MLB thread

[Dubulous]

Let's see here on another note the best pitcher in the MLB is not Roy Halladay it's Dan Haren. Look him up, chances are you've never heard of him because of what team he's on......

If you haven't heard of Dan Haren chances are you aren't a baseball fan.

There are several good pitchers in the MLB; I don't think that someone can just say "Oh, Player X is the best because he has a really low ERA" or "Player Y is the best because he gets a lot of strikeouts!" The fact of the matter is, the best pitcher in the league is purely subjective in today's game, due to the length of the schedule and the multitude of teams. For instance, last year the "best pitcher in the American League was clearly Cliff Lee." (quotes to indicate sarcasm) Now? He's out of the picture completely.

The beginning of the season? It was Zach Greinke. Oh but then it was Josh Beckett. But Tim Lincecum dominates a start; suddenly he is the best pitcher in the game. Dan Haren is the best because he has a low ERA. But wait Mark Beurhle just threw a perfect game!!!!!!! He is the best pitcher in the league by far!!!!!!

Sorry to rant like that, I don't intend to sound rude if I did. My point is simply that the best pitcher in the league is a purely subjective topic. Anyone can catch fire and make his case for the best pitcher in the league.

 

[tennisace]

tdubbery is absolutely right on this one. There is no way to objectively determine "the best". Hell you didn't even touch upon strength of schedule!

Also, what does everyone think of an Indians fire sale? Cliff Lee/VMart could go in either separate deals, or possibly a HUGE deal together. The only team that could feasibly deal for both is the Red Sox, because Lee alone will get about the same Halladay will. I think that Lee is also a great fit for the Phillies, since Pedro is going to be lol (see: John Smoltz), J.P. Riccardi is being stupid and unreasonable, and their bullpen is wiped out atm.

 

[cyberzero]

Dan Haren is a very, very good pitcher, but he's no Halladay. Of course, this comes from a biased point of view.

I have to commend the Angels - even in a relatively weak division, it was against the odds for them to come back from that horrible start of the season. They were slaughtered by an unbelievable number of injuries but now they're in first place and doing amazingly.

What happened to the Sox? I've watched a couple of their games recently and even though they seem to be playing the same solid baseball, they're not winning games. The whole Daisuke incident seems really stupid, IMO. If he wants his own training program, why not let him, as long as it's overseen by the Sox?

 

[Dubulous]

tdubbery is absolutely right on this one. There is no way to objectively determine "the best". Hell you didn't even touch upon strength of schedule!

Also, what does everyone think of an Indians fire sale? Cliff Lee/VMart could go in either separate deals, or possibly a HUGE deal together. The only team that could feasibly deal for both is the Red Sox, because Lee alone will get about the same Halladay will. I think that Lee is also a great fit for the Phillies, since Pedro is going to be lol (see: John Smoltz), J.P. Riccardi is being stupid and unreasonable, and their bullpen is wiped out atm.

To be honest, I don't think either of them are going anywhere. I don't have any reasoning behind it, it's just a gut feeling. If anyone is going, though, it is Lee. Martinez is too good to give away.

 

[tennisace]

D
What happened to the Sox? I've watched a couple of their games recently and even though they seem to be playing the same solid baseball, they're not winning games. The whole Daisuke incident seems really stupid, IMO. If he wants his own training program, why not let him, as long as it's overseen by the Sox?

Their pitching staff as a whole has become increasingly unreliable. Also Dice-K can go back to Japan as far as I'm concerned. He's on the DL because he's a head case, not because he's actually injured imo.

To be honest, I don't think either of them are going anywhere. I don't have any reasoning behind it, it's just a gut feeling. If anyone is going, though, it is Lee. Martinez is too good to give away.

Heh give away... I'm pretty sure the Sox would have to put together a package like Clay Buckholtz, Michael Bowden, and either Casey Kelly or Ryan Westmoreland for either Lee or VMart. For both they'd either have to include a third team or burn the farm.

 

[Dubulous]

Their pitching staff as a whole has become increasingly unreliable. Also Dice-K can go back to Japan as far as I'm concerned. He's on the DL because he's a head case, not because he's actually injured imo.



Heh give away... I'm pretty sure the Sox would have to put together a package like Clay Buckholtz, Michael Bowden, and either Casey Kelly or Ryan Westmoreland for either Lee or VMart. For both they'd either have to include a third team or burn the farm.

