Frayed Knot

A whole lotta stumblin' goin on in the AL: seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" lose to Tampa - down by 2 they scored once in the 9th and had 1st & 3rd w/1 out ... when Belliard GiDP'd to end the game ChiSox lose to Tiggers - another 1 run game. They also were down by 2 then scored 1 in the 9th and left 2 on as Jermaine Dye flied out to end the game BoSox split - Won the gay dame, but then blew 3-0 & 5-2 leads to lose 7-5. Schilling still having his problems Yanx about to lose - despite a 2R & GS HRs by Sheffield. Mussina didn't last the 2nd despite having a 5-1 lead early. O's lead 17-9 heading for the 9th. Even THEY couldn't blow that one!!!! So it looks like the 3-way tie - NY/Bos/Cleve will live on another day. ChiSox aren't exactly steaming towards the finish line but they take another day off the schedule. In the West the Angels lead the A's early NL: Braves clinch east Mets & Florida eliminated from post-season. Mets grab 3rd place. Houston takes a 2-1/2 game lead in the WC chase. Magic number = 3 Giants & Padres tied at 4 - Bonds w/#708

Zambrano - 0.5 Ishii - 0.3 Padilla - 0.8 Heilman - 2.1 Reyes - 3.2 Beltran - 2.3 Cairo - 0.8

Iubitul wrote: wow. what a throw by Beltran. If you folks get a chance to see this on a highlight show (assuming you haven't already) see if they use an angle that sticks w/Carlos after he releases the ball. He put so much into that throw that he did a complete flip after he let it go. Great fuckin play. A bit risky (for both sides really) but great none the less.

"What am I missing here?" What you're missing is that you've so narrowly defined what proper use is that there's virtually nothing that a manager could do so as to NOT be found guilty of misuse. When anything after the 5th inning or within 3 (or maybe more - I dunno) runs can only be solved by the likes of Robo, Heilman, and I guess Padilla if he's in favor these days, then you've not only set a standard that Willie could never meet but one that no manager or team could either. You're destined to be suffer from pen misuse forever if that's your criteria because a manager simply can't run a bullpen using the same 3 or 4 guys every day and only saving the back-end guys for those occasional 2 touchdown blowouts. No one's arguing that Takatsu has been good, only that his impact has been minimal and that your real issue isn't just when he's being used but THAT he is - as it seems to be for Graves, Koo, DeJean, Aybar, etc. Hey look, I want my 10th, 11th & 12th guys on the staff to be lights-out, fireballing K-artists too and I'm sure it's up there on Willie's Xmas list and Omar's to-do list ... right above the one about getting 5-tool studs for the bench and just after the one involving Eva Longoria and jello.

RHP & 2003 3rd round draft pick Gaby Hernandez is the only Hagerstown Sun to make BA's Top-20 prospects of the South Atlantic League (#18).http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/05league20s/sal.htmlFrom the Q&A session:Q: Gaby Hernandez seemed to have a remarkable season and has the stuff and the poise to be an impact player. Why so late in the list? A - John Manuel: ... he doesn't have impact stuff, according to the scouts I talked to. He has good stuff, but impact stuff to me means two plus pitches. I haven't heard that on Hernandez, either when he was in high school in South Florida or as a pro. What I have heard, though, is good--pitchability, solid fastball velocity, solid curveball that could be better if thrown with more conviction, and good makeup. Gaby sounds like he has a chance to really contribute for the Mets down the line, and I think he's a good No. 3-4 starter down the line.They also mentioned OFer Carlos Gomez was close and would be in the 20-30 range.

Adams PHing - Ks Koskie PHing - 1Bs Gross - GO Temporarily, there's a 3-way tie between the Yanx, seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" & Sawx btw, ESPN apparently IS going to televise some Sunday afternoon games, games to be decided based on need. Needless to say, the NYY/Boston game will be their first choice for those of you outside the NY/NE area.

