Tracer Bullet

I know that I'm in the minority on all of this admiration about Dunn, but I would never call Dunn a "great hitter". A "great hitter" would be able to make contact with the ball more often than Dunn does. Juan Pierre makes lots of contact. yeah, contact is overrated. it really depends on what kind of contact one makes. To reiterate an earlier point - it's both the amount of contact and what kind of contact. They each matter quite a bit. If Dunn could maintain the kind of contact he makes and yet make more of it, he'd be "Bondsian". But he has a lousy contact rate, which makes him something less. The strikeouts matter. He just does enough when he does make contact to still be a very productive hitter. Well, I've dropped that particular dispute with you (and others). We'll just have to agree to disagree as to whether increasing the number of pitches at which he swings will have an overall negative or positive effect on Dunn's production (unless Dunn takes Ping's advice and gets more aggressive early in counts and swings at strikes that he would normally take - then maybe we'll find out for sure). My comment here was directed solely at the poster who said Dunn could never be a great hitter b/c he doesn't make enough contact. Maybe you also don't think he's a great hitter for this reason, but that didn't seem to be the point you were making. I think he's a great hitter b/c he has great production, even though his AVG is bad.

I've said elsewhere - 100 Ws and +200 run differential should be the goal.

Reed's defense is every bit as good as Fukudome. I can't think of a proper way to say that this is not true at all. Agreed. Not only that, but Kosuke's range is pretty incredible. He cuts down the RCF gap significantly and gets to balls he has no business catching. You guys are forgetting that Reed made that one diving catch in the LCF gap where his hat bill flipped up. That trumps anything Fukudome has ever done and could ever do. Ergo, ipso facto, Reed is the man...defensively speaking, per se.

I'm not a fan of Manny's antics, but I hate Torre and his stupid hair rule even more. I love it that he is forced to save face by saying this was acceptable when you know he's pissed every time he sees Manny's hair flopping around.

bad idea

I know that I'm in the minority on all of this admiration about Dunn, but I would never call Dunn a "great hitter". A "great hitter" would be able to make contact with the ball more often than Dunn does. Juan Pierre makes lots of contact.

coffee? aren't you in HS? If you need coffee to get you through HS, real life is going to suck something awful for you. Maybe I worded that wrong, I had a cup of coffee in the morning and I felt good all day. Just for the record, at least half the kids in high school drink coffee and the other half drink energy drinks. When I thought I was tired in HS, I'd have a pop first thing in the morning (great, I know). I can't imagine drinking coffee at 16/17 years old.

I held off until the first kid. Of course, he woke up every 2-3 hours until he was 2 and I was working 60 hour weeks. Not good times.

coffee? aren't you in HS? If you need coffee to get you through HS, real life is going to suck something awful for you.

I think that's exactly right. Other than maybe the first pitch - and maybe not even then - I doubt Dunn goes up there thinking "I'm going to take a few in my wheelhouse, just to give this guy a chance." He picks the pitches he thinks he can drive and swings out of his shoes. If it's not in that zone, he takes it. I don't know how often he strikes out looking after getting 2 strikes (compared to league average), but I'd guess he expands his zone a little with 2 strikes. If Dunn is taking pitches with the sole purpose of getting deep into the counts, that's kind of stupid. And I don't think he's that stupid.

Harden's pitching Tuesday. http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/cubs/1109135,CST-SPT-cubnt15.article

I'm not eating oreos for the nutritional value.

i'm not sure how you can agree to disagree on something when you're wrong about it. the expected value of putting the ball in play is greater than the expected value of striking out. i'm not taking into account whether dunn would be a better or worse hitter if he played more to contact, but if you have two guys that are exactly equal except one makes 100 "expected outs" (including errors) by putting the ball in play, and the other makes 100 outs by striking out, i'd obviously take the guy who makes the outs by putting the ball in play. Your assumption is wrong. An out is an out. In real world there is "no expected" there is only what happens and what doesn't happen. The way the out happens matters not. yeah, and in the real world the guy who makes 100 outs by putting the ball in play hits sac flies, grounds home a runner from third, gets on base via errors and moves runners up. that outweighs the negative of the 2 times he rolls into a double play, and is more valuable than the 100 strikeouts from the other guy. So you are assuming only 2 GIDP? The theoretical 2 players who are exactly the same except for the way they make outs is a pointless exercise. The only thing that matters is productivity. How a productive player makes his outs is meaningless. you can't disagree with truffle. he's already told you that this position is wrong.

