f13.net

NRI lists for spring training are starting to be announced, which means it is baseball time once again!  :drill:

Biggest question still to be answered: where is Prince Fielder going to land? The rumored front-runner seems to change daily.

Texas seems to  :heart: him.

I hope they sign him to a deal that dwarfs the A-Rod contract...that should take care of them nicely in 3 years when he has to have a hip replaced and they are crippled by his contract.

Tigers sign Prince Fielder for a 9 year deal. I have no idea where he will play the field, but if/when Victor Martinez comes back the tigers lineup is going to give opposing pitchers nightmares.

Cabrera could play 3rd or the outfield (I think he even played SS at one point for the Marlins). Martinez can DH with Fielder at 1B. You'd probably want Fielder at 1B because he's a lot better fielder than those other two and better than his physique would make you think. I'm sad the Cubs didn't go after him, but after Soriano, I'm fine with them not going in for these crazy long contracts. Also, both Pujols and Fielder are now in the AL where they can't hurt my Cubs anymore.

Fielder is a defensive upgrade over Cabrera, who presumably is now the starting DH.

By maybe 1 or two runs a season. They are both godawful defensively. The real question- will the duo get to 600 home runs or 600 pounds first?

9 years is about 2 years too long for sure.

I was thinking 4 years, but 2 years is a certainty.

You're always going to be paying for some years on the back end that aren't as good as the ones at the peak years with deals like this - otherwise someone else who is willing to will sign the player instead of you - but 9 years puts that number of years at around 4 as you say which is more than I would be willing to do personally. Maybe more like 3, I think Fielder will still be pretty good at 33.

Remember the Tigers owner is about 300 years old and wants to win before he kicks off, so their WIN NOW motivation is extremely high.

Huh. Apparently I'm wrong about Fielder. He ranks 21 out of 21 of 1B with a fielding pct. of .990 and had 15 errors (2 more than Cabrera). Good thing he can mash.

He's fat.   :awesome_for_real:

Fat baseball players aren't fat. Only fat women are fat.

(http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/garces.png)

I won't lie, I love fat baseball players. Something about them amuses the shit out of me. Fat pitchers (who have to bat!) are my absolute favorite.

Yeah his defensive numbers are worse than what I had in my head. In any case it means at worst they can rotate Cabrera and Fielder back and forth between 1B and DH, which gives them 'days off' to reduce injury risk etc.

============

My favorite fat pitcher:

(http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pics/rick_reuschel_autograph.jpg)

EDIT:

"Miguel Cabrera told a Venezuelan newspaper that he's moving to third base to accommodate the Detroit Tigers' newest slugger, first baseman Prince Fielder."

Wow that is going to be a really bad infield.

They are talking about playing Cabrera at 3rd and Fielder at 1st. That should prove to be extremely amusing for everyone but Tigers fans. What is the ML record for bunt base hits against? It is getting shattered if those guys take the field together more than 40 or 50 games.

They will have to reserve 4 spots for them on the each week on ESPN's Not Top Ten

Teams bunt in the AL? :awesome_for_real:

Bunt all you want, the Tigs will be busy crushing shit outta the park :) As I Tiger fan I like and dislike this move. A left-handed powerhouse we have needed for a while now. And you can't pitch around two killers in a row.  Us Detroit fans also love the "Fielders". Our infield is going to blow and cost us some games. Luckily we have Verlander, so there are some free wins to counter it.

And 9 years? WTF. I could see a title in the next year or two though.

With Martinez out, do people think this is bad for the team? I know we have one too many 1B but....with DH and injuries and shit, I'm doubting it will be THAT bad.

I don't see it being bad for the team. I do see this team being like the Yankees are - a team that strangles you with the long ball and hopes it can score 5-7 a night. When it doesn't, the team will look ugly. It appears your best defensive infielder is Pheralta, and he's never been known as a glove wizard. Adequate is the best you can probably hope for, TBH.

Here's a name to keep track of this year.

Tyler Pastornicky. New SS for the Braves. Fast kid who put up .365 in AAA and has a solid glove. Could offer some more speed to the Braves lineup in addition to Heyward, Bourne, and Prado.

.365 with no power and a terrible walk rate (and was .299 at AA).

SS isn't a power hitting position, though. Bat over .250 as a rook and don't tank a bunch of double plays. That's the standard.

The terrible walk rate is more concerning. You can't steal first. You're looking, basically, at a guy who will be make or break based on his ability to make contact with breaking balls, because that's all he's going to see. He appears to not strike out much, so that's a positive sign, but I think the odds are good that this guy is going to be a net drag on your offense.

Well this is a shocker.  Oil Can Boyd says that he frequently used cocaine throughout his career (http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/7558201/boston-red-sox-pitcher-oil-boyd-used-cocaine-frequently-career).  I'm absolutely floored by this news.   :oh_i_see:

Ha, yeah I saw that earlier. Oil Can would pretty much be the first guy I would guess.

I would think that you'd have to do cocaine regularly to get a name like "Oil Can".  Cocaine, or maybe shooting up heroin. 

5 days til pitchers and catchers!

Today's big news is the A's of all people signed Yoenis Cespedes. I like the move, he has a tremendous upside and 9 million a year could end up being a steal. He'll probably be rusty this year for a while, so get ready for a lot of OH GOD TERRIBLE hand-wringing from people for the short term.

Braves are looking at their up and comers to replace some of the aging pitching talent we have/had over the past few years.

Julio Teheran got a taste last year, but he's very talented and looks to try for a spot in the rotation this year. He's by far the most likely to get a shot.

Randall Delgado is a 22 year old guy who spot started 7 games in September last year and held an ERA of 2.83. Despite only giving up 7 runs in 5 starts during the Braves collapse, he got ND on all but 1 due to our shitty hitting. He will contend for a starting job, but is less likely to get it with Medlen in the mix.

Arodys Vizcaino came out of the buillpen 17 times last year. With the exception of a horrific game against the Dodgers, he was a very good middle reliever.

I'm anticipating a return of the Braves to the latter part of the Dale Murphy era soon.   :grin:

 :x

I can hope. Unfortunately I'm afraid the Giants may be returning to the Johnny LeMaster days themselves, I am pessimistic about the offense's potential to improve enough to get to 'average' and a major pitching injury is surely going to happen *eventually*. I can't see Vogelsong staying at that level either, and the 5th starter is probably going to be Zito and his 83 mph 'fastball'.

Shouldn't you be a Houston fan? 

I am READY. I am READY FOR BASEBALL for a SECOND SEASON IN A ROW. This is unprecedented!  :why_so_serious:

<high five!>

I might actually go to a game or two.  It's too bad I could give a shit about the Texas teams.

The last game I saw was Houston versus the Marlins.   :ye_gods:

AJ Burnett thinks (http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/4153/aj-burnett) too many people tinkered with his form.

 

This coming from a guy that has had one decent year in his career.  Maybe you're just not a great pitcher, AJ. 

3 decent years. 2002, 2005, and 2008. All 200+ innings with wins on shitty teams and a 4 or less ERA. Also big K numbers.

The other years? Greasefire. Winning 1 out of every 3 starts and pitching with a 5 ERA isn't about people messing with you. That's your stuff not translating to the headcase scenario that is the Yankees.

He was 12-12 in 2005 and 12-9 in 2002.  I don't consider .500 a decent year by any method of looking at it.  I guess I could maybe give you 12-9 as decent, but only because he had 5 shut outs. 

Wins as a pitcher are deceiving when you're on a terrible hitting team. In 2002, he got 11 runs of support during his 9 losses. In 2005, in 7 of his 12 losses, his team scored 2 runs or less.

You judge a pitching on 3 things in my book. ERA, Innings, and WHIP. The wins are almost entirely out of his control.

You should never, ever, ever, EVER look at a pitcher's win-loss record. It is utterly meaningless in every way. Seriously. Stop it.

I am a consumer.  I'll look at it any way I damned well choose!


Well, obviously his opponent did a better job than he did on those days.....  :oh_i_see:

In other news, Giants are telling Buster Posey not to block the plate ever again.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sns-rt-bbo-giants-newssxb5a55a1-20120220,0,7843585.story (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sns-rt-bbo-giants-newssxb5a55a1-20120220,0,7843585.story)

Candyass.  :awesome_for_real:

Good, blocking the plate is retarded from a risk/reward standpoint.

There should be other ways to try and get people out at home. 

Going to have to chime in with the win-loss record for pitchers. Until you hit about 15/16 wins, they are pretty meaningless as a gauge of pitching prowess. Teams that score a fuckton of runs (HI THERE YANKEES!) can have pitchers routinely give up 4, 5 or 6 runs and still win 50% of each starter's games. Pitchers with shit for run support can have ERA's in the 2.00's and have 19 losses. Innings pitched, ERA, runs allowed and SO/BB ratio are big stats in my book.

Burnett's numbers since moving to the AL in 2006 were a good bit higher than his numbers in Florida. The year he won 18 games (2008) his ERA was 4.07, he gave up almost .5 runs per inning, but he was an innings eater. He's been a #3 guy at best, and by now, he's a #4 or #5 at best, probably better suited to the National League. Put him in a place like San Diego and his ERA will drop almost half a run. In a bandbox like Yankee Stadium, he gets clobbered.

But he had the run support in New York.......

I could see your argument if the guy was a complete badass on a good team, but he hasn't been.  He's been mediocre everywhere he's been, except for one year......  :grin:

Watch him on Pittsburgh this year. He'll post a 3.8 ERA with 190 innings and 11 wins.

I'm not sure about the 11 wins, but his ERA will probably hover around 4 something.

Well, last year he had a ERA of 5.  I don't think the move to the NL is going to help him that much. 

See these kinds of statements make me question your baseball knowledge.

For one, the NL scores fewer runs across the board. Two, he's moving from the AL East (most runs by any division), to the NL Central (Worst run differential in the NL). Three, Karstens, Maholm, and Morton all managed to carry less than a 4ERA in a season with the Pirates where they only won 72 games.

He'll be fine. He's not a busted starter just because he couldn't hack it against the best hitters in baseball every start.

He's also very unlikely to have a 17% HR/FB rate again, although he did have a worse one once before.

Is it really a stretch to think that he won't be any good?  He sucked before against lesser competition.  I'm sure he'll find it within himself to suck against lesser competition yet again.

Did he key your car or something? You're really reaching here if your argument is that he sucked in the AL East. Honestly.

It's quite common for average pitchers to move to the NL from the AL and become great. I don't think he'll be great but he should have a better year for sure, unless he regresses quite a bit.

MATT CAIN IS THE WORST PITCHER EVER

My argument is not that he sucked in the AL East.  My argument (which is well supported by his lifetime barely over .500 record) is that he SUCKS (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/burnea.01.shtml).  

Just as an FYI-  his record in the pitcher's heaven of the NL was sub .500.  He had the one good year in 2002, in which he had 5 shut outs, a decent WHIP, etc., but otherwise he was curdled milk. 

Even if you just want to go by ERA, his career mark is 5% better than average when adjusted for league and ballpark.  A roughly average starter that can throw nearly 200 innings has a lot of value to a lot of teams, especially when the old club is paying most of the bill.

He ought to fit in great with the Pirates then.   :oh_i_see:

I am ready to see how our awesome off-season of buying mediocre pitchers and trading away our one decent pitcher is going to translate into an over .500 season.  :sad_panda:    Of course, word is the Angelos the Ever-living is trying to sell the team, which would be great.  Except he's trying to sell the team and keep the television rights, which means nobody with even a shred of business sense is going to even look at the deal.  :cry2:

Burnett pitching for the Pirates in the NL Central absolutely should be able to improve his ERA by a whole run. Think about the NL Central for a moment. No more Albert Pujols, no more Prince Fielder. Milwaukee's next best power guy is Ryan Braun - who is about to serve a 50-game suspension for steroid use. The Cubs hitting is atrocious now that Ramirez is gone - they don't have a true #4 hitter (and their #3 may be Castro who isn't a power guy). Houston is fucking awful and not likely to scare anyone with anything. Cincy and the Brewers are the best hitting teams left in the division and Votto is coming off solid but unspectacular year.

Compare that to the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays as your division opponents and there's no contest. He'll be better. He won't be great but barring injury, I don't think he'll suck. The NL Central is neck in neck with the NL West as some of the worst hitting teams in baseball.

Let's not say things we can't take back. The NL West will always be where hitting goes to die.

All right-  gambling for bragging rights.  I say he sucks this year.  Winner to be decided in September, because the Pirates aren't going anywhere soon.

Unbold prediction - the Pirates will be better than both the Cubs and the Astros this year.  :awesome_for_real:

Define your terms. I want exactly numbers so I can dispute your W/L bullshit as "sucks"  :grin:

Eh, while the Cardinals will surely miss Pujols' bat, for at least this year, a heart of the order that includes Holliday, Berkman, and Beltran is nothing to sneeze at.  The question is whether Berkman and Beltran will decline, and if so, to what extent.  The projections out there have them holding up pretty well this year though.  Molina and Allen Craig have some nice pop as well.

I wouldn't discount the Cardinals' hitting too much based only on the absence of Pujols.  I'm actually pretty optimistic about the Cards' chances this year, which is somewhat unexpected given Pujols' departure.  It helps that Wainwright is back.

Beltran and Berkman will miss a combined 100 games this year, is my bet. One or both of them is due to get hurt for an extended period.

What Paelos said. Berkman's last year was a bit of an outlier. He won't be bad, but he and Beltran together MIGHT make up for the lost Pujols production - but that won't replace Berkman's production. One of those young kids is going to have to come on bigger than expected. Holliday is also due an injury.

But it's the NL Central and it will be a black hole of sadness this year. Nobody in that division is a clear frontrunner - Cincy, Milwaukee and St. Louis will fight for that division with the other 3 sucking hind tit. It only remains to be seen how bad the other 3 really are.

My copy of Prospectus is here!  :yahoo:

If Cincy can get decent pitching I like their chances in the Central. Brewers look to have the best staff, but I don't know if they'll hit enough. Cardinals are probably going to be too hurt to win it, but if they get full seasons from all those old hitters all bets are off.

Just looking at the NL Central teams projected lineups is  :uhrr: enducing. How did the Central become the dumping ground for over-the-hill and underachieving hitters? The Brewers look to have the best hitting along with the Reds, but it's best among worst. With Braun missing and Ramirez a typical slow starter (wait until about June before he starts hitting homers), that team is going to struggle early. I expect the Berkman and Beltran to each have about 20 HR's at best, scattered all over the season. But as usual, the division will be up for grabs.

Latest dispatch from Team Dysfunctional- Chone Figgins will be batting leadoff, and Ichiro will be batting 3rd. Jesus fucking wept.

That would have been great... 3 years ago. Figgins isn't even cracking .300 anymore is he?

BP projects him at .255/.335/.306. So decent walk rate and basically nothing else.

EDIT: And I'm up to the chapter on Baltimore. WHO THE HELL ARE ALL THESE TERRIBLE PLAYERS.

It's all part of Duquette's awesome master plan to sink the team even further to hopefully depress the price so Angelos will finally be forced to sell.  Seriously, it's so god damn terrible this year. 

They should change the Oriole mascot to Fatbird.

It seems like it has been the dumping ground since the days of Tom Seaver going to the Reds.  In the past it has seemed to work, however, with guys like Buddy Bell and Bo Diaz heading to the Reds and giving them a nice boost.  Free agency has really been a game changer for the smaller markets as more money has been thrown around. 

Braun won his appeal, Brewers are looking much better now that they don't have to miss out on him for 50 games.

News story is a bit vague. Does that mean he won't miss any time? If so, the Brewers just moved to my top of the NL Central list.

Wow.  That's pretty amazing.  Has anyone ever won a drug appeal in any sport?  I can't recall one, and I know he's the first for baseball.

I can't think of any either. Must have been some pretty convincing evidence of a false positive I guess.

Hopefully the evidence will be shown or at least discussed.  I like Braun, and it makes me feel good to think he was innocent.

That stuff is almost certainly going to be under a confidentiality agreement, I doubt we'll see anything.

EDIT More detail now: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7608360/ryan-braun-wins-appeal-50-game-suspension

So he actually did cheat, but because the guy didn't drop the pee in a FedEx box that night, he gets off?  :why_so_serious:

(http://talentgenius.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/brilliant-300x225.jpg)

It all sounds pretty shady. On the other hand, this is the exact sort of situation where "anonymous sources" might have a particular agenda of one sort or another. For me it all boils down to "who the fuck knows what happened at this point."

EDIT 2: Some pro-Braun opinion to go with the other stuff: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/18159/a-big-win-for-ryan-braun

EDIT: In other news, I find it pretty amazing that Roy Oswalt still hasn't signed anywhere. There are craploads of teams where he'd be an upgrade, he must be asking for something fairly ridiculous salary-wise.

