Barry Jive wrote:

cartersDad26 wrote:god, not Orr again. Luna at least looks like he could surprise you.

he could surprise you with awful defense as a SS/2b backup if that's what you're looking for

In his whole career I don't see any evidence that he can hit with power, run or play above average defense. He might , however, break into rendition of Besame Mucho while twirling a rhythmic gymnstics ribbon though.

Pete Orr can run at least.

galveeeeeeeeese

Galveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

GALVIS OMG

how pumped are you assholes for thursday?

galves put a real nice swing on that pitch.

CalvinBall wrote:how pumped are you assholes for thursday?

enough to watch a meaningless game against the pirates single A team.

TMac's laugh

CalvinBall wrote:how pumped are you assholes for thursday?

Take it to the Supreme Court thread.

We win!

I see they've given up on Pap as the closer.

Cyle for Rolaids Reliefer of the Year.

OMG Rollins was a phanstormer tonight.

1 wrote:OMG Rollins was a phanstormer tonight.

Rube sure knows how to negotiate a contract.

phdave wrote:

smitty wrote:

phdave wrote:

There is a divide between the objective fans and the elitist fans who are older and grew up with the teams in the late '80s and post-'93 '90s who say you should be extra appreciative of the current teams.

.

This doesn't make any sense does it? WTF is an elitist fan? Someone who disagrees with him (them)?

I also didn't understand the use of elitist in that context. If anything they were positioning themselves as the elites who are able to looking at things objectively. It had something to do with other people telling them that they shouldn't be pessimistic and therefore they were elitists (I guess) which is funny since the article specifically said that other people should not be optimistic.

But the main problem with their discussion was that the article contained nothing objective. It was a description of the writer's subjective experience as a Phillies fan these days. They didn't mention that he characterized his current emotional state as nothing but rage. There was no objective justification of that heightened negative emotional state. Their discussion on the podcast did not justify the use of rage, which was a central theme of the article. But when David Cohen reacts to this over the top emotional negativity, their response is that they are just doing objective analysis. So it is a bit of a bait and switch. They do objective analysis then have an extreme emotional reaction not justified by the objective analysis, someone criticizes the emotional reaction, they respond by claiming that the critiques must be based on emotions because we are just telling you what the objective analysis concludes.

I should point out that Mr. I'm not optimistic and you shouldn't be either said that he wasn't particularly proud of the article but he didn't really explain why.

I'm listening now. It's a very strange conversation. Those guys are really good when they are objective. But there are guys like FTN who have been increasingly positive in recent seasons because of factors the Crashburn guys don't usually write about (like the stability brought upon by the team's financial boom). From what I remember they haven't said word one about the benefit of an elite closer on a playoff-caliber team after the Papelbon signing. They're not wrong about criticizing a lot of moves made, but Boye and Sommers in particular are extremely pessimistic Phillies fans from nearly every reaction toward anything Amaro has done (as far as I've seen). They're not irrational necessarily because they know a lot about baseball and always back up their opinions with reasoned arguments, but the conclusions as a whole tend to be overwhelmingly negative. I haven't followed Baumann's twitter as long but he seems to be more emotionally reactive about spring training developments.

The weird thing is that Baer starts off the conversation by asking Baumann if he feels Cohen mischaracterized his emotionally charged, subjective argument, and Baumann says no, that Cohen took his comments in context. Then the next few minutes is them arguing against some nebulous cadre of people who don't respective objective, negatively slanted analysis of the Phillies. I get what they're saying, that we don't have to just take everything as it comes because the Phillies have been great while they used to be bad, and I agree with that. It'd be a little easier to take, though, if their analysis didn't almost categorically flow in a pessimistic direction, supplemented by stupid, childish kicking and screaming LiveJournal posts.

also, while it's understandable that their content is pessimistic because the team could very well go into a decline, they're suffering from the pitfall of a team-centric blog. Now they're talking about the question marks in the bullpen after Papelbon. You're supposed to have question marks in the bullpen. Those are the crappiest pitchers on your team. They're the crappiest pitchers on every team. The Atlanta Braves might have the fewest bullpen question marks of any team in the majors and their arms might collectively explode. So when you're a negative nancy about your own team without evaluating them alongside the competition, your analysis is going to come off like everything is ruined forever all the time.

whoever made the original comment about "wanting to root for a team good at cheap roster construction" was dead fucking on the money. these guys are soooo concerned with what fangraphs thinks of every move we make, or what the fangraphs monopoly money value of player x's performance was last year, relative to what it might be this year.

my big issue is that people really misuse a lot of the data out there to create faulty, incomplete arguments and then say "but the numbers back me up!!!"

which is why i miss nate silver so much. he understood all the numbers. but he could also synthesize a piece of analysis, and he wrote it in a way that asked just as many questions as it answered. people like dave cameron bastardize Bill James, because they want to be him, but they don't realize his style of writing and analysis is nothing like what they do.

its so easy now to be smarmy and assume you are so much smarter than a typical MLB front office. there are some things I wish the Phillies did a bit better. but their scouting department is second to none. and there are things a scout can see that don't show up in a box score. the numbers matter. the stats matter. but baseball players aren't drones. guys develop at different speeds. some guys piss away their talent because of off the field stuff. and that stuff matters. which is what these guys don't understand. because you can't physically touch something or assign it a value doesn't mean it doesn't have a value. phdave went over this a while back.

if you don't think a player's personal life can impact his on field performance, and that he just might not discuss it, then you're probably a deadeyed drone. everyone's personal life impacts every other area of their life. this shit happens to everyone.

all of the numbers and "evidence" in the world does you no good if you don't know how to synthesize it and bring it to life. these jerkoffs at fangraphs are creating a whole legion of lemmings who can't think for themselves and stop at the end of the statistical line before figuring out how to apply the numbers and factor in other things that matter. the smugness is too much. its still a fucking game. its still a lot of fun to watch. the best team doesn't always win. the best value signing at the time doesn't always end up the best value signing at the end of the season. its a game of gambles, risks, and unpredictability. no matter how hard you try, you'll never figure it out completely. and thank fucking christ for that, because what fun would it be if we had it all figured out?

Do you think this will change if Ross/Freese teams continue to grit out WFCs? Or maybe these dicks don't realize that fans actually care about who gets the trophy?

FTN, you make some excellent points, but I would rather win in ways that don't involve pulling out my team's collectively massive sized dick, er, payroll, and waving it around.

If all there is to this sport is, well my team's going to spend a crap load of money and yours isn't, then it all seems so very hollow.

The phillies are able to do both. It's the way the sport is set up. They are able to spend because they built from within for ten years.

No doubt, Calvin.

But let's take the Juan Pierre signing. Objectively, what's the rationale for this signing? What's the rationale for making him the opening day leadoff guy? What's the fun in rooting for a team that makes such a stupid decision? Why do we "deserve" to win when we make that decision when there are 20 other guys that should be starting over him that could have been acquired at the same price?

Now, I know that decision ultimately doesn't matter because A.) Ruben's done work to assemble a great pitching staff and B.) Ruben will paper over any problems caused by Pierre's play. And no, I don't think Pierre's great clubhouse demeanor matters, FTN. If that was the case, Woody could start in left field for us. Who doesn't like Woody?