Transmogrified Tiger

Agonz has neifi in OBP and slug this year, for the record. and he's cheaper A-Gone is not cheaper than Neifi $1.75 mill vs. $1.00 mill and he is .008 higher in OPS. Not worth the extra $750,000 this year. Neifi has incentives that come with playing time that increase his contract up to 2.5 mil total. I'd bet that he's made up the 750k difference, since I don't know the specifics of the incentives.

Meaningless is an excellent word for that. Yep, Carpenter walks fewer guys while K'ing the same amount. Clemens gives up fewer HR. Then again, this is new information that wasn't presented less than 10-15 posts ago. And after all these pages, the cumulative stats still favor Clemens despite his lack of innings and your repeated doggedness to this point. And, as was brought up 5 pages ago, this is a discussion over who DESERVES the award, not who ultimately will receive it, deserving or not. I'm not about to re-read the entire thread, but I can virtually guarantee that everyone was saying that Clemens should, not will win the Cy.

Really? Have you read my opinions in the "MVP" thread? Not biased toward Pujols, at all. How about the thread titled "Who will win the World Series". My pick? Not the Cardinals, but the Red Sox. Did I campaign for ANY Cardinal to win ANY award last year? No. I believe that Bonds deserved the MVP, and there were no Cardinal pitchers worthy of the Cy Young Award. So you point isn't really valid. He was talking about the STL media, not any individual poster. Not that he would know since you've only been with us for 3 weeks. This is getting out of hand. They have nearly identical K rates and WHIPs. Carpenter walks fewer guys, Clemens gives up fewer home runs. Your entire argument is predicated on the fact that Carpenter pitching more innings at that pace makes him better, which has been refuted by metrics that take this into account. Then we go off into situational nonsense in an attempt to basically cut down Clemens for whatever reason, logical or not, with a sidetrack into team dependent rubbish like Wins and team success. This, all without bringing up the fact the near three quarters of a run difference in their ERAs. What "whole package" are you talking about?

Excellent Cheap Seats reference. note: My memory is fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure it was Garvey who hosted that fishing tourney that Cheap Seats parodied. In regards to Dusty, I have no idea what he's talking about.

Hitters: 1. Pie 2. Cedeno 3. Murton 4. EPatt 5. Sing Pitchers: 1. Gallagher 2. Nolasco 3. Pinto 4. Hill 5. Ryu

I was pretty impressed until I got to the subheading. After that it went downhill. I also had to read "also-random" about 4 times before I realized what he meant.

I don't know if they are worse that the Rockies, but they are pretty bad. Well sure, but consider all of baseball. Tampa, KC, Pittsburgh, Colorado are all locks at the bottom, and that takes up 4 of the 5 spots. Throw in the other 6-7 teams that have worse Winning % than the Cubs, and it's pretty apparent that there's bias/bitterness/pettyness at work there. I'm not saying the Cubs are as bad as KC or Tampa, but compare the relative resources and the Cubs have bungled this season pretty damn badly. It also seems to me like accusing people from St. Louis, even so called "journalists," of bias against the Cubs is kind of like Todd Walker complaining that Cards announcers are biased. I guess I have different expectations of the local TV outlet compared to the Sunday edition of a newspaper with the scope of the P-D. To each their own I guess.

Because they are. Jones isn't even the MVP of his own team. The numbers on this are obvious to anyone who choses to look. It's not even close, like with Pujols and Lee. I agree, I don't know the exact context of Buck's quote, but looking strictly at Pujols v. Jones, there's no contest.

I don't know if they are worse that the Rockies, but they are pretty bad. Well sure, but consider all of baseball. Tampa, KC, Pittsburgh, Colorado are all locks at the bottom, and that takes up 4 of the 5 spots. Throw in the other 6-7 teams that have worse Winning % than the Cubs, and it's pretty apparent that there's bias/bitterness/pettyness at work there.

This reminds me when I saw this Sunday's Post-Dispatch. Three of their columnists did a top 5 and bottom 5 teams, and the Cubs were on the bottom 5 in 2 of the lists. One had them below the Rockies.

Carpenter's extra innings of great performance are taken into account in more advanced metrics. Clemens still comes out ahead. Which "metric" measures this: The Cards and Astros battled for 13 innings Friday night (the Astros ultimately won the game). The bullpens were spent. So on Saturday, Clemens and Carpenter squuare off. Clemens bails out after 5 innings (having given up 2 earned runs), with his team trailing 2-1, and Houston ends up having to use 5 more relievers, after the 13-inning affair the night before. Clemens didn't give himself a CHANCE to win that game, really. Carpenter, meanwhile, clearly didn't have his best stuff (was in alot of trouble early), but battles for 9 innings, giving up only 2 runs, and gives his team a completely rested bullpen for the next day's game. This isn't the first time that Clemens has bailed out of a game early. But hey, at least he's keeping his ERA and "WARP" intact!! Carpenter is now on pace to pitch at least 28 more innings than Clemens this year. That's the equivalent of 4 extra games. You don't think that makes a difference to a team? Carpenter's downfall is one bad start, back in April. One bad start has cost him, but people forget that he's going to pitch the equivalent of 4 extra games over Clemens. Oh, one more thing. Carpenter has now pitched 24 innings at Minute Maid, and has a 1.13 ERA there. So don't give me this crap about how what Clemens is doing is "even more amazing, because of the park that he plays in". Minute Maid is playing as one of the most extreme pitchers parks in baseball this year. Yeah, Clemens really bailed. He said to himself, "I might be able to help the team further, but I might gain a little bit in ERA so I better not risk it. I'll just make up some stuff about my hamstring". If by "most extreme pitchers parks in baseball this year" you mean middle of the road with a slight lean towards hitters, than you'd be right. Busch is much more of a pitcher's park this year than MMP, but then again, I never brought up or even insinuated park factors were an issue.

