Balta1701

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 01:00 PM) I'd have to disagree. I have several friends and are big into GM and won't touch them due to design and reliability. (I've also read a few letters in the Hemmings magazine that completely rip on the soon to be new Camero. Of course there are a few that do like it as well.) I will add this, the GM vehicle I referred to above that I was driving around in High school was an absolute disaster, and that was for essentially a new car. Within about the first year and a half I had it, we had to take it to the dealer like 6 times with the same problem; engine struggling to start and a service engine soon light. On the last time, they basically held onto the car for a month and left it sitting on the lot the entire time. They didn't give it back until my dad called the dealership and spoke to the owner. Eventually we learned that there was a recall on some part in the fuel injector or something, but even that didn't fix the thing, and from the point the car was 2 years old you'd have to turn the engine over for about 10-15 seconds before it actually starts. Makes it really fun trying to jump the car if the battery dies, btw. Wait, fun isn't the word, impossible is the word. QUOTE(mr_genius @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 01:05 PM) actually, the Unions want them to make more SUV's and trucks. go figure. If that's true, then it's just about as stupid as the opposition the unions seem to have to increasing the CAFE standards.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 11:23 AM) I wonder what Jimmy Rollins' numbers would look like from last year. He already has a high SLG% adding in the SB would just make him even more of a beast. I wonder if I should just slap together a spreadsheet to do this. Rollins' actual #'s last year: .334 .478 .812 Balta's reformulation: .327 .529 .856

"If you'll look to the right, you'll see the ball that Albert Pujols hit off of Brad Lidge last night" - The pilot of the plane taking the Astros back to St. Louis after that game. Anyway...about 1/2 way through the season last year I was thinking the best thing for both the 'Stros and Lidge would have been for the Stros to deal him while they could still demand a king's ransom because the guy was still a "closer". His value has just kept dropping the more he's been battered though. I think that the only thing that might fix him might be a switch to a new team/pitching coach, but Houston isn't just going to want to dump him for nothing.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 11:02 AM) Adjusted stats: .182/.308/.456/.764 Were his caught stealings after hits or after walks? I didn't go that far because I didn't know that answer . Also, if we're taking this into account, did we give him 1 extra base into his OPS? I'll grant that if I'm taking away part of his OBP for being thrown out, he should get an extra base into his OPS for the 1 he did steal. Actually, I wonder if that might serve some utility in evaluating leadoff hitters. For every stolen base, give them an extra base into their slugging %age, for every CS, take away a walk, and see what happens. Podsednik's actual 05 numbers (OBP slug OPS): .351 .349 .700 Balta adjusted #'s: .308 .465 .773 Interesting. Suggests that as a leadoff man, Podsednik wasn't terrible in 05 in that he got a lot of extra bases, but gave up some in terms of OBP as a tradeoff. Podsednik's actual 06 numbers .330 .353 .683 Balta adjusted #'s .297 .429 .726 So in 06, Podsednik's throw-outs hurt his OBP a fair amount and he didn't steal nearly enough bases to make up the difference, even with the added power. I wonder if this might be a useful way of evaluating leadoff hitters.

QUOTE(Capn12 @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 09:53 AM) I think you guys are ALLLLL wrong!! Pods is hitting .364 with a .462(FOUR SIXTY TWO!!) OBP!!! Who cares about SBs!!! Since the sample size is still small this works out quite well. Podsednik is 1/3 on stolen bases, therefore he has been thrown out 2 times. If you do the simple exercise of dropping 2 times on base from the calculation of his OBP, which is for all practical purposes what happens on a CS, that knocks his OBP down to .308 from .461.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 12:38 AM) well, if Ford's union workers can't build a decent car i guess you can't blame Ford for cutting those jobs. Of course...it's always possible that the execs above them just aren't making good decisions about what kind of cars and procedures to prioritize, but hey, what do I know...This is our country! (Yes, I know, I'm crossing companies now, but Goddamn am I sick of that song!)

