EVIL~! alkeiper

Czech, we're not talking a Milton Bradley here. Johnny Estrada has no plate discipline. Jason Kendall at least had a history of high OBPs before last year. He may be burnt toast, but he knows what he is doing. I'm not sure the effort is there from Estrada. Steve, John Ennis came back briefly with the Phillies this season. Most of those guys still pitch, but they're marginal talents.

Phillies acquire Chris Snelling for cash. Lots of talent, high injury risk. For cash it's really a nice little pickup.

Four teams in four years. Makes me wonder if there's a personnel problem under the surface.

Excellent point. I have nothing to add.

Two beat writers from each league city.

Sure you can. Plus defense at SS is worth many times more than plus defense in left. Hell, average defense at short is worth more than plus defense in left field. Rollins said his team was the one to beat. Then he put up a 1.057 OPS against the Mets, while his team won eight straight against them. He stepped up his game, hit 30 home runs, 20 triples, won the gold glove and played every game. That's what this award is about. He boasted and backed it up.

Hilarious. Actually third if you count Dave Roberts, who is half-Japanese and was born in Okinawa.

As for Baseball Prospectus, WARP and VORP do not measure defense. If you can't measure it adequately, you can't just sweep it under the rug. It's part of the discussion.

Second. Kaz Tadano was an Indian.

Homer. Maybe. But you give me a reason why I should discount the 403 more plays that Rollins made in the field over Matt Holliday. David Wright, that's a matter of his team not making the playoffs and I can't defend that decision. Pitching failed the Mets. By any purely objective measure, Rollins is in the top 5. That makes him a viable candidate and if he wins from there, it's hardly a bad choice.

I have no problem with the award. Rollins played a key defensive position and won the gold glove. He played every game and all but 17 defensive innings. You can show all the offensive ranks you want. But most of the guys ahead of him were playing lesser defensive positions. Look at runs created. He's 5th, 16 behind leader Matt Holliday. But if you take SS vs. LF, Philadelphia vs. Coors Field, you make up the difference in a hurry. As for Win Shares, Rollins is actually tied for 6th if you use round numbers, seventh if you take it to a decimal point. Two win shares is easily within a margin of error, that gives you two guys only who are clearly, statistically more valuable. Then you haven't yet factored in intangibles. Rollins is hardly a bad choice at all.

I'm fully aware how blood is impactful, and I'm not campaigning for it's elimination. I'm just saying that it seems like something a respectful athletic commission might not allow. It is really kind of silly when you think about it.

The idea has crossed my mind to do a draft based on players in a past year like 1980 or so. What would people think about this?

I decided to check out Baseball America's evaluation. This quote stood out. It's not quite collusion. Still, "we passed on good players because the commissioner told us to" is deplorable. Good teams have slaughtered themselves in the draft to save a few pennies.

I think the reason for the difference is apparent of course. Here is what really amazes me though. Those runs could only come from home runs, of which he has seven. That means Wang allowed only two multi-run home runs all season (and both of those were two run shots). In fact, just for fun because we can do these type of searches now. Only once did Wang even allow three-runs in a single At Bat (Alex Gordon cleared the bases with a double on Sept. 9).

My point is, how is it that a group of suits gets together and decides intentionally bleeding is a good idea in the first place?

The rule against blading is interesting. When you think about it, is intentionally cutting one's self really something that should be allowed as long as it has?

If a deal for good pitching is out there, they could trade Gomez. But you don't move a player like that in the first deal that comes along. He and Martinez are the only positional prospects worth a damn in the entire Mets system. On a team with a lot of bad contracts they are going to need good, pre-arb talent to fill out the squad in coming years. Do they really have a lot of bad contracts? Beltran is an All-Star caliber player, so is Billy Wagner. Moises Alou and Carlos Delgado are committed only for this coming season. Pedro should be off the books after this season, correct? I can't think of a single bad contract they have after this season.

All that stuff can be taken care of by eliminating rules 18 onward. It's not like they are sprinkled liberally. Here is the direct document. http://sos.georgia.gov/GAEC/pdf/Rule%20Ame...ing%20Rules.pdf

I think Gomez is third on the young player depth chart behind Milledge and Martinez. If a deal comes along, particularly for pitching, they should take it.

Horseshit commission? Any competent state HAS an athletic commission of some sort, and they serve a useful purpose. It's haggling over the specifics here that's the problem.

Her version was short. I like.

I was genuinely surprised not to see Ron Simmons.

Snitsky. Awesome.

$399. If only there was a place where you could rent books for free.