Setting aside the fact that I don't know of any poster here that refers to him or herself as a SABR expert, I don't know any SABR expert that would look solely at OPS, let alone OPS w/ RISP, and make an absolute statement about which player has been more valuable in one season.

I agree with the first. Did you mean to type the second as is? I don't know anyone who thinks someone is ignorant about baseball because they played the game. I think there are posters here that are even quicker to jump on something that someone actually associated with baseball says, writes, or types, just because they are associated with the game. Even FJM does this on occasion. certainly if that person is touted (by himself or others) as having some particular knowledge about the game. Otherwise, I cannot ever recall reading such things here or at fjm.

I want to know who voted getting up at 6.

maybe one should read the thread before complaining about people complaining. except Ping's first post i can imagine he'll still take exception with that one true - but most of that list was good stuff

I agree with the first. Did you mean to type the second as is? I don't know anyone who thinks someone is ignorant about baseball because they played the game.

maybe one should read the thread before complaining about people complaining.

you can admire and at least do a light jog. while having sex? tip o' the cap to you, sir

Answer: Not very. Question: Which of Tapani's 19 wins would you say " don't matter " ? In determining whether he was a good pitcher that year? None of the Ws matter.

Manny's obviously a better offensive player than Dunn, but is it really fair to compare the two? Manny's career OPS is .101 higher than Dunn's, and his 2008 OPS is .071 higher. On top of that, do you really want to label Manny as a contact hitter? He's been over 100 strikeouts 10 times in his career. While he may not strikeout as often as Dunn, it's not like Pujols who only Ks about 60 times a season. But it's ok to compare the Neifi guys with Dunn who hit "weakly" to the pitcher? Manny swings hard and hits the ball hard and that is what has been said about Dunn. I'd rather have Manny then Dunn. Because his production is higher. Manny has been better than Dunn, no question. But it is not becuase he strikes out less. Dunn is better than most everybody, with the exception of players like Manny. But this is pointless in the discussion about strikeouts. I'd argue that one of the primary reasons Manny's a better hitter than Dunn is because he strikes out less. He has the ability to make more contact while still swinging quite hard, which leads to more balls in play, more hits, etc. If Dunn could increase his contact rate and strike out less while keeping his production when he does make contact, he'd obviously be a better hitter. Pujols is the hitter he is because he can generate that kind of power while also being an exceptional contact hitter. There are two sides of things: how much contact you make and then what you do with the ball when you do make contact. Strikeouts matter a lot because good things only happen when you avoid the k. But you also have to be able to do something good with the ball when you put it in play. Dunn is exceptional at the latter, but mediocre at the former. Because he gets exceptional results when he makes contact (plus the walks), he becomes a very productive player despite the low contact rate. But saying that strikeouts don't matter just isn't true. So are you saying strikeouts are significantly worse than other outs?

That's fine...but I can get that same generalized "who's better than who" info from ERA, right? So what value does the Win/Loss record give you that I can't get from another stat? You can say that about every stat that isn't what you consider the most valuable stat. What value does OBP have when I can look at EqA? Well for one, many, many more people know what OBP is. This isn't a "this stat is better than that stat" for me. It's just that I think W/L gives more misinformation than valuable information and can actually be more hindrance than help. It goes back to application of it, if applied properly, it does have value. Can you give an example of a proper application? Your argument above seems to break down into "if I know 2 pitchers' WL record over a sufficient number of starts, I'll be able to guess which one was better (as supported by other stats)." If WL alone doesn't tell you which pitcher is better at anything, what does it tell you? If you could say "W/L tells me X about a pitcher that I can't get easily from any other stat" I'd say it has value. But the only defense of it seems to be that it can help you guess which player is better, sometimes, but might also make you guess wrong.

Outfielders don't break stride when they dive for a ball. Manny disagrees.

Fans telling players when they should retire People jumping to conclusions. Sosa is still not retired and hoping to be signed, much like Bonds. If unwanted, hang em up. I hope your first sentence is completely unrelated to this discussion. Otherwise, it doesn't really make sense.