Elster88

It's amazing that it happens to one of the most talented players in, dare I say it, history. Skill, money, and looks, and he's still a weenie. It must take an absolutely terrible loser-personality to pull that off.

Zvon wrote: ="Elster88"]Zvon do me a favor and photshop SP out of there. Bobby's a small man. lmaooooooooooo...laff a the day. (board wise, cuz u shouldnt have to compete with TDS & Colbert) Oops. The two lines weren't meant to be together. The request was unrelated to the observation.

I've heard this is hilarious from a few different sources. I'll probably check it out.

Zvon do me a favor and photshop SP out of there. Bobby's a small man.

That's right no Cliff. It's only been three years. One guy is left. I guess that's normal these days.

That's an unbelievably foolish reason to give a guy another year on his playing contract. There are coaches aplenty. Unless they don't care about dropping him and paying him out.

Is anyone left from Bobby's teams? Reyes hadn't been called up yet had he? Had Glavine joined the team yet? I'm pretty sure Glavine wasn't here until Howe. Not sure about Reyes. I'm counting Piazza as gone. Cliffster. Trachsel.

I miss Bobby.

I don't like the second year either. Unnecessary.

Edgy DC wrote: For what it's worth, I don't think it's quite the same picture. The ump behind him looks amused. _______________________ This post had the designation 81) Bob Apodaca

Sometimes I feel like everyone here is either a writer, editor, or English professor. That would explain the parodies.

Has a different ring (not bad, just different) than Where Mets Rank.

Cornelius had a filthy June.

]needy, demanding, terminally self-centered PITA of a wife that any semi-comatose bachelor would run away screaming from like his hair was on fire, HAHAHAHAH Nomination for post of the day that made Elster88 crack up. 62 makes a great point though. I'm guessing these society types marry for the money and status and sleep with their hot young personal assistants.

I'm drawing a blank.

I liked it. Four U-boats. The only critic I read is Roger Ebert (his archives is a great site). He made an interesting point. A scene, in which the survivors on the American boat are swimming for the sub, shows the U-boat captain sadly (actually, angrily, that the Americans did not rescue these men in the past few hours since the boat was attacked) ordering the boat to be backed away. Perfectly legitimate, IMO. The U-boat is not the type of ship that should be rescuing enemy survivors. Ebert wonders if an American film would have shown an American crew doing the same, or would show some heroic (read: bullshit) rescue. He thinks the latter.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Anyone still curious why the Mets have a problem at 2B? Not anymore. It's obviously the fault of Bruce Wilpon and his idiot wife. Idiocy is not justified by other idiots, but I will point out for the 5,439,257th time that other teams were involved in a bidding war for Matsui. And Yuki Wilpon was not involved in negotiations.

When I was a kid I used to laugh when history teachers mentioned royalty marrying for political reasons and keeping dozens of mistresses on the side.

Unbelievable.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: It is funny, isn't it, that the exact opposite measures (putting in glove guys for your big offensive threats) is standard practice, practically a no-brainer, when you HAVE a huge lead, no? I'm not sure what the huge difference is here. We accept the one (largely, I think, because it happens all the time, and has for decades) and totally reject the other (because it's weird, it doesn't look like baseball, it's four outs and a keg on third base, as KC put it.) This is stretching it a bit. The opposite of subbing in your best fielders is done, too. I've seen pinch hitters used before. They just don't stay in the rest of the game the way a defensive sub.

Thinking about it some more: I just think that the rise in OBP would be so great that it would offset the decrease in SLG. Someone should try this out with their little league team.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="Elster88"][Do you really want to know what defensive positioning I believe in? Or are you just trying to avoid answering the question? I don't see why your defense, if it works when down by a lot of runs, wouldn't work all the time. Sure I want to hear your answer. The advantage to my defense is that it's geared for a high scoring game--you get all your best offensive players (usually outfielders) into the game and you raise the other team's OBP considerably (and lower their SLG pct). Since OBP is, over the long haul, the other team's primary offensive weapon, you'll get killed with this in the long run as an every day strategy. You will give up more up more that way, no doubt. But the runs will be distributed differently. With a high OBP offense, the other team will have a lot of big innings. They'll score 50 runs over ten full games, but they'll be distributed more like 8, 6, 1, 7, 0, 1, 9, 7, 5, 6, while with a more normal defense they'll score only 47 runs over the same 10 game period, but the distribution will be 7, 5, 2, 6, 1, 2, 8, 6, 4, 6. Obviously, you want to give up the 4.7 runs per game as a general policy rather than the 5.0 rpg, but in this special situation your goal is to maximize the chances of giving up 0 runs, which the first model provides. An excellent explanation, if the numbers work out that way. I see your argument now. I just don't think removing the second baseman would work out this way. It'd be interesting to see in practice. One problem I see is that once a batter reaches first you'd want to put your second baseman back in his normal position for the force play, right? And since OBP is being raised, odds are good on someone reaching first.

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="Elster88"]You play the lines when trying to avoid doubles. Personally, I don't believe in a no-doubles defense, for the same question I posed to you. (This being the question that you said back to me instead of answering.) You play your new defense when trying to....what exactly? Get the other team to try to hit singles in the vacated hole because that will keep them from scoring runs? Sounds like something that should be played permanently, if it works.\\ I was trying to respond to "facile answer." So is there any form of defensive positioning you DO believe in? Do you think managers are dumbasses for drinking the "no-doubles defense "Kool-aid? Do you really want to know what defensive positioning I believe in? Or are you just trying to avoid answering the question? I don't see why your defense, if it works when down by a lot of runs, wouldn't work all the time. If you really want to know more about how I feel about defensive positioning, then I can answer your new questions. But right now I'm curious about your defensive strategy. Edit: I said facile analogy, not answer. I took it out because I figured it would offend you, and I don't want you to feel like you're being picked on.

You play the lines when trying to avoid doubles. Personally, I don't believe in a no-doubles defense, for the same question I posed to you. (This being the question that you said back to me instead of answering.) You play your new defense when trying to....what exactly? Get the other team to try to hit singles in the vacated hole because that will keep them from scoring runs? Sounds like something that should be played permanently, if it works.

] I think all I'm saying is that that's also the point where you would want to adjust your positioning radically as well. Do you really think moving the second baseman into the fourth outfielder would result in less runs for the other team? If so, why not just play them that way the entire game, regardless of the score?