Frayed Knot

btw, this talk of "clutch" stats and MFS referencing the Jeter/ARod debate reminds me that Francesa was spouting the; 'Jeter lifts his game in the post-season while ARod's game shrinks', line ... even going as far to say that Jeter's stats alone aren't enough to label him a great player except for the fact that he becomes so much better in the post-season. So, curious guy that I am, I did something really radical; I looked things up: Jeter reg season: .314/.386/.461 Jeter postseason: .307/.379/.463 (462 ABs) ARod reg season: .307/.385/.577 ARod postseason: .305/.393/.534 (118 ABs)

That he's been lousy hitting w/runners on and such isn't in question. No matter what the sample size it's all there in black and white. The mistake would be in thinking that the fact that [u:bcf53b4d5d]he hasn't[/u:bcf53b4d5d] is evidence that [u:bcf53b4d5d]he can't[/u:bcf53b4d5d] and therefore proof that [u:bcf53b4d5d]he won't[/u:bcf53b4d5d] in the future.

Reyes - 3.0 Oliver - 2.5 Delgado - 2.5 Nady - 0.5

GYC wrote: Pinched nerve for Duaner... just a stinger. And there was much rejoicing (Yaaaaaay)

LoDuca apparently aggravated the thumb injury and was taken out for ye olde precautionary reasons. I guess tomorrow's start at Noon is the real Day-game-after-night-game as opposed to today's 4:00 sorta day game.

Well this isn't starrting well. I agree that if you're not gonna pitch it's good to do it on a day when you're getting stifled by a top pitcher ... it's just that we're actually getting baserunners off of Halladay but are wasting them all with stupid baserunning (and/or bad calls).

I think he meant Baltimore as well -- except I believe it was more a case of Rochester dumping Baltimore than the other way around.

Nymr83 wrote: former Met Armando Benitez blew it last night against the A's, they just played the highligt on WFAN with the comment "You've heard this before." Which is exactly the sort of obnoxiousness that reinforces the idea that Benitez does this more often than the average closer. He does't actually, it's just that blown saves by other closers aren't singled out in highlite recaps with the same regularity.

TheOldMole wrote: I knew he was a doctor. Just the Jays part I didn't know. Been there a long time.

Yup! Taylor went to med school after his baseball career and returned to his native Toronto. He latched onto sports medicine and eventually wound up with the hometown Jays - although there was a detour along the way a bunch of year back when he got snagged for writing perscriptions to himself or something along those lines.

Glavine - 3.8 Wright - 2.3 Milledge - 1.7 LoDuca - 1.2 Bradford - 0.5 Feliciano - 0.5

Not if it's his shoulder.

Sanchez has been sent back to NY to get his shoulder looked at via MRI. Supposedly (acc. to Eddie C) he was feeling OK just minutes after it happened and and hoped it was a one-time "stinger" instead of something torn/broken/pulled/yanked/cracked/shredded/etc. Other pitchers said that they've experienced the same thing from time to time.

<<<-------- D'oh! The Rankings Forum wrote: You mean at some point I'll be Vince Coleman?!?! * 'Fraid so Really? * Yes, really! Hung by my own words!

Wagner, like Smoltz, has [u:ae31422cf1]complete[/u:ae31422cf1] no-trade protection; first year, second year, every year.

I say go for: 'Thank You Katie for being Smoking' ... or whatever it's called.

Simply saying that you'll - and assume that the someone will be an improvement - is easier said than done.

="Elster88"]]Wright, watching the ball touch down 415 feet away in the left-center bleachers, almost passed Beltran on the bases because Beltran was preparing to tag up. Did this really happen (Wright's first home run, the one in the fourth inning) or is the Post just being dramatic? It did and it was a dumb play. Tagging from 1st is rarely a good idea. In order for it to be a good play the ball needs to be: a) deep enough for you to tag and beat what is usually the shortest throw from the OF AND hit in such a way where you know - or are at least reasonably sure - it's going to be caught. But if the ball does neither of those things, and say hits off the wall, then the runner effectively holds the batter to a single and himself to one base on a 400-ft hit. It's like having a team full of Mo Vaughns: turning doubles into singles since 1995! Wright's HR, as it turned out, cleared the wall by at least 15 feet (despite freel climbing the wall in a feeble attempt to snag it) so it's not like Beltran's judgement on where the hit would wind up was all that good to begin with.