The more I hear about the Braun stuff, the more I'm hearing that he got off on a technicality. The idiot who was supposed to FedEx the sample took it home instead of getting it to FedEx immediately, so MLB can't properly document that it COULDN'T have been tampered with. Nothing saying he was innocent, just that MLB can't properly prove he was guilty because they (or likely their contracted 3rd party) did not follow proper procedure. In other words, someone probably lost their job so a millionaire cheat could play ball.

He's on the radar now, suspension or not. Watch his numbers go into the toilet. That's always the best revenge, imo.

I'll take it at face value.  He got off for whatever reason, and is therefore exonerated completely.  It is my understanding that it is almost impossible to win an appeal, so here you have it.  Now let's play some baseball.

I love looking at baseball stats.  Justin Verlander is damned good.   :oh_i_see:

Hal Steinbrenner plans on lowering the Yankees Payroll to $189 million or less (http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/7633938/new-york-yankees-hal-steinbrenner-plans-lower-team-payroll). 


I'm not sure how I feel about this.  I really like the Yankees being the "big bad guys" of baseball.  What I like best about it is that they don't always win, even with the bloated payroll.  It makes the game more interesting, in my opinion.  That will also require them to get rid of several of their big stars.  I wonder who will be on the cutting block?


Who out of these guys will they get rid of? 

Jeter in 2014 is just an option, I have to imagine he'll be done by then. That's only 8 million though and it *is* a player option so you never know.

These guys always like to hold on until they're a million years old.  I bet he picks it up.  

I would personally be looking at unloading A Rod, if I were in charge.  He's getting old and he's not much of a gamer.  He's like Lebron, soft when it matters. 

Career post-season numbers: .277/.386/.498

As a SS/3B. Those are star numbers any way you slice it. They're lower than his career slash numbers, sure (.302/.386/.567), but we're only talking about a 300 PA sample size.

The Yankees will not be able to unload A-Rod without eating a good chunk of his contract. He's just paid too damn much no matter what his numbers are. He's also not really regarded as a Post-season clutch kind of guy, even though his numbers are decent.

So long as Sabathia can pitch 160+ innings and post an ERA under 4, he'll have a job because pitching is just that thin all around the majors these days.

Well that's the point, really-  for that kind of money he should be Reggie Jackson on steroids  :grin:

Jackson's career postseason slash: .278/.358/.527. And he played at a less valuable defensive position where it is much easier to get good production.  :grin:

The thing about Reggie is that his WS numbers are amazing, but he was WRETCHEDLY BAD in the ALCS. Almost like all that stuff about clutch hitting is just a myth!

Won't someone think of the narratives?

Quit fucking with my childhood.   :oh_i_see:

ho ho ho

2 more wild card teams and the one-game play-in are officially official.

Sweet.  More MLB playoffs.   :oh_i_see:

By a whole 2 games!

I would have been happier if they just made the divisional series 7 games instead of 5. I hate that 5 game rule in the first round.

Does this means the Jays have a shot in hell of anything yet?

Yes, now they only have to beat 1 out of the 3 ridiculous teams in their division!

2 games that won't get watched.  I don't know why they don't shave about 60-80 games off the regular season and just expand the playoffs to half the teams. 

If you think people won't watch a 1 game playoff, you don't really understand what motivates the sports watching public. People watch the games where something is decided. That's why game 7's get the biggest ratings.

I just don't think people will really give a shit about the lowest seeded teams playing each other in what sounds like a play in game. 

Depends on what you mean by "give a shit." Pull NFL numbers? Of course not, nothing else does. Pull at least a 6 rating? Yeah I think it can do that. That's more than giving a shit in my book.

Well, I'm sure it will pull better numbers than late July or August regular season games.  Hence why I think they should drop the regular season games if they are going to expand the post-season.

That's a totally different issue.

No.  Not really. 

Dropping regular season games has nothing to do with the post-season. They are separate issues, with some minor overlap.

I've wanted to drop regular season games rather than add on playoff games. I think they should drop regular season games for reasons totally unrelated to the playoffs, like grind, timing relating to football, and general malaise of the fanbase.

I agree with that, but I don't think that you can add post-season games to baseball very easily without dropping some regular season games.  So they aren't completely unrelated issues.

It is one game per team. Should they make the regular season 161 games now?

I think that would be peachy.  Anything to decrease the morass of hot shit that is late July/August baseball.

Yes, that ~.4% decrease should really make a huge difference.  :facepalm:

Not to mention that July/August are probably the last games that would ever be removed.

I'm all for cutting as much or as little of the regular season as possible.  Eighty-ish games would be ideal, in my opinion, but to even cut one game is a big deal because it means they would even consider it. 

Why do you want to ruin baseball? 80 games would be awful. There should be 200 regular season games.

That would not ruin baseball. 

It would ruin EVERYTHING. 80 games is hardly enough to even get warmed up. It would screw with all the beauty of the statistics and career numbers and such too.

You'd also halve the revenue every team pulls in, therefore driving ticket prices up and depriving little children of their chance to go to a baseball game because now their parents can't afford those $16 bleacher seats. Way to go, child-hater.

Maybe we should just line them up and shoot them.   :grin:

There will never be a contraction of the regular season because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Period.

That's plainly obvious.  I can hope, however.  The only compelling reason I can see for having a longer season is what Ingmar described.  I really don't hate children.   :awesome_for_real:

I like the season as it stands for the most part. I don't like September because it loses too much to football. I'd be fine starting the season right now.

Interesting:  Lenny Dykstra gets three years in the California Pen for car theft (http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/7648923/former-new-york-met-lenny-dykstra-sentenced-3-years-prison). 

Looks like Nails is going to get nailed.   :grin:

That guy always did seem like a douche.

He really did.  That whole Phillies team that he was on rubbed me the wrong way. 

Kruk seemed likeable/human enough. Probably mostly because of his reaction to Randy Johnson throwing at his head.

I do like John Kruk, but he was a bit of a redneck douche as well.

Yea, it's the same way in Hockey, and Hockey really could and should go back down to 40-50 games a seasons. It's never happening because that's just way to much revenue to let go of.



Ingmar, I expect you to keep me UPDATED on the Jays.

Which made the Jays World Series win over them in'93 even sweeter.  Not as sweet as the one in '92 against Atlanta with that stupid as fuck tomahawk chop and having to see Jane Fucking Fonda and Ted Turner every 5 mins, but sweet nontheless.  The best moment from the 93' WS was during the celebration ceremony they had in the Skydome a fews after when Todd Stottlemyre told the mayor of Philly to kiss his ass because the mayor made statements to the effect that Stottlemyre was so bad even he could get a hit off him. :awesome_for_real:

I'm sure I've said it before, but I was almost surprised just how naturally hating the Phillies came to me. Like I know if I root for the SF Giants, I have to hate the Dodgers, boo hiss Dodgers, but it's not real hate yet. Not real, good sports hate, like how I hate the Eagles (and the Cowboys to a lesser degree). I also don't hate the Yankees at all, because whatever, Yankees. My indifference probably burns them more than any hate would.

But the Phillies? Fuck do I hate the Phillies.

That's because Phillies fans and Red Sox fans have gone beyond insufferable assholes since they started winning.

To be fair, the Phillies's fans have always been insufferable a-holes since forever. Actually, all Philly sports fans, regardless of the sports. Just wretched cockgobblers the lot.

Just stare at this picture for 5 minutes a day if you need work on your Dodger hating skills:

I think the regular season should be shortened. Not to some ridiculous amount like 60 or 80 games, but to ~140. And end it on the last day of August. Reserve September for playoffs. More doubleheaders too, please.

And regarding playoffs, I believe the field should be expanded, and the series extended to best of 9 (like original World Series). Best of seven made sense in a baseball world with 3-4 man rotations and just a few relievers but not in this age of modern baseball.

Starting in September would take some thunder away from NFL and college football as there would be no meaningless September games as 95% of MLB fans even turn their gaze away. Best of nine series would distinguish baseball as the most arduous championship journey.

Finally, it is simply unconscionable for world series games to be played in November, or even in the waning weeks of October.

I think you guys are crazy.  Baseball works fine the way it is.  Long seasons are fundamental to the sport, and a 60-80 game season would destroy the sport and make it un-watchable.  I'm also a fan of the restrictive playoffs.  Fuck sports that let half the teams into playoffs.  It means your playoffs are a god damn joke.  That’s primarily why I'm still not happy about this stupid 2nd wildcard bs.

Also, I'm not really understanding the football gripe.  Why is it important not to compete with NFL in September?  Anybody who gives a shit still follows baseball during that time regardless (as a matter of fact, its probably the time they watch it the most, as playoff races start coming to a head).  It’s not like people can’t follow two sports at once.

Err, why?

The NFL dominates all. To ignore it is silly. Football has taken over as the sport of choice, so going head to head with it at your most important time is downright stupid.

How?  Everybody is still excited and watching baseball in September (if their team actually has a chance).  What do they lose by playing in September?  The nice thing about football is that your team only plays once a week, leaving the other 6 days for fans to rabidly watch/attend the playoff race.  Your not going head to had with it.

Look, I'm not saying you can't. I would just like the ratings to be higher. I think football steals people's awareness. You need national eyeballs for the playoffs, not just the home towns involved.

Because baseball games in sub fifty degree weather is criminal.

Given the current baseball playoff setup, most teams are eliminated by September. So, I'd say that 80-90% of baseball fans divert their attention to football. Not totally, but enough do that it swipes away the limelight of baseball season climax. In both television ratings and attendance. However, we all know "playoffs" ups the ante, and all of a sudden, meaningful baseball games with live-or-die consequences trump early season football games.

Now, baseball took a half-hearted step to expanded playoffs when it added a wildcard. But it was the worst of both worlds as it did not expand the field significantly and moreover, watered down the divisional races. The race for 2nd amongst 14-16 teams is always going to be more competitive than 1st in a 4-5 team division. Also, when I was a kid, and finishing first meant everything, it meant that finishing 2nd or 3rd or 4th was still important too, as you knew only one team in a division captured a playoff berth. I know that most reject this sensibility, but it is borne out by ratings, attendance. I distinctly remember packed parks in September, if for no other reason to finish ahead of a division rival. Wild card spiked that notion. 

That stated, is why I would go the full route and expand playoffs like hockey & basketball, extend series to best of nine and steal away thunder from NFL and NCAAF that saps away 80-90% of American sports fan attention come September.

Disagree.

Lets do this, teach me to cheer for the BlueJays.

Which teams do I hate now, who are the enemies. Who is the player I think is awesome and why. How many touchdowns do they need to shoot before they are good?

You hate the Yankees, and also the Red Sox. Your best player is Jose Bautista, and you like him because he can hit home runs. The teams do not shoot touchdowns, they score runs. You need to score more runs than the other guys in nine innings, unless the game is tied, and then it's for however many innings it takes until the tie is broken.

You realize that as a Blue Jays fan, your entire self-worth is wrapped up in the 1990s. You likely still listen Bryan Adams, Ace of Base, and Hootie & the Blowfish. Joe Carter is the only famous player that anyone outside of your fanbase recognizes, and it will drive you nuts. You hate Roger Clemens and hope he rots in prison.

The 90's is a marked improvement from the 60's  :why_so_serious:

You should also hate the Phillies, because fuck those guys.

Something we can all agree on.  :awesome_for_real:

Apparently they are playing regular season games in Japan? Glad they told us all about it.  :oh_i_see:

Way to go MLB. Keep fucking up opening day even more.

Yeah I dunno what is up with the fake Opening Day games-that-count thing in Japan, really weird. They play 2 games that count, and then go back to regular spring training.

wat

Pretty much. It's in Japan, but it's not opening day, even though it's regular season, which hasn't started yet.  :ye_gods:

Those used to be exhibition games, but they have to count for something, which apparently makes them better according to MLB (see: ASG).

I don't really mind it, but it's definitely weird.

I'm not entirely comfortable with having OPENING FUCKING DAY in Japan.

Wow, I peak my head in to the hated baseball thread and actually found something entertaining, well done. Pretty accurate overall.

I'll add, that if you are a bit older Jays fan, you will also be the only baseball fans that think Tom Henke was the greatest closer in history.

As for current - the big thing Jays fans are excited about is Brett Lawrie. Rookie from BC, he hit .293 with 9 homers in 161 at bats last year.

Haven't they been doing this for a long time now?  Did something change?

I noticed it?  :awesome_for_real:

Cain locked in for 5 years. Now if only we had a middle infield. I'd whine about CF but the Gary Brown era starts next year.

GO TRIBE!! (see you in the MLB 2013 thread)  :oh_i_see:

I am lead to believe having a shortstop you don't feel happy about is a tradition for you. Why do you hate tradition? I assume you hate 2B because the good(ish?) one is extremely breakable (and currently still broken, right?).

I put Sanchez at even odds to not play this year, he's his a 'plateau' in his recovery which means who the hell knows how long til he can play, and then he'll probably immediately hurt himself again. That leaves:

Ryan Theriot (because we have to have a shitty utility infielder with a name ending in -ot apparently)
Emmanuel Burriss (who has 651 plate appearances in his major-league career, and a MASSIVE *14* extra base hits, and he doesn't have a great walk rate to go with the fact that he has about as much power as me, but at least he's pretty fast)
Brett Pill (ha ha ... no)

What is baffling to me is they cut Mike Fontenot who was the 'best' of a bunch of bad options there. A platoon of him and Theriot would have been nearly passable since they had complementary platoon splits. Well not baffling, the problem is Burriss has been smacking the shit out of the ball and causing Giants executives to forget what the words 'small sample size' mean.

Rich Aurilia was decent enough for a while.

That was almost worse, since that one totally awesome year meant he hung around for years being terrible and everyone just hoped it would happen again. Then he went to Cincy, had his 2nd best year, so we brought him back to suck some more! Of course by then he was crapping things up at 1B and 3B, which are even worse places to hit badly.

That was a really awesome one year though.

See?  :oh_i_see:

Could be worse. We replaced our defensively awesome SS with a punk kid that assumed he would make the roster as a given, so he hit .221 in spring. Oh and our RF struck out the most of any outfielder.

I have a feeling our hitting will continue to suck.

I root for the Cubs. I win at losing.  :oh_i_see:

Bright side. Castro is a good SS, Mather will be a solid OF for average, and Soriano is still your best player (which means you hope he hits better this year).

Your biggest problem is probably your Catcher, as Soto is too young to suck that hard hitting the ball. When your catcher hits before .230 on the year, with 124 Ks, that's atrocious. Second biggest concern is probably your starting pitching. Samarja will be fine and I like him as a starter, as will Garza and Maholm. Dempster is old as dirt, and I don't think Wells has the stuff to be a starter in the Majors on any other team as a righty. You dumped the greasefire that is Zambrano, and have some dude named Lopez who has been passed around AAA more than a $10 hooker.

So I'm guessing the rotation is Garza, Dempster, Maholm, Samarzja, Wells? Oh I forgot you picked up Volstad. He sucks.

Amateur...

Wells is going to the bullpen. He imploded last year. Cubs' rotation is Dempster, Garza, Maholm, Volstad and Samardzija. Yeah, not a lot of quality arms left there. Dempster never gets run support and he's winding down on a career that has been marred by injury. I suspect he's one rotator cuff away from going back to the bullpen for the last 2-3 years of his career. The bullpen is going to be a horror show. Marmol is still awesome but he blew a lot of saves last year and isn't lights out as you'd expect. Kerry Wood is old as dirt and just as crumbly. Sean Marshall is gone and I still can't figure out why - he was our best pitcher last year, bar none. Mahlom couldn't even hang around the PIRATES - which will probably be a better team than the Cubs this year.

Hitting is going to be fucking nightmare. Soriana is our best hitter - and he's probably going to hover around .260 with about 20 homers. His steals are gone. Marlon Byrd is trade bait and has never lived up to the contract. Dejesus could be good, but the expectations that will likely be placed on him will not be met. Castro and Barney are an exciting 2-3 combo, but I'm not sure Castro is ready for the 3 hole yet, especially with a 29-year old rookie first basemen hitting behind him. Our 3rd baseman is the walking wounded that I still can't figure out why we traded for. There are some potential studs in the farm system (1B Rizzo, CF Brett Jackson) but the holes are bigger than they could hope to be. Soto is a good catcher who can hit, but playing catcher is going to ensure he doesn't hit and is constantly fighting injury.

Soto had a down year last year but he doesn't suck. Look past the low average, his walk rate is pretty good and he hits for power. A career .800 OPS at catcher is nothing to complain about. I'd guess he'll come in as the 3rd or 4th best hitter on the team when all is said and done. Soriano will not, he is old and terrible and way too expensive. I don't even know why you mention Mather, dude is like the 5th outfielder on that team and he can't hit a lick.

The big problem for the Cubs, besides Soriano and his contract, is that at every infield position other than shortstop looks like it will be below average, in some cases well below average (first base.) Byrd and DeJesus will be the other starting OF and will both be OK-not-great.

