USSoccer

Ronaldo is fat. That is all. Fat. I doubt he could keep pace in the Prem, considering it's pretty freneticly paced.

agreed. alardyce is gonna get sacked before the end of the year. at least own played a full 90. in these cup games, i also root for the minnows, especially when the matches are being played at these 15,000 seat stadium. I was completely enjoying pulling for Stoke. Their fans must have been in absolute heaven for the last 30 minutes or so. They were so unlucky not to have won. Allardyce is absolutely gong to get sacked. They shouldn't be as bad as they are.

Stoke completely outplayed Newcastle and should have beaten them. I'm not sure what that says, other than NUFC sucks.

Based on what? Did Pie ever win the AFL MVP? Fuld winning the AFL MVP is like a kid who's been held back twice dominating 8th grade basketball. I hope you know I was being sarcastic. I did, no worries. I wouldn't seriously engage anyone in a debate about Sam Fuld anyway.

Based on what? Did Pie ever win the AFL MVP? Fuld winning the AFL MVP is like a kid who's been held back twice dominating 8th grade basketball. Not even a remotely applicable analogy. You get my point. It's a nice thing for him. He's still a low ceiling guy.

Based on what? Did Pie ever win the AFL MVP? Fuld winning the AFL MVP is like a kid who's been held back twice dominating 8th grade basketball.

I'd put money on Liverpool. Seriously.

Deserved. That defense is horrible. How many games have they blown leads in?

He's soooo Taguchi...

You're alone. So very alone. So Taguchi sucks. If you absolutely insist on a platoon partner for Pie, find a better one.

Based on what?

"People"=me And you're wrong. But that's okay. I'll leave it at that. No, it's more than you, and no, you're still wrong. Your version of the method basically is tantamount to flinging crap against a wall and making people prove it wrong. Proper hypotheses involve more than just wild guesses and gut feelings. They have to be based in some sort of fact or logic, otherwise they are not hypotheses. Then they are just guesses. And guessing things is fine, but it needs to be called what it is. Cuse had a guess, a feeling, an opinion. Most of us thought it was wrong based on the logic itself. In the scientific community, that's enough. If the methodology is ridiculous, that's usually where guesses end. But IMB did the research, which is great for him, and the research confirmed that the guess was just that. A guess. A feeling. An opinion. A hypothesis would have been like "Mark Prior's career WHIP (or whatever) with RISP (or whatever) is X. Based on that, I would expect him to be worse than league average in pressure situations after giving up more than Y runs. If that is true, it would show that Mark Prior is a poor pressure pitcher, subject to rattling easily once he's tagged for Y runs." This isn't personal. It's about having a pet peeve of people treating opinions as something more than they really are.

I have zero problem with bringing people responsible for building the 1990's Montreal farm system into our organization.

All I have to add is that it's very, very sad that people are warping how the scientific method works. Oh, and nice work, IMB.

I 100% agree That's not even close to what was happening. Cuse was basing his extreme dislike of Prior in part on his opinion that Prior was not mentally tough when under pressure. After proving this wrong both statistically and logically, the argument took a turn towards Kakfaesque. I really love it when people try and group people into little liques like "stat-heads" and such. NSBB is a bit more complex than the old "Us v Them" thing.

Will this be a companion stat to G.R.I.T.F.actor?

I honestly thought this was settled like 4 pages back. How can this still be debated? You cannot quantify this. You might as well spend your time hunting leprechauns. You can't make a physchological hypothesis based on solely observable behavior and then demand statistical data to refute what basically comes down to an uneducated, underinformed opinion. That's what's so laughable about the whole thing. They know there's no way to put that into a statistic. It's that they think it somehow validates their argument is what is so insane. See, but I even called it a circular argument like yesterday afternoon or something, and it was like "no, no, it makes perfect sense". It's the bloody definition of a circular argument, or some crazy extistential thought wank. It's like if you can't prove it wrong metrically, then it must be right, which is absolutely insane, considering no evidence other than opinion is being offered. It's like the anti-scientific method.

I honestly thought this was settled like 4 pages back. How can this still be debated? You cannot quantify this. You might as well spend your time hunting leprechauns. You can't make a physchological hypothesis based on solely observable behavior and then demand statistical data to refute what basically comes down to an uneducated, underinformed opinion.

Are you kidding me?

Not in the AL Central. The Tigers and Indians are way ahead of the Twins who are miles ahead of the White Sox and Royals. I think it's rather naive to say those teams would be "way ahead" of a Twins team that featured Santana, Bedard, and Liriano at the front of the rotation and an offense led by Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, and Young. Liriano is no lock to perform at his 2006 level.

Still with the Moises hate?

At this point, I would probably prioritize the needs in this order: 1-Starting pitcher 1a-SS 2-RH bench bat 3-LH bench bat. Jersey said it best, though. This team isn't really much better tha last year's version, and it would be nice to not have to rely on incompetent opponents or extraordinary luck to win.

Cuse, are you basing this whole "can't handle failure" thing on Game 6?

Wins have nothing to do with what I'm asking and I never mentioned them. Can I ask you a question. Does the game of baseball involve a mental aspect? Hold on, 'Cuse. Stay focused on the issue. Wins were brought up in a very narrow context. You want proof that he can't handle failure? The closest thing you have is looking at his game logs and seeing what his numbers look like after a disaster start. That's what I'm saying. And again, he didn't have a ton of disaster starts in his career. You have very little with which to work with, but what is there suggests that he can handle failure just fine, but again, do you really think that the hangover from a disaster start lasts 4 days? You're trying to prove something that cannot be proven, and use that conclusion to justify a criticism you have. That's not going to work.

You're wrong. It means he's a piss poor ninny who should be dealt immediately. What kind of pansy has a higher ERA with guys on base? I'll tell you what kind, a documented steroid abuser. Funny how you revert to this type of a point when you can't prove me wrong. 'Cuse, it's going to be impossible to prove you wrong, because if he's getting rocked, his numbers will suck because he's getting rocked. You've constructed a circular argument. No I haven't USS. What I'm asking is what numbers prove when he is struggling how he reacts to that. Prior has had success his whole life and is used to things going his way pitching wise. My point is when he doesn't have that success, how he reacted or performed when he was failing. I've worked with many pitchers in my life and I've seen and actually been there when some of them that when things are going well, they're fine. But, when they get hit hard their confidence changes. It's my opinion that Prior was like this. Now, I've had kids that were just as good but wouldn't give an inch at any time. Again, it's my opinion. You've created a hypothesis which has it's basis in a person's psychological reaction to failure. However, there isn't going to be a metric to show you how he "handles failure". That's a perception. What numbers will show you is that if a guy is having a bad game, he's going to have crappy numbers. Which doesn't prove that he can't "handle failure". It only proves that he experiences failure. The closest thing you could get to what you're trying to argue is his record after a disaster start. I'm sure someone here would have the time to dig that up, but I'd wager it's probably pretty good, and even then, it wouldn't prove squat, because wins are a lousy metric as well. You could look at his peripherals after a disaster start, and that might give you insight, but probably not, because the hangover from sucking isn't going to last 4 or 5 days. You're asking for proof of something that cannot be quantified effectively. It's like arguing about the existence of unicorns.