Archive for July, 2009
Young hasn’t really impressed me so far. I think everyone would be better off if he were with another team,
This web site right here is where the dorkwads of ballhawking and the geekwads of baseball stats meet and do a Vulcan salute. There’s enough nerdiness here to power 10 Strat-O-Matic leagues and a new season of Battlestar Galactica.
And if we didn’t know all too well that ballhawking attracts a weird breed of rabidly entrepreneurial, developmentally arrested adults who will trample small children and good manners for something Cliff Floyd just chucked into the stands, it’d be kind of awesome. Oh, hell, I’ll say it. It is awesome. There’s something sort of sweet about it, too. The ballhawks have themselves a neat community for their peculiar obsession, just like NAMBLA and Catholics
Have a look at that chart, which I think speaks for itself (though I’ve yet to determine what this “Competition Factor” is). It seems our old friend the Happy Youngster finds himself a distant second, behind one Zack Hample, who is something of a legend in ballhawking quarters. Hample, as you can see, favors a device that I’m guessing is the one described in this New York Times story:
After placing a thick rubber band around his baseball glove, Hample opens the pocket and wedges a Sharpie pen between the webbing and the fingers, creating a makeshift trap. Using a long string, he lowers the glove onto any ball left unattended on the field that is within his reach.
Hample corrals the ball between the webbing and the rubber band, then lifts the glove carefully into his hands.
I’m more impressed with this Erik Jabs fellow, who it says right here has chased down 125 batted balls. Surely that’s harder than lowering some MacGyvery contraption onto the field to scoop up the left fielder’s leavings, right? The metrics clearly need some work — adjustments for home runs caught on the fly in crowded pitcher-friendly ballparks, say. A predictive statistic would be nice, too, a sort of ballhawk PECOTA. Seriously. This needs to happen. Someone get Nate Silver on the communicator.
H/T reader Zain
Counting Baseballs MLBlogs
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A lot of fans really like this guy. I think Young is awesome -
Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter’s anchors are too perky for this early in the morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and the blogosphere to bring you everything you need to know to start your day.
â¢The Coyotes are staying in Phoenix. The NHL turns down $212 million bid for the team, accepts Jerry Reinsdorf’s offer of $64 million less. And yet, Bettman says “this had nothing whatsoever to do with the relocation issue.” That’s actually believable, considering the commish has made his career on terrible financial decisions.
â¢Omar Minaya is “this close to being out of baseball,” says Mets exec. That’s not much of a threat, since what he’s put together can hardly be called “baseball.”
â¢ESPN Radio host quits after being muzzled over Big Ben. The Roethlisberger controversy has claimed its first victim. Besides, you know, the woman claiming to be the victim.
â¢Matt Garza plunked Mark Teixeira last night, and no one would have thought anything of it until he told reporters it was on purpose. Enjoy that 6-game suspension, Matt.
â¢Sam Bradford, signing babies at the Big 12’s Media Days. Yes, he’s big news, but is he good enough to be the first player to win two Heismans before becoming an NFL bust?
â¢Pirates trade away whatever they had left. For posterity, here’s their starting lineup from yesterday’s game: Andrew McCutchen, Andy LaRoche, Delwyn Young, Garrett Jones, Steve Pearce, Brandon Moss, Ramon Vazquez, Jason Jaramillo. I…I don’t even have a joke here.
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I love it when I see headlines about Francisco -
The Astros will face the Cubs this afternoon with a depleted pitching staff. Ex-Cub LaTroy Hawkins, who is already in trouble with MLB for his comments made about the umpiring crew after Monday night’s game, will go on the disabled list today with shingles. Much as I don’t like Hawkins, I wouldn’t wish shingles on him — it can be extremely painful.
Doug Brocail, who is 42 years old and who had, among others, as teammates his rookie year in San Diego in 1992 Mike Maddux, Tony Gwynn Sr. and Larry Andersen (who is 56 years old), will be recalled to take Hawkins’ roster spot. The Astros will also be without Wesley Wright (who likely wouldn’t have pitched anyway today after throwing 51 pitches last night), because he was “rushed to the hospital following Tuesdayâs win because he was experiencing discomfort in the area around his appendix.”
Bruce Miles blogs about the Cubs’ continued interest in Pittsburgh’s John Grabow and Washington’s Joe Beimel as Lou continues to overwork his bullpen for no particular reason:
Worse yet, Lou had to use lefty Sean Marshall for a third straight game, making Marshall doubtful for Wednesday.
