The Man in Blak

Then he'd have people feeling up his hands all the time.

GAAAAAWD BLURSSSSSE AMURRRRICAHHHHHHHHH

That version of God Bless America should be hitting YouTube within the hour.

Actually, I'm stunned. Even when Rolen is healthy, he isn't renowned for his ability to get around on the 95+ mph fastballs and here he is, bad shoulder and all, facing Mr. 103 on the Fox Gun.

To look at this from the standpoint of a specific team, the Cardinals could really get hammered by this, as they are losing boatloads of "middle of the road players" like Mulder, Edmonds, Suppan, Weaver, Marquis, etc. Without the possibility of compensation and potential arbitration hanging over the heads of the potential free agents, opposing clubs can bargain for their services without having to fear losing those valuable draft picks and, in the process, create more roster turnover than we're accustomed to seeing over the last few years in MLB.

Well, in case you didn't catch it, I already kind of inferred that DPAR would be a stat that should actually "favor" Tiki's contributions, since TDs are, in my opinion, underrated in their calculations. Really, it doesn't surprise me if Football Outsiders thought that he was a HoF-caliber back - I haven't read the Pro Football Prospectus - just because standards for entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame vary wildly among columnists and other various experts. I'm personally a "small hall" guy, so Tiki sits right in that cliche "Hall of Very Good" area for me.

There's no denying that Tiki Barber had a great season last year, nor can you ignore that fact that he's very likely going to be one of the top all-time backs for yards from scrimmage this year. The problem is that Barber doesn't have anything else on his resume other than yards from scrimmage that would indicate that he's an HoF-quality back. The reason that the "100 rushing yards and a TD" is the benchmark for an elite running back performance is because it tends to correlate very strongly with overall team success. Touchdowns obviously impact the team's score for the game, but the ability to run the ball consistently yields many benefits; Dr. Tom's old columns on the TSM front page tracked 100 yard rushing performances with team W-L records to great success, IIRC. Furthermore, all yards are not necessarily equal - rushing yards burn precious clock time and keep the other team's offense off of the field. Sure, Barber's pass catching ability certainly adds value to the offense, but not so much that you can ignore the mediocre rushing statistics and TD scores throughout the majority of his career, two very important categories to consider when you're comparing the merits of running backs. For all of the yards that he gained in a very impressive season last year, Barber reached the end zone eleven times. Seven of those touchdowns came inside the opponent's 20, and only five of those seven came through rushing plays for the "tough yards" in these red zone situations. Though the Giants have improved over the last couple of years, they were almost always considered a team that struggled to score points in the red zone and Tiki Barber's performance has a lot to do with that. Furthermore, in comparison to his peers, Barber's performance tends to pale a bit. He's been consistently good, but not great and not for a long time. To illustrate, here are his rankings among running backs over the last few years in a Football Outsiders stat called DPAR (Defense-adjusted Points Above Replacement): 2005: 5th (Alexander - 2nd) 2004: 7th (Alexander - 4th, Holmes - 5th) 2003: 30th (Holmes - 1st by an unbelievably wide margin, Tomlinson - 2nd, Alexander - 5th) 2002: 10th (Holmes - 1st by an unbelievably wide margin, Tomlinson - 6th) 2001: 7th (Holmes - 1st, Alexander - 6th) 2000: 24th DPAR takes the play-by-play data of all of the season's games, sets an expected baseline for how many points would be scored in a particular situation (3rd and long on the 20, 1st and goal, etc.) by a replacement-level running back, and then weighs a player's performance against that standard. If anything, this stat may be prone to underrating touchdown fiends like Tomlinson, as I'd imagine the expected baseline of performance for a goal-line touchdown is probably high. Even considering that, DPAR shows Barber as being a good, but not necessarily extraordinary performer over the last few years, with a couple of down years to boot. He's never won an MVP or an Offensive Player of the Year award. With the exception of his performance against the 49ers in 2002, his track record in the playoffs is nothing spectacular. His past troubles with fumbles have already been discussed at length (it would be interesting to find out how DPAR rates recovered fumbles, as Barber somehow only lost two out of five fumbles in 2004). He's a good running back and his last two seasons have been great, but I think he's going to need to have about two more seasons at the level he demonstrated last year to really be a contender for the HoF. And, though he's getting off to a great start this year, he's on the wrong side of 30 and two years in the NFL is an eternity for feature backs.

It's risky, but I don't think it's necessarily crazy, per se. Perez is the proverbial roll of the dice - he could come out and throw seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts and five hits, or he could come out and give up seven runs in three and a third; the catch here is that Randolph has the capability, with Oliver in reserve, to employ a quick hook on Perez if things start to turn sour. With all hands on deck, I could easily see Perez going two or three innings, giving up two runs, and then handing off to Darren Oliver to bridge to middle relief. As far as Game 6 goes, the worst thing about Wagner's performance is the fact that he was even out there in the first place. Not because he has some unbelievable knack for blowing non-save situations, but because Heilman had thrown all of twelve pitches in the eighth and could have easily gone into the ninth, in my opinion. Wagner threw 20+ pitches in the ninth and, perhaps more importantly, gave Cardinal hitters an extended look at his stuff, should Randolph actually decide to bring him into a tight situation in Game 7.

