Mephistopheles

i dont believe ive seen it. his fastball probably rates a 70/80 slider probably a 60/80 his other two offspeed pitches a 55/80 With good command, stamina and pitchability.

Kaz Matsui was just as popular too

Tim Tebow is a better running back than Foster or Drew you know...

I've watched several of his starts, he seems to have: a low 90s FB a high 80s 2FB/CFB a low 80s slider (good pitch) a mid to high 70s CB a forkball in the low 70s All of his offspeed pitches are quality - at least in the time that I have seen.

Uehara pitched against the US. Matsuzaka pitched against Taiwan, Mexico and Cuba. Matsuzaka pitched a complete game in the 2004 Japan-US All Star Series. MLB All Stars AB R H RBI Carl Crawford, LF 4 1 1 0 Jack Wilson, SS 4 0 1 1 Hank Blalock, 3B 4 0 0 0 Moises Alou, RF 4 0 1 0 Miguel Cabrera, LF 3 0 1 0 Victor Martinez, C 3 0 1 0 Johnny Estrada, DH 3 0 0 0 Brad Wilkerson, 1B 3 0 0 0 Alex Cora, 2B 3 0 0 0 TOTALS 31 1 5 1 NPB IP H R ER BB SO HR BF Daisuke Matsuzaka W (1-0) 9.0 5 1 1 0 6 0 31

http://swampball.com/images/admin/ncaa_sicover.jpg Actually, I only care for their football team. I hate basketball so eh..

I hope two of them are traded, if not it's going to be another long season.

And I still didn't mention Adam Harben. The Cubs have a lot of relievers already, so Marmol and Ryu might not be there.

Johnson's going to start? There's going to be a logjam in Triple A. If the Cubs sign 2 SPs that leaves: 1. Z 2. Hill 3. FA 4. FA 5. Marshall/Prior Triple A 1. Jae-kuk Ryu 2. Carlos Marmol 3. Ryan O'Malley 4. Randy Wells 5. Angel Guzman I haven't mentioned Juan Mateo or (hopefully wont have to) Les Walrond. J.R. Mathes and Chris Shaver both had over twenty-five solid starts in Double A last season. That's not even considering Sean Gallagher. I think he starts there and you see a rotation of 1. Sean Gallagher 2. Donnie Veal 3. J.R. Mathes/Chris Shaver 4. Justin Berg 5. Mark Holliman Although Holliman could find himself in the pen.

I wasn't really saying anything. I do wish they used VORP or something else. It doesn't take a sabermetric study to show that a team with a payroll in the top 10 that finishes third to last in wins will pay more for each of their win.

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/baseball_prospectus_warp1_is_wrong/

I don't know why Leyland thought he could max his runs scored by batting Carlos Guillen fifth most of the season. Derek Jeter batted second and got about 70 PAs more than Guillen because of it.

What'd you expect, BA and their tools-lust.

Oh i knew it wouldn't get too many responses.

im on the ganja tonight and cooking up this: Marlins Get: Christian Garcia Tyler Clippard Felix Pie Matt Murton Yankees Get: Dontrelle Willis (or Miguel Cabrera if they put up another prospect) Scott Moore Cubs Get: Alex Rodriguez Maybe we'd give the Yankees someone else too...

Has anyone outside of Colorado hit .343 and not have it be a fluke? Well at least recently... Cano's .340 BA is much more of a fluke than Jeter's. Guillen on the other hand has had his BABIP flactuate between .350-.360 the last three seasons. This year Guillen had a .300 BA, .400 OBP and a .500 SLG. All the shortstops since 1900 to do it: 2006 .320/.400/.519 - Carlos Guillen 2000 .372/.434/.599 - Nomar Garciaparra 2000 .316/.420/.606 - Alex Rodriguez 1999 .357/.418/.603 - Nomar Garciaparra 1999 .349/.438/.552 - Derek Jeter 1996 .358/.414/.631 - Alex Rodriguez 1987 .343/.402/.551 - Alan Trammell 1948 .355/.453/.534 - Lou Boudreau 1941 .311/.406/.508 - Joe Cronin 1941 .359/.410/.520 - Cecil Travis 1938 .325/.428/.536 - Joe Cronin 1936 .388/.474/.508 - Luke Appling 1935 .385/.491/.607 - Arky Vaughan 1934 .333/.431/.511 - Arky Vaughan 1930 .346/.422/.513 - Joe Cronin 1911 .334/.423/.507 - Honus Wagner 1908 .354/.415/.542 - Honus Wagner 1907 .350/.408/.513 - Honus Wagner 1905 .363/.427/.505 - Honus Wagner 1904 .349/.423/.520 - Honus Wagner 1903 .355/.414/.518 - Honus Wagner That's one hell of a list! The only guy on their other than Guillen who isn't a borderline Hall of Famer is Cecil Travis. Travis was on his way to being Hall of Fame worthy until he fought in World War II - right after that season. He was just 27 at the time and caught a bad case of frostbite in the Battle of the Bulge. He was never the same once he came back. Before the war he was voted the game's best shortstop taking the torch from Arky Vaughan and Joe Cronin. Cecil Travis has been forgotten since then... And if you want to shorten that list, Carlos Guillen swiped twenty bags this season. The only guys to do that were Alan Trammell and Honus Wagner (who did it a lot). Either way it was quite a season for Carlos Guillen that is flying under the radar.