A number of us (yes, I hear you, Jessica) have been shouting real loud at Lou about this, but let’s try it again: Hey, Lou! Sean Marshall is a starting pitcher. If you have to use him early in a game, why not use him the way Cecil Cooper used Wright last night — for multiple innings? Marshall can get both LHB and RHB out.
The Cubs have more motivation to keep Houston from scoring today: shut them out and it costs Astros fans money. How? The Astros are discounting tickets for their next home series based on how many runs they score in Chicago:
For every run that the team scores during its July 27 to 30 series on the road against the Chicago Cubs, the team will drop the price on its field box tickets by $1 for the next home stand against the San Francisco Giants. The Giants play at Minute Maid Park Aug. 3 to 5.
So far Astros fans can save $12 per field box ticket. Let’s keep it that way. Onward to this afternoon’s matchup. (Hat tip to Big League Stew for the link.)
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Randy Wells threw the first six innings vs. the Astros on May 16 at Wrigley Field, giving up no runs but winding up with a no-decision after Kevin Gregg blew the lead — Sean Marshall got the win when the Cubs came back in the last of the ninth. Wells gave up only four hits in that game, his only career appearance vs. Houston, all singles.
Mike Hampton might have been a Cub had Andy MacPhail been willing to spend as much as the Rockies did when they signed him in 2001. Good thing he didn’t — Hampton’s been pretty mediocre since signing that eight-year deal (save one decent year with Atlanta in 2003), which finally expired at the end of last year. The Cubs jumped all over him in the first inning on April 6 in Houston and he’s gotten pounded in his last three starts (7.80 ERA). Derrek Lee is only 7-for-31 (.229) vs. Hampton, but three of those hits are homers.
The Cubs are on WGN again today, and also on FSN Houston. For other games today see the MLB.com Mediacenter.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Astros site The Crawfish Boxes.
Overflow comment threads will post today at 2:15 pm, 3:15 pm and 4 pm CDT.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
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What do you think!
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If you’re a fan of young, you’ll like this:
““The only constant factor to be found in my thinking over the years has been opposition to accepted opinions.”
- Pierre Trudeau
Bill James, who hasn’t much to say about the subject over the years, offered up some provocative thoughts about how the Steroid Era will look down the road.To make a long story short, he thinks it’s ultimately going to have no impact at all on things like the Hall of Fame, and he suspects that in 40 years or so people will certainly have a very different perspective on the matter. If they’re not wondering what we were so excited about. He has four points to make:
1) Steroids, or their descendants, are the human future. Steroids, he observes, help athletes fight back against the inevitable process of aging. Then, in the purest Trudeau fashion, he innocently asks what’s wrong with that. He proceeds to answer his own question. With a twist.
What�s wrong with that is that steroids may help keep players �young� at some risk to their health, and the use of steroids by athletes may lead non-athletes to risk their health as well. But the fact is that, with time, the use of drugs like steroids will not disappear from our culture. It will, in fact, grow, eventually becoming so common that it might almost be said to be ubiquitous. Everybody wants to stay young. As we move forward in time, more and more people are GOING to use more and more drugs in an effort to stay young. Many of these drugs are going to be steroids or the descendants of steroids.
Which means that come the brave new world, when the ice caps have melted and pestilence and famine are ravaging the planet - I’m going to miss out on all this, I fear - the baseball players of the last fifteen years can at least be comforted by knowing that they will no longer be regarded as semi-criminals. They’re going to look more like pioneers. This is an extremely novel notion.
2) The slippery slope phenomena. “Once some players who have been associated with steroids are in the Hall of Fame, the argument against the others will become un-sustainable.”
That’s logical enough, I suppose. I do think there’s a problem in assuming that logic is going to have a significant role in this type of discussion.
3) Time heals all wounds. “History is forgiving. Statistics endure.”
True dat. There have been reports this very week that Bud Selig is reassessing baseball’s position regarding Pete Rose, whose trangressions were against rules far more entrenched and far more explicit than anything Mark McGwire is alledged to have done. With enough time, anything can be forgiven. As long as I have been paying attention to baseball, there has been a significant part of the baseball community petitioning for Joe Jackson - Joe Jackson - to be forgiven and admitted to the Hall of Fame. Someday it may even happen. Well, obviously if you’re going to give Pete Rose a pass in the fulltime - never mind Shoeless Joe himself - it’s not hard to extend the same courtesy to Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Palmeiro and the rest.
