nymr83

]You've figured it out. (Now you see why I couldn't reliably search on "Frank Thomas" to see what his current job might be.) wow, i cant believe i didnt figure that out on the spot.

there is a good reason there weren't any latinos on that team- because most of the best latino players were still playing at the time! if the century ended in 2010 i think there'd have more likely been latinos on the team.

i don't buy any "beltran can't play in new york" crap, give him more than a year, with his track record he deserves it. however, if they think manny is a better fit i can't really argue, theres already a gold glove caliver CFer waiting to replace him.

i forgot the AA stint, i'll say that that makes him not unqualified in my mind, though i still would have chosen randolph over him. what makes a guy "qualified" anyway? it seems to me that any former big leaguer with a reputation as a "nice guy" has a shot at a job.

]Gee, maybe he really DID deserve to be on the All Star Game... he did, but his performance now has nothing to do with that. the fan voting is what it is and theres not much you can do, but the reserves should be picked based solely on their stats up until that point of the year.

why is "mr. experienced manager" not listed at all on baseball reference as a manager? edit- i'll cut the sarcasm out and answer my own question- because backman had just as much mlb managerial experienmce as randolph, NONE. now which is better preperation for a job, being on the yankee bench for ten years or managing some independent league team? i don't like randolph but i think he's more qualified.

Elster88 wrote: ="Nymr83"]]Fear that the New York media's love affair with hand-picked manager Willie Randolph will sour if the big-budget Mets get off to a slow start in his second year, and those same "Willie's a Winner" pundits will be calling for a much-more qualified candidate in Backman to get Randolph's job? everyone knows i'm not a fan of wee willie small brain, but what exactly makes backman "much-more qualified" to manage in the majors? Oh, just maybe the fact that he had managed a game prior to 2005? Not hard to figure out. if that were true then a career .230 hitter who is 39 years old and can't play the field was "more qualified" than david wright at the point wright was brought up.

ok i'm working on this now to stay away from my casebooks for a few minutes... my method for first hitters: OPS+ multiplied by plate appearences. players with a negative OPS+ (there were 2) were given a "1" OPS+. i didn't like how this turned out at all, the disparity between certain players were strange. next i tried (OPS+ * PA) - (100-OPS+ * (1/4)PA) this was done because an ops+ under 100 is generally not somethig you want and the further under you go the worse off you are. this also added to those with OPS+ scores over 100 this got the met hitters into an order that i felt almost comfotable with: wright, floyd, beltran, reyes, piazza, cameron (,) diaz, mientkiewicz, jacobs, castro, anderson, matsui, woodward, cairo, offerman, valent, williams, daubach, hernandez, difelice. i think my problem now is 3 things: offense other than what is measured by OPS+ (ie reyes on the basepaths), difficulty of defensive position, & how good that defense actually was. a combination of these factors (which i dont have numbers i trust for) makes me want to bump reyes ahead of beltran, i'll also push woodward ahead of matsui. when i do the pitchers i'll need to kick a few hitters out entirely, the last 3 (daubach, hernandez, defelice) will definetaly go. valent and williams are question marks for now, offerman and higher will almost definetaly stay... i'll edit this or post my complete list when i do the pitchers, edgy if you care whether i edit/post again let me know.

alot of new stuff to respond to so lets get started.... ="metsmarathon"]if pitching in winterball was bad, and tantamount to asking for injury, whysoever would teams allow their pitching prospects, who often make the majors with fairly tight pitch counts in their young years due to concerns of overstressing fragile arms, pitch in winterball? why would they do such a thing? because these pitchers are unproven and it is more important to find out "what you have" with them than it is to increase their chances of staying healthy. pedro is known commodity and regardless of whether you agree with me that winter ball is a bad idea for him i doubt i can find anyone who thinks its a good idea for him ]What are the contract ramifications is he hurts himself? ]None indeed, another great reason not to let him do anything that could get him hurt. also, for however much i am opposed to him pitching in an international tournament during spring training i am 10x more opposed to him pitching in winter ball in january, a time when he should be resting, resting, resting, and resting as that will DEFINETALY cause him to throw more innings in 2006 than he otherwise would have since it is in addition to, not in replacement of, spring training. more innings is, if not very bad, at least not good. .

