The baseball thread

[darkstar]

I didn't see it (I would like to, if you can remember what channel) but I'm currently reading a book on Bill James (The Mind of Bill James, by Scott gray) that is pretty intriqueing. It goes a lot deeper into explaining the use of numbers in an untraditional sense (though I'd posit that it's really becoming more the 'tradition' these days). It's pretty interesting to see how the numbers should be viewed in context and not simply as raw data (for most stats, at least). I've never been an overly stat-oriented fan of the game but the insights into how to truly gauge a player's input is fascinating to me.

 

 

Damn, I'm sorry I can't remember what the hell it was called or what channel it was on. It was really interesting stuff. I know it was on a national type network, it wasn't local. Like I said maybe Discovery or one of those channels.

 

This guy James has turned around the conventional wisdom. Nowadays not rare to see a slow guy leading off, they play for on base percentage now. Talks about how the worst thing to do is give away an out, for example James doesn't see the payoff in sacraficing a guy, etc, etc.

 

Christ If I can remember the name of it I'll let you know.

[Reni]

Sox/Tigers game on local TV tonight.....woo!

 

This is the best news I have had all week.

[MrRain422]

My dad has all of the Bill James Baseball Abstract books starting in 1981. When I was living at home I read through those old ones all the time. Great stuff. His Historical Abstract might be the greatest baseball book in existance. Fuck that....greatest book of any kind.

[Lammycat]

My dad has all of the Bill James Baseball Abstract books starting in 1981. When I was living at home I read through those old ones all the time. Great stuff. His Historical Abstract might be the greatest baseball book in existance. Fuck that....greatest book of any kind.

I really appreciate how he takes a non-p.c. approach to his analysis in the Abstracts. If a player sucks, in his opinion and backed by his analysis/numbers/etc., he has no qualms calling the player out. One of his biggest peeves is veteran players who are kept around because of past results; if he sees a pattern of significant decline that may be missed due to mis-interpreted stats by most observers, he'll lay into the player/G.M./owner/manager.

[burns3]

I'd say the sabermetrics POV is a big reason the A's have had so much regular season success with such little playoff success .

 

fixed

[MrRain422]

If you make it into the playoffs enough times, you'll win it all eventually. Getting into the playoffs is way harder than winning once you're there. The worst team in the league will beat the best team in the league in a 7 game series from time to time. Billy Beane has more than proven himself by this point.

[MrRain422]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, regular season success is success. Sure, the big goal is to win the World Series, but I don't see why so many people are so eager to blow off regular season success as if it's meaningless.

Edited July 18, 2006 by MrRain422

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

I posted this a while back, don't know if anyone read it. It goes into the likelihood that a better team (better record, that is) would lose 4 straight playoff series--low. Then it examines possible reasons Beane's teams have failed. The conclusion is not enough emphasis on the bullpen and defense.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;lid=tab3pos1

 

Billy Beane's A's didn't merely fail to win it all -- they lost four straight times in the ALDS. While their opponents weren't pushovers, the A's were favored based on regular-season winning percentage on all four occasions.

 

The probability of the A's losing all four of these series consecutively is 3.5 percent, or odds of about 27-to-1 against. Since we're only talking about four playoff series, we've got a small sample size that limits our ability to extrapolate meaning from these losses. But a 27-to-1 shot is unlikely enough that it's still worth exploring whether there was something in particular about the A's that made them less equipped for postseason play than their regular-season record would suggest.

[MrRain422]

Thank you for that. I look forward to reading it after I head home from work.

[bjorn_skurj]

I'd say the sabermetrics POV is a big reason the A's have had so much success with such relatively little payrolls. They just know their shit.

Yeah, but when was the last time the A's actually made it to an ALCS?

That, and I can't believe you all are neglecting Goose Gossage. He was the man back then, and routinely pitched multi-inning saves. If the Yanks bullpen wasn't, excepting Rivera, pure liquid shit this year, Rivera would only be pitching in the 9th.

[Lammycat]

That, and I can't believe you all are neglecting Goose Gossage.

No neglect here for Gossage. The man deserves to be enshrined. Another guy who would routinely pitch the last two innings of the game and who was as effective on the mound as both Bruce Sutter and Dennis Eckersley. It could be argued moreso, even. It's hard for relievers to get into the Hall, obviously, but Gossage at his peak was as good as it gets for a closer/reliever.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

So, who's the 38 year-old toolbox waving a red shirt around behind home plate while Garland is pitching? It certainly doesn't seem to be working, unless the guy's intention was to look like an assbag.

[paul137]

So, who's the 38 year-old toolbox waving a red shirt around behind home plate while Garland is pitching? It certainly doesn't seem to be working, unless the guy's intention was to look like an assbag.

i agree what the hell is that guys deal?

[bjorn_skurj]

Minnie Minoso? Feh.

 

 

At age 94, O'Neil becomes oldest-ever pro baseball player

Eds: UPDATES with O'Neil quotes. Moving on general news and sports services.

By DAVE SKRETTA

Associated Press Writer

 

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil never got a free pass in life.

 

The grandson of a man brought to this continent a slave, O'Neil moved to Kansas City to avoid racial persecution in the Deep South. He played baseball during an era of segregation, and earlier this year was denied entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by a special 12-member panel.

 

It figures that on Tuesday night, when the 94-year-old O'Neil stepped into the batter's box during a minor league All-Star game, nobody could quibble over an intentional walk.

 

Except maybe O'Neil and a few thousand fans.

 

"I just might take a swing at one," he said before Tuesday night's Northern League All-Star game.

 

Leading off for the West in the top of the first inning, O'Neil argued with the umpire after the first pitch from Kansas City T-Bones pitcher Jonathan Krysa sailed high and was called a ball. After another high pitch that narrowly missed his head, O'Neil took a called strike before being walked, as planned.

