Mephistopheles

1 piece of wood. Hed be hurt afterwards

well be picking 20th or so. Id like to think wed be the first big market team in line to get a falling pedro alvarez

Lord of Khemennu is not a demonic lord. It's an alternate name for the Egyptian god, Thoth. His shrine was at Khemennu, hence the name. Thoth was seen as the great arbitrator and mediator (something I see myself as) and as the god of wisdom. He did judge some dead guys but that had nothing to do with the selection of the name.

im not even as big of an ass as most of you claim. its selective memory.

Maybe the Gators second half defensive drought wasn't as bad as people thought...maybe the Gators first have defensive (and offensive) dominance was better than people thought. Maybe a combination of both or neither. Maybe I am using the word maybe to much but maybe there's the maybe god who maybe holding a gun to my head and maybe forcing me to type maybe a lot...maybe there isnt.

maybe we should go after matt clement in the offseason guys! in all seriousness, it wouldnt be that bad of an idea.

if that statement is true, then its more than likely good development.

mike cameron

If you put one in San Antonio, put it in northern New Braunfels. It's a great location and would get fans from Austin and San Antonio. The I35 corridor between Austin and SA , according to some estimates, is expected to grow to between 7,000,000 and 10,000,000 combined. That's enormous compared to the approximately 4,000,000 who already call it home. The Rangers are in a similar spot between FW and Dallas. Dallas and FW are 30 miles apart. SA and Austin are 60 miles apart. It could work.

uh duh

I'm not sure a 2nd New England team would work. Where would you put it? Boston itself is actually quite small. The Boston metro area is roughly the same population as Detroit. Philly, Houston, Atlanta and Dallas are all bigger and aren't even the best supporters of their 1 team each. The Red Sox dominate because they have a monopoly on the baseball loyalties of 5 states, most of a 6th and parts of a 7th. There isn't another large enough city in New England to put a team, and Boston can't support another. the boston metro area is home to about 4.5 million people. this doesnt include any of RI or Conn who would make the drive to see games. The boston metro area has a larger population than the san fran-oakland metro area. it could support another team, in say hartford or providence. boston has claimed that area so dont expect it to happen. new york could get a third. san antonio/austin, portland or vegas are the most likely destinations. maybe havana in 20 years

7-9 looks good enough

no.

I used to bring cub scouts to games all the time and you're right, most of the time they were running around and mostly focused on food. I've talked to many scouts and they are all different on what they look for, well, more of how they breakdown certain aspects of a players game. Of course they look for things at different levels, HS, college, Minors, and Majors but they know their stuff. Could they learn and maybe do something different to improve how they evaluate, probably. But, listening to them talk and what they see was and is a very good experience for me as I've learned a lot from these men* (*Disclaimer, I have yet to met a female scout so get out there ladies and show your stuff!). you know what i meant. sometimes they get lost in looking at players physical appearance and athleticism they fail to notice that for whatever the reason the guy cant hit.

sometimes i wonder if scouts even watch the game.

i can be nice when i want to. being mean just allows me to figure out whose worth talking to. if you cave in usually youre not worth taking seriously. if you ignore it, i dont talk down to you. you have to show me youre worth talking to. is there really anything wrong with holding people accountable?

then the scout grading system is too optimistic...

Ooh I see the Anti-Mepharmy is out in full force today. It's tragic that they're all wrong. Okay not tragic. The nun stated that: "FA is a bad investment." If the nun was correct she made the analogous assumption that all humans are white. Some FAs are bad investments. Not all FAs are bad investments. It's trivial to assume that Randy Johnson signing a 58 million dollar deal for four years with the Diamondbacks in 1998 was a bad investment. He won a Cy Young Award each year of the contract and provided dollar value significantly over 58 million to the Diamondbacks. Even if you think that it was luck and an outlier. Fine. Consider the case where you have a 88 win team in a division that has a team who looks to win around 90 games. The potential revenue of a player adding you 4 wins is likely going to exceed the market price for the player. Otherwise the market for that player wouldn't exist and he'd never sign. Fortunately, the market for baseball players is relatively efficient. Only the fool looks in and says oh but Wang made 400k. You can't compare them. The FA market is certainly a good investment to put you over the top, which is the exact position the Cubs will be in next off season. They'll be sitting as a 85 win or so team who wants a splash to hit 90 wins. At that price pretty much EVERY win added will add more value to the Cubs than the market price for that player. So, yes, the FA market is a good investment for a team in the Cubs' situation. And my comment was undeniably correct. To say otherwise is to be wrong. If you can live with being wrong when the right answer slaps you in the face, then fine. It's quite funny that the nun brings up that there are 20 Arams and Lees for every Pujols and Braun. If that assumption holds true, then there are approximately 20 Ruben Mateos for every Aram or Lee. So he's wrong that way too. Boom. I won.