3-1 Boston, heading for the 9th. Timlin in to face Hinske, Menechino & Hill. Hinske grounds out.

After a while this whole bullpen critique starts to boil down to: - don't use guys I don't like ever unless we're up by 12 or more runs AND - use only the guys I like and only in late innings when the game is on the line or it will be construed as mis-use ... at which point the whole issue becomes more a case of scapegoating than anaysis. It's also something that fans of every single team complain about. Ask any fan about how to improve his team and the most common answer would be to lop the worst 4 guys off the back of the pen. 'Don't use X, use some guy who's not here', is a time-honored fan fave.

]I think I have this wrong, but I show that's about a 10,173-to-1 payoff. BP has it at 1 in 11,062 (0.00904%)

Florida also sat Miguel Cabrera down for "disciplinary reasons". That ship be sinking.

Jacobs - 2.5 Cairo - 2.3 R. Hernandez - 2.2 Ishii - 1.0 Graves - 0.5 Beltran - 0.6 Floyd - 0.9

]our significantly below-average record in games where we score between 1 & 4 runs- As opposed to all those teams who have have GOOD records in those games? And if Heilman had been used where Graves had been yesterday - down 3 runs/middle innings - that's exactly the sort of situation which would register as "low leverage" and set off a new round of complaints. But now Graves being used there is an example of "mis-management"? My point is not that you can't find individual examples of where you'd make a different call, only that I think it's getting to the point where we're looking pretty hard to find ammo and exaggerating the impact that it's had. I mean Takatsu's pitched all of 5 innings fer crissakes, it's not like using him in a different 5 innings would have changed things.

Yes, TB is based on hits. The player doesn't get "credit" for bases he moved on someone else's hits. TB is tracked because it's the basis for Slugging Average. Essentially the batter gets 'double' credit for a double, a triple is counted like 3 hits, a homer gets him 4.

YES!

Yanx romp (geez, just watch Bal'mer for an inning and you can see how much they suck) BoSox rained out ChiSox lose to Detroit Angels beat A's Braves lose - haven't clinched yet. Nats beat Fish And Giants beat Pads -- Funny how a certain NY radio duo have been assuring thier audience that one Armando Benitez was sure to blow a game here cuz, y'know, that's what he does this time of year. 'Cept that it was Hoffman who failed tonight while Armando took care of the save 1-2-3 on 11 pitches. This example will of course be ignored in future pronouncements that he can't save this kind of game at this time of year. Oh yeah, and the Mets beat the Phils.

Gary was implying that Abreu mis-played that Floyd hit but there was no way he was getting that. That's Floyd's 3rd single off the wall in something like the last 10 days. 2 were hit that hard, one was bad baserunning by Beltran. Jacobs goes to the wrong part of the park - but gets the go-ahead Sac Fly.

Not only isn't our situation remotely as extreme as the example, but it's barely relevent. No one - much less "everyone" - is in roles so ridiculously mis-applied. If this "leverage" stat is supposed to reflect how dramatically a game is affected by a run given up then anyone who comes in earlier is going to score lower than 8th/9th inning guys and Heilman's early season use as a long man is going to show that. He was given an increased role - both in timing and closeness - as he showed he could handle it, something he surely hadn't done coming in to this season. This notion that it somehow proves that Heilman spent a lengthy stint as a "mop-up" man and that games were being lost because of it is taking that stat a bit too literally. According to the above stats, the pen spent the year giving up fewer runs than their hits, WHiP, OPS, etc imply they should have, and I find it a pretty big leap of faith to assume that if the same crew could have produced those same stats only in different orders then the results would have been dramatically different. The biggest pen problem we've had is that the closer had an awful season. The trial-and-error attempts to find middle relievers and start seeing who works where is something every team does on a constant and ongoing basis.

"their "good" stats would only show that everyone is in the wrong role." All of them? And do we really believe that pitching the same cast of more-or-less average characters only in different sequences would somehow make a sizable difference in W/L record? C'mon now.

