I had a smile on my face throughout all of last night's game because I knew he couldn't come up and pinch-hit.

about time

No, the Mets will rue the day they cut him.

Neyer has an interesting blog about how it's quite reasonable that if he hadn't played 5 years outside of MLB, he'd very likely have 3,000 hits by now. How about the arguments to be made for and against his HoF credentials, if that had actually occurred?

Even with 3000 hits, I don't think he's HOF material at all. I'm just so amused how he's almost 50 and still decent enough to be a bench player.

why is that?

I don't know, bad karma. Franco transcends a normal baseball player. Any team that cuts him doesn't get my support. :D

Fixed. Guy can't get around on an 85 MPH fastball.

Ichiro gets $18M per year. That's reasonable.

Yeah, 5/$90 is at the high end of the scale. Frankly, I don't think I'd want my team paying him that. But I was also one of the "Schmidt was a huge bargain" guys ;)

That said, he's a huge marketing tool and I'm just looking at it from a purely baseball perspective.

SI

Dunno how much stock you put in the number-crunching Tom Tango ('tangotiger') does, but he's done a ton of research on marginal win value - basically, the current market value for wins a player provides above a replacement-level player. From his calculations, he has Ichiro being worth (from strictly a baseball standpoint) at least $20M per year. Dave Cameron at USS Mariner runs similar calculations based off of Tango's work and has Ichiro being worth even more than that (he likely has Ichiro rated higher defensively than Tango).

Bottom line being, based off of where the market is currently - and keep in mind that's heavily influenced by the big spending boom last off-season - there are a number of strictly on-field numerical arguments that rate Ichiro's deal as at or below current market-value.

Now, there's certainly risk there given the length of the deal and his age - the M's have to assume there won't be a major decline in his productivity over the length of the deal. There are certainly valid reasons to think he'll age pretty well, but you never know for sure.

I'm pretty happy about it, and outside of a few cranks that have developed this misguided notion that Ichiro is a selfish, me-first player, pretty much all of Seattle and the Mariner fanbase is happy about it.

Brandon Inge is the fucking MAN!

Yay! Andruw with the clutch walk and Francoeur with the clutch hit! They're both so clutch.

Fixed that for you...;)

I just hope Inge gets half the press Jeter did for that play he made a couple of years ago. A foot to the right, and he would have hit the handrail and been messed up badly.

I haven't seen those numbers. I've just read some of the stuff marginal wins per buck and whatnot over at BP. Speaking of which, when did the Hit List become BP Premium?!? That's one of their biggest fluff pieces with hardly anything of statistical value but it was an entertaining read every week.




I think the first paragraph has the information that I'm going after. I posted in one of the other threads around here that I don't think this dollar flow increase is going to keep up much longer. People think this huge growth of the past couple of years is going to keep going infinitely. They thought that a few years ago, too, and then the market not only lowered its rate of increase, it actually pulled back. I don't think the latter is going to happen but the rate of increase is going to drastically slow in the next couple of years as most of the new stadiums are done and the rapid dollar growth from things like mlb.com are going from new income to expected with much less growth.

I think people think he's bulletproof and, while speedy players do hold up longer, he still is going to be 39 at the end of that contract. And the speed's definitely going to be much lower by then, which really will hurt his value as a player who derrives much of his offensive and defensive value from his fleet feet.

SI

Hahahahahahaha. You think something in Detroit will get as much attention as anything Jeter does? We heard more about ARod's wife and some swear word on a shirt than the average game for 2 weeks. But it's a nice thought anyways.

Awesome play, tho :D

SI

seconded

The Yankees/Rays game has been really entertaining. Back and forth, some great plays, and now the Rays attempting to mount a comeback against Rivera. Come on, Rays!

Freaking Rays threw away that game.

