Frayed Knot

]The similarity is written on their birth certificates Alomar was 34 when he joined the team, Boone (assuming he makes it)will be 37 ]3) Lone nut You've previously claimed to be a big conspiracy theorist

]5) both past their peaks Boone is coming off a year where he was cut twice and is being signed to a minor league camp invite to possibly compete for a backup/bench position. Alomar was a reigning All-Star who finished 4th in the MVP voting the winter we traded several promising players to get him, was in the midst of a long-term contract and was the no-questions asked starter coming in. You're right ... how similar!!!!

Yes, I just think that the difference has undergone a recent spate of exaggeration by whining. I keep hearing - from both fans and media - about how so-and-so may be a good pitcher but let's see if he's still good once he gets to the AL ... as if the two leagues are barely comparable.

The "conventional wisdom" that 'AL offenses are better by leaps and bounds' has been seriously overblown in recent years IMO. There's usually been an AL edge but just as the differences between the leagues has been decreasing in recent years the perception of it has been getting more play. Of course much of the recent chorus has been coming from MFY fans and their complaints about their newly imported NL pitchers: Pavano, Johnson, Wright, etc. It's a convenient excuse for fans to deride failures by questioning whether the players were ever any good in the first place, as in; 'your shit may work elsewhere but here in the REAL major leagues you have to be extra special'. It's a lot like the 'tougher to play in NYC' angle; it cited as an after-the-fact reason when the player declines but it ignored as a factor when he doesn't.

Or maybe posting stupid stuff gets you ignored. These kind of 'burn your bridges' post usually do make for good threads. Of course, after denouncing the place he did go on to post something in another thread, making the "this place suxx" pronouncements a bit suspect.

Baseball America's John Manuel during an on-line Q&A: Q: Newsday is reporting that the Dodgers are sending Duaner Sanchez to the Mets for Jae Seo. As a Dodger fan can you give me a long term opinion on this and what we can expect from Seo if the deal goes thru? John Manuel: Bullpen guys like Sanchez don't grow on trees, but they aren't hard to find either. The Dodgers got Sanchez on waivers, and he's fine, but nothing special. Same with Seo, but Seo can be a fourth or fifth starter type. If the Dodgers can afford the more-expensive Seo (and I'm sure they can), then I'd rather have Seo. This chat was before the deal was official and before it was expanded to include the extra guys. Essentially he's saying that he prefers Seo because of the starter vs. reliever thing and, while I'd tend to agree, the excess vs. need thing comes into play also. Unfortunately, I know little about Sanchez and less about Schmoll.

"Actually, I blame -- uh, who was the GM who signed Looper?" Was the acquisition of Looper a bad move worth booing during the '04 season when he was good, or just during '05 when he wasn't?

Well, judging by the replies here, I guessing that it's a former poster - from both here and a previous board frequented by some CPFers - who was known for; - her devotion to MP - a generally rosy outlook on things - and, ummm ... well let's just say that logic wasn't her strong suit.

Nymr83 wrote: i have no idea how Cairo, regardless of your opinion of mediocre full-timers vs. good part timers, gets anywhere on anyone's list. he wasn't mediocre, he was TERRIBLE, one of the worst hitters in the entire major leagues and his contribution to the team was a negative one. Not arguing that should be anywhere near the top, only that simply the fact that he held a starting position for a good portion of the season puts him ahead of those who contributed both briefly and not very well either. I'm talking about those like Graves and his 5+ ERA in 20 IPs or DeJean and his 2.1+ WHiP/near 6.00 ERA in 25 IPs. Not to mention that it's tough to explain why Matsui's: 255/300/352 season rates so high above Cairo's 251/296/324 ... not a whole lot of difference there.

The home team in MLB wins about 54% of the time, a figure which is significant but probably not as big as many would guess. 1) 'friendly fans" -- you'd think that at the professional level this wouldn't matter so much; after all, aren't we always told how these guys can "tune out" whatever going on around them? ... although the H-v-A diff in basketball - where the fans are closest to the action - is so huge maybe it means a lot more than logic would suggest. 2) "sleeping in you own bed" theory -- While I don't think it means much on an individual game basis, it likely has more of a cumulative effect: 2nd week on the road in MLB; 5th city in 8 days in NBA/NHL, etc., ... although those notions wouldn't explain the NFL difference. 3) "Intimidated umpires" theory -- impossible to prove one way or the other but I think this is more of a reason than leagues and announcers are willing to admit. Most seem reluctant to even discuss it. Again, the NBA's huge split implies this as a factor. 4) "home team bats last" -- odd that baseball is the only game that has distinct and tangible advantages to being home (hitting last, unique fields) yet has a smaller HF advantage than football/hoops/hockey where the fields are (virtually) the same 5) "home field quirks" -- see above. Given the other advantages (1, 2 & 3) you'd think this would give baseball teams a bigger edge than other sports. 6) "tailoring team to park" -- this should make reason #5 matter even more - yet, aside from a few football teams who attempt to expoit local weather or indoor turf, only baseball has this as an edge but still produces the smallest H-v-A difference.