I mention Mather because he made the team, hit well in Spring, and has the potential to earn a spot when the Cubs inevitably trade Byrd for an arm. I also think he's a good player having seen him on the Braves last year, but we didn't have a spot for him with the Bourne trade. As for Soto? His career goes good-bad-good-bad in terms of hitting. So you would hope he has a good year. My main problem is that 1 - he strikes out 1/4 ABs, and 2 - his walk/K rate sucks for a guy that should know the strike zone better than anyone.Example, I would rather have Chris Ianneta who sports a similar average, but is much smarter at the dish.

Walk/K rate isn't something I really put a lot of value in - walk/plate appearance is more important and he's pretty solid there. An out is an out, Ks are a bit overrated in terms of how bad their impact is compared to other outs.

EDIT: On Ianetta, he's got a great eye, there's no question, but I think his lack of power is going to hurt a lot, Coors Field is masking a pretty limp bat in his career numbers.

Pirates have estimated payroll of $40M. In past seasons, they were in the bottom pool with Royals, Padres, and recently Devil Rays… …but now those clubs are sporting 55M+.

We'll have to disagree on K's then. I think they are an indicator of a player who is making unproductive outs. An out isn't always an out when it's moving runners.

They're a little worse than a regular out, sure. On the other hand, it is pretty hard to start a double play by striking out.

The question is, is a guy striking out because he's just swinging at everything, or because he takes a lot of pitches (necessary to draw a lot of walks). The former is clearly bad, the latter is usually not a bad thing.

EDIT: And yes, that's sort of what walk/K rate describes, except I'd rather just look at the raw walk total. A guy who strikes out 120 times vs. 60 walks is way more valuable than a guy who only strikes out 60 times but draws 30 walks (assuming similar PA totals). The walks are what really matter.

Raw walks ignores the plate discipline factor that K/BB rate gives you when evaluating a player.

Plus, and here's the kicker when I'm evaluating a player at any position, you have to look at their ranking in categories compared to the rest of the league.

In the case of Soto, he struck out the most of any catcher in the NL for 2011. The worst part is it wasn't a close race, as only two catchers in the majors had over 100 K's on the year, him and John Buck out of Florida. Compare that to a catcher that made the playoffs like Arizona's Montero, who struck out 99 times, but had the walks and RBI's to back it up.

You said RBIs; your argument is invalid.  :grin:

More seriously, the only real difference between Montero and Soto last year is Montero was luckier on balls in play falling for hits. Soto drew slightly more walks per appearance than Montero did, hit more home runs per appearance, etc.

Luckier in balls falling for hits???

 :ye_gods:

You may not be ready yet to join the inner circle and embrace BABIP.  :why_so_serious:

I will fully admit that I think most of Sabermetrics is happy horseshit.

Also I still believe in RBIs.

Basically the gist is a hitter has very little actual control over what happens to a ball once it is in play (if it stays in the park). So if you for example see some dude hit .280, .275, then suddenly spike up to .320 one year odds are he didn't actually do much different, he just got luckier with where the balls were landing, and he's likely to regress back to something more like his normal numbers the next season. You can often predict this by looking at a hitter's BABIP (batting average on balls in play) which you can find pretty much anywhere that lists advanced batting stats (baseball-reference for example.)

I understand the principle behind their analysis, but I also believe that anyone who understands that balls in play is important would also DESPISE strikeouts like I do.

I think it is just more an acceptance that a particular type of hitter - high walk, high power, basically the most generally desirable sort of hitter overall - is just naturally going to strike out a lot, and that is OK. If you look at the top 50 for career strikeouts, it is loaded with great hitters.

Oh well yeah if you produce. But then we're back to the RBI stuff again.

No, bad monkey. RBIs happen when the guy in front of you produces. Weak grounders to first and deep flies that score people are not 'producing' no matter how much Skip Caray drools over it.

====

In other news, I am reasonably happy with the Giants 25 man roster, although we have to carry 12 pitchers to accomodate the 2 inning starts we're going to get from Zito.  :oh_i_see:

But Belt is starting at 1B in the bigs, and we didn't put EITHER of our crap hitting catcher options on the 25, instead opting to let Hector Sanchez play, so I am pretty pleased. Gregor Blanco will take Angel Pagan's CF job by June, and I hope Aubrey Huff isn't too completely embarrassing as the starting LF.

So you only produce if you put the ball in play, but you don't produce if you get unlucky, but you are producing if you get lucky by putting it play even if nobody is on base, but you aren't producing based on average, but you are producing...

You know what, it's just easier not to bother with this nonsense. I want guys with good OBP in the 1-2 slot, guys with good RBIs in the 3 and 4 slot, contact guys in the 5-6 slot, and guys who don't rap into double plays in the 7-8 slot.

RBI, just like Wins and ERA, are dependent on context.  A hitter with good offensive guys in front of him will get a lot of RBI.  The same hitter on a team with crappy players in front of him will get lot fewer RBI.  Luck is another layer of context which is why stats like BABIP and HR/FB are important.

We want to understand a player's true talent level when evaluating them which means stripping out context-sensitive information where possible and contextualizing it when we can't.  Signing a free agent pitcher doesn't bring their amazing defense or cavernous park with them, just like signing a hitter doesn't bring the rest of the lineup with them.

See, my problem is I don't want the best talent. I want the best situational hitter.

I suppose I should come up with something to be optimistic for the O's this season, but since our free agent moves were cheap castoffs from other teams (and the occasional getting banned from South Korea because our front office is run by someone who hasn't been in baseball for a decade), not a whole lot to be optimistic about - hell, .500 even looks pretty difficult to reach right now with this team.

Isn't Yahoo running a story about the O's getting beat by a community college team?

Yep. Going to be a great season.   :uhrr:

.500 is wildly optimistic for the Orioles. The team is that bad.

It really is.  Sad thing is that I know I'm going to still go to a few games this season and I'll be watching tomorrow afternoon from home.

You actually go to baseball games to watch baseball?  :why_so_serious:

That's not sad. I did the same thing with the Braves in the late 80s. We didn't have a winning season from 1984-1990.

Granted your problem is your ownership doesn't care and you're in the toughest division in baseball.

Just curious, what do you guys think of the Tigers this year? I hear a lot of biased opinion being from the Detroit area...I am thinking a strong run, personally!

Since the rest of the AL Central is kind of a shambles, it's Detroit's division to lose. They certainly have the best team on paper, most hitting, most pitching and unlike last year, they actually have an exciting team. Whether they can stand up to the Rangers/Rays/Yankees/Red Sox/Angels, who knows?

I'm not sure I love the Prince Fielder acquisition, but we'll see. The White Sox are pretty much standing pat in the offseason, so I don't think they are a threat. I like what Cleveland has been doing by picking up Sizemore and Kotchman to fill some gaps, so I think they are honestly going to be the main contender for Detroit this year. If I'm ranking their chances, I'd say:

Detroit 90-95 wins
Cleveland 86-91 wins
Sox 80-85 wins
Twins 78-83 wins
KC 65-70 wins

In other exciting news, there's apparently a bit of protest going on since there's Opening Day games on Good Friday.  The upside though is we get awesome bits like this -

According to the Bible, Jesus spends six hours on the cross from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Jake Arrieta’s first pitch is scheduled for 3:05 p.m.

http://northbaltimore.patch.com/articles/archdiocese-unhappy-about-good-friday-baseball

Tigers are on my short list of World Series contenders.

My Braves are still swining wet noodles over 4 months later.

I still hate Jason Heyward's guts.  :oh_i_see:

And my short list for most hilarious infield defense blooper videos.

A couple things I've read have expressed surprise at Cabrera not being *completely* hopeless at 3B in the spring!

Well, his first highlight of the season (http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=20387791&c_id=mlb) could have been much worse, so there's that.

"Not often you get a standing ovation for catching a popup."  :why_so_serious:

Wow, the Cubs blew their first game in true Cub fashion. Score 1 run, find your 8th inning setup guy completely unable to get 1 GODDAMN OUT before the tying run scores, ruining your Opening Day starter's 7.2 innings shutout before losing it with your closer in the ninth.

Going to be a long goddamn year.

I lol'd:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125901/The-worst-baseball-cards-history.html

Minton and Henke look like dorks in all their cards, really. I'm surprised they left off Vance Law for the dorky glasses trifecta.

*ahem*

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/gameflash/2012/04/05/40489_recap.html?sct=hp_t2_a13&eref=sihp

The Orioles are winning!  :awesome_for_real:

I know! People are getting as one person called it - Ravens drunk right now.  That was a really nice game pitched by Arrieta, and nice to see we're not fucking around with Gregg as a closer so he could finish the bullpen implosion which tried to hand the game back to the Twins. 

Congrats on being above .500!

Man, what a shitty game by Lincecum. On the other hand, the Giants had 11 hits! They scored FOUR runs! That shit is crazy!

I saw that game and thought, "Man, how often to the Giants lose a game with Lincecum pitching where they score 4 runs?"

Tim has had trouble locating his fastball all spring, he'll probably settle down eventually.

Perfect Record Bitches!

If these trends continue /discostu


 :why_so_serious:

The Giants and Braves are having issues!   :oh_i_see:

I'm not too worried yet, the offense has actually been OK, and if anyone is likely to settle down it is our starting pitchers.

Even if the Jays don't make the playoffs, its going to be fun watching Brett Lawrie this year.  That guy is non-stop hustle and looks excited to be in the majors even when he's in the dugout.  My new favourite MLB player. :heart:

God this team - seriously, a no-no into the 8th?  Thankfully, the Yankees up next will hopefully serve as a reality check for the O's, so we can get that pesky hope thing out of the way.  :why_so_serious:

Tigs sweep the Red Sox, crazy ass game (13-12 in 11 innings) at Coamerica Park!

Giants ><

Wow... the Tribe actually played a 9 inning game, and won.  :why_so_serious:

The Braves don't have a team yet. Our pitching has been poor at best.

why am I still listening to the Giants games whyyyyyyyyy

Cubs blow their first two games late with their setup man and closer shitting the bed, then Samardzija takes a 4-1 lead 2 outs into the 8th before walking one then giving up a homer. Marmol comes in and almost blows another save, but finally closes it out.

Fuck me, it's going to be a long season. Lose 2 out of 3 to the Nats in the bullpen before going on to probably get blown the fuck out by the real teams.

 :drill: :drill: :drill: -  :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

And now we get a Zito start
  :why_so_serious:

Well if we have bizarro versions of all our starters, clearly Zito is going to own everyone!

I think yall have a solid chance to win tonight!

 :-o

Jesus Christ what is going on I don't understand have I fallen into an alternate dimension

Will wonders never cease?  Barry Zito complete game 4 hit shutout.  At Coors!

And Tulo and CarGo weren't out with ebola or anything.

Also this happened, which was delightful:

(http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c399/jencheng/iloveuzito.png)


That right there is why I heart pitchers batting, because it makes shit like that EXTRA HILARIOUS.

Hey Haemish. Now I know what it's like to be a fan of the worst team in the NL!  :oh_i_see:

No, no, wait about 100 years. Then you'll know.  :awesome_for_real:

Barry Zito is #6 on the ESPN Player Rater for starting pitchers right now.  :awesome_for_real:

He should totally retire. RIGHT NOW.

GO OUT ON TOP or #6, whatever BARRY

BRAVES WIN BRAVES WIN BRAVES WIN!

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f4/The_Scream.jpg/220px-The_Scream.jpg)

Why does Tim suuuuuuuck?

Well hello there 4th inning.

Fuck fuck FUCK

Welcome to the Rockies!  :awesome_for_real:

You can still easily win that game.

Also I have decided I hate Tulowitzki. In case people were keeping track.

He is on my list with David Wright and Shane Victorino.

EDIT: Well you probably won't win if you give up 20 runs.

Fuck baseball!

I'm going to go get some more scotch.

I'm sure it will still be the 5th inning when I get back.

Not that it really matters since we fucked up about 20 times on that play, but that 3rd base tag call at the end of it all was BS, he was out.

ESPN stopped updating the game. Did they break the scoreboard?

They're probably trying to figure out how to score that fucking abortion of a run-down and just how many errors to hand out to the fucking Giants. I think Pill gets two AT LEAST.

I loved Miller's call of it. He clearly could not believe that was actually fucking happening. <3

Trying to decide which I hate more right now about the O's. The bullpen or the lack of clutch hitting.    Having two nights of free baseball because you can't hit a fucking single is getting old fast.

From my experience with the Giants last season, you should definitely hate the lack of hitting. It is agonizing!


And apparently from my experience with the Giants THIS season, you should hate the shitty pitching more. It is agonizing!

Braves play the Brewers this weekend.

When I go on Sunday I'm bringing this sign, "When you absolutely, positively, get off on a technicality? Trust FEDEX."

You really are into self-abuse if you're still a Cubs fan.  Cheer for the White Sox like sane Chicago fans do.

Eww.  :uhrr:

Actually, I have cheered for the Sox when they are good, but I don't have the built in nostalgia factor of Harry Carey with the Sox that I do with the Cubs.

Matt Cain is pretty good.

Welp, we went from getting shut out by the Mets to winning 10-8 against the Brewers. HERRO OFFENSE!

Sucks about Wilson's arm. Heard that on the radio this morning.  :heartbreak:

Yeah, it's too bad. I expect Romo to shave off his beard now, he'll look kind of goofy as the secondary beardo without Wilson around.

The good news is, our bullpen depth is pretty good and Heath Hembree and his 97 mph fastball (13+ K/9) are tuning up in Fresno.

Matt Cain is pretty good.

(again  :heart:)

Yeah, we're starting to come back to reality again after a rocky start.  Matt Cain pitches well, and gets no run support!

Aw, that means good Barry Zito is going to disappear again.  :heartbreak:

Just in case you needed another reason to think that the Marlins suck:  Marlins Home Run feature (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0H9VthNLh8&feature=share). 

This is a trainwreck.

 :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods: :ye_gods:

Needs little red X's on the moving stuff and a lucky fan should be picked out to participate to play with that shooting gallery.  :why_so_serious:

It's without a doubt the worst thing to happen to baseball since Shea Stadium.

Whoever designed and approved that thing should be fucking fired.

I could only make it through a minute of that.  Not a big incentive for season ticket holders.  All 5 of them.

This (http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/4/15/2951051/marlins-home-run-feature-set-off) take on it kinda amused me. But yeah, that thing. Hoo!

I like to think that thing was built specifically to chase away the ghost of Buster Posey.

The Rangers are just insanely good right now. Their competition for the division was supposed to be the Angels and they're already 7 games up on them.

I think it's quite possible you have the worst team in baseball. The Padres are going to chase you for it, though.

Thanks for beating the Mets, Giants. I don't like it when they get too big for their britches.

Roger Clemens (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/baseball/mlb/05/01/pettitte.clemens.trial.ap/index.html?sct=hp_t2_a2&eref=sihp), welcome to being fucked in the ass. Andy Pettite is getting ready to rock your judicial world.

Good times - glad Matusz might actually be getting his shit together since it looks like sometime between his physical and camp our hot new pitcher from Japan tore a ligament and is headed towards Tommy John surgery. 

Wow.  That's a pretty fucking huge backtrack (http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7881353/andy-pettitte-says-misunderstood-roger-clemens-hgh-talk), Andy. 

Now he's saying that it's 50/50 whether or not he "misremembered" the prior conversation with Clemens about HGH. 

What a shithead.

Well, he was best friends with Clemens, so I suppose none of us should be surprised.

Braves win 15-13 in extras on a walkoff homer by Chipper Jones.

I don't really have the words for how awesomely ridiculous this game was.

The extra inning game I attended tonight was less awesome.

Panda might be hurt too. Fuck you, Marlins!

Seriously, they're making a bid to be second place on my list of teams I hate in MLB. (No one will dislodge the Phillies.)

Jared Weaver with a no-hitter.  He's pretty good.

Ugh, Sandoval is gone for who knows how long with a similar injury to the one he had last year. The Giants are going to be fucking unwatchable.

At least after this surgery, he will have no more hamate bones left to break.

OR WILL HE

At least you kept it close.

HAI HAEMISH! WE JUST SWEPT THE ROCKIES AND WE'RE COMING FOR JOOOOOOOOOOO!

This O's-Red Sox game is never going to fucking end

Nevermind.. Apparently all we needed was to bring in our DH and have him pitch two scoreless innings..  :grin:

Edit for video footage. 

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=21222181&topic_id=28033182&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_21222181&v=3

Matt Cain: still good

I kinda want Bryce Harper to get hit by a bus so ESPN will get off his jock.

How is our lone Orioles fan not on here every day losing his mind?  :awesome_for_real:

I'm guessing he's afraid that if he says something, straight into the tank?

Pretty sure most O's fans have taken a vow of silence at this point.

Pretty much this.  This season is whipsawing between Why Not 2? and wondering when the wheels are going to fall off.  To go from Josh Hamilton shelling you for 18 bases and 4 homers to deciding to lead off today's doubleheader with your first three batters going yard.   It's absurd and wild and easily the most fun I've had in years.

Samardjiza is a punk, Haemish! A PUNK.

I hope somebody throws at his head.

