2010 MLB Catch-All Thread

[fathom]

Joe Morgan with the best reason yet why Felix should not win the Cy Young:

 

sportsguy33 Joe Morgan is anti-Felix for Cy Young: "Felix had a fabulous year but his teammates didn't support him. And it's still a team game." What???

 

Wait, don't tell me Joe Morgan is going to favor the African-American (Sabathia) over another player! He would never do such a thing.

[witesoxfan]

I'd like to be the one responding the way you are...but my brain just can't be convinced that completely unexpected 50 HR seasons are clean yet.

 

 

I'm with you on that. After what I have seen the last 20 years and knowing that there is still stuff out there that MLB won't detect in drug testing, I just can't believe that fixing a sudden hole in his swing can add that much power. I wish I could believe it, but the McGwires, Bret Boones, Clemens & Co. make it impossible for me right now.

 

I feel bad for you then. I wouldn't be able to watch baseball if I assumed everyone were still on steroids, or that every single big, freak of nature season were due to PEDs. FanGraphs had an article about Bautista today and they mention that he is hitting breaking balls better this year (along with his continual murdering of fastballs). Personally, I like to believe that a talented player can make a mechanical adjustment and be able to judge breaking balls better and have that contribute to his success rather than immediately pointing towards steroids.

 

 

[Balta1701]

I feel bad for you then. I wouldn't be able to watch baseball if I assumed everyone were still on steroids, or that every single big, freak of nature season were due to PEDs. FanGraphs had an article about Bautista today and they mention that he is hitting breaking balls better this year (along with his continual murdering of fastballs). Personally, I like to believe that a talented player can make a mechanical adjustment and be able to judge breaking balls better and have that contribute to his success rather than immediately pointing towards steroids.

I want to believe it. I really do. It's just damn hard.

 

I mean, I don't want to, but my head immediately came up with "yeah, but we've heard multiple reports of how HGH abuse combined with steroid abuse can produce increases in visual acuity that might allow a player to pick up the spin on a ball earlier and thus recognize a breaking pitch sooner."

 

I don't want to think that way, but damnit I can't stop myself.

[Balta1701]

In other totally unsurprising news, Manuel and Minaya are gone.

[Whitewashed in '05]

Oh my f***. It went to the 3rd deck. In Target Field. Maybe the longest homer I've seen this year

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_...84&c_id=mlb

 

Aaand I now love Jose Bautista

That one from Branyan on Javy Vazquez was a missile too.

[Kyyle23]

I'm with you on that. After what I have seen the last 20 years and knowing that there is still stuff out there that MLB won't detect in drug testing, I just can't believe that fixing a sudden hole in his swing can add that much power. I wish I could believe it, but the McGwires, Bret Boones, Clemens & Co. make it impossible for me right now.

 

I would take out the McGwires and Clemens and replace them with people like Luis Gonzalez and Brady Anderson. Clemens was dominating from the getgo and (presumably) turned to PEDs to keep his career going, McGwire also hit the league with 49 homeruns his rookie year(albeit on a team with a pretty big roid freak).

 

Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzalez, Jose Bautista, those guys truly came out of nowhere to hit 50 homeruns.

[Balta1701]

I would take out the McGwires and Clemens and replace them with people like Luis Gonzalez and Brady Anderson. Clemens was dominating from the getgo and (presumably) turned to PEDs to keep his career going, McGwire also hit the league with 49 homeruns his rookie year(albeit on a team with a pretty big roid freak).

 

Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzalez, Jose Bautista, those guys truly came out of nowhere to hit 50 homeruns.

Canseco also wrote that he was injecting McGwire from the moment he hit the bigs.

[3E8]

I don't think it has anything to do with steroids. I think he just genuinely made a correction in his swing mechanics and he's been hitting the ball with a ton of power. On top of that, his confidence is through the roof, and that has to help his psyche at the plate.

No dude. It's definitely steroids. Never mind the fact that there's an obvious visual difference in the way he loads up before the pitch between this year and last. Which is what Bautista has already attributed to being able to see the ball better this season and hit with more authority.

 

His isolated power has always been up there throughout his pro career knocking on the lower end of the "power hitter" range. He just wasn't making much contact. This season he's dropped his K% by about 5% and is hitting everything in the air. There's been a lot of luck involved too in reaching the magical 50 mark, but he's legit and looks to be a perennial 30-guy going forward

[LittleHurt05]

No dude. It's definitely steroids. Never mind the fact that there's an obvious visual difference in the way he loads up before the pitch between this year and last. Which is what Bautista has already attributed to being able to see the ball better this season and hit with more authority.

