The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball Blog

In the book’s steroids chapter, I worked with one of my favorite Baseball Prospectus guys, Keith Woolner, on the statistical analysis of Bonds seasons that appears in part. Anyway, he’s been hired by the Cleveland Indians. I don’t know if they’re going to use the method in the book to look at players for possible steroid use, but he comes with my full endorsement and I wish my team had hired him.

Some of the best cheating goes on in the preps, where plays intended to create confusion or deceive the target are much more likely to work.

From the Arizona Daily Star

With one out in the fifth, the game tied at 2, and Dorados speedster Zach Tarbet on first base, Ironwood Ridge coach Nick Allen called for the “Rainbow Play.”
Knowing Tarbet’s reputation as an aggressive base runner, the Nighthawks tried something new. The trick play went something like this:
As Tarbet took off from first, Ironwood Ridge ace Zach Morales threw a fastball to catcher Jake Wilhelm. Rather than try to gun down Tarbet, Wilhelm tossed a rainbow-arched pop-up toward second baseman Brandon Collins.
The entire Ironwood Ridge crew — coaches included — screamed “pop fly” and pointed toward the sky, drowning out the CDO voices. Running with his head down, Tarbet tried to read the Ironwood Ridge fielders that were selling and yelling for the phantom fly ball, and he stopped and turned back toward first base.
If Tarbet would have continued toward second, he would have stolen the bag easily.
Instead Collins fielded the throw from Wilhelm, and Tarbet was caught between first and second base and was tagged out.

Check out the full story: they practiced the play just to get that one player out. Sweet stuff.

(h/t to Adam Stein for the suggestion)

Omar Minaya may get into trouble for a conversation he had with Miguel Cabrera.

From the Sun-Sentinel:

While the Mets were taking batting practice and the Marlins were stretching, Mets General Manager Omar Minaya engaged third baseman Miguel Cabrera in about a 10-minute conversation.

What’s interesting to me is that Cabrera’s not a free agent until after 2009 — three seasons down the road. It’s possible that Minaya was making a long-term pitch (”I’ve always been a huge fan, and we’d love to have you here”) trying to get a foot in the door, hoping that if Cabrera does reach free agency, he’ll say “I’d like to make sure we talk to the Mets.

But really? Three years ahead of time? It seems unlikely.

These complaints do get taken seriously, too — Pat Gillick got fined when he made a phone call to John Olerud (by all accounts innocent but which, the story went, might have endeared Olerud to Gillick and made him more likely to sign with the M’s), who later signed with the Mariners. This is amusing because the Mets, subject of this complaint, were the complainers then and the subject of the complaint now.

Still, as unlikely as it was that Minaya was making a super-quick pitch for the Mets as the free-agent destination of choice, if you’re the Marlins, no harm in complaining. The worst case is you protect your players against more threatening conduct by being aggressive.

(hat-tip to Joe Aiello for the Sun-Times link, and everyone else who sent in other articles)