Rob

Yeah Theriot is another Neifi except he plays all out and doesn't make stupid boneheaded mistakes. And Theriot scored 80 runs last year. If he batted leadoff all year he would score 110. Thats not worthless. Theriot isn't great by any stretch of the imagination but he has okay. You can't have a Sori or anything close to it at every position. Scoring a lot of runs does not make you a good baseball player. I agree I said that because of what he said in the post I quoted. I bolded it for you. In case you missed it the first time, I'll bold what I have to say. Pretty much everybody gets out at the same rates on flyballs (at least the ones that stay in the park) ... and with very few exceptions (read: Ichiro), most everybody gets out around the same rate on grounders. When you're talking about a guy getting more hits, the only way to do that (besides lots of seeing-eye grounders and broken-bat bloop singles... the kind of hits that how juicy the ball was don't matter on), you're talking about a guy hitting more line drives. If you want anybody to believe that Theriot will get more hits because of the lineup protection, you have to prove that lineup protection has an effect on LD%. If you can't prove it, you don't have much of a case. Pie is a .215 hitter with a .271 OBP right now in limited PA at the big league level. What did he hit at AAA? .362/.410/.563 But since you want to compare players based solely on their MLB numbers, lets go ahead and take a look at his MLEs (courtesy of baseball prospectus). 317/.365/.504 in 250 PA. That line is adjusting his AAA line to the major league level. It is a rather harsh translation, and it is based on years and years of evidence of exactly how much offensive value players lose when making the transition. This translation, while not beyond refute, is beyond your ability to argue. What this translation allows us to do is reverse engineer how many hits and walks he had based on his PA and AB, then we combine that with his bad showing in limited playing time at the major league level to get a composite line of last season, and we have a player who hit .272/.322 (BA and OBP) last season, had he been playing in the majors from Day 1. Raw doubles/triples/home runs totals are harder to pull from his MLE's, so we wont even attempt to. But each and every single person knows exactly how punchless Theriot is, while observing that Pie actually has decent pop. So we have the choice of a player who hit .262/.326 last season (with no power), or one who hit .272/.322 (with good power). Hopefully that finally ends the Pie/Theriot debate as to whom the better hitter is. It isn't even a contest. As to the rest of your post... 1.) I have never suggested Pie belongs in the leadoff spot... just that Theriot belongs as far away from it as possible. 2.) Speed is a secondary skill, not a primary one. It will never make your eighth best hitter suited to get the most plate appearances. If there's a huge discrepancy, it might be enough to get him the seventh most plate appearances. But don't allow yourself to get pigeonholed into the idea of the speedy leadoff hitter. It's a myth, and it doesn't help ballclubs. Don't mock others for their reading comprehension when you're just cherry picking arguments.

Wow, he is a terrible GM. He's making bad decisions for the wrong team. What a clown. The reference is just about him being the one to trade Liriano, along with Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser for AJ Pierzynski... of all people. It was topical, but not particularly well executed.

I saw that dodge-job coming. Excellent, irrefutable argument... I don't know why I expected a reply.

Yeah Theriot is another Neifi except he plays all out and doesn't make stupid boneheaded mistakes. And Theriot scored 80 runs last year. If he batted leadoff all year he would score 110. Thats not worthless. Theriot isn't great by any stretch of the imagination but he has okay. You can't have a Sori or anything close to it at every position. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What would you put an "OK" player in the slot that sees the most AB's? "Plays all out" means zilch. And please explain how Theriot is "mistake-free" and Neifi was making them left and right in such stark contrast? THEY'RE BOTH AWFUL BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO SHOULD NOT START. Please don't give him an excuse to argue with you and ignore my post. I think I'd really like to see his response to it.

Pretty much everybody gets out at the same rates on flyballs (at least the ones that stay in the park) ... and with very few exceptions (read: Ichiro), most everybody gets out around the same rate on grounders. When you're talking about a guy getting more hits, the only way to do that (besides lots of seeing-eye grounders and broken-bat bloop singles... the kind of hits that how juicy the ball was don't matter on), you're talking about a guy hitting more line drives. If you want anybody to believe that Theriot will get more hits because of the lineup protection, you have to prove that lineup protection has an effect on LD%. If you can't prove it, you don't have much of a case. Pie is a .215 hitter with a .271 OBP right now in limited PA at the big league level. What did he hit at AAA? .362/.410/.563 But since you want to compare players based solely on their MLB numbers, lets go ahead and take a look at his MLEs (courtesy of baseball prospectus). 317/.365/.504 in 250 PA. That line is adjusting his AAA line to the major league level. It is a rather harsh translation, and it is based on years and years of evidence of exactly how much offensive value players lose when making the transition. This translation, while not beyond refute, is beyond your ability to argue. What this translation allows us to do is reverse engineer how many hits and walks he had based on his PA and AB, then we combine that with his bad showing in limited playing time at the major league level to get a composite line of last season, and we have a player who hit .272/.322 (BA and OBP) last season, had he been playing in the majors from Day 1. Raw doubles/triples/home runs totals are harder to pull from his MLE's, so we wont even attempt to. But each and every single person knows exactly how punchless Theriot is, while observing that Pie actually has decent pop. So we have the choice of a player who hit .262/.326 last season (with no power), or one who hit .272/.322 (with good power). Hopefully that finally ends the Pie/Theriot debate as to whom the better hitter is. It isn't even a contest. As to the rest of your post... 1.) I have never suggested Pie belongs in the leadoff spot... just that Theriot belongs as far away from it as possible. 2.) Speed is a secondary skill, not a primary one. It will never make your eighth best hitter suited to get the most plate appearances. If there's a huge discrepancy, it might be enough to get him the seventh most plate appearances. But don't allow yourself to get pigeonholed into the idea of the speedy leadoff hitter. It's a myth, and it doesn't help ballclubs.