 

His isolated power has always been up there throughout his pro career knocking on the lower end of the "power hitter" range. He just wasn't making much contact. This season he's dropped his K% by about 5% and is hitting everything in the air. There's been a lot of luck involved too in reaching the magical 50 mark, but he's legit and looks to be a perennial 30-guy going forward

 

That's the thing. I can see the change in his swing making him go from 17 homers to 30-35. But from 17 to 54 at the age of 29? Really? If you look at the list of 50 home run guys, they are either obvious roiders and just huge guys like the Fielders, Thome, Howard. Bautista is 6-0, 195, which is not too big. He had to have been luckier than almost any other hitter in history. Maybe he is 100% clean, but considering the era we are in, I just have such a hard time believing it.

[witesoxfan]

That's the thing. I can see the change in his swing making him go from 17 homers to 30-35. But from 17 to 54 at the age of 29? Really? If you look at the list of 50 home run guys, they are either obvious roiders and just huge guys like the Fielders, Thome, Howard. Bautista is 6-0, 195, which is not too big. He had to have been luckier than almost any other hitter in history. Maybe he is 100% clean, but considering the era we are in, I just have such a hard time believing it.

 

A lot of it is fluky stuff, like his 22% HR/FB, but really, it's not out the question for any good power hitter to jack 50 in a random year. Ryan Howard is typically a 40 homer guy, but when he won the MVP, he hit 58...that's a monstrosity of a jump in itself, so yes, it is definitely possible to go from a 15 homer, mediocre hitter to a 50 homer, great hitter season just like that.

[LittleHurt05]

A lot of it is fluky stuff, like his 22% HR/FB, but really, it's not out the question for any good power hitter to jack 50 in a random year. Ryan Howard is typically a 40 homer guy, but when he won the MVP, he hit 58...that's a monstrosity of a jump in itself, so yes, it is definitely possible to go from a 15 homer, mediocre hitter to a 50 homer, great hitter season just like that.

 

I get what you are saying but Ryan Howard was a 25 year old who hit 22 homers in half a season, then hit 58 the next full season, while Bautista never hit 20 before this year at the age of 29. Not to mention that Bautista is 4 inches & 60 pounds smaller than Howard.

[witesoxfan]

I get what you are saying but Ryan Howard was a 25 year old who hit 22 homers in half a season, then hit 58 the next full season, while Bautista never hit 20 before this year at the age of 29. Not to mention that Bautista is 4 inches & 60 pounds smaller than Howard.

 

Hank Aaron - 6'0 180

Jose Bautista - 6'0 195

 

...even better...

 

Manny Ramirez - 6'0 200

Mark Kotsay - 6'0 210

 

Height and weight really mean very little, because if a guy is a good hitter, he's a good hitter, and if he's not, he's not. This is not football where you have to be 300 pounds to play a certain position.

 

Beyond that, Jose Bautista's season is very possible. I really don't think you are going to say that Davey Johnson was on steroids, considering he has been one of US baseball's biggest ambassadors throughout the times, and he hit 43 homers a year after he hit 5 and never hitting more than 18 in any other season.

 

Seasons like this can and will occur, and have occurred before. I think it is very wrong to assume that Jose Bautista has used steroids or HGH. There has been no indication of body change, there has been a definite change in his hitting mechanics, there is a definite statistical outlier within his numbers that can be explained by randomness (and through regression will almost certainly even itself out), and there have been developments before him that are similar to his. People really haven't considered that it's a possibility that Bautista may have been better before but all of the pitchers were on steroids and were outperforming him due to an unfair advantage.

 

It's very easy to throw accusations around at one individual, but when there are several indicators that he is probably clean, then I am going to assume he's clean.

[3E8]

You can't use a counting stat for Bautista because before this year, he had exactly one full season in the majors. So don't look at it like, "he never hit X number of home runs before", because he didn't really have the same chance as an everyday player. I looked at ISO, a rate stat, which implied the power has always been there (around .180 before this season for all professional ball).

 

Another reason we should not be surprised by a late breakout is that Bautista's development path was f***ed up by the rule 5 draft. First promotion to the bigs came with no experience above high A ball. He spent 2004 with four different big league clubs getting 88 ABs. That kind of inconsistency at age 23 season will tend to throw a wrench in your career trajectory.

