Tuesday two
DMZ · March 28, 2006 at 1:06 am · Filed Under Mariners
Times: Lopez “makes most of 2nd chance“… at second, get it?
They shot some X-rays through King Felix’s leg. Looks fine [PI].
That’s it: two stories.
Update! The Seattle Times is reporting Reed’s wrist isn’t broken. The fracture they saw on the X-rays was an old injury.
Eventually MLB will manage to find an owner for the Nationals and Bowden will be out of a job. Until then though, he seems hell-bent on… well, I can’t figure out what it is he’s trying to do.
Church, Pena, Choi… yeahhhhhh, Crazy Carl’s just looking better and better, ain’t he?
RYAN CHURCH IS A STUD!!!
He is also from Lompoc HS, which is the rival of Cabrillo, where I coached. Two other Lompoc notables for those who vaguely recognize the name: Napolean Kauffman, and Joel Smith— UW Small Forward.
Church gets optioned so Soriano can play out of position in left… brilliant manuever there. particularily when you consider he is a FA next year… hmmm, think he will re-sign with the team that just threw a perennial all-star to a new position with no spring reps prior to his first start?
Ryan Church gets bumped so that Brandon Watson and Marlon Byrd can platoon in center? What?
Those SI season previews are insane. Angels get the wild card? What?
Look, if the Mariners manage not to finish 4th this season, it will be because they beat the Angels. The Angels are a third-place team behind Oakland and Texas.
They also picked the White Sox to win the central. I think they might finish third. The Indians have to be the favourites there.
I do like that they picked the Braves, though. You can’t go wrong picking the Braves.
“If everyone wants to have another “why don’t we get that guy†name to kick around, the Nationals just optioned Ryan Church to Triple-A. The 27-year-old, league minimum, .285 EqA center fielder Ryan Church.”
PECOTA isn’t quite as optimistic about Church, putting him at around a .267 weighted mean/.252 median EQA. So it would seem as though he was probably overachieving a bit last season.
Of course, if he wasn’t overachieving, then you’re looking at this assignment in Washington:
Player, 2005 EQA, 2005 Defensive Position, 2006 Assignment
Ryan Church – .285, LF/CF/RF, AAA
Al Soriano – .283, 2B, Starting LF
That trade just keeps looking worse and worse to me.
And Todd Linden (projected .265 EqA) is about to lose the battle for a roster spot in San Francisco. His stock is way down though he has nothing more to prove in Triple-A, and I’d love to see a guy like that  not yet 26, power, average, some speed, decent corner outfield defense  get a fresh start in his hometown.
“You can’t go wrong picking the Braves.”
Not for the last decade-and-a-half anyway. It’s like betting on the house in blackjack or something.
On Unit, the Smoking Gun has it all here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0327063bigunit1.html. Props to the Superior Court of Island County — that’s where Randy sued. You go, Whidbey!
Oh, and no, I don’t agree that blame should be served in equal portions here. Johnson is a multibazillionaire. Suing the mother of his child for $80,00 is meaningless to him, and probably agonizing to her. Or as his daughter might say, thanks Dad!
Different topic: I note in the box score that Betancourt hit a home run today.
It took about three seconds before the thought occurred to me: “Was it inside-the-park?”
(Incidentally, if anyone knows… was it inside-the-park? I’m guessing not, as the recap on mariners.mlb.com just says it was a home run, with no further description.)
The White Sox have a rotation consisting of Buehrle, Garcia, Vazquez, Contreras and Garland, with Brandon McCarthy backing that up.
I think the Indians will be pretty good and I’d pick them because they have more upside than the Sox do, but really- 3 of those pitchers are objectively better than our #2 (Washburn), 2 of them aren’t a lot worse, and the rest of the AL Central is Detroit and KC (still bad) and Minnesota (starting Lohse and Radke and a pretty terrible offensive team, even if they have Santana, Silva and Mauer). I think the Sox will be 85-95 wins decent to good. They may well miss out on the playoffs, but I’m not seeing them collapse, really.
Gah, Ryan Church. $#!+A*%&*$()$%&*%! But again, repeat after me “Carl Everett has intangibles and is a winner” (even if he turns out to be this year’s Ruben Sierra Veteran Non-Entity).
Well, at least Reed is likely to be playing CF through April, putting Borchard where he should be (on the bench).
59: It was a wind-aided shot t hat just cleared the left field wall.
You know, we really don’t know anything about the RJ child support case. Everyone is assuming the worst, but the bottom line is we don’t know. Personally I don’t think it’s any of my business what he does with his kids or his money and while I may find it odious that someone not want to support their kid (or whatever is really going on here), the bottom line is we really don’t have all the facts.
Back to RJ. I can see his point in this. He has been paying all of his child support and the mom decided that she wanted more money all of a sudden. So RJ says he will pay for the items directly, which for some reason she didn’t want and got angry (or so RJ’s attorneys claim). I won’t fault RJ because he has met his obligation and has done more than necessary. So what if he doesn’t want to meet his daughter, there is no law requiring him to do so… though I can only pity the young children that might chance to see the two of them together…
“…and Minnesota (starting Lohse and Radke and a pretty terrible offensive team, even if they have Santana, Silva and Mauer).”
