The official 2008 MLB thread

[ISiddiqui]

Don't forget the Yankees had this guy:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/strawda01.shtml

From 1996-1999 as well. Cokeheads and class!

[Lathum]

I was wondering when those 2 would come up.

They had gooden as well

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by RomaGoth

You guys are all completely missing the point here. I am not jumping off the bandwagon as you all put it so gently. First of all, is it really a bandwagon if I have been a fan for 30 years? I think not. My point is that I do not like the way they are running the organization. In the past, we put up with George's stupid crap because the Yanks had some class even when he was making an ass out of himself. Guys like Don Mattingly and Paul O'Neill did things with class. It is not that way anymore. Instead, they throw money around like it is meaningless, and the guys they bring in are almost always worthless and way overpaid. I do not really see this changing in the near future, so yes I am somewhat on the fence right now as to whether I should keep following them or if I should take a break.

As for Jeter, he is not the media circus that A-Rod is. Ever since A-Rod came to the Yankees it has been one thing after another, and none of it good. When is the last time anything positive was mentioned in connection to his name.

Will I stop being a fan? I am not sure right now. A friend of mine who has been a Yankee fan for much longer than I have says who cares what they do anymore, it is all embarrassing. All he wants is for them to beat Boston. Maybe I should just take that approach instead and be like the other millions of brainless fans that don't care what their team does as long as they win, right?

Dude, you and your 30 teams that you're a "die hard fan of" - I'm sure you'll claim to be a lifelong Red Sox fan by the end of this year.

[MrBug708]

Nomar had two HR's in yesterdays game. Who would have thought...?

[johnnyshaka]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Nomar had two HR's in yesterdays game. Who would have thought...?

How have the Yankees not dealt for him yet?

[Vince]

Rumors flying that Durham is going to the Brewers for long-shot speedy OF prospect Darren Ford. If the Brew Crew is willing to cover Sugar Ray's contract, I'm quite ok with that.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by Vince

Rumors flying that Durham is going to the Brewers for long-shot speedy OF prospect Darren Ford. If the Brew Crew is willing to cover Sugar Ray's contract, I'm quite ok with that.

There's only about $3 million left on Durham's contract this year (if I'm not mistaken) so I don't see it as a problem picking up his contract given Brewers owner Mark Attanasio's comments on how they are going for it this year and already have a $90 million payroll with the addition of CC Sabathia. Durham ought to provide nice insurance for Rickie Weeks and perhaps some kind of soft platoon will take place. I like Durham's OBP, which has been a weakness of the Crew.

I've also heard the rumors of a larger deal involving Jack Taschner going to the Brewers. Taschner is a Racine, WI native, and given the Brewers infatuation with Wisconsin natives, it doesn't surprise me.

The Brewers would be tacking AAA first baseman Brad Nelson onto the deal. He is the former top Brewers prospect (many moons ago) that stalled out due to injuries and such. He is having a resurgent year in AAA, and he's not too old at 25.

His line at Nashville is .300/.406/.481.

Ford is probably a 5th outfielder at best. He's by far the best runner in the Brewers system but hasn't hit a lick above low-A. He did show marginal power in low-A so he's shown he can be just more than a singles hitter.

[Crapshoot]

Yeah, Ford is absolutely useless. ON the other hand, if that $2.5M is for signing another Dominican prospect, I'm all for it. Otherwise, I would have taken my shots with draft picks (though I guess the Giants did not want to offer Arb).

[lungs]

Looking like it's Durham for Darren Ford and Steve Hammond.

We've talked about Ford, so I'll give ya the scoop on Hammond. He was old (24 when he was drafted out of college) so he is 27 now. Dominated the low minors and has struggled at AAA. Projects as a reliever at best, IMO.

All in all, the Brewers didn't give up much, and got somebody with a decent OBP. Not too worried about picking up Durham's salary, as the Brewers are already over budget this year, so what's another few million?

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Dude, you and your 30 teams that you're a "die hard fan of" - I'm sure you'll claim to be a lifelong Red Sox fan by the end of this year.

Yeah that was funny the first 47 times, not so much now.

[mauchow]

Jack Taschner to the Brewers would be a cool thing to see. Considering I've practiced with him in college. Neato. I've got $80 to spend on the Brewers(gift card), and that would be sweet to have him there.

[MizzouRah]

What a great weekend for the Cardinals!!!

Bring on Milwaukee!!!!!!

[lungs]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

What a great weekend for the Cardinals!!!

Bring on Milwaukee!!!!!!

What a great weekend for the Brewers!!!

Bring on St. Louis!!!!!!!

Should be a good series.

