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QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:43 PM) They will not get the return for him. I think they offer arbitration. That would make absolutely no sense. If they want him back they'll re-sign him for significantly less than he's making now as opposed to giving him $7m+ for 1 year in arbitration.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:43 PM) Alexei had 6 sacrifice bunts last year and has 11 in his career. (I have no idea how many attempts). He's a terrible bunter, this I know for certain.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:35 PM) Lefties hit .116 off of Marmol. Righties actually hit .180 against him. For his career there's a near .100 point advantage for lefties in OPS and looking at individual matchups I like Kotsay against Marmol over both Ramirez and Quentin.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:32 PM) Do you support my nickname of the Bust Brothers for him and Beckham? Well I hate nicknames in general and I'm not giving up on Beckham just yet but it's really tough to stay optimistic about Carlos he does nothing well, some things horribly and hasn't shown any signs of improvement, he's definitely in bust territory.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:32 PM) We lose a game after winning 4 in a row and nobody can stand this team. Hilarious. Tonight was an awful offense performance but gimme a break. Gavin was the man tonight. We've scored 2 runs our last 2 games. The pitching is about the only thing to get excited about, when your offense is this bad most nights you're not going to win much.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:31 PM) Carlos Quentin has turned into a one tool player at best. Sad to see. He has possesses a tool? Could have fooled me.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:19 PM) Who else feels like a piano is off their back now????? Tremendous sigh of relief.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:17 PM) Kotsay should be batting for Jones now. Pierre can definitely steal against him. Agreed completely.

GREAT call by Ozzie to pinch hit Pierre. Outstanding.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:14 PM) Pierre PH. This would be an amazing time for him to actually get a bunt down.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:12 PM) 6 groundouts, 14 flyouts so far this game for the Sox. Isn't lilly a ground ball pitcher? Complete opposite.

A whole lot went wrong on that pitchout and it still worked.

Pierre/Kotsay, Jones, Ramirez to go. Can't say I have a ton of confidence.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 09:02 PM) Come on Gordon, really? Down by a run and you suck at baseball, do whatever you have to do to get on base.

A hit in the 8th likely means Marmol in the 9th. A hitless 8th means Pierre/Kotsay, Jones, Ramirez vs Lilly.

And this game has gone to hell.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 08:53 PM) Then you throw him that low and away offspeed pitch. Gavin's starting to lose command of his offspeed pitches, hang one and you're f***ed.

Soriano just looks scary as s*** in situations such as these, even if he is scuffling he's still intimidating.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 08:48 PM) Nah, hell would have been losing the first two games, and then Gavin going out like Moyer did in his last start. In terms of tension this is pretty close to as bad as it gets for a game in June.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 08:46 PM) Carlos just isn't very good. We're in a ton of trouble right now with regards to being no hit. Pierzynski, Beckham, Nix, Floyd (Kotsay? Pierre?), Jones, Ramirez Oh, s***.

This is just pure hell.

6 back in the loss column with a win.

Ok, had little time while watching the Nationals game to put some numbers together. This is a point I've been trying to make for a few weeks but I never compared it to any other closers in the game until now and the data proves out. You closer is typically your best relief pitcher and almost always your highest paid reliever because of this he's going to pitch in some big time situations and not all of them will be with the lead. Unfortunately all save percentage shows you is how often the closer relinquished the lead rather than how often he gave the other team the lead. Meaning: you don't always have to have the lead to give the game to the other team, closers are often asked to pitch in tied ballgames usually it's a home game in the top of the 9th, others on the road in extras. These situations are just as important as a save opportunity if not more so -- a blown save doesn't always end with the opponent taking the lead but breaking up a tie does -- but the stat that the majority of your baseball fans will point to when evaluating a closer does not account for these situations: save percentage (those who can't look to something like WPA). Anyway, I took all the closers in baseball with at least 10 saves and recorded the following info: saves, blown saves, save opportunities, games entered and exited with the score tied, games entered with the lead but exited with a deficit and total tied games entered and from there defined: All save opps (save opps + tied opps), all games saved (saves + games entered and exited with score tied), all games blown (blown saves + games entered with the lead but exited with a deficit) and from there I got True Save percentage which is all games saved divided by all save opps, this should give you a slightly better idea of a closer's success in standard closer situations compared to save percentage. Jenks ranked 21st out of 24 closers with an 80% success rate even though he ranks 5th in salary.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 13, 2010 -> 12:53 PM) I, personally, believe you need 1-2 people from your system each year to come up a learn in the MLB. Especially when you have $68M committed to 10 players in 2011 (one being Viciedo) and 4 others in their 2nd or 3rd year of arbitration. You need a steady stream of cheap young talent each year otherwise either the payroll gets out of control or you find yourself with numerous glaring holes on opening day because you had to go cheap.

2.08 HR/9 for Strasburg!