's strong, athletic, and supposedly plays a very smooth shortstop with a good arm.  He's got great bat speed and plenty of power projection, but his swing has lots of moving parts so timing may be an issue against advanced breaking balls.  He's an excellent fit for a Braves organization that's very thin on prospects left of second base.  Salcedo's 6'3" frame could fill out and force him to move to third base as Chipper Jones' replacement, or he could keep his defensive chops and perhaps even move Escobar over to the hot corner.  Salcedo would combine with Arodys Vizcaino to represent a huge shot in the arm to our minor-league system this winter.

A couple other quick housekeeping notes from the AJC:

David O'Brien brings word that reliever Scott Proctor is well ahead of schedule in his rehab from Tommy John surgery, to the extent that he might even be ready to make the Opening Day roster.  The seventh spot in the bullpen is pretty wide open, and Proctor certainly has the stuff to be a quality reliever if he can get healthy.  However, there's a caveat: if he spends more than about three weeks in the minors, the Braves will control his rights for 2011 via his final year of arbitration.  O'Brien makes the obvious comp between Proctor and Peter Moylan last spring, but remember how rusty Pete was in the earlygoing last year?  I'm in favor of letting Proctor rehab the extra month while giving a youngster like Luis Valdez an audition in the 'pen.  Then, we can keep Proctor an extra year if we want.

I know this is old news (ten days old, to be precise), but Jeff Schultz caught up with John Smoltz, and Smoltz says he's "open to anything" as far as where he plays in 2010.  Naturally there's going to be speculation about a return to the Braves, even though the Atlanta pitching staff appears to be pretty crowded.  It sounds like Smoltz is over the animosity that surrounded his departure last winter, and it also sounds like he's been keeping in pretty close touch with his Braves friends like Tom Glavine and Bobby Cox.  Smoltz was victimized last year by a .354 BABIP, and still struck out nearly a batter per inning with a K/BB ratio north of four.  Used carefully, he could still be a major-league asset.  His return would sell tickets, and he's the kind of guy who could make it worthwhile to shuffle the staff a bit.  But is it worth taking the chance of having to let him go again if he comes back in less than top-notch form?

Oh, and as a final thought, I'll go on the record as saying that as much as I wanted Johnny Damon, he wasn't worth $8 million to the Braves.

Comments on anything?

A week ago, I wrote: "The Tigers offered Johnny Damon $14 million for two years. I'm guessing that he's out of our hands." Though the two-year deal, which Tigers owner Mike Illitch personally explained to the media, was little more than a negotiating tactic, it appears that I was right. Multiple sources are reporting that Damon and the Tigers have agreed on a one year, $8 million deal. He's not worth that to us, I'm afraid. (After all, Javy Vazquez wasn't worth $11 million to us.) This means that our opening-day outfield will be relatively weak, however, and adds to the pressure to bring up Heyward early.

This isn't a criticism of Wren, as such: we literally couldn't afford Damon at that price. But it's a shame, all the same.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, you guys, but we're not out of the water yet. On the plus side, Mets fans on Fangraphs hate me because yesterday I wrote this:

I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised by reports that the New York Mets are going after Rod Barajas. Though most fans and observers alike acknowledged that the Mets’ greatest needs were in their tattered starting rotation, Omar Minaya has focused the bulk of his attention on his second-string catching corps, signing Henry Blanco, Chris Coste, and Shawn Riggans, and retaining Omir Santos, September callup Josh Thole, and farmhand Robinson Cancel.

Of course, it kind of makes sense that Minaya doesn’t think that any one of those six is a starting catcher. But he spent much of the offseason pursuing Bengie Molina, whom no one would mistake for Gabby Hartnett. Molina was the Mets’ second-highest free agent priority behind only Jason Bay, and after Molina jilted them a month ago, they remained unable to think of any other position on the diamond. Despite the number of backup catchers the organization already possesses — and the paucity of reliable batterymates in the starting rotation — the Mets still seem to be focused on finding 162 games worth of backstops.

More at Fangraphs...

On the minus side, Jair Jurrjens's shoulder is still barking. He says that he's maybe a week or two from being able to throw, and his shoulder still feels tight and stiff. The MRI showed no structural damage, just inflammation, and Jurrjens described the doctor's diagnosis: "The doctor said that's the most beautiful MRI he ever saw in his life. Everything is intact and nothing is wrong in there. I'm happy with that."

Of course, the thing about an MRI is that you wouldn't get one if everything was okay. "The most beautiful MRI he ever saw" is a great line, because it's kind of an oxymoron: it was an attempt to figure out why in the world Jurrjens's shoulder is hurting, and one that revealed no good answer. His shoulder is still hurting, after all.

So keep your fingers crossed, but don't hold your breath.