Complex 4 team/multi-player deals actually occur about as often as appearances by Halley's Comet so I'm not taking this one too seriously. I think it's more a case of the tabs playing 'my headline's bigger than yours' with each other. Read that piece even semi-carefully and you'll find more denials than hints that the deal's even remotely plausible. M&MD did indeed endorse trading just about anything for Baez - and yes, they were using the NYDN article as their jumping off point - reasoning that it would give us such a killer back end of the bullpen that it would be too much to pass up at virtually any price. It's as if the 2nd half of last season never existed for either Seo or Heilman.

I think my favorite reaction at the time was the one where someone took the picture af Asshead in mid bat-toss - complete with full exertion, his teeth gritted and veins bulging out of his neck - and put one of his quotes underneath reading; "I was just flipping it to the bat boy" It's like he was trying out different quotes after the fact to see which one(s) sounded least ridiculous.

"After the game, he [Robinson] levies a fine on Clemens far beyond that typically given to behavior that would have led to an ejection or even a suspension, but at the time he didn't see fit to instruct the umpires to eject him." Don't think Robinson has that kind of power -- particularly not as the game is going on. The umps control the game and the league office can levy discipline above and beyond that after the fact, but it doesn't control the umps directly. Hell, at that time, almost no one controlled the umps, directly or otherwise.

Off the top of my head: Bal'mer mgr Earl Weaver in game 4 of the '69 WS - supposedly for a misunderstanding. Ump Shag Crawford said something along the lines of "I better not hear another word from you Earl" as he turned and walked away from what he thought was the end of an argument. Weaver, not hearing him according to some versions, followed him to ask what he just said. Crawford heard Weaver and turned to see him right behind him rather than heading back to the dugout and tossed his ass. The Shea crowd - including yours truly - got a big kick out of that one. Joaquin Andujar totally losing it in Game 7 of the '85 WS. Game 6 was the one in which Don Dekinger's blown call at 1st set up the Royals to tie the series at 3. Andujar didn't have it for the Cards in game 7 and didn't much much of a reason to get his Latin temper all over Denkinger now behind the plate. By the time the dust cleared, Andujar was in the shower and the Royals had something like a 10-0 lead.

