The 'stros may have some nice young talent, but this year they will be awful.
The Mariners and Royals ALSO have a lot of nice young hitters but don’t expect much this year from them either.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Are you kidding me? You posted a link to a site that made this evaluation of the Marlins’ ballpark before any games had been played in it![/quote]
And I accounted for this. Even if their assessment is off significantly, that will still be a marked improvement over Petco. Unless you’re asserting this new park will play like Petco or be negligibly different, I don’t understand your objection to my point.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I wouldn’t say that the NL East is significantly better than the NL West at all. The Dodgers can hit, the D’Backs can hit, the Rockies can hit and the Giants still suck, but not as bad as last year, although they JUST lost Sandoval for a month.[/quote]
Don’t forget the Padres. I’m going to check out the Dodgers stats when I get a chance, but who outside of Ethier and Kemp do you foresee being a major contributor to the offense? Do they even have another above avg hitter?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
As far as the NL Central goes, the Brewers are a very good hitting team, as are the Cardinals. The Reds are legit; they also have Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce in that lineup. The Astros may have a young team, but they have a lot of talent on offense: JD Martinez, Jordan Schafer, Jose Altuve, and of course, El Caballo, Carlos Lee.[/quote]
I did forget about Jay bruce, he’s really good too.
As for the Astros you’re out of your mind if you think they’ll have a good offense this year. They finished 26th in runs scored last year and that was with Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn for 100 games. Look for them to be 28-30th in offensive rankings. What you’re looking at is nothing more than a statistical mirage, just like the Baltimore Orioles who will end up being no better than the 2011 Cleveland Indians/Pittsburgh Pirates.
[/quote]
The issue I have with your assessment is that you’re blaming the pitcher’s ballpark for Bell’s demise. You made the assertion at the beginning of the year that he would suck because he wasn’t at Petco anymore. Did it ever occur to you that the offensive numbers in Petco may also be skewed because the Padres consistently have had zero talent in their lineup since they moved there? Did it ever occur to you that some of the best pitching in the NL since they opened Petco has been in the West?
If Bell will supposedly suffer because he’s moved into a “hitter’s park”, don’t you think he’d have given up at least one homerun there this year? Of course, but the only bomb he gave up this year was in Cincy.
You’ve made an assertion based on intuition, but you haven’t analyzed the actuality of the situation. Bell is suffering because his stuff has worsened, not because of the ballpark. His strikeouts per nine innings are below his career average so far and he’s already walked 8 batters in only 6.2 innings.
He’s had 5 disaster outings in 10 appearances, three of which have been on the road. You also claim that the division he plays in is a factor, and yet of those five bad outings, two have been against NL West opponents, two against NL Central teams and only one against a divisional rival, which was in NY and not Miami.
So where exactly is the correlation between his home ballpark, the division he plays in and his struggles thus far? What evidence do you have, besides your own intuition (which has shown itself to be poor) to support the argument that Bell has and will struggle because of where he plays now as opposed to last year? What evidence can you point to other than that stupid fucking study you linked? In fact, based on the last couple studies you’ve posted on here, I’m beginning to seriously doubt your ability to analyze anything.
So, what’s the reasoning for your assertion?
The other issue I have, Raj, is that you ignore the human element of the game FAR too much, considering that it’s humans who play it.
You can’t just plug numbers into some formula and come up with an idea of how a player should perform. If you could, the fantasy projections for baseball each year would be meaningless. I’ve won my fantasy league the only three times I’ve played and I never pay attention to the projections.
When the HUMAN playing the game suffers some sort of physical setback, like a loss of velocity and/or control, it has a MUCH larger impact on his performance than the ballpark he plays in or even the lineup he’s facing. Based on your criteria, there’s no reason to believe that a pitcher would ever be able to accumulate the type of numbers to win a Cy Young award while playing in some of the tougher divisions and the smaller parks. But Halladay, Sabathia, Beckett (when healthy), Pettite, Clemens, your boy Romero and several others in recent memory have all shown the ability to dominate in bandboxed against good lineups. It’s the players, not the place.
Wouldn’t expect any other sort of approach from a sabermetrics freak who’s never played baseball.
One last thing Raj. You said that he’s a fly ball pitcher. That is patently false. His career fly to ground ball ratio is almost exactly 1 to 1, 676 to 663.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The issue I have with your assessment is that you’re blaming the pitcher’s ballpark for Bell’s demise. [/quote]
NO.
