TruffleShuffle

well it wouldn't have made sense to make that joke in 2009. use your head, buddy.

it probably has, because they've jerked him around between starting and relieving a lot, and it's taken this long to get him to a point where he's actually an asset to the team. while that $3-3.5m would look a lot nicer over 200 effective innings, I'm not sure that would happen without a decent changeup and better command.

don't worry, it's coming just as soon as len kasper's chat is posted from opening day 2009.

that's not true at all. they traded him because ryan howard had been destroying the minors for 3 years, came up and played part time as thome struggled with injuries in 2005, then full time when thome went down for the year, and hit so well that he won the rookie of the year despite only playing about half the season. obviously howard and (age 35) thome were 1b only, so one of them had to go away, and the obvious choice was thome since the phillies weren't going to deal away a 24 year old who had emerged as a franchise cornerstone. Ryan Howard is why they wanted to trade him, Thome's fielding (or lack thereof) is why he was heading to the AL. it made the most sense to trade him to the AL because of his elbow injury (pretty sure he was suffering from back problems as well - playing the God-awful veterans stadium astropavement surely didn't help). it's hard to say what would've happened if he'd been in an mlb where he had to continue fielding... maybe he would've stayed out long enough to get healthy, maybe he would've been a part time player, maybe he never develops back problems in the first place because veterans' stadium/astroturf don't exist. scott rolen was another guy who had persistent back trouble playing in philly and had it magically improve after leaving to play his home games in another ballpark.

that's not true at all. they traded him because ryan howard had been destroying the minors for 3 years, came up and played part time as thome struggled with injuries in 2005, then full time when thome went down for the year, and hit so well that he won the rookie of the year despite only playing about half the season. obviously howard and (age 35) thome were 1b only, so one of them had to go away, and the obvious choice was thome since the phillies weren't going to deal away a 24 year old who had emerged as a franchise cornerstone.

ugh, once again i find myself agreeing (sort of) with davearm. what made him physically unable to play 1b? his elbow surgery? so imagine it's 1960; he gets the elbow surgery done (actually who knows if that was even an option back then, but i'll assume it was), sits out a couple of months and then starts playing again. this raises another issue in my mind, though. if you're throwing out DH stats then don't you have to throw out the post-surgery stats of every pitcher who has ever had tommy john surgery? after all, those guys continued to be able to play at a high level because of a surgery that was not available to pitchers 50 years ago.

lol didn't know the brad hawpe thing... there are definitely some problems with the system that need to be (and hopefully will be) addressed. it wouldn't be surprised to see these things continue, though, because the draft and arbitration-eligibleness tend to rank pretty low on the list of concerns.

well yeah, they probably didn't want to know. nobody's arguing that they shouldn't be punished if the information in the yahoo article is accurate. the question is how severely they should be punished.

when thome was OPS'ing near 1.000 with the white sox (as DH), it's not like he would've been out of the game a generation ago. he would've just been playing 1b badly.

i think you're seeing the small market teams be smarter about offering arbitration to pick up supplemental picks, hanging onto those types of players and offering them arby rather than trading them for marginal prospects at the deadline. and they're also not signing as many average veterans (losing draft picks and wasting money in the process). it's pretty clear from what the devil rays, royals, pirates and nats have been doing that a number of those small market organizations are placing a lot more resources in the young player procurement and development area, which of course is the right way to go for them.

If it shows anything, it shows how team-dependent a stat like RBI is. A couple things must be working against him. A) The team OBP sucks B) One of the guys hitting in front of him is Pena, who tends to either make an out, draw a walk or hit a homerun. All of those situations make driving him in difficult. C) Along with those issues, he's got 4 PA with men on 2nd/3rd and just 6 with man on 3rd. He's batting .375 in those limited situations but has just 3 combined RBI. Only 99 total PA with men in RISP. When you consider an average of just 3 hits in 10 AB, you aren't getting a ton of opportunity (he's also done poorly with RISP) D) He's hit for little power himself (just 6 HR and a 129 IsoP compared to a 150-190 in his recent best years). E) I don't know how often he has been involved, but this team has struggled with getting thrown out at the plate. Last year he hit almost exactly the same with RISP and with nobody on, this year there's variation. It's just chance. he also has a .341/.386/.500/.886 line with nobody on base, versus .260/.303/.357/.660 with runners on and .198/.253/.297/.549 with RISP. basically he's been a huge choker all year.

It read like more than just a few team managers/equipment guys. Wasn't the head basketball coach implicated? haith and the assistant coach sound like the two who could possibly be linked to payments (or at least knowledge/complicity with payments), but this is the college football thread. i don't think the people throwing around "death penalty" are talking about the basketball team. if you go back and read the outcome of the SMU case, the ncaa basically said they didn't want to give them the death penalty, but felt they had no choice because corruption was so rampant within the program. they'd been put on probation 5 times in the previous decade, they had a two year bowl ban and a one year tv ban, and boosters were still paying players directly with the head coach and athletic director knowing that these things were happening. unless there's more information than what's in this yahoo report, the level of rule-breaking at SMU goes pretty well beyond what was happening at miami.

:lol:

That's bullisht. Why can't you? If a ship is sinking I'm not going to keep pouring more water into it. yeah i think there's a happy medium between letting everyone who's better than the worst bum the vets committee let in, and leaving out terrific ballplayers. to me, the guy who's 8th all time in hr, 80th in WAR, top 50 in offensive WAR, OBP and OPS+ 44th in offensive WAR, 50th in OBP, 23rd in runs created and 31st in WPA easily reaches the HOF standard.

miller was pulled in the first inning of his most recent start with "right hand aggravation" and was subsequently suspended. if i had to guess, he showed up hung over, pitched like crap for a short time and then they pulled him from the ballgame. of course, it is possible that he admitted to being drunk the previous night but also said he took a cab, and they suspended him as a result of that.

if he were beating her after every loss or poor game this year, i'm pretty sure she'd be dead by now.

i don't think they'll get the death penalty because (a) they're miami football and (b) it will likely be painted as one out of control booster and maybe a couple of minor athletic department figures (team managers/equipment boys) involved. smu had repeatedly violated ncaa rules and the head coach, athletic director and board of directors were involved in the shenanigans. while the benefits to the players may be worse in the miami situation, there's no evidence that significant figures within the athletic department or administration were involved in the wrongdoing. it certainly appears that there's a significant lack of institutional control and a great eagerness to look the other way, however.

i just hope we get rid of him soon so that every desirable player who's put on the trade market isn't met with a sarcastic "z for ___ straight up" post.

he'll announce the purchase of northsidebaseball.com with the intention of turning it into a pro-cubs propaganda site.

set this [expletive] up imb

so how's this going?

vitters is 2-3 with a sac fly and - believe it or not - a walk

well good thing we're pitching marmol so frequently, after all we're in the heat of a pennant race.

http://l.yimg.com/a/p/sp/tools/med/2011/08/ipt/1313376801.jpg that is a snazzy pair of dress shorts.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14801