Fuck ESPN. Not only do I not give a shit about the ESPYs, but I'm sitting here wondering why I can't see any of the mid-afternoon games on the Extra Innings package, and then I realize that the ESPN Sunday Night game starts at 6pm because of the ESPYs, and I'm assuming they have an exclusive for Sunday night, so the Extra Innings package pulled all of the 4pm starts. Fuck ESPN.

Stupid. Now it looks like we're going to lose, because Teix just hit a go ahead hnomerun in the 11th.

Here's what I mean by stupid (re: Angels-Rangers today). It's the bottom of the eighth and we have the bases loaded with two outs. Joaquin Benoit is having some control issues. It's 3-1 to Jeff Mathis. One of the pitches he took as a ball was a high up fastball that curved to the inside corner. It was an obvious ball, and Mathis wisely took it. Move ahead to the 3-1 pitch. 3-1, mind you. A walk practically wins the game, because we're in Anaheim (and K-Rod's warming up for the ninth). Benoit throws exactly the same pitch as earlier--a high fastball, clearly out of the zone, curving inward toward Mathis. Benoit had just uncorked the pitch that would likely win the game for the Angels. So what does Mathis do? Does he take it again, as he did before? No, of course not, the stupid rookie flails wildly at it and pops it up for the final out. WTF. I can take trying and failing. But I hate stupidity. And that was just plain stupid, even for a rookie. And stupid for the coaching staff, too, because why wouldn't they have told him to keep his freakin' bat stitched to his shoulder unless that pitch was literally right down the middle of the plate?

Gah, I obviously care too much. Stupid rookies.

Andy Phillips did something similiar in the 5th against the Rays...Yanks have a man on by walk, Phillips swings and misses on 3-1 and what would have been ball 4. Except he got lucky and hit a liner to CF on the 3-2 pitch, and BJ Upton overran it, mised it, and he ended up with a triple. That hit was bizarre - the ball curved toward RF so Upton took off, and then at the last second, the ball appeared to curve back towards left-CF, and upton looked like an idiot flailing backwards to try to grab it.

Tigers about to split with Mariners...I'll take that.

Scary moment in the Tigs/Ms game for Ms fan as Ichiro took a Verlander FB to the knee. They say its just a bruised thigh right now though.

Wouldn't know, I couldn't watch it! :mad:

Phillies looking good in midseason.

Cubs pick up Jason Kendall for Rob Bowen and a minor leaguer.

Whoo.

The Blevins guy the A's got looks like he has some potential - nice deal by Beane to get something of possible value for the remains posing as Jason Kendall.

I know he's played like shit in Oakland, but 1) he's only 33, has at least a couple years left in him and 2) even if he continues hitting as he has, he's STILL better offensively than any Cubs catcher this year, post-Barrett.

I always liked Kendall. He was one of my favourite catchers when I first started playing Baseball Mogul.

Kendall was on steroids anyways. 2 HRs in 292 ABs for Kendall?? I mean seriously.

It's amazing how one team can be in the top 3 in every hitting category, and in the bottom 3 in every pitching one. I'm boycotting this season, at least as long as Jose fucking Mesa is on the roster.

Ditto (though it was OOTP for me). I was praying we'd nab Kendall a few years back when Hendry just ganked anyone and everyone from Pittsburgh.

About the only thing I can see going for Barrett is that maybe a move to the NL inflates his numbers a little.

He's been so awful as a hitter for the last 3 years that it's hard to imagine there's much of a chance of him rebounding in the future given his age and his recent trends. His power has completely deserted him, and his ability to draw walks has gone away this year. This would be at least somewhat palatable if he was considered a plus defensive catcher, but that's not the case either.

Outside of a couple of moderate rebound years in 2003-04, it's been since 2000 that Kendall was been a star hitter, and he's been flat-out awful since he joined Oakland. One of Billy Beane's few outright busts.

His numbers don't tell the whole story, though. He's a great situational hitter. He does the little things you don't see in the box score.

Ksyrup been hanging with Joe Morgan too much.

No, I've been hanging around here too much.

