EVIL~! alkeiper

I gotta say, for a thread that's three days in the making, this is a disappointment.

Thursday.

Indeed. But, nothing makes sense here. Really, the only rule by the dopes in charge here is that if we don't like you, we'll do whatever we want to you. Oh grow up. This is a private endeavour, not a publicly run institution. And if the "dopes in charge" haven't ruined this place enough for you to stop showing up, they must have done something right (or wrong).

Also from the TSM Rules... Pretty straightforward. I don't think it's worth getting worked up over the fact that you couldn't log on to a message board for three days over a holiday weekend.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B09160TOR2005.htm

The trade's official, it's on mlb.com.

I don't know how many of you are in college. I'm pursuing a double major in History and Political Science. I'm in my last semester, working on completing a classed called Political Science Seminar. Generally the purpose of these courses is to compile one sizeable paper, 20 pages in this case. I did it last semester for History. History is my first love. I originally had a minor in Political Science, but I decided to go for the major because it took just nine more credits (3 classes). For the paper I just said the heck with it and chose a baseball-themed topic, the antitrust exemption. It involves three Supreme Court cases, placing it well within the realm of Political Science. The paper's due on Thursday, giving me five more days to pull this out. This morning I came up with a sore throat so on top of balancing school and work, I feel like crap. I am battling though, and its a minor victory that I've got 11 pages written. If I switch to Courier New, it's at 15 pages! The problem is that if I get too much done, I feel accomplished and I don't touch it again for a few days. It's a nice little bit of reverse psycology at work. It's funny though. The more you go through college, the more you laugh at smaller papers. Three or four pages? One night, easy. You don't even fret about it. In three weeks I'll have a dual bacholar's degree and while I'm excited, I'm going to miss hanging out with my friends and the other cool things about college. Some random (baseball) notes... -I hadn't realized how good Brian McCann was until I saw his stat line. A .572 slugging percentage at the age of 22?! On top of that, McCann hit .333 and walked nearly as often as he struck out. Brian McCann's isolated power (slugging pct. minus batting average) was well above .200. For comparison's sake, only three other catchers have flashed that kind of power at McCann's age. Johnny Bench went to the Hall of Fame. Darrell Porter was one of the top 30 catchers of all time. Earl Williams had great power, but was abysmal defensively. -As I noted in the offseason thread, Carlos Lee stole 19 bases and grounded into 22 double plays. It would seem odd for a player to flash good speed and still run himself out of innings. So I checked and found that 14 players had posted similar seasons, most of them great players like Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson and Minnie Minoso. How does this happen? 1. 13 of the 14 players were right handed hitters. Righties have a longer distance to run to first base. 2. Double play opportunites are dictated much like RBI opportunities. Players on better offensive teams will ground into more double plays, simply because they come to bat more often with a runner on first base. 3. Strategies sometimes dictate play. In the 1950s, a batter who got to first base stayed anchored to the bag. Few hit and runs and steal attempts made double plays easier for the defense. -Many have noted Carlo Lee's expanding girth. The encyclopedias list him at 235 lbs. Among players listed at 235 lbs. or more, only Andres Galarraga has more career stolen bases. Galarraga leads Lee 128 to 96. -That inspired me to take an opposite list, home runs by little guys. I consider Ozzie Smith the standard at 155 lbs. At 150 lbs., Jose Cardenal hit 138 career home runs, making him the little home run king. -Finally, I just purchased this hat off of mlb.com. THIS is stylish.

More fun with stats. CAREER WEIGHT >= 235 STOLEN BASES SB 1 Andres Galarraga 128 2 Carlos Lee 96 3 Dave Orr 66 4 Adam Dunn 48 5 Frank Thomas 32 6 Matt Holliday 27 7 Dmitri Young 25 8 Butch Huskey 21 9 Lyle Mouton 9 10 Frank Howard 8

I think so. Out of the 14 batters, 13 were right handed hitters. Only one (Gregg Jeffries) was a switch hitter.

Someday I'll figure out how a guy can steal 19 bases AND ground into 22 double plays. Edit: I checked for the heck of it, and 14 players have turned the trick, including Julio Franco three times. There's some impressive names on that list including Hank Aaron, Minnie Minoso and Jackie Robinson.

I'll bash the Cubs for a lot of things about that deal, but I have no doubts that Soriano can play center field.

I'm not sure there's much of a difference between Pierre and Matthews. Pierre is younger and faster, but he gets caught on the bases too often to add a tremendous amount of value. Matthews has some pop and gets on base more often, but last year was a fluke and he's overrated defensively. What amazes me is that teams are spending out the wazoo for players who aren't even difference makers. Except for Alfonso Soriano, there hasn't been a deal that's made me sit and think, "they're a much better team now than before."

They could make a dvd set of nothing but Phillies/Cubs slugfests. Schmidt's Four Home Run Game: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B04170CHN1976.htm Obviously this doesn't exist on tape/radio. Almost the greatest comeback of all time, as the Cubs lead 25-6 at one point and hold on to win 26-23. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B08250CHN1922.htm

Some of the rumors are just ridiculous. I haven't heard a single substantial rumor about the Rangers dealing Michael Young for ANYONE. Chad Cordero is three years away from free agency and the Nats are not going to deal him unless they get something substantial in return. Drew? I'll buy that. Personally, I think Eddie Guardado's toast. But it's not just this one. It's that we see it every year.

Matsuzaka's pitched over 200 innings at least twice, and you have to remember he's also logged time in international competition and exhibitions. He's pitched every six days instead of five, but he usually pitched an inning longer than MLB average in return. I doubt very much that durability is an issue.

Well, the Angels just gave up $50 Million to sign a center fielder who had five more win shares than their current center fielder.

It's not that you do the Red Sox. It's just that some of us live in something called "reality" where our teams make realistic choices based on our current rosters, the state of our farm systems, and the market.

Ugh. Why do you have to torture us every single offseason/trade deadline with your "this is the Sox roster when they trade/buy every player on earth" posts?

Good god that Gary Matthews deal is awful. His career year was largely based on a batting average 50 points above his career average.

Two things. 1. Voters love RBIs. 2. Voters notice a guy having an out-of-context season. Guys like Pujols, Mickey Mantle and Stan Musial won less MVPs because they performed every single year.

The Cardinals won the division with 83 wins last season. I would think that any team could rise up and win that.

I intended to bring this up earlier. The transaction log is filled with teams who purchased minor league contracts. Essentially teams have to decide what players to protect from the Rule V draft. If a player has been in the system something like 4-6 years and is not on the 40-man, the organization can lose him. Adding a player does not necessarily mean an impending major league callup.

FWIW, Win Shares ranks him 5th.

Finally, an award selection where all fans can stand up and agree by saying, "what the fuck?!"

Jose Guillen might be a good addition as a right handed, corner outfielder.