LorfTVP

Hey, Johnny Damon delivered as always. Hate the guy these days, but you know what you're gonna get with him, a leadoff hitter who can take pitches, steal (25-30 these days) and has 15+ pop. Plus he hit .303 and looks horrible in gray.

I'd blame the misconception that Melky Cabrera was a league average player a bit more.

i take it you're not considering lidge at all. a purist?

No, I just don't think Lidge had a great enough season to merit too much Cy young consideration. I like the guy, always have, and he had an amazing comeback season...but he didn't do anything too extraordinary for a closer. Every year there are guys with forty saves, an ERA a smidge under 2, and close to 100 Ks. Compared to, granted their AL, Papelbon and Nathan, Lidge's stats don't seem nearly as spectacular. The 1.95 ERA looks nice but the 1.23 WHIP for a closer isn't extraordinary enough. He got a well deserved Comeback Player of the Year award today though.

Santana, Webb, and Lincecum have all had amazing seasons. C'mon, Lincecum got 18 wins for a team that finished 2nd in the majors in RS.

All in all, your Jays had a damn good season. True, you finished fourth in the division, but 86 wins is absolutely nothing to scoff at. Plus, best pitching in the game is a damn plus. You need some more run producers though...Thomas failed, Wells wasn't well, Rios decided to run instead of hit for power...but hey, best pitching in the fucking game is something to build on...granted you most likely won't have AJ Burnett who will probably try and opt out of his contract.

I definitely think Sabathia deserves MVP consideration but I don't like him swooping in and trying to win the Cy Young in half a season. True, he was incredibly dominant, going 11-2 with 7 CG, 3 shutouts, with a 1.65 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, a .222 BAA, and 128 Ks in 130.2 innings.

But the real matchup comes between Tim Lincecum, Brandon Webb, and Johan Santana. All three come from non-playoff teams, which is a point for C.C., but still, I don't like him in this discussion.

The numbers are remarkably identical. In CG, IP, etc. Basically, Webb is +4, 6 in Wins but is -0.80 or so in ERA. Meanwhile, Santana and Lincecum both have a much better ERA but a few less wins. In between those two, the only difference is about sixty strikeouts.

I dunno, it's gonna be a tough one.

One game out again. Call it mindless pride but we need to win the division. I understand the toll a pennant race can take but we're so close to the Rays and a win would let us face the Central champs. Not facing the Angels is vital in my mind. They've been our whipping boys in the past but I'd rather let the Rays battle them and tire each other out. Within spitting distance of best record too which is pivotal with Fenway Park. No matter what, it's crunch time. Can't let those Sunshine Kids push us around.

Very worried about our situation right now. Obviously, it's nice to have a 6 game lead (7 over the Jays), but they are red hot. Throw in the fact that they've owned us this year, have 7 games left with us, and the rest of their schedule is cake, and they could be a problem. Now I hear Halladay will pitch on short rest on Sunday, so obviously they smell blood. We've gotta do no worse than win tonight, and split with them this weekend. Then we have to go no worse than 3-3 next week in Tampa and Toronto.

 

Tell me it's gonna be okay, Lorf.

Sure do hope it will be. We won the first game, lost the first of the double header, and as of now are down 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th in the second game. I'm not too worried about Sunday because that games a coin flip...Lester vs. Halladay. We seriously can't get swept in this doubleheader while the Rays sweep theirs against the Yankees as well. I wish I could just say it'll be okay but...oh hey, leadoff double in the 8th.

I'm not too worried about the Jays but crazier things have happened. Honestly, I'm a lot more worried about going down to the Trop next week.

I hear you, Lorf. They've responded well to adversity so far this year. I just spent the week at the beach with four other families, all of them Yankee fans. Good times (although Thursday's game would've been the icing on the cake). Anyway, they can deal without Beckett for the next week, but if he's gone for the season they're in trouble. His next start will be the true test. If he comes out after a few innings, that's a bad, bad sign.

But the fact that he survived Dr. James Andrews was a great sign. Knock on wood.

This is where we see how good we really are. Hope Beckett is alright. We've had some guys with great AAA seasons so this is a true test of our organizational depth. We need some guys to step up. Love Youk and Pedroia for their consistency and Bay has done well. Oi. Let's do this.

So you finally called up Nelson Cruz. About damn time.

I was speaking to your implied discounting of sinker ball pitchers.

Ah, purely unintentional. I just think that Lincecum has been the more impressive pitcher this season.