I didn't see the incident, but just now read about it. I have kind of relegated myself to not watching the Cubs much this season because of how bad they'll be. Still if he intentionally threw at a guy's face, suspend that motherfucker.

And he always has been a bit of a punk, expecting because of his time at Notre Dame to be starting even if he sucks. At least he hasn't sucked this year.

Here's my contribution to the baseball thread:
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=21558485

The best pitcher for the Mets is their catcher.  :why_so_serious:

Okay, this season is just getting silly now.   

WHAT IN THE HELL?

Why was Rob Johnson pitching in the 8th? Were they just waving a flag?

The Mets can't afford a flag to wave, so they figured a backup catcher was cheaper.  :why_so_serious:

He would do less harm there than behind the plate or at bat.

You're still my boyfriend, Lincecum, but man do you suck out loud this year.

Holy hell the new Marlins logo/uniform is so god damn ugly.  Losing to that adds insult to injury.

I suppose watching a ball roll down the chalk line for an amazing 55 foot double really goes a long way explaining how a team can give up a 3 run lead in the 7th.   Ugh.  On the upside, Angelos finally realized that if he didn't start spending some cash, there may have actually been a riot at the stadium and finally paid Jones (6 years, 85 million)

I hadn't been keeping up with the Giants after the first few weeks so I went over to Timmy's FanGraphs page (http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5705&position=P#advanced) to see what was new.

So yeah, 59% strand rate (http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/lob/).  Fourth lowest among qualified pitchers. (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2012&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&players=0&sort=11,a) That is apocalyptically terrible, so much so that my first thought on seeing it was "No!  Don't do it Timmy, the Luck Dragons are bigger than you!"  He's also sporting a .344 BABIP (http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/babip/) which is good for ninth highest among qualified pitchers (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2012&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&players=0&sort=10,d), which comes down to a good deal of bad luck, but some of his underlying stats are genuinely worse.

25.5% line drive rate (http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/batted-ball/) this year compared to his 19.4% career average, so balls are getting hit harder.  Also of concern is the higher walk rate (http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/rate-stats/) (11.8% 2012 vs. 9.1% career), but that takes a bit longer to get out of the small sample size noise.  Same thing with the lower infield fly rate (2.2% vs. 7.8%), but that's literally just a difference of 1-2 extra pop-ups making that look normal.

Just looking at his stats for a while is bizarre.  All the per Innings Pitched stats are being warped by that ridiculous strand rate I think, and it's making my head hurt.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance

Not bad Cleveland... I guess not even first place in the Central matters in that town.  :oh_i_see:

Flashback to last year when we came roaring out of the gate only to fade as the season went on. There is such an air of sports pessimism that you have to do a lot in this town to prove that you're worth watching. Leading your division not even halfway through the season isn't enough.

The Braves can't get healthy. We're operating on some shitty lineup that involves our 3rd string catcher we had to bring up from AAA. It's abysmal.

And we're 7 games into the losing streak now.

Yeah, my understanding is that there is SOME genuine "man he is not as good as normal" and SOME "wow, shitty luck" which adds up to a lot of "man, what a fucking weird, shitty year for him so far." All I know is that I do not like when he starts any more.  :heartbreak:

It doesn't help, I suspect, that the Giants have decided errors are totally cool and are making a fuckton of those too.  :why_so_serious:

His ability to locate pitches is what has seemingly gone out the window. He's constantly missing his spots, Posey will set up with an outside target and he'll miss and put it right down the middle, or throw it so far outside it doesn't fool anyone - this is happening a lot.

My Cubs weep tears of blood at your pitiful losing.  :oh_i_see:

8 games now. Ugh.

Guess how many the Mariners have lost in a row?

No, guess. I have no idea, since I have officially quit paying attention AGAIN THIS YEAR. God this team is fucked.

I think I've watched like 1 Cubs' game this year. It's just too fucking painful to bear witness to how bad this team is.

I'm going to be doing my end of May writeup like I did last year. I'll look at the standings from all the divisions as we head into summer and guess the finish. I was about 50/50 last year from my May guesses. (The Braves and Red Sox shitting the bed cost me)

I forgot to make any predictions this year, but the Dodgers and Orioles both caught me by surprise, and the AL Central is making me go  :uhrr: as usual. I expected the Nats and Reds to be good. Yankees are still not having the age-related shit season I expected to start last year. Everything else seems pretty normal. Well, the Mets being good is a surprise too I guess.

EDIT: In other news, Roy Oswalt finally signs a deal, with the Rangers. Supposedly he'll be in the bigs at the end of June. I can only assume that he was asking for some crazy amount of money for it to have gone on this long, since there are plenty of worse pitchers than Oswalt pitching in the majors, back trouble or no.

Good times - nothing like arguing balls and strikes from behind the plate to get your first career ejection.

(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7090/7300503802_eb381a894b_o.gif)

Eddings isn't a shitty ump either. I can think of several guys I'd go after for being terrible about balls and strikes. McClelland, Angel Hernandez, Jerry Meals, Joe West. Those guys are dicks.

I don't see CB Bucknor on that list, and he should be at the top. I am pretty sure he just trolls everyone with his asinine calls- he seems to thrive on confrontation. God he is an asshole.

I don't even classify CB as an ump. That's why he's not on the list.

Heh. Angel Hernandez is definitely a good call too. I have heard West's name, which almost always means he has been awful. I really wish I could sit in on a meeting with all the umps and see them confronted with the pitch-tracking data...would love to hear the excuses. Probably a lot of 'the tracking system is bullshit'.

 At this point I am ready for an automatic system. No more feeling around to see what the ump is calling a strike today, no egregious missed calls, and MORE OFFENSE. If strikes had to actually be strikes, the batters would have a hell of a lot better chance to put the ball in play with some authority.

I am against any change that reduces the number of red-faced manager freakout meltdowns.

The worst umpires are typically the ones where the scores are always low when they are behind the plate. The best place that tracks that kind of data is unsurpisingly, gambling sites.

Angel Hernandez has the lowest runs scored average for any ump in the majors. He's a complete shithead. Chipper Jones once got into his face and told the media later that Angel forgot 40,000 people didn't show up to watch him umpire.

Some other bad ones in terms of low scoring: Larry Vanover, Chad Fairchild, Tim Tschida, and Jerry Layne.

On the flip side, you have the guys that won't call anything: Bob Davidson, Mark Carlson, Paul Emmel, and Gary Darling.

Umps are players too, you have to do scouting on them and everything!

I believe the sign of a good umpire/referee/whatever is when he is never mentioned.

I have a list of favorites I like to see behind the plate:

Laz Diaz
Eric Cooper
Lance Barksdale
Jim Joyce
Brian Knight
Brian Runge
Ed Hickox
Jeff Kellogg
Derryl Cousins

No one told me the Orioles catcher was hot. Why was I not informed?

Who are the Orioles?   :drill:

lolrangers

Ha, it's a football score in Texas.

I love football score games, I don't know why.


EDIT: Man I am getting tired of hearing "And Lincecum missed BADLY on a <enter pitch here>." I am waiting for the meltdown to begin in earnest.

Perhaps because the Giants aren't know for a particularly robust form of offense?

Hey man, they scored a run so far today! A whole run!

Also I thiiiink they haven't gotten shut out yet this season, which ... which surely means something, right?


EDIT: Also for a brief moment I thought you meant the REAL Giants, which ... I don't think they're considered an offensive powerhouse either, so I insist my confusion was totally understandable.

Hey I can't throw stones, my team just got off the 8 game shnide where they couldn't hit their way out of a wet paper sack.

Two game winning streak now though!  :drill:

I don't know what the actual numbers are, but it sure feels like we have some good offense this year for once (though not tonight obviously.  But we were close to crushing their pitcher several times!).

Yeah the offense has not been 100% painful like it was last season, so that's nice. They were absolutely fucking awful with runners in scoring position for a while, but less :ye_gods: lately!

Freddie Freeman came back last night after not being able to see for days. He finally got his new pair of goggles and went running around the clubhouse yelling, "I CAN SEE, I CAN SEE!"

He then proceeded to take a ball deep in his first AB, go 3/5 with 3 RBIs and a double.

What in the fucking fuck Arrieta?  He's completely untouchable the first time through a line-up, and then completely fucking unravels and it's not like he's only got one pitch.

It sort of pains me that Lincecum is the Giants' worst starter right now, but I am happy Barry Zito is pretty good this season!

Nice of Bochy to let all the starting pitchers in the last 3 games attempt to throw a complete game.  To bad none of them could stick it out, heh.  But thank you very much Chicago! 

We offer a friendly free service getting opposing pitchers off the schnide.

Unfortunately, these four games are against our four pitchers who are all doing great.  We needed your services for Lincecum damnit!

Poor Lincecum has to settle for pitching against the Padres.  :oh_i_see:

Holy shit, Mariners! Even more surprising, I was actually watching the game and saw it happen. The other two in Ms history I missed (heard some the the RJ one in my buddy's car otw to a party).

I feel bad for the pitcher that got hurt and had to leave!

I am glad it happened to the Dodgers, too. <3

I was downtown this afternoon and it was insane just how much red was wandering around.  Thanks for coming down Philly! (course, NY and Tampa both won today as well, so we're in 3rd and 1 game out of first.  This fucking division)  :drill:

http://www.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22191735&c_id=bal&partnerId=aw-5080223247358208131-1021

wooooooooooooooooooooo

Matt Cain is pretty good.

Pft, 21 people did it before him - how good can he be?  :awesome_for_real:

Didn't even hit a home run.

It wasn't that impressive.   :oh_i_see:

Grats to the Giants. That's the first one for the franchise yes?

Yep. I am very pleased it was Cain, he's been silly good this season.

Why, he even finally has a winning lifetime record now.  :oh_i_see:

I'm shocked. SHOCKED we're seeing so many no-hitters and perfect games now.  :grin:

It actually has a case for 'best game ever pitched'.

Also, this catch:

(http://www.baycityball.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/gregor2.gif)

I can't remember seeing a better one. Thanks for giving up on Blanco, Braves!  :awesome_for_real:

The Braves are the best farm team for other MLB clubs that's ever existed.

The A's have you beat.

I dispute that claim. However, I don't want to do the legwork today to prove it.

Royals and Pirates are surely right up there as well!

*cough* Tribe *ahem*

 :ye_gods:

Hell, half of Cleveland's starting lineup is from dumping steaming heaps of shit like Perez and Broussard on the Mariners for young gems. You get no sympathy here, son.

Yes but those gems do not come to Cleveland to win anything. Cleveland continues to dump off stars to teams that go on to get rings of their own. Guess that goes for all Cleveland's teams.  :oh_i_see:

But yeah... Seattle is right there, the only good part is, we are not the Royals.

Expos.  Case closed.

Seriously Giants? Bases loaded and that's all you got?

Loading the bases is a hobby of ours.

Ouch, bad news on Beachy.

I was at the game when he left the mound. I knew it was bad when they hoped it was bone spurs. I knew it was REALLY bad when the didn't release anything by this afternoon.

That means Jurrjens gets called back up. I hope he's ready to be the guy again.

2 games into the series, 0 runs for the Dodgers.   :grin:

Suck it, Kershaw!

Monster Manual entries for baseball pitchers (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17492)

This thing is fucking brilliant.

Suck it, Dodgers!

Giants have to be the strongest home team in the majors.

On the road? Meh.

 :awesome_for_real:

Now that's funny.

Going to the game tonight. God I hope Chen can nail things down with the Tribe coming to town. The wheels are coming off of the season in a hurry right now.

The Reds are leading their division with the Pirates right behind.  It's the early '90s all over again.   :oh_i_see:

I didn't want to rain on the Orioles parade but you could kind of see this coming given they have had a negative run differential for weeks. Reality is catching up with the Indians too.

On the other side of that, Boston has started its run and I expect St. Louis is about to.

Yep - hell the big problem right now is that the minute a person gets on base, everyone gets so excited they immediately strike out.  The RISP stat right now is unbelievably terrible.

Dear god, fuck you Casilla.  When the hell is Romo going to become our closer?

But thank you Jay Bruce.   :awesome_for_real:

Some Giants fan(s) must have done some pretty ludicrous automated All-Star ballot box stuffing... Besides Panda beating out Wright somehow, Brandon Belt came in 2nd place for first basemen with nearly 4 million votes, similar deal for Brandon Crawford.  :awesome_for_real: :why_so_serious:

Bay Area + SF Giants + online voting + epicenter of Internet development = profit? :awesome_for_real:

Edit: + online voting

Haha, Yeah, beaten by Trippy but was going to say "this is what happens when you're silicon valleys baseball team".

Well that almost got really exciting.

Morning after edit - That was spectacular seeing the O's try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and a perfect 6 innings. Seriously, WTF Strop? You're better than that.    Of course, what made it even more awesome is with the game going past 1am here on the east coast, my kids decided that 5am was a great time to wake up.  

Good god, the home run derby is insipid (http://espn.go.com/mlb/allstar12/story/_/id/8154165/major-league-baseball-considers-home-run-derby-rule-change-robinson-cano-booing). 

If Bud Selig would just step down, we could avoid a lot of this crap.

Oh waily waily all those Giants didn't deserve to start!  :why_so_serious:

Pablo Sandoval didn't deserve to start. The rest of them were fine.

It really doesn't matter who deserves to play or not.  The All Star Game is just fucking stupid. 

Totally disagree. The Pro Bowl is fucking stupid. The NBA all star game is fucking stupid.

This game is one of the few I actually watch and look forward to.

You can have it then, bro.  I think all "all star games" are boring, contrived dinosaurs.  I haven't watched an all star game in any sport since the early '80s. 

Pfft, you watch people race bikes.  :awesome_for_real:

Ain't nothin' wrong with the All Star Game in baseball, I imagine the non-All Stars kinda like the break. :P

Watch it........ :oh_i_see:

 :awesome_for_real:

The only thing wrong with the All-Star game is it determines home field for the World Series. That's beyond retarded and fuck Bud Selig for coming up with it. The rest I can choose to happily ignore because it really isn't that interesting.

I still don't know why it doesn't go to the team with the best regular season record. I guess that would be TOO SIMPLE.

It is nice that the MLB All Star game is played at a competitive level higher than tiddly winks.  It's the lone one I enjoy watching.  Would removing the incentive change it? Probably not. 

Removing the incentive wouldn't change anything about the game. When I was a kid, the All-Star game was played with the same enthusiasm it is now, and it meant nothing but personal pride. The difference between it and the Pro Bowl is the chance for injury is much lower due to baseball being a non-contact sport.

Unless you are Pete Rose :awesome_for_real: :oh_i_see:

I  :heart: the All-Star Game, and Ghost hates fun. It is known.

I particularly hate the enjoyable kinds of fun.   :why_so_serious:

Thus cycling.

Watched the first inning of the All-Star before turning it off. Why did I turn it off after one inning (other than the fact that it took 35 minutes to play)?

So, they are doing this cool thing where they show you the current hitting stats of each player as they come up, and then showing how they rank in their league. Found it interesting, as I really only follow two teams in baseball. There's Hamilton - 1st across the board in all the power stats, wow - tied for first in home runs. Ok, now here's Bautista - only player I really follow that's in the game (Encarnacione got ripped off) - let's see where he ranks (I only know that he's tied for first in HRs). He comes up and - they cut to this pretty waterfall in the outfield. Then the announcers spend his entire at bat talking about what a nifty ballpark this is, quickly cutting back to home plate for each pitch. They don't so much as even put up a graphic of his name, yet alone show the stats they had shown for the 12 previous batters before him.

Fuck you guys. I turned it off.

What's up with Jurrjens this season?

That's his first bad game since the comeback. Honestly, I wrote this game off before it started. We're awful at home early in the week, and the Giants are on a hot streak, AND we have like a .200 average against Zito across the lineup.

lolbraves

Don't laugh too hard. There but for the grace of God, go the Giants.

The Braves simply can't hit right now at home when we're playing with a shuffled lineup. That, and Dan Uggla is killing me.

I was mostly lolling at how fucking weird the end of the game was.  :heart:

Yeah it was an epic way to self-destruct after a pitcher's duel all night.

The results are looking better today if we can hold it together.

I was positive we would lose when the Giants took out two of the dudes on the team who actually know how to hit the ball.

Cabrera continues to act like a douchenozzle when he does something good. Thanks for making me hate you, Melky, after you spent some time here being a useless blob.

Something must be pissing him off, this is the first time he's done anything like this kind of stuff since he's been with the team. (I kind of enjoy it.  :awesome_for_real:)

Yeah well we won regardless, so he can cram that up his ass today.

I still picked the Giants to win their division so dropping 2 to them when they are batting the best in the NL this week is no big shame.

Now we have to go to Washington for 4.  :ye_gods:

God, do I want Tim to crush the Phillies tomorrow. I fucking hate the Phillies.

This just blows my mind.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8184102/colorado-rockies-ship-jeremy-guthrie-kansas-city-royals-jonathan-sanchez

I mean, he has been as bad as a pitcher can be. And now they're going to put him in Coors Field? I guess he might be able to motivate himself slightly in games against the Giants?