 

And we should stop putting Bautista's size into the discussion as an argument. The biggest factor which a hitter has control over in the resulting distance of a hit is bat speed. Yes, larger/stronger guys can swing heavier bats which results in more momentum, but a guy like Bautista may be able to generate more bat speed with a lighter bat to hit for distance just the same. A good indication of bat speed is how well a player hits fastballs. Looking at pitch type values against fastballs on Fangraphs, only four players rank ahead of Bautista. The guy at the top of the list is Konerko, who we know has tremendous bat speed and is nearly impossible to throw a fastball by. Number two is Hamilton, and since I live in Texas and watch several Rangers games can say definitely have above average bat speed

[witesoxfan]

You can't use a counting stat for Bautista because before this year, he had exactly one full season in the majors. So don't look at it like, "he never hit X number of home runs before", because he didn't really have the same chance as an everyday player. I looked at ISO, a rate stat, which implied the power has always been there (around .180 before this season for all professional ball).

 

Another reason we should not be surprised by a late breakout is that Bautista's development path was f***ed up by the rule 5 draft. First promotion to the bigs came with no experience above high A ball. He spent 2004 with four different big league clubs getting 88 ABs. That kind of inconsistency at age 23 season will tend to throw a wrench in your career trajectory.

 

And we should stop putting Bautista's size into the discussion as an argument. The biggest factor which a hitter has control over in the resulting distance of a hit is bat speed. Yes, larger/stronger guys can swing heavier bats which results in more momentum, but a guy like Bautista may be able to generate more bat speed with a lighter bat to hit for distance just the same. A good indication of bat speed is how well a player hits fastballs. Looking at pitch type values against fastballs on Fangraphs, only four players rank ahead of Bautista. The guy at the top of the list is Konerko, who we know has tremendous bat speed and is nearly impossible to throw a fastball by. Number two is Hamilton, and since I live in Texas and watch several Rangers games can say definitely have above average bat speed

 

Hamilton might have the quickest bat in the league. It seems like the ball is on his hands before he even loads up, but he gets the bat through the zone every time.

[SoxAce]

I hope the Padres win today. So far they are losing, but I would love to see a three way tie between Atlanta, SF and SD and those teams battling it out.

Edited October 3, 2010 by J.Reedfan8

[justBLAZE]

I hope the Padres win today. So far they are losing, but I would love to see a three way tie between Atlanta, SF and SD and those teams battling it out.

 

[justBLAZE]

Posey making sure no playoff tie takes place.

[justBLAZE]

Does anyone know if MLB.TV subsribers outside of US get to watch the playoffs?

[chw42]

Does anyone know if MLB.TV subsribers outside of US get to watch the playoffs?

 

I think you have to sign up for postseason.tv

 

MLB.tv service bulls***, my subscription ended on the 30th and they still charged me $25 for October.

 

Now I gotta email them and sort this s*** out...Ugh

Edited October 5, 2010 by chw42

[knightni]

Today is a special day.

 

This is one of only a few days on the yearly calendar where none of the 4 major sports have a regular season game.

[witesoxfan]

Odalis Perez wants to make a comeback. (I think)

Lions of the Chosen: Odalis Pérez wants to return to the big stage of baseball and knows he must take one step at a time to achieve that goal. The veteran left-hander joined the practice of the Lions of the Chosen in the first call for pitchers and catchers on Monday.

 

"This is an opportunity to relaunch my career and I will work hard to return to baseball," Perez said during a break in training of national champions, which are held in the facilities of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the complex Baseball City in this community.

 

With only 32 years old Perez has lived a kind of voluntary retirement from that accepted a minor league contract offered to him by Washington Nationals before the 2009 season.

 

The native of Las Matas de Farfán relates that he began his physical training for several months in the gym Doñé Nao.

 

 

I actually saw his name mentioned and wondered where the hell he'd gone, and sure as s***, his name popped up on a Spanish website.

[BigSqwert]

Anyone hear about this Roberto Alomar accusation?

[SleepyWhiteSox]

Why is jeff foxworthy a tbs baseball analyst?

[LittleHurt05]

Not sure where this should go, but how about all the blown calls going down so far?

 

- Golson clearly catches the ball in the 9th, ump rules it a trap

- Michael Young's checked swing non-call, hits a 3-run homer the next pitch

- Berkman gets a 4th strike, crushes a big double next pitch (found 31 bad ball/strike calls by Wendelstedt last night)

- Posey is out stealing, called safe, scores the only run in a 1-0 SF victory

 

It's like deja vu all over again from last year

[chetkincaid]

Why is jeff foxworthy a tbs baseball analyst?

 

 

Because TBS is a joke?