EVIL~! alkeiper

He pitched hurt.

When do we get the search feature back? It's frustrating not to be able to find my Carl Pavano prediction and laugh at Yankee fans at will.

New York pressure my ass. I wrote a post about Pavano over the offseason but cannot find it due to the search feature not working. Essentially, I predicted Pavano would perform worse, citing the fact that his team's defense would be much worse, he was moving into a better hitting environment, a tougher pitchers' league, and he was lucky last year. Baseball Prospectus, using purely statistics and nothing about "New York Pressure," predicted a 4.64 ERA. By astonishing coincidence, Pavano's ERA is 4.50, fairly close. It has nothing to do with NY pressure. It has something to do with average pitchers having an amazing tendency to be average.

Why? Because some early results have some injured stars in front, before the cream has a chance to rise to the top? If Nomar is elected to the team, I will be absolutely shocked. Otherwise, there are a few questionable choices, but you are going to get those no matter who votes. The problem isn't the voting group. It is the process. No leading player has less votes than Garciaparra. Most fans are not voting for Nomar Garciaparra. Just counting the top 5 of NL First Basemen, at least 1.2 Million ballots have been cast. I figure the total number counted is somewhere around 1.75 Million. Think about that. That means that just 15% of the voters picked Nomar. 15%! Do you really want to take away fan voting because 15% of the voters picked Nomar? That's silly, particularly since most All-Star voters do not have access to current statistics when making their selections in the ballpark. The problem is that the vote is an unrestrained plurality, and when the process lacks a clear candidate, the vote becomes divided and a player with little to offer besides a name has an advantage.

Looking up common opponents between Kevin McBride and Danny Williams, I found Michael Murray. Michael Murray is a professional punching bag with a career record of 16-26. Williams KO'd Murray twice. Murray has lost 17 of his last 18 fights. The only fight he won was against a fighter by the name of Kevin McBride. McBride has lost fights to DaVarryl Williamson, Murray, Axel Schultz, and Louis Monaco. He has yet to face a fighter of any note whatsoever. Tyson KO's McBride here, fairly easily. I think Tyson realizes that if he loses, it is the end of the line.

It's not about being a complete player, it is about being a good player. Right now, only Brian Roberts is better in the American League.

How is A-Rod a thief?

I think Mike edited the wrong post. Thanks,

That's really in bad taste and worse, it's not funny.

Agreed. If I ever launch a hostile takeover of TSM, that will be my first act.

How about the play "The Damn Yankees" about a ex-Senators player selling his soul to the devil just to beat the Yankees and win the World Series That was actually a book first, entitled The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. It was written in 1954, so this is when the Yankees had won five consecutive pennants, and six of the last seven. At its core, it is essentially a re-telling of Faust.

How could any television baseball production be worse than Fox? I actually think they did the best job televising baseball games, although their pbp team (Costas and Morgan) was unbearable.

And Wells is cruising. Of course, those who browsed the Ask Al Thread at NMB saw this coming.

The Yankees buy every free agent they can get their grubby little hands on, spend $200 Million on their team, but because they haven't one the big prize in FOUR YEARS it's odd to hate them? The Yankees losing the World Series is not enough. I will only be happy when I see the complete destruction and collapse of the Yankee dynasty. I don't want disappointment. I want blood. I want 100 losses, at $2 Million a loss. As for the joke, it sucked.

I'm sure there's some uneasiness, but when you pay over %50 Million for a rotation, you tend to worry a little more. Besides, Bruce Chen is really better than people think. He's always had good peripherals, but trouble with the longball. The Orioles do have these interesting figures called pitching prospects. What's forgotten is that the Orioles have real defenders, who catch balls hit in their direction. The Yankees seem to struggle with that.

Heh. He was mistaken. You have to move up the time frame two years.

Just for the heck of it, the Yankees are 15-13 on artificial turf over the last two seasons. They were 18-5 in 2003 on turf however, sweeping the Twins and getting to play the Devil Rays in Tampa Bay ten times.

Correct.

By the way, here is a quick trivia question. What team has the most wins this month?

You're seriously not worried about Minnesota?

Usually the aging process starts at 30, and accelerates from there.

Word. People keep saying the Yankees this, Yankees that. I hate the Yankees, but if they don't lead the division by 5 at the end of June, I'd be shocked. I would. The Yankees are 9-14 against their own division, 3-0 against the Central (swept the Tigers), and 12-6 against the West. That has the stench of a team that performs well against weak competition. The Orioles meanwhile are 16-6 against the East. And of course the Orioles are 5-1 against the Yankees. No one is saying the Orioles will beat the Yankees for sure. But they are a team to be taken seriously.

Four of them, including the Boston Red Sox, if I remember correctly. Fun fact: The Yankees have not won a World Series during a Republican Presidential reign since 1958.

First off, you can never assume a player will last until the age of 40. A-Rod is likely to age well, but you never know. Heck, look at Junior Griffey. Or even Barry Bonds. Mark McGwire. Juan Gonzalez. In my short time, I have seen about a dozen players who were bound to challenge baseball's sacred records, but fell short. A-Rod has 398 home runs right now at the age of 29. That is incredibly impressive. He still has 357 home runs to go. Think about that for a moment. That is eight years of hitting 45 home runs a season every single year. The aging monster will start to challenge A-Rod in about two years. At that point, he begins a slow fight with father time to challenge Hank Aaron. This is not to downplay Rodriguez. I have been one of his biggest supporter's on this board, and he has the best shot of any player to break Aaron's record, including Bonds. But that record is impressive for a reason.

Ryan's on pace to pitch 90 innings this year. He pitched 87 last year. He pitched very well in September last year. I don't see any indication that the workload will hurt.