Personally, I like the framework behind FRAR, but I dislike Rate2 which is how they calculate how much over/below average a player is defensively. FRAR was developed so it can analyze a player defensively based on box scores that have been around since forever. Other new wave statistics rely on batted ball type and directional vector off the bat. They're also probability based in that respect. They use a lot more relevant data and that's why they're more accurate. The framework of FRAR is based upon the principle that each position has a defensive run value. This difference actually is equivalent if you calculate between offense between two positions or if you calculate it between defensive prowess of a player moving from one to the other. For example, FRAR base value for a SS is 33 runs. For a 3B it's 22. If a +0 SS moves to 3B, statistically they usually become a +11 defensive 3B. So it kind of works. Also, usually the difference between an average SS and 3B over the course of a season is pretty damn close to eight runs. In fact using EqA this season for those positions and the difference is 11 runs. To do this, you have to adjust everything to a neutral environment and then convert it to the park environment you want it in. It's not apples to apples in the future, but it's apples to apples to value created in the past. BP tries to do this, but honestly they fall on their face. They actually assume that a players all-time EqA would be their EqA overall. They then build a line that would equal that production. This is their attempt to remedy this situation, and it's what they use in PECOTA. Honestly, I don't agree with it one bit. Here's a player card for Hafner. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f189/kctigers23/Hafner1.gif There are three EqAs on there. The first one under advanced batting statistics is an average player in his league (AL or NL) for that season. The second one is an average player all time. Their attempt to build a line in a neutral context is listed under Translated Batting Statistics. They start building it assuming the eqa all time will still exist. Like I said this is stupid. In the case of Biggio we're looking at the past, value created precisely over an average and replacement player. Historically speaking the value is more important. Biggio would have been hella good anywhere. His strengths arent affected by any park, but he would not have been as valuable in a place where HRs were significantly increased. He would have still been valuable. Hes a 20 HR guy too. When comparing production of two players this is the correct way to do it. In general this way is fine for the future. Most parks are interchangeable. It's only the extremes that matter, the coors, domes, petco etc. Im not sure if they do. If they do, it doesn't matter. If they don't, they don't matter. All of your road stats are going to be produced, on average, at a league average park. It's going to cancel out. Given the limited sample sizes its probably better not to find runs produced over average for a three game set and compare it to an average player. This brings up something. What does a teams winning percentage represent? It represents how often a team would be expected to win against an average team. What does a person's batting average represent? It represents how often a player gets a hit off of a league average pitcher. In general all statistics are already adjusted this way when there's a large sample size. We don't need to do anything. Sure there is. Only its a probability range. Not a given number.

actually it's true. im saying its wrong. thats a point. Im not taking a stance, that would be an argument.

http://worldseries.mlb.com/ws/images/news/11_03_johnson_react_300.jpg

How many FAs at any position are worth half of what they end up getting? FA is a bad investment. Thats why it is pivotal to develop players within your system. The last step of development is the majors. Players need to play to get better in the majors. This is why Pie should be playing. this is completely untrue. In most cases Free Agents are signed at the end or past prime. They will in most cases get paid more than they were getting paid for declining production. Young players coming up get paid less while there production is improving. I know there is individual cases where players are still improving after free agency, but there are cases where it was better to not where a seat belt in a car accident. I would contend that the percentages tend to show free agency as a bad tool to build a winning ballclub(unless you are willing to spend like the Yankees). As for the part of young players need time to develop in the Majors, I dont know what to tell you. For every Pujols and Braun there are 20 DLees and ARams. Most players dont have ROY numbers right off the bat. They need to play to get better. once again, this isn't true No, it's true. The thing that isn't true however is the insinuation that you shouldn't sign any free agent. You have to, there's really no way around it. You have to overpay for some of your production, because it's simply impossible to get it all, and get enough, strictly from the cheap youth. There's no room for error doing it that way. no it isnt true. Great arguments. they really are. its not an argument. it's a point.

if you make an argument with something that's irrelevant i can certainly tell you it is irrelevant.

How many FAs at any position are worth half of what they end up getting? FA is a bad investment. Thats why it is pivotal to develop players within your system. The last step of development is the majors. Players need to play to get better in the majors. This is why Pie should be playing. this is completely untrue. In most cases Free Agents are signed at the end or past prime. They will in most cases get paid more than they were getting paid for declining production. Young players coming up get paid less while there production is improving. I know there is individual cases where players are still improving after free agency, but there are cases where it was better to not where a seat belt in a car accident. I would contend that the percentages tend to show free agency as a bad tool to build a winning ballclub(unless you are willing to spend like the Yankees). As for the part of young players need time to develop in the Majors, I dont know what to tell you. For every Pujols and Braun there are 20 DLees and ARams. Most players dont have ROY numbers right off the bat. They need to play to get better. once again, this isn't true No, it's true. The thing that isn't true however is the insinuation that you shouldn't sign any free agent. You have to, there's really no way around it. You have to overpay for some of your production, because it's simply impossible to get it all, and get enough, strictly from the cheap youth. There's no room for error doing it that way. no it isnt true.

no, i just said i dont want ryan. i didnt respond to anything until people talked about prior. i just said that guys fell into his lap. then we talked about his success before mauer. the cubs werent involved.