[lungs]

Giants pick up about half of Durham's remaining $3 million.

[mckerney]

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas: "I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

Oh please no. Fuck you Bill Smith. Any baseball GM who says something like that should be forced to resign in embarressment.

[Lathum]

why?

I think he is trying to make the point that the only stat that matters is wins

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by Lathum

why?

I think he is trying to make the point that the only stat that matters is wins

It seems like he was trying to make that case for pitchers the onlly stat that matters is wins because he's brining it up with questions if Hernandez should stay in the the rotation the rest of the year. If he does indeed believe that, he should probably not be a GM.

[Chief Rum]

While I hear what y'all are saying, I am reading that quote from a post-stat perspective. Meaning, the 16 wins or 10 wins are in the bag. For the here and now, dern straight I take the 16 wins over the 10 wins.

Now as for whether the 16 win guy is still on my team next year, that's something else...

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas: "I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

Oh please no. Fuck you Bill Smith. Any baseball GM who says something like that should be forced to resign in embarressment.

Oh, c'mon. It's not Joe Morgan where you know the guy believes it. It's just a GM sticking up for his player. It sounds like a response to a pedantic postgame guy asking about how Livan's ERA isn't that good but he just keeps winning.

What's he going to do? Throw his 47.. uh, 33 year old player with 300 innings per year under the bus in the middle of a pennant race because his ERA could be better?

SI

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas: "I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

Oh please no. Fuck you Bill Smith. Any baseball GM who says something like that should be forced to resign in embarressment.

Well, it's like this.

Take a guy with a start pattern that looks kind of like:

7 IP, 2 ER
6.2 IP, 2 ER
2.2 IP, 10 ER
8 IP, 2 ER
5 IP, 2 ER
6.1 IP, 3 ER
7 IP, 3 ER
7 IP, 2 ER
4 IP, 5 ER
7.1 IP, 3 ER
7.1 IP, 4 ER

That's just about exactly a 5.00 ERA in 68.1 IP over 11 starts.

Throw out the two horrendous days in there, and you've got a 3.38 ERA in the remaining 9 starts. That's a guy who's going out there and *mostly* giving his team a decent chance to win (3.38 in the AL is not that bad), but occasionally stinking the joint up horrifically. If he's 10-6 with an ERA like that, but that's what his start pattern looks like (and not 5 IP, 3 ER every time out), then looks are deceiving. It's easy to get seduced by wins, but it's easy to get turned off by a freakishly high ERA, too. It takes one bad start to balloon an ERA from 3.84 to a 5. To go back from the 5 I detailed to a 3.84 would take three starts of 7+ innings with 0 ER. If he goes 7+ per start with 2 ER each time out, he'd need just about 8 starts just to get back where he was.

Easy to make the mess, harder to clean it up.

That's not to say Hernandez is the greatest pitcher ever, just an ERA can be the result of one or two bad outings OR consistent suckitude. A guy who's three wins off the major league lead with a 5+ ERA either consistently gets picked up by his teammates (the higher the ERA, the more likely a pitcher is to leave as either the pitcher of record on the losing side, or have nothing to do with it), or has been better than his ERA would imply, but had a couple real hard-luck outings.

[SackAttack]

Now, granted, I'm not trying to say you leave the 2.80 ERA guy on the table. Just that the 5.00 ERA doesn't necessarily torpedo a guy. Looking at Livan, it looks like he's roughly a 3.80 ERA-type guy who's had a couple real bad outings.

Problem is, a 3.80 ERA guy with a couple of bad outings is going to have a more difficult time recovering than a 2.80 guy with a couple of bad outings. When you can pitch seven shutout innings in any given night, you don't have to worry about your stats, but when you're a consistent 6-and-2 or 7-and-3 guy, it makes you look worse.

[miked]

What he's doing is trying to justify why he keeps a relatively ineffective Livan in the rotation while Liriano posts a microscopic ERA in AAA so the union doesn't get him. Livan is the AL RHP version of Tom Glavine.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

After losing three players (2 RP's & a UTIL) to the DL yesterday, the Braves recall Francoeur after just three days in the minors. ... If I had to guess what'll happen, I think the most likely outcome is that he hits around .280 through the rest of July & then regresses back around .240-.260 for the rest of the season.

And now, two weeks later, let's see what's happening shall we?
8 games, 31 AB, 7 hits, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 5 K's, 1 BB

That's a .226 avg since the recall, actually dropping his overall AVG by one point since coming back. But hey, his OBP is up ... from .287 to .288

Yep, that trip to AA did him a world of good.

[molson]

I think we've reached the point where Wins are actually an underrated stat, at least as measured over the course of an entire season or longer.

