The news out of Philadelphia is that the Phillies want to persue free agent outfielder Alfonso Soriano. Presumably they would trade Pat Burrell to open up left field. Soriano has long been looked at in the sabermetric community as an overrated player, even a bad one. At some points, that flies in the face of logic. What do we make of Soriano? Is he a promising player into his 30s, or a potential liability?
Soriano's comparables at his age include Howard Johnson, Tony Batista, Matt Will
The World Series is over, the Cardinals defeating the Tigers in five games. And in a way, I am glad the Series is over. Yes, it means no more Major League Baseball until March. But this Series was one of the more excruciating baseball experiences of my life. There were times I did not want to even watch the games, but felt obligated.
Neither the Cardinals or Tigers really set the world afire. This is one of the problems with parity. Yes, you have a greater number of teams competing
We've got a couple of Phillies' fans on this board. Instead of clogging the MLB thread in Sports, I figured I would post my thoughts here, and maybe we'll run with this throughout the offseason. What do the Phillies need to do to improve this offseason? I'll address the trouble spots.
1. Third Base
Abraham Nunez hit .211/.303/.273 this season in 322 at bats. That performance is a big reason why the Phils failed to reach the postseason. You can take that kind of performance from a
SS- Jim Fregosi
CF- Alex Ochoa
2B- Alfonso Soriano
1B- Norm Cash
RF- Leon Roberts
LF- Gil Hodges
C- Jason Varitek
3B- Billy Ripken
P- Brad Radke
What kind of lineup is that? If similiarity scores have merit, it is a similar lineup to one posted by the Philadelphia Phillies down the stretch. Similarity scores seek to compare two players' statistics and measure their comparability. A score of 1000 would indicate two players who are exactly alike. Scores under 900 indicate
The award balloting is occuring in the Sports forum. I figured I would list my own ballot here.
NL MVP
1: Albert Pujols, StL
2: Ryan Howard, Phi
3: Carlos Beltran, NYM
4: Miguel Cabrera, Fla
5: Lance Berkman, Hou
6: Alfonso Soriano, Was
7: Jose Reyes, NYM
8: David Wright, NYM
9: Rafael Furcal, LAD
10: Chase Utley, Phi
AL MVP
1. Derek Jeter, NYY
2. Joe Mauer, Min
3. Grady Sizemore, Cle
4. Justin Morneau, Min
5. David Ortiz, Bos
6. Manny Ramirez, Bos
7.
I'm surprised the last one is six weeks old already. Damn.
The Phillies' minor league season is over, and I'm mulling over a list of the Phils' Top 20 prospects. Considering prospects from Triple A to Low A is a fairly simple matter. The stats can give you about 70-90% of what you need to know. In Short Season A and Rookie ball though, it's a crapshoot. You've got 18 year old kids in a league too far down to project, along with a sample size too small to trust. You really need good sc
I picked up Out Of the Park Baseball a few weeks ago, a sim game that allows you to pick up any year in baseball history. One thing I've wanted to do is replay the Phillies' history from 1901 to the present. I don't know if I'm that nuts, but the idea pitiqued my curiosity enough to check out the Phils at the turn of the century. Reviewing that team revealed a few interesting things not just about the team, but about baseball in general at that time.
A few terms I am using in the stat li
Occasionally I take friends along to minor league games, and along with conversations via AIM I run into occasional misconceptions regarding minor league baseball. I thought it would be a nice time killer to quickly run over what every level of the minors entails.
AAA: Triple A baseball actually showcases relatively few prospects. The main reason is that AAA is the one level where there is an inordinate amount of pressure to promote a player. No one clamors to call up a player to patch a
Normally I stick to writing about baseball, but sometimes topics come around that are too good to pass up. Logging onto ESPN.com, I was greated with a request to take a short survey. Ok, these are short and relatively painless. I'm paraphrasing the first two questions.
Year of birth, how many hours do you spend on the internet?
21-30 hours, 1981. My town doesn't have nightlife and I prefer the internet over television.
Are you familiar with a term called Erectile Disfunction?
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/15267563.htm
From Todd Zolecki's column this morning.
I could've used more details of how the Phils' bench hampered them, but this is absolutely correct. On Friday, the Reds intentionally walked Ryan Howard three times because there was no one on the bench. Right now the Phillies are employing a four man bench and those four players had a combined 91 career at bats coming into this season. Chris Roberson just can't hit (although he's
Last night I drove down to Reading for the Phillies/BaySox game, and I had an opportunity to watch Gio Gonzalez pitch. Sometimes the statistics don't tell you everything about the player. Other times they're dead on. Gonzalez is one of those pitchers who appear exactly as the stats would have you believe. Gonzalez has absolutely fantastic stuff. His control wavers however, as he's walked about 4.5 batters per nine innings. Even though he walked just one batter in his start, he started the
I've been putting this off for several days. As some of you might imagine, I am somewhat steamed by the trade that sent Bobby Abreu to the Yankees for four prospects. Abreu was one of my favorite players, and the Yankees are my most hated enemy. But sometimes good baseball sense requires that you set personal feelings aside and make decisions that win games. So I would like to be as fair about this as possible.
First off, the trade is terrible, value-for-value. The Phillies sent a play
As some of you might know, I have a part time gig scoring minor league games for an independant statistics company called Baseball Info Solutions. It's not well paying but it allows me to see more games than I would otherwise. This week I saw an entire four game series between AAA teams Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Richmond. The Richmond Braves are an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves and the Barons are of course an affiliate of the Phillies.
