Random Baseball Observations

[leftygolfer 7]

Nice knowing ya Strasburg

[JoeyJoJo 18]

God dammit.

[Mercury69 3]

Bautista looks clean. I mean, you can still see a neck between the head and shoulders, right?

[JoeyJoJo 18]

I think this year's AL Cy Young race is the most interesting of all the awards.Player A:31 games, 2.39 ERA, 214 K's, 225 IP, 1.095 WHIP, 163 ERA+Player B:31 games, 3.03 ERA, 179 K's, 217 IP, 1.184 WHIP, 143 ERA+Hmm, there's really no question who has been better, right?But oh yeah...Player A:11 wins, 11 losses.Player B:19 wins, 6 losses.Will the voters ignore the huge discrepancy in wins and reward the best pitcher?

[Theraflu 1,035]

I think this year's AL Cy Young race is the most interesting of all the awards.Player A:31 games, 2.39 ERA, 214 K's, 225 IP, 1.095 WHIP, 163 ERA+Player B:31 games, 3.03 ERA, 179 K's, 217 IP, 1.184 WHIP, 143 ERA+Hmm, there's really no question who has been better, right?But oh yeah...Player A:11 wins, 11 losses.Player B:19 wins, 6 losses.Will the voters ignore the huge discrepancy in wins and reward the best pitcher?

Don't get me started on this. Last year, Felix was clearly the second best pitcher in the league, and even though he won 19, Greinke deserved the Cy Young and got it, despite a record-low 15 wins. This year, Felix is clearly the best pitcher in the league, and I don't see many scenarios in which baseball writers vote for a guy with 12 or 13 w's, so CC will get another award he only-kinda deserves. Felix had a good shot to make a statement (and push my fantasy team farther into the playoffs) with a great start last time out. He needed to pretty much win the rest of his starts to get to 15, while keeping all his other stats at league-leading levels in order to make his best-case. Instead, he got hit really hard and probably screwed himself. I've watched probably 20+ starts of his this year; he is really, really fun to watch.Also, you should probably read every Joe Pos blog post before you make another sports-related post, just so you know when you're rehashing more of his stuff.Secondofalso, I think all the awards this year are extremely contested. Can you say with any certainty who is going to win what? All four are up for grabs.

[chrozzo 19]

God dammit.

[Swift_Psycho 1]

I think this year's AL Cy Young race is the most interesting of all the awards.Player A:31 games, 2.39 ERA, 214 K's, 225 IP, 1.095 WHIP, 163 ERA+Player B:31 games, 3.03 ERA, 179 K's, 217 IP, 1.184 WHIP, 143 ERA+Hmm, there's really no question who has been better, right?But oh yeah...Player A:11 wins, 11 losses.Player B:19 wins, 6 losses.Will the voters ignore the huge discrepancy in wins and reward the best pitcher?

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...010&month=0I think there's a lot more debate to be had over whether Felix really is the best in the AL this year. If pressed, I probably give it to Felix because of the innings edge, but Lee and Liriano really are right there.

[Theraflu 1,035]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statisti....php?cid=137785And there Felix is, just hanging out alone at the top of the AL VORP leaderboard.

[JoeyJoJo 18]

Also, you should probably read every Joe Pos blog post before you make another sports-related post, just so you know when you're rehashing more of his stuff.

Yeah, probably. I read an article of his on Tony Richardson in SI that was pretty awesome. He's one of those guys that when I do read him I like it, yet I can't seem to make a habit out of it.

Secondofalso, I think all the awards this year are extremely contested. Can you say with any certainty who is going to win what? All four are up for grabs.

No idea.

I think there's a lot more debate to be had over whether Felix really is the best in the AL this year.

But probably not a lot of debate on whether he's better than CC.

[Swift_Psycho 1]

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statisti....php?cid=137785And there Felix is, just hanging out alone at the top of the AL VORP leaderboard.

Fair enough, though that leaderboard doesn't have Cliff Lee's combined stats in the AL this year. It separates his Seattle performance from his Texas performance, which is why he's so far down the list. Though on second glance it looks like his Texas performance doesn't add much to his VORP total.However, after looking up how VORP is calculated, it doesn't seem like it controls for BABIP for pitchers. And looking at the leader list in the AL, you can see how everyone at the top has pretty low (and likely unsustainable) BABIP's, whereas Liriano is a little lower down despite having experienced terrible luck this year.

[JoeyJoJo 18]

How stupid is it that Seattle had both Cliff Lee and Felix and still sucked that bad?

[JoeyJoJo 18]

Secondofalso, I think all the awards this year are extremely contested. Can you say with any certainty who is going to win what? All four are up for grabs.

My predictions:NL MVP - VottoAL MVP - Josh HamiltonNL Cy - HalladayAL Cy - Felix? NL RoY - BusterAL RoY - No clueI found something out last week listening to Tim Kurkjian. The people who vote on the awards don't vote for all the awards. So some writers will vote for NL and AL Cy Young while others vote for AL MVP and NL rookie or whatever. And it rotates around every year. I don't know exactly how it's broken down, but I thought it was interesting.

