Transmogrified Tiger

He didn't have possession until he was falling though.

That's an incompletion everyday of the week if it's a WR trying to make the play, good call.

Now THAT is a terrible personal foul call.

They didn't even call it on the dude who wrapped him up, that was the weird thing.

McCoy definitely embellished it, but Lewis shoved him with 2 hands when there was no reason to. Maybe not a great call, but a dumb decision on Lewis' part.

Lowell is under contract through 2010 too, so they couldn't move Euclis to 3rd.

Which Cruz?

It was 3 weeks ago. Link

In this thread I'd like to list some guys who you think would be good buy low candidates. That could mean they sucked last year and you think you'll turn it around, they could've been very good and you think they'll become great, or maybe you think they'll be about the same and their team hates the player or something. Please provide some reasoning about the players you mention, that makes it more fun for everyone. I'll start with a popular one and one kinda off the map. Jeremy Hermida Hermida will be arbitration eligible for the first time on the notoriously stingy Marlins. He was subpar offensively for a RF, but he was quite good away from cavernous Pro-Player, he's only 25 next year, and he has a phenomenal minor league pedigree. He's not a negative on the basepaths or in right field either. Now for the fun one. Clint Barmes Barmes has been reduced to a part-time infielder for Colorado with Tulowitzki and Baker around. There are things working against him. He has a significant Coors split(although there is the hangover effect), and he'll be 30 next season. However, he had a nice offensive rebound after being hurt. He's a very good defensive SS, and we can be relatively certain he can hit LHP quite well. At best, Barmes plays SS every day and flirts with an .800 OPS there with plus defense while Theriot and Fontenot make the super-bayou platoon. At worst, he pushes Theriot to 2B while being a part of a platoon with Fontenot, replicating DeRosa's production out of 2B. In between you can play with how much time you give Theriot and Barmes to find a happy medium. Either way Cedeno is trade bait for someone looking for talent at SS. DeRosa is either an option in RF or a strong trade chip to a team looking to contend. And, with Tulowitzki, Baker, and Stewart all vying for time in the Colorado infield, plus Barmes being first year arbitration eligible, he shouldn't be super expensive to acquire.

This begins a stretch for Texas of #1 OU, #3 Mizzou, #17 Oklahoma State, and @ #7 Texas Tech. You want to root for Texas.

Can anyone point me to where I could find the final numbers for either Dewan's +/- or UZR? Or is that even out there?

If you're going to play that game, then you have to count every hit where he stole 2nd base as a double, and suddenly his slugging percentage doesn't look quite so bad. Not really, the point was that Theriot's baserunning doesn't hurt his sparkling OBP, and a 20-30 point difference depending on whose math was right is definitely significant. And even then, as SSR pointed out in different posts, SB don't achieve the same purpose of advancing and driving in runners as the rest of SLG, and Theriot's sub-.400 SLG even with SB is pretty abysmal.

Favorite Trash Talk Stories

I've found something to the effect of "please speak up, it's hard to hear you down in 4th place" can be pretty effective.

Howard's K's are the result of an approach that gets him a lot of K's, and a ton of hard hit balls/home runs/extra base hits, as well as many walks. If he changed his approach to make contact on half his K's, he'd probably be less productive.

Fontenot significantly outhit Abreu v. RHP last season.

Remember the talk how Baltimore was close to collusion with how badly they wanted Teixeira over the summer? Lee would be a backup plan for them in the absence of Tex. So unless it's feasible for us to sign Teixeira with Lee still on the club(doubt it), you can't really send Lee to Baltimore and sign Tex. Doesn't mean much if you want Dunn anyway, but it's an important consideration. As far as the west coast goes, the Padres don't need Lee, the A's won't want his contract, the Giants have nothing of value outside of Cain, and the Dodgers have Loney. So that leaves Lee+ for Cain, hoping Ned Colletti is completely insane(better odds than getting Cain), or the Angels, who only have what we have quite a bit of(non-ace SP).

I think it's going to get worse with another year of mediocrity and a general state of disarray for that franchise. The schadenfreude is all they'll have.

Theriot's OBP is an even .360 with CS included. That's pretty significant.

You want one of the only NL RFs that had a worse OPS than Fukudome? Why bother when you have Fukudome? Yes Hermida is only 24 (a significant advantage over Fukudome), but he also costs talent to acquire, for a net result of a short-term lateral move. The Cubs aren't going to do this, they want to win now. Because Hermida is cost-effective and probably undervalued due to his inability to hit at Pro Player(.203/.273/.312/.584; .288/.364/.487/.851 on the road). It's a Michael Barrett situation.

When was the last time Hendry traded away a player to open up a hole so he could replace it? When was the last time that happened when the player wasn't disgruntled?

Next Sunday, the 19th.

Mock BCS Standings(Using actual polls BCS uses) No. Team Pct. 1 Oklahoma .936 2 Alabama .929 3 Missouri .912 4 Texas .843 5 Penn St. .761 6 LSU .752 7 USC .619 8 Vanderbilt .616 9 Utah .615 10 Georgia .602 11 Texas Tech .563 12 BYU .503

Well, they can be related, but to say they go hand in hand is silly. To say that strikeouts are the main reason they'll never be the same is even more ridiculous, especially when you consider that Fontenot outperformed Pedroia in the time he played this season. Obviously that doesn't mean he would have if he played an entire season, but he pointed out that strikeouts will keep Fonenot from being as good as Pedroia. Okay, so why didn't they keep him from doing that this season in a pretty big chunk of at-bats? Think about all the crappy players who don't strike out and then think about all the elite hitters that do. In Fontenot's case, yes, they go hand in hand. Jeff wasn't making a blanket statement about strikeouts, he's pointing out that Fontenot's inability to make contact(especially his 25% K rate against LHP) is part of his physical/mechanical shortcomings that keep him from being a player of Pedroia's caliber.

Of course they're related, don't be silly. Pedroia and Fontenot aren't similar for many reasons, age, defense, speed, but most importantly, platoon split. Pedroia can hit right hand pitching quite well(especially for a RH 2B), Fontenot can't hit LHP. Fontenot is perfect for the role he had this year, platoon 2B and LH bench bat. He'd be great in a platoon with say, Ryan Theriot, if you wanted to get rid of DeRosa.