Frayed Knot

metirish wrote: I read a comment a week or so ago about how Showalter may have cost the O's the top draft pick because they played " a little to good" when he came on board. When you're a fan of those teams are you rooting for that pick? The advantage of doing that in baseball is questionable at best because the results from the draft are generally too tough to project and too far away. It's something NFL fans talk about all the time and both the NBA & NHL instituted their lottery systems specifically to combat teams tanking late in the season. Rather than trying to finagle the top pick, the most tangible benefit for teams out of the running might be to finish just inside the top 15 picks (bottom 15 records) rather than just outside. You won't make the playoffs either way and being 14 or 15th in the picking queue will keep your 1st round draft pick 'protected' the next year where picking 16th and up means a 'Type A' FA signing is likely to cost you that 1st round pick. Anthony Rendon (3B - Rice U.) is the early line favorite in the 2011 draft sweepstakes. Many touts said during the run up to this year's draft that, if Rendon were available, they would have taken him over Bryce Harper, although that may have as much to do with their relative ages/advancement. Harper has just turned 17 and had one year of JuCo vs Rendon who will be 21-ish by next June with three seasons of major college ball under his belt.

Wanted: SOMEONE WHO CAN THROW THE FUCKING BALL OVER THE PLATE Either hand acceptable. Velocity preferred but not required. Apply in person at CitiField, Roosevelt Avenue, Queens, N.Y.

Up by 8 in the 8th inning with a day game tomorrow and he goes to Parnell?!?!?!?

Pelfrey - 4.8 Takahashi - 0.5 Castillo - 1.0 Pagan - 1.0 Davis - 1.0 Tejada - 1.0 Francoeur - 0.3 Wright - 0.4

Thing is, a closer with more of a track record - like KRod or a lot of others - certainly deserves a longer leash than does a relative newbie like Parnell. My only objection is that closers almost NEVER get pulled even when it's obvious they don't have it that night. When I did that little closer "study" I went through the box scores of more than 400 ML games (basically a month's worth) and saw maybe two closers that got yanked in the middle of an inning. There were a whole lot more cases where the manager went down with the ship.

- Marlins thump the Braves, Mets & Phils could be making up a lot of ground right now ... if only both were sucking as well - Boston goes down to Tampa and draws first blood as Lester out-duels Price - Yanx getting their butts kicked by the ChiSox. 9-2 in the 7th courtesy of the great Freddie Garcia. 'Nother not so sweet outing by AJ Blownett

CAN�T YOU FOLLOW SIMPLE DIRECTIONS DAMMIT!! Is it Sep 3 yet?? Well IS IT?!? Oh what the fuck, now that you�ve gone and opened it anyway - I recently realized that I�m going to be out of touch during my scheduled final KTE of the year for next weekend�s three-game tilt at Wrigley (All Day Games!!!) against the mighty sCrUBS (spending the week neck-deep in Atlantic Ocean ... and relatives). So, as a result, y'all get an advance quickie KTE detailing (and by that I mean with little detail at all) what the baby bears have been up to since we took 3 of 4 from them back in freakin� April. 54-75 in 5th place in the NL Central. The only reason they�re not in last place is the rule that mandates the Pirates must reside there. Cubs in brief: -- Lou�s gone, Lee�s gone, and the other Lee isn�t here yet. * Lou would be Piniella, who retired prematurely and left the club in the hands of something named Mike Quade, which for some reason is pronounced QUAD-EEE. AAA mgr Ryne Sandberg waits in the wings hoping to get named full-time mgr come this winter. Think of him like Gary Carter only, you know, willing to do the minor league work first before assuming the throne. * Lee is Derrick Lee, long-time 1st baseman now off to Atlanta for the final month where I don't think the Braves have won since acquiring him. * The other Lee is Hak-Ju Lee, the 19 y/o Korean-born SS who�s a pretty good prospect in A-Ball (at least with the glove). He�s not nearly ready yet but I bring him up here because it fits the theme and he�s got a cool name. -- Zambrano�s back but is still overpaid & crazy, Soriano never left so is still overpaid & lazy, Ramirez�s future looks overpaid & hazy. IOW, yeah they got a few bad contracts kicking around Chicago�s north side. * Carlos Zambrano, the starter turned reliever turned nut case turned reliever who�s not only back from an extended stay on the Disgruntled List but is also back in the rotation again. Owed $55+mil over next 3 years. * Soriano can still bang out XBHs but has a contract that makes Ollie�s look good and makes a lot of outs. Still owed $72mil over the next four seasons * Aramis Ramirez is having a better 2nd half after a horrid start but is still just up to a .300 OBA. Still owed over $30mil (in options) -- In 2010, the French connection no longer connect, Castro & Colvin hit more than you expect, and Geovany Soto wins back some respect * The �French Connection� combo of Theriot & Fontenot has been broken up as Fotenot sits most games in favor of rookie SS Starlin Castro (.315/.360/.440) * So who�s leading NL rookies in HRs? Ike? Sanchez? Heyward? Posey?, Not quite pine-tar breath ... it�s Cubs OF Tyler Eugene Colvin with 19 round-trippers in just over 300 ABs - Catcher Geovany Soto, the 2008 NL RoY, crashed to .218/.321/.381 last season (60 XBHs fell to 31) but is now bouncing back to his rookie season pace Pitching: -- Carlos Silva: sounds like silver, is paid in gold, but pitches like bronze Another candidate for the overpaid guy of the year award. Was actually their best pitcher early on but crashed in July and now hasn�t pitched since Aug 1. Owed $11mil + a 2012 option for $12 - Ted Lilly, the man voted most likely to be traded at the deadline but wasn�t, is somehow 3-8 with a decent ERA (3.69) and WHiP (1.137) - So how does one give up just 37 hits in 60 IPs while striking out 108 and only allowing 1 HR manage to give up 3+ runs every 9 IP, blow 5 saves and lose 3 games? By walking 42 batters of course. Yes, it�s Carlos Marmol, the closer who makes KRod look steady. - Brian Schlitter. I have nothing here, just wanted everyone to know that the Cubs have a reliever named Brian Schlitter. I was going to use the �Get beat up in school much?� line but then I realized the dude is 6�5�/235 Matchups: Ehh I dunno, it depends on what happens between now and then. Why not just check your local newspapers when the time comes you lazy shits?

