Frayed Knot

Oh, and MLB is claiming that the Dodgers are going to be unable to make their end of May payroll.

That Dodger lineup is an amazing collection of: - The Never Really Good: Carroll, Miles, Gwynn, Thames - The Once or Briefly Good but No More: Furcal, Gibbons, Uribe (overpaid by LAD due to last year's post-season splurge for SFG) - The Was-Supposed-to Have Been Good: Loney (Wha'Happened there? I woulda bet the farm on this guy!), Navarro ... which basically leaves you with Ethier & Kemp.

I did a "study" on this last year. I followed all ML closers for a month or maybe two (so it was a decent sample size) and tracked all cases where a club brought in a pitcher for what we'd call a 'standard save opp' in this post-Eckersly era: 1 inning only; 1, 2, or 3 run lead; start the inning clean (no runners on); no short saves; no long saves, etc. Now if only I could remember what I found. I believe what I got out of it all was on the order of 80/30: 80% of all those opps were successful (20% blown) with about 30% of them being "perfect" saves (a 1-2-3 inning) Found it So what I did was to track all ML games for a month starting just after last season's ASG. Out of 400 games played in that month just over half (203) of them involved a pitcher going for the standard 1-inning 'clean' save. Of those the closer was successful in saving the game 81.8% of the time (166 of 203) but less than 1 time in 3 (66 of 203 - or 32.5%) were those games saved 'perfectly'. A bigger sample might yield somewhat different results, but I recall the data stabilizing itself as I went along and really didn't change much after about 100 games were in the hopper.

Pelfrey - 4.3 Reyes - 2.2 Beltran - 2.2 Bay - 0.5 Paulino - 0.3 Wright - 0.5

metsmarathon wrote: i'm interested in how often a player's position matches his spot in the batting order. pitchers batting leadoff, catchers second, etc etc. ... and then check to see if it matches their uniform number!! Wright batting 5th playing 3rd would work and I'm sure it's happened. Probably not too many others though.

I did a "study" on this last year. I followed all ML closers for a month or maybe two (so it was a decent sample size) and tracked all cases where a club brought in a pitcher for what we'd call a 'standard save opp' in this post-Eckersly era: 1 inning only; 1, 2, or 3 run lead; start the inning clean (no runners on); no short saves; no long saves, etc. Now if only I could remember what I found. I believe what I got out of it all was on the order of 80/30: 80% of all those opps were successful (20% blown) with about 30% of them being "perfect" saves (a 1-2-3 inning)

Who says Frankie can't get an out on just one pitch?

Ya think missing a healthy Beltran over most of the last two seasons wasn't a real drag on the offense?

You would figure that this Giants lineup of Huff, Ross, and especially Emmanuel Burriss would hit a lot of doubles, no?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Ceetar wrote: I was kinda hoping for a squeeze with Harris in the 6th. he'd already hit two double play balls and at least at that point in the game Timmy wasn't really fooling anybody, both real hitters in the lineup that inning saw the ball and hit the ball so I think Harris probably could've gotten a bunt down the 1B line.. I had that thought myself. Or, hell, maybe he could have even given the drag bunt/sorta squeeze a whirl-- he's sure as hell not doing the team any favors swinging the bat. I did as well.

Capuano - 2.8 Igarashi - 0.6 Gee - 0.3 Beltran - 1.5 Paulino - 1.0 Murphy - 0.8

Gee - 0.8 Rodriguez - 0.4 Beltran - 2.5 Reyes - 2.2 Davis - 1.3 Thole - 0.8 Pridie - 0.5

With Bay coming back after one more game (unless the Mrs. defies science and pops out another kid), Pagan sked to return on Saturday (barring setbacks), and Beltran playing everyday (and hitting) there's no point in having Martinez up here to sit on the bench. I want to see him get at least a half year of healthy and productive AAA ball under his belt [this is where FMan makes a joke about balls under belts] before seeing him up again.

Well, we get rid of Timmah anyway.

This is why last night's game sucked so much - because we knew this pitching match-up wasn't in our favor.

btw, NYM HRs so far -- 18 Home to 7 Away (and with 1 fewer home game) HRs given up to date = 14 home v 17 on road

Perhaps not coincidentally coming off his 3-inning appearance Sunday night (he did throw 60 innings in 43 appearances last season). Also helps explain why he apparently wasn't considered for use last night - not that I thought Buchholz in that spot was a bad move.

Hellooooooo Kitty!

The problem with his six times on base is that he scored just once - courtesy of Beltran's 1st inning HR. Only once in the next five times on did he even get as far as 2nd - courtesy of his own SB that time. He did drive in a run once too.

Part of it is that the Giants have 3 LHPs in their pen (something you're not normally going to run up against) including their uber-LOOGY side-winding specialist Javier Lopez, and part is Bay being away both early in the season plus last night (damn them for allowing players to have sex!!), but the lack of RH punch off the bench is simply killing us. The likes of Emaus, Turner, Hairston, Hu & Nickeas have turned in a combined line (starting & not) of .182/.263/.256 in 137 PAs Add that to the fact that LHPs at least partly neutralize Thole, Davis, Duda, Harris, Pridie, and even Pagan and it means there's got to be at least the threat of an antidote on the bench that makes managers like Bochy NOT feel like he can flash four fingers four separate times last night and be confident he can get away with it. Problem is, I don't know that there's much of an internal solution. - Emaus was flipped for Turner with little tangible change. - Paulino for Nickeas should help and so should (hopefully) a full-time Bay in LF. - Middle infield backups are never going to be good hitters (backup IFers who can hit are called starting IFers) and the idea of landing someone like Hu was to give Tejada room to grow, but maybe there's no more time to waste on that front (RT = .279/.348/.413 at Buffalo) - The most ready candidates from Buffalo - Nieuwenhuis & Martinez - both swing from the left side and the righty boppers in the org are still several years away so there doesn't seem to be an obvious replacement for Hairston or say a RH version of Duda.

I think Reyes would have been better served with a half-season more of minor league time rather than a half-season less so I'm glad that request didn't go through - although that still doesn't excuse the "play like it's the World Series" demand.

I thought Thole made great strides last year defensively and was much improved over his partial year/first impression season of 2009. This season he seems to have regressed though it is a small sample still and the full season shouldn't be dismissed while we view April as his lot in life.

And I don't think we've yet heard with Ross Gload apparently wasn't available. So the Phils were actually playing two players short as starting catcher Carlos Ruiz is still on the active roster but inactive for that game.

Bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello set the official visitors' clubhouse record at Citizens Bank Park with 14 cheese steaks consumed. The previous record had belonged to former major leaguer Dmitri Young. A record that in part explains why Dmitri Young is a former major leaguer.

Young - 3.0 Paulino - 3.0 Buchholz - 1.1 Beato - 1.1 Beltran - 0.5 Wright - 1.0 Rodriguez - 0.3