Well, he really isn't as quick... but that's irrelevant to the discussion. Theriot's arm is so weak that he's playing in a few steps to give himself more time to make the throw. Unfortunately, that severely limits his range. Cedeno gets to a lot more balls. I'm not arguing that he doesn't make more mistakes on the ones he gets to, but I am saying that he gets to enough extra balls that he covers the difference. Only if you're so stubborn as to discount MiLB numbers far more than necessary. But if that's already the case, I wont bother pointing out exactly how disparate their offensive talents are. Suffice to say, Theriot is an abysmal hitter and Pie is not. I said RBI's mean almost nothing. And I meant that in the individual context. Obviously I'd like the team to have as many as possible... it'd be a pretty positive sign. Oh, I would much rather have Soriano trying to bat Theriot in. But I'm a believer in the "2nd leadoff hitter" philosophy that would have Theriot batting 9th, behind the pitcher. Again, there's no excuse to give Theriot more at bats than absolutely necessary. He's hurting the team far more often than anybody else when he steps into that batters box. So your argument is that Theriot is going to hit more line drives with better hitters behind him? Do you have anything besides anecdotal proof that lineup protection has anything to do with line drive percentage?

Your eyes deceive you. Those "easy" plays that Cedeno is botching? Theriot isn't even able to get to a lot of those balls on his best days. It isn't really fair to ding Cedeno for a play that Theriot wouldn't have made either. 1.) Theriot is the worst hitter on this team. Leadoff hitters get the most PA of any person on the team. Logically, there is no conceivable way that you can defend Theriot batting leadoff. None. The worst hitter on the team should not be the one we send to the plate most often, not in any circumstance. 2.) RBI's mean almost nothing. 3.) Wouldn't Theriot getting better pitches to hit be a bad thing? He doesn't have enough power to do any real damage with them... and if the pitchers are making sure not to walk Theriot, his offensive value is lower than Cedeno's floor.

RynoRules already picked him I feel stupid... especially since I searched for him before selecting him.

205. Ryan "Donnie" Garko 206. Ubaldo Jimenez 207. Nate McLouth 208. Jose Guillen 209. Whoever the hell earth2sean picked 210. Jason Isringhausen

Who says you can't walk home?

The blues are better than the grays... but the whites are easily the best. I say we bust out the road powder blues. That way, everybody is happy.

I'd have to seriously consider Lilly for Brandon Wood. Wood might be enough of an upgrade over Theriot to cover the downgrade from Lilly to Lieber in the rotation.

Swisher is my 1B, and Milledge is in the outfield... but it's not a biggie. And yeah, we should definately at least finish out this round. Where the hell is earth2sean?

Goodness gracious...

Cedeno really needs to be starting.

Technically, yes.

Theriot has abysmal range. His arm is so poor that he's playing in a few steps, which severely hampers his ability to get to anything. He's solid on what comes right at him... but he wont get to anything else.

I demand that he come out to "Feel Good Inc." by the Gorillaz. That opening laugh track could be freaky.

They're about even. I'd have to give a slight edge to Murton, though.

Why would you ignore it? Oh, I was saying to ignore it because the ceiling/floor argument actually helps Cedeno's case. If Ronny is at his floor, he's horrible. If he's at his ceiling, he's a well above average SS. If Theriot is at his floor, he's horrible. If he's at his ceiling, he's just bad.

PECOTA isn't a crystal ball. It functions more as an indicator of the actual talent level of the players involved. And in this case, the lessons its giving us are fairly important. Not only was Cedeno's 2006 a fluke year (in the bad way). But Theriot's 2007 performance was a fluke (in the good way). In essence, what PECOTA is telling us is that we haven't seen the real Ronny Cedeno... and that Theriot, horrible though he is, is actually playing over his head. Cedeno is the better player right now.

agreed. cedeno makes too many fielding and baserunning mistakes, and in 2006 he was one of the worst hitters in baseball. the two guys have roughly the same amount of PAs in the majors; Theriot's big league EqA is .260 while Cedeno's is .214. that's right, .214. with theriot you know what you're going to get, and it's mediocrity, but it's not a complete black hole. cedeno could be a better player, but we've got more than a year of major league sample size to look at, and he's been far worse in that time. for a team that is in contention right now, i don't know if you have another year to see if he will sink or swim. Theriot's Projected EqA: .237 Cedeno's Projected EqA: .252 Completely forget all the talk about Cedeno's ceiling/floor vs. Theriot's ceiling/floor. Right now, at this very moment, Cedeno is a better bet to produce this year than Theriot is.

Who cares?

I never understand when people say stuff like this. Getting to the playoffs is much harder than actually having success once you're there. Seriously. Once you make it to the playoffs, its just about luck as much as it is about talent... which isn't the case so much over the course of 162 games in the regular season. But some people choose to romanticize the playoffs as if the team that emerges from them was actually the best that year... no matter what evidence there is to the contrary. Getting to the playoffs is priority #1. If we can do that this year without sacrificing our chances to do so in the coming years, we absolutely need to do that. Trading away players that might add a 5% chance to make the playoffs next year, in exchange for an additional 1% chance to win the world series this year would just be a poor utilization of resources.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cySfw8f0beg