Outshined_One

Not enough, according to Ozzie.

You mean playoff viewers might be stuck with Chippy? Hoo boy.

Kenny Rogers is starting? Sweet, I can post this sucker again: http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/2546/kennyrogers6kn.gif

It's so exciting in the clubhouse that Lance Berkman was napping in a leather chair.

Derek Jeter apparently is one foot tall. Oh god. I forgot this was on Fox. I'm going to be muting this thing throughout the course of the night.

Holy cheesy intro with lots of cleavage Batman!

And they'll end up with Preston Wilson.

Perhaps. Milb.com has had some weird moments in the past.

Problem is, milb.com has Rafael and Rafaelito listed separately. Rafaelito is listed as an OF, whereas Rafael is a SP.

Sorry to hear about the cancer, hope you make a full recovery. :D

Probably, but with only one game going on, that should come as little surprise. Also, I still have no idea how old Rafael Dolis is.

Okay, sign Vlad Guerrero the next time he's a free agent. Vlad's IsoD is actually pretty reasonable (.065), strangely enough. The man knows how to take a walk and has a good idea of the strike zone. The only other guys in the league I can think of who fits CCP's description is Jeff Francoeur and Ronny Cedeno...and neither is doing all that well. The other thing is, freakish IsoD guys like Mark Bellhorn, Adam Dunn, and Scott Hatteberg are pretty rare. The majority of guys in baseball fall between those two extremes. The thing is, in order for a guy to make it to the majors and be successful, he has to have selectivity at the plate. Look at Ryan Harvey down in Daytona, who is struggling down there despite being one of the best five tool prospects in the system. Everyone complains about the Ks, which is part of the problem, but the lack of walks has been what kills him. The guy can't recognize and adjust to various pitches, so he often ends up swinging at ones he shouldn't. His average is in the toilet because he has almost no plate discipline to speak of. Guys who accumulate a respectable number of walks in the minors are the ones who tend to climb the ladder and flourish. It shows good pitch recognition skills, meaning they know when to swing and when to keep the bat on their shoulder. A guy can't make it through the minor leagues if he isn't selective; better pitchers will shred him. I can't think of any guess hitters in baseball today who are worth a lick offensively. The other problem worth noting is (and this is true especially in the majors) the vast majority of players tend to stick around their career IsoD and K/BB numbers. Very few guys have been able to change their approach radically enough while in the majors in order to get to that level (Sammy Sosa being one of them). If you pick up a .300/.310 AVG/OBP guy thinking you're going to teach him how to take walks, odds are really good you will end up being disappointed. That would require overhauling his approach and making necessary adjustments to his mentality over the course of a season. Problem is, you have to keep drilling it into the guy's head and make it stick when you're attempting to make a playoff run and need the guy to be a successful contributor. He already has a number of habits and hitting philosophies in branded into his psyche...and now you're trying to remove them all and replace them with something else. It's possible, but it also would take a lot of work and entail plenty of failure and struggles on the player's behalf. If the guy goes down the tubes trying to implement these new habits, odds are pretty good you'll be shown the door by the end of the season.

Box Scores Mesa won 6-4 Box Score DH L. Rosario 2/4, BB, RBI, 2B (1), SB (1) CF D. Rundle 0/3, 2 BB, 2 K LF C. Andersen 0/3, BB, R, K 3B M. Gonzalez 1/3, BB, R, K PR/1B L. Murphy 1/3, R, RBI 2B P. Lopez 1/1, 2 BB SP C. Platt 2 hitless, 1 R, 0 ER, 1/0 K/BB, 4-1 GO-FO RP O. Bernard 3 scoreless, 2 H, 2/4 K/BB, 0-4 GO-FO Everyone else with the day off! OVERALL: 1-0

There are a few things worth noting about that argument... For one, AVG is a streaky measure and indicator of performance. Many people on this board are proponents of metrics like BABIP because, frankly, accumulating a high average oftentimes requires luck. Granted, some guys are able to put up those numbers thanks to line drives and hard hit balls. However, frankly speaking, it's pretty easy for hitters to have fluctuations in their batting averages from season to season. That said, there is something to be said for the importance of walks beyond not making outs. A player's IsoD is a very good indicator of how selective and patient he is at the plate. One of the problems with this team is the fact that most of these guys have little to no ability when it comes to judging balls at the plate. A guy who draws a lot of walks is likely a very selective and smart hitter at the plate, you know?

Man...Howard's got some incredible power.

Phil Garner needs to take on a Yosemite Sam style of speaking!

David Ortiz doing his best David Wright impersonation.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd he ends it on a "SON OF A *****"

That man has one heck of a potty mouth.

Wright dropped the s-bomb again!

Cabrera had a nice go of it.

Berkman got a freebie, haha.

Nice 2nd HR, but otherwise uneventful for Tejada.

I personally enjoyed pre-show when Jim Thome randomly came out of nowhere and started yelling/rambling at Harold Reynolds during an interview with Mauer and AJP.

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/3439/41049894insect63cv.jpg