Frayed Knot

I'm not so sure if they'll twist and/or misrepresent the facts so much as they'll over-simplify things. Even in the brief trailer there are a few of those apparent.

Ceetar wrote: In the midst of a hail storm at Turner Field, the organist is playing, "Let It Snow." Bravo. Greatest organist in the majors? Said organist - along with the few remaining fans by the end of the night - was certainly having some fun with 'Camptown Races' whenever Duda came up last night.

But hey, we get the Angels, right. Oh boy. In O-o-T news; Philly already beat Florida in a day game ... Again! This time a 2-hit CG shutout by Lee. Last night the Fish got a jump on Halladay and took a 2-run lead into the 9th. They then blew that on a 2-out/2-RBI hit before going on to lose the game in the 10th That's 7 wins in a row for Philly; 7 losses in a row and 15 of their last 16 for the Marlins

Gwreck wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: bmfc1 wrote: Tonight is the Mets last game against an NL opponent until July 15th. Grrrrrrrrr What's the big deal? Isn't it better to have the divisional games pushed towards the end of the year? Was commenting on the original thought not having an NL opponent for nearly a month (turns out to be just no NL East opponents).

bmfc1 wrote: Tonight is the Mets last game against an NL opponent until July 15th. Grrrrrrrrr You know that if the Phillies continue this winning pace, in 35 or so years they'll reach that .500 mark? The Mets will need a similar winning pace and nearly as long a run.

I remember the year Mark McGwire was traded to StL and how everyone knew it was just a rental because he was going to play out the season then run back to the west coast so he could be with his son and all that stuff. And then he wound up signing with the Cards before the season even ended. IIRC, the home-team "window" where a team has exclusive rights to their own FAs at the end of the year is shorter now than the two weeks or so that it used to be.

From John Sickels: "... slumping in June is New York Mets outfield prospect Cory Vaughn, hitting .163/.241/.245 with four walks and 11 strikeouts in 49 at-bats for Low-A Savannah. He'd been hot early, hitting .303/.413/.434 in April and .356/.496/.510 in May, so his overall season line of .297/.419/.428 is still solid despite the slump. His strikeout rate is a touch higher than ideal with 55 whiffs in 229 at-bats, but he's also drawn 35 walks. The son of former major league outfielder Greg Vaughn, Cory has excellent tools but his erratic college performance at San Diego State dropped him to the fourth round in the 2010 draft. He has an especially sharp platoon split (1.066 OPS against lefties, .777 against right-handers), and has also been much more effective on the road (.946) than at home (.756). Even at this point of the season, the sample sizes with these splits aren't necessarily meaningful. Scouts were pleased with the improvements he made to his swing after signing last year, and while his isolated power is down in the Sally League, but I remain pretty optimistic about his chances."

The are approximately 240 IL games each season under the current format. The theoretical 15/15 split with just one IL series goinig on at all times would drop that number down to the 160-180 range or about 12 per team*. It would be fine with me if IL went away entirely but I realize that's not going to happen. But the whole idea of 15-18 per team was because divisions were 'matched up' [East v East etc]. That barely exists now so there's no reason why MLB needs to stubbornly cling to that amount. * Remember that each game played involves two teams therefore 30 teams playing 12 IL games each equals 180 separate games [(30x12)/2 = 180]

Of course no team is actually going to claim Kazmir on waivers because then they'd have to eat the sizable salary that remains (more than half the remaining $12mil for this season plus the $2.5mil buyout to get out of the $13.5 nut for 2012). He'll clear and then the Angels will release him at which point he'll probably have a decent choice of places to go for minimum wage tryouts and a shot at pen work. On the other hand his 17.00+ ERA in the minors over 5 games (29 ER on 22 hits, 14 BBs, 6 HBPs in 15 IPs) doesn't hold too much promise at this point.

MFS62 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: The problem with your scenario is that the starter is still responsible for all those runners on base and that there's no one else to hand to win to. That's why I asked if the rule might be changed so that the scorer could award the win to the starter. Yeah, the reliever faced just one batter and gave up a big hit, but saddling him with the three runs he had nothing to do with being there is more unfair IMO than denying the pitcher the win. If the pitcher wants the win he shouldn't have put on all those runners.

I have seen the "briefly and ineffectively" clause come into play, but always when, like last night, there are several candidates are involved. - Say the starter is handed a big lead but struggles and can't get out of the 5th. Reliever #1 comes in w/2-outs in the 5th still with the lead and immediately gives it up: several hits, several runs (inherited and otherwise) before finally getting the last out. - Team's offense then gains back the lead in bottom 5 and holds it for the rest of the game. Reliever #1 is officially the "pitcher of record" even though he sucked while Reliever #2 maybe cruised through innings 6, 7 & 8 hitless before giving way to Reliever #3 for the save. In this case the official scorer could opt to cite the "brief and ineffective" clause and award the win to Reliever #2 The problem with your scenario is that the starter is still responsible for all those runners on base and that there's no one else to hand to win to.

btw, replacement SS Eduardo Nunez tied Jeter in HRs last night when he hit his 2nd Jeets still holds the XBH lead 12 to 5 and has more than double! the RBIs (20-9) - although we should probably point out the slight 293 to 70 (4.2x) edge in plate appearances.