I'm pretty sure that the Red Sox have a fantastic catching prospect in their system...Daniel Bard I believe is his name. It would make sense for the Red Sox to include him in a Martinez deal. Regardless, it isn't going to happen. Boston doesn't want to give up Bucholz. He already has a no-hitter! It's the same reason that Adrian Gonzalez won't get traded.

I think that there's been a paradigm shift in MLB. With the Rays blueprint of home-growing players, more and more teams are trying to go this route (see: Baltimore). Likewise, teams are unwilling to give up their top prospects, which is what is needed to land a big name like Martinez or Gonzalez or Roy Halladay.

 

[Stallion]

Alright diehard baseball fans, I have a special treat for you!

In the next day or so, I am uploading a comprehensive "runs created" spreadsheet I have created (the formulae I use for this were derived by well known sabermetricians). It is used to measure the amount of runs created by an individual player, a very good measure of a players offensive prowess. It takes into account 16 different statistics plugged into a basic formula for accurate results. Want to find out whether Barry Bonds was more deadly then Albert Pujols over their careers?? Well just google their stats, plug them in and away you go. Also if you use these stats on every member of a battling lineup, you will get your teams average score. Apparently this is so accurate, that there is less then a 5 % margin of error.

For example, using this spreadsheet, I have calculated that All Star Michael Young of the Texas Rangers is responsible for appoximately 69.46 runs this season and Triple Crown threat Albert Pujols is responsible for a staggering 92.15 runs this season alone (almost 1 per game, pretty impressive)

Hope you are looking forward to this :).

Oh and did anyone watch how damn impressive those Cards were today? I'm not really a fan of them but even I have to acknowledge how fearsome they looked vs the top team in the MLB, especially in the second half of the match.

 

[Dubulous]

Stallion that sounds awesome.

Well, there go the Indians proving me wrong yet again. The Indians have traded Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco to the Phillies for prospects, the biggest of which is probably C Lou Marson. The Phillies managed to get a top tier pitcher without giving up J.A. Happ or Kyle Drabek.

 

[aamto]

the phillies committed highway robbery with that trade. unbelievable the indians would give up lee without one of the phils' top four (drabek, taylor, brown, happ) prospects.

this makes 'em in my opinion the top team in the NL, considering they were already top 3 without lee.

 

[tennisace]

the phillies committed highway robbery with that trade. unbelievable the indians would give up lee without one of the phils' top four (drabek, taylor, brown, happ) prospects.

this makes 'em in my opinion the top team in the NL, considering they were already top 3 without lee.

J.P. Riccardi must feel like an ass since Halladay can't be happy now, and only has another year left. Kudos for the Phillies for not bothering with the Halladay circus after all, and coming out of it with all their bargaining chips.

 

[Dubulous]

The other Pennsylvania team, the Pirates, have dealt away their starting middle infielders. Ryan Doumit, their catcher, is now their only player that was in the 2008 Opening Day lineup still with the team. Being a Pirates fan must be incredibly frustrating.

 

[cyberzero]

J.P. Riccardi must feel like an ass since Halladay can't be happy now, and only has another year left. Kudos for the Phillies for not bothering with the Halladay circus after all, and coming out of it with all their bargaining chips.

Forget J.P.'s feelings, he's too stupid to realize how Halladay feels. Also Stallion, that sounds awesome.

The other Pennsylvania team, the Pirates, have dealt away their starting middle infielders. Ryan Doumit, their catcher, is now their only player that was in the 2008 Opening Day lineup still with the team. Being a Pirates fan must be incredibly frustrating.

The Pirates have fans?

 

[Stallion]

Ill upload my spreadsheet in a few hours :).

Also Derek Holland has allowed one hit in 8 innings vs the Mariners, awesome :)

 

[Eifie]

The Pirates fail, the Pirates always failed, and the Pirates always will fail. They're in last place in the division, so they might as well trade away current players for prospects at this point, they'll save a lot of money getting young players over older athletes that need more money to stay.

Also I think I may have discounted the Twins too early. They're now only two games off the Tigers after a recent run of wins. They play the Angels now so that may change though.

