Rob

My condolences, Bruce. I hadn't heard about your father.

Quick recap of what Lou said. Likes Fukudome's patience, should help him adjust. Year 2 is easier, as they have a better handle on who they have. Has a pretty good idea who's getting cut down in a week or so. Looking to determine CFer "mid-March" Mentioned Wood, Marmol, and Howry as closer candidates. Probably determine that by the 3rd week of this month. Thinks Eyre looks better this season than he did at this point last season. Really likes the ballclub, but doesn't think we are very deep. Ward's hip is injured. DeRosa should be playing by next weekend. Thinks Dempster is throwing the ball "very very well". Would like to get another lefty for the bullpen, preferably from the guys in camp. Really likes the way Hart throws.

And then of course, Murton comes through with a really fantastic, 10 pitch AB.

What if it was in relief? :D Touche, salesman. I too have an uncle.

I wouldn't worry about it until opening day. Few guys are going to be putting 100% effort into these games. I'd be very worried if Marquis was on the mound opening day, period.

Ha... they only had Vlad half in the frame. It's spring training for the camera crews too, apparently.

Soto with a perfect throw... Figgins out at 2b.

Am i out of my mind, or has Marquis had his velocity drop a couple ticks?

I hate my league and love yours. No one trades. There hasn't been one offseason trade yet. The whole santana for phillips and bedard fiasco (other guy offered the trade, I accepted and then he took it back) prompted most of the league to respond that we should just stop offseason trading. Its pathetic. In the first year of the league there were like 2 trades the entire season. Last year there were probably 15 or so. If I proposed a trade of draft picks I'm afraid a petition might start to have me thrown out of the league. Well enough of that rant...that should make for a really fun draft day for you!!! But at the same time be mindful of the affect on your strategy at the end of the draft. You aren't going be able to partake in the last 3 rounds so take your big upside guys a bit earlier. Actually, i'm working on trading some excess draft picks to grab some mid-rounders. I've got it timed out so that I should be the one starting the run on pitching, and I should be able to grab King Felix, Lincecum, and Hill in the span of a few picks... Santana, Peavy, Smoltz, Hamels, Hill, Linceum, Felix... then maybe grab Pedro and Liriano the next round. When it's all said and done, I intend to have a pitching monopoly which I'll use to lord over everybody. And before the next season, new rules will pop up preventing offseason trading and especially the trading of draft picks.

I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of lineups with Fontenot, Cedeno, and Cintron in here... if for no other reason than Lou wanting to take a long look at all of those guys.

I have officially traded away all of my previous keepers for new keepers and draft picks. What was ARod, Pujols, Rollins, Vlad, and the 12th and 13th picks is now going to be... Braun, Santana, Peavy, Papelbon, and the 3rd, 4th, 7th, 12th, and 13th picks. With those 5 picks, I should be able to get BJ Upton, Cole Hamels, Victor Martinez, John Smoltz, and Corey Hart. That's a pretty good start.

This is meph's wet dream.

Yeti should be appointed a mod, so that there's somebody here to cover the night-shifts.

Seriously, please do. If we all just ignore him, we wont be subjected to this nonsense anymore. But it has gotten to the point that I'm a handful of posts away from putting you on ignore, simply because all your posts are quoting his asinine posts. He's willfully ignorant of how statistical analysis has framed all of these issues, and that's his choice. No amount of screaming at him for it is going to change his opinion, even if you are attempting to argue it with fact. Just drop it, and with a little bit of luck, the issue will resolve itself in short order.