Like grounding into double-plays? :D

Actually, GIDPs are in box scores. I'm talking more about things like moving the runner from second to the dugout on a 2-out groundball, or straightening up the Gatorade jug and cups when a teammate throws a fit. He does rank #1 on the list of fewest times thrown out trying to stretch a hit into extra bases per number of career hits, since 1970. So when he gets that rare opportunity in Chicago, he'll be golden.

Jerry Narron had this to say: "He gives everything he has every day. He plays the game the way it's meant to be played."

not to mention he led the Pirates to their first World Series title in decades.

This usually translates to, "He sucks at baseball, but everyone in the clubhouse likes him and we're pretty certain he's not on steroids."

More chat fun:


Mark (Philly): I don't get it Rob. The Yanks have a good run differential so their record should be 53-37? Well guess what, It's Not! That stat is the dumbest stat I've ever seen, it means absolutely nothing. It's not like the league adjusts the teams records after the season based on run differential, so please stop bringing this up.

Rob Neyer: I'll say this real slow, Mark, so you might understand it (and again, I'm not judging you at all) . . . It. Is. Not. After. The. Season. Yet. And you know what? Even after the season, the run differentials will tell us some interesting things about NEXT season. I would admit the possibility that I'm wrong about this, except I've got a few thousand team-seasons backing me up.


Alas, no Joe Morgan today, I guess.

LOL, great response by Neyer.

I like Neyer, even though I don't really read him for much insight anymore. He was my (and I suspect many other people's) "gateway drug" into sabremetrics, and actually understanding things, rather than relying on tired cliches.

Jason Kendall says fuck you and the SABRhorse you rode in on, how about that cliche? :)

Really, that response perfectly sums up why I hate reading sabermetric sportswriting. Neyer is a condescending tool.

In his defense, (a) he's writing for his audience, and (b) that was the second question/comment of the chat about the same thing.

This was the first one. And usually, he gives about what he gets, and that one I posted above was not exactly a respectful comment to begin with from the poster.



Rob (Portland, OR): The problem with run differential, Rob, is that ploayoff teams are determinbed by RECORD. That's wins and losses. The Yankees have a great run defferentail, an all that its gotten them so far is a .500 record. .500 records don't make the playoffs in the AL, regardless of their RUN DIFFERENTIAL.

Rob Neyer: Rob, you're missing the point, Rob. It's NOT the end of the season yet. You can look at wins and losses all you like, but if you really believe in them, then put all your money on the Mariners. I'll bet you can get good odds.

so what, he's saying the yankers are going to make a big run?

Ben (NYC): Rob, which BP postseason odds should I believe: standard, PECOTA-adujusted, or ELO-adjusted? The ELO-adjusted projections give the Yankees the best chance, not that you should choose those just to appease me or anything...

Rob Neyer: Ben, I don't have the foggiest idea. I wish BP would run just one of those reports, or at the very least, tell us which one of them has most accurately predicted the future. However you slice it, though, the Yankees have something 1-in-5 or 1-in-6 chance of making the playoffs, based purely on their current personnel.

The questions are picked for a reason - I guarantee you there are good questions not being responded to. They pick the questions to make the average baseball fan look dumb, and Neyer look smart. His whole schtick is "if you don't agree with everything I say you're an idiot."

No, I don't think that's his schtick at all. In fact, if you read his blog, most of the time he specifically defers to others and gives credit for their research/thoughts on subjects, often with a sense of self-deprication. And mostly, he throws stuff out there without really coming to a definitive conclusion, leaving it to the reader to determine the import of the discussion points.

But there's no doubt that during chats, he definitely is entertaining with the zingers. And those kinds of posts usually deserve them. From the ongoing discussion about a particular poster getting 3-4 posts every chat, I get the impression he's just answering what they give him, so if someone is pulling the strings, I'm fairly certain it's not him.

In addition that question was deserving of said response. When someone says that "the dumbest stat I've ever seen", I think the response is warrented.