4) The Buddy System, because “Old players play a key role in the Hall of Fame debate. It seems unlikely to me that aging ballplayers will divide their ex-teammates neatly into classes of �steroid users� and �non-steroid users.�
Thaty’s true - I don’t pay much attention myself to the views of old players, but they do appear to carry a fair bit of weight. I think it’s the main reason that Jim Rice is finally in the Hall of Fame.
And to wrap up:
was there really a rule against the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs? At best, it is a debatable point. The Commissioner issued edicts banning the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs…. But �rules�, in civilized society, have certain characteristics. They are agreed to by a process in which all of the interested parties participate. They are included in the rule book. There is a process for enforcing them. Someone is assigned to enforce the rule, and that authority is given the powers necessary to enforce the rule. There are specified and reasonable punishments for violation of the rules.
The �rule� against Performance Enhancing Drugs, if there was such a rule before 2002, by-passed all of these gates. It was never agreed to by the players, who clearly and absolutely have a right to participate in the process of changing any and all rules to which they are subject. It was not included in any of the various rule books that define the conduct of the game from various perspectives. There was no process for enforcing such a rule. The punishments were draconian in theory and non-existent in fact.
It seems to me that, with the passage of time, more people will come to understand that the commissioner�s periodic spasms of self-righteousness do not constitute baseball law. It seems to me that the argument that it is cheating must ultimately collapse under the weight of carrying this great contradiction�that 80% of the players are cheating against the other 20% by violating some �rule� to which they never consented, which was never included in the rule books, and which for which there was no enforcement procedure. History is simply NOT going to see it that way.
In other words, it will prove impossible to describe as cheaters those who violated a rule to which they never consented, which was never included in the rule books, and for which there was no enforcement procedure. Logical - but again, I think there’s a problem in assuming that logic is going to have a significant role in this type of discussion.
Have at it.
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I bet everybody saw that coming! Any thoughts?
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I can’t get enough of jones:
The Cubs five-game win streak doesn’t make it to six and and the loss coupled with the Cardinals win over the Dodgers, drops the Cubs back to second place. Ryan Dempster returned from the disabled list and was nothing short of awful. 5 IP, 9 H, 3 K and 5 ER, 6 total and the error was his own. But at least he didn’t walk anyone! With the Cubs catching a huge break when Roy Oswalt left in the second inning with a back injury, the Cubs just needed some decent pitching to stay in this one and they sure didn’t get it from Dempster or the bullpen.
Armchair Managing: The Cubs first comeback started in the fourth when Wesley Wright just completely lost it and missed the strike zone on 10 straight pitches and quite a few more before and after as well. He walked the bases loaded on two occasions with a sacrifice fly in-between and with lefty Mike Fontenot in the original lineup with Oswalt starting, Lou went to the bench early and called on Reed Johnson to pinch-hit and he came through with a 2-out, 2-run single. Then a nicely executed double steal put runners on 2nd/3rd but also gave the Astros the opportunity to intentionally walk Koyie Hill and force Lou’s hand with Dempster due up. Lou didn’t take the bait and let Dempster hit and he naturally struck out. If you’re already going for the big inning by pinch-hitting for Fontenot, I think you have to do the same with Dempster there. And if Lou called for the double steal, he basically ended the Cubs inning if he wasn’t going to pinch-hit for Dempster, since you know Cooper would walk Hill there. This all leads me to believe that Lou is a terrible chess player. Dempster then rewarded Lou’s faith by giving up a 2-run HR in the top of the fifth that gave the Astros a 6-3 lead.
Ramirez’s three-run dinger int he bottom of the fifth neutralized the damage though and then the bullpen proceeded to flush the game and first place with it.
Half-Ass Parachat Recap:
- Miggy’s 3-run HR in the first
- well it looked like a HR, sac fly instead
- Debating Top 10 defensive plays of the decade
- Was Giambi safe?
- no
- Was Giambi safe?
- laughing at the Astros misfortune with Roy Oswalt
- Valverde with Fulchino is delicious
- Transmission’s date with his sister
- Following Buehrle’s quest for back-to-back perfectos and congratulations on the new record…now go die!
- “Ryan Dempster is NOT pitching a perfect game” - Ryno
- Finding Trans a date on craigslist
- We wouldn’t have to do this if you weren’t having dates with your sister.
- I get bored doing the Parachat recap…
- stupid blackout rules, bring Trans back to us
And congratulations to the Angel Fan Wife on being married to me for 8 years…I imagine it’s been just as insufferable as being a Cub fan sometime over the last 100. Lots of expectations, but neither of us deliver….
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What do you think!
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I like it when I see news about young -
Forget the fact that it’s James Madison University vs. Marist. A dispute over a departed coach bringing previously recruited players to his new school has led to one of the oddest lawsuits in college sports.