QUOTE(Brian @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:13 AM) I have t he type of VCR/DVD combo that automatically sets the time. The last few days, the time has been jumping all over the place. It's 8:12am now and my clock jumped to 11:38. Yesterday, I woke up at 6am for work and my clock said 10:30am. It usually fixes itself, but any reason for this? Well, one obvious potential problem is the Daylight Savings time switch. Normally it would have happened April 1, this year it was like 2 weeks earlier. So if you flipped your clocks back in mid-March for DST, they may have tried to flip back on April 1st. I had a couple that did. That wouldn't explain everything,b ut it could have screwed up 1 hour a week ago.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:41 AM) My favorite player of all time is Frank. However, let me play the devil's advocate. Why is everyone 100% sure that he is "clean". Did he provide Soxtalk a urine sample that I was not aware of? No one can be 100% sure of anything thanks to Mr. Selig. But Thomas does have a few things working for him. First, he was either the first or one of the earliest people in the game to be out front and saying a lot of people were dirty and it was time for some amount of testing. Back around 2000 IIRC he was saying that, which is an awful lot more than anyone else was doing. Secondly, there's the whole body type thing. Frank was big when he was a rookie. You look at Bonds, Giambi, Palmeiro, Canseco, McGwire...the big sluggers who benefitted so much from the juice...all of them have gigantic body type changes. I mean, come on: Instead of having his biceps explode, Frank's athletic shape gradually worsened with time. He gained weight around the midsection, instead of exploding muscles. He did not get better with time, he didn't have insane seasons after age 35 that were historically good, he didn't suddenly start hitting home runs that were 100 feet longer than he was hitting them the year before. It's not an airtight case, but if I had to make it in court, Frank would be walking away. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he admitted he'd taken a drink from the leaded coffee pot at some point, but so many of the lines of evidence people use to make the allegations against other hitters just bounce off of Frank.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 07:33 AM) The thing that makes Anderson the odd man out is that Pods has looked good (I can't beleive I typed that) and Erstad has been the best hitter on the team. Ozuna will play over Anderson against lefties as he can actually hit them and has become a servicable outfielder. The third game of the Oakland series will be the first time Anderson may see the field to give Erstad, Thome or Konerko a day off. I'm not yet ready to say that Podsednik has looked "Good". I'll take the OPS over .800 for the week, but that 1/3 stolen bases really eats into that OBP. Especially since Victor Martinez was the guy throwing.

Jose needs to step it up now.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Apr 8, 2007 -> 06:00 PM) just curious, do you own/drive an American car? Nope. Honda Civic. Bought it about 7 months ago. I looked at the equivalent vehicle from Ford and was unimpressed, particularly by the quality. The last Ford I was driving...nearly died in the middle of Mexico. Wound up limping back across the border. I did drive a GM vehicle in high school, while my dad had a Mercury, and I was unimpressed by both. I would be happy to own or drive an American car if the American car industry tried to build the kind of car I wanted; high quality, not going to break on me, high mpg, small, nimble, useful. I don't want an SUV, I don't want something giant, I don't want a pickup truck, and therefore I don't see a good reason to buy what the U.S. car companies are building. Then again, I think my vehicle probably has about as high a %age of American-made parts as a standard Ford these days.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Apr 8, 2007 -> 04:50 PM) Some guy named Brian N. Anderson will probably start on Wednesday and I guess we won't worry about him being sent down for now.. Anderson to stay on board with Sox Wow, 10 days into the season he finally gets a start.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 8, 2007 -> 07:17 PM) Willits would be a great choice if he could put up .360/.415/.775 and steal 30-40 bases. If anything more, it would be just ridiculously good. Ichiro would be fantastic too, but I honestly think a great leadoff hitter is a pipedream right now. So, just out of curiosity, given Ichiro's stated desire to hit the Free Agent market no matter what...does anyone think Seattle might move him @ the deadline if they're convinced they're going to lose him?

On the other hand... Maybe that's what he did to earn that $40 mil or so in 3 months. (Turns out that the $28 mil, I think, does not include the $10 mil buyout they gave him for his old contract). You know what this story reminds me of? Frank Grimes knocking the acid out of Homer's hand. "You idiot! You almost drank a vial full of sulfuric acid!" "Boy, would my face have been red."

Going to ignore the offense for now. Plenty of time to b&*ch about that later. Johnny boy...well done. Major Leage Debut against probably the best pitcher in baseball in the last 7 years. Didn't give us the shutout, but held your ground, gave us a quality start. And after things got bad in the 4th, cinched it up, and then just resumed mowing down people. All last season, I kept hoping someone on this team would show some balls. It didn't happen. Today, John Danks showed some balls, even in the loss.

Welcome back Thor.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 03:10 PM) If you're bringing in Thornton, might as well bring him in for Castillo. Eh, I like how Ozzie did it. Give MMac the chance to finish out the 8th without needing the extra pitcher. Not sure why you'd want Punto hitting right handed though. He was a much better right handed hitter than left handed hitter last year.

QUOTE(shoota @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 03:03 PM) I like how Guillen is running his pitching staff so far today. I agree, he let Javy go but wasn't too insistent on leaving him in forever, he used Sisco as a Loogy and didn't overexpose him, turned to MMac against the righty, hopefully setting up the Big man for the 9th.

Today's MB update.

And Javy's line is completed with 1 hit, 0 runs

Jeff Cirillo pinch hitting

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 02:50 PM) Most impressive thing of the start was I didn't see anyone spell Vazquez wrong in this thread. Joly cow!

There's pitch 101

Uh-oh...Javy pitching from the stretch.

QUOTE(Wedge @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 02:39 PM) 92 pitches for Javy... will he start the 7th? Unless he's extremely tired due to it being the start of the season...Ozzie'll probably give him the 7th. May well give him the 8th if he's still throwing a 1 hit shutout.