I've always like Neyer and I think he did no wrong with that one.

Crap, the Giants finally won a game. Now watch Brian Sabean trade Tim Lincecum for a 40-year old minor leaguer and a bag of Corn-Nuts.

A jumbo size bag, he's not an idiot. :rolleyes:

Now here's a great line from Neyer in a recent blog piece:


As Tom Haudricort reports, Weeks has been benched in favor of that ambiguously major league duo, Tony Graffanino and Craig Counsell.

Julio Ain't Done Yet
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2941209

Yes!

You should change your screen name to JulioFranc.

I see that Derek Lee has dropped his appeal and will serve his suspension from his brawl on June 16th. IIRC he would have had to wait until the next time he was in New York to have his appeal heard by MLB. Is this still the case and if it is, has MLB not heard of video conferencing?

:D

I indeed might... stupid Vick ruining my online name. Although my first name isn't Julio, and my middle name isn't Franctor.

Guess I should start thinking of alternate online names though.

Marcus Thames just made a great diving catch in the 8th, but appears to have hurt his leg/knee. I couldn't tell what his problem was, but it looked like his knee flopped around pretty good as he hit on the turf.

EDIT: Looks like a hamstring, so hopefully nothing big.

Ugh, Bonds has been a one man wrecking crew today, just hit his second homerun of the game.

Dat guy hit good! :eek:

He may get another at-bat.....

Didn't his attorney say that they expected word by the end of this week as to whether he would be indicted for perjury? Wouldn't it be something if he gets indicted the day he ties or breaks the record?

The grand jury term expires today, I think. So unless it's extended, if there's going to be an indictment, it should be by close of business.

No, it wouldn't. You take way too much glee in this stuff...

Apparently the term's been extended. I say apparently because the local news is inferring this from the fact that Greg Anderson hasn't been released.

Better if it stops him at least one short.

In my books anyway.

Prepare to be dissapointed

Oh I'm fully prepared. I've been continually dissapointed by MLB ever since it started turning into a glorified home run derby.

Wait a minute, Julio Franco can't get off of the Mets bench but he can start for the Braves?

I always find it funny that when someone speaks up for Bonds, it is inevitably a Giants fan or a Bay Area resident. We all stick up for our guys, but I would think there would be a line where you wouldn't do it just for the uniform anymore. If Bonds were an Angel, I would nevertheless boo him mercilessly.

Glee? All I said is wouldn't it be something - like, a major coincidence that the two events might occur one right after the other. What am I supposed to be happy about, anyway? However you slice it, the terrorists win.

Shit, I liked the guy when he was in Pittsburgh, and I'd like him even if he was playing for the Rally Monkeys. So much for that. :D I admire a guy who's intelligent, plays hard, and has been probably the greatest baseball player I (or most of us) will ever see. Every would-be "Brahmin" that Bonds offends, every moralizing blowhard sportswriter w(especially those who believes that character assignation should be reciprocated with goodwill)- well, those are all bonus points in my book.

Slugfest in LA tonight between the Mets and Dodgers. Glavine going for his 299th win, given a 6-0 lead before he takes the mound and can only make it 2 innings.

I'm a Blue Jays fan and I would've paid him $18m for one season, rather than paying Frank Thomas that for two.

I don't think he's evil like some do and I don't care that he's not personable, that he's viewed as a jerk and that people think he cheated. None of it matters to me, really.

He's the greatest hitter of our generation and it was a delight to see him (hit a homer, no less) in person in St. Louis during the year he was breaking the single-season record.

It's always nice when one of the biggest homers ever calls other people out on their homerism.


Look at this way. Even if Bonds juiced every day he was in a Giants uniform, which he may or may not have, he's risking his health to make a team I pull for have a better chance to win. Besides, it's not like everyone else wasn't doing it. I find it funny that people from other teams get all pissy when odds are right around 100% that someone they've pulled for in the past used a PED.