85. JJ Putz 86. Takashi Saito 87. Jose Valverde 88. Todd Helton 89. Javier Vazquez 90. Nick Swisher

73. Dan Uggla 74. Gary Sheffield 75. Jonathan Paplebon 76. Daisuke Matsuzaka 77. Hunter Pence 78. Tim Lincecum 79. Rich Hill

It'd be much easier to fix if I weren't excel-[expletive] and had to input each "=RANK(H,H:H)", individually, throwing the specific row number into each equation. But I'm 20% done, so it shouldn't be too much longer. individually? if i'm understanding you correctly, hover your mouse over the lower right hand corner of the cell so you get a + showing as your cursor, and click and drag downward to as many cells you want have that formula copied to (it adjusts the formulas to associate with cells in the same row). or you could just double-click when you get the + showing and it will copy down as far as there are cells populated adjacently. Oh, thank you very much. Though I feel much like the idiot now, having adjusted 500 or so things...

fixed.

If we all just put him on ignore, we don't have to listen to him espousing nonsense like those maniacs on street corners screaming that the world is coming to an end.

It'd be much easier to fix if I weren't excel-[expletive] and had to input each "=RANK(H,H:H)", individually, throwing the specific row number into each equation. But I'm 20% done, so it shouldn't be too much longer.

Trying my best to dissect your wonderful work here... and I came up with a question. When you're calculating "Rk" on the Overall worksheet, I understand that you're just averaging each player's rank above average and replacement in PECOTA, James, and ZiPS. But there are only five columns you're averaging (ZiPS above replacement level seems to be the missing one). Was this intentional, or what?

Remember, when this is over, that you invited this response. -------- -In 2007, the league average for SB attempts in the NL was 130. -In 2007, the Chicago Cubs attempted to steal a base 119 times. Not a huge difference, but clearly below league average. Now, one could assume that the amount of sb a team attempts is largely a function of how fast their players run. But don't fall in this trap, lest you want to get laughed at by Dusty Baker-managed baseball teams. You see, a team can attempt to steal a lot of bases because they have some players who are specifically good at it. Hello New York Metropolitans. Other teams can attempt to steal lots of bases because they think, in general, that it is a good thing to try to do a lot. Some teams do this even though they are obviously bad at it. There's Dusty again. Now, you may also notice that the success rate of stealing bases by the Chicago Cubs (72%), like their amount of attempts, is below league average (74%). Me, the method actor that I am, decided that in order to fulfill my facade of false-intelligence, put on my thinking cap. I thought to myself, "what could these two sets of numbers possible have to do with each other?" Accidentally, I came up with the conclusion that one informs the other. I was like, "maybe, that rascal Lou realizes that his team isn't very good at one thing, so he's instructing his team to do that thing less". I know, a stretch considering his lack of success as a baseball manager. Then, in what was almost a blinding explosion of rational, sensible thought on my part, I thought of something else: Lou Piniella was born in 1943. I see that you have trouble processing information so I'll put it bluntly: he's old. When I think about old people, my first thought is most definitely not "jesus, I wish those old geezers would just make up their mind and stick to it instead of waffling all the GD time." So, if Lou Piniella has shown himself willing to "manage" the amount of times his team does something based on its relative success rate, and sans any traumatic head injuries over the off-season, I'm thinking maybe he's going to stick to that. Yes, regardless of what he says to some dumb stiff. -------- Now, back to the guy from Wisconsin's Cleveland. You're very clearly trolling my posts, not out of something I say specifically (which I actually wouldn't mind, it's flattering), but just because you don't like "me". "blah blah blah you're an arrogant jerk stop pointing out how dumb some of the things people say on here are blah blah blah." Great, I've heard it. But unless you'd actually like to consider contributing something of value, I suggest you keep your mouth shut (keyboard... less typed...) to avoid one of these dust-ups again. Interestingly enough, I seem to recall a study that showed that Lou's teams in general performed much better than one could logically assume when attempting steals, sac bunts, and hit-and-runs. I think it was either in The Book on The Book, or maybe Baseball Between the Numbers...

I can't really answer that without spoon-feeding it to you, now can I? I'd suggest googling your inquiry.

Lou does some stupid things, but I thought we needed a little perspective.

The way I read it, the only people they really insulted were the editor and Theriot. Maybe I'm just biased, though.