Rob

I don't have access to Dewan's +/- right now, but UZR has Theriot as about a +5 fielder, and PMR characterizes him about exactly average(100 on their scale). I left my bill james handbook at my parents house, but if memory serves he was listed among neither the leaders nor the trailers. The DT translations suck, but they have Theriot floating around average. (+5 last year, -4 the year before) Hell, even the basic ESPN stats have him floating around average. He's 12th of 22 qualified SS in fielding percentage and 14th in Range Factor. 8th in Zone Rating. Edit: Not that any of those numbers mean a damn thing. Just pointing it out.

If we're counting Fukudome as a CF, all 6 are pretty bad defensively but at least Soriano can throw the ball (I can't see Jones' range as valuable when he's spiking the ball 20 feet in front of him on throws back to the infield). Unless you're going to cite that ridiculous formula that rated Murton and Barry Bonds as two of the best defensive left fielders that one year. Look at it position by position and you'll have a harder time fooling yourself. Not sure what the point of the exercise is, as the UZR's from those two years are influenced by outlier defensive years that account for nearly 3 wins. Didn't say anything about UZR. Was just trying to get KingCubsFan to compare players to each other where it matters... Soriano's arm compared to Jones' didn't seem like it meant anything. No point to the exercise as it doesn't have any real value... just good old fashioned debate. Somebody pointed out that they felt our 2006 outfield was awful... I was merely trying to illustrate that last year's was worse. Soriano, Fukudome, and Bradley are all much better players than Murton, Pierre, and Jones obviously... but due mostly to a combination of Soriano's knee injury and Bradley's power outage, that 2006 outfield was actually better. It's just not a thought that occurs to most people simply because of the names and payroll involved.

If we're counting Fukudome as a CF, all 6 are pretty bad defensively but at least Soriano can throw the ball (I can't see Jones' range as valuable when he's spiking the ball 20 feet in front of him on throws back to the infield). Unless you're going to cite that ridiculous formula that rated Murton and Barry Bonds as two of the best defensive left fielders that one year. Look at it position by position and you'll have a harder time fooling yourself.

.291/.347/.425 .253/.341/.409 Guess which one was Murton/Pierre/Jones and which one was Soriano/Fukudome/Bradley. And then think about the defensive difference.

For first year arb-eligible players, just the left sideburn and mustache. Second year arb-eligible get to include the other sideburn and any hair on the chin. It's not till the final year that you get to include the full beard.

Are you guys going to be "scouts" or "stats people" with Theriot's defense? :D Any smart person would split the difference and say he's average, give or take a couple runs. But that's not the way the arbitration process works and, by golly, it isn't the way the internet works either.

Semi-realistic upside for this year, probably something like .270/.310/.340 with slightly above average defense. But as a 20 year old making his ML debut after skipping most of the high minors, I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit .230/.270/.280 either. I'm still of the mind that we need to keep him down til the all star break at least. Four years out, I could see him as high as .310/.370/.450 with above average defense.

NSBB would be such a better place if only this were true... Nobody should take it as the gospel or anything. There's wiggle room to it same as any other metric. But the amount of hate UZR gets for being "inconsistent" is absurd... and I'll take a few seasons worth of UZR data over the opinions of 99% of the people on this board. There simply aren't many people here watching nearly enough games to have any real idea of what average defense is at a given position anymore. That's to say nothing of fans tendency to overvalue guys who make spectacular diving plays when a better defender would have gotten to the ball easily... or the fact that guys who look awkward in the field are immediately thought of as below average, even if they have more than enough range or arm to cover it. Bottom line, UZR is the best we got.

There's nothing to suggest that the Cubs do want to dump Theriot over this... just that they aren't happy about it. And while we can all agree that Grabow's contract is a mistake, the situations aren't really comparable. Grabow gets paid at market value. First year arbitration eligible players like Theriot are supposed to get paid about 40% of market value.

Don't they have Thome too? Yeah, which gives them some nice insurance for the OF. If somebody gets hurt (or Delmon Young decides he'll continue stubbornly refusing to imrpove his performance), Kubel can slide back out into the field and Thome can slot in at DH.

Come on Derwood, you know, a liberal agenda includes looking like a European model, in Europe they don't have college sports so if we are going to go with this model I say let's go all the way and only have club ball. Unless you deny that fact then you would be in a conservative camp when it comes to sports. Derwood, you know I love ya, come on and give me a hug Derwood hugs pantless. Your move, hotshot.

Seriously, your posts in this (and many other threads) show what a miserable prick you are. Stop reading the politics threads and you'll think more of him. He's willing to set aside preconceptions and learn from wellthought out arguments when the subject isn't how much he hates republicans.

Does anybody care to post that article from bill james about how you could split rickey into two-seperate first ballot hall of famers? That one has always stuc with me.

to be fair, the jacked up payroll is in part because of the new stadium.

Pecota seems to have messed up badly and no one at BP seems to know how to fix it with Nate Silver no longer involved. i'm guessing he'd help them fix the problems, but you're right, this year's edition seemed to have a lot of bugs in it when it was released, some of which have been fixed and some that are still issues. From whaqt I gather, he's under no obligation to help them fix all of the problemems that pop up. He jumped into the world's top #100 powerful men last year according to some magaizine based on the work at 538. I don't see why he'd let himself get held back by baseball when he's on the verge of being the new and improved drudge.

well it's still too early to rape and rob Nah, etiquette on that is just "when the sun goes down."

Game.

What's the record for fewest penalty yards in a superbowl?

i'd be fine with that, but only if you are referring to the football team and not the [expletive] band. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-vwPuiILBc

Well at least this game is getting interesting. I was worried it might get lopsided after the Colts jumped out 10-0.

I'm currently at the worst Super Bowl Party ever. My neighbor said she was going to have a bunch of her friends over. It's me, her, her cousin, and a bunch of people from her work... who are all 15 years older than me.

It's a good thing Emmitt Smith was an excellent football player, because he would not have made it as a professional coin tosser.

http://pics.livejournal.com/ack_attack/pic/004pa6y3 :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

No worries. That happens around here a lot.

That's selling the Twins a bit short. They are the best team in the division.