And, look, it's not like Bonds juiced for a year and won MVP, like Ken Caminiti and his laced Snickers bar. Bonds was winning MVP's way before he bulked up. Does 40/40 mean anything to you? At worst, he knew what the other guys were doing, and did it to keep up. Except he's leaps and bounds better than everyone else, so when he does it, he outdoes whatever everyone else who was on the juice did.

He's not a rapist, wife-beater, deadbeat dad, dog-fighting promoter, drunk driver, or lawbreaker in any other way. Steroids=victimless crime. If someone chooses to drink themselves to death a la Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, fine. If someone chooses to do something that hurts nobody else at all, and they are fine with the risks they are taking, fine.

Barry Bonds has provided me with so many moments of pure glee, joy, and amazement past the years where I supposed to feel those childish ways. Do I want those memories erased because he might have done what most other ballplayers were doing? No.

Let's take a look at why anabolic steriods are illegal at all in the first place. Is it because of health concerns? Well, then any fellow libertarian should be pro-steroids....because you should be able to monitor what you as long as it doesn't harm others. It's your freedom as an adult.

God...the morality police are annoying as hell. Don't tell any of us who we should or shouldn't pull for. Get off the soapbox.

hmm, I thought about this for a second and Frank Thomas is a much better deal for half the price.

Besides, Frank was always huge :D

Well, that's some fine rationalizin' you doin' there. Keep it up!

haha...maybe so....but at least my favorite teams aren't the forgotten siblings of more interesting local franchises.

And admitted homer though I am, I regularly call a turd a turd when I see one, particularly on my own teams. See my thoughts on Santana with the Angels, Pronger with the Ducks, do a search for my Lavin tirade from UCLA a few years back, or even look in the NBA thread for me ripping on Elgin Baylor.

You have the biggest turd in sports on your team, but that might as be sunshine coming out of his ass far as you are concerned.

Since I don't use my teams to justify my existence in this world, it doesn't match matter to me how they compare to other local teams. :)

And USC sucks. :D

You and I have different definitions of the word "turd". Comparing Barry Bonds to Ervin Santana, Steve Lavin, and Elgin Baylor (the exec, not the player)?

Yeah, maybe Barry Bonds isn't everybodys ideal match on EHarmony, but calling him a "turd"? What exactly is your criteria here?

Well, I don't use local teams to justify my existence either. I fully realize there is no justification for my existence. ;)

Those USC/UCLA games in both football and hoops are gonna be some kind of fun to watch next year.....

For me, I hate Bonds because to my opinion, regardless of the legality or illegality of steroids, it's an ethics issue.

That he feels he has to use steroids to go after what most would consider to be sacrosanct records disgusts me, the same disgust I feel for McGwire (and, I would suspect, Sosa).

Giambi I can at least somewhat respect because he owned up to it.

Chris Carpenter is having Tommy John surgery...:(

Giambi didn't "own up to it." He was the only one to make direct admissions in his GJ testimonny, and when that got leaked, he had nowhere to hide. He was essentially outed. Bonds, at least, allegedly lied about knowingly taking steroids, which is why he may or may not be facing perjury charges. So he has his alleged lies to fall back on, even though that testimony was leaked. The only reason Giambi's course has gone as it has over the past couple of years is because he was truthful before the GJ. I guess you can give him props for that, but had the GJ testimony never leaked, he'd still be denying ever taking the stuff to this day.

I don't really care about Bonds breaking the record. I'm not going to be disgusted, I'm going to be disinterested. And frankly, that's worse than being disgusted, because this should be a moment that is celebrated. But even without the steroids, it would be hard to be happy for such a pathetic human being. However, I would still get caught up in the moment, the same way I was back in 2000 or 2001 when he broke McGwire's record. With the steroid issue, though, it just clouds it further, because it's one thing to accept that an asshole holds a legit record, and another to say that person may not have even gotten it legitimately.