EDIT:

In other news, holy shit Bud Selig said something right.

http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/8184669/mlb-commissioner-bud-selig-no-hurry-put-ads-uniforms

Ah, Sanchez.  Best trade we ever made.

And yeah, fuck the advertising shit.  Sad to hear the NBA caved on that (but if any league would, its them).  The giant ass corporate logos across soccer uniforms has always bugged the hell out of me and made me further disrespect the game.  Always thought it hilarious since its suppose to be Americans who are the materialist corporate whores of the world.

And it appears that Toronto and Houston just traded half their teams to each other. Jays picked up three pitchers, so I guess they are actually serious about trying to finish above .500

Well, now I feel guilty.

Suck it, Phillies!  :drillf:

It's always a bummer when teams from Philadelphia lose.  

Also, I have no idea whether Jim Thome doped or not, but he's really pretty much a badass.  Now he's 7th on the all time list (http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8185507/jim-thome-hits-no-610-pass-sammy-sosa-home-run-list) for home runs. 

Remember that we traded our top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler for Carlos Beltran in 2011, whom we didn't even bother to try and keep afterwards (and who is now providing offensive numbers the giants could really god damn use).  A prospect who, at least currently, everybody is saying is the throwing some of the most amazing stuff ever in the minors.

You should regret nothing!

Eh, I don't think that's nearly as bad. That's just derp, you know?


Also, ghost, you misspelled "wonderful thing" in your post, you silly.

Wow, Braves come back from down 0-9 to win the game in the 11th 11-10, with Strasburg pitching!

That's the game of the season so far.  :drill:

Yay Braves!  God I love seeing DC teams lose.

Ichiro to the Yankees. Glad to see him get a chance for some post season baseball; also glad the Mariners won't have to have the 'yeah, we need you to take a $15M pay cut' conversation in the offseason. Wish the Ms could have gotten it done while he was here. GL to him.

Yeah, he has certainly paid his dues, and the mariners should be thrilled he stuck around this long.  He's a great player and a good human being.

Which is why it's unfortunate I now have to loathe him for being a Yankee.   :why_so_serious:

Also, I havent been able to pay as close of attention since moving away.  Why are we starting Nate  schierholtz now?  Along with changing the line up a lot every other game....

Are the Yankees going for the record of the oldest bunch of farts in their starting lineup?

My college roommate was a huge Yankees fan.  I'll never understand it. 

I guess Swisher must be pretty hurt, otherwise I don't really see what role Ichiro actually has on that team.

Rumor mill circulating that the Braves have a deal with Dempster

Changing the lineup every other game seems to be how Bochy rolls, man. As for Shierholtz, who knows. Maybe trying to show him off since he wants to be traded?

Rumor mill now saying the Braves DON'T have a deal with Dempster because he blocked it.

If that's true, he can go suck ass on the Dodgers.

The Marlins strategy certainly seems bizarre.  They get rid of all their good players every 4-5 years, yet they have two titles to show for it. 

They love that new ballpark in Miami.  :awesome_for_real: Everyone in the baseball media and ESPN tells me how great it is, and what a wonderful project they've put together that really identifies with the community. The Marlins went out and spent money in the offseason to bring in Free Agents and talked about how they were going to get a playoff run together. They hired Ozzie to be the face of a crazy franchise with Latin roots and bravado.

The team is 7 games under .500 nearing the end of July, and 12.5 back of the division lead. They are 8 games back of the wild card. They barely average 28,000 a game which is 18th in the majors. In a new ballpark. When Minnesota opened their ballpark in 2010, they averaged 40,000 a game. When the Mets opened the new Citi Field in 2009, they averaged 39,000 a game. Hell, when Washington opened their stadium in 2008, they were god awful and they STILL drew 29,000 a game.

This is one of the biggest financial disasters in professional baseball. That team didn't belong there, and they certainly didn't deserve a new park.

I'm also not sure Hamels is worth all that money. 

It is quite expensive, yeah, but barring injury or some kind of Steve Blass breakdown he should be in the ballpark of good value over the course of the deal. Lefties as good as Hamels don't come along all that often so there's a premium involved, and this only takes him through age 34 so there's not a lot of length-of-contract doom involved.

The Ryan Howard contract is the one that is going to be fucking them for years, it was obviously bad when they signed it and managed to somehow get worse when he got hurt this year. Howard is 32, making 20 million this year (5 million per home run, if a bus hits him tomorrow), and it only goes up for the next 4 years.  :uhrr:

I guess I'm looking at the fact that he's played for a good team and doesn't really have a spectacular record.  I know, I know, that isn't everything but at the end of it all you have to win some games, right? 

I need a squirt bottle to spray at people who talk about pitcher wins.

3.38 career era, 28, left handed, good strikeout numbers, about 200 innings a year.  Seems like a good investment. 

In a vacuum, the Hamels deal is solid, outside of the the usual risks with giving a pitcher any sort of long term deal.  Although, I do think it's funny how when Halladay's contract was signed the Phillies were apparently all "oh we never give long contracts to pitchers" and then proceed to sign two slightly worse (but left-handed) pitchers to much longer deals.

But, I can only assume that the Phillies think that this year was just a fluke (and not a consequence of the olds) and they can at least contend for a WC in the following years, because I sure as hell don't see it.

Starting pitchers aren't worth 20M a year. They pitch every 5 days. Hell, baseball has proven time and again that almost nobody is worth even $15M a year on the field.

ARod makes $27.5M a year, and he's been a .275 hitter for the last 4 seasons. Even in his absolute best MVP years, 2007, 2005, and 2002, the Yankees didn't win the World Series.
Cliff Lee signed in 2011 for a $25M a year deal for 5 years. Even with a 2.40 ERA and a WHIP near 1, the Phillies still lost a third of his starts. Now in 2012 he's got a 3.95 ERA, a 1.2 WHIP, and 12 loss results.
Albert Pujols just started his $24M a year deal in 2012. He's batting .277, and slugging .488 for the lowest in his career. There are 22 guys in the AL with better stats.
CC Sabathia gets paid $23.33M a year since 2009. He's been pretty solid as a 3.18 ERA over those years with a 59-23 record, and even though the Yankees won in 2009, he lost his only start in the series.

The best hitter in the league right now is Joey Votto. He's making $9.5M this year.
The 2nd best hitter isAndrew McCutchen. He's making $500,000 this year.

The best pitcher is Jered Weaver. He's making $14M a year.

Actually, a good starting pitcher's impact is comparable (or even higher) to a good hitter's impact.

Justin Verlander faced 969 batters last year. That's ~200 more than the all time record for number of plate appearances by a batter.

Not debating the impact of a starter. What I'm debating is value of paying them that much money to the detriment of your remaining team. Verlander faced 969 batters, and was the Cy Young winner. He was also paid $13M for that year.

This year, $20M. Will he finish the year as the highest WAR pitcher? Maybe, and if he does, good move for the Tigers. I don't believe he's do it for the next 3 years. Even so, McCutchen's WAR is 5.8 to Verlander's 5.1 according to ESPN. And the kicker is that the Tigers, even with the best sabermetric pitcher in the league, is still tied for their division lead with the White Sox, who are tossing out Sale and Peavy, both of whom combined make less than Verlander.

It's not really fair to compare guys still in arbitration (or before it even, in the case of Sale) to free agents.  Votto's making $19m next year according to Cot's (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah4PW47PiAi-dDUySDhQWU5hS3k3RFdITjZVRUp2TGc&output=html).  And McCutchen's just signed for his entire arbitration period and two years, his last option year doesn't even fit on the sheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah4PW47PiAi-dDloSE9helZNRmh3OXdsT2FQVXI1Tnc&output=html).

Rookie contracts always provide excess value compared to the open market.

I also pull for baseball teams based on the color of their uniforms.....

It's sort of my point. Get them in years before they go after the $15M+ payday and dump them. Baseball is full of a lot of "fat and happy" contracts.

Somebody please take Ryan Dempster off our hands. He's still got gas in the tank and we need some young starting pitching. I actually think he's a great guy to have around the team (and he's been one of the Cubs' best pitchers when healthy this year) but this team is SO BAD and we need SO MUCH PITCHING.

Uh, thanks for rubbing it in Haemish. We tried and Dempster told us to collectively fuck off.

His full no-trade does make it sort of an adventure.

His ERA is okay, but his Win-Loss record is just so-so.   :why_so_serious:

Seriously, if you could get this dude and you are a contender it should happen tomorrow.

Dempster is making a bunch of noise about how he wants to go to LA for family reasons.

Thing is, the Dodgers have fuck-all to offer the Cubs.

Oh and Lincecum lost again? To the Padres???  :ye_gods:

Lincecum losing to anybody this year shouldn't be a shocker in the slightest.

Well I thought he had turned a corner so to speak. He'd gone two games in a row of 15 innings with only 2 earned and 17 Ks. It was his best line all year. I was guessing he would take advantage of a weak Padres club that was 9 games under .500 on the road.

Frankly, I don't understand WTF is going on with the kid, because nobody on this coast covers anything but the Braves, Phillies, Mets, Yankees, and Sawk.

Nobody here understands it either.

Lincecum is short.   :oh_i_see:

He has Zitoitis :awesome_for_real:

Didn't Lincecum just sign a big huge contract?

And yes, I don't see how any contending team with young pitchers to trade wouldn't want to rent Dempster. If your offense is even REMOTELY capable, he will win 8 out of 10 starts the way he's pitching this year. You'll be lucky to get 6 innings out of him, but they'll be 6 good innings. Not to mention that whole "leadership" and "great club presence" he brings. I hate to see him leave the Cubs but there's no reason to saddle his last few years in the bigs with a team that's rebuilding to the extent the Cubs need to.

Actually no, Cain was the one who signed a huge contract, they wanted to lock Timmy in for a while but he's been pretty adamant about going year-to-year until free agency. I can't begin to imagine how much money he's essentially lost since the start of the season.

Bumgarner was the other long, long contract. He's going to play for the Giants until the end of time, apparently.

But we certainly do appreciate Tim deciding he needed to make our payroll situation much more manageable as we try to contend.   :awesome_for_real:

In any event, Lincecum has earned himself a free a shitty season for past services rendered.  He can suck ass from here till the end, and it wont change my good will towards him in the slightest.

Next year, however....

Hm, I think I am finally getting into the Dodger hate thing, as Victorino becoming a Dodger did not make me hate him less, even though I fucking hate the Phillies more than Hitler.

As a Giants fan how can you not hate all the other California teams?  Particularly the NL teams?

Because I am not a native Californian, and I only started rooting for the Giants last season officially (although it was through their World Series run that I realized I actually can find baseball interesting, so I guess that was the actual start of it). The kind of sports hate that makes these sort of things fun can't be forced, man. My hate for the Dodgers must grow organically. Hating the Phillies came much faster, as I already hated the Eagles more than Hitler (being a NY Giants fan since birth). It was a natural next step. But I don't have the inborn hatred of Southern California so many Northern Californians have, so hating the Dodgers takes some time, man.

And I can't hate the A's! They're adorable.

Most of us don't hate the A's. There's a certain segment of A's fans who hate the Giants because they get the lion's share of the coverage/attention/etc, even when the A's are doing better.

I don't really hate the Padres either. And I only hate the Angels because of that fucking monkey.

 :x

The other one. I hate the Braves for non-monkey-related reasons.  :why_so_serious:

Ohh, no wonder I think the A's are adorable. They're like the Jets!

A series of images explaining why fuck Shane Victorino:

http://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2012/7/31/3206511/dodgers-acquire-shane-victorino-open-trade-deadline-thread

I like the A's pretty well.  I also like the Giants.  I grew up with the Reds and like them pretty well (although they usually blow). That 1990 world series was pretty awesome.  I also like the Indians.  I liked old school Braves-  Bob Horner, Dale Murphy, Bruce Benedict, Glen Hubbard, etc.  I pretty much lost interes with the Greg Maddux era on.  I'm not sure why.  Teams I dislike-  Dodgers, Houston, Yankees, all the "new" teams, Mets. 

Enjoy, fuckers! HAHAHAHAHAHA!  :awesome_for_real:

PS - Glad he's gone!

Honestly I'm not sure we did any better.  :ye_gods:

(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1062505/pence2.jpeg)

Fuck, I should play D&D more often if it leads to the Orioles putting 11 on the Yanks.

That article has my second favorite baseball gif in it. <3

So Braves fans, enjoy one of the only two pitchers the Cubs had who was pitching worth a shit. And one of our better spark plug/scrappy bench guys.

Also, not really sure I'm feeling the trade the Cubs made to offload Dempster. Smelled like desperation to me, but let's face it, they HAD to trade him at this point. Trading Soto was probably another one of those because man did he fall off a fucking cliff. Too bad we couldn't offload Soriano. Anybody want a guy with 30 HR power, no legs, a cannon for an arm and no ability to draw a walk whatsoever.

I couldn't believe the Cubs unloaded their lefty that was under contract for a decent price. That's a steal for us. Throwing in a .300 hitting PH OF platoon guy was just gravy.

Yeah, I was a bit shocked about the Maholm thing as well. That's a sure sign that they don't think they'll be competitive in 2013 either. Hell, they were looking to unload Garza right up until the moment he sprained an arm labia. If Garza or Soriano makes it through the waiver trade deadline, the only reason they are still Cubs is because the Cubs won't eat enough of their contracts.

Err, why would we?  Real rivalries have to be organic.  The Dodgers-Giants hatred goes back over a century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodgers%E2%80%93Giants_rivalry)  I like seeing the Angles lose just because of that fucking monkey as well.  Other than that, I like the A's and will root for them as my AL team (seriously, how can anybody actually HATE the A's?  Half the time they're like the RL version of the team from Major League), and I have a soft spot for the Padres (went to college in San Diego and went to a bunch of games to get my baseball fix).  No reason to really hate them either.  The Rockies and Diamondbacks are way too new (and have had no serious drama with us) to cause any sort of rivalry or hatred.  Give them another half century or so to see what happens.

I pretty much hate the Diamondbacks and Rockies now too, actually. Tulo is largely to blame for the Rockies part.

Yeah I sort of hate the Rockies already because of that dude. The Diamondbacks I don't hate, but I MISTRUST. I see you back there, sneaking up on first place! Don't think I don't!

All the expansion teams suck, particularly the Rockies.  They're purple, for fuck's sake.  The Diamondbacks aren't so bad since they changed their color scheme to something decent.

Purple is da bomb, y0.

I don't particularly have an issue with purple, especially the shade of purple the Rockies are. I can't really think of a uniform color I'd universally hate, just shades of color, and mixes of color.

If the Padres keep wearing camouflage that will move them up my hate list.

I thought hideous uniforms were part of the Padres' charm.  :why_so_serious:

I actually really like the Padres sand jerseys. The camo, not so much.

Before I started caring about baseball for real, I totally vaguely felt warmly towards the Padres, which made Ingmar so mad.  :heart:

Yeah, Camo jerseys is something I'd expect from the Braves or Houston, not San Diego.

San Diego is a massively massive military town (really, I'm actually not sure you can get more military than it is.  Half of all the Marines, and two carrier groups, are stationed out of it).  Its the only major city in all of California that votes red.   :why_so_serious:

So they have to pander to the base.  But yeah, camo sucks.  However, I absolutely love the ugly ass brown and yellow retro jerseys/hats.

Yeah, I guess that's true.  I hadn't thought of that.  San Antonio is also highly militarized.  Unlike San Diego, San Antonio would disappear off of the map if the bases shut down. 

So apparently the Orioles solution to the complete fucking lack of defense at 3rd base is to call up a AA player (http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bal-orioles-calling-up-top-position-player-prospect-manny-machado-from-doublea-bowie-20120808,0,6065994.story).   :drill:  who just might be the top prospect in the organization and 9th best in the league

This year is just getting crazier and crazier. With a run differential somewhere around -54, leading the league in errors, the complete inability to hit with RISP (their overall batting average is actually WORSE than last year), common sense says this team is living in the basement. But instead, we're in a full on pennant race right now.   Hell, we're down to TWO opening day starters right now (Wei-Yen Chen and Tommy Hunter, who only sorta counts since he spent most of the season back down in AAA), but it really just comes down to how insanely good the bullpen has been.   Which going into the season I never thought I'd say, but they have been flat out nothing but excellent. 

Of course, insane things like a AAA pitcher coming up for his first career start in the bigs and making 9K's exactly 23 years to the day after his Dad won his first major league game for the Orioles also goes a long way.

Good for you. The Cubs, however, are on an 8 game slide, have gone 0-10 against the combined might of the Padres, Dodgers and Giants when they've played on the West Coast this year, and are basically putting a AAA team out there 2 out of every 3 days. I hope these young kids are learning because they are stinking up the place as a team.

Hey, of those three teams, only the Padres are REALLY shitty.

Why hello there Evan Longoria.  I know you haven't hit amazingly, but you're scaring opposing pitchers into pitching to our batters.