Matt Brady was the basketball coach at Marist from 2004 to 2008, when he left for JMU. Four of his prep prospects - one signed, two orally comitted, one had not announced a decision - followed. In the world of college hoops, that’s pretty standard.
What’s not standard is the contract Brady had signed with Marist. It included a provision preventing him from continuing to recruit players he had contact with at Marist. So the school is suing Brady, JMU, and the entire Commonwealth of Virginia.
From a legal standpoint, the contract’s standing is iffy. Specifically, it affects third parties who were not party to the contract at all: the players. You can’t bar an 18-year-old from attending a specific college because of a contract he had nothing to do with.
I don’t know how something like that could hold up. If a coach leaves and a young man says, âCoach, I want to go where you’re going,’ a university doesn’t have that power,” Hofstra coach Tom Pecora said. “If they don’t have anything signed, how in the world could a university dictate their recruitment? As much as we want to say recruits sign with a university, there is a relationship there.”
Pretty much everyone agrees this lawsuit will have larger implications, if not an immediate impact. The wording of contract clauses could get a lot more specific and effective in reining in coaches planning to jump ship. Will John Calipari ever agree to a contract again?
Marist Clause Unusual? Daily News-Record
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I wonder how Davis’s fans feel,
Another ugly day on the farm included just one win, all the way down in Low-A ball while two pitchers, including a rehabbing righty, left their starts early. Happy Monday!
Not a good night for rehabbing Jays in this one. Shaun Marcum started and went two innings, allowing a run on two hits and a walk. After 34 pitches, he was gone. No reason was stated and a quick search online doesn’t mention the reason for his departure. In any event, Davis Romero replaced him and was rocked for five earned runs over 1.2 frames. Later, Casey Janssen managed two thirds of an inning allowing four runs on three hits and a walk. Yikes.
At the plate, Jason Lane, Kyle Phillips and Travis Snider all homered for Vegas. For Snider, who added another hit, it helped snap a 4-for-31 streak. Travis’s AAA line now stands at 227/330/433. Randy Ruiz added his 40th (!) double and 91st (!) RBI while Angel Sanchez was 3-for-5 with two doubles and two RBI.
Things weren’t much better over in the Eastern League. Reidier Gonzalez started for the Fisher Cats and lasted precisely four batters before leaving with a groin injury. Adrian Martin relieved him and was knocked around for 5 runs over 4.1 innings to seal the loss for the Fisher Cats. Nathan Starner and Leon Boyd both appeared and allowed a run each.
Not a whole lot to mention at the plate. Brad Emaus and Scott Campbell each contributed two hits. Emaus and David Cooper each doubled while one of Campbell’s knocks went for a homer.
Oh, good grief. Dunedin managed their first hit of the day with one out in the 8th when Matthew Liuzza doubled. And that was that. Seriously.
Andrew Liebel started for the D-Jays and pitched extremely well despite the loss. Liebel went 6 innings and allowed a run on a walk and seven hits. He struck out six. Tim Collins pitched in with a shutout inning which included a strikeout.
Victory! The Lugnuts pulled one out thanks in large part to Tyler Pastornicky who was 2-for-5 with a double, run, RBI and two stolen bases to give him 47 on the season. Kenny Wilson chipped in with a double and an outfield assist while A.J. Jimenez had two hits.
Chris Holguin took the hill for Lansing and provided 5.1 innings of one run ball while three relievers combined for 9 strikeouts over the final 3.2 innings, including the final six outs. Matthew Daly saved his 17th with 4 K’s over 1.1 innings.
Despite four doubles, Auburn managed just one run in dropping another one. I don’t think I’ve written about a Doubleday win yet. Anyway, Ryan Goins was 2-for-4 to move to 11-for-25 in his short NYPL career. Sean Ochinko added a double while Eric Eiland was 0-for-3.
Evan Crawford started and took the loss for Auburn with 2.2 innings of work. Three relievers combined to keep things close. So there was that. Oh, and Sequoyah Stonecipher homered for Jamestown. Which sounds really cool to say.
Gulf Coast League Blue Jays had the day off. It’s safe to say they probably would’ve lost, though.
Three Stars:
3rd Star: Randy Ruiz; 2-for-4, 2B, 2 RBI, BB
2nd Star: Tyler Pastornicky; 2-for-5, R, 2B, RBI, 2 SB (47)
1st Star: Andrew Liebel; 6 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K
what do you think?How do you think this news about Davis will affect the team this season?
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Harrison is at it once again -