Frayed Knot

- I didn't (and still don't) have a problem with bringing in Burgos there - I was surprised LoDuca started. The hand is obviously bothering him (saw it on the checked swing) and with a day game after a night game today it seemed like a logical time to give him one extra day to heal. He's also now something like 0 for his last 16 - something that may or may not be related to the hand/finger issue

Thought I'd create a seperate thread to follow along with the first installment of this little border war. Sox come in with a one-game lead, have the home field for the weekend, and definitely have the on-paper pitching edge going in -- making it a good time to put some ground between them in the early going. All of that, of course, will just make the New England cynics say are precisely the reasons why they'll get their butts kicked. Friday: Pettitte (1-0; 1.50) v Schilling (2-1; 2.84) Saturday: (3:55 FOX) Jeff Karstens (fresh off the DL) v Josh Beckett (3-0; 1.50 this season - although he's got a lot of making up to do for the eggs he laid in NYY games last year) Sunday: (8:00 ESPN) Chase Wright (rookie making 2nd ML start) v Matsuzaka (1-2; 2.70 - and has pitched reasonably well in all three starts) Sox have been pitching a lot better than they've been hitting. In particular, Crisp, Youkilis, Varitek, Pedroia, and even Manny have had slow starts. Yanx are doing just about the opposite, usually needing to out-slug (and out-ARod) their opponents into submission in order to make up for their thin starting pitching. The pen has been needed to pitch fully half their innings so far. Mariano has had only one save opportunity this season ... and didn't convert. Papelbon (moved back to the closers spot) has been near perfect in 5 outings: 4/4 saves, 5-1/3 IPs, 1 H, 2 BBs, 0.00 ERA

Jay (couldn't throw a) Hook?

That may have been a typo, or maybe as a nod to his somewhat contrived nickname of 'Stevie Wonder'. There are a few nicknames, titles, and inside jokes that are in there intentionally, but, in this case, it should probably be just Steve.

So the question is; does Ted keep running into ex-Mets at airports by chance or is he some kind of stalker? I met and/or saw Rusty on a number of occasions over the years (although not recently) as he was always a big dude even before he became a HUGE dude.

OHernandez - 4.0 Beltran - 1.4 Castro - 1.4 Valentin - 0.7 Delgado - 0.7 Green - 0.8 Reyes - 0.5 Burgos - 0.5

The Dutchman's not the kind of man who can work his way out of a jam and hold the Mets down. But that's a secret only the Marlins know. From Amsterdam in Holland to the shores of South Beach in Miami, they believe in him. They think he'll bloom into a front-line ace. He looks as rushed as he can be, but the Marlins only see that sometimes. And soon they'll see themselves slipping out of the race. So let them come to the banks of the ocean, where Citi Field rises alongside Flushing Bay. Twice before the Marlins won the World Series crown, but as of now we're kicking their ass today. Not a masterpiece I know, and I went a bit obscure for the source material -- but I couldn't resist playing on the image of the Dutch pitcher and the slamdunk of substituting 'Marlins' in place of where 'Margaret' was in the original.

btw, if - during your trip through the ranks - any of y'all come across mistakes or omissions of any kind: mis-spellings, deceased players not acknowledged, incorrect positions or years, etc., take a second to point them out so things can be corrected in future updates. At this point I think we've got most of them ... but it's a big list and there are a number of changes every year.

In looking the kid up I tried to look for others from The Netherlands but had trouble finding even the ones I already knew of; namely the great Bert Blyleven. Turns out that they list Blyleven (plus 5 or 6 others) as being from "Holland" which the computer sort naturally treats as being a different place than Netherlands.

What's amazing is that this kid is looking impressive and getting his ass kicked at the same time.

Batty31 wrote: Joining the game late...can I have a quick recap?Beltran double followed by Alou single netted the Mets a 1st inning run Then a leadoff single followed by an error, a couple of bunts and a groundout netted the Marlins 2 in the bottom of the inning.

The only rationale is that the intentional walk brings up Giambi making it righty-v-lefty and that it loads the bases w/nowhere to put Giambi who works a lot of walks which would bring in the tying run ... but I still think it's a no-brainer. ARod's the hottest guy on the planet right now and is a better average hitter under normal circumstances. Of course the real problem was putting on the 5 guys in a row before ARod ever got there.

]Baseball Cube had limited info on him. He was born in Amherst, NY in May, 1985.Baseball-Reference.com (and Gary Cohen) have him born in The Netherlands.

Never heard of this guy, but he throws hard and has gotta helluva hook. * and I now reach the level of a (mis-spelled) Gregg Jefferies

* Re: ML pros making bad moves, trades, signings, etc. Of course they do; except for there to be the type of overall degrading in Milledge's value as a prospect then virtually everyone - buyers & sellers & just interested viewers - would need to agree that, at the age of 21 w/about 6 weeks of ML service time, his value had plummeted from what it had been just months earlier. That's quite different from just one club/exec making a bad judgement. * Re: downward trends in prospects' values Sure, when they either play poorly or start to "age out" of the group they're playing in. Since these things are partly based on potential standing still is, in effect, moving backwards since there are always new blood to take their place. But Milledge only played poorly if one is under the impression that a youngster is supposed to set the world on fire immediately upon call-up and that anything else is considered a disappointment. His .277/.388/.440 in 300 AAA ABs (while being younger than most) when added to his .241/.310/.380 ML debut isn't failure or even backsliding unless ones expectations are skewed. P.S. You are "Lastings Milledge" as you make these posts so, because of that, all your arguments are considered somewhat degraded.