That's a valid point except Lincecum has only pitched 7 fewer innings than Webb. So, despite their varying styles, they've started the same number of games, pitched the same number of innings, etc.

You gotta go with Tiny Tim. He's leading the league in ERA, which always helps, along with having about 50 more strikeouts than both Webb and Volquez who are more sinkerball types. If not for the W-L record, Santana would be right in this argument as well. Lincecum, Santana and Webb all lead the NL with 21 Quality Starts apiece. Volquez has 18. I dunno, it's strikeouts versus wins pretty much...for now.

Kinsler has a sports hernia. Likely done for the year. hats sucks, he was having a greatn season, at least we'll get a look at Arias now though. Maybe start shaping next years team.

Sorry man, I was having fun watching him play. Maybe next year we can get back to those Pedroia vs. Kinsler arguments for AL's best 2b.. Cano has to earn his way back into it.

Yay they won.

Does anybody on your team have double digit homers yet?

Because they want to say that they contended for something?

lorf maybe you missed a sign but wouldnt that mean if a pitcher went 6 and gave up 3 runs his ERA for the day would be 1?

Oops, how the heck did that happen. I must've been thinking of two formulas at once...sorry, baseball gods.

But yes, you're right. The league average usually hovers around 4.25-4.50. Or at least in this day and age...it's been going down a bit since the steroid era "ended". So, a 3 ERA usually means a good pitcher.

162 games, twice as much as any other sport. Baseball is a marathon. Stats are also vital in enjoying the sport, or at least they'll enhance it to some degree. Check out the leaderboards for a general gauge on what is average and what the high water marks are. In each league, there are three divisions, East, Central, and West. Every team usually plays about 18-19 games against each divisional opponent and maybe about 6 versus everyone else in the league. So, that means that the Blue Jays play the Orioles, Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays about 18 times each, putting them in one of the tougher divisions in baseball.

As far as percentages go, hitters want higher numbers and pitchers want lower numbers.

With a batter, let me use Alex Rios, of the Blue Jays.

.284/.331/.424

The first number is the batting average, a marker of the average percent of balls that land for hits.

The second number is the on base percentage, which is basically ((Hits + Walks)/At Bats). This is a measure of how often the player reaches base when he goes up to bat. So, basically, Rios gets a hit 28.4% and reaches base 33.1% of the time, including walks.

The third number is the slugging percentage, (Total bases/AB), which is a measure of how prolific a hitter is. Or rather, it's a gauge that says whether the player is a singles, doubles, or homerun hitter. AVG and OBP are the more common stats.

Hope I'm not making this more confusing. For pitchers, let's go with the beast, Roy Halladay.

2.77 / 1.02 / .230

As VG explained, the ERA is equal to ((Earned Runs + Innings Pitched) / 9). This is a gauge of how many runs a player would give up in a nine inning period.

The second number is WHIP, or Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched, which is a valuable tool. Basically, that number is equal to how many baserunners per inning the pitcher allows.

The third number is Batting Average Against, which is basically the opposing batters' batting average against that particular pitcher.

I'm getting frustrated...I feel like he deserves at least 3-4 wins. And in rotisserie, that's absolutely vital.

Lorf (Providence, RI): Would you suggest I grab a baseball bat and go down to New York to help get Johan some more wins?

 

SportsNation AJ Mass: (11:34 AM ET ) I'd rather have Worf. Imagine the fear in opposing pitcher's eyes when a Klingon step to the plate.

He's had five quality starts blown for him. That's without mentioning all the times the Mets haven't even scored for him in the first place.

Only the coolest of the cool wear pink shirts.

 

Sadly, you are NOT part of that club.

So what about all those Von Dutch kids wearing pink shirts with the collars popped up? They're obviously not among the coolest of the cool.

One other thing, Lorf. I feel like an idiot for not seeing this coming the minute Manny hired Boras this past offseason. Think about it- Boras didn't stand to gain a dime if Manny's options were picked up in 2009 or 2010. The odds that the Sox were going to pick those up were very slim, anyway. But Boras couldn't take that chance. Maybe they win the WS, Manny is a hero, and they pick up next year's. So after Manny gets off to that hot start, Boras tells him he's going to approach the Sox about an extension now, knowing full well that there's no way they'd do that because they have options on the next two years. He comes back and convinces Manny that the Sox don't appreciate him. He tells him it's okay, anyway, because he can get Manny 100 million over 4 years on the open market. He's just gotta make sure the Sox don't pick up those options. Manny, being the numnut that he is, actually believes he can get 100 mil for 4 years (that's what he told reporters), and buys into this whole charade. In the end, Boras will be the guy holding the big bag of money, and Manny's legacy in Boston is forever tarnished.

