http://www.lvrj.com/sports/harper-stays-focused-86149592.html

Aumont the other night seemed to draw a more mature response than another time when he broke his hand, upset with the way he pitched. 

A few days ago, Rich Dubee talked about Kyle Kendrick being a good situational pitcher (all walks are not equal, and such).  Well, fangraphs directly refuted that the next day.  Here is the upshot:

There is another metric I devised called Situational Wins (i.e., sum of each individual WPA/LI), and it gives a separate equation for each game situation. In short, the very thing that Happ’s pitching coach is (correctly) bringing up as a shortcoming of FIP is being handled with Situational Wins.
The average walk costs a pitcher about .030 wins. That is, a pitcher gives up a walk, and his team’s chances of winning goes down by 30 points. If they had a .560 chance of winning before the walk, it goes down to .530. This is true on average. But, Happ’s pitching coach is saying that Happ is not the average and that his walks are actually issued more often when it least matters. Is this true of Happ?
David was kind enough to send me the Situational Wins for J.A. Happ’s unintentional walks. Of the 54 walks he issued, their average win value was… .030 wins! That is, his walks were NOT situational. His strikeouts tell a similar story, as the win value of Happ’s strikeouts are similar to those of the average pitcher.

I would be surprised if we were really that close numbers wise with him.

“It was kind of strange,” Lee said. “I was willing to negotiate, to work something out. I thought we were in the process of doing that. In the middle of that, I got traded.”
While the Phillies had their sights set on Halladay, Lee’s agent, Darek Braunecker, was beginning a negotiation he hoped would keep Lee in Philadelphia. Along those lines, with Lee enjoying Philly and a year from free agency, Braunecker conceded to Phillies execs that they wouldn’t shoot for a CC Sabathia-type deal, and he didn’t press for an annual salary too far beyond what the Phillies were offering. But with Lee now only one season from free agency, Braunecker did make a case for a deal longer than three years, which he understood might be a question for Phillies people who generally have subscribed to legendary GM Pat Gillick‘s three-year max rule for pitchers, even great ones. Nonetheless, Braunecker said by phone that he still got the impression from the Phillies that they were amenable to such a scenario.

While Amaro was doing his wheeling and dealing, Lee said he assumed he was the only one in negotiation with them. According to Lee and Braunecker, Braunecker received word from Phillies people that they indeed intended to try to sign him, then further word from Phillies people not to believe mounting news reports suggesting Halladay was on the verge of being acquired in a trade that would send Lee 3,000 miles away.
Regardless, at some point Braunecker became convinced the reports were accurate. Yet, he still presented a counteroffer just in case. That counteroffer came just before the initial reports were confirmed to Braunecker and Lee by the Phillies.
“That’s the only thing that bothered me, being misled on the Halladay situation,” Lee said. “But I understand. It’s a business.”
Amaro doesn’t wish to rehash the past. Amaro said, “Cliff Lee is a Mariner. I wish him well and will no longer answer questions about him.”

Please forgive me.  My intention is not to keep going over the Lee situation.  It’s just that this is the most detailed explanation I have read anywhere (especially from the perspective of Lee and his agent), I found it enlightening,  and I thought I’d share it.

(BTW, gotta guess that what Lee and his agent said isn’t too far off the mark, otherwise I’d guess Amaro would want to set the record straight.)

My fear is that he will get a little too much respect and be allowed to remain in the rotation longer than he should were he to continue pitching poorly. 

Not to get too far ahead on this, but I can envision a scenario where we are solid 1 through 4 in the rotation, we have a lead of a few games in the division, and Charlie gives Moyer a lot of leeway as a result. 

He’s making $8 million.

His base salary is $6.5 but…

• 2010 salary increases based on 2009 starts, IP:
  • $0.25M each for 150 IP, 23 starts
    
  • $0.5M each for 160, 170, 180, 190 IP and 25, 27, 29, 31 starts