metsmarathon

clemens

santana dickey pelfrey niese gee

Well, if Tak were white, he'd be scrappier, and therefore worth it. Has he EVER broken his nose from throwing so hard, or diving, or failing to get to a routine roller to his left? Thought not. Back to Utley: Perhaps... This Year's Delgado might be more to the crux of things? During my 14 weeks on the beat, I covered about 60 games. I would estimate that Utley made himself available to the media after about five of those games. When he does talk, he says nothing. He is vague and unresponsive to even direct, legitimate questions. He doesn�t necessarily lie, but he certainly glosses over significant parts of the truth at times. In other words, it�s Utley�s accountability with the media that appears to be so bothersome. But that�s the inherent problem in the way the media is perceived. Most players view us as the enemy, and perhaps in some respects that is true. But what the media should be is a conduit between the fans and the team, and in that sense, Utley�s lack of accountability with the media is actually a lack of accountability with the fans*, the people who plunk down money to watch him play. (*This can also prove to be a problem within a locker room. Think back to how Barry Bonds left his teammates to answer hundreds upon hundreds of steroids questions while he left without a word. But in the Phillies� clubhouse, I find it hard to believe Utley�s lack of availability is much of a concern. After most games, Brad Lidge and Shane Victorino are the only two players routinely available anyway. Most other regulars don�t make a habit of talking to the media, it�s just that Utley is by far the most extreme case.) ... I don�t know Utley well enough to say how he feels about criticism, but it seems to me he�s getting his fair share of it whether he�s talking to the media or not. I do know Utley well enough to know that it�s not just criticism he hides from though. He doesn�t answer questions about how well the team is playing, how good he�s performing when he�s hot or, in the case of the past two months, how that surgically repaired thumb is feeling. We asked Charlie throughout the postseason about Utley�s health, and Manuel�s only response was, �He tells me he�s healthy.� Not that Utley would ever say anything different. And this is where Utley�s lack of accountability with the fans hurts him. He came back from a serious injury to his hand, one that directly impacted his swing, two weeks early. He never quite looked right at the plate after that. But he also would never let on that his hand was still hurting or that he was having trouble recovering and getting his timing and strength back. Ryan Howard did. He talked at length about his ankle and how it affected him. Jimmy Rollins, too. Placido Polanco was clear about his elbow and arm issues throughout the second half and let it be known that he�d need offseason surgery. But Utley kept quiet on all subjects, all the time. we don't want to hear from our players about how their injuries are hampering their ability to play except when they don't tell us that their play is being impacted by their injuries.

12:55 Marcus: Player valuation is a fraudulent. nerd-bases entity. What's Cody Ross' player valuation, pal? i wonder... what is cody ross' player valuation... i mean, if player valuation were fraudulent, i would expect to see something in his player valuation that a) does not make his postseason look like a tremendous fluke, or would not make his postseason look tremendous. i wonder what we would find... lets see... so, he's had three full seasons, two partial seasons, and two tiny stints. in 2007, he actually had an OPS of 1.064 in 66 games with the marlins. but since then, his OPS has trended steadily downward, from 0.804 to 0.790 to finally 0.735 this year. so i guess you could say that he's capable of showing power, and might even be capable of doing it for a shorter period of time, but given a larger sample size, you're going to see a lot of poor production mixed in with the good. he had a tremendous may '08 with 10 homers in 18 games, and has also had a few months with 5 or 6 homers. most had fewer. so you see potential streakiness there as well. but with no predictability. he has good months. he has a lot more bad months. so the postseason looks flukey and unexpected, though potentially unsurprising based on a look at his valuation. but i guess since we'd be looking at valuation, we should also look at how we'd value his postseason. sure, it doesn't show up in traditional player valuation, because unlike football, and possibly basketball, (i could be wrong about those two sports, btw) postseason doesn't count towards your stat line in baseball. babe ruth had 714 homers in the regular season. when we consider the most valuable player award, we look at the regular season. well, some of us look at september, in pennant races, on teams with mostly mediocre talent save one or two really good players. but i digress. we generally don't try to do postseason valuation because a) its a tiny sample size that's inconsistent between even those lucky few players who participate, and its just meaningless and dumb. but whatever. cody ross. how would we value his postseason? well, he's got an OPS of 1.184. that's generally valued favorably. in fact, that's better than what albert pujols puts up in a given season. the closest he came was 1.114. and he won the mvp that season, and most likely deserved it. pujols' valuation that season was a shade under 10 WAR. rogers hornsby almost had a year with as good an OPS in 1922. that's a 10.7 WAR year, tho he took a hit for defense. so year, were we to consider cody ross's postseason performance and scaled it up to make a valuation on it in the same context of a regular season, we'd pretty much value him favorably. but i guess that's nerd-speak for "my eyes tell me he's good; i have no need for my brain."

[crossout:37pom1i3]solid[/crossout:37pom1i3] stellar pitching and a bevy of inexpensive players capable of giving you marginal wins.

yes. the objective evidence confirms my suspicions.

top 5 rookies by WAR, per fangraphs: davis 3.4 niese 1.9 - 0.1 = 1.8 thole 1.4 takahashi 1.7 - .4 = 1.4 (1 for 16 at the plate costs him third place) carter 1.2 also, gee 0.3 - 0.1 = 0.2 hessman 0.1 valdes 0.0 + 0.1 (that's right, he was more valuable as a hitter...) no other rookies had positive WARs

antennas is antennas. er. antennae are antennae. the signals are still on the same frequencies, essentially. the only difference is the type of signal being sent. so a pair of rabbit ears would work fine if the signal is strong enough by you. otherwise amplified antennae are easy enough to come by that should do the trick, and aren't too expensive. what you need is a digital tv or a digital-to-analog converter box that'll let your old crusty analog tv work.

would you watch pulp fiction in chronological order?

anybody else ever notice how uncomfortably close those two get at the open of the game? it's just plain icky.

1997,8 avery i suck at this.

1998 wohlers

2010 billy wagner 2007 smoltz

the mphph do gba way better than the mfy

HahnSolo wrote: Lotta chatter on my FB page from MFY fans that Ron Darling has been insufferably anti-Yankee. anybody who has been watching can confirm this? well, he's not nose-deep in pinstriped short curlies like they're used to hearing whensoever their precious team is involved, but he's hardly anti-yankee. last night i heard him laud cano's play at second, declaring him the deserving AL gold glover for his position (which isn't entirely well supported by the numbers). it also didn't seem at all like he was disputing the cano home run outcome, and seemed to not be in favor of the umps missing the bases-loaded hit pantsleg, on swisher iirc, in the 8th. at worst, it sounded like he was in favor of either team last night.

ian o'connor is delicious this morning.

yay. threat over. for now.

well, ok. that was a happy break.

wow. just saw that robbie cano "home run" replay from the 2nd inning. how bout that fat fuck swatting at nelson cruz' glove? ridiculous. i don't even know why they bother having rules.

nothing makes me hate that song more than listening to it sung at yankee stadium. i don;t know what it is, but that venue makes the song suddenly offensive to me.

holy fuck, this game is taking forever.

bah.

his career WAR, per baseballreference, of 50.20 puts him 0.2 behind [u:3ou2fo8i]kevin appier[/u:3ou2fo8i], 77th among pitchers.

bah.

if they'd just sweep up all those old hot dog wrappers, it would be so much easier for us to see the plan.