Rays aim for seven in a row tonight.   :grin:

Holy shit, Giants.  :ye_gods:

Yeah, that was not a great result.   :awesome_for_real:

Result? It's the 5th inning!  :ye_gods:

I'm sad that Vogelsong's ridiculous quality start streak is over, was starting to look like he'd set a record. Probably did set some kind of team record.

You're catching on quick, Ingmar.   :grin:

Pretty sure Bochy got himself ejected so he wouldn't have to watch anymore.

What's up with the Padres? Did they suddenly get good? They are like, winning and shit.

I'm not a fan of this.

 :drill:

Why do you hate the Padres?

Oh wait, I know.  It's because they stole the camo uniforms idea first, right?   :grin:

Anyone want to gamble on how quickly Bobby Valentine gets fired after the season?   :awesome_for_real:

Melky.  :facepalm:

I knew he wasn't THAT bad while he was at the Braves. Guess we know the difference now.

Looking at his stats this could be a very recently picked up habit

Yeah, when he was with my team, he was a fat turd. We all sorta went, WTF?!? He came out this season and was ripping the cover off the ball. It was night and day.

His stats weren't all that great with the Yankees, either.  I wasn't surprised to see what he did with the Braves because it was fairly consistent.  .343 average this year is not.....He's probably about a 250-270 lifetime hitter without the last 2 years and not many home runs.  Last 2 years he is batting around .330 with 18 homers and 11 already this year.   :why_so_serious:

Ouch, that's going to hurt.

Players also peak at around his age last season and this. What is interesting in this case is that the thing that you expect to go up with steroid use, power, really hasn't manifested. He still doesn't hit a lot of home runs, and steroids probably don't do much for you in terms of letting you get your bat on the ball in the first place. Which means he's very likely been doing something that hasn't even really helped him much. Oops.

Even better, his numbers are really driven by a huge spike in his BABIP it looks like to me - so when that falls off to 'normal' it is now going to look like 'oh he stopped taking drugs' when it could just be regressing to the mean on lucky ground balls and the like (and he has had a TON of them this year, from listening to the games.)

Stuff like that is why this is all so hard to argue about.

This post is spot on.  You won't see a 30 point swing in average due to steroids. 

Keep an eye on Mariners v Rays. Playing right now. Hope I haven't jinxed it.

No you wouldn't see it on a player that was just building mass.

You WOULD see it on a player who was massively overweight and used the steroids along with his training regiment to drop meaningless weight. That would make his swing faster and more reactive. It would give a fat slob turned sveldt hitter a lot of better contact on the ball.

Hmm, I'm not sure I believe that bat speed is particularly affected by being a chubby guy. See: Pablo Sandoval, Babe Ruth, David Ortiz, etc.

Tony Gwynn is the modern poster boy of that crowd.

You also might see a benefit for a player that had trouble with conditioning throughout the year and/or had a tendency to get hurt.  One of the main benefits of steroids is that they allow you to recover so much more quickly from day to day.  The point about it being a "peak" time for him age wise is a good one, though.  I'm sticking by my guns though.  It was all from the roids.   :oh_i_see:

It does have to do with controlled speed. You can generate a lot of force by being a fat guy, but very few can control it properly. That's why you see power hitters freewheeling for strikeouts. Adam Dunn is a great current example of that.

Sandoval was horrible in 2010 as his weight got out of control. He got it together in 2011, but ballooned again in 2012 and has been on and off the DL.  

He's been on the DL 3 times; 2 of them were for broken bones in his hand that have absolutely nothing to do with weight. The third time was a hamstring injury sustained while doing the splits reaching for a ball at first base, because we had him in at first base because Bochy is insane. And then he made an insane decision to do the splits as a very large man. I'm going with the fat guy thing not really having anything to do with it.

 :awesome_for_real:

Also- seriously- turn on the TB/SEA game.

Yeah, Sandoval being on the DL doesn't really have much to do with him being a fatbutt.

Also, lol@theOnion

Poor Tim. :(

And I am watching the Mariners, WAP! Just for you!


EDIT: Ooh, I bet the Royals mailed Melky drugs in an effort to make the trade look less horrible! Those bastards!

Hey, congratulations!  :heart:

Wooohooooooooooooooo!  :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart:

So excited, but very bitter. Was SO close to staying home today and I missed the GW2 stress test and now this. I may never go to work again! Good think I picked up a Powerball ticket at lunch  :awesome_for_real:

Nice game.  Hope your powerball pays off. 

Even if he's the anomaly, that's not the point. The point is that fat guys aren't exactly known for being good hitters in baseball. They may be known for power, but that's not the same thing.

Also grats Seattle on the perfect game.

Shocking that we've had 3 of those in this year alone. Cue Ingmar to say something about statistical something or other and not steroids.

 :-P

(It was in an extreme pitcher's park! Squawk!)

And against the Rays:
:ye_gods:

You know when you turn on the TV and see 0 0 1 as your line in the seventh, you don't even think he's walked someone -- you just assume you're getting perfect gamed.

Yeah, Bobby Valentine is gone after this year.  He got the dreaded "he's safe for the rest of this year" comment fromt the team president. (http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8274479/larry-lucchino-says-bobby-valentine-survive-season-boston-red-sox) 

I can name 4 guys that need to go right along with him.

Dustin Pedroia
Josh Beckett
Clay Bucholtz
David Ortiz

Those guys have pretty much doomed this organization with their bullshit.

Weren't they shopping Beckett?  Yeah, their prima dona bullshit has reached a peak. 

They were absolutely shopping Beckett. Nobody would touch him or his ridiculous contract with a 10 foot clown pole.

What is his contract?  I haven't been paying that much attention to beisbol lately. 

The issue is more that he's been completely awful. If he was putting up numbers like his career numbers it would be a "bad" contract but workable from a trade standpoint. He's signed through 2014 at like 17 mil/year.

He's always been inconsistent though so its kind of weird he managed to get that deal in the first place. He seesaws back and forth every season.

Trade this guy.  My high school teammate is their AAA 2B.

Vic Conte estimates half of baseball is on PEDs.   (http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8274284/victor-conte-melky-cabrera-one-many-mlb-peds).  :awesome_for_real:

Very interesting..........

That dude looooooves the spotlight. Which doesn't mean he's necessarily wrong, of course, but I'd like to hear it from someone other than him and Canseco.

If Vic Conte isn't going to name names, he needs to shut the fuck up already. I don't give a fuck if he's right, he helped create the problem and isn't solving it by "not naming names." Fuck him in his earhole.

I love Vic Conte-  he adds a lot of comic relief to the situation.

Naming names when you're a lying douchebag gets you sued. Guess why he isn't doing it?

Naming names when you aren't a lying douchebag will also get you sued.

Nobody can win a suit against you for telling the truth. Unless you are under a gag order or something.

Winning the suit isn't the point-  just ask Nerf.   :oh_i_see:

Being involved in a lawsuit  is like being in an awful car crash.  Even if you didn't cause the crash you still aren't a "winner".  90% of the time it's the attorneys who win.

I really can't believe that Roger Clemens has signed with a minor league team.   :oh_i_see:

Here's another reason why I've always respected Jim Joyce, even after he blew the perfect game call.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31751_162-57498038-10391697/umpire-jim-joyce-performs-cpr-on-stadium-employee-helps-save-her-life/

They may want to talk to their research department.   :grin:

Andres Galarraga was always an underrated pitcher.  :why_so_serious:

Looks like Bartolo Colon got busted up for doping (http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8292935/rhp-bartolo-colon-oakland-athletics-suspended-50-games-violating-mlb-drug-policy).  Dangit, I thought MLB players were doping less........I swear I heard that somewhere.
 :awesome_for_real:

I think you have to use common sense. If a guy goes from being a complete bum two years ago to suddenly a functional hitter leading the majors? Ask questions. If a pitcher that's over 35 suddenly goes from being injured every year and hurling a 4-5 ERA, to pitching under a 3.5 ERA with as many innings as 2005? Ask questions.

It's also possible MLB is the only sport with drug testing that works. Really hard to say.

Interestingly, Skip Bayless speculates that Jeter is using (http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/8294309/derek-jeter-laughs-skip-bayless-ped-use-insinuation) for just the reasons that you've mentioned. 

And with a guy like Colon, you also can't assume that he wasn't using earlier in his career prior to the testing becoming more stringent.  With the testing I assume that a lot of guys got off of their roids or hGh only to figure out that they weren't able to compete without it.  As they develop newer and better synthetics and better cleaning regimens I think you'll see a resurgence of usage as guys look to get an edge.

Nothing about Jeter's stat record suggests he's been anything but consistent. His home run numbers have been steadily declining since his 20s. He's always been a .300 hitter or better, and that's no different now. He's had a few peaks and valleys which you can expect. Nothing about his current year is something I couldn't point back to a prior year, nor is it abnormal in my view.

Plus consider the source. Skip Bayless couldn't find the truth if he ran up his ass.

Your argument that he's always been "consistent" in no way suggests that he isn't doping now or has doped in the past.  In fact, it might even suggest that he has and does, as he was in his prime during the pinnacle of the doping era. 

Could be, but that wasn't the reasoning I mentioned before. I was noting players that had experienced wild swings from otherwise pedestrian careers. Barry Bonds was always doping too, and he was consistent. I can't say for sure Jeter is or isn't doping. I doubt he is, but the question isn't unwarranted. After all, a lot of the guys who've been busted lately were former Yankees.

That being said, Skip Bayless is a douchenozzle and deserves to go off a cliff with Stephen A Smith in the same car. Their disappearence would make the sports world a better, more informed place.

I don't think you can assume that any player active from 1990-now isn't doping currently or doped at some point during their careers.

I agree with the fact you can't assume they weren't doping at some point. I think during the witch hunt we've had after Balco, I can assume as many players aren't doping anymore. The numbers reflect a steady decrease it total offensive production, an increase in pitching effectiveness, and a large increase in no-hitters and perfect games.

Now, on a case by case basis, you can never prove anything, but I believe you can draw conclusions however you see fit based on your viewpoint.

I wonder if lower overall levels of doping (meaning doping at a lower individual level to avoid detection, not decreases in the number of players doping) wouldn't favor improvements in pitching over Canseco/Bonds/McGwire type power hitting.  One of the great benefits of steroids is the ability of the individual to recover from day to day wear and tear.  To my mind this would favor pitchers over other positions as they are more likely to become injured and go on the DL.

He could find it if it was up Tim Tebow's ass, that's for sure.

Skip Bayless is a fucking useless douchenozzle.

Anyone want to make any World Series predictions?  

I'll go with Reds versus Rangers with the Reds winning in 6.

Giants Vs. Rangers rematch.  Rangers lose again, working hard to secure their place in history as the Buffalo Bills of baseball.

That's...wishful thinking with the Giants rotation issues beyond 2-3 (I don't trust Vogelsong). I can see it, but I think their pitching is nowhere near as strong as it used to be.

I would have said the Nats, but they are shutting down Strasburg which should help them implode in the playoffs. I think the Reds are probably the best team in the NL right now and that's even without Votto in the lineup for over a month. That could have sunk other franchises. So I'm going with Reds.

I think it's Reds v. Yankees. The Yankees hit just as hard as Texas with better starting pitching.

Nats-White Sox, Nats win in 5.

Yeah, sorry, I meant to add a  :why_so_serious: at the end of that.  Though I don't think its that far fetched, but it will certainly be a fight.  Our offense has been surprisingly robust since Melky made his departure.

Also, your wrong, Vogelsong is awesome!

Didn't he just implode against the Padres?  :awesome_for_real:

After having a ridiculously long stretch of quality starts. Seriously, if there's a dude in the rotation TO trust, it's Vogelsong.

Hey, don't mess with the Padres.  They have camo uniforms and will fuck your shit up.

I think the Reds will implode in the playoffs. Their pitching will fall to the usual Dusty Baker "pitch til their arm falls off" routine.

The Reds, as an organization, have decent history of winning a series once every 15-20 years.  They're due and playing well. 

Braves got Zito'd.  :grin:

The bullpen tried to make me cry, though.  :heartbreak:

Yeah I didn't see it because I went to bed. After we put back to back singles together to lead off the 2nd and didn't score, I knew we were done. I fully blame that one on the first game of a west coast trip. We'll see how it goes tonight.

There's possibly a big fucking deal brewing (http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8300112/adrian-gonzalez-carl-crawford-josh-beckett-nearing-boston-red-sox-exit-sources-say) between the Red Sox and Dodgers that would send Beckett, Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Nick Punto to LA.  I think Beckett would fit in perfectly in LA.

That deal looks nonsensical. Maybe one or two, but all 4 of those guys going on waivers to the same team?

The Dodgers seem intent on throwing money at the division. We'll see how far they go.

The trade makes sense to me except for Beckett, who I think is a total mess.

I have nothing to add to this conversation other than apparently I am going to be drinking heavily between now and October, and after October, I'll mostly be drinking heavily on Sundays, with a random Thursday and Monday at some point.  GOD DAMN IT. Seriously, I was all, oh hey, I can watch a little baseball and chill the fuck out after the all star break and it'll be a nice break before football season since that god damn clusterfuck of a championship between Lee Evans, Billy Cundiff, and John Harbaugh. But oh no.  This is the year the O's decide to stop shitting the bed and make a legit run for it.  Seriously, we're at 68 wins after tonight. One more win ties last year. Which we did by giving a giant fuck you to the Red Sox.   :grin: Which was awesome, but it was also, our 69th win to end the season, which um yeah, sorta really sucks.   

It's really not fair for two Cy Young candidate-level guys to have him as their manager. Well, more potentially sad than anything.

You can watch baseball any other way?   :grin:

The Pagan pickup looks to be pretty huge for the Giants being actually able to score.

He picked the right time to come out of his massive slump certainly.

Heh - it used to be a nice calm sport.  Both of my kids usually had a 7pm'ish bottle feeding, so I'd go up, have the game on low, and catch a few innings while rocking them down.  Since we usually imploded sometime around the 5th-7th innings (Either the starter getting pulled too late or the bullpen sucking as was their norm), turning off the game an hour or so into it was  usually the right call anyhow.   

Who's your team? 

I grew up pulling for the Reds and the Indians, so mostly they were awful although the Reds were good about once every 7 or 8 years. 

Orioles - Hence why I'm usually safe in figuring a little bit of excitement in May and June only to be crushed by everyone in the AL East and completely out of contention by July.  This playing meaningful games in August and September thing is nerve wracking.

I used to love Eddie Murray, and Ripkin is a pretty likable guy too.  It would be nice to see the O's pick things up and field a decent team.  It's been a long time since 1983......

Wow, Dodgers are going all in I guess.

Oh, it will be so nice if we still top the division.   :why_so_serious:

Yeah, I don't understand all the Josh Beckett love.  The Dodgers are making a mistake taking him. 

Rays Giants, Rays in 7.

Shields thows a gem in 7 that leaves the Rays wanting more Big Game James.

But, then he signs with an NL team and has a steady decline for the rest of his career (I'm looking at you, Matt Garza).

They have fond memories of 2003, I guess. He seems to have finally just broken completely down though. Crawford is also a bit nonsensical, since he's been an expensive bust and is injured right now. Gonzalez is really the big part of that deal. He's shown he can hit in the National League, and is a good 3/4/5 hitter if need be. Seems like an awful lot of money to take on though.

Crawford and Beckett were the price to get Gonzalez, obviously. I think Crawford is better fit for the NL game anyway, so he might not be as completely worthless as he was in Boston.

I wish during broadcasts of the Giants and Braves, they didn't refer to Melky Cabrera that he "went down" or "yeah, since Melky went down"

He'd not fucking injured. He's a cheater. Even Bruce Bochy said that once in an interview. Just stop.

That's just you being picky on words.  Thats how people naturally want to phrase it.  Everybody I've heard says it that way.  It's a common way to describe somebody dropping out of something for any reason.

Nobody referred to Manny as "going down" when he was suspended. So no, it's not common.

Tigers are finally starting to play some good ball. Verlander is top notch, Scherzer is a freakin' beast, and is becoming that consistant K machine we've been waiting for. Fielder is quietly looking like the player they paid him all that money to be, and is starting to get a handle on some of these AL pitchers.

Bullpen and defense will end their run, but I think they'll make playoffs.



Too bad the White Sox decided they aren't going to lose anymore games this year  :drill:

Giants schedule the rest of the way is extremely advantageous vs. what the Dodgers are up against. By my reckoning they play 22 games against good teams, we play only 15 (that includes 6 more head to head games.) 6 of their 'good team' games are on the road against the Reds and Nats; meanwhile we go to Houston and Chicago, and while we have 9 games left against the Diamondbacks, 6 of them are at home.

We *really* should be able to hold this lead pretty easily; blowing it would be a pretty epic failure (not that I'm ruling it out.)

.516 opponent's winning percentage for the Dodgers the rest of the way versus .455 for the Giants, so you're right on. Still, six games against each other so that's what it'll come down to.

And I regret looking this up because I was again reminded of how far back the Angels are, and they have one of the tougher schedules remaining of the WC teams.

