Frayed Knot

I think Willie's def from the 'I want a catch-n-throw' guy behind there and isn't keen on having guys like Jacobs as a top option. He wasn't considered a good defensive guy to start with and that was before he spent almost no time behind the plate for most of 2 years (missed most of '04 and played 1st & DH most of '05). In other words ... this movement is doomed to failure. I'm not even sure if he'll get a true crack in the spring. What would be best is if he can show that he'll hit enough to play 1st on at least a platoon basis and be the 3rd option for backstop. 2 catchers is often too few because it limits the PH-ing options, 3 is too many. 2-1/2 could be just right if he could imitate the good version of Bono.

Benson - 4 Jacobs - 1.8 Floyd - 1.2 Piazza - 0.5 (for the plate block ... and I guess the IW) Wright - 0.8 Heilman - 0.9 Hernandez - 0.8

The Saturday game will be a day game on FOX, and Friday night probably on NYC's channel 9 (most Friday NYY games have been). For Sunday's game you're likely SOL without YES or NESN. By then that game could either be for all the marbles or totally meaningless.

The problem is in finding a way to make the cutoffs. As it stands, the examples listed in the opening post lump among the 'up-and-comers' players who are nearly at (or in some cases past) their FA years: Soriano, Molina, Aramis Ramirez, Andruw, Sheets, Nathan, Ryan, etc., with some who have barely made a dent so far; Fielder, Diaz, Felix Hernandez, Jacobs, and so on. Similar differences exist within the fade-out group too. As a result, that list doesn't represent a 1 year phenomenom but instead spans about a 5-6 year era.

And DeJean pitched well last year as a set-up guy, does that not buy him some slack when he got off to a rotten start ... or do prior stats only count with guys where we can see after the fact were able to turn things around? That's the problem with a lot of this analysis is it's looking at things after they happened and saying that it was obvious all along. DeJean pitched poorly and was dropped before mid-season. Graves was signed on a hope he could find past success (as was Robo - only Graves is much younger) and was pulled from anything other than mop-up almost immediately. Mathews was dropped, as was Aybar (who had a real good spring IIRC).

DeJean pitched all of 25 innings this year - fewer than he pitched last year when he was very good - and was gone by June. Graves has thrown even fewer. I don't see either one of these as examples of slavish devotion to vets.

Joe Crede hRs in the bottom of the 10th and the Sox temporarily halt their slide.

Cleveland scores in the top of the 9th to tie it. ChiSox load the bases in their half but Juan Uribe flies out and we're going to the 10th.

]It could be argued, many years from now, that this season, 2005, represented a turning point in the history of Major League Baseball I personally doubt that this year will wind up standing out a whole lot more than most other years. Players being on the rise while others fall is the norm not an oddity.

Hey, just think back to the LLWS, Burroughs has a history of taking the mound in "big games" and this is certainly ... oh never mind.

There was both a called strike and swinging strike there. The sequence was: - Ball 1 - Ball 2 - Swinging strike on a high/inside pitch Jacobs had no business going after - called strike 2 on an outside pitch Laz Diaz has no business calling a strike - then the game winner which was neither smoked nor dribbled but kind of a semi-hard grounder in the right place. Delgado isn't exactly the most mobile guy in the world and that may have cost the Marlins both the Mets first and last runs tonight.

Done correctly, they use both the home tem AND visiting team stats and compare them to how those teams did in that park as compared to other stadiums specifically so the home team's strengths and weaknesses can't foul things up. For instance: From the very opening weeks of the life of 'Great American Ballpark' in Cincy, media types pronounced it to be a little league field based largely on the fact that there were a ton of high-scoring games there. What was really the cause however, was the fact that the Reds had oodles of power hitters and really shitty pitching ... hence the home team scored a lot AND the road team scored often. But when the comparisons were all done, it turned out that those Red sluggers were hitting even better on the road while Cincy pitchers were getting lit up just as bad away from GAB as they were in it. As a result, GAB had a pitcher favoring ratings in it's opening seasons. If you want to dive into the math of this stuff, go nuts: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/parkadjust.shtml This calculation even takes into consideration the fact that a winning home team only bats 8 times in most cases.