Braden Looper is the fucking worst.

Pedro + El Duque would account for 1/2 the amount of playoff games. A rotation of Pedro, El Duque, Glavine, and Maine is a lot stronger than a rotation of Glavine, Maine, Trachsel, and Perez. Like John said, this NLCS version of the Mets is a lot different than the regular season Mets, so it's inaccurate of ESPN to paint them as if they are exactly the same. I don't think you realize just how bad the Cardinals were this season. According to BPro's third order standings, they were lucky to be above .500, let alone win the division and advance to the NLCS. For all of the pitching woes that the Mets had, the Cardinals had no sure bets in the rotation either (Carpenter tiring down the stretch, Weaver's playoff history, Reyes' tired arm, Suppan's overwhelming mediocrity against a potent Mets lineup) and they had a terrible bullpen and an underwhelming offense to boot. Tie in Rolen's shoulder owies, Edmonds' slow comeback, and the predominance of lefties in the Mets rotation, and it looked like a Mets win was a foregone conclusion. Nevermind that the Mets almost won 100 games and were the class of the NL all season long. The Mets were a runaway favorite; I'm as big a Cardinal fan as you'll find around these parts and even I couldn't bring myself to find a more optimistic prediction than Mets in six, on the premise that we would "steal a couple." I think that overwhelming sense that the Mets would win is a reason why this is being considered such a "historic upset."

He's also about 50 rushing touchdowns short of Faulk, 70+ TDs short overall. In addition to that, Faulk had four consecutive seasons with 2000 yards from scrimmage, is a seven time Pro Bowler, holds the season record for yards from scrimmage, played critical roles on two Super Bowl teams ('99 and '01 Rams) and held the record for most touchdowns in a season until Priest Holmes broke it in 2003. Barber is great and he's been a wonderful ambassador for the game, but I think the Faulk comparisons are a stretch. Sure, they are comparable backs in style, but Barber still has a long way to go before he comes close to Marshall and Hall of Fame discussions, in my opinion.

I think the only thing I'd like to change about the system would be the unbalanced schedule, which induces many of the aspects of the playoffs that folks complain about, in my opinion. Interdivisional games already have enough meaning on their own - why weigh the schedule so heavily with them and turn lousy teams in mediocre divisions into possible playoff contenders (i.e. NL Central and West)? Obviously, you can't really balance interleague play, due to the small number of games, but leveling the playing field for the rest of the games may give us a more accurate indication of who the real elite teams are when September rolls around.

I'm more of a knife man I'm more of a lead pipe man What made you change your mind all of a sudden?

I work in downtown St. Louis, just a couple of blocks away from the stadium, and I can tell you that it's been raining all day. I would be very surprised if the game was played tonight.

Czech, you picked up some Elliott Smith albums a couple of months ago, didn't you? Throw on Either/Or, skip to "Alameda", hit repeat.

I thought you already beft with Admin.

Why, he was gone for twelve hours just the other day.

Herzog was canned after the Cardinals stumbled out to a 33-47 record in 1990 and Schoendienst was brought in as an interim manager for 24 games until the Cardinals settled on Torre, who managed for the next five years.

IIRC, the Cardinals still drew around league average attendance numbers during the lean years in the mid-90's, right before LaRussa came on board. Of course, that "lean year" period is about two years, surrounded by a pretty good number of seasons where the team finished above .500.

I guess that's the law of averages for the double upright bounce earlier. If Marc Bulger doesn't turn into Kurt Warner in the second half, the Rams probably win that game without much drama at all, in my opinion.

Torry Holt just caught his third TD pass of the day on an absurd deep route that involved circus juggling and some narcolepsy in the Seattle secondary. The PAT is good, so the Rams take back the lead, 28-27, with about 1:45 left to go.

Yeah, probably the turning point in the game. Though Bulger needs to learn not to step into sacks. I mean, it's like he's actively trying to get sacked in the pocket, at this point. EDIT: And another three man rush breaks through the Rams pass protection. This is getting absurd.

Yeah, I saw that. Just sounds like sour grapes to me. People have been saying that about Glavine for years now. Though I don't think giving the other team bulletin board material is ever a smart thing to do, I think Pujols was just frustrated that they couldn't put anything on the board behind a pretty good start from Weaver. And I tend to agree with Viva (for once) regarding Taguchi. Wagner had run Taguchi to a full count, if I remember right, and he couldn't risk putting a runner on for one of the most dangerous hitters in the game. He threw his best strike, a 99 mph fastball that is no joke, and Taguchi shortened his swing and just managed to put a lick on the ball. Sometimes, you just have to tip your cap.