TruffleShuffle

Even if you base it off their entire careers, Theriot has a better OPS than Cabrera. He has a huge advantage in OBP. and cabrera is a very good fielder at the most important defensive position, whereas theriot is fairly lousy.

i can watch the majors, ryder cup and maybe the tour championship. the rest of them, who cares.

they need a designated runner so that fat old DHs don't have to risk getting hurt running the bases. the designated runner can stand off to the side of the batter's box, and when the fat old guy hits the ball, he can just start running.

on the other hand, theriot should not be ahead of orlando cabrera, unless you're basing the decisions on this season's performance alone.

The Cardinals at 43%? YUCK. Frankly that seems low to me for the way they have played this season, and absurdly high in ELO since that should count preseason projections. Who is going to challenge the Cardinals for the Wild Card? Certainly no one in the West...the Marlins in the East? according to the monte carlo simulation: Braves: 28.8% for the playoffs (13.1% wild card) - remember, they've been victims of brutal luck in one-run games Brewers: 16.4% for the playoffs (12.5% wild card) Mets: 19.1% for the playoffs (9.1% wild card) Marlins: 14.8% for the playoffs (7.2% wild card) the west has about a 2% chance of winning the wild card.

pitches per IP is almost useless. of course marmol ranks low in that stat; he's better than most guys in baseball so he gets more batters out than most pitchers do.

randy winn is also not an adequate fielder in center field.

by the way, i was curious to see how some of the GMs were ranked by other sources, and i came across this article by forbes that ranks the GMs in the four major sports that had tenures of 3 years or longer. the list (with 98 names on it) was immediately discredited by the following rankings: 1. Kevin McHale, Minnesota Timberwolves 3. Billy King, Philadelphia 76ers 90. Ken Holland, Detroit Red Wings

i could buy that he's better than half, but not top 25%. i can think of a bunch of guys off the top of my head who i definitely think are better than hendry: pat gillick, phillies walt jocketty, cincy doug melvin, milwaukee kevin towers, s.d. theo epstein, boston brian cashman, ny yankees andrew friedman, tampa mark shapiro, cleveland dave dombrowski, detroit billy beane, oakland but i'd definitely prefer hendry over: jim bowden, washington ed wade, houston ned colletti, l.a. dodgers brian sabean, san francisco jon daniels, texas there are a whole bunch of guys who really can't be judged fairly at this point: frank wren, atlanta michael hill, florida neal huntington, pittsburgh john mozeliak, st. louis mike flanagan, baltimore bill smith, minnesota tony reagins, l.a. angels whoever the new guy in seattle will be i guess i'd put hendry in a group with omar minaya, dan o'dowd and kenny williams. pretty good resources and fairly mixed results.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/dempster-diving

a few other freak-out seasons: steve stone's cy young season (though he won the award b/c baseball writers have a chubb for wins) tommie herr in 1985... and john tudor too pretty much every player on the 1993 philadelphia phillies (but especially kevin stocker) norm cash in 1961 - even more fluky than roger maris dutch leonard in 1914 bob welch in 1989 - more for the win total (27!) than his actual pitching. ryan ludwick in 2008

a lot of people forget that brady anderson was a very good player before he hit 50 HRs. he had a career .285 EqA with a few other seasons in the .300 to .310 range. According to the BP stats, he had a higher WARP in 1992 than in his 50 HR season, probably because they have him as a very good fielder in 1992, and a very poor one in 1996. he also stole a whole lot of bases in 1992, but stole fewer (at a worse percentage) in 1996. wonder what would cause one to start hitting more home runs, but become more bulky and reduce one's value on the basepaths and in the field?

rick wilkins :x

most forgotten great player in history? arky vaughan.

they now have the cubs losing in 7 games to the red sox, which would be awful. they also dropped the cubs to #2, from what i can tell primarily because the NL had a bad weekend in intraleague play. BP odds: Monte Carlo: 82.6% division, 10.5% wild card, 93.1% overall ELO-adjusted: 79.5% division, 13.1% wild card, 92.6% overall PECOTA-adjusted: 89.1% division, 6.8% wild card, 95.9% overall The Cards are 43.1% in the monte carlo version, 51.2% in the ELO and 32.1% PECOTA.

