davearm2

If I'm Zumaya, I'm breathing a major sigh of relief after hearing the term "fracture" instead of "tear" or "rupture".

What's the over/under on the days until that happens to Marmol

None of those guys were voted in by the fans, either (IIRC). Look the fans that vote in the starters have one agenda, and the managers that pick the pitchers and reserves have a different agenda. So you can't make a blanket statement about the ASG's primary purpose because it's ambiguous. It's part marketing, part popularity, part entertainment, part reward for past performance, part reward for current performance, and part determining HFA for the WS. It's all of those things at the same time (or at least it tries to be); choosing which of those is "primary" is frivolous.

I've seen KC and Baltimore floated too. :banghead:

The solution here is just painfully simple. Each guy sits 1 day out of 4, and you rotate Colvin at all 3 spots.

In the very post I quoted you stated you were hoping for the Cubs to suck. In fact you called it awesome. no, i didn't. trying reading it again. I clearly stated, and I quote, "if we are going to suck this year, this is what i want." i'm saying that if the cubs are going to suck, they might as well tank hard to bring about changes and a higher draft pick. none of this 79-83 and minor changes stuff. either you have tons of trouble with simple reading comprehension, or you're just being willfully ignorant. considering you do this constantly, i think i know which one it is. Regardless of your hairsplitting the point stands -- you sure seem to enjoy this. Wow you have to be the only person on this site who doesn't get what hes saying. I'm guessing had anybody else on here said it you wouldnt have a problem with it. I get what he's saying just fine, thanks.

What's that?

Coming from any other poster, I'd agree. This guy really seems to bask in it though.

So long as HFA is attached to the ASG, and fans vote in the starters, then the fans of one league ought to conspire to vote in the worst players in the opposite league. I don't care how many NYY fans there are, if fans in 16 NL cities are voting for Nick Punto instead of ARod, then ARod ain't starting. I'd love to see that happen.

No he shouldn't get in because fans would prefer to see other guys.

Except as I've explained we're not basing this on pure stats.

Get rid of the homefield advantage rule and then stop worrying about who makes it and who doesn't, because then it's purely an exhibition and there's no ambiguity about making popularity the criteria.

You kind of proved my point. Strasburg has been fantastic since he's been up. So has Boesch. Of course Strasburg has the higher career ceiling by far, but if you're going to put him in after only 7 career starts, how can you pass on Boesch after 60-some career games when he's been great, too. For those who don't know, through 53 games Boesch is .330/.389/.621 with 12 HR and 43 RBI. "For those who don't know" illustrates perfectly why he's not a candidate for the ASG.

I don't disagree. But popularity can lead to a lot of guys in the ASG who don't always deserve it, either. Griffey got in during a lot of his down years due to injury, and Cal Ripken, Jr got in some years just because of who he was. Again, not that Strasburg hasn't had a great few starts, but then where do you draw the line? Brennan Boesch has had 1/3rd of a fantastic year. Should he go in? I'm not saying he shouldn't, but if you put Strasburg in you gotta but Boesch in there, too. And I'm going off of the assumption that Strasburg puts up similar numbers in his next 2 starts and doesn't get hit in one or both of them. Lots of guys make the ASG that don't deserve it based on their current-year production, sure. But by construction, current-year production is less important than who the fans want to see play. Again, like it or not, that's the system. So there's nothing wrong with an over-the-hill Griffey of Ripken making the ASG once you recalibrate your expectations to favor popularity over production. Given I've never even heard of this Brennan Boesch guy, I strongly doubt he is deserving on the popularity score.

In the very post I quoted you stated you were hoping for the Cubs to suck. In fact you called it awesome. no, i didn't. trying reading it again. I clearly stated, and I quote, "if we are going to suck this year, this is what i want." i'm saying that if the cubs are going to suck, they might as well tank hard to bring about changes and a higher draft pick. none of this 79-83 and minor changes stuff. either you have tons of trouble with simple reading comprehension, or you're just being willfully ignorant. considering you do this constantly, i think i know which one it is. Regardless of your hairsplitting the point stands -- you sure seem to enjoy this.

In the very post I quoted you stated you were hoping for the Cubs to suck. In fact you called it awesome.

Agree with it or not, the All-Star game is a popularity contest. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a more popular player right now than Strasburg.

it's awesome. if we are going to suck this year, this is what i want. i want a [expletive] circus. i want this [expletive] to get completely disastrous. What do you mean "this year"? You revel in the Cubs' misery every year. The more things to b**** about, the better. I bet you're downright giddy these days.

I wouldn't necessarily say "really streaky." Soriano strikes me as a really streaky player. Fukudome definitely has his peaks and valleys, but his valleys last year seemed relegated to a couple of a long stretches as opposed flipping on and off like a streaky player like Soriano does. It's not as though there's only one "really streaky" crown in the castle.

Well Tim does, because the statistical argument he made hinges on it. Look he used a bogus definition of summer so as to twist the numbers to fit a premise. As I showed, when that error is corrected, the numbers support the exact opposite conclusion. A little intellectual dishonesty is one thing, but when he topped it off with a dash of smug arrogance, it became too much to let slide. In the end, though, the most logical conclusion is that Fukudome is simply really streaky, regardless of the month or season.

That's not what I said. What I said was, given the choice to include or exclude June as a summer month, most folks would choose to include it. Frankly I have a hard time understanding why anyone would dispute that, because it really wouldn't even be close.

There are more days in June that aren't summer than there are that is summer. 20 days are "spring" 10 days are summer. We're not using the farmer's almanac or some arcane meteorological definition here. When people talk about summer they're including June. What people? Anyone that's gone to school, for starters.

There are more days in June that aren't summer than there are that is summer. 20 days are "spring" 10 days are summer. We're not using the farmer's almanac or some arcane meteorological definition here. When people talk about summer they're including June.

June is a summer month. April + May 2009 = .946 OPS June on = .738 OPS

How could one accurately say they KNOW they are not? But yet you are saying just that. All I know is the pressure on the Cubs is a) different, and b) probably greater than that faced by a "typical" team/player. How that does or doesn't impact play is impossible to know. Common sense dictates otherwise. Baseball players on playoff teams are under enormous pressure regardless of what team they're on. It's ridiculous to think that in the split second a player has to deal with the play at hand is more likely to fail because they're playing for the Cubs and are inexplicably going to be overloaded by the pressure of playing for them more so than playing for any other team. But it's reasonable to think that in the split second a player has to deal with the play at hand is more likely to fail because they're playing in October and are inexplicably going to be overloaded by the pressure of playing then more so than playing in June? Basically you're dismissing the notion that pressure of any kind influences on-field play. You could be right but it's the minority opinion. If, on the other hand, one believes pressure can impact play, then it stands to reason that the Cubs players are impacted more than a typical player because of the 100+ year thing. tim's a busy guy so he probably won't be through here to post it, but he used to have a well-phrased reply to this sort of argument about how the real pressure in baseball is in high school and college and the minors when you're trying to establish yourself and scouts are watching. if you do well, you get to be a millionaire; if you do poorly, you get to be a mechanic's assistant. he said it a lot better and more convincingly, but the gist of it is there. So in essence what you're saying is professional athletes are immune to pressure. As I said earlier, that could be right, but it would be the minority opinion.