No, I assume that luck (or good fortune & timing if you prefer) playing a part in the "outlier" status on that chart is an implied part of it all. Those low BAw/RiSP and high pop-up/fly ball rates are going to be tough to keep up. But, if that infield grounder-to-out ratio is truly a reflection of skill and not just a small sample size - and therefore stays high all year long - then we've got a good shot at staying on the high side on the Y side of the scale even if our plotted point moves somewhat back towards the norm.

I was wondering if they took the high number of GiDPs into account anywhere there. The part about [u:6586ffa6c6]86% of all men to reach base being left there - vs league avg = 73%[/u:6586ffa6c6] implies that they're looking at LOB figures as a pct of the total. But it could be that they looked at runners put on vs how many scored and simply treated the rest as "left there" even though some might have been erased. If so, then GiDPs would def contribute to the MLB best rate. If not, then the GiDPs would make the runners-on vs runs scored ratio even more impressive. In any case, it would be nice to cut down on the walks rather than try and get away with this kind of stuff all season.

]... nothing in the history of the world has even been "bandied about," at least not in the world according to Frayed Knot Of course I never said, hinted at, or implied anything like that. Nor am I the one assuming - and then treating as if fact - that the lack of a trade is somehow proof of depressed value based primarily on the fact that it can't be proven that it's not. In fact, I assume that Omar was asked a whole buncha times about Milledge over this past winter and was so mainly because he's still a valuable prospect. But, with two aging corner OFers and minor league prospects who (while promising) are even more towards the unproven/potential end of the scale than Milledge is, it makes sense to hold onto him unless blown away with an offer. My only point in this whole deal is that I don't believe that baseball insiders treat prospect values with the same wild roller-coaster swings that many fans & media do.

The Hardball Times (under 'Ten Things I Didn't Know Last Week' - 4/19) uncovers an whopping truth about the season so far: The NYM defense is playing well!!! Well yeah, you probably alreay knew that, but they unearth a few choice nuggets. An NL best "defensive efficiency" makes up for our NL worst "fielding independant" pitching. The chart shows defensive efficiency as the Y axis (pct of in-park batted balls turned into outs). Higher = better The X-axis shows Fielding independant ERA - an estimate of how the pitchers would look based on their walks, Ks & HRs surrended while backed with a hypotheically average defense and average "luck". Further left = higher expected ERA. Main sources of our good fortune: * 21% of all the flyballs allowed by the Mets have been infield flies. That's a whopping total (average is 12%) and explains why the Mets' batted balls have been so "fieldable." * The Mets outfield has been average, but the infield has converted 83% of all ground balls into outs. The major league average is 75%. * 86% of all men to reach base have been left there (league avg = 73%) That's because opponents are batting only .120 with men in scoring position. The Mets lead the major leagues in all of the above categories

]If you want to quibble about speculative fractions, feel free. I do and already did. A lot of prospect talk reminds me of listening to NFL draft speculations. No game has been played in 4 months and the scouting combine was about 6 weeks ago, yet players are constantly "moving" up and down the draft based usually on nothing more than someone's speculation, speculation which, in turn, is reflected and repeated by other talking heads to the point where the rise/plummet is treated as if truth. Of course none of that means that the teams are required to follow the bouncing balls and most of the speculation turns out to weeks and weeks of sound and fury signifying nada. It all brings to mind one of the great sports quotes of all time when the coach/GM was asked why he picked Jones when Smith was much more highly prized by self-appointed ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr.: "Who the BLEEP is Mel Kiper Jr.?!?" So while Milledge's 150 or so ABs weren't great, they were hardly terrible and there are players headed to the hall of fame who stumbled even worse out of the gate while not as young as Milledge (again, youngest position player in MLB). And I don't see his "behavioral" problems as much more than a temporary image/pr faux pas rather than some sort of a scarlet letter making him the third rail of young ballplayers.. Tampa has several guys with MUCH worse resumes and I think most if not all GMs would happily listen if any or all were suddenly made available.

AL: Blue Jays6 - 4Red Sox6 - 4Yankees5 - 5Orioles4 - 6Devil Rays4 - 6==============Tigers6 - 4Twins6 - 4Indians6 - 4White Sox5 - 5Royals3 - 7==============Angels6 - 4Rangers5 - 5Mariners5 - 5A's4 - 6

Saw a few of the Buehrle highlights late last night. - couple of real nice plays behind him: Crede at 3rd made a few; Dye took one off the top of the wall; also nice plays @ SS & 2nd - Texas's Jerry Hairston made a head-first slide into 1st on one of those infield plays and was out by a hair, the ill-advised slide probably being enough to make the difference between out and safe. When will they learn? - Buehrle is one of the fastest workers in MLB under normal cicumstances, the no-no just means he got the game in in just 2:03 w/106 pitches. Elsewhere: * Bonds HR'd again - 4th of the season, 17 away from Aaron * So did ARod, his 9th * Seattle's Felix Hernandez, coming off two straight shutouts including his near no-hitter vs Boston, walked off the mound early last night with a sore elbow

And I'm sure if FAN got the notion from ESPN that they'd never acknowledge it since they barely like to acknowledge that that station even exists. Also, all the area teams - including the two football teams but not the Knicks - have made the playoffs in this past year.

Maine - 4.4 Reyes - 2.1 Beltran - 2.1 Valentin - 1.4

I don't believe that GMs in general, and Omar in particular, are as fickle when it comes to small sample sizes from young players as fans & media tend to be. Milledge was one of the top 15 or so prospects over both of the last two off-seasons and was the youngest position player in MLB when called up last year. A so-so first 150 or so ABs and some friction w/vets doesn't suddenly degrade him into being worth no more than "a cracked bat and a tube of liniment".