A pitcher might pitch differently when he has a big lead, giving up some hits and runs he might not have otherwise. And Wins, as least over a period of time, can reflect a pitcher's ability to stay in a game later. A 5-inning starter is going to have less opportunities for wins than an 8-inning starter.

[Atocep]

As a heads up for anyone that might be interested, most of BP's content is free from now until the 27th. Details are posted here:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=950

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by Atocep

As a heads up for anyone that might be interested, most of BP's content is free from now until the 27th. Details are posted here:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=950

Thanks, I might have missed this without your post.

[miked]

The Dodgers are currently winning 11-1 and Andruw Jones is the only player on the team without a hit or run (actually, the pitcher doesn't have a hit, but he does have a run). Jones is 0-2 with 2K. He wanted 20M from the Braves??

[sterlingice]

We're just not going to talk about the Royals game last night. Tony Pena Jr was their best pitcher.

SI

[Galaxy]

Wow...The Mets are falling apart against the Phillies.

[samifan24]

Since we've spent a lot of time talking about the "state of the game" in this thread and in the media, especially over the recent all-star break, does anyone else think that MLB's refusal to allow clips on Youtube hurt them?

It's just my opinion, but I find navigating MLB.com's own video clips site to be very frustrating. I am a MLB.tv subscriber and think MLB generally does a pretty good job with that (blackout issues aside).

However, if I want to watch a clip of Royals SS Tony Pena, Jr. striking out Ivan Rodriguez in a game the other night, I better race over to Youtube quickly before MLB takes the clip down. Perhaps I would feel differently if MLB.com's video site were more user friendly but now I just wish I could watch clips on Youtube.

A friend and I were talking about Grady Sizemore's improbable steal of home in a game several years ago. Sizemore stole home off of a right-handed pitcher with a left-handed hitter at the place which is quite an accomplishment. I wanted to show this clip to my friend. It took me a good five minutes on Google to find a link to the original Indians.com story which linked to the MLB.com video player. I could have watched the clip three times on Youtube in the amount of time it took me to locate it on MLB.com. It's a very frustrating system to say the least.

[JeeberD]

Oh boy, we just traded for RANDY WOLF! Now we're fucking serious contenders!!!1!1!

[MizzouRah]

Jeebs.. at least your team is doing SOMETHING. Lohse pitches a gem tonight, but with zero confidence in the bullpen, he gives up 2 runs in the 8th to let the Brewers back into the game and BOOM! just like that we lose it in the 9th on a guy who's hitting like .230.. sweet!

Now we have to face CC and Sheets....

[mckerney]

Yay! Carlos Gomez didn't lead off tonight. Hopefully a trip to Rochester is in store for him next.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Jeebs.. at least your team is doing SOMETHING. Lohse pitches a gem tonight, but with zero confidence in the bullpen, he gives up 2 runs in the 8th to let the Brewers back into the game and BOOM! just like that we lose it in the 9th on a guy who's hitting like .230.. sweet!

Now we have to face CC and Sheets....

Considerng where we are in the standings, we should be in sell mode, not buy mode. Fucking Drayton...

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by samifan24

Since we've spent a lot of time talking about the "state of the game" in this thread and in the media, especially over the recent all-star break, does anyone else think that MLB's refusal to allow clips on Youtube hurt them?

It's just my opinion, but I find navigating MLB.com's own video clips site to be very frustrating. I am a MLB.tv subscriber and think MLB generally does a pretty good job with that (blackout issues aside).

However, if I want to watch a clip of Royals SS Tony Pena, Jr. striking out Ivan Rodriguez in a game the other night, I better race over to Youtube quickly before MLB takes the clip down. Perhaps I would feel differently if MLB.com's video site were more user friendly but now I just wish I could watch clips on Youtube.

A friend and I were talking about Grady Sizemore's improbable steal of home in a game several years ago. Sizemore stole home off of a right-handed pitcher with a left-handed hitter at the place which is quite an accomplishment. I wanted to show this clip to my friend. It took me a good five minutes on Google to find a link to the original Indians.com story which linked to the MLB.com video player. I could have watched the clip three times on Youtube in the amount of time it took me to locate it on MLB.com. It's a very frustrating system to say the least.

This is one of the many problems with MLB. Personally, I give thanks to Bud Selig everytime something goes wrong in baseball.

[Jas_lov]

The Yankees are now 6-0 since RomaGoth's tirade. They completed the sweep of the Twins today behind 39 year old Mike Mussina's 8 shutout innings as Moose improved to 13-6 on the season. Next up is a big series at Boston. It'll be interesting to see if they make any big moves before the deadline now that they're back within 2 of Boston and 4 of Tampa. They could use a big bat with Matsui and Posada probably lost for the season and another starting pitcher.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Jas_lov

The Yankees are now 6-0 since RomaGoth's tirade.