I think you are confusing unwavering and direct hate for telling you who you should or shouldn't pull for. That's ok. It's confusing. Even before he was outed as a user, he was the biggest asshole in baseball. And I'm sure he and his fans love every minute of it. Everyone loves being the "outsider". It just makes them all the more closer to the apple of their eye to know that everyone is pulling against them.

And I like how all those steroids helped Bonds win a World Series ring. Oh, wait....

As if the SABR-hating part of Joe Morgan isn't bad enough, there's this.....




July 20, 2007 -- IT ain't so, Joe! The self- mutilation of ESPN, the systemic destruction of what once promised to be the best thing that ever happened to sports fans, continues, on all fronts.

Sunday night on ESPN the Cardinals were beating the Phillies, 10-0, in the eighth inning.

That was before ESPN's pathetic ESPY Awards, but after ESPN's pathetic "Who's Now?" segment, and before and after ESPN's pathetic sudden enthusiasm for the Arena Football League, which until this year, when it became an ESPN property, ESPN ignored.

Cardinals-Phillies was part of ESPN's pathetic "Sunday Night Baseball" coverage. The Phillies were about to become the first Major League Baseball team to 10,000 losses. And Joe Morgan, ESPN's No. 1 baseball analyst, a fellow whose wisdom is often laced with convoluted, confounding and contradictory nonsense, was moved to tell a national audience about the significant role he played in Phillies history.

The year, Morgan told us, was 1964, that calamitous season when the Phillies blew a 61/2-game lead with 12 games left by losing 10 straight. Morgan said he made his major-league debut late in '64, against the Phillies. And it was in that game that his RBI single beat the Phillies, extending their infamous losing streak to eight or nine.

Morgan added that Phillies manager Gene Mauch was so upset he threw over the buffet table in the clubhouse, hollering that his club had just been beaten by "a Little Leaguer!"

Great story. But unless Morgan was confusing himself with Reds rookie infielder Chico Ruiz, it never happened. As several readers were moved to write, the Phillies played the Reds, Braves and Cardinals during that losing streak; Houston wasn't in the mix.

Furthermore, Morgan, though called up in 1964, did not have an RBI that season for Houston.

And he did not make his big-league debut in '64, either. That came Sept. 21, 1963, when he went 0-for-1, pinch-hitting against the Phillies. The next day, Morgan did have an RBI single to beat the Phillies, but those Phillies were well out of the race and not in the throes of a historic collapse; they'd actually won four of their previous five games.
Can you confuse such significant and presumably memorable facts about your career? It hardly seems possible, but I suppose you can.

The same bogus story appeared in a Baseball Digest story about Morgan that was published in 2000.

ESPN, through a spokesman yesterday, acknowledged that Morgan's biographical account Sunday was incorrect, that he likely confused his 1963 circumstances with the Phillies' 1964 circumstances. Morgan could not be reached for comment, but ESPN said it expects him to make a correction on his next broadcast, this Sunday.

Fair enough. Still, Morgan seems to be just one symptom of what ESPN has become, that no matter what you watch, listen to and read that carries the ESPN brand, ESPN should just tear it up and start over.

We're number 4! We're number 4!

Royals are tied for 4th with the White Sox. Huzzah

Tied for 9th worst record in the league after a 5-4 road trip against the Indians (1-2), Red Sox (2-1), and Tigers (2-1).

SI

We hit a homerun!

The Angels broke a 14 game, 132 inning streak of homerless play. Way to go, Angels. :rolleyes:

On another good note (but no backhands here), Joe Saunders finally returns to the rotation and hopefully for good. Prior to Santana being sent down Wednesday, we would have just chalked this one up to a loss. Someone finally handed Scioscia and Stoneman a clue and they are lettign Ervin work out his issues at AAA.

Now if we could wake the offense up. But that would mean Stoneman would have to make a trade...(and no, the Molina to Yanks deal doesn't count).

Nomar hit two hr's this series! Woot!

And played out of position to allow the winning run to score.