djbigf wrote:

BigEd76 wrote:Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of Rose breaking Ty Cobb's record, and to honor it, ESPN's site has a really long article about the sad life of Eric Show

mozartpc27 wrote:Really interesting feature here about the guy who gave up Pete Rose's 4,192nd hit: Eric Show.

really interesting how you didn't notice this when Ed posted it only 1/2 an hour before

i always hated how his last name was pronounced "shou" instead of "show"

Pretty good piece. Dunno if it really 'honors' Rose's baseball accomplishment, but the story of Show's complicated life does seem to offer intriguing counterpoint to Rose's own jumble of paradoxes.

Jazz guitarist Pat Martino, one of Show's musical guidestars, is as a few here already know a Philadelphian.

Drabek was called up and will make his ML debut Wednesday at Baltimore

and Stanton now has one less HR than Werth

Is there anything dumber than ESPN's Power Rankings? I find myself clicking on Crashburn's tweet of them every week, and they're essentially a list of the team in baseball with the best record, followed by the team in baseball with the second best record, followed by the team in baseball with the third best record, all the way down to the team in baseball with the thirtieth best record. There's one instance (Orioles ahead of Diamondbacks) where a team is more than half a game worse recordwise than the team they're ahead of. What's the point of these things if they don't take into account how a team is playing currently to, say, put the Rockies ahead of the Padres? Does anyone think the Padres are better than the Rockies right now? I mean except the dopes who put together this list based on records, which we can get easily enough by clicking "Standings"?

I know this is not an original complaint

Greg Golson getting the start for Yankees vs Price

over under 3.5 k's

OVER

platinum sombrero

lined with diamonds

I remember once trying to draw a pretty thinly supported comparison between Golson and Mike Cameron based on their A ball stats. Thankfully those darker days are gone and our system went thermonuclear with absolute specimens

Somebody needs to look over the 2001 Mariners roster and explain to me how they won 116 games. They had four regulars - four - with OPS+s under 100. Garcia/Moyer/Sele all had nice - decidedly that, very good-to-great seasons let's say - but not WOW I SHIT MY PANTS JUST LOOKING AT THEIR NUMBERS seasons. The fourth and fifth starters (one of whome was Paul Abbott) were pedestrian.

Arthur Rhodes is the one guy who had a pops-off-the-page season: 8-0 with a 243 ERA+. One relief pitcher with a monster year, three pitchers and a couple of hitters with excellent years. And that's it.

Should be just fine to win 90, mayb 95 or even 100 games. But 116? With Paul Abbott starting every fifth day? For realz?

Another subplot here is how many of these guys went on to play for the Phils: Abbott, Moyer, Rhodes, Ryan Franklin, David Bell, and Freddy Garcia. Obviously Gillick involved with quite a few on that list, but not all. Also, Norm Charlton, who pitched for them in 2001, had pitched for the Phils.

mozartpc27 wrote:Somebody needs to look over the 2001 Mariners roster and explain to me how they won 116 games. They had four regulars - four - with OPS+s under 100. Garcia/Moyer/Sele all had nice - decidedly that, very good-to-great seasons let's say - but not WOW I $#@! MY PANTS JUST LOOKING AT THEIR NUMBERS seasons. The fourth and fifth starters (one of whome was Paul Abbott) were pedestrian.

Arthur Rhodes is the one guy who had a pops-off-the-page season: 8-0 with a 243 ERA+. One relief pitcher with a monster year, three pitchers and a couple of hitters with excellent years. And that's it.

Should be just fine to win 90, mayb 95 or even 100 games. But 116? With Paul Abbott starting every fifth day? For realz?

Another subplot here is how many of these guys went on to play for the Phils: Abbott, Moyer, Rhodes, Ryan Franklin, David Bell, and Freddy Garcia. Obviously Gillick involved with quite a few on that list, but not all. Also, Norm Charlton, who pitched for them in 2001, had pitched for the Phils.