The Braves, as it turns out, became an [u:6xb1p6y5]over .500 team as a franchise[/u:6xb1p6y5] with their Sunday night win at Houston - and did so for the first time since 1923!! But Monday's loss to the Astros dropped them back to 9,983 - 9,983 and now our two wins here have set them two games under the break even point. Out mission here, of course, is to see that they remain such and hopefully reach that 10K loss mark before they reach the 10K win plateau. It's a small goal as they'll obviously do both before this season is out, but it's one worth pursuing. Admit it now, you had no idea this series held such critical importance did you?!? Anyway, going for the sweep tonight with Mr. Dieckey facing 2nd year pitcher Mike (no known relation to Blas) Minor. The 23 y/o LHP was a (somewhat questioned) 1st round/7th overall selection by the Braves out of Vanderbilt University in 2009 who will be making his 5th start of the year and the 13th of his ML career. He was 3-2 last year in 8 starts and is 0-2 so far this season. Hopefully we'll get to see the old man with the brooms again. If we do I'm gonna celebrate by whipping my hair back and forth ... my hair back and forth.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Well, you'd get a late-season race between the fifth, sixth, and seventh best teams, rather then the top two or three teams, which is kind of what we have with the wild card anyway. Except that the current divisional set-up DOES also create races among the top teams, not always but usually*. The elimination of divisions would create "races" among the also-rans in place of races for the top. With the 'winter sports' set-up, they may still divide things into divisions but it's really just two big conferences with a race for 8th place where the only carrot for the top teams is the somewhat dubious prize of a potential 4-3 home court/ice advantage in a certain round instead of a 3-4 disadvantage. * and the odds of getting in-division races goes down as the number of teams in each division goes down - something the crowd who wants to add two more teams and go to an 8x4 set-up needs to consider.

Gee - 2.2 Carrasco - 1.2 Parnell - 1.2 Rodriguez - 0.4 Reyes - 1.1 Pagan - 1.7 Bay - 0.8 Tejada - 0.4

Yeah, the idea that you can't give the W to a starter who doesn't go 5 is in there so as to prevent 'manufactured' wins, one where say a team scores a bunch of runs early allowing the manager to either pull his starter early or even change his starter last minute so as to direct the W to him. Manufactured saves we allow, manufactured wins not so much. But last night was clearly a different set of circumstances and in situations where the scorer's opinion enters into it the starter should be one of his options. It would be one thing if it were 2 IPs by Gee, but 4 is something else. It's also odd that the scorer treated Carrasco's 6-outs/no-hits/1-K as less worthy than Parnell's 6-outs/1-hit/5-Ks. You usually see the W given to the next pitcher after the starter unless his outing is both brief and ineffective - and especially when he's the guy pitching when the game does become official.

Ceetar wrote: Of course, this (no divisions)would just cause teams to clinch way earlier, and coast for even more of September. It'd probably cut down on the number of meaningful last week games. What it would do is use the same logic that the NBA & NHL have fallen into. Those leagues figure that the the best teams record-wise are usually the same teams that are strongest business-wise and therefore it doesn't matter if they clinch a playoff spot by New Years Day because the purpose of the remainder of the season is to manufacture "drama" between the .500-ish clubs who can (and often need to) sell their teams as playoff contenders and label each of their remaining games as crucial. It's a stupid process even for hockey and it would be an even worse one for baseball.

NOW we're official so it can be a Rainy Night in Georgia all it wants.

The reason they went to 16/14 in the first place is that inter-league was always considered a temporary thing - or at least something that had to be approved on an ongoing basis - so that if it ever went away you'd be screwed with a 15/15 set-up. The other problem is that whatever problems they're looking to fix now were ones that were caused by the last realignment. 6 divisions x 5 teams each would work only if inter-league was set in stone as permanent and it would have to be virtually every day. Thing is, you can actually run it all season long and reduce the total number of IL games. The problem is you not only have to convince someone to move but make it so that extra team logically winds up in the AL West. Most of the rest of these more complicated "fixes" being bandied about are solutions in search of problems.

Ashie62 wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: And today, I should mention, is "Good-bye Tom, Hello Keith" Day. Hows' that? June 15th - the old trading deadline date which resulted twice upon a time in the aforementioned "Good-bye Tom" and "Hello Keith" stuff.

The thing about Kazmir was never that he was going to be a sure-fire savior (even if there were those who painted him that way) it was that the Mets sold low on him just as he seemed to be reaching his high.

Niese - 3.2 Byrdak - 0.7 Rodriguez - 0.8 Reyes - 2.1 Beltran - 1.4 Pagan - 0.9 Harris - 0.9

Edgy DC wrote: Reyes also gets $50,000 for an All-Star selection. See! I knew he was just a greedy bastard. Probably a clubhouse cancer too. Can't trade this guy soon enough.

The undefeated and still champion Dillon Gee takes his now 3rd place Mets up against Tim Hudson in yet another attempt for .500 status.

Remember that there was some other outfit that wanted to hire Burkhardt a year or two back but Mets/SNY wouldn't let him go or share him. Maybe as a result there was some sort of promise made to him of more air time.