The Oriole pitcher - Todd Williams - is a side-armer who seemed totally unable to figure out how to throw something slow and outside. So he kind of awkwardly shot-putted a pitch up there that was just barely outside and Miggy reached out and stroked one to to CF. It looked like a slo-pitch softball game had briefly broken out. btw, Pujols' return from the DL coincided with Mark Mulder taking his place. Mulder was the one smacked around in the first ChiSox game (20-6 StL loss) and is picking a bad time (he's a FA this winter) to have an injured and bad season. It's being termed a "sore shoulder" but some say he hasn't really been right since injring his hip several years back. The Cards wound up burning their bullpen so badly in that 1st game (Mulder lasted only until the 2nd inn) that LaRussa felt he had to leave Jason Marquis out there for 5 full innings in game 2 even as he was getting tatooed for 13 runs. Ouch! With Edmonds also hurt off and on that team suddenly looks like they could be in trouble.

Elster88 wrote: ="Edgy DC"]I'm certain any decent study of park effects accounts for the ability of the home team. I read somewhere that they don't. But I don't remember where. Properly done ones do. If you want to study the math for the Park Effects at Basebal Reference.com knock yourself out. Not only do this process account for who plays in the park but even goes as far to factor in that a winning home team bats only 8 times in a game instead of 9, and also the fact that the numbers get slightly skewed because the home team doesn't hit against it's own (maybe good, maybe bad) pitching staff. Shea was rated a '99' last year.

"He's been fat for the past 20 years" I'm not talking fat, I'm talking needs to abide by building inspection codes large.

Some interesting stuff around the bigs yesterday: [u:708db4c475]Out with the old, in with the new[/u:708db4c475] Roger Clemens (as you may have heard) made his season debut against Minnesota: 5 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 4 K, 2 BB,100 pitches but takes the loss in being upstaged by Nelson Liriano, maybe the best young pitcher in baseball right now: 8 IP, 2R, 4 H, 7 K Twins 4 - Astros 2 Oh yeah, and Clemens is fuckin' HUGE ... draw your own conclusions. [u:708db4c475]10 straight[/u:708db4c475] Atlanta hadn't lost 10 straight since Bruce Sutter was in their bullpen ... until now. AJ Burnett came off the 60-day DL for Toronto last night: 6 IP, 2 R, 5 H, 7 K - but didn't get the win. Atlanta's pen (Remlinger this time) blew it's millionth save of the year as the Jays scored 2 in the 8th for a 3-2 win. That's not just 10 straight losses but also 20 of the last 23. [u:708db4c475]Just a (too little) bit outside[/u:708db4c475] The hot Marlins scored 4 in the 9th to tie the game, then 3 more in the 10th to beat the O's The go-ahead 10th inning run came in when Miguel Cabrera hit an RBI single during an intentional walk attempt. That's 10 wins in the last 11 for Florida who are coming into town to play the Yanx this weekend [u:708db4c475]One way or another[/u:708db4c475] After getting smacked to the tune of 20-6 & 13-5 by the ChiSox in the first two games, the Cards' Anthony Reyes tossed a complete game 1-hitter against the defending champs ... but lost anyway. The 1 hit was a 7th inning solo bomb by Jim Thome and was enough to stand up to the Card offense even with a returning Albert Pujols (0-fer-4) in the lineup. Freddie Garcia and Bobby Jenks combined for a 4-hit 1-Zip shutout. AL continued to smack the NL around, going 55-23 over the last week, and 75-45 overall this season.

"Somebody find out what inspired him to bat lefty against a lefty." He said it was the change-up thing.

Martinez - 2.7 Wright - 3.4 Reyes - 1.0 Bradford - 1.0 Bell - 0.4 Franco - 0.4 Beltran - 0.4 Milledge - 0.4 Feliciano - 0.3

="MFS62"]Remember all those writeups that showed that Shea was a "Pitcher's park"? Seems to me that there's been a lot of homers and total offense there this year. Rule 1 of stats theory: Beware of trends cited & backed by some form of the phrase "it seems to me". . IOW, we should find out if there is any jump in Shea stats before we go searching for the cause. Beltran & Delgado's numbers are FAR worse at home this year f'rinstance. 'In God we Trust ... all others must show data' ]Maybe its because those stats include the numbers put up by the home as well as the visiting teams, and the Mets offense hasn't been this good in a while. Or the Mets had decent pitching that held opponent offense down. As mentioned above, 'Park Effect' scores don't just count runs scored and against because that certainly would be skewed by high-powered or simply hot bats by the home team, as well as the converse of that: shitty pitching which pumps up the visiting offense. What a proper park effect study does is compare the RS/RA numbers to what those same teams are doing on the road. ex: If Cincy's big bats and lousy pitching leads to high-scoring affairs at Gr Amer Ballpark, that alone doesn't make it a hitter's park. If those Red bats & arms are scoring and coughing up even more runs away from GAB then it indicates it's a run-suppressing stadium - despite the scores you might see in the boxscores each morning. ]Or do you think its something else? Small sample size.