Ichiro is a Phillies?

mozartpc27 wrote:Somebody needs to look over the 2001 Mariners roster and explain to me how they won 116 games. They had four regulars - four - with OPS+s under 100. Garcia/Moyer/Sele all had nice - decidedly that, very good-to-great seasons let's say - but not WOW I $#@! MY PANTS JUST LOOKING AT THEIR NUMBERS seasons. The fourth and fifth starters (one of whome was Paul Abbott) were pedestrian.

Arthur Rhodes is the one guy who had a pops-off-the-page season: 8-0 with a 243 ERA+. One relief pitcher with a monster year, three pitchers and a couple of hitters with excellent years. And that's it.

Should be just fine to win 90, mayb 95 or even 100 games. But 116? With Paul Abbott starting every fifth day? For realz?

Another subplot here is how many of these guys went on to play for the Phils: Abbott, Moyer, Rhodes, Ryan Franklin, David Bell, and Freddy Garcia. Obviously Gillick involved with quite a few on that list, but not all. Also, Norm Charlton, who pitched for them in 2001, had pitched for the Phils.

Their BABIP was OFF-THE-EFFIN-CHARTS

Babip has also come to explain thermodynamics, and the mystery at Loch Ness

Grotewold wrote:Babip has also come to explain thermodynamics, and the mystery at Loch Ness

You forgot magnetism.

mozartpc27 wrote:Somebody needs to look over the 2001 Mariners roster and explain to me how they won 116 games. They had four regulars - four - with OPS+s under 100. Garcia/Moyer/Sele all had nice - decidedly that, very good-to-great seasons let's say - but not WOW I $#@! MY PANTS JUST LOOKING AT THEIR NUMBERS seasons. The fourth and fifth starters (one of whome was Paul Abbott) were pedestrian.

Arthur Rhodes is the one guy who had a pops-off-the-page season: 8-0 with a 243 ERA+. One relief pitcher with a monster year, three pitchers and a couple of hitters with excellent years. And that's it.

Should be just fine to win 90, mayb 95 or even 100 games. But 116? With Paul Abbott starting every fifth day? For realz?

Another subplot here is how many of these guys went on to play for the Phils: Abbott, Moyer, Rhodes, Ryan Franklin, David Bell, and Freddy Garcia. Obviously Gillick involved with quite a few on that list, but not all. Also, Norm Charlton, who pitched for them in 2001, had pitched for the Phils.

Their Pythagorean Record was 109-53, so that's 7 wins of run-distribution "luck" or at least well-leveraged relievers.

They had about 21 WARP1 more than the average team, meaning their Third Order Record would be approximately 102-60, so that's another 7 games of either baserunner-distribution "luck" or at least clutch hitting/pitching.

So it might seem more plausible that they would be a 102-60 team, I guess? Bret Boone was the best player with about 10.4 WARP1, primarily derived from hitting .331/.372/.578 as a second baseman and being very above average defensively. That's a big part of the picture. Ichiro obviously was playing great that year, and Mike Cameron hitting and fielding like he did as a CF was a huge help. They appear to be a slightly above average SP team with a lights out bullpen, and their staff was mostly contact pitchers which played to the ridiculous defense they had. Their defense was about .038 above the league average in defensive efficiency, which is like 25 points or more off the average hitter's batting average when you adjust for non-BIP PA. The huge strength of hitting at challenging positions was probably the biggest factor, with Boone and Cameron probably being the most eye-popping.

A lot of guys playing over their heads, a bullpen that came through in a lot of close games, a contact pitching staff matched with excellent defense, a lot of well-timed hits on offense and well-timed outs on defense, and strong hitting up the middle. Phase three, profit.

Phase three, lose in the ALDS.

fyp

Barry Jive wrote:

Phase three, lose in the ALCS.

fyp

FYFYP

thx, my b

Joe Morgan chat on ESPN.com

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/34402

He couldn't even get through the first question/answer without mentioning computer numbers

MattS wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:Somebody needs to look over the 2001 Mariners roster and explain to me how they won 116 games. They had four regulars - four - with OPS+s under 100. Garcia/Moyer/Sele all had nice - decidedly that, very good-to-great seasons let's say - but not WOW I $#@! MY PANTS JUST LOOKING AT THEIR NUMBERS seasons. The fourth and fifth starters (one of whome was Paul Abbott) were pedestrian.

