OleMissCub

I just spent 20 minutes reading this post and I must say I've learned a lot. Thanks Meph. You might want to fix the grammar in this sentence though, there are some words missing or something.

What the hell happened to Marcus Giles? Did he get off his roids or something?

I know as much about the NHL as I do about Kenyan marble shooting. Who is this Zednik guy? Is he an all-star type player? Journeyman?

To keep muscles toned and in shape. Bulk doesn't help you with pitching all that much. It's probably a bad thing. Do you see a lot of bulky swimmers? Phelps only weighs 195 pounds and he's 6'4''. Still, it's like James said, swimming and baseball are just two different things. David Wells probably couldn't make it to the other side of an Olympic sized swimming pool, but he can rack up 240 wins and throw a perfect game.

Oh wow...TYPO. But I'll leave it. It's lovely.

To keep muscles toned and in shape. Bulk doesn't help you with pitching all that much. It's probably a bad thing.

There's absolutely zero doubt that people eat better now and are healthier. Bill James did an interesting experiment once. He looked up the average size of each Champion team. To quote:

I'd take him back on the Cubbies....although not sure where he'd go.

Believe what you want man, but that's what was what. Can't speak for the other schools, but we had 4 pitchers that were drafted, but they chose to stay in school. dewwweew my ambien is kickiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Interesting. Your starting rotation +1 more pitcher in HS were drafted but they all decided to go to college? Did you go to HS at USC or Rice? HAHA. But seriously, those guys weren't all drafted the same year.

Believe what you want man, but that's what was what. Can't speak for the other schools, but we had 4 pitchers that were drafted, but they chose to stay in school. dewwweew my ambien is kickiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I'm by no means a Slammy homer, but that's just sad. He's still a productive hitter as well as a name to put butts in the seats. 21 HR, 92 RBI in just over 400 AB's isn't bad at all.

Swimming requires strength. There is no doubt we are bigger people these days, but strength has what to do with throwing a baseball? Roy Oswalt can throw a baseball 95mph and he's a shrimp.

42 ounces, actually (still heavy as god knows). But, do you really think pitchers in the 20's and 30's threw that much slower? When I was playing in high school, the average pitcher we faced was throwing in the low to mid 80's and the good ones could get it into the 90's. These are 16-17 year olds with no real conditioning and no real training. So, a 2008 teenager >>>>>>> 1925 grown man that is a professional athlete? The well-known Ruth bat that hit the first Yankee stadium homer was 46 ounces. It was auctioned for $1.26 million back in 2004. I don't know if Ruth used a lighter bat at other times. I'd heard the 46 ounce figure as well, but I got my figures from this: http://members.tripod.com/bb_catchers/catchers/equip5.htm

Very, very hard to believe? It shouldn't be. Low 80's was what we were used to. I played in Division 5A, which is the biggest division in high school in MS. We'd probably have 200 a year tryout for the team, so we had a deep talent pool, and I know it was that way at the other 5A schools across the state, and especially those we played against. Also, I think baseball as a high school sport is bigger down south as opposed to up north (I assume you are from around Illinois?) because of weather issues, etc. Low 80's was about the norm, with a good bit able to get it to the mid 80's and a few able to get it to the 90's. Point remains, if teenagers can throw in the 80's then I have no doubt that grown men could just 75 years ago. We haven't evolved that much.

42 ounces, actually (still heavy as god knows). But, do you really think pitchers in the 20's and 30's threw that much slower? When I was playing in high school, the average pitcher we faced was throwing in the low to mid 80's and the good ones could get it into the 90's. These are 16-17 year olds with no real conditioning and no real training. So, a 2008 teenager >>>>>>> 1925 grown man that is a professional athlete?

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4442/siscovk0.gif

I doubt Matt Stairs could go 94-46 with a 2.28 ERA as well.

I pray to Allah that this is sarcasm.

I actually think Cabrera will improve this year. He seemed to have little motivation in Florida. While I'd expect most athletes to give their utmost regardless of their situation, that just isn't realistic. I think the oft stated "change of scenery" cliche/argument actually has warrant as regards Miggy moving to a contender (and an awesome ballpark to boot).

Awesome. I'm glad you pointed that out the 1930 Yankees, because I wasn't sure what other teams were out there comparable numbers. I have no doubt that they will regress as well, they are full of aging ballplayers. I guess I should have phrased the question "best starting lineup on paper at the start of a season".

Because I think that is a good assessment stat for comparing players and their overall influence on a game, especially as regards history. The question posed is whether they are the best in history. So I thought it was a good stat to include.

Is this the best offensive starting lineup ever? I averaged out the last season stats of who are supposed to be their starting nine: Pudge, Guillen, Renteria, Polanco, Miggy, Maggs, Granderson, Jones, and Sheffield, and came up with .309/.370/.491, 15 HR, 85 RBI, 124 OPS+, 8.4 WARP3 That's pretty damn solid.

I'd imagine that statistically this might be true looking at their starting nine's individual stats from last year.

Holodecks would be so cool. Tell the wife or girl "I'll be right back", walk into the Holodeck and be like "Elisha Cuthbert, Girl Next Door hotel scene"....mmmm http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6056/elishahn3.gif

Contrary to popular belief, people couldn't just walk up with their glove in their hand and a suitcase in the other and play ball. Bill James in his books often points out that it took the average player of the deadball era the same amount of time to work their way through the minors as it does for an average player today. Pitchers especially were weeded out rather quickly. They really had to have rubber arms. You come across a lot of times in the deadball era where a person pitched at the beginning of their career but they couldn't handle the stress, but were good enough at baseball that they stayed in the league at another position. Someone like Kerry Wood would have gone back to playing third or something, whereas someone with a rubber arm like Zambo would have stayed your ace. As far as speed is concerned, it is hard to say. Obviously they didn't throw harder than pitchers today because that just isn't possible, however, I don't think they threw that much slower on the whole. The human arm hasn't evolved that much in the past 100 years. If High Schoolers today are able to throw mid 80's with no conditioning whatsoever, I'd have to think that full grown men of the deadball era (who were good enough to get signed with and STAY in the majors as a pitcher), could throw at least that hard. It does need to be pointed out that a lot of the older era pitchers were not fastball pitchers per se. They were allowed to scuff the ball, spit on it, and do whatever they pleased to it. So most of them were content to stay away from pure fastballs and work batters on their "shine balls" and "spit balls". I think this also has to do with why people didn't strike out as much in the old days. With the ball moving all over the place, but not all that fast (think knuckleball), players would have make contact but not be able to do much with it. One more thing...they obviously threw hard enough to cause concussions, break ribs, break arms, hands, and even to kill (Ray Chapman-Carl Mays).