Woo 100 views and no responses. It's okay, I already knew I was insane. ](*,)

AAA international league - average pacific coast - (average for american conference) (hitters league for pacific conference) AA Southern League - pitchers Eastern League - pitchers Texas League - slightly hitters A+ Florida State - pitchers Carolina - pitchers (not as muh as FSL) California - extreme hitters A Midwest League - average Sally League - Average SS Northwest League - slightly hitters depending on location NY-PL - slightly pitchers depending on location RK Pioneer - hitters Appy - hitters Complex Arizona - hitters Gulf Coast - pitchers

I thought Beane's **** didn't work in the playoffs. The A's will be dangerous if Eric Chavez continues to hit.

Sounds insane, but at least hear me out. It's a lot closer than you might think. If you just look at VORP, Win Shares, WARP and other statistics like that - Jeter is better than Guillen in all of them. However, there's the whole "value to the team" argument. If you were to take a look at an equation of the pythagorean wins of a team hold runs allowed constant (in this case at 800), you'd get this: http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f189/kctigers23/runstowins.gif Most of you probably already realize that when converting runs into wins, there's diminishing marginal returns (wins) to each run that is created. In Carlos Guillen's case he is adding 67.0 runs from VORP takes the Tigers from arguably the worst lineup in the American League to the middle of the pack. Derek Jeter's 79.2 runs from VORP takes the Yankees from a good offense to a great offense. So all I did was take the pythagorean record from each team and calculated the amount of wins lost on each team losing their player. Derek Jeter's 79.2 runs converted to 6.61 wins and Carlos Guillen's 67.0 runs converted to 6.62 wins. That's essentially a wash between the players. VORP takes in account an average defense, so who is ever better on defense probably did more for their team. Neither player's defense is held to high regard, but in a general sense from older UZRs and recent other things, Guillen might be slightly better. There's also a case that the six and a half wins from Guillen improved the likelihood of the Tigers making the playoffs than Jeter's six and a half wins did for the Yankees. Finally there is another component that's a bit different. Jeter's higher VORP may have to do with being on the Yankees more than being better. The team OBP for the Yankees was over 30 points higher than the team OBP for the Tigers. The Yankees lineup simply turned over more creating more opportunities for Jeter to seperate himself from a replacement player and creating more runs. Each spot in the Yankee lineup had 22 more PAs than the corresponding spot in the Tiger lineup. Also, Jeter spent most of the season batting second with 50 or so PAs batting third. Carlos Guillen spent most of the season batting fifth with 50 or so PAs batting seventh. Each spot in the lineup has about 20 fewer PAs than the spot in front of it. The time Guillen spent batting fifth while Jeter batted second was about 60 additional PAs for Jeter. The time Jeter spent batting third and Guillen bat seventh was an additional 8-10 PAs from Jeter. Totalling all of these up we're going to get roughly 90 more PAs for Jeter than Guillen simply by the Yankees lineup and where they hit. Call it poor managing and the quality of hitter surrounding the two if you will. Jeter played one more game and had 93 more PA's so all of this makes some sort of sense. If you were to remove this compensation for Jeter and add the 90s PAs to Guillen, his VORP is going to be about 77.0, shrinking the difference to 2 runs. That's to the point where the quality of defense certainly makes the difference. Finally, the Tigers had some injuries, lack of production and other factors that led to Guillen getting 8 of his games at first and 4 games at DH. That's lowering the level of his replacement level player for 50 or so PAs. The main reason Guillen moved to first for this was issues surrounding the Tigers. Not really his fault. Jeter being Jeter would never play a game at first on the Yankees because he's Jeter. If he would, he would have moved off shorstop when Rodriguez was acquired. Anyways if you factor the difference in his RP because of these PA's, you're going to see Guillen's VORP jump to 81.5, a couple of runs ahead of Jeter. And a lot ahead of in wins. Guillen was actually a better hitter on a per PA basis from MLVr in VORP. Regardless, I wouldn't vote for Guillen nor Jeter (Santana), but if you undergo the assumption of no pitchers or designated hitters, Guillen just might the man over Jeter.

Yep. One of these days BA is going to realize that strikeouts don't matter as much if you know how to take a walk. Moore does not have a great walk rate, but it's pretty solid. Speaking of Dope. He's probably a big bounceback candidate next season. He was really swinging the bat well in Spring Training before hurting his foot. He was never the same once he came back.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/262562.html

Stock will be draft eligible in 2009, as a 19 year old.

The only way we can get this deal done is if there is a third team involved, like say the Marlins. We give the Marlins say Rich Hill and prospects or some other combination of prospects. They send Cabrera or Willis to New York. New York sends some prospects to them as well. They send ARod to us, and we send some prospects back to the Yankees. We'd also pick up most of ARod's 16M or whatever the Yankees owe. Sure that scenario is a pipe dream, but it's like the only scenario plausible without giving up Ramirez or Zambrano.

Brackman isn't that raw.