TruffleShuffle

Got a team or teams in mind? Pitchers suffering from bad "luck" may be the result of a slight systematic bias. The xBABIP formula is designed to project players with large amounts of plate appearances (you can observe actual lines approaching adjusted lines as plate appearances go up just by looking at the Cubs). Guys who hit as poorly as most pitchers do tend not to get many plate appearances, so they may not be adequately represented. Also worth noting, most pitchers are told not to try to beat out grounders. With this few plate appearances, beating out a couple could make a HUGE difference in an overall line. I suspect there is more to it than that. All batted balls of a certain type are not created equal, but the system will treat them all equally. Starlin Castro will hit ground balls harder, on average, than Ryan dempster, because Castro is good at making hard contact and dempster is not. So yes, castro's speed will help him get more hits, but he's also going to hit more ground balls that elude the fielders. I suspect that if you did this exercise on Rey Ordonez you'd conclude that he was "unlucky" throughout his career, because he only had a babip of .271 and kept the ball on the ground a lot. But in reality he was just a weakling who couldn't run fast and didn't hit the ball hard frequently enough. I think that Barney may be a similar type - a better player than Rnez, but weak and not fast, so possibly prone to regularly "underachieving" his expected line.

tim gets back his first round pick in the new halladay trade.

i saw brad garrett in LAX last year, and believe it or not, nobody mobbed him. i guess maybe one or two people asked for an autograph, but that was it. in true hollywood form, he was with a hot blonde about half his age.

yeah if you completely ignore the positions they played and the eras during which they played.

and then there's psu at 114, well behind usual doormats like northwestern and nebraska.

i wish i could be as bad at my job as koyie hill and get like 20% of that salary.

they'd be wise to trade him now; some dumbass org will see his ERA this past year and start drooling.

tortorella is a douchebag too.

i am equally happy no matter who wins, the only thing i care about is that they tried their hardest.

never heard of the guy.

Wait I forgot someone else already hired him hahahahaha

ned yost

He walked and stole a base today. Sometimes the balls in play don't fall in for hits. he's hitting almost .300 despite striking out in 27.4% of his at bats. babip would not seem to be the problem here.

also needed to return the orioles to their glory days - good players.

every time i hear his name i want to pretend that the braves are being run by detective frank wrench

the white sox were a .500 team under him and only won their division once in 8 or 9 year there. as for him having the third-most wins, dusty baker has the 21st most wins and probably will wind up in the top 10 since people keep giving him jobs.

unfortunate that he goes out a winner instead of a goat for completely mismanaging game 5.

=D>

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v497/poolboybob/dabum.png

their previous two games they'd barely lost at new england and then beat the rams by 27. the rams suck, but it's not like dallas has just completely collapsed. they pretty much only sucked ass in tonight's game.

so where's gameday going?

i'm surprised the line on this game was only 3 or 4 points; eagles have always been really good after the bye week under andy reid.

i think hccf should be the administrator of the nsbb facebook page.

i'm not sure this is correct. when the cubs were really good (2008), the ASG game thread was 112 pages. that's ridiculous. if it were just an exhibition game, even with a number of cubs playing, the game thread would not have been nearly that long. we cared about it because we (foolishly) thought it could matter to the cubs. now i still think it's a dumbass way to decide HFA, but i'd argue that it definitely builds interest among fans of the handful of teams that are serious world series contenders.

aren't you an OSU fan? Your point? they play the same thing about 800 times a game. 3 yard running play on first down, dah, dah dah, dah dah dah dah...