That's what always made me wonder. How do they know?

Altogether, the Trib suks. They won't ante up for guys who could really help (Burnett), and they'll keep around those who need to go (Dusty). I'm pretty sure that it's Hendry's call on Dusty. To me, the Trib isn't the bad guy here. They've put up a 9 digit payroll, and if they keep it that way or even close to it, then I don't have any complaints with them(since I don't necessarily want Hendry gone). It's Hendry's job to allocate that hefty payroll to "the guys who could really help".

So what you're saying in a nutshell is "trust your eyes over the stats". I doubt you find Rate in any boxscore, and it's more reliable than the pliable perceptions of the individual.

Quick quiz, who was the better defensive RF, '04 Sosa or '05 Burnitz? Answer: They're basically the same, Rates of 105 to 106. HELL NO! Burnitz is a much better fielder. He has gotten to a lot of balls that would've gotten by Sosa, and he can actually hit the cut-off man. Got to look beyond the box score, man. agreed, i trust your judgement instead of statistics. Admitedly I do not know what goes into the "Rates" that are mentioned above but it does seem to me that generally speaking the fielding stats are not nearly as reliable as the hitting or pitching stats in measuring value. I do know that I would be very surprised if anyone that watched a significant amount of Sammy last year and Burnitz this year would come to the conclusion that they are about equal defensively. While I agree that fielding metrics are not as reliable as pitching or hitting(by nature they will always be), I'd say that I trust them more than other people's, or even my own, impressions. Different people are predisposed to certain players differently, and remember different plays differently. For example, I was surprised to find Macias was hitting nearly .300 at one juncture this year, but wasn't as surprised to find that he had only walked 3 or so times.

Quick quiz, who was the better defensive RF, '04 Sosa or '05 Burnitz? Answer: They're basically the same, Rates of 105 to 106.

give me a break...this guy always finds a way to cut down a young player and make excuses for an older player. his bias is so ridiculously obvious that i can't believe he even makes an effort to dispel it with his comments. well, i'd love to start cedeno at ss, but his throws to first run just a little bit into the runner. i think we'll go w/ neifi and his sub-.300 obp...his throws to first are awesome! No, you give me a break. Honestly, would this quote raise an eyebrow if any other manager had said it? If Tony LaRussa or Bobby Cox were saying this we would be saying, "see, it is their eye for detail and the level of excellence they demand of their players that gets them where they are". This is a perfect example of people who already have made up their mind about Baker taking a perfectly innocent quote and trying to turn into evidence that supports their already-made-up-mind's position. Baker may deserve to be fired, but this quote has nothing to do with it. It's not the quote in a vacuum. Dubois "was never going to win a gold glove". Murton doesn't have enough power. Cedeno's throws "run a little bit into the runner". Yet when others(read: not rookies) play horribly, Dusty says that "they're just unlucky" or some other incomprehensible nonsense to defend them. It's a double standard, backed up by his actions and his words.

Why? B/C CPatt's a major liability offensively. He is clearly not big league material. An absolute joke @ the plate. The games don't matter anymore. Wouldn't it make sense to have Corey try and improve his trade value(or earn a spot on next year's team, however you look at it)? We pretty much know what we've got with Hairston. Besides, with the defensive differential, Hairston's only marginally better than Patterson on the whole.

D. Eckstein ss A. Nunez 3b A. Pujols 1b J. Edmonds cf L. Walker rf M. Grudzielanek 2b J. Rodriguez lf E. Diaz c J. Suppan p There is a reason that line-up wasn't posted. Most people here don't care about the Cardinals. He cares, so he decided to post it, and I reckon that the several card fans who stop by these threads during Cubs/Cards games care too. Take it easy. The key word in my post being: MOST So some people care, and he does, no need to try and instigate something or just antagonize the guy.

I'll wait to see if he continues to do that for weeks.

D. Eckstein ss A. Nunez 3b A. Pujols 1b J. Edmonds cf L. Walker rf M. Grudzielanek 2b J. Rodriguez lf E. Diaz c J. Suppan p There is a reason that line-up wasn't posted. Most people here don't care about the Cardinals. He cares, so he decided to post it, and I reckon that the several card fans who stop by these threads during Cubs/Cards games care too. Take it easy.

I'm starting to resort to hoping someone pulls a Bowden in regards to Neifi to get him away from here.

By the metric you measure success, wins, we were better in 2004 than in 2003. In 2003 we just happened to play in a division with the mediocre edition of the Cardinals, not the Uber edition of 2004. It's only 2005 that has been a down year, and they will argue as such. On the manager opinion, yes that may be true, but every team's fans thinks that their manager is the worst in baseball. That rationale probably holds up when keeping them from getting fired, but getting extensions? That's just crazy.

Hahahahahaha, Bloomquist and McEwing? The guys at FJM should critique that article.

Dusty sounds like he might be lobbying for Neifi: because... ... He always manages to get some criticism in. But hey, Neifi was unlucky.