Off-day pro-con
DMZ · May 29, 2008 at 8:30 am · Filed Under Mariners
Pro: Extra day to bask in series win over the Red Sox. The Red Sox!
Con: Would like to see team win 3-4 instead of settling for 2-3.
Pro: Vidro doesn’t pick up PAs towards his option vesting
Pro: Extra day to brace yourself for Silva start (have you considered investing in a quality neck brace?)
Pro: Entire day can be spent voting for you favorite Mariners in the All-Star balloting. Vote for deserving candidates like Ichiro! and Beltre, maybe. And, uh…
#35… On Lopez…
So I decided to use WPA as my basis for choosing all-stars this year. This excludes defense, but since when was the all-star game about defense? WPA makes sense (to me) for choosing all-stars. Remember it’s the “All-Star Game”, not the “All-The-Best-Players Game”. 🙂
So after sorting by position, and removing the Yankees and the Red Sox players… I have BOTH Lopez and Betancourt getting votes. Since this isn’t the “list out your all-star votes message board”, I’ll just say I have 2 Twins, 2 Mariners, an Oriole, one White Sox dude, two Texans, and an Athletic. I also did 3 SPs a lefty Setup, a righty and a closer, and let’s just say none of them are Mariners.
btw…. If I hadn’t excluded the Red Sox and Yankees, only Pedroia, Matsui and Manny would have received votes. So yeah #39, 7/9 is a bit high. (And one of MY three not getting in, so there’s that)
(I’m starting to hate the Red Sox more than the Yankees)
No it doesn’t. They don’t tell you you can only consider the season-to-date.
Right, but that’s all most of the fans who do the voting actually consider. At least, that’s the case for the vast majority I’ve ever talked to about it. The hardcore fans who actually know what’s going on in the other league and outside their division, and can tell you about an underappreciated relief pitcher in Pittsburgh, are not those people. They’re vastly outnumbered by the folks who just go by the web gems they’ve seen the past couple of months, and maybe by how the players in their fantasy league are doing so far.
Heck, I remember reading (and being astonished by) a Tom Verducci mailbag where, in response to a reader question, he admitted he didn’t consider the last half of the previous season when making his all-star picks.
Ah, I understand the distinction.
Yeah, it’s not a structural flaw in the vote, it’s a cognitive flaw in the people doing the voting.
PRO: Baltimore loves The Pear
CON: Baltimore loves The Pear.
So, is it too early to declare the Baek DFA a success? 😉
Pro: We don’t have to watch these guys tonight.
Con: We will be reading how many other successful teams use Sabermetrics.
Theo Epstein graduated from University of San Diego Law
Bill Bavasi graduated from University of San Diego …
They should practically be the same person, right?
oh yeah, Theo did undergrad at Yale (minor footnote).
oh yeah, Theo also hired Bill James and Eric Van as analysts.
Oh yeah, Bill Bavasi …. uhh …. hired
It’s not like Theo has any rings to show for the stupidity of hiring James and Van or anything.
aaaaaaaaaaaand the day after brings us Ian Furness once again obsessing about Bedard & the media.
58 –
on a side note, last night Nelly sided with Bedard on not having Joh as his catcher.
To paraphrase:
“Bedard doesn’t say much anyways, and having a catcher that already lacks some communication skills can really end up hurting a guy like Bedard.”
If the guy doesn’t want to talk – who cares. If he throws like last night is that not enough?
last night we were told success was had because Burke made Bedard throw more change-ups.
last week we were told Joh was a problem as catcher because he asked the pitchers to throw more breaking pitches than fast balls.
from 2006 re: manny trade rumors:
From Rotoworld:
Michael Silverman says the Mariners refused to part with J.J. Putz and Adam Jones and apparently made Putz untouchable in talks. So, Putz, a soon-to-be 30-year-old reliever with a career ERA of 3.47 in 205 innings, cannot be had in trade talks, but Rafael Soriano, a soon-to-be 27-year-old reliever with a 2.89 ERA in 171 innings,
. Genius.
I guess he got his wish with Horrible Horacio
Also MSB we were told on December 7 of 2006:
“Our goal coming to the winter meetings was to get help in our starting rotation and that’s what we did today,” Bavasi said. “Horacio is a young left-handed starter who makes us better immediately.”
Don’t you love it.
Sorry for the poor HTML layout
oh, apparently Bedard could be a jerk if he was being “what a number one starter is”.
63- did ferness say that?
Yeah (as I mentioned in the game thread) the AP guy was pissy because Bedard makes his job harder:
Bummer, Mr AP guy. I guess instead of showing up half drunk and stoned to have sound bites handed to you you’re going to have to spend a little less of your time surfing for porn one-handed and, I don’t know, actually do a little work for your paycheck.
I do love the fact that when asked the difference between this start and his (9 run) last start in New York, Bedard’s one-word answer was “Location†— leaving them wondering if he was talking about pitches or geography. With a little tutoring from Ichiro, Bedard has a lot of potential for cryptic hilarity.
I am actually starting to love Bedard. Making for some great comedy.
tonight one can listen to Curto describe Rainiers vs Fresno baseball, or watch Eric Chavez rehab with the River Cats vs the Beavers on FSN
Well, that move at least did help somebody out…namely, local drug and grocery stores in the Puget Sound area who had a run on OTC stomach meds every time he started a game. 😮