ABH2BHRBAOBASLGBBK20016171893224.306.362.5145212020026371744424.273.346.5017113520035211601426.307.389.522728120045991603638.267.365.559921014yr-Avg59317131.528.288.364.5217211220055291443115.276.337.4235384 There's been this notion floating around disgruntled NYM fans (and cackling NYY fans) that Beltran was "never anything other than a .260 hitter" (based on last year's BA) and that this is what we should expect. Clearly not true when you look at the history. Kaufman Stadium in KC (if that's what they're still calling it - I can never remember) was a good hitter's park mainly because it was great for 2Bs & 3Bs (big gaps, funky corners) moreso than for HRs. Never-the-less, they moved the fences back a year or two ago which likely accounted for the recent drop as a hitter's haven.

Beltran's 4yr/avg ('01-'04): AB ... H ... 2B ... HR ... BA .... OBA ... SLG .... BB ... K 593 - 171 - 32 ... 28 ... .288 ... .364 ... . .521 ... 72 ... 112 This year to date: AB ... H ... 2B ... HR ... BA .... OBA ... SLG .... BB ... K 529 .. 144 ..31 ... 15 ... .276 ... .337 ... .423 ... 53 ... 84 Park factors would have something to do with all this. But last year (playoffs aside) was only an aberration in HRs (38). this has clearly been an off year for him.

SI Metman wrote: Reds released their sched today which shows that the Mets will be screwed out of another interleague home series yet again. I don't get what the complaint is here. You get 81 at home & 81 on the road. As far as I'm concerned the fewer IL games on the sked the better.

- Yanx beat O's on a walk-off by Bubba Freakin Crosby - BoSox lose to DevilDogs as fat Wells doesn't survive the 3rd. Craig Hansen - St John's RP & 1st round pick - makes his ML debut w/a scoreless 6th (2 Ks) - Cleveland notches 2 in the 8th plus 1 in the 9th for a 7-5 lead over the ChiSox. Bob Wickman trying to close out bottom 9 ... and Konerko pops out w/2 on to end the game. - Oakland leading 5-0 in the 5th over Mini-soda - Astros & Clemens (5.2 IPs, 6R, 4 ER) get smacked by the Pyroots (on talk like a pirate day) - Sandy Eggo trying to maintain a .500 record leads the Rox by 1 heading to the 9th

Rule 1 of contract acquisitions: - When a player becomes available (not certain to begin with) just as he starts to show decline and is carrying a contract that is not only too high in per/yr $ amount but also has 6 more years to run as said player marches through his mid-late 30's ... stay da fuck away from him!!!!

Otis Nixon

One previously unforseen snag in the Indian run is that they still have 6 remaining w/the reeling ChiSox - so if Cleveland continues to run the table it will automatically push the Pale Hose down to the Yanx's level giving them one more option to beat out for the WC. In August the ChiSox had a 15 game lead on the seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians". It's down to 3-1/2 now. The two remaining teams in the West look like they're going to fight it out amongst themselves and not affect the WC race at all. They have 3 heads-up games left - at Oakland - in the penultimate series of the season.

McCovey has the best [u:eb02efcaf6]HR rate[/u:eb02efcaf6] of that group: 1 HR in each 12.98 ABs vs NYM. Stargell was next, better than Aaron, Allen & then Chipper. Dawson (28.8) and Bonds had the worst, relying more on longevity than true "Met killing". Pat Burrell, btw, is hitting them at a better rate than any of those guys (12.14) and is 5 HRs from joining the top 10.

I think someone should have an Irony City beer in honor of this thread.

Glavine - 5.8 Floyd - 1.8 Beltran - 0.9 Diaz - 0.9 Reyes - 0.6

]Examining the output from slots in the lineup on a daily basis is meaningless because it's such an incredibly small sample size. It's really only meaningful over part of a season. Agreed. That's why I was balking at the claim that "it worked" after a single in 4 ABs.

Being a DH shouldn't count him out but it should be taken into consideration.

Two more piece of shit hits create a run.