I am saying he was overrated to begin with. I would argue he was really good at one point but never elite. He’s never had swing and miss type stuff.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
You made the assertion at the beginning of the year that he would suck because he wasn’t at Petco anymore. [/quote]
Yes, along with his age, pitching style (hard straight fastball up in the zone as an out pitch) and now loss in velocity as you mentioned.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Did it ever occur to you that the offensive numbers in Petco may also be skewed because the Padres consistently have had zero talent in their lineup since they moved there? Did it ever occur to you that some of the best pitching in the NL since they opened Petco has been in the West?
[/quote]
Park factors are actually a lot more complicated than what I shared with you. Even advanced statistics which include a lot more variables conclude Petco is the most pitcher friendly park in the league. I merely used that site to get my point across.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
If Bell will supposedly suffer because he’s moved into a “hitter’s park”, don’t you think he’d have given up at least one homerun there this year? Of course, but the only bomb he gave up this year was in Cincy. [/quote]
I didn’t say it was a hitter’s park, just that it’s a substantially more friendly park to hitters than Petco.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
You’ve made an assertion based on intuition, but you haven’t analyzed the actuality of the situation. Bell is suffering because his stuff has worsened, not because of the ballpark. His strikeouts per nine innings are below his career average so far and he’s already walked 8 batters in only 6.2 innings.[/quote]
I agree that’s part of it. I didn’t realize his velocity decreased until you pointed it out.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
He’s had 5 disaster outings in 10 appearances, three of which have been on the road. You also claim that the division he plays in is a factor, and yet of those five bad outings, two have been against NL West opponents, two against NL Central teams and only one against a divisional rival, which was in NY and not Miami.[/quote]
Lets wait until the end of the year. After one month of baseball the Baltimore Orioles have a much better record than the Yankees, Red Sox and Jays. That should tell you how pointless a 1 month sample is.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
So where exactly is the correlation between his home ballpark, the division he plays in and his struggles thus far? What evidence do you have, besides your own intuition (which has shown itself to be poor) to support the argument that Bell has and will struggle because of where he plays now as opposed to last year? What evidence can you point to other than that stupid fucking study you linked?[/quote]
Again lets wait for a larger sample size.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
So, what’s the reasoning for your assertion?
[/quote]
Let see…
His home run to fly ball rate (HR/FB%) was 1.6% in 2010, 6.3% in 2011 and has been 7.1% so far in 2012. That’s not a good trend.
His fly ball rate (FB%), the % of batted balls that are classified as fly balls (hits and outs) was 35% in 2011 and is 45% to this point in 2012. Now that he’ll be playing in more hitter friendly parks, that will translate into more extra base hits including home runs. Still early, but I’m going guess that trend will continue so long as he’s closer.
He plays in the most hitter friendly park in the league - that was good for him.
Does that answer your question?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The other issue I have, Raj, is that you ignore the human element of the game FAR too much, considering that it’s humans who play it.
You can’t just plug numbers into some formula and come up with an idea of how a player should perform. If you could, the fantasy projections for baseball each year would be meaningless. I’ve won my fantasy league the only three times I’ve played and I never pay attention to the projections. [/quote]
Who gives a fuck about fantasy leagues? I certainly don’t.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
When the HUMAN playing the game suffers some sort of physical setback, like a loss of velocity and/or control, it has a MUCH larger impact on his performance than the ballpark he plays in or even the lineup he’s facing.[/quote]
This can all be quantified… heh. I don’t usually delve that deep into sabermetrics though.
Here’s Heath Bell’s Velocity graph.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Based on your criteria, there’s no reason to believe that a pitcher would ever be able to accumulate the type of numbers to win a Cy Young award while playing in some of the tougher divisions and the smaller parks. But Halladay, Sabathia, Beckett (when healthy), Pettite, Clemens, your boy Romero and several others in recent memory have all shown the ability to dominate in bandboxed against good lineups. It’s the players, not the place.[/quote]
That’s why it’s crucial to use WEIGHTED statistics like xFIP rather than straight ERA.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Wouldn’t expect any other sort of approach from a sabermetrics freak who’s never played baseball.[/quote]
This is hilarious. You know John Daniels and Alex Anthopolous never played baseball either right? But Guess what? They both have a similar educational background to me.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
One last thing Raj. You said that he’s a fly ball pitcher. That is patently false. His career fly to ground ball ratio is almost exactly 1 to 1, 676 to 663.[/quote]
That’s still half of all balls put in play. Did i say he was a flyball pitcher? I don’t recall saying that.
edited - I misread your initial post
At this point I don’t honestly trust your ability to understand basic numbers.
