Jake

I think some might argue it isn't necessarily part of defense, but it's hard for me to promote a center that averages less than 7 boards a game for DPOY

Yeah, it has been widely suggested that cancer contributed to this. I found it quite upsetting - not so much because of how gruesome the end product was, but how fun that moment should have been, how simple a task he was doing, and the reason it all fell apart.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 31, 2014 -> 09:39 AM) One of those paid top-notch sportswriters need to know that slide shows suck and cause people to avoid reading your articles. One of those top notch forum posters needs to know that slideshows are absolutely money for generating clicks and their format gets your ads about [insert amount of slides here] more impressions than a straightforward, text-only piece. People want lists and slideshows on the internet and B/R was smart enough to jump on that gravy train before the rest of the sports media jumped on board

Gillaspie = 3 hitter of the future

George is still really good, but the guy who looked like a legit MVP candidate is long gone right now

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Mar 31, 2014 -> 12:29 PM) Though he probably wouldn't hit much worse than he did last year left handed. I'm guessing overall production goes down batting lefty (no more homers), but strikeout rate would actually improve. The relative lack of lefties he would face would allow for him to make a bunch of soft contact instead of swinging through sliders he can't reach

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 31, 2014 -> 01:07 PM) I have no idea what a versatile hitter is but I'd prefer the #3 slot to be a good hitter. A versatile hitter is a guy who isn't automatically wrong for most situations he might come up to the plate. You don't want a powerless guy, a pull-only guy, an only-homer guy, a no-walk guy, a high-strikeout guy, etc. He needs to be good enough to drive in your good hitters that are in front of him but also not so good that he's wasted by coming up with 2 outs and nobody on in the first all the time. He's versatile because he is a jack of all trades at the plate, at least against righties, which is when he will be batting third. Of the players in this lineup, Gillaspie had the second highest BB% last year. Paulie had a tenth of a percentage point better, but they aren't competing with one another for time anyway (and the guy who PK would replace had a much higher BB rate than PK). In this lineup, only two players had low K rates than Gillaspie, one of whom is Eaton who had almost the exact same K rate and the other is Alexei. He also had the third best isolated power in this lineup, after Dunn and Flowers. His overall production is middling in the context of this lineup, but... only Dunn and Avisail had a better wRC+ against righties and I'm not sure if I believe Avisail is going to rip righties like he did in the majors last year. If you like OBP, he's second to Dunn by only .003. And this is all despite significantly lower than career norms in BABIP despite good LD%, GB% relative to career averages. And we are learning more and more that the 3 hitter isn't supposed to be the kind of player that we always thought. They come up with empty bases more of than not and when they do come up with men on, they're often your base stealer types who need a well-rounded hitter at the plate to do their thing. One of the most statistically justified parts of lineup building is alternating righties and lefties, and he does that too for this lineup. Cliffs: -he actually is one of the better hitters in the lineup, at least by track record, and definitely against RHP -he does a variety of things well, especially against righties -the 3 hitter isn't as important as you think it is -it is very nice for our lineup that we can have it alternate lefty-righty without putting our only fearsome hitter (Dunn) in front of Abreu in the order QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 31, 2014 -> 02:25 PM) Thus proving that either they have never seen the guy play before, or that Hawk isn't the only Homer in baseball. The thing is that we didn't necessarily trade Rios because we thought he wasn't that good or because he was a bad guy -- he was just expensive, getting older, and we had just gotten a guy who could fathomably replace him for 6+ years at a much lower price

Gillaspie is a versatile hitter and left-handed. I don't want to see him get many ABs against LHP, but for now I'm not going to lose my mind over it. Surprised about ADA. I have a feeling we're trying to trade both ADA and Gillaspie and this may influence their playing time until those things happen. Makes perfect sense to have Lindstrom as closer. If he put up last year's numbers but as a closer, you could get a bunch for him at the deadline. It keeps Jones's arbitration value down. Works for me.

Paul George since 12/31 - 39.3% FG%, 32.6% 3P% ...only saving grace is that 89% FT%

Almost everything on B/R is now written by paid writers, including several top-notch sportswriters that they've snagged from NYT and other reputable publications

FWIW, keep in mind that Japanese pitchers only pitch every 7 days

Alex Liddi is a 1B. With that said, I feel no assurance that PK will do anything remotely useful

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 29, 2014 -> 02:29 PM) Last year he also started off the year being very complimentary towards the team's attitude. "not a butthole on the team" is a direct quote. Sometimes a team full of non-buttholes can be a team that isn't approaching things seriously

You'll be hard-pressed to find a respectable university that is for-profit

Or he could pull a Griffey and be worthless by the time he hits his prime

I wonder if the ADD prescription abuse is as bad as the 14% versus 4.4% suggests, though. For one, ADHD occurs more often in men, at least in such a way that it is likely to be diagnosed. From there, you have to wonder if something about baseball/athletics is more likely to attract people with ADHD.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Stop using a god damned flat tax, for christ's sake

There has been a lot of talk about how enthusiastic Nieto has been with working with the pitching staff. Very inquisitive, busts his balls learning each pitcher's strategy, etc.

Anything not being spent on tuition or absolutely mandatory student expenses (nope, that Macbook isn't a mandatory expense unless the school requires that every single person in your program/class has it) is taxable income - no payroll taxes, but taxable as income tax.

Welp, this is why I added that caveat. I hadn't checked since there were 2 or 3 games left in this season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 12:22 PM) Bostic played most of the year with nothing around him. I want to see him around real NFL linebackers, hell real NFL defenders, before making a good judgement This. Also, FWIW, he rated exceptionally as a pass defender per PFF. Best pass defense from a MLB in NFL since vintage Urlacher in their rating system last time I checked

The players union has no reason not to like keeping the good players out of the league another year

The most compelling argument regards injuries, but honestly it is far rarer for an NBA player to have their career derailed prematurely by injuries than in other sports where nobody questions more restrictive processes.

There are always going to be out-of-nowhere guys that put up great years. "Aces" and similar guys will always fall off the map. I wouldn't try too hard to predict the future of pitchers.