Well some kind of consensus is emerging from the 12 different opinions floating around at this point: the list below is an averaging of the ones submitted so far plus both a list of Win Shares & our PotG standings but not KC's & Marathon's lists, both of which seem to be incomplete. And while I don't want to stop anyone from submitting their opinions if they haven't already, what might be interesting at this point is to hear from those who are differing from the masses on certain players and have them either defend their positions in an attempt to cajole the rest of us into seeing things their way, or own up to their temporary insanity and explain how they've "seen the light" due to arguments from the others. Remember, these are ranked in 30 (best) to 1 (worst) order so your list is still in the correct order even if you printed yours in a 1-30 format. I've just converted the data into what we've been using all along. Our consensus to date: 30 - Wright: it was unanimous 29 - Martinez 28 - Floyd there were a few which had these two flipped but virtually all had them at one spot or the other 27 - Glavine: a few had him as low as 25 points (6th place) but nothing major 26 - Reyes 25 - Beltran This was a farily close race and it would be interesting to hear from those on either side of the argument as to the reasoning, particularly those who had Reyes several spots above Beltran: Zvon (Reyes - 27, Beltran - 23); YSG (27/25); Ole-Owned (27/25) - or from those who had it the other way around: Nymr (26 Beltran / 23 Reyes) 24 - Piazza: Dickshot has him down at 20 23 - Cameron: Seawolf at 18 22 - Benson: Agbodan (18), Nymr (17) and Dickshot (19) dragged his overall ranking down 21 - Seo: As high as 24 (Agbodan, Nymr) and as low as 17 (Dickshot) 20 - Hernandez: Yancy at 17, Dickshot at 26 19 - Heilman: Valadius is low man (15), Seawolf (22) & Dickshot (23) are high 18 - Diaz: Dickshot (21), Zvon (15) 17 - Zambrano: has a variety of opinions (SURPRISE!) from Zvon at 11 to Valadius at 21 ... also PotG had him at 22 16 - Castro: Nymr (13) 15 - Jacobs: Nymr (19), Frayed Knot & Dickshot (12) 14 - Anderson: Zvon (18), Seawolf (20) vs FK (9) and Nymr (11) 13 - Looper: pretty even - but maybe only because orig jb hasn't checked in yet 12 - Mientkiewicz : All voters are within two slots here but it's PotG (17) and Win Shares (8) who disagree the most 11 - Matsui: Again PotG is considerably higher (16) while Nymr (7) is low and Yancy (16) high 10 - Woodward: Dickshot and Seawolf on the high end (14) and FK on the low side (7) 9 - Padilla: Nymr real low (4), while Zvon gives him the most love (13) 8 - Cairo: Nymr 1 !! vs Zvon (12) ... that'll translate into a boatload of difference in total points (8 vs 1,195) 7 - Ishii: Almost as big a spread here: Agbodan & Nymr (2) vs FK (11) 6 - Trachsel: Nymr rewards Trax's 6 starts with 12 pts, while Zvon leaves him off the list entirely!! 5 - Koo: Nymr puts him at 10, FK only to 3 3.5 (tie for 4th) - Offerman: 7 & 8 from Nymr & Agbodan, 'No List for You!' from Yancy & Seawolf 3.5 - Bell: Not on 'Olerud Owned's list 2 - Williams 1 - Graves - 5 from Nymr DeJean: 6 from Nymr ... and Ring: 4 from Abogdan although neither makes the top 30 or got more than 1 or 2 pts from anyone else

Doesn't sound like something I'm in favor of mainly because it doesn't really "solve" much, it merely deals pitching depth away to get pitching depth. Baez is a nice pitcher - although I could do w/o the almost 4 BBs per/game - but how much of an upgrade is this really, especially if we're talking about Heilman or Seo as the centerpiece of a "package" to get him?

The battle between the good part-timers and the mediocre full-timers is probably the biggest snag to overcome. I put more emphasis on those who actually played. Remember, this is a judgement of how the players contributed and not neccesarily how we think they might have done if they had been given more time, a better batting slot, a different role, etc. Putting up great numbers over 3 weeks can only help a team so much, and taking the angle that someone off the scrapheap could have done better than one of the starters is all fine and dandy except that we'll never know since no one else did start. The way I like to attack this is to compare the position players against each other, then do the same with the pitchers before blending the two list like you're fanning a deck of cards together. Position players (16): There were 4 full-time position players who clearly deserve the top spots. Of them, Wright gets top billing, then Floyd: I wanted to argue for it the other way around based on Cliff having more "BIG" moments during the season (and I think he did) but Wright finished up the year strongly enough to the point where his overall numbers were superior in almost every case. Then comes Beltran then Reyes: it's tempting to reverse those two based on expectations and money, but Beltran wins with an extra 30 pts of OBA and more XBH Of the not quite ready for prime time players (sub 400 ABs) Piazza gets the next spot. His nearly 100 more ABs, his position, and his HRs and position put him above first Cameron, then Diaz - who put up similar numbers but w/lesser defense - and then Castro. That leaves Mientkiewicz along with the myriad of 2nd basemen to fight it out along with the irregulars - with the trickiest part figuring out what to do with Jacobs and his outrageous .710 Slg Avg despite only having only 100 ABs. Mientkiewicz - based on starting most of the year and good stretches at the beginning - gets the next spot. Matsui & Cairo were virtual twins (and bad ones at that) but I liked Kaz's occasional glimpses of excitement over Cairo's steady and boring umm ... Cairo-ness so I stuck them in that order and sandwhiched Jacobs for his power and then Anderson for his PH-ing prowess in between. Anderson gets some love for playing his role well, but we're not grading on the curve here and in truth he was pretty much a singles hitter who didn't play very good defense either. Woodward had some big hits but considerably less playing time then most of the above. Offerman then Ice Williams bring up the rear, with A. Hernandez, DeFelice, Daubach & Valent missing the cut. Pitchers (14) Pedro clearly takes the top spot. Glavine's excellent 2nd half puts him solidly in second while Benson takes third place despite his. Then it gets a bit tricky. Among the next tier; Seo had the best ERA/WHiP, Heilman logged the most time, while Roberto did the most heavy lifting. I'm going with Hernandez first ... then Heilman who logged 53 appearances but wasn't getting the tough innings until late in the season. JW Seo was the best pitcher in spots but can't be higher after only appearing in 14 games (and 90 IPs as a starter) while spending more than half the season on the farm. The order of this group is obviously going to be a bone of contention. Zambrano and Looper are a cut below that trio. Zambrano was inconsistant though rarely bad while Looper was occasionally both. Yeah Zambrano's ERA is similar to Benson's but his WhiP is much higher (walked almost twice as many) his W/L record not as good, and Benson's stats took a beating during a bad September by which time Zambrano was already out of the rotation. Ishii wasn't as bad as the trashing he's taken suggests, but he always seemed to have the bad inning that would ruin any good work he had done and blow his stats all to hell. Padilla's terrific ERA & WhiP nets him the next spot despite limited IPs. Trachsel's 6 fairly mediocre starts place him next. Heath Bell blew both hot & cold which added up to some pretty lousy numbers. Koo's numbers were better, but pitched about half as much as Bell and really failed to do the LOOGY job he was brought in to fill. And Manny Aybar wins the 3-way fight for the last spot, leaving the equally non-descript Mike DeJean and Danny Graves on the outside looking in along with Santiago, Takatsu, Ring, Mathews, Heredia, and Hamulak. So combining the two lists together gets us: 30 - Wright 29 - Martinez 28 - Floyd 27 - Glavine 26 - Beltran 25 - Reyes 24 - Piazza 23 - Benson 22 - Hernandez 21 - Cameron 20 - Heilman 19 - Seo 18 - Diaz 17 - Zambrano 16 - Castro 15 - Looper 14 - Mientkiewicz 13 - Matsui 12 - Jacobs 11 - Ishii 10 - Padilla 9 - Anderson 8 - Cairo 7 - Woodward 6 - Bell 5 - Offerman 4 - Trachsel 3 - Koo 2 - Williams 1 - Aybar Go ahead ... argue with that logic.