Tuesday: Red Barons 6, Braves 1
The are times
I should have included this in my discussion regarding Hall of Fame relievers. How many relievers should go in the Hall? It is my firm belief that relief pitchers are simply not as good as starting pitchers. Why should a mediocre pitcher go ahead of a very good pitcher simply because he was placed in an easier role?
Easier role? Yes, there is a lot of talk placed upon the closer pitching in such a high pressure role, and how crucial he is to a team. The closer is important, no doubt.
Rather than bury this in an old discussion, I figured I would start anew.
Let me reexamine the top 10 as ranked by Baseball America before the season and then I'll hit on the other prospects Pinjockey discusses.
1. Cole Hamels, SP
Cole Hamels had an extraordinary ascent through the minors before struggling at the Major League level. He's struck out a batter an inning though, and control was usually not a problem in the minors. The big thing is that Hamels has reached a ca
Before I begin, a quick note about ERA+, since I will use it often in this blog. ERA+ takes a pitcher's ERA and adjusts it for park and era. An ERA+ of 100 is league average. Higher is above average, lower is below average.
Hall of Fame Relievers
In my last entry I discussed the Hall of Fame chances for starting pitchers. This time out I will cover the relievers. Relief pitchers are a difficult field to judge because the Hall of Fame voters are still establishing the bar of excell
Mike & Mike this morning discussed pitching candidates for the Hall of Fame. I figured I'd throw in my two cents.
Shoe Ins
Roger Clemens
Greg Maddux
Randy Johnson
Tom Glavine
Pedro Martinez
Tom Glavine is often labeled as a guy who is close, but in. He's a dead lock, and it is not even close. Glavine as of this writing has 286 wins. Of the 30 pitchers who have won 275 or more games, 22 are in the Hall, three are still active, and two were 19th century pitchers. That
Top Five Reasons You Can't Blame the Fans for Messing Up the All-Star Voting.
1. They're hitting a moving target.
MLB started their All-Star balloting sometime in late April. At the end of April, Victor Martinez held a gaudy .398 batting average, while A.J. Pierzynski had a .342 average. Joe Mauer had a good .319 average, but not spectacular. How were voters to know that Mauer would hit .388 over his next two months? Most fans evaulate All-Star selections based on their first halve
Over the last few seasons the Phillies have developed into a perennial contender. From two consecutive 90+ loss seasons in 1996-97, the Phillies improved to an average win total of 85 wins the last five seasons. Despite the growth however, fans grew restless over the lack of a playoff berth. So the Phillies' upper brass did the only reasonable thing. Fire the general manager. Surely a proven baseball man like Pat Gillick would lead the Phillies to a division title, right? Well, sixty-eight
What games are the most crucial games in a series. At times a media outlet will trot out a statistic claiming that the team that wins game one wins the series at such and such a percentage. Is that true, and if so, does that make game one an absolute necessity. A bout of extreme boredom at work set me on the path of exploring some mathematical exploration. Using a statistical model of each team having a 50/50 shot of winning each game, I caculated how much the odds of winning a seven game se
Recently I stumbled upon Baseball America's archive of its Top 100 prospect lists from their inception in 1990 until today. John Sickels has a regular feature on his blog chronicaling the paths of some of the top players in baseball. I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some of the players once considered top prospects in the Phillies systems. There are some hits (Pat Burrell, Ryan Howard, Scott Rolen), and some duds (Ryan Brannan). More interestingly, there are guys who
My friends regard me as a baseball nut, and for the most part that is true. Name any year, and I can tell you who played in that World Series off the top of my head. Further along however, I fall flat. Ask me who won the National League West in 1979, and I might not remember. Major League Baseball expanded its playoff format in 1969, adding a League Championship series. Most of us remember the great World Series, as they are prevailent, produced on dvd. The LCS however sometimes fades into
Three Game series, pitting the 1939 New York Yankees against the 1995 Cleveland Indians.
'95 Indians (Charles Nagy) @ '39 Yankees (Monte Pearson)
'39 Yankees (Atley Donald) @ '95 Indians (Ken Hill)
'95 Indians (Dennis Martinez) @ '39 Yankees (Red Ruffing) (if necessary)
Game 1
'95 Indians 12, '39 Yankees 4
The Indians steamrolled Yankee pitching in the first game of the series. Albert Belle hit two home runs and Omar Vizquel and Sandy Alomar added home runs of their own. B
Just eight teams left in the mock tournament. In this round, the field is split into two double elimination tournaments. One team advances from each field to play in the finals. I will provide actual details on the games from here on.
FIELD ONE
1929 Athletics @ 1906 Cubs
1962 Giants @ 1939 Yankees
'29 Athletics 5, '06 Cubs 4, 12 Innings
Mule Haas's RBI single in the twelve inning drove in Jimmy Dykes for the go ahead run, and Carroll Yerkes pitched a 1-2-3 inning for the
Next round, 16 teams remaining. Each team plays a three game series against one opponent, with the winners advancing. The former team listed in each set gets home field, while the latter team gets home field advantage for the next two games.
1921 New York Giants vs. 1906 Chicago Cubs
'21 Giants 6, '06 Cubs 2
'06 Cubs 5, '21 Giants 3
'06 Cubs 5, '21 Giants 0
1906 Chicago Cubs win series 2-1
1924 Washington Senators vs. 1929 Philadelphia Athletics
'29 Athletics 5, '24 S
