Mephistopheles

Marquis sucks. Get it through your heads, he sucks. No one, not even I, said the Cubs didn't improve themselves significantly this winter. It's just that it could have been done at a fraction of the cost and Hendry isn't smart enough to do it. Hendry deserves ZERO credit. NONE. It's that simple. Try and argue with me again. You won't win.

IM LEGENDARY!

depends...

okay heres some stuff you should read if you want to know how i really think.... viewtopic.php?t=35893 ive also explained a lot of little nuances about stats here and there, see the bottom of the page: viewtopic.php?t=42269&start=75 ive also absolutely massacred the draft thread start here viewtopic.php?t=41280&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=210 not to mention all the updates and information on the prospects there. and finally the big one. a huge saber party involving Soriano saying Lugo would have been a bigger upgrade in the win column. of course Lugos gone down the drain but my reasoning was correct. viewtopic.php?t=36777&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=570 i didnt get warmed up until pages 36-40 or so but the last 110 pages are loaded with Asmodai/Mephistopheles/kctigers excellence. Good reading material, I think

Well, I'll give you one thing: You're the first person to say that I shy away from arguments. In fact a moderator warned me for trying to create too many arguments. I'm still waiting for another poster to respond to my sledgehammer of an argument in the ichiro thread. You see, I really do have reasoning and when I post them people have problems arguing against them. I can assure you am I am well-versed in the knowledge of the game's economics, sabermetrics, the minor leagues' prospects, the draft's prospects and just about every thing else.

well im going to be a bit bold and say your going to have alot of threads derail like this one with that kind of methodology ;). not really. i post my results. people disagree, tell me why they think im wrong. i then strike down their arguments piece by piece. then its over. i find the comments usually add to the discussion because while they may seem like a waste, its an easy way to get people talking. but seriously, does a marginal non-cubs prospect deserve a thread to himself? the door was open for this conversation

the marlins shouldnt be talking. wow i sure ended this discussion...

my posts are icebergs seen from above water. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f189/kctigers23/iceberg.jpg i just post the conclusion. the why doesn't really matter.

colvin still cant take a walk. Until he learns how he shouldnt be in the top 100

You're right. I'm the epitome of a dumbass. I have never and will never bring useful contributions to this board. I exist with just one job, to vitiate this board more than any single poster. I have no shred of sanity. I have no shred of wisdom. I have yet to find my place in this meritocracy.

so you're anti-adding minor league talent i see? interesting. How in the world can you jump to that conclusion?

This isn't surprising. Roy Oswalt's strikeout rate has been in a perpetual decline since he broke into the majors.

Cuban + DePodesta or Me = World Series Win Book it.

No. And thats all thats needed.

this shouldnt be close

probably over four.

For the BP fans: There is already a (good) stat that deals with inherited runners. It's called Fair RA. It's used for starters and relievers. Basically it looks at run expectancy when the reliever (or starter) enters the game and then the runs + run expectancy when the reliever leaves the game. For instance, if Zambrano starts the eighth inning with a walk, a strikeout and then is pulled in favor of Bob Howry. The situation is a runner on first with one out. The run expectancy for this situation is .573 runs, so Zambrano's credited with .573 runs towards his Fair RA. Now look at two cases. Case A: Howry lets up a home run to the next hitter and then is replaced by Scott Eyre. The situation is one out and no runners on, a run expectancy of .297. Howry is credited with 2 + .297 - .573 (Zambrano's portion in the inning) = 1.724 runs on his fair RA. Case B: Howry finishes the inning with no one scoring. This run expectancy is obviously zero and Howry would be credited with -.573 runs to his Fair RA. Yes, negative runs (subtracted). Obviously it's not perfect. Better pitchers are more likely to stop their runners from scoring than others, but it's good. In general the difference for this for a SPs RA is about 4 runs at the extremes, usually under 1 or 2.

Maybe Izturis is no more than Hendry moving salary space. He's not very cheap for a bench player and a few contending teams could use an all-glove everywhere defensive player. The Cubs then free up some money which, for once, may matter.

