EVIL~! alkeiper

Yankee Stadium holds intrinsic value in itself. Its what separates the Yankees from the Mets. Without the stadium, what's the difference?

Damn. My summer just got booked.

From AIM.... This is one of the beauties of Retrosheet. In 2001, the Phillies were within 3 games as of July 29th. The Mets were just a half game back in 1999. Those are the only two years since the strike that the Braves were less than 3.5 games ahead in the NL East.

David Bell's actually hitting quite well. If he hit 266/354/441 for the duration of his contract, I'd be happy. What I'd hope for is that a new manager would break the players out of their funk. Jimmy Rollins is worse now than he was three years ago. Ditto Pat Burrell. Kevin Millwood and Brett Myers have regressed. The players are not progressing the way they're supposed to, and I blame Bowa for that.

Who would you guys like to see for the next Keltner list?

Anyone watch local sports chat shows? Comcast Philly has Daily News Live, which is usually pretty good.

The vast majority of players are out of baseball by their mid to late 30s. You usually only see good players in their 30s because they wouldn't be around otherwise. Even Castilla, Finley, and Womack are not BETTER than they were in their 20s.

Most players are. Frankie Frisch elected many of his teammates (Jim Bottomley, George Kelly, Ross Youngs, Fred Lindstrom, Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines) when he sat on the veterans' committee.

I actually couldn't name them without looking up stats. If you gave me the game numbers, I could do it. As for Pedro, Baseball-reference.com has a statistic called Adjusted ERA, which adjusts ERA for Park Factors and compares it to the league average. 100 is average, 110 would be 10% better than average, etc. Pedro's is 174, the best of all time. Lefty Grove is second, at 148. Pedro's W/L percentage is 3rd All Time. Only Nolan Ryan allowed less hits per nine innings. Only Randy Johnson struck out more batters per nine innings. To suggest that Pedro is anything less than great is ridiculous.

Ditto. I've had enough of this crap.

If you want to write a weekly football column on the message board, go right ahead.

This thread has elevated Anglesault. Agreed. When you argue against clutch hitting, you'll always get the usual "you're crazy" responses. I think the numbers bear out my argument. The more playing time a player gets in the postseason, the more his postseason stats resemble his career stats. Let's take a look at Derek Jeter, the first player mentioned when it comes to clutch hitting.... (Through 2003) Career 317/389/462 Postseason 314/385/469 Another player always mentioned as a great clutch hitter is Reggie Jackson. In five World Series, he hit 357/457/755. Very, very impressive. But in 11 League Championship Series, he hit 227/298/380. It begs the question, if he had this inate ability to hit in the clutch, why didn't he use it? Clutch performances happen. But they aren't the result of any special "clutch" ability.

Prime ends at 30, actually.

Well, Minoso was as great in his 30s as anyone else in baseball history. He didn't get started until he was 28 because of the color line. Now the argument isn't that Minoso would have been a great player in his 20s. The argument is that Minoso WAS a great player in his 20s, but he didn't get an opportunity because of the color line. He's screwed because his career straddles 1947. Minoso would have needed 1,037 hits for 3,000. Give him a full career, and he could reach it. Keep in mind this isn't my argument. I'm just repeating it.

BTW, you can check out historical HOF voting records here..... http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/history/...ing/default.htm

What's odd is that looking through the voting results, Sutter and Gossage were fairly close in voting a few years ago, but Sutter gets alot more support nowadays. I think there's no question Gossage is better than Sutter.

Sutter popularized the pitch, but by his own account he didn't invent it. I really think Ron Santo deserves the Hall. His career numbers are deserving when you account for the fact that he played during the second dead ball era. I've also heard an interesting case for Minnie Minoso, that he very likely would have HOF numbers if not for the color line (he debuted in 1949 at the age of 26).

Here's an odd stat I pulled up...... Year Age 2000 29 2001 30 2002 31 2003 32 2004 33 Interesting how his age increases every year. And again, if you go to Jason Giambi's player page at baseball-reference.com, scroll down and look at his Similar Batters Through Age 32. Hal Trosky, Mo Vaughn, Ted Kluszewski, and Wally Berger all had similar stats at Giambi's age, and all were essentially finished by their early to mid-30s. Giambi's decline, sudden as it is, is not an unprecidented phenominon.

Again, what PROOF do you have? Why haven't Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds suffered similar performance declines? Why did Kevin Brown and Mrs. Giambi come down with the same parasites? If 5-7% of players took steroids, why don't ANY of them have similar conditions?

Because the entire team is underperforming save a few exceptions. Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, and Marlon Byrd have completely stagnented instead of developing. The team has consistantly underformed expectations the last few seasons. I can't see it just being a matter of all these players individually failing. At some point, its a matter of the organization as a whole. Last year, a poll from a prominant magazine widely derided Bowa as baseball's worst manager. I just think a change would shake up this club for the better.

Phillies/Marlins are in a rain delay, with the Marlins ahead 3-0 in the 3rd. If the Marlins sweep all four games, I have to believe Bowa is toast.

Giambi didn't suck last year. His batting average was down, but he was one of the top 10 most productive hitters in baseball. And given that he's over 30, he's expected to decline.

Teams benefit from home field, but rarely to that degree. Its often forgotten, but Fenway Park in the 70s had the highest park factors for offense in the American League.

Then I say they match him and send his ass down to the minors where he can sit till he rots. Can he be sent down? No. If they tried sending him down then they would basically being designating him for assignment. Which means they have 10 days to trade him to a team that makes a waiver claim or give him his outright release. To clarify, if he were to clear waivers, they could send him to the minors if they wished. But since Johnson's situation doesn't appear to effect his performance, there's no reason to do it.

Where the fuck does that come from? I'm sorry if I didn't cowtow to you on the Pedro argument but get over it! Anyway the last thing they were supposed to do was squeak by in the West and get bitchslapped out of the playoffs by a team that came out of nowhere in Baltimore. That might have been more to their lackluster pen but Johnson and Moyer getting lit up the first two games and scoring a grand total of eight or nine runs the whole series didn't help either. Plus you had Randy Johnson beginning to mope about a new contract as well. It's called not being ready to play, you might not call it chemistry--then again you're also the one saying Enrique Wilson is just as good as Derek Jeter in the 9th inning with 2 on and 2 out down by two--but it's something. Point is you have to have more than an 'all-star' team. It might be the manager, it might be something else, but it's there. Call it what you want. I guess the '99 Dodgers would be a more clear example eh? You do need more than an All-Star team. But that's not an issue of team chemestry. That's an issue of having to field a player at every position. The '97 Mariners had great players. Johnson, Griffey, and Rodriguez at least are going to the Hall. But they also had Joey Cora, left field by committee, and a complete lack of pitching outside of their three best starters and Bobby Ayala. That's not a problem of team chemestry, that's a problem of talent. And that Wilson/Jeter comment is asinine. When have I EVER said anything remotely resembling that comment? I do not believe in clutch hitting ability. That said, Jeter is better than Wilson in that situation. Not because Jeter hits in the clutch, but because Jeter is just a better hitter. And no, the '99 Dodgers are not a better example. Their hitting was near the bottom of the league and their starters were weak outside of Brown and Valdes. Seriously dude, a debate consists of intelligent points and counter-points. You grasp for straws at everything you argue, and you easily venture off topic. Phrase your arguments better.