chw42

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 03:56 PM) If D1 had come up in Boston and Lester had come up in Chicago, every one of those guys who predicted Lester would win the Cy Young award this year would have predicted D1 would win it instead. Maybe even more people than that. They were incredibly similar pitchers in 08. 09 was different though...

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 03:35 PM) I'm confused. So what's the differences between UZR and RZR? Anyway, I do love this OOZ. RZR is simply the amount of balls the fielder got to in his zone. UZR is more complicated than just that. OOZ is a pretty good stat. Gutierrez made 113 plays that were out of his zone last year, simply amazing. I'd use these as a compliment to UZR. It breaks down every aspect of a fielder a lot better.

It's too bad they now longer have Blow Job Ryan as a closer.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 11:43 AM) Over a season it will definitely tell you something. Over a week it tells you basically nothing. Based on how many samples these stats need to be accurate, you are probably right.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 11:21 AM) No they haven't. The team ERA is still below 3, and I believe the bullpen's is 3 even. The bullpen this year looks better than what the Opening Day 2005 one did. Especially since we had Takatsu as our closer.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 09:21 AM) That right there is enough to make me doubt the validity of the metric. Alexei has had an awful defensive start to this season with his stupid play. One play doesn't define a whole week though... +/- and UZR usually agree on a lot of things.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 11:30 AM) To say that a week's worth of games is too small a sample size would be a massive understatement. Yeah, but these tell you what "above average" plays certain players made. Using DRS (defensive runs saved) might not be something smart here, but to see how many plays a player has made out of his zone and inside of his zone should tell you something.

QUOTE (Ken Harrelson @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 11:50 PM) my best memory at a game came from sex in that stall... I'm willing to bet this was when you could still do it without endangering your life.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 10:37 PM) He glided right into the wall when Kubel's HR landed an arm's reach above him yesterday... Nobody said he was Franklin Gutierrez.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 11:17 PM) So you don't think it was a bad trade? I think it was pretty awful. I'm glad y'all made it, though. Back then, I had no idea how bad Delmon's defense was. With how Hawk talked about him, you'd think he was actually good.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 09:01 PM) If the Bulls go 0-2, would the Raptors have to go 1-1? Yup, that's for them to get in.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 10:11 PM) "It worked, so it was the right strategy" is something you hear Joe Morgan say, and of course Joe Morgan is arguably the worst commentator on TV. Just because you played with the odds and got lucky doesn't mean it was the right decision, over an option that had higher odds of success. I wasn't that upset with Ozzie for leaving Mark out there, though. Mark was cruising, and it's not a bad idea to keep the bullpen fresh. I wanted Mark out of there because Hudson was coming up and he had hit Buehrle very hard the first two ABs. When you have Mauer and Morneau coming up after him, you really don't want him on base.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 10:05 PM) Good win. Long time coming. Just a couple things to point out as to where a win pretty much shuts everybody up. Only winning can shut people up. a.) Ozzie left Mark in to start the eighth inning. I know in the game thread some were upset that Oz didn't get Mark out of there. Can you imagine if Mark got lit up in the eighth? Some would have crucified Oz, at least in the game thread. He mowed down the Twins in the eighth and shut everybody up. I just point this out because Oz's strategy worked this time. When it works, nobody says anything. b.) Thome blasts it off the wall. Only a truly idiotic third base coaching decision prevented the Twins from having second and third and still having a chance to win. Can you imagine the meltdown concerning Bobby had it been second and third and the next batter followed with a hit? Also, people like me would be again furious that we decided to let Thome go. He sure had no trouble taking Bobby's heater off the lf wall. I think Thome still would have been an effective member of the Sox. What I'm trying to say it ... just win, baby. A whole lot of people are pissed off that Thome is playing for our biggest rival.

FanGraphs has some new defensive stats up. They're very interesting. They've now included +/-, revised Zone Rating, and some other cool stuff. What's great is that these are updated nightly, unlike UZR, which is updated weekly. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/r...-fielding-stats Some nice tidbits... This week, Rios has made two plays out of his zone. He's made all the plays that have been in there, giving him a RZR of 1.000. With all of this he has saved 1 run in center so far. Interestingly, Teahen has made 4 plays out of his zone, while he has failed to make 2 plays that are in his zone out of the 6 in total. Regardless, he has also saved 1 run on defense so far. Beckham's made 12/14 plays in his zone, he's been a neutral player at 2B on D. Konerko's 2/4 for plays in his zone. I think one of them was the hit Hafner got that Paulie failed to make a play on. Even though Alexei had a blunder yesterday, his defensive metrics are currently the best on the team. He's saved 3 runs on defense thus far, with 3 plays that were made out of the zone and a perfect 9/9 within his zone. Quentin's been a -1 DRS so far. Pierre is a 4/4 so far on balls within his zone and is a +1 DRS. I don't know what the cutoffs were for these, but I think the last time they were updated was yesterday. Anyway, these new fielding stats were available before through Bill James' site, but now they're free. They look to be great in the way that they tell you the specifics of the player. Like how many scoops a 1B made or how many bunts did so and so field well or not well. It breaks it done a lot better than UZR. However, the end result is usually the same. With this, you can dig a bit deeper, find out what players do well and not so well on and really understand the player's defensive abilities much better.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 09:23 PM) I agree that Quentin should DH. Rios is a master in RF, I still think Jones is adequate in CF. Of all of them, I'd rather try to mitigate Quentin's injury risk. Rios is playing a good enough center. No need to move him. If anything, put Jones in right.

Both Chapman and Strasburg had pretty good debuts today. Chapman hit 101.

QUOTE (beckham15 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 08:27 PM) maybe he overthought it... thome's seen him do that so much in the past that might have affected jenks thinking It's not like Jim can actually hit it if he throws it right.

The woman in this video is laughing hysterically. And another... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Tr6B_-DNU...feature=related

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 08:11 PM) Sunday Night Baseball w/ Hershiser/Morgan/Miller >>>>>>>>> Sunday Night Baseball w/ only Morgan/Miller Hershiser kinda sucks though. And I personally think Jon Miller's decent.

QUOTE (beckham15 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 07:37 PM) they said during the game that if it was a tie toronto owns the tiebreaker Yup, so if the Bulls get these records, this would have to go down for the Bulls to get in. Bulls go 0-2, Toronto would have to go 0-2. Bulls go 1-1, Toronto would have to go 1-1. Bulls go 2-0, Toronto's out. Odds are, the Raptors aren't going to win both games.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 08:17 PM) San Quentin isn't playing LF anymore. We should take Quentin out of the outfield completely. He's DH material. He's now slow and his arm doesn't seem to be as accurate or strong as it was a couple of years ago.

Pierre at DH is worse than Kotsay at DH, even if that means Jones gets to play more. Pierre actually plays a good left field, if you're going to judge him on that one play yesterday, you need to stop yourself.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 08:15 PM) Why was the coach not further down the line so he could stop him. Real bad coaching there especially without a SS. Great throw by Pierre. Also I thought Jenks looked really good. His fastball was there, but I just have to wonder why he didn't throw a curve to Thome.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 06:55 PM) No. Look at the video I posted. He was side stepping to get in front of Teahen's vision, or distract him, or something. I saw the video. If that's the case, it wouldn't surprise me. The Twins would do that.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 06:49 PM) Shawn Marcum is their #1, looked pretty good in '07 & '08, then had the old Tommy John. He has done well in his 1st two starts with a 3.46 ERA, 0.92 WHIP. Luckily, we wont face him. Thank goodness we don't, Marcum owns us.