Random baseball thoughts

by **philliesphhan** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 16:47:38

With Utley following, you'd have a really good shot of Howard coming up with the bases loaded.

by **kruker** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 17:02:58

Jimmy 8th, Utley 2nd, Werth 1st or 3rd.....mix the rest up as you see fit.

by **karn** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 17:16:07

I'd do Werth-Vic-Uts-Howard-Feliz-Ibanez-Ruiz-Rollins against LHP ALL DAY, flop Feliz and Ibanez against RHP and enjoy the riiiide biatch ROFL

by **BigEd76** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 22:03:52

Nats traded Michael O'Connor to San Diego for a PTBNL

by **kruker** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 22:57:39

Greinke ERA approaching 2.

by **kruker** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 23:33:57

Vin Scully after a Juan Pierre shot down the line: "There's a rabbit loose!".

by **kruker** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 21:35:30

Sometime in August, Chase Utley will have played in the same amount of games for us as Scott Rolen did. A bit unexpected to me, but I think that I have the impression of Scott being here longer because he was one of only two position players worth thinking about during most of his time here.

by **Didn't I?** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 21:52:29

BigEd76 wrote:
jp_chips wrote:Bring back the walk song

I GOT A NEW WAY TO WALK...

Dear god no. Does the asian kid in the bookstore thread exist anywhere online?

by **BigEd76** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 23:26:12

If you still have a login over on PP, go into the Renegade Archives and search for "bookstore". So many references to it. Still looking for the original comment...

VoxOrion in a 2005 SAFECO WEST COAST THREAD wrote:Q: How many Ichiro's does it take to get 1000 hits?
A: None if they find themselves trapped in a mall bookstore?

bahaha

and I found this in the search:

The Phillies leave tomorrow for a six-game interleague road trip to Seattle and Oakland. The Phillies could call up triple-A first baseman Ryan Howard to put another power bat in the lineup.

"We'll talk about it," Manuel said. "I've been checking on him. I know what he's doing... . There's two ways to look at it. If we bring him up, we're going to have to move somebody. That means guys like Jason Michaels, [Ramon] Martinez or [Tomas] Perez aren't going to get their at-bats.

wow

Another fun one:

centralpaphan on 6/10/2005 wrote:Tom Mc Carthy, not my favorite announcer. Hardly seems interested in the game. He calls a home run like he's ordering lunch. I get no impression he cares about the outcome on way or the other.

by **BigEd76** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:10:28

FOX tomorrow:

Rays @ Mets
Florida
New York
New England
PA - everyone except Erie
Maryland
Washington DC
Virginia
West Virginia
KY - Lexington
TN - Chattanooga, Knoxville, Tri-Cities
North Carolina
South Carolina
GA - everyone except Albany
AL - everyone except Huntsville
MS - Biloxi, Meridian
Louisiana
Texas
New Mexico
Arizona
Colorado
Utah
Nevada
Wyoming
MT - everyone except Helena
Idaho
Washington
Oregon
California
Alaska
Hawaii
US Virgin Islands
Guam

Cardinals @ Royals
Missouri
IN - Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Evansville
IL - everyone except Chicago and Rockford
IA - Des Moines, Davenport, Ottumwa
KY - everyone except Lexington
TN - Nashville, Memphis, Jackson
GA - Albany
AL - Huntsville
MS - Jackson, Columbus, Greenwood
Arkansas
Nebraska
Kansas
Oklahoma

Brewers @ Tigers
Wisconsin
Michigan
PA - Erie
Ohio
IN - Fort Wayne, South Bend
IL - Chicago, Rockford
IA - Sioux City, Cedar Rapids
Minnesota
North Dakota
South Dakota
MT - Helena

by **kruker** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 09:50:28

Timmy has had 6 games with game scores over 80 in his career. Only one of those games was during his 2008 Cy Young season.

3 of those games were during his rookie season and 2 so far this year.

by **jerseyhoya** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 16:00:51

We could be only a half game up by the time we go to sleep tonight.

by **kruker** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 23:18:22

This was written after the Maddon screw up, but I didn't see the article until now.

Link

Do pitchers hit more poorly because they’re expected to?

Like golf, baseball still has some touchingly quaint pen-and-paper blue laws, and when Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon signed an incorrectly filled out scorecard for Sunday’s game against Cleveland, the Rays lost their designated-hitter privileges (the American League allows the DH to bat for the pitcher). As such, pitcher Andy Sonnanstine, who shouldn’t have normally had to bat at all, wound up not just having to bat, but having to bat third—the lineup spot normally reserved for the best hitter on the team.