]how would this keep such a reputation intact? i think the idea is "Clemens is a big game pitcher, if Clemens doesn't do well in a big game he is hurt." i don't like the guy anyway and i definetaly lose respect for anyone who leaves a playoff game if they didn't 100% have to. Clemens has proven he's no Curt Schilling.

are you telling me your post wasn't made with the intent to pick a fight with me? it sure seemed otherwise to me, if you didnt really mean it that way i'll apologize

regarding the discussion about peterson earlier in this thread someone DID conduct research similiar to what i proposed for Peterson (only waaaaaay more complicated) for Leo Mazzone. their conclusions were that Mazzone improved his pitcher's ERA (adjusted for park, league, and other factors) by half a run, yikes. i'm going to get in touch with him about helping me do the same for peterson, having already laid the groundwork for this type of study i'm sure he can get me started quicker than i could have myself http://bradbury.sewanee.edu/wordpress/index.php/2004/12/how-good-is-leo-mazzone

first of all thats a dumb analogy, which isn't suprising coming from you. whether or not a pitcher will be less effective and/or more likely to get hurt the season after pitching winter ball isn't really a positive/negative scenario like your foolish analogy, its a question more like "what effect will x have on y" and theres no reason that my side should be burdened with proving it any more than the other side.

i could say the same, i havent seen anyone proving that pedro's pitching winterball won't hurt him.

i'm lazy. its been posted here before, not my fault if people forgot it.

]It has?? yes. go look it up, i've seen the data before i believe it has been posted on this board at some point.

you have a real job, he gets paid millions to play a friggin game, theres no comparison. i DON'T trust him to know whats best for his arm, or at least not to tel us if it conflicts with what he wants, i trust the Mets (at least i hope i can trust the Mets) to do whatever will keep him in the best condition to pitch for the Mets and only for the Mets, i don't give a fuck about the dominican national team and if he cares so much he could have been like dave nillson and not signed a contract that would prevent him from playing for his national team. also, its been show before that pitchers who pitch winter ball get tired/less effective/ more likely injured in the 2nd half of the following season. he's getting paid the big $ to pitch for the mets and should not be allowed to do anything but a normal offseason workout schedule.

i missed the beggining of the game bc of work, who did the sox have throw the first pitch out? i was laughing when i heard that clemens left after 2 innings 3 runs, i realy hate that guy. glad to see bagwell get to the plate in a WS, it was long deserved, i only wish Thomas had the same chance (maybe next year when the yankees miss the playoffs entirely!)

i'm with the bong, this guy begs out of starts left and right, ok thats an exaggeration, this guy requires coddling and wants extra time off whenever he can get it. he was shutdown (a decision i agreed with entirely) when the mets were done. theer is no reason he should be pitching any baseball for anyone but the mets, especially after throwing the most innings he has thrown in 4(?) years. keeping him happy? the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ should keep him happy, if i made that kind of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ i'd do whatever the fuck the team said to do and i'd like it.

]Fear that the New York media's love affair with hand-picked manager Willie Randolph will sour if the big-budget Mets get off to a slow start in his second year, and those same "Willie's a Winner" pundits will be calling for a much-more qualified candidate in Backman to get Randolph's job? everyone knows i'm not a fan of wee willie small brain, but what exactly makes backman "much-more qualified" to manage in the majors?

i dont have much against pettite, i just see him as the poster boy (before this year) for good pitchers being turned into cy young by the fans of their team, give him average run support as a yankee and he wouldn't look so great. i hate clemens though.

]McCarver: "And Joe, it's no coincidence that four former Yankees are starting in this World Series. This goes to show you the influence that a player like Derek Jeter has on a pitching staff...even years later, they're still exhibiting the benefits of having played next to him..." i will turn the F****** TV off right then and there.

well, i tried typing this once already and lost my connection before i could submit. i'm going to have to root for the white sox mainly because i dislike clemens, though getting franco a ring almost seems worth it, the fact that he won't actually be pitching in the series probably makes this an easier choice. either way, theres no yankees/braves/phillies/etc in this series to root against so whoever wins i just want to see 6 or 7 good games

i said peterson sucks, KC is the one who made this personal, not me. and when did i put him in the "position of disproving it"? i'm offering to prove peterson's shittiness myself. neither he nor anyome else has offered evidence, not even anecdotal evidence, that peterson is a good pitching coach

i didnt say he's done something, but neither has peterson. but lets stop the arguing and move on to something more fun and hopefully more enlightening... we'll start with Peterson but i'd like to do this for some other guys as well. for each pitching coach that we want to study we'll come up with a list of pitchers who came to them from another MLB team and a list of those who left and pitched elsewhere. we'll determine, for each of these pitchers, their ERA+ before, during, and after they were under that pitching coach's tutelage, then by weighing each pitcher according to innings (or by only using those pitchers who pitched at least X innings and not weighing it) we'll be able to determine the average ERA+ of all pitchers under the coach's control and what those same pitchers did before and after (if a guy had Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux he'd obviously look good judged solely on his staff's ERA+, but how would he look when taking into account what those pitchers did before him and what they did after him) yeah this is probably alot of work but i like research and will start on this next week after my final on monday.