In his career he has induced 627 ground balls and 419 fly balls. That’s a rate of 1.50.
MO has a torn ACL.
BONEZ if you are looking at this thread, I’m sure you’re pissed.
So MO’s career may legitimately be over which is sad…
But this is starting to look like the Jays year.
Yankees - Lose MO and Pineda for the season
Red Sox - Crawford is out for 3 months, Ellsbury out for 2
Rays - Evan Longoria is out for 4-8 weeks
.
Darvish is an early ROY and Cy Young candidate.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
Best game all season so far, Braves /Phils. 5/2/12.
It just doesn’t get any better than that.
I just bought the MLB At-bat app for my phone. Has anybody else ever bought it? It’s the first app I have ever paid money for…[/quote]
What is different from that and the ESPN Scorecenter app?[/quote]
Phils were screwed.
Just another bad game of umpiring.
You paid for atbat 12? Isn’t it free?
http://mlb.mlb.com/mobile/atbat/
The main advantage for non-mlb.tv subscribers is apparently a free streamable game. Personally I have a 6gb limit on my phone so I would never stream games on my phone if I were away from home anyway.
I personally haven’t found a better app than this:
I love it and it’s free[/quote]
Well, I have unlimited data, and if your on wi-fi, you don’t need it.
It’s actually pretty cool. It’s got video highlights, condensed games, like the whole game in 8 minutes… and then there is the live games you can watch. If you have mlb.tv, you can watch every game with the app.
It does live stream audio of every game though. So you can listen when you’re stuck at cheer leading practice or something like that.
Like I said it’s the first app I ever paid money for. I guess I’ll know in October if it was worth it…
And the Braves have been on the receiving end of more than their share of bad calls. So I don’t feel a bit bad about it. The phils had more than their share of opportunities to seal the deal in that game. They were up 6 to 0 at one point. So tough shit for them…One bad call did not lose them the game.
In the end they took the series, but that one game was a lot of fun to watch.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
.[/quote]
Well I hate the Yankees, but I would rather Rivera go out blowing saves not his ACL. It’s hard to say I feel bad for a millionaire, but he was the absolute best closer the game has ever seen by a mile. So it’s sad to see him go in this way. He is a good guy and a good sportman. He definitely won’t be back this year and with out Rivera, I think the Yankees are screwed. Their pitching was tenuous to start with…
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
.[/quote]
Well I hate the Yankees, but I would rather Rivera go out blowing saves not his ACL. It’s hard to say I feel bad for a millionaire, but he was the absolute best closer the game has ever seen by a mile. So it’s sad to see him go in this way. He is a good guy and a good sportman. He definitely won’t be back this year and with out Rivera, I think the Yankees are screwed. Their pitching was tenuous to start with…[/quote]
Exactly how I was thinking too man. Not a Yankee fan but Mariano is a good guy by all counts and I just can’t celebrate such a great career possibly ending that way. Don’t be surprised if the Yankees don’t make the playoffs.
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Yankees will be fine. They already have 7th and 8th inning guys who close. In fact they will still have one of the best closers in baseball with soriano or Robertson.
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I’ve heard this a lot from ppl. What would be the ideal way for him to leave the game? Becoming so shit the Yankees no longer want him? Surely, people wouldn’t want him to retire while he’s still highly effective? So what would be ideal? IMO this scenario is just as good as any. If I were a Yankee fan I would have more trouble seeing him as a shell of his former self before retiring than a freak injury. Just my opinion though
You have to understand A LOT has to go wrong for the Yankees to miss the post season. A LOT.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
BONEZ if you are looking at this thread, I’m sure you’re pissed.[/quote]
LOL
So raj, care to explain how the ballpark factored into Bell’s blown save last night? He was pitching in SD.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
- I’ve heard this a lot from ppl. What would be the ideal way for him to leave the game? Becoming so shit the Yankees no longer want him? Surely, people wouldn’t want him to retire while he’s still highly effective? So what would be ideal? IMO this scenario is just as good as any. If I were a Yankee fan I would have more trouble seeing him as a shell of his former self before retiring than a freak injury. Just my opinion though[/quote]
Ideal way to leave the game: having an effective season and saving all four games of the Yankess World Series wins and being carried off the field. Leaving due to a freak injury and not on his own terms is not as good as any scenario IMO. Especially when the injury occurred while he was still a very effective pitcher. Much more ideal scenarios than what happened.