Victor Diaz still has many, many rough edges that need smoothing before he's a bonafide everyday player.

I don't know what to make of Burnett. I could see him being underpaid at $10mil, or overpaid at $5mil.

="metirish"]Frayed Knot, in your game wouldn't that ball be called Foul? Yes. An Infield Fly isn't an infield fly unless it's fair - think about it, the only reason for the rule is so the defense can't gain an unfair advantage over the offense (by intentionally dropping the ball and getting a DP) but that advantage doesn't exist on a foul. The proper call by the ump is; "Infield Fly ... IF FAIR" and then he'd simply call the ball that spun foul as 'strike 1' (or strike whatever). The confusing part is that the ball initially landed fair and - because of this - the ump made his 'IFR' call too soon and then stuck with it. My guys benefitted but it suxx when the umps don't know the rules. MFS'62: I know there are no balks in softball but at the same time there are rules which require that the pitcher maintain a continuous delivery w/o stops & starts or herky-jerky dance-steps in between. Rules differ between leagues (since the runners can move in your example this sounds like a fast-pitch or modified pitch league) but in my mind this should have been a 'no-pitch' call and the runners returned to their bases.

BP Playoff Odds Report - as of Monday morning: RedSox: Division = 57.65%, Wild Card = 6.26%, Total = 63.91% Yanx: 42.35%, WC = 7.23%, Total = 49.58% Sox have Blue Jays while Yanx get O's (advantage MFY) but Boston is at home/MFY on the road (ad Boston) and then the weekend head-to-head is also in Beantown. ChiSox: Division = 71.14%, WC = 26.56%, Total = 97.70% seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians": Division = 26.86%, WC = 59.95%, Total = 88.81% Indians host Tampa (3) while Sox go to Detroit (4) before finishing w/3 head-to-head in Cleveland. Angels: Division = 90.69%, WC = 0.00% A's: Division = 9.31% Like I said, the A's virtually need a sweep - 4 games in Oakland starting tonight. Braves: Division = 99.88%, WC = 0.11%, Total = 99.982% (magic number = 2) Phils: Division = 0.123%, WC = 33.35%, Total = 33.48% (this is where we can really muck things up) Marlins: WC = 0.03968% Mets: WC = 0.00342% ("I'm not dead yet!") Astros: WC = 66.50% Padres: Division = 97.39% (C'mon, finish .500+ and stop embarassing the league) Giants: Division = 2.59% (they need a sweep - 4 in SD starting today - plus maybe an earthquake) D'Backs: Division = 0.01713% (Really? - I thought they were eliminated in July!)

Well, I am exaggerating a bit. But I do get a kick out of the whole thing considering all the comments over the years; * about how he wasn't clutch enough -- 'gee, when I saw him on highlight shows as a Dodger he was always getting hits' - about how he was disappointing because he never hit .360 after he got here -- he did so once in LA so naturally many NYM fans expected it constantly - about how he didn't throw out enough runners -- like they didn't know that was a weakness coming in - and just basically blaming him being costly and for getting older -- as if it didn't occur to them that this was a very possible outcome over the length of a 7-year contract while they were demanding that the team "Do whatever it takes" to sign him. I'm sure there are posters over there who truly like Piazza and whose words will be real, and that the complainers could very well be in the minority. But just the whole concept of a virtual love letter from the MoFo to Mike Piazza has me chuckling.

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Is the ball considered dead after it hits the batter, or is it still in play? HBP is always a dead ball.

Here's a scoring call for y'all - occured in yesterday's softball game: Bases loaded, 0 outs. Pop-up near the 3rd base bag, ump signals/calls for the IF Fly rule. My 3rd baseman lets the ball drop hoping to entice one or more runners into leaving their bases Ball lands fair between 3rd base and the mound ... but then bounces foul. What's your call? All runners stayed put btw.