You really don't know what you're getting into. 1. I wasn't shown up. You just decided to post stupid crap that's worthless. I mean you didn't bring up defense, how he's the face of baseball to some million upon millions of Japanese baseball fans (with Hideki) and is one of the top five most scrutinized players in the world. I mean sure you thought it was just on the field OOPS..just with the bat. Nevertheless Ichiro's the best CF in the game according to VORP, WARP1, and WARP3. Since you love your WARP1 averages. Coming into the season. Ichiro: 7.6. Jeter: 6.5. Jeter's obviously a superstar and don't bring in the stupid crap about the media and the Yankees making Jeter a superstar. The Japanese media does the same thing to Ichiro. Theyre pretty comparable there. 2. Really I don't know the difference between WARP1, 2 and 3? You sure as hell don't. When comparing Ichiro to contemporaries outside of the AL YOU HAVE TO USE WARP2/3 (they're the same for all intents and purposes). See, when you calculate WARP you first have to calculate RARP and then scale it to wins starting with a worthless team of RPs. To calculate RARP you simply add PRAR, BRAR and FRAR. There inlies the problem with WARP1 when comparing Pujols to Ichiro, or Beltran to Ichiro. To find BRAR it's 5*(EqA^2.5-.23^2.5)*Outs. You have to use EqA. Fine and dandy. There are two different EqAs that BP uses on player cards. That's the real culprit here. EqA isn't a difficult stat to formulate, I've done it to Japanese players. To find EqA you take the raw EqA formula and then you compare it to league average for all hitters in the league. Next you do some other things, but they're irrelevant in this discussion. WARP1 uses just players from the AL for Ichiro and just players from the NL for Pujols. That's not even the real problem. For all teams in the NL the nine hole in the lineup is an automatic out, yet this is used to scale EqA >> BRAR >> WARP1. WARP2/3's EqA's baseline Raw EqA is the all time EqA for all players and is perfectly fine for comparing players at the same time. This is why when you look at, say Ichiro's player card his EqA jumps ten points but when you look at Pujols' his EqA is pretty much the same. I mean you can be ignorant and naive and say I don't know when to use various things, but I'm pretty sure I just slaughtered that opinion.

just because he's been the exception to the rule thus far it doesnt mean he will continue to be one.

that stuff is crap. its an arbitrary definition that BP came up with one night to make themselves feel important. calling him a BP whore really isnt a personal attack as much as me blowing smoke when people post BP stats and think its final as if they know what theyre talking about. Im not saying Rob does or does not know what hes talking about but there are a lot of people who post VORP who dont have the slightest clue on how to calculate it or anything. i enjoy finding flaws in those arguments. This is one of those cases. It's a random cutoff. Using it as a measuring stick is stupid. So now Im personally attacking BP and calling their idea stupid. Im fine with that.

its not worth talking about. god stop being drama queens.

I don't have the sabremetric tools to prove it, but I would guess that from a statistical point of view deliberately taking a 2nd strike so Soriano can try to take 2B is a ridiculous decision. Somebody can point me in the right direction, but I think a player's odds of getting on base with 2 strikes are significantly lower than getting on with 1, and that increased probablility of an out more than offsets the expected value of an attempted stolen base. considering that stealing in general is a waste of time it makes no sense to do it with one strike. I think stealing is a good thing as long as you steal at a rate better than 75%. I seem to remember seeing on this board that 75% is the breakeven point. its gotta be significantly higher when you run the risk of falling behind to two strikes. Also the gains aren't really all that much. If you're working at 90% youd still probably dumb to run on say an 0-1 count forcing the batter to take a pitch. About two-thirds of ML pitches are strikes. I don't like the risk.

dont post that crap. his glove certainly does make up for it. If you want to argue semantics be my guest and waste my and your time. A. He's consistently a 9+ WARP player you BP whore. That makes him significantly more productive than other "superstars." B. The exact definition of a superstar is larger than his worth on the field. There are maybe 6 or 7 players in the world that get as much coverage as he does.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0707/gallery.greatest.sports.villains/content.7.html I've always thought of him as a decent guy. He's no Adam Dunn, but he's no AJP either.