Arthur Rhodes is the one guy who had a pops-off-the-page season: 8-0 with a 243 ERA+. One relief pitcher with a monster year, three pitchers and a couple of hitters with excellent years. And that's it.

Should be just fine to win 90, mayb 95 or even 100 games. But 116? With Paul Abbott starting every fifth day? For realz?

Another subplot here is how many of these guys went on to play for the Phils: Abbott, Moyer, Rhodes, Ryan Franklin, David Bell, and Freddy Garcia. Obviously Gillick involved with quite a few on that list, but not all. Also, Norm Charlton, who pitched for them in 2001, had pitched for the Phils.

Their Pythagorean Record was 109-53, so that's 7 wins of run-distribution "luck" or at least well-leveraged relievers.

They had about 21 WARP1 more than the average team, meaning their Third Order Record would be approximately 102-60, so that's another 7 games of either baserunner-distribution "luck" or at least clutch hitting/pitching.

So it might seem more plausible that they would be a 102-60 team, I guess? Bret Boone was the best player with about 10.4 WARP1, primarily derived from hitting .331/.372/.578 as a second baseman and being very above average defensively. That's a big part of the picture. Ichiro obviously was playing great that year, and Mike Cameron hitting and fielding like he did as a CF was a huge help. They appear to be a slightly above average SP team with a lights out bullpen, and their staff was mostly contact pitchers which played to the ridiculous defense they had. Their defense was about .038 above the league average in defensive efficiency, which is like 25 points or more off the average hitter's batting average when you adjust for non-BIP PA. The huge strength of hitting at challenging positions was probably the biggest factor, with Boone and Cameron probably being the most eye-popping.

A lot of guys playing over their heads, a bullpen that came through in a lot of close games, a contact pitching staff matched with excellent defense, a lot of well-timed hits on offense and well-timed outs on defense, and strong hitting up the middle. Phase three, profit.

This was a club a little like the '93 Phils only more so. Add a very fine bullpen and great defense to the '93 Phils and you get close.

Also, they were on base all the time that year. .360 OBP -- a full ten points higher than the second place team and a whopping 26 points above the league average. They slugged well too -- 4th in the league 17 points above average. That's a combination that will score a heckuva lot of runs -- even in the extreme pitcher's park of Safeco.

Their pitching was first in the league allowing only 3.87 RPG. Their 4th starter, Abbot, was fairly stinky but the team scored tons of run s for him -- I remember seeing his run support that year somewhere and it was right near or at the top of the league. So you have three starters pitchign very well and one of your fairly stinky starters getting gobs of runs and going 17-4. That's a pretty good formula for success. The bullpen was terrific all around with lots of guys having good years.

Do0n't forget, they also had two bench players whom were really good and who played a lot. Mark McLemore was a super utility guy and he had a .384 OBP and a 115 OPS +. And Stan Javier had a .375 OBP and an OPS + of 109. The two combined for more than 800 PAs.

Pretty much all their key players had decent years at least and Boone; Olerud; Edgar; Garcia; Rhodes were outstanding and Sasaki was an All-Star.

Their defense was really, really good as well. Cameron was a fabulous CFer and Ichiro was good enough to be a CFer. Boone was great and Olerud was very good at 1B. Bell, of course was a superb 3Bman. Wilson was an excellent defensive receiver.

This was a club in which everything went right. If the Phils have a year like that next season they'd win 125 games or more I believe as they are much more talented.

Bakestar wrote:

Barry Jive wrote:

Phase three, lose in the ALCS.

fyp

FYFYP

Which really brings us to the unluckiest part (only unlucky?) of that team: having to face the back-to-back-to-back WS champions.