 

O'Neil ambled to first base, then took a lead off the bag as if he were going to stay in the game before being pulled for a pinch runner.

 

After the top of the inning, T-Bones owner John Ehlert announced that a trade had been brokered to bring O'Neil to the T-Bones, allowing him to also lead off the bottom of the inning.

 

In his second at-bat, O'Neil took three balls _ all of them high and greeted with a chorus of boos from the crowd _ before swinging at a pitch and almost spinning off his feet. Possibly lost in the novelty of the inning, the umpire gave him two more balls before sending him down to first base with his second walk of the night.

 

The T-Bones signed O'Neil to a one-day contract, making him the oldest man ever to play professional baseball. He surpassed 83-year-old Jim Eriotes, who struck out in a minor league game in South Dakota earlier this month, by more than a decade.

 

"This is special, very special," O'Neil said after his second at-bat. "I've been in baseball 70 years. This is how I made my living. And here I am at 94 with a bat in my hand."

 

Clad in a red-and-white Kansas City Monarchs jersey, O'Neil said he thought the last time he had swung a bat in a game was in 1955.

 

Asked if he remembered who he was facing in that last at-bat, he replied: "I don't remember yesterday and you ask me who the pitcher was in 1955?"

 

Nobody disputes that O'Neil's involvement in the game bordered on a gimmick. But O'Neil's supporters hope it also provides more ammunition in their quest to get him into Cooperstown.

 

In May, 17 people from the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues eras were voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. On a day that was to be his crowning achievement, O'Neil quietly sat at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., and accepted that his name wasn't called.

 

"It was a roller coaster for everybody except him," said Bob Kendrick, the museum's director of marketing. "Certainly he was disappointed. But he taught us how to handle disappointment. In the scope of things that have happened in his life, not getting into the Hall pales in comparison."

 

Since the ballot was cast, the T-Bones have become the unofficial champions of Buck O'Neil.

 

The club has been passing petitions through the stands at all home games, asking commissioner Bud Selig or former commissioner Fay Vincent to intervene. T-Bones officials say they've already collected more than 10,000 signatures.

 

"The Negro Leagues were the original independent baseball," Ehlert said. "And Buck O'Neil is the patriarch of independent baseball."

 

Standing in the shade at CommunityAmerica Ballpark, John Park labored Tuesday to gather signatures, already sweating through a white T-shirt that read "Sign the petition. Get Buck in the Hall."

 

"He's a legend in his own time," said Park, 59, from Kansas City, Kan. "I don't know all of the statistics. I'm just saying how I feel."

 

Across the stadium, opposite O'Neil's name emblazoned on the outfield wall, Abbey Evert marveled that the sinewy, old right-hander was stepping to the plate on a day when temperatures in Kansas topped 100 degrees.

 

"It's pretty crazy," said Evert, 17, from Shawnee, Kan. "That's someone who really loves baseball."

 

But O'Neil dismissed concerns about the heat.

 

"This is Kansas City weather," he said. "We used to play doubleheaders in this weather with wool uniforms."

 

A lifetime .288 hitter and two-time Negro League batting champion, O'Neil became Major League Baseball's first black coach with the Chicago Cubs. He went on to discover Hall of Famer Lou Brock and countless others as a scout, and now works tirelessly with Kendrick to keep alive the story of the Negro leagues.

 

His exclusion from the Hall of Fame caught nearly everybody by surprise. Players including Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks and Brock took aim at the selection process, and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, said the vote had left "a community in tears."

 

"He should be celebrated in baseball," said Kansas City T-Bones manager "Dirty" Al Gallagher, a former San Francisco Giants pitcher who met O'Neil in the late 1960s. "Why the commissioner hasn't put him in the Hall of Fame, I have no idea."

[Gato]

Heh......The Braves have now hit 18 home runs in their last 5 games.

 

 

Is the worm turning? Watch out Mets....they're in your rearview mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edit - Make that 19 home runs in 5 games. McCann just hit one. Currently beating the Cards (my 2nd favorite team I might add) like a drum. 13-1.

Edited July 19, 2006 by Gato

[bjorn_skurj]

Yeah, thank God the Mets won tonight, maintaining their slim 11 1/2 game lead.

[Gato]

Still some season left.

 

 

I'll do another sarcasm check in a few weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. Just for reference I think the Braves made up 5 games in 2 weeks?

 

 

 

And the homer count is now at 20 in the last 5 games.

Edited July 19, 2006 by Gato

[bjorn_skurj]

I wouldn't write the Braves off; they have plenty of good players on that team.

[Gato]

d00d....

 

Trust me. There's no way that they'll win the division again. I have no false hopes. They ARE playing some amazing baseball suddenly though.

[Lammycat]

Although the pool to draw from is very thin this year, they may be able to bolster their bullpen. It's their main bane. If they can improve, why couldn't they contend for the playoffs? There's a little less than half a season of ball left.

[Gato]

The problem is, as you said, who are you going to get? And for who?

[Lammycat]

The problem is, as you said, who are you going to get? And for who?

I certainly don't have an answer for that, but I'd imagine the Atlanta brass is intent on acquiring some decent help for their 'pen. The Braves have a very deep Farm system and really have modeled astute use of it for the past 15-20 years.

Edited July 19, 2006 by Lammycat

[Gato]

Agreed. Problem with the farm right now is that most of the GOOD talent that is ready is already up.

[Lammycat]

Agreed. Problem with the farm right now is that most of the GOOD talent that is ready is already up.

I was thinking more along the lines of trade bait.

[MrRain422]

On the way out of the Cubs game tonight, I saw a bus hit a cop car.