Sonnastine did just what would be expected of a #3 hitter: he went 1-for-3, with an RBI double in the fourth inning. Tampa Bay won the game, 7-5.

Of course, 1-for-3 is hardly evidence of anything. Even AL pitchers get hits every now and then. And maybe Sonnastine also secretly happens to be a good-hitting AL pitcher (there’s insufficient but still interesting evidence of that: he’s 5-for-13—.385—in his career).

But another account (also with insufficient evidence) would be that he was made to feel like a #3 hitter on Sunday, so he performed like one. That explanation would dovetail nicely with the growing body of experimental literature pointing toward the fact that merely sticking someone with a label that has positive or negative connotations—even when that person knows the labeling process to have been completely arbitrary—affects his or her performance on basic tasks, even when he or she has a financial incentive to perform well.

What would be interesting would be an analysis across Major League Baseball of how the same hitters perform when they’re in lineup spots with high expectations (e.g. #3 or #4) vs. low expectations (#8 or #9). You’d have to control for other effects of situation (e.g. who’s on base) and lineup (e.g. who’s on deck). Anyone want to mine the Elias Sports Bureau and check this out?

by **Barry Jive** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 23:23:59

that's gotta be one of the dumbest ideas i've ever read

by **kruker** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 23:27:47

Barry Jive wrote:that's gotta be one of the dumbest ideas i've ever read

It's the social priming effect. You'd be surprised on how real it is.

by **Barry Jive** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 23:31:50

i'm sure it'd work for some guys, but even if putting Chooch at #3 and pushing everyone back a spot raises his BA 5 points, it comes at the risk of putting a .265 hitter at your 3-hole. it's just a dumb thing to bother suggesting because it has no practical use whatsoever.

by **kruker** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 23:39:32

Barry Jive wrote:i'm sure it'd work for some guys, but even if putting Chooch at #3 and pushing everyone back a spot raises his BA 5 points, it comes at the risk of putting a .265 hitter at your 3-hole. it's just a dumb thing to bother suggesting because it has no practical use whatsoever.

It could have a practical use, but the results probably aren't going to be of the extreme variety. Like you indicate, it wouldn't be applicable to all players, but if you could quantitatively determine which players are affected by it, you might be able to get some positive impact out of it. I'm not going to argue in support of it without seeing a study, but I wouldn't be so dismissive either.

by **CalvinBall** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 00:34:19

Every team in baseball has at least 30 wins, except the Natinals who have 20.

by **Barry Jive** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 03:24:01

kruker wrote:
Barry Jive wrote:i'm sure it'd work for some guys, but even if putting Chooch at #3 and pushing everyone back a spot raises his BA 5 points, it comes at the risk of putting a .265 hitter at your 3-hole. it's just a dumb thing to bother suggesting because it has no practical use whatsoever.

It could have a practical use, but the results probably aren't going to be of the extreme variety. Like you indicate, it wouldn't be applicable to all players, but if you could quantitatively determine which players are affected by it, you might be able to get some positive impact out of it. I'm not going to argue in support of it without seeing a study, but I wouldn't be so dismissive either.

The only way I could see it working is if a 7-8 hitter have nearly identical numbers and you tried switching them around. Or 8-9 if you're in the AL.

But the issue there is that this theory implies as your 8 hitter moving to 7 would improve, your 7 hitter moving to 8 would decline. It may make your team better, but it may make your team worse. It just seems like a marginally positive point at best, a useless point in most cases, and a potentially terrible point at worst.

by **kruker** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:00:09

Barry Jive wrote:But the issue there is that this theory implies as your 8 hitter moving to 7 would improve, your 7 hitter moving to 8 would decline. It may make your team better, but it may make your team worse. It just seems like a marginally positive point at best, a useless point in most cases, and a potentially terrible point at worst.

The idea is that this doesn't affect every player. So you find a guy who isn't affected and switch him with someone who needs a bump and is affected. It's not a long term thing, but more of a counter intuitive way of helping to pull a guy out of a slump. Again though, this is just speculation (anyone have an idea to test this with out getting into a chicken/egg situation, a guy getting moved because he's hitting better, not hitting better because he got moved?).

Perhaps the only value is for explanatory purposes, but the idea has been used/advocated in business and I'm willing to bet that when some managers talk about having a "feeling" about a certain player that night it ties into this, even if that's not what's being articulated.

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