Beginning to really hate trading Lindstrom away for Saunders.  If we wanted to let the other team score 7+ runs, we could have just kept Tommy Hunter in the starting rotation.

Catching A's fever here. I think they're pretty clearly the better team in the Bay Area right now, and the Giants are looking really solid. (A week against the Astros and Cubs will do that though.)

Seeing a guy as good as Jurickson Profar get called up by the best team in the LA and instantly hit a home run must be really demoralizing for, say, Mariners fans. They're reloading before they even need to reload.

Tigers/ White Sox is a pretty compelling race this late in the year. 

Rays game tomorrow, and it's still a tight one out in the East.  Love being a TB fan in any sport--our races are always close.

I love Tampa this week! (next week is a different story

My god, about to be tied for first in the division in September!  :Love_Letters: 

Went to the game last night.  Still a good turnout for the Rays on a Tuesday; just shy of 20,000.

Can you guys lose a game already?

There ya go! 

What's going to be fun is when we have Tampa up here next week, they're doing a flashback to 1992 pricing to help boost attendance.  There was also a side deal for stupid people that run stupid distances to come wearing running gear (conveniently enough, last years half marathon shirt is Orioles Orange), so . . .


What I was hoping to do though is ditch out of work early and catch the Thursday noon game as well with my daughter, but I'm torn on that now.  She broke her arm today, and I'm pretty sure if I took her to the stadium and she couldn't play in the bounce house it'd be hell for her, regardless of how much cotton candy I threw at her.

Have no voice after that crazy game.  Stadium was rocking hard and after the first 2 innings, nobody was getting anywhere until the 9th where suddenly the Orioles remember how to play small ball.  
 

The Rays had multiple chances to win and squandered them by striking out a million times.

I seldom get frustrated after baseball games, but if I'm Joe Maddon I'm chewing some ass after last night.  You can't RISP <2 outs and fail to score that many times.

The Rays had multiple chances to win and squandered them by striking out a million times.

I seldom get frustrated after baseball games, but if I'm Joe Maddon I'm chewing some ass after last night.  You can't RISP <2 outs and fail to score that many times.
[/quote]

I'm going to be curious as to what Maddon comes up with today.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of a shuffle to get a spark going, because you're right,  it's crazy to not be able to manufacture at least one run off of the multiple opportunities last night.  Hell, it wasn't ever fun easy grounder to 2nd to first double play that was doing them in. 

This is the fundamental difference between teams that make the playoffs and teams that don't.  Teams that find a way to win more often than not when they don't have it or don't deserve to win from a statistical perspective make the playoffs.

TB has given up two of the last three in this fashion (TEX and BAL).

I can't wait for the regular season to be over.   :oh_i_see:

The Braves are trying to piss it away, but then again so is everyone in the NL wild card race. It's ridiculous. Nobody should be playing these games at this point. They are all exhausted.

Dear Orioles,

You're welcome.

-Rays Pitchers' Defense

There are some crazy great races going on in the AL.

Yeah, but it's all teams that I could really give a shit who ends up winning.  I've never been a huge fan of the baseball regular season anyway.  I only watch once the playoffs start and it means something.

It's all AL East. Outside of the Orioles winning, I'm with ghost, I just don't give a fuck. Let her rip and let's get to the playoffs already.

Someone needs to remind the Orioles that Chris Davis isn't available to pitch today, so stop doing stupid things like loading the bases with 0 outs and then failing to score.

Tigers-White Sox, and A's-Rangers is starting to look interesting as well.

Yeah, I would like to see the Orioles win that one, if for no other reason than to have someone new in the game.  I have a soft spot for the Os, too, as I have a couple of buddies in Baltimore that are fanatics. 

I want the Orioles and the Rays to both make sure the Yankees don't even make it to the one-game playoff shit. The QQing of Yankees' fans would be electric.

Yeah, fuck the Yankees.   :oh_i_see:

The Rays schedule this week is pretty damn brutal - they move on from the O's to New York.  Hopefully they can bounce back from this series and take at least 2 out of 3 from the Yanks. 

If they don't win tonight, they are going to be way out of the race.  5 GB with 20 to play isn't an enviable position.

I think he just wants them to kick the shit out of the Yankees, not actually win the overall race.  :awesome_for_real:

I'd love to see Tampa knock the Yankees completely out and take the wild card.  :grin:

That would be awesome.  No doubt about it.  

I think Oakland or Texas pretty much have that wrapped up though, don't they?

Not to shit on everyone's parade, but I think anybody who honestly believes the Yankees won't win this division are probably Baltimore fans.

The O's are playing out of their minds and they look great, but I have one major problem with their team. They have a negative run differential. Nobody has won a division with a negative run differential total since the Diamondbacks edged out the Rockies in 2007. For those that remember, that happened to be the season the Rockies went to the World Series, because their differential was 100+ (best in the NL). They got beat by a Boston team with a +210 (best in the AL).

I put a lot of stock in that stat down the stretch. It's a concerning factor for me when I think of the Orioles chances. At this point I think Texas is the odds on favorite to represent the AL in the Series (change from my previous belief in the Yankees) and that the Nationals would be the NL team (change from my previous pick of the Reds).

I think most people dislike the Yankees enough to willingly suspend disbelief. 

If you take away the games from the Angels and Rangers, the run diff shifts to something along the lines of +41, so there's that.

That does however lead to the next problem.  Which is if the O's do get into the post-season, chances are they're playing Texas (either in the ALCS or ALDS), and so far, the Rangers have completely owned them.   So yah, I think a Rangers-Nats WS is probably the most likely scenario.

2 wild cards this season, remember, with a play-in game.

I don't THINK they'll lose the division. I just hope they do because, seriously... fuck the Yankees.

Ah.  I didn't realize that.  So I guess somebody in charge wanted to guarantee the Yanks a spot?   :oh_i_see:

The idea is that it makes winning the division much more valuable - which it does. All getting a wild card spot does it get you a one game playoff, if you want to be guaranteed a full series you need to win your division.

I'm still not on board with it.  Leaving anything in baseball to just a one game showdown doesn't really work so well.  That's why everything is played in series.  I thought the one wild card spot for each league worked perfectly.  But on well, guess we'll see how it plays out across the next several seasons.

I dunno, I envision a scenario in which either the Dodgers or Braves get fucked by a one game playoff, and I enjoy this scenario.

NO YOU GET FUCKED!  :awesome_for_real:

WIN/WIN

Problem with that is that I instead envision the Dodgers and Braves fucking a way superior team through this method, because their pitcher had a bad day.   :oh_i_see:

I will be surprised if the one-game thing stays as is for any length of time.

Yeah it had the feel of an intermediate step.

Yeah, I don't like it.  Maybe it's my inner autism speaking, but I like symmetry. 

The Rays are seriously going to make me lose my fucking mind.  This Septermber is absolute horseshit.

Reds are first to clinch (http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=320920116). 

Go Reds!   :heart:

I'm secretly weeping in my cube as the Rays start to turn it around too little, too late.

Molina, Peña, Roberts, gone for altogether shit play.  Shields and Upton gone because they'll fabricate moneyhats.  Both deserve it though, as they've played great this year.

Looks like the Nats clinched as well. Fuckers.

Out of curiosity, whats with the Nats hate I think I've seen around this board?  I'm a little bitter that they didn't resurrect them as The Senators, but beyond that, I'm happy to see them do well.  Of course I'm in DC now and can see how excited everybody here is about them, which is fun to watch.  Hopefully we'll go against them in the Playoffs so I have a chance of attending a Giants playoff game.

I am hoping we don't see them, myself. Scariest team to go up against.

They are in my division. And I think they are run by idiots who shut down the best thing on their roster.

I just hate on all DC sports fans in general. Mostly it comes from having to deal with Redskins people growing up. Now, every time the Skins win a game, people wont' shut the fuck up about how this is their year and they're going all the way and blah blah blah. Drives me bonkers, so the annoyance tends to rub off on some of the other leagues.

All the NL teams look pretty good this year. 

Eric Gagne estimates that 80% of the 2004 Dodgers Team was using PEDs (http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/story/_/id/8426140/eric-gagne-biography-says-80-percent-los-angeles-dodgers-teammates-were-hgh)......  :awesome_for_real:

Thanks for nothing Toronto and Texas.   :oh_i_see:

Okay, fine, second game did the trick, even though you tried to give that one back too.

Heh, should be an interesting post season for me.  I'm living in Washington DC (which made it to the playoffs), who hates Baltimore because of local drama concerning their owner (who also made it), while actually being a giants fan (who made it as well).   :awesome_for_real:

 Working on getting some play off tickets as we speak!

My Tigs finally sealed it. Now Miggy just needs to finish strong for the Triple Crown. The dude is an outright beast.

Even if he manages the Triple Crown, he shouldn't be MVP. Trout has that sewn up.

Mariners are moving in the fences @ Safeco. A scant decade or so since it was obviously needed.

How far?

It's starting to settle in here that this baseball season of 162 games is going to come down to a make or break game Friday. People are rightly terrified.

While I appreciate that Tampa isn't laying down and is treating these as meaningful games (unlike a certain division team in the North),  I can't take another game like last nights.

Shields pitched out of his mind and you have to respect that.

Wow.  The Rangers are getting fucking smoked.   :grin:

A's win!  :rock:

:rock_hard:

What a great story. If it wasn't the Ms, I wanted the As to do it and give the finger to the big spenders in the division. If only so I can point to the Mariner brass as the major hurdle holding them back.

Yeah, there are a number of teams I'd be happy seeing win the World Series this year (including the Giants, obviously).  Here's hoping for some sort of happy ending instead of the Yankees.   :awesome_for_real:

Ideal scenario: Giants-A's rematch, this time Giants win, no earthquake.

Worst case scenario, Giants-A's rematch, this time A's win again, with the help of another horrible earthquake.  

Oh, I wouldn't cry too much if the A's won the rematch. I could do without the earthquake though.

No worst case is Giants win with the help of another horrible earthquake :awesome_for_real:

So.....Miguel Cabrera, is he the MVP?  I don't see how you could help but give it to a guy that wins the triple crown and means that much to his team. 

It should be Mike Trout, but the fans/voters/etc don't respect speed in the AL.

It's tough to ignore that Cabrera's team made the playoffs, IMO, and in a tight race.  Trout had a very, very good season too, however.  It's a tough choice, but I personally think the triple crown puts Cabrera over the top because it's so rare to see.

Cabrera, but I'm a homer.

Triple crown and batting .429 in September to pull your team to a division title? Pretty big deal.

This is my personal opinion on that, but Chicago fucking tanked. They went 4-11 in their last 15, 11-17 in September.

Detroit went 16-12 in September, 10-5 in the last 15.

The reason? Detroit played nothing but KC and the Twins in that stretch at the end. Chicago played KC, the Angels, the Rays, and the Indians. They played .500 against Cleveland and got their asses kicked by Tampa and LA (who were still techinically in the races). Game, set, match.

Detroit isn't a good road team, Oakland's a great home team. Verlander is only 8-6 on the road with a 3.57 ERA. Verlander also hasn't won a road game against one of the playoff teams since Baltimore on July 15th. I don't really like Detroit in the game, but anything can happen I suppose.

Trout contributed significantly more to the success of the Angels than any other player in the league did to the success of their team. He should win the MVP and RoY both.

He's nearly 4 wins better than Cabrera when measured by WAR; a lot of that can be chalked up to the fact that he played a much more important defensive position, much better than Cabrera played his less important one. (Other players with a higher WAR: Robinson Cano, Buster Posey, Andrew McCutchen.) If you consider *only* offense, Cabrera comes in at 7.5 WAR, since he's not getting the -0.6 deduction for his defense. Even then Trout has him beat at 8.6, thanks to his speed mostly. Oh yeah, and Trout did it with one less month than Cabrera. Advantage: Trout, by a longshot. The reason the stats don't necessarily jump off the page looking like Trout has a massive advantage is due to park factors. Comerica Park increases run scoring by about 7%; the Big A *suppresses* run scoring by about 18-19%. Only PNC, AT&T, and SafeCo have been bigger pitcher's parks this season.

To address the "OMG but the Angels didn't win anything and Detroit did!" argument - check the records. The Angels actually won one more game than Detroit did, in a tougher division. All that argument does is give Cabrera a bunch of extra credit for playing in the shittiest division in baseball, which he should not get.

And I don't want to get into how pointless RBIs are as a measure of a player's success. There are about 23 other things you can look at that will give you a better grasp at how good a player is. RBIs mostly measure how good the players ahead of you are at getting on base.

Basically, Trout put up a truly amazing season, while Cabrera was merely excellent. To put it another way, Cabrera has ~45 WAR in his career, which is fantastic for a player of his age. Trout is at almost 25% of that total *after less than one season*.

Yes, but you know those factors will play a role in the decision making process, Ingmar, whether you want them to or not.


Addendum-  and, unsurprisingly, Bobby Valentine was fired. 

I still don't understand why you believe this. Is baseball played in some kind of bizarre vacuum where RISP stats don't matter?

Yes? Nobody has the magical power to suddenly hit better when runners are in scoring position.

Put it this way. Hunter Pence had 104 RBI this season. He did this while probably not being one of the 50 best hitters in the big leagues. That is why RBIs are useless for evaluating players.

BAwRISP has no predictive value, it is essentially random. Good hitters who hit behind other good hitters will get a lot of RBIs. Guys who hit with the bases empty all the time won't. It has nothing to do with the batter.

Yes, they do magically have the power to hit better with RISP. You're assuming that players are robots and will statistically end up the same over time, and that pressure of the situation has no effect. That's dumb. Adrian Gonzalez hit .392 with RISP and had 108 RBIs. He was hitting .299 overall. You're telling me that I'd rather have Prince Fielder because he has a better overall average, more homers, and some weird thing called WAR? In the end, you're defining them based on some sort of weird "Runs Created" stat that counts walks and getting plunked and all that other ridiculous Sabermetric crap.

I think it's funny you're putting these two out here as your examples given the results of the teams that employed them.  :grin:

If you have a player who 'hits better under pressure' then what you actually have is a player who is dogging it the rest of the time, IMO. But there really aren't any players like that*. Do that "analysis" for Adrian Gonzalez's whole career and see if it holds up. (Also note, batting average is a really volatile stat and using it in small sample sizes to determine anything is crazy.)

*I do believe the opposite is probably true; there IS a 'choke factor'.

My point is that no matter how much math you crank on it, I've yet to hear how it suddenly makes a team better than just watching a team's pitching, situational hitting, and payroll.

Baseball nerd fights make me laugh.  All of you know that none of that shit will come into play when the voting happens. 

They pay more and more attention to this kind of analysis every year, though. There's no way Felix Hernandez wins the Cy Young with a 13-12 record 20 years ago.

And there's no way he should win it with a 13-12 record any year.  That's ridiculous. 

 :facepalm:

Soon...

I understand it's cool to glom on to the fancier statistics.  13-12 is bullshit.  Sorry.

He controls his run support. Don't be this stupid.

What's the #1 requirement to get a win in baseball? Scoring runs. You can't win scoring 0 runs. Guess what's the only thing on the scoreboard an AL pitcher can't affect?

Blaming a pitcher for 'losses' when he goes 7-8 innings and allows one run (which King Felix has had happen to him many times in his fine career) is like blaming a quarterback for his defense giving up an 80 yard pass. It's utter nonsense. I guess he should have planned better and been drafted by a team with an offense?

EDIT: I can kind of understand skepticism about WAR and stuff, it isn't transparent how they get to the final number and all - but with pitcher wins it isn't like they're using some kind of tricky derived stat to throw those out, they're just looking at ERA and Ks and walks and hits and such instead.

This may be an outlier, but you just described Jeremy Guthrie's 2011 season with the Orioles.   He ended the season just under 20 loses.  The biggest problem for most of the season though was a combo of infield errors (it's why I do not fucking understand even a little why Reynolds got the nod to start 3rd base this season - he's near gold glove at first, but is usually good for almost an error a game at third) and complete lack of run support.  Where run support could be defined as just score at least one run. 

From an article (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/mel_antonen/08/31/jeremy.guthrie/index.html#ixzz28S6D3sc3)

Guthrie is an example of why pitchers shouldn't be judged solely on their won-loss record. In April, he had a 2.53 ERA, but was 1-3. The next month, he had a 3.77 ERA and was 1-4.
He had six shutout innings vs. the Boston Red Sox and wound up with a no-decision. He gave up two runs in seven innings to the Minnesota Twins and wound up with the loss. He lost a complete-game shutout to Tampa Bay's Jeremy Hellickson. He allowed three runs in eighth innings against the Seattle Mariners only to lose.

Also, if we're doing playoff pics, I adore the cover the local paper did today in their special Orioles section

Jayson Stark picked the Giants to win the WS, which means we'll lose in 3 to the Reds.

I'm getting ready to crawl into a hole all weekend with an Enya record and some muscle relaxers. Holy fuck Braves.

Can an entire team get the yips?

