EVIL~! alkeiper

59:4 K:BB rate since the All-Star break. I think he's just making bad pitches.

You could look up their stats against each team individually at the least. Against Baltimore, they've hit 300/394/519 as a team. Against Kansas City, they've hit 323/419/531. Against Detroit, they hit 228/291/461. Those are three of the four worst pitching teams. The worst is Cleveland, but one game isn't worth a comparison. Two of them they hit hard, but they struggled against Detroit. That might be due to Detroit's home park. Against Boston, they hit 240/336/379. Against Minnesota, 292/339/453. Against Oakland, 307/387/514. Against Anaheim, 227/312/368. Odd numbers there. Oakland's bullpen requires little explanation. They hit poorly against Anaheim and Boston, as we might expect. Really, I don't see any evidence there that says the Yankees hit poorly against bad bullpens, and vice versa.

Because the Indians rank second in baseball in runs scored. Thus they tend to score runs. Grow up.

Serious question - do you think that, by starting his everyday major league career at the age of 20, Alex Rodriguez has fast-forwarded through the usual "physical prime" of his career and hit the decline phase? Even away from Yankee Stadium, he's hitting 40 points off of his career OPS. It would certainly be a unique occurance. A player's prime occurs earlier than most people think, and the process usually starts by 30. Most players who are stars at 20 and don't flame out early tend to have long careers, and be Hall of Famers. A-Rod will decline as time goes on, and we may have seen his best years. But he will still compete at an All-Star level for awhile, and like I said before, alot of his decline is exaggerated by leaving Texas for a park which is unkind to righties.

Jorge Posada is exceeding his career numbers. Alex Rodriguez looks worse than he is because he moved out of a good hitters' park. The main problem is that the Yankees are built on established, older players. Players almost always decline after 30. Here's a Bill James quote.... That was written about the 1978 California Angels. Its appropriate for the Yankees of this age. The hazards of building via free agency is that you're always acquiring players on a perpetual slide.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Why in the FUCK would you intentionally walk Brad Ausmus?!?!

Ugh. Cory Lidle sucks ass.

I ran a fantasy draft yesterday on MVP Baseball. Of course I worked Moneyball-style, looking for bargains. I'm always on the lookout for platoon players.

I've only played MVP Baseball, so I can't really give you a comparison. I will say it was alot of fun, and I got my money's worth out of it. In fact, I still play it often. All this time, I thought I was some kind of oddball. I love that I could input 2004 rosters into that sucker and play it today if I wanted. I do love the All-franchise teams, and I really wish some gamemaker would emulate that. An old-time baseball game would sell.

Of course, the Cubs would also have to succeed in order for that to happen.

14.5 as of any date. The Yankees were 14 back at their furthest point, and the 1951 Giants erased a 13.5 game deficit.

Baseball-reference.com has introduced a new tool, allowing a broad range of tools for comparing players at various ages. Previously, the site gave top 10 comps for career, and at a player's current age. Now it goes one step further. You can access a direct comparison of their statistics at that age, look at their previous age totals, and look at the future. For example, Jason Giambi. Baseball-reference lists his top ten comps at 32 as Mo Vaughn, Hal Trosky, Ted Kluszewski, Fred McGriff, Larry Walker, Tim Salmon, Gil Hodges, Ryan Klesko, Kent Hrbek, and Wally Berger. This new tool allows you to see how those players performed after they turned 32. http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/sco...&st=age&age=-32 Interesting how only three of them hit more than 70 home runs the rest of their career.

Still, why let it bother you so much? Change the channel, put on the YES Network or something.

Damn. BAD matchup for the US team.

It's 5.5 games now. If the Red Sox were to play .600 ball, the Yankees would need to play .462 ball. Of course, if the Red Sox were to play .600, they would win 94 games. It'll take more than that to win the division. We do have two head-to-head series, and a sweep by the Sox could change the complexion of the race very quickly. So who knows? I would say the odds are 80% Yankees, 20% Sox. And since NO team has ever erased a 14.5 game deficit, I'm going out on a limb and saying the Cardinals have this locked up.

Buster Olney's doing a chat on ESPN.com. I doubt my question on productive outs gets answered (he's the one who touted Productive Out Percentage as a worthwhile stat). Its odd that the top two teams in POP (Montreal and Pittsburgh) score so few runs.

Big news for Mets fans as Scott Kazmir makes his major league debut today, in Safeco.

In which sport?

Kyoto Hamaguchi won the bronze medal in her division.

In 1997 that could have been the case. But the '98 and '99 squads won 102 and 97 games, respectively. That streak also includes losses in 1980, '86, and 2001.

Have those players reached the majors? And if you do know specific players from Delaware Tech who have reached the majors, ship them an e-mail. It's a work in progress, and they will welcome additions/corrections to their data.

For those interested, Kyoko Hamaguchi, daughter of Japanese wrestler Animal Hamaguchi, lost her semifinal match yesterday to Xu Wang of China via decision. She will participate in the bronze medal match, scheduled for 8:20 Athens time, and 1:20 ET.

The USA Basketball team currently leads Angola 25-14. In other sports, we have the Gold Medal softball game this morning, and the USA Womens' semifinal soccer match.

ESPN has Minnesota @ Texas tonight at 8pm.

Baseball-Reference.com has added a new feature, allowing you to browse by school.... http://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/ What players have come from your university? I was stunned to discover my local institution, East Stroudsburg University, has actually claimed three major leaguers. Joel Bennett Mike O'Neill Harry Schaeffer