Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.

 
My Baseball Prospectus 2003 book just arrived at long last...it's terrific. I've just added a whole bunch of new links to the link column at left...everything on there is really good and is on there both as a resource to you and a cheap attempt to get them to link to here. At some point I'll go through them and give them each more detailed plugs, but for now I'll just say that if you haven't checked them out, they're all worthy investments of your time. If there's a worthy site I've omitted thus far, please let me know about it.

Mets sign Tony Clark to a minor league contract
Minor league contract with the same terms as the ones signed by Jay Bell and David Cone, which are: if he's added to the major league roster, he's due $550,000 over two years with performance-based incentives worth up to an additional $200,000. Sounds good to me. Just as quickly as I criticized the Mets for signing Bell to (potentially) be their third baseman, the prospect of signing Tony Clark and giving him a shot to hit his way into some at bats is a fine move. There's very minimal risk here, as Clark has no bargaining power whatsoever coming off a truly abysmal season in Boston.

The Mets are reportedly serious about starting Clark at AAA, which makes a lot of sense, and potentially using him in corner outfield spots if he proves he can handle it. "We're going to see if there's a role where he can fit in on the club," Mets GM Steve Phillips said. "He's open minded to going to Triple-A if things don't work out. We're going to see if he can be more versatile than just a first base-, DH-type of guy," Phillips said. "We figured with an athlete like that and a no-risk look, it seemed to make sense."

It's easy to forget that Clark was an All-Star as recently as 2001 (even as a token representative), when he hit .287/.374/.481 in 497 plate apperances with the Tigers, good for an OPS+ of 125. He's also slugged over .500 five times in his career, and has posted a career line of .270/.347/.483 over 3510 PAs. Clearly, for this kind of commitment, Clark's worth the Mets' time and could help them quite a bit if he's able to revert to form at all. At age 31 (as he'll be this coming September), it seems unlikely that Clark's lost all his skills, so I'm thinking he'll probably do something for the Mets before this chapter in his career is through.

The question I have is why the Mets think he can play the outfield (he's never done so in his major league career), but we'll see what happens with that. If he can somehow handle leftfield, he'd be that much more valuable to a team like the Mets, again, assuming he can regain some of his pre-2002 offensive form.

Notable articles
Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus on Steve Bechler and heatstroke
Chris Kahrl's latest Transaction Analysis (one of the last freebies, enjoy while you can)
Rob Neyer on Brooks Kieschnick and Adam Dunn
Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus (at espn.com) on Roster Turnover
posted by VZW Watcher at 5:41 PM -