[Swift_Psycho 1]

My predictions:NL MVP - VottoAL MVP - Josh HamiltonNL Cy - HalladayAL Cy - Felix? NL RoY - BusterAL RoY - No clue

I'll take my shot of the winners (my guesses being who will win and not necessarily who should win):NL MVP: VottoAL MVP: HamiltonNL Cy: HalladayAL CY: Sabathia (hoping I'm wrong but don't have much faith in the voters)NL RoY: HeywardAl RoY: Austin Jackson (though Neftali Feliz wouldn't shock me)

[slink 1]

Also, you should probably read every Joe Pos blog post before you make another sports-related post, just so you know when you're rehashing more of his stuff.

Thanks for this, I have enjoyed reading his blog over the last few days!

[slink 1]

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=12117903LOL

[JoeyJoJo 18]

Thanks for this, I have enjoyed reading his blog over the last few days!

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=12117903

Yeah, I read some of his most recent articles, including the one about this Jeter play.I'm ok with the initial acting job, but was it really necessary to keep it up with the trainer coming out and all that?I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN!GET HIM A WHEELCHAIR!

[CaneBrain 95]

Yeah, I read some of his most recent articles, including the one about this Jeter play.I'm ok with the initial acting job, but was it really necessary to keep it up with the trainer coming out and all that?I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN!GET HIM A WHEELCHAIR!

anyone who complains about the original faking is being a self-righteous douche. That's called doing what it takes. Calling out the trainer, though, was ridiculous. Come on Derek, baseball games are long enough without soccer style faking.

[timwakefield 68]

Unrelated, just saw this, thought it was funny:http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=11882073I don't think it's as ridiculous as the announcers do, but I have to say I've never seen a pitcher throw a strike on purpose when the plan is to walk the batter intentionally. It makes sense though when you think about it. He's saying, 'You can't just stand there in the box looking the other way, even if you can plainly see that we're gonna walk you. At least pretend to respect my ability to strike your ass out.'

[Swift_Psycho 1]

http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2010/...hes-from-heart/Tyler Colvin goes down for the season, pierced by a broken bat in his chest, something that easily could have been prevented. It's just stunning that the BatGlove hasn't been implemented in the majors yet. Here's to hoping this finally puts enough pressure on the player's union and MLB to do it.

[timwakefield 68]

Yikes. Batglove seems to be a pretty obvious response. That, or they could stop manufacturing the bats with such fragile handles. http://www.batglove.com/Solution.html

[JoeyJoJo 18]

I've never heard of batglove before, but it should pretty obviously be used immediately.I can't even count how many times I've heard someone remark after a close call of a broken bat, "Do we need to wait for someone to get seriously injured before doing something about this?" Apparently the answer is: "Yes, yes we do."

[Swift_Psycho 1]

I've never heard of batglove before, but it should pretty obviously be used immediately.

http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2010/...nd-steve-rauso/Above is all you need to know about the BatGlove, including how Rawlings did everything they could to prevent it from being implemented at the start of this season because they wanted exclusivity, and the creators turned them down, stating:

“because we believe that this product should be on every bat, not exclusive to any particular bat manufacturer. We are not bat manufacturers and don’t aim to be. We want our product on every bat, to improve safety. Nothing more“. This isn’t about the money.

Phil and Steve Rauso deserve a lot of credit for sticking to their guns. And Rawlings can go fuck themselves.

[timwakefield 68]

That's certainly interesting. And re: JJJ, nail on the head. Apparently we did have to wait for a fairly serious injury (and were lucky it wasn't so much worse, like death for instance), and I would be quite surprised if batglove isn't being used by spring training next, or even by the world series this year.

[Swift_Psycho 1]

Apparently we did have to wait for a fairly serious injury (and were lucky it wasn't so much worse, like death for instance), and I would be quite surprised if batglove isn't being used by spring training next, or even by the world series this year.

I hope you're right, but MLB is painfully slow at making changes, no matter how logical the changes would be. It will take the players themselves demanding a change, and while I think they're collectively moving in that direction, I doubt we're there yet. And because it was the player's union themselves who largely squashed the BatGlove from being implemented at the beginning of the season (at Rawlings' urging), I highly doubt they will change their mind in 2010. The best I think we can hope for is that at the beginning of 2011, the union will say that they have "completed their extra studies" and "addressed the concerns that kept them from implementing it in 2010" and will then start using the BatGlove. That would be a lie of course, since the concern Rawlings had brought up to stop the BatGlove in 2010 had already been debunked before they voiced it, but I think that's the best we can realistically hope for since the player's union obviously isn't going to tell the public the truth voluntarily.I think Rob Neyer had a good, short take on this whole thing:http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...-for-a-fatality

[JoeyJoJo 18]

Shouldn't we be able to make an aluminum or graphite or whatever bat that mimics a wood bat in all respects, except the breaking into spears part? Seems like this is something we could do. I suppose the baseball traditionalists will rebel against not hearing "the crack of the bat," which I can't disagree with too much because that college baseball ping is kind of annoying.