how could anyone want to take away the awesomeness that is a carlos zambrano home run?

since i dropped cust and added markakis, cust has hit 10 hr and markakis has hit 7 a special f you to mark teixeira, travis hafner, nick swisher and adam laroche for their performances this year.

oooh oooh i know player b! call on me! (my other reaction to this is that k-rod's BB rate is up and his K rate is down this year. small sample size, but i'd be slightly nervous if i were an angels fan)

So what you are basically saying is Richie Sexson is being fairly compensated for the production he provides? :D sexson was actually good for a year or two of his contract, though he's terrible now. i didn't think it was a bad contract at the time. adrian beltre hasn't earned $13M per year, but he hasn't been too far off that. mostly i'm just saying that the contracts above looked awful when they were signed and turned out to be just that.

agreed. roger clemens threw a ton of innings at a young age and he's one of the best pitchers ever. therefore, pitch counts or usage patterns are not important for starters or relievers.

he's fat

two guys from the list have been canned

Relief pitches thrown, 2003: Steve Sparks - 1624 Guillermo Mota - 1578 Juan Rincon - 1498 David Weathers - 1489 Oscar Villarreal - 1485 Francisco Cordero - 1474 Brad Lidge - 1397 Travis Harper - 1388 Keith Foulke - 1358 Braden Looper - 1352 2004: Scot Shields - 1721 B.J. Ryan - 1612 Guillermo Mota - 1605 Kevin Gregg - 1537 Chad Cordero - 1515 Paul Quantrill - 1498 Justin Duchscherer - 1492 Octavio Dotel - 1476 Brad Lidge - 1475 Jim Brower - 1456 Juan Rincon - 1406 2005: Scot Shields - 1509 Ugueth Urbina - 1443 Salomon Torres - 1420 Gary Majewski - 1420 Andy Sisco - 1403 Ryan Vogelsong - 1397 Ryan Madson - 1373 Lance Cormier - 1370 Brian Fuentes - 1338 Justin Duchscherer - 1335 Mike Wuertz - 1328 Juan Rincon - 1321 2006: Scott Proctor - 1594 Jon Rauch - 1594 Ron Villone - 1482 Salomon Torres - 1476 Geoff Geary - 1470 Joaquin Benoit - 1449 Joel Zumaya - 1425 Aaron Heilman - 1413 Ruddy Lugo - 1398 Todd Wellemeyer - 1358 2007: Heath Bell - 1533 Kevin Gregg - 1496 Saul Rivera - 1484 Scott Proctor - 1478 Joel Peralta - 1394 Carlos Villanueva - 1382 Jon Rauch - 1381 Jason Grilli - 1376 Aaron Heilman - 1362 Joaquin Benoit - 1355 Scot Shields - 1328 2008: Joel Hanrahan - 762 Franquelis Osoria - 726 Carlos Marmol - 706 J.P. Howell - 697 Saul Rivera - 693 Brian Bass - 673 Aaron Heilman - 671 Sean Green - 664 Renyel Pinto - 664 Matt Guerrier - 641 Blaine Boyer - 639

guillermo mota pitched 105 relief innings in 2003 and 97 in 2004. he was excellent, with a WHIP close to 1.00 and a solid K-rate. since then he's struggled with injuries and has a WHIP averaging close to 1.4. oscar villareal was #2 in relief innings in 2003. he spent most of 2004 and 2005 injured, and hasn't been particularly effective since 2003. jim brower threw 193 relief innings in 2003-04. he was ineffective in 2005 and has spent the better part of the last three years bouncing between the minors and majors. octavio dotel was ridden as hard as any middle reliever in the game during the early 2000s. he has struggled mightily with injuries since then. scott proctor threw almost 190 innings in 2005-06. he's been awful this year, and his peripherals are way down since throwing 102.3 innings in 2005. history has not been kind to middle relievers who have thrown 90+ innings for their teams. hopefully carlos will be healthy through this season, but it'd be unwise to count on him as a bullpen anchor beyond that.