HOLY SHIT HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU CALL AN INFIELD FLY IN FUCKING LEFT FIELD YOU FUCKING IDIOTS

Robot umps now, robot umps forever.

That right there is a great example of why a one game playoff doesn't work.

One bad call and your season is over. No chance to bounce back next game, no chance to get out of it. What a fucking sham. Bud Selig can once again suck my balls.

Braves beat themselves but yeah the one game format is terrible.

Also GO CARDS  :grin:

It was the correct call (*poke* *poke*) though it is admittedly a judgement call. It's really the "infielder fly" rule not the "infield fly" rule.

Also:

:awesome_for_real:

It wasn't the right call at all. 1 - There is no way that's a ball ordinarily handled by an infielder 20 yards in the outfield. 2 - The call wasn't made immediately. It was made when the ball was a second and a half from hitting the turf.

The infield fly was bullshit and holy shit am I drunk right now.

Well at least Baltimore saved Texas the embarrassment of losing another world series.   :why_so_serious:

Go Orioles. Outside of that, I want to watch the baseball world burn this year.

Such anger!

Okay, no more fucking 9th inning meltdowns.  I want to use these things next week!

Orioles AL Championship Series Home Game 1
Oriole Park At Camden Yards, Baltimore,  MD
Tue, Oct 16, 2012
   
Ticket Information
Section 336
Row 21
Seats 13 - 16
Description
UPPER RESERVED
BEHIND HOME PLATE

Yeesh, rough start for the Bay Area.

FYI, the WAR "stat" can suck it. It's a comparison between that player and a fictitional AAA player that would be called up...Who comes up with this shit? Who Trout really replaced was a pretty good player, if I'm not mistaken. Tons of props to Trout for an amazing rookie season. He's got a lot of years to win a lot of MVPS.

Just not this year. This year it goes to the vet Triple Crown winner.

Chicago imploded, and I loved every minute of it. I agree the Tigers are in a soft division, and had a cake home stretch...but I had been following them through all the series before that. Pulled off big sweeps and series wins when they needed to, against those same solid AL squads. I'm not scared of a Detroit/Yankees matchup at all, DET has great starting pitching and will expose the Yanks for what they are. The team that could have exposed the Tigers weaknesses the worst have already been eliminated....Ze Rangers.

I never expected any team to play worse team D then us, but the A's have.

Anyway, go tigers. Sweep em tonight, cause these fuckers are scary at home and in most close games.

Even if you stick to traditional stats, Trout had a better season than Cabrera on a team that won more games in a tougher division.

I don't see how that's possible, considering Cabrera won the triple crown. 

Because Sabermetrics lives in a vacuum.

No sabermetrics involved:

- Trout played a tougher, more important defensive position at a Gold Glove level. Cabrera surprised everyone by being adequate at 3B. No contest here at all.
- Trout stole 49 bases with only 5 times caught which is an astounding success rate. Think of it as turning 49 of his singles into doubles and 5 of his singles into outs and you'll get a good idea of how valuable that is.
- Trout grounded into 7 double plays. Cabrera grounded into *28*.
- Trout - 129 runs to Cabrera's 109, in fewer games played.
- Cabrera had 60 more plate appearances than Trout due to Trout not being called up immediately. At first you might think that this favors Cabrera... until you also notice that Cabrera made 54 more outs than Trout on the season.

And he did all that playing half his games in a pitcher's park, against tougher opposition.

The case for Cabrera essentially boils down to two things: 14 extra home runs (partly offset by the fact that Trout hit 6 more triples than Cabrera), and the fact that Trout wasn't called up to start the season. Thing is I think that 2nd part is actually a good demonstration of how much more valuable Trout was, considering how the Angels turned things around after a really miserable start, in large part due to Trout's contributions.

It isn't even close, IMO. This becomes especially apparent once you do even a modicum of actual analysis on their seasons - accounting for the actual park effects, for example - but apparently we're baseball fundamentalists here.  :-P

You mentioned "traditional stats", which in my non-baseball nerd mind means things like batting average, HR, RBIs, stolen bases, maybe runs.......

I think you're off base and that Cabrera winning the triple crown should seal the deal for him.

Cabrera winning the Triple Crown on a team that won its division over a rookie that wasn't called up til late April on a team that missed the playoffs? Right or wrong, there's no contest, not with the deciders being baseball writers and their votes. Trout doesn't have a chance in hell. Things like the Triple Crown and playoffs are sacrosanct.

*Maybe* runs?

I like my MVPs, Cy Youngs, ROY, etc. to come from good teams.  I could care less about some schlep that manages a .500 record on a shitty team even if he does have a 2.0 ERA. 

The Angels had a better record than the Tigers.

Don't discount runs. The Sabermetric people will have a stroke. After all, once you get on base, you can score yourself in theory and raise your GWSBTSH stat. Guy-who-stole-base-to-score-himself.

Well, they didn't make the playoffs, did they?

Actually I was mostly blown away by the fact that he cares about RBIs and not runs. Both of them are dependent on other people in the lineup, and neither are loved by sabermetricians.

And ghost, no, they didn't make the playoffs. Neither would Detroit in that division. Why do you want to give Cabrera extra credit for stuff outside of his control?

You are the world's revenge against logic and reason.

Fuck Trout.  If he played for a good team I'd be all in, but his team is at home and that's all that matters.   :grin:


Seriously though, I don't see how you can dispute a guy winning a triple crown and taking his team to the playoffs in a tight ass race.  That's going to be tough to beat when it comes to the voting, IMO. 

On to less nerdy topics, what do you think the odds are that the Texans hold on to Josh Hamilton (http://espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/story/_/id/8483314/texas-rangers-let-josh-hamilton-test-open-market-making-contract-offer)?  I'm thinking pretty low. 

The backchannel rumor is they don't want to resign him at all.

Depends on if he prices himself out of the market or not. The Yankees won't take him, and the Red Sox are likely to be somewhat reluctant to spend big bills after the Carl Crawford debacle. The Cubs won't pay big money for him. The Dodgers might depending on how many of their desperation trade with the Sox that they keep. The White Sox or the Tigers might be in for him. The Giants should be but likely won't and neither will St. Louis or Atlanta. Philly? Miami? He may end up having 2 or 3 teams at most trying to get him if he prices himself too high.

The Giants may look at him but they're pretty risk-averse in terms of big contracts to hitters right now, and Hamilton has a LOT of risk to go with the admittedly high upside. He'd also be a wretchedly bad fit culturally for the Bay Area. I have a hunch that the Giants will go for a 3ish year deal to a midrange guy like Nick Swisher for their left field hole.

The other thing about Hamilton is that he is pretty old, relatively speaking.  Thirty one isn't ancient in baseball years, but factor in the drug/alcohol issues that you may have to deal with and I don't see many people wanting to sign him for what his agent will think he is worth. 

31 is OK if it isn't a long deal (3-4 years is probably OK, Swisher is also 31 and I wouldn't think a 3 year deal a bad thing). What scares me about Hamilton is not the age so much, nor the relapse possibility, or the annoying Jesus talk, but just the simple fact that he's only managed to play 140 games twice in his entire career. Dude just gets hurt way too much. He's also become a bad centerfielder instead of a pretty good one, which means moving to a corner outfield spot, which makes him less valuable.

I don't know if his first year in Cincinnati should count in that assessment.  I don't believe he was a starter for the entire year and may not even have been called up for the whole year.  Other than 2009 he's not been awful (between 120 and 156 games).  

To start, the Triple Crown includes two stats that aren't the best at measuring batting value. Batting Average is subject to a lot of year-to-year variance that has nothing to do with the quality of the player and more importantly it does stupid shit like "ignore walks" and "treat a home run the same as a single." The hatred among the analytical community for Runs Batted In is well documented in this thread but could use some extra explanation (and slight defense).

There should be little argument that RBI is a stat that depends a lot on the context, specifically the quality of the players hitting in front of the batter. A hitter with good OBP guys in front of him will gain more RBI than one with poor ones. A lot like how a good wide receiver needs a quarterback to get them the ball or everyone else on offense needs the line to do its thing. A context dependant stat isn't the devil by itself, but there are better ways to determine the value a player produces. Many of these stats either ignore context-sensitive information or try to correct for it as best they can. The other tact to determining value would be to simply include all the context-sensitive information (RBI as well as GIDP and batting order adjustments for example) but baseball is a simple enough game that it's just as accurate to not bother with that stuff.

And that's what it comes down to. Baseball is basically a solved problem in the public domain with the exception of defense (specifically catchers) and some pitching stuff. Players still have to play the games and crazy magical shit can happen on the field (http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1517669/ichirodance.gif), but understanding what "things" win baseball games at the season-length level is pretty well understood (seriously (http://amzn.com/B0023ZLI1U)), even more so by the actual teams with their much better defensive metrics.

The broader issue with the Triple Crown, much like the 20 Win season, is that some fans treat it like this categorical shift in evaluating a player. (When historically it hasn't, if you haven't been reminded of all the TC winners that didn't win MVP.) If some other player beat Cabrera in HRs by one, his season is... exactly the same and still excellent, just like his last two seasons have been. On the flip side, Justin Verlander is just as good as he was last season, but he didn't win 20 games so everyone is treating him like he's not even on the roster.

The problem I have with the whole movement is that contradictions are usually are usually dismissed by sample size. OMG YOU CAN'T SAY THAT ABOUT A SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!

Yeah in the real world as a fan, I don't give a shit about tracking a player's lifetime, or 5000 ABs, or whatever longass metric we want to use. I care about a series. I care about winning that series, with all the highs and lows that involves. I care about a season at most. I do think that measuring a player against his peers every year is important, not just against the greats of history.

Honestly, there are probably 5-10 people every year that have legitimate claims to an award like the MVP or Cy Young.

Most years. Some years someone puts up one of the 20 best seasons of all time, like Trout this year.  :grin:

Because that's all a lot of what the stats you see on telecasts are, small sample BS. The individual batter vs. pitcher matchup (or worse, inning/situation) data, without compelling scouting information to go along with it, is at best a curiosity. It has no predictive value compared to a player's overall numbers or platoon splits. Hot and cold streaks or months or stats since this date just don't stand up to minor logical scrutiny.

A playoff series is such a small set of games that the responsible analysis is frequently to just shrug. Knowing what we don't know is just as important as knowing what we do, and for a lot of people, myself included, it doesn't diminish our enjoyment of the game in the least. Except when announcers say something idiotic, then it doesn't help matters.

But he didn't win the triple crown.  :grin: :grin: :grin:

I had an extended hiatus from f13 because I've been busy at work, but figured I'd toss a few things out there:

1)  Those Tampa Bay sports teams.  Breakin' your heart every step of the way.  Kudos to the A's, but TB couldn't overcome the ridiculous amount of injuries we sustained in the middle 80 games of the season.

2)  David Price should get a nod for MVP, even though chicks dig the longball and speed kills.  Can he finish third in the voting so all's right in the world?

3)  Speaking of voting, can we have Price edge out Fernando Rodney or visa versa for AL Cy Young?  Rodney was more fearsome than Mo this year, if only because you couldn't get any kind of read if it was coming at 97 or 82. 

4)  My first love, those Braves.  What a horseshit call.  There were no runners that needed protecting even though it was a rather routine play.  That being said, Braves fans, we still have bases loaded chasing 3 with one out.  It's not like that lost the game for us (although it sure was nice fodder for the media).

5)  If you don't want the O's or A's to win the series and your team is out already, you have no soul.  Two feel-good stories there.   

Price has a shot but the award is Verlander's most likely.

No closer should ever win a Cy Young (they don't pitch nearly enough innings), so I don't think Rodney rates a vote.

Well, the Giants, by the Grace of God, are still alive, so I'm not at that point yet.   :awesome_for_real:  But why do you think the Nats or the Tigers shouldn't also deserve some mention here?  I'm equally sympathetic to all of them (if the A's lose that is.  We'll see SF destroyed by a second great earthquake yet!).  The Nats are a new team in an old city, and so its fun to watch the excitement behind them doing well.  Detroit, because they're a very old team that hasn't won in a good long while.

Note, I'll admit I'm biased against the O's, because the bastards stole our colors!

Aside from the Yankees, I don't think there's any team left I care about in the "hope they lose" sense (Sorry, Braves! I hate you!). And I don't care about the Yankees losing THAT much.

You have a good reason.

It's probably why the best I can do with the Yankees right now is blistering indifference. I haven't watched baseball seriously long enough to give a shit about them!

The Phillies, though. That hate came quick. <3

I have a really hard time mustering up sports hate against any baseball team, even the Yankees.  Once I get close someone brings up some funky ass statistic to pacify me.   :oh_i_see:

To quote GRR Martin, life is meaningless and full of pain.   Fucking Voldermort.

I'll pull for the Orioles though, if that will work.   :awesome_for_real:

I enjoy seeing the Red Sox do poorly, and I'm always of two minds when it comes to the Giants. Also vague dislike for the Rangers, but that's just because of a "they're the good team in the division" thing.

(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1110854/i-hate-tommy-lasorda.gif)

Watching A-Rod piss his pinstripes is one of my favorite new fall traditions. I would like it even better if he was doing it on the golf course though  :grin:

hell yes Buster

The Reds may be choking harder than the Braves. At least we only completely fucked up one game.  :awesome_for_real:

You don't employ Dusty Baker, who I am pretty sure was born in a Gypsy-cursed haunted hospital built on an Indian burial ground.

Man Latos just self destructed. What in the fuck are you doing throwing a dead red fastball with the bases loaded in the smallest ballpark in the known universe TO THEIR BEST HITTER.

I mean come on. Use your head.

Stop fucking jinxing it you motherfuckers!

Giants win. Series over.

You also don't employ him if you want your young pitchers to pitch at a high level for more than 2 seasons. He couldn't do more damage to young pitcher's arms if he armpit-fucked them all in a line with a razor-studded dildo.

i am going to die from stress

why did you let them back in it, Giants

why why why

 :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:

I have absolutely no idea why you were worried.

If it's Cards and Giants on one side, and Yankees v. who cares on the other side, I can officially say I don't give a fuck anymore.

Orioles damn well better win this tonight.  Just got this in my mail.    :grin:

   
****************
CONGRATULATIONS, YOUR WORLD SERIES TICKET OPPORTUNITY BEGINS WEDNESDAY AT 10 A.M.

Dear Orioles Fan,

Congratulations! You will have the opportunity to purchase up to FOUR (4) tickets for each possible World Series game that may be played at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Tickets will be sold online only on Wednesday, October 17 from 10:00 a.m. ET until 11:59 p.m. ET, or until tickets are no longer available.
*****************

So Ingmar promised to buy a Zito jersey if the Giants came back to win this series, I find that delightful for some reason.  :grin:

I'm on the hook for a green Zito jersey if the A's pull it out, too.

So do they go to the World Series now?

NLCS (national leage championship series)

You need to shut em down O's.

EDIT: Good job! Now I can go to bed.

Dodged another earthquake :oh_i_see:

I still can't believe I thought this was going to be a nice relaxing season.

Fuck yeah, Verlander.

Honestly, I don't really fear the Yankee's (as a Tiger's fan) and glad to see them go 5 with Baltimore. Tiger's have some badass starting pitching - Verlander, Fister, Scherzer (Sanchez has been throwing well, too)... as long as the bullpen holds up and they can manage a few runs they can beat anyone. Surprisingly, their poor defense has been solid thus far. I imagine it will cost them a game in the next series, though.

Of all the teams I've seen so far in the AL, the Tigers v. Orioles intrigues me the most.

If it's Tigers v. Yankees, that's a nightmare for the Yankees. They are so home run driven, and Detroit doesn't give up bombs. The Yankees simply don't do enough with runners on base unless it leaves the yard. Baltimore is even worse in terms of relying on deep balls to get runs with runners on base.

I'd say the Tigers are going to be my favorite to make it to the series with that pitching, the fact they were #1 in the AL with RISP hitting, and 2nd in OBP.

Cardiac Cardinals strike again.  Amazing!

Apparently I don't like the Nationals after all, because when I saw the final score (after deciding at 6-0, it was safe to go take a nap), my first thought was "haha."

The way we've played at home lately I'm not sure we WANT home field advantage. Oh well.

That's only the case for their starters. (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=sta&lg=al&qual=0&type=8&season=2012&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=9,a)

Their relievers have a middle-of-the-pack HR/9 (http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=al&qual=0&type=8&season=2012&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=9,a), mostly as a result of set-up man Joaquin Benoit's 1.77 HR/9 and hilarious 18.3% HR/FB this season (http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1437&position=P). (His career lines are better, but a 1.17 HR/9 is still high for a high-leverage reliever I think.) And as a group they have the lowest ground-ball rate in the league.

Less ground balls means less balls Cabrera can't get to rolling into LF though.  :awesome_for_real:

Advanced metrics, also good for schadenfreude: Beyond the Box Score's Least Valuable Players of 2012 (http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/10/12/3491078/mlbs-least-valuable-players-2012). (Sorry Giants and Phillies fans.)