The sad part is that I believe that entirely. It's Boras' style. Shit, that's wrong. But yah, I don't know about how much he'll be getting. Regardless, Boras will get his...what is it...15%? Manny...17-19 million per, don't know what team will offer it to him. A lot depends on how much Teixeira gets and it will only go backwards to Manny. Still, damn. Funny that Boras is the same guy that ruined Hansen when his whole staff told him to change his mechanics which took away his slider when he first came up. So, basically, he was listening to his agent this whole time and then just recently switched back...meaning he was back to step 1 except for the whole "Major league experience thing". Hope he does alright with the Pirates.

Scott Boras

Probably still nursing his bruised ego from the A-rod fiasco.

Yeah, supposedly they had all had it with him. The silly stuff throughout the years they tolerated, mostly because Manny was a mellow guy. But after the Youk and McCormick incidents, I think a lot of guys felt like he had changed.

Didn`t realize it was actually that bad. Oh well. Good debut so far for Bay. 0-1 BB, HBP, R.

According to the radio, Francona had a meeting with "team leaders" (probably Lowell, Tek, Wake, Ortiz, Beckett, etc.) to discuss the trade before it happened and they all supported it. They were all fed up with Manny.

Great points all, Lorf. It wasn't that I didn't want to see Hansen, or even Moss, go, I just didn't want to use all of our chips in the same trade. Either way, they absolutely had to make this deal, other teams knew it, and they got held for ransom a bit. At least it's over.

 

My thinking on the lineup is exactly what you said. I think they need to shake things up here. Ortiz should be hitting cleanup now. He's the only logical choice. I don't know why they're so dead set on him hitting third. Ellsbury is absolutely screwing up the whole lineup. If he were even a serviceable leadoff hitter at this point we'd be in so much better shape. Then you could go:

 

Ellsbury

Pedroia

Bay

Ortiz

Drew

Youk

Lowell

Tek

Lugo

 

That's not a bad lineup. Not thrilled with Lowell hitting 7th, and he probably wouldn't be, either, but he's going through his usual 2nd half swoon.

The problem with that lineup is that it Drew and Ortiz can't hit next to each other in case of a lefty specialist coming in. For now, until he figures out how to adjust, Ellsbury is going to have to hit at the bottom of the lineup. A lot will depend on how this team adjusts as a whole to Manny leaving the lineup. Some people are more comfortable in certain positions and I don't even know where Bay does best. I actually think Lowell is hitting cleanup tonight. I figure we're gonna get a few Grady Little lineups over the next week or so but it should shake itself out.

Yeah, they had to do it. I didn't want to give up Hansen and Moss, but their hands were tied and they really had no choice.

Oh well, what's done is done. Truth is though, we've been wringing our hands for a Manny replacement for some time and this trade at least relieves us of those worries. We won't have to jump into the Teixeira market or anything. Still, Moss, as much as I like him, was expendable in the Matt Murton/David Murphy mold, and Craig Hansen was taking too many lumps with us. I admit, every time I watch that devastating slider of his, I splooge a little...but combine that with an inability to control any of his other pitches and it leads to an undesirable situation. I wonder how we're going to deal with the void in the bullpen but this may or may not be addition by subtraction. Heck, I don't think he was around long enough to be one of the main spoons players in the bullpen, so at least they won't be left behind musically.

But yah, Jason Bay...not Manny, nowhere near as an intelligent or pure hitter as he is...but still a good, younger guy who can put up big numbers. We'll see how he gels, we'll see how Francona sets up the lineup...which is the big thing. Will Ortiz hit cleanup now? Then the Sox can go R-L-R-L-R-R with Pedroia, Drew, Bay, Ortiz, Lowell, Youkilis...and then whoever is feeling lucky out of the weaker C, CF, and SS positions.

This Ellsbury slump is quite a shame.

All in all...our hand was forced...we had to deal and we could've done a lot worse.

gallagher's been great so far though, 2.60 era

Nowhere near as good as Harden has been with the Cubs so far.

4 GS, 24.1 IP, 1-1, 14 H, 8 BB, 39 Ks, 1.10 ERA, .90 WHIP.

Sure he's a six inning guy now...either because he's being babied or he's having so much fun striking out these National Leaguers that he doesn't give a damn about pitch counts. 39 Ks in 24.1 IP, damn.