Lots of beer for pitchers and defense and not so much for the hitters ... but we'll take it. And we just .500'd ourselves again.

Funny how non-closers closing are eligible to get pulled when struggling but not designated closers.

Met Hunter wrote: Cal McLish. That would be Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish Naturally they called him 'Buster'

http://www.artofbrucestark.com/

I'll be shocked if they don't either pick it up or use it as a starting point to negotiate a longer term deal this winter. As for the more immediate future, I ain't heard nuthin'.

Kong76 wrote: That Hammer caricature is freakin' me out every time I open this thread. I loved that picture and had it on my Mets wall for many many years. Oh the stuff I ruined with cheap tape from Woolworths ... Yup. Me too. I could only imagine what the originals of those drawings would take in right about now. Stark was a friend of my father's for a time and a great caricaturist who did a lot of TV/movie stuff as well as sports. I had a few wall posters of his - Get Smart & F-Troop IIRC - which I wish I had kept in better shape and hung onto.

Yeah, Ryan's idea is more about building pitchers up to the point where they're able to work longer and harder. That's more than a bit different than starting out that way and pitching through obvious pain while doing it all in order to prove some macho point. Personally, I'm just hoping that the next mediot who reflexively recites the lines about up how real men in the good ol' days like Koufax and Drysdale and Marichal pitched has the courtesy to also mention that Koufax threw his last pitch at age 30, Drysdale at 31, and Marichal, while he pitched longer, was effectively done as a top hurler by age 32.

Edgy DC wrote: They couldn't have handled him any more gently. Sometimes I think the best strategy is to start all draftees off with Tommy John surgery and get it out of the way. The Yanx actually spent a 1st round draft pick on a guy (Andrew Brackman) a couple years back knowing in advance that he needed TJS. On top of that he was mostly a basketball player who was pretty raw in pitching to begin with but they liked his "upside". Three years later he's just now starting to show some promise although the feeling now is that he'll be a reliever at best.

Dibble has been "on vacation" for a couple days. No one at MASN is saying why, but it's thought to stem either from the Strasburg comments or some other questionable on-air diarrhea (I forget the details) for which he later had to apologize. I think the official explanation is that he's "spending time with his family" or something like that. Well, at least we know what the lead story in the Washington Post sports section will be tomorrow ... seven pages on the Redskins pre-season game of course. All this comes the day after they introduced Bryce Harper to the media. Now it may be a race to see who gets there/back first.

Acosta - 0.7 Igarashi - 0.3 Wright - 1.8 Pagan - 1.4 Francoeur - 1.4 Davis - 1.0

Ashie62 wrote: What history of internal corruption? have not seen that in print. Mostly the Alan Eagleson era which Edgy mentions. He started as one of the first agents in hockey, eventually representing a large pct of the players in the league (particularly some of the bigger stars) but at the same time had his hand in just about every other aspect of hockey life (running tournaments, head of the player's assoc, etc.). Imagine Scott Boras only with more power. And then, as if doing all that wasn't enough of a conflict of interest, it turned out he was robbing the union and some of his clients blind while doing it. Eventually went to jail for it IIRC. The union hasn't been as corrupt since he was ousted but also not all that efficient either.

Yeah, let's waste a few more leadoff walks!

I've never before been so happy to see the name Castillo in a lineup.

Phils getting shut down on 2 hits by Wandy Rodriguez 4-0 Astros thru 5

Be interesting to see how Fehr to the NHL works out. That union has such a history of internal corruption that simply by being honest (and I don't recall claims where he wasn't) the atmosphere can't do anything but improve, At the same time though he's going to find out (and certainly already knows) that 'Versus' money and their local cable contracts aren't the same as MLB's networks + their local deals, and that this country puts up a collective yawn if/when something threatens to take their hockey away from them. What would be REALLY interesting would be if Fehr - or some other outsider with his kind of track record in labor negotiations - ever got named to take over the NFL player's union. To be fair it's too soon to judge if their new guy is less accommodating to the owners than Gene Upshaw usually was. But the history over there is so screwed up I could see the players' union responding to the owners' plan to increase the season to 18 games by arguing; "OK, we'll take on the extra work load but only if you agree to cut our salaries by 10%"

From a Q&A in BA: Frank (NYC): What do you think Lucas Duda's chances of hitting in the bigs are? He has absolutely crushed AAA this year. I know he's not a glove guy like Nieuwenhuis is, but reports say he isn't a train wreck in LF. Isn't it worth seeing if he can be an upgrade over Franceour in the order while playing LF for the rest of the season with Pagan in RF. Jim Callis: I'm not sure he's going to be a regular on a good club, but I concur that the Mets should give him an audition and find out.

Misch - 1.0 Parnell - 0.3 Acosta - 0.3 Wright - 1.7 Davis - 1.2 Francoeur - 1.0 Thole - 0.5