You'd probably end up standing at first with a baseball embedded in your skull.

"They'll prove me wrong if they win a championship. I've played a long time, and some of the balls that are leaving there--it's not right. It's a joke."
--Braves pitcher John Smoltz, on Philadelphia's Citizen's Bank Park

When you're right, you're right

listening to jerry manuel on MLBN, I can see why the Mets were an atrocity under him

that's what we would refer to as gangsta

also, fwiw, I like the Bautista deal a lot.

smitty wrote:

Rev_Beezer wrote:

BigEd76 wrote:Let him play when CLIFF is pitching. Naps for everyone

Didn't Rube Waddell used to call in his outfield to sit in the infield?

At first I thought "That's Satchel Paige." But you are correct:

Waddell enjoyed waving his teammates off the field and then striking out the side. He actually did so only in exhibition games, since the rules prohibit playing with fewer than nine men on the field in regulation play. But, in a league game in Detroit, Waddell had his outfielders come in close and sit down on the grass. He struck out the side. Once the stunt almost backfired. Pitching an exhibition in Memphis, he took the field alone with his catcher, Doc Powers, for the last three innings. With two out in the ninth, Powers dropped a third strike, allowing the batter to reach first. The next two hitters patted flies that fell behind the mound. Waddell ran himself ragged but finally fanned the last man.[2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Waddell

Stuff like this is why he's my favorite player of all time, non-Phillies division.

Ace Rothstein wrote:

I've heard it said that some men enjoy being cuckolded but this

Barry Jive wrote:His Marcel projection for this season:

5-6, 17 GS, 88 IP, 7.57 k/9, 4.09 bb/9, 1.02 HR/9, .298 BABIP, 70.8 LOB%, 4.35 FIP, 4.34 xFIP

basically he's better than Kendrick. looks like he'd be more prone to bang or bust outings because of that $#@!-ass BB/9, but if he's only gonna be used for spot starts anyway i'd rather have him chill in AAA and use Kendrick as our Durbin/Baez/Condrey/whoever

Problem with Marcel is that it doesn't take into account the fact that he throws 74 mph now

I don't think that changes my overall point

Holy hell, check out this ipad app:

http://www.theiphoneguru.net/2011/02/17 ... 1951-2010/

Didn't I? wrote:Holy hell, check out this ipad app:

http://www.theiphoneguru.net/2011/02/17 ... 1951-2010/

Isn't this what I call "baseball-reference.com"?

Unless Didn't I?'s point is that the Phillies were used in the sample video, in which case, yes, I agree, awesomeness.

The info is on baseball reference, but the layout and infographics are awesome.

It kind of amazes me how little respect Hameles gets outside of PHILSNATION (C)2008. I'm having a conversation about him with two otherwise reasonable Yankees fans and they're talking about him like he's a mediocre starter beating up on awful teams in the NL.

Soren wrote:It kind of amazes me how little respect Hameles gets outside of PHILSNATION (C)2008. I'm having a conversation about him with two otherwise reasonable Yankees fans and they're talking about him like he's a mediocre starter beating up on awful teams in the NL.

This seems like a good segue to pose this question that I've been thinking about. Which reminds me of T-mac unfortunately, and SPEAKING OF, which makes me sad, but I digress.
What is Hammules' ceiling? Coming off his shutdown 2nd half last season, further getting comfortable with a new pitch, and still entering his prime, I have super high expectations for him. I think, not to be discredited either, is how rare of an opportunity he has as a fairly young guy to have 3 other aces to pick things up from.

I've been telling my friends I wouldn't be surprised if Hamels ended up having the best year out of the 4 (except probably Halladay), they're quick to argue so I hope I can shove it in their faces

I don't know how much better he can get than last year, he had a 3.43 xFIP. That's pretty damn good. I do think he can improve the results w/his cutter, since he gave up a bunch of HRs with it early on in the season but seemed to get more comfortable with it as the year went on. If he can repeat his peripherals from last year for the next several years I'll be very happy

joe table wrote:I don't know how much better he can get than last year, he had a 3.43 xFIP. That's pretty damn good. I do think he can improve the results w/his cutter, since he gave up a bunch of HRs with it early on in the season but seemed to get more comfortable with it as the year went on. If he can repeat his peripherals from last year for the next several years I'll be very happy

his cutter was fairly incredible for the second half of the year.
from fangraphs: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/coles-cutter/
he had a -4.xx rating on the cutter at the beginning of august. by the end of the year(~2 months) the rating went up to -.7. really turned the pitch around for him.

his curveball in the playoffs was pretty dazzling as well.

i agree that i don't think cole can get much better than he was last year(3.0 era is pretty damn good), but i do think that he can now SUSTAIN that level of play instead of it being a flukey year here and there.

Here is Cole's card from the Joe Lefkowitz Pitch Fx site (all data from 2010)

http://www.joelefkowitz.com/pitcher_card.php_pid=430935

Looking at the splits for his pitches, it definitely appears that the cutter helped drive up his GB rate to its career high level from last year. Mixing in more cutters instead of straight fastballs, which is his least groundball-inducing pitch, plausibly explains the GB% bump

His changeup is just so filthy. 50% whiff for both righties and lefties, and when they did put it in play they beat it into the ground more than half the time

Also interesting about the cutter to righties, seems like they had a pretty hard time squaring it up. Either a GB or a FB, only 7% of balls in play were LDs. He worked it in on their hands pretty well last year. And a 23% whiff rate on cutters to righties is solid as well, almost as high as his curveball whiff rate. For comparision, Roy H only had a 12% whiff rate with his cutter against opposite handed hitters last year

joe table wrote:Here is Cole's card from the Joe Lefkowitz Pitch Fx site (all data from 2010)

http://www.joelefkowitz.com/pitcher_card.php_pid=430935

Looking at the splits for his pitches, it definitely appears that the cutter helped drive up his GB rate to its career high level from last year. Mixing in more cutters instead of straight fastballs, which is his least groundball-inducing pitch, plausibly explains the GB% bump

His changeup is just so filthy. 50% whiff for both righties and lefties, and when they did put it in play they beat it into the ground more than half the time

Also interesting about the cutter to righties, seems like they had a pretty hard time squaring it up. Either a GB or a FB, only 7% of balls in play were LDs. He worked it in on their hands pretty well last year. And a 23% whiff rate on cutters to righties is solid as well, almost as high as his curveball whiff rate

its funny that you say straight fastballs.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.ph ... he-cutter/

this has his cutter mapped out against his other pitches and his cutter is just completely different than any other cutter. in that it is as straight as a pitch could get. which explains why righties were absolutely destroying the pitch. but when you're used to seeing fastballs not dropping like they should, i guess a cutter can full you.