Well Frank, even if you had your differences with Ralph Kiner, the one thing you have in common is your opinion of Branch Rickey. Ralph (who still does NY Met TV on a limited basis (as he did while you were playing here) repeats similar stories about dealing with Rickey. The line he often uses is that Rickey controlled all the money and all the players ... and did everything he could to keep the two apart. Anyway, thanks so much for taking the time to do these chats with us. You've obviously put a lot of thought into your answers which leads me to believe that your book will be a good read. I hadn't heard about it prior to this but now it's on my list of things to complete before the winter is out.

"One of the most extreme pitchers' parks in the league will be not quite as extreme. Major League Baseball has approved the San Diego Padres' request to move Petco Park’s right-center field wall in 11 feet. San Diego will be the home of the championship for the World Baseball Classic in March 2006, and the team fully expects the wall to be moved in by then. Padres Chief Executive Officer Sandy Alderson claimed that the team did a study that showed the shorter fence would have resulted in approximately 11 more home runs last year, five for the Padres. There’s some speculation that this might be a precursor to more changes in right field. For now, it looks like the team will analyze the effects of the new distance and go from there." http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/business-of-baseball-report30/

Now we just need the LOOGY equivalent of him ... Brad Chadford come on down!!

An official limit? I doubt it. More like a practical one -- although I suppose it's possible that he signed a minor league deal with the understanding that it'll be made ML when enough other paper shuffling goes through. Like I said, I'd be surprised if he didn't have enough other options to at least get himself a guaranteed salary for next season.

For that kind of money it's almost shirley a major league deal. There'd also be too many potential other suitors to get him with just a minor league or "split" contract.

Yo Patchy, I sent you a PM.Get back to me when you get a minute.

Hideki Matsui is the latest to "decide" not to play. Funny how all those MFYs are deciding this at the same time even though the teams aren't supposed to be able to block their guys except for injury reasons. Although, to be fair, it is going to be a pain for U.S.-based Asian players to participate. They'd have to be over here for the beginning of ST, then heading to Asia where their team's early round games would be, then come back here for a while, then head to the west coast if their team is still in it, ...

For all the jokes about Yogi's looks and about his general, umm ... 'Yoginess', he was actually a terrific athlete who seemed to be a natural in whatever he picked up according to numerous sources. I wasn't aware of the hockey, but I do know that he was a highly sought after football (and I believe also soccer) player as a youth, played some very good golf after his pro days were over, and was undefeated in a short stint as a boxer.