It’s a weird measuring stick, but Minnesota has three pitchers objectively better than Washburn and two that aren’t a lot worse. You seem to be conceding already that Santana and Silva are better than Washburn. Now look at PECOTA projections for Radke and Washburn:
Pitcher-K/9, BB/9, HR/9, GB%, ERA, VORP
‘Burn – 4.8/2.5/1.2, 41%, 4.64, 19.6
Radke – 4.8/1.3/1.1, 44%, 4.33, 28.2
I’d say that qualifies as objectively better than Washburn. And if you look at Lohse’s projection and Baker’s projection, they practically look like carbon copies of Washburn, for better or worse. And the Twins have Francisco Liriano to Chicago’s McCarthy to back up the rotation. You could probably make the case that collectively the Sox’ top 3 is better than the Twins’ top 3, but it’s probably not a huge difference.
#62: When do we ever have “all the facts”? Does that stop you from having an opinion on God, abortion, capitial punishment, “American Idol,” the Arctic Monkeys, processed cheese or Macs vs. PCs?
Just because we engage in one stupid argument doesn’t make all stupid arguments worth having. Besies in most of the things you mention the facts don’t really exist. The facts in this case do exist but we don’t have access to them. We don’t know if the kid said plainly that she never wants to see him becasue she’s pissed she got his mullet gene or what.
Kirby Arnold, baseball writer for The Herald in Everett, has written some material for a big M’s preview section for our Sunday paper.
Here’s his kindly take on Raul Ibanez as a defender:
“He’s not the fastest in the outfield and he doesn’t have the strongest arm, but Ibanez brings solid instincts that by no means are a detriment to the Mariners’ need for a quality defense in Safeco Field. Ibanez has worked hard the past two offseasons to improve his speed, and he covers ground adequately in left. With center fielder Jeremy Reed playing next to him, the Mariners should have left and left-center adequately covered.
#65: PUHLEEEEEEEEEZE………..
Uninformed voyeurism complicated by legal considerations none of us understand versus debate upon issues central to our social fabric….
Me thinks the folly of man is but the glistening dew upon a spider’s silk shewn bright by dawn’s infantile light….
Does that include sperm donors? Surrogates?
No.
Let me just say, as the child of single mother who got regular alimony payments from my father:
Regardless of the income levels or professions of the two parents involved, it’s entirely possible for them both to be evil scum who deserve to burn in hell along with their lawyers and every other person in or outside the family who thinks they are somehow entitled to an opinion on the situation.
And no, I don’t have any issues. But thanks for asking.
Baseball is awesome,
Is it time to close this thread,
I wonder out loud.
I doubt that I have much common ground with anyone who could say “so what” to a man refusing to know a child he fathered, so there’s probably no point in arguing with such a heartless position.
But I will say, at least, that the law is hardly the only measure of decent behavior.
Now look at PECOTA projections for Radke and Washburn:
Pitcher-K/9, BB/9, HR/9, GB%, ERA, VORP
‘Burn – 4.8/2.5/1.2, 41%, 4.64, 19.6
Radke – 4.8/1.3/1.1, 44%, 4.33, 28.2
I’d say that qualifies as objectively better than Washburn.
Huh? Except for the walk rate, there’s no measurable difference between them. While I’m a huge fan of low bb/9 rates, I’m not sure a different of 1.2 men per 9 translates alone to .30 points of ERA and 9 VORP, but I’ll leave that stuff up to the PECOTA math geeks. They generally know what they’re doing.
In my estimation, though, they’re both on the same level of sucktitude as pitchers. I don’t see how Radke is better then Washburn just based on those projections, objectively or otherwise.
As the authors here have pointed out many a time, VORP means virtually nothing when it comes to pitching evaluation.
But, in this instance, yes, 1.2 walks/9 is a big deal. And I’d trade Washburn for Radke in a split second.
i just want to take a guess without looking it up, was that “Design” by Robert Frost with the spider lines?
If I’m right, then I’m pleased that 4 years as an English teacher paid off…. if not… well, blame CWU for letting me slide by with a Dean’s List average while rarely doing the required readings…
But, in this instance, yes, 1.2 walks/9 is a big deal. And I’d trade Washburn for Radke in a split second.
Those walk rates are damned impressive. I agree that it is the only measurable difference and that lower walk rates are huge.
Is low walk rate king? Some guys can strike out a lot of batters, but still walk too many. Groundballs seem ok for trumping higher walk rates. But you can suck at both K rates and Groundball rates and be successful as long as you don’t walk anybody. Hell, works for Radke and Silva.
To furthur the extreme low walk rate thing:
Check out John Garland 2005 and any year before that. Only measurable difference is a huge drop in walk rate. Matt Morris, Jeff Weaver, Corey Lidle…. not impressive in other areas (Weaver’s K rate was good tho) but all had decent, workable 2005’s. Low walk rates.
Well, there’s John Halama near the leaders too. So much for that theory.
“As the authors here have pointed out many a time, VORP means virtually nothing when it comes to pitching evaluation.”
I was a bit hesitant to include the VORP projections before I posted, but then I gave this some extra thought. While in a typical season VORP is not a very good estimator of a pitcher’s contributions to the team, because the defense behind the pitcher affects the VORP too much, we’re not looking at a pitcher’s VORP for one season, we’re looking at his PECOTA forecast for VORP.
Since PECOTA works by doing a weighted average of similar pitchers, and those pitchers basically all had different defenses behind them, I would guess that the degree to which defense affects the VORP number is fairly small. So I think it’s somewhat reasonable to consider a forecasted VORP total for a pitcher but not a pitcher’s VORP in any given season.
The walk rate is more important, but I don’t think the VORP is totally meaningless.