But are they doing it with class???

[Karlifornia]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Considerng where we are in the standings, we should be in sell mode, not buy mode. Fucking Drayton...

Stros are screwed for a while. The farm system has nothing but tumbleweeds blowing through it.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by molson

I think we've reached the point where Wins are actually an underrated stat, at least as measured over the course of an entire season or longer.

A pitcher might pitch differently when he has a big lead, giving up some hits and runs he might not have otherwise.

This is the argument that often gets used, but I'm not buying it. Sure, if your team is up 9-0, then you're probably not going to be as focused as usual, but if a guy has a much higher ERA over the course of the season, I don't think you can attribute it to having huge leads the whole year, unless he's pitching for the reincarnation of the 27 Yankees.

And Wins, as least over a period of time, can reflect a pitcher's ability to stay in a game later. A 5-inning starter is going to have less opportunities for wins than an 8-inning starter.

Can't this be measured by, I don't know, Innings Pitched? I mean, there are lots of reasons a pitcher could get a win or loss, many of them having nothing to do with how he actually pitched, much less how long he pitched.

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by Jas_lov

The Yankees are now 6-0 since RomaGoth's tirade. They completed the sweep of the Twins today behind 39 year old Mike Mussina's 8 shutout innings as Moose improved to 13-6 on the season. Next up is a big series at Boston. It'll be interesting to see if they make any big moves before the deadline now that they're back within 2 of Boston and 4 of Tampa. They could use a big bat with Matsui and Posada probably lost for the season and another starting pitcher.

My plan worked. They still need to dump Pavano though.

[MizzouRah]

May CC Sabathia lose tonight!

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

May CC Sabathia lose tonight!

That would be a no..

Now the Cubs just need to lose tonight and we'll be all tied up at the top.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Mustang

That would be a no..

Now the Cubs just need to lose tonight and we'll be all tied up at the top.

It was a joy to watch him pitch though.. wow.

[Mustang]

As a Brewers fan, that was the first time in a very very very long time that I could remember thinking, 'Just get one run and that should win it..'

[Lathum]

so is there ANY chance the Brewers resign him?

[BishopMVP]

When did homefield advantage become such a big deal? People in Boston have been talking about the Red Sox huge split (36-11 +25 at Fenway, 24-32 -8 on the road) but looking at the standings, it's almost league wide. The only exceptions are the Angels (+10 H, +13 A) Mariners and Royals, who are equally bad Home/Away. TB is +24/-6, NY comes closest at +11/0 (and are the only other AL team not under .500 away from home) Toronto and Baltimore are +7/-9 and +9/-12 respectively. Chicago and Minnesota in the Central have huge disparities too, with +19/-5, +15/-6.

Oh, and if you're a betting person on the AL East race, it's worth noting TB has a 56/44 split of home/away games thus far, NY is 55/46 and Boston has played 47/56. Record in 1-run games is 19-11 for TB, 18-11 for NY and 14-16 for Boston.

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by Lathum

so is there ANY chance the Brewers resign him?

My guess is no, but not because the Brewers won't try to resign him. I think he just want too much money for the Brewers to have a chance.

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by Lathum

so is there ANY chance the Brewers resign him?

I think there is a better chance they could sign him than Sheets. Sheets, Mota, Cameron and Gagne come off the books next year (around $30M of salary) so from a financial standpoint if they stick around the 85M range for payroll, they would have the money. I think it would have to be more in the 4 yrs, 80M range rather though rather than the 6 yr 130M range that I believe I've heard he wants just because they will have to pay alot of guys $ in 2-3 years (Hart, Hardy, Fielder). If they did 4 yrs then by the time he is done, that money could go to Parra/Gallardo when their time is due.

In the end, I see Sabathia in a Dodger's uniform next year.

[Young Drachma]

Pretty good Q&A on a Cardinals blog about prospects and trade scenarios. I thought it was pretty good.

Q&A with Erik from Future Redbirds | Pitchers Hit Eighth

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

How much is Fielder going to cost next year? That could be around $10 million of that $30 million right there, give or take. Hart's up for arbitration next year too, so maybe half that money coming off the books is going right back on it (unless Fielder is traded, which I think is a possibility).

Depends on how Fielder finishes the year. I'm not sure he will hit $10M, probably $7.5M. Hart/Fielder combined will probably be in the $12-15M range so, ya, much of that will go back in.

I wouldn't doubt if Fielder was traded either.