 

[Tint]

The other Pennsylvania team, the Pirates, have dealt away their starting middle infielders. Ryan Doumit, their catcher, is now their only player that was in the 2008 Opening Day lineup still with the team. Being a Pirates fan must be incredibly frustrating.

Thank god for the Steelers and Penguins. I actually have a good feeling about the Pirates in the years to come. We have a lot of young talent, and trading Jack Wilson, without a doubt the Pirates most popular player, shows that the manegement is really trying to put a winning club on the field year in and year out.

 

[cyberzero]

Someone PLEASE explain to me WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY SEND ROLEN TO THE REDS?

Rolen is PRODUCING for the Jays this year, hitting .320 and up there in RBI's for the team, and we trade him for a dying third baseman and some no name pitching prospects? This is how we can confirm that next season, the Jays will be cellar dwellers. Tennis, you were right and now I hate you for it >_>

 

[Stallion]

Ok guys at long last, I have uploaded the Runs Created spreadsheet. It still works well in terms of who is a more productive batsman, but I have a few gripes with this version.

a) I included total bases on the spreadsheet for some reason when I don't think it has a direct correlation to the formula at all.

b) If you calculate the "Runs Created" for every player in the team and use the average to predict how many runs the team will score on average, the number is now in most cases going to be higher then the actual number. This is because the number of strikeouts has increased significantly over the past few years, so I need to a develop a new constant K as a coefficient for the strikeout value.

Everything else should be in order though so enjoy :).

P.S This is uploaded on rapidshare, but if anyone has any better sharing sites just post here and I'll use it in future.

 

[NightFalcon]

Only 2.5 games ahead Mr. Night Falcon, and that's with preseason MVP favourite Josh Hamiltion playing like absolute crap and an often disrupted pitching rotation. Watch out Angels, we are coming for you :)

Josh Hamilton doing nothing you mean? Hamilton somehow taking Center Field for the All-Star game even though Torii Hunter is 20x better?

Also, Angels are on a hot streak, best team in AL, 63-40 record, only a game behind the Dodgers for best record in MLB, fuck yeah.

Oh and for everyone's information, NO you cannot have Kendry Morales.

 

[steveofpasta]

Tim Lincecum 300 K's

Anybody think that Tim Lincecum can reach 300 strikeouts this season? (He just needs to average about 9~10 strikeouts and pitch about 8 innings each start)
Lincecum already has potential to two-peat a Cy Young but can he reach 300 strikeouts to seal the deal?

 

[cyberzero]

Anybody think that Tim Lincecum can reach 300 strikeouts? (He just needs to average about 9~10 strikeouts and pitch about 8 innings each start)
Lincecum already has potential to two-peat a Cy Young but can he reach 300 strikeouts to seal the deal?

I do believe that Lincecum can reach 300 someday. Maybe not this season, but he'll do it, maybe more than once.

Has anyone read about Papi's name being leaked out of the 2003 MLB Drug Test? Apparently Manny and Papi were both on that list of 104 players that roided. I still think that the Sox have a great organization, but unfortunately, those last two championships are kinda tainted now =/

 

[ultimifier]

104 players tested positive, with a total of 30 teams. That equates to roughly 3.5 players on roids per team


so no matter which team won, it will be tainted

 

[Phizzlax]

I'm sure there were teams with more than 4 people on roids, an average is just that.

I doubt many Marlins were on roids in '97, but I bet in any given year (especially recently) the Yankees have had 5-6 guys on it.

Also IMO they should just release that whole fucking list, it's ruining baseball -_-

 

[Fabbles]

The list is pretty much a pick your poison at this point. As it is continuing right now, baseball must endure a big name taking a hit every few months and tainting the image that was already pretty bad. If they release all at once, you pretty much destroy any respect the players might have had left. How will they be able to trust that when MLB says things will be "anonymous," they will remain that way. Seeing how the names will probably be all released in the end, the second option is probably the better one so it is all done at once. I definitely want to know who is on that list.

As for my Orioles, another so-so outing for Tillman. Hopefully Matusz can impress me tomorrow. Anything is better than the garbage that Hill and Berken have been giving us all year.

 

[Stallion]

2-0 up bottom of the ninth and we lose to fucking Oakland...just wow.

 

[steveofpasta]

2-0 up bottom of the ninth and we lose to fucking Oakland...just wow.

At least Neftali Feliz whooped ass