THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I know it’s hard to place him because of injury, but shouldn’t Smoltz be on this list?  Maybe he just missed though.

Anyone know a ballpark figure of how much Kenshin Kawakami is suppose to be getting money wise?

What is Smoltz’s timetable for return?  I thought he might be out at least half the year, which at his age could just mean retirement.

I left off Moose since he just retired (though for all I know it could be a Favre retirement).  Schilling’s another one, if he’s able and decides to pitch he’d be the next guy on the list, along with Oliver Perez.

Not sure on Smoltz.

Where did you get your 2008 stats for the NPB?  I know Kawakami’s stats from going to his NPB page http://bis.npb.or.jp/players/41343886.html but just curious if there was an english version with all players stats out there that I’m not aware of.

I taught myself how to read Japanese just to do projections for their players.

Just kidding.

http://www.japanbaseballdaily.com/DataWarehouse.html

That is one great site.

It’s not updated anymore, but there is a database of NPB stats through 2005, using essentially the same schema as the Baseball Databank:

http://japanesebaseball.com/forum/thread.jsp?forum=17&thread=5709

It’s easy to simply follow the projections. But it’s more fun to go out on a limb, based on your personal observations.

So, I predict that Dempster will provide more value over his contract than any other pitcher on Rally’s list other than CC, over the next 4 years.