topper09er

Nice walk to Bourn to lead off the inning, he is going to score.

Lime was a nice guy, during BP on days he wasnt pitching he would hang out in the outfield and always come and sign autographs for kids and talk to the fans. I remember him actually coming over to me and my brothers down the left field line in county stadium (where we were trying to get balls during BP) and ask if anyone wanted an autograph. He then talked to us a little bit about pitching and gave a little speech about how he always would look in the on deck circle to decide if he would rather face the current hitter or the next guy. I remember him saying something like if Tony Gwynn is up and you know you can get the next guy out dont throw any strikes, and then told us to come to the game he was pitching so we wouldnt miss LimaTime.

This is an opinion poll on which of several players will have the best careers when they are all retired, it has nothing to do with the teams they are on. Everything in the world that cannot be directly calculated with an equation is not automatically an opinion where no one can ever be wrong no matter what they think, and I dont think your stance that players should be first judged based on WS is correct. Its not that I disagree with you, I am saying you are wrong, respectfully. The 2 have nothing, at all, in any way, to do with each other. There are some things that reasonable people cannot disagree about. I would be interested in having you rate the following SS in order and explain why: Arky Vaughan 0-1 WS, 136 OPS+ Phil Rizzutto 7-2 WS, 93 OPS+ Frankie Crosetti 6-1 WS, 84 OPS+ And I could find hundreds of other examples where you would have to admit that ranking these players based on WS titles is not correct or embarrass yourself by giving them credit for playing with Ruth, Gehrig, Dickey, DiMaggio, Mantle and Berra.

But, the basic topic of the thread, was who will have a better career going forward, and one of the main things to judge a players career on, are whether or not they won. No, it is not. There are literally hundreds of baseball statistics that have been developed to rank players that have nothing to do with team wins. And Howard wins. No, he doesnt, the Phillies win. If the team was the exact same but didnt have Chase Utley or Cole Hamels then all of a sudden Howard doesnt win. I feel that Gonzalez is a better overall "player", but his "stats" will never measure up to Howard as long as they stay on the teams they're currently on. There are also many stats, like adjusted OPS+, that account for players parks and leagues that show Gonzalez does measure up to Howard. And until he wins, they're will be dozens of players in the history of hoops better than him. This is just rediculous, this is the same as saying there are dozens of OF better than Cobb or Ted Williams because they have 0 WS titles.

Wins should never have anything to do with individual player analysis except maybe in tennis or golf. Baseball is the most team oriented sport that exists, which means it is the hardest for 1 dominant players to affect his team's W-L. Albert Pujols is clearly the most dominant hitter recently, yet his team has only even been to the playoffs 1 of the past 3 seasons whereas Lebron James is about to add 20 wins to some new team. Will you argue Berra is better than Bench because of more WS titles? Is Phil Ri(rr)zzuto better than Honus Wagner? Ty Cobb and Ted Williams (players easily in the top 10 all-time basically unanomously) have a combined 0 WS titles. In a forum like this where the question is to predict the best overall career team W-L record should play ZERO factor.

Rickie Weeks: Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ 2010 Totals 41 41 200 173 25 42 7 1 5 20 3 2 21 52 .243 .345 .382 .727 66 1 6 0 0 0 2 .319 100 99 Last 7 days 5 5 23 22 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 7 .136 .174 .182 .356 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 .200 -2 -3 Last 14 days 11 11 51 47 1 7 2 0 0 1 1 1 3 15 .149 .216 .191 .407 9 0 1 0 0 0 0 .219 13 13 Last 28 days 24 24 116 105 9 20 2 0 2 8 2 1 10 36 .190 .267 .267 .534 28 0 1 0 0 0 2 .269 47 47Any manager that does not bunt in that situation does not understand how to win baseball games.

His daddy didnt even get started until he was 26, Prince's age now, and from ages 26 - 32 for Cecil: Year Tm G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB 1990-1996 DET,NYY 1035 4480 3874 588 999 149 4 258 795 2 3 543 974 .258 .351 .498 .849 125 1930 120 29 0 34 70 Average 148 640 553 84 143 21 1 37 114 0 0 78 139 276 17 4 0 5 10

Milwaukee's Worst (Light) http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/05/miller_products/image/mblight.jpg

Ryan Howard has a pretty good chance at getting to 500 HR, he will have 250+ by the end of this season at age 30.

In case anyone missed it here is the play on 5/17 that got Hanley Ramirez benched: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=8077975 Ramirez fouled a ball off his leg earlier in the game and said he was running as fast as he could (although he seemed to run after the ball in the air fine). "I wasn't trying to give up. That was the hardest I could go after the ball....That's OK. He doesn't understand that. He never played in the big leagues," he said referring to manager Fredi Gonzalez. When asked if he lost respect for Fredi he responded, "a little bit". My point is that some people claim that they could do a better job of managing based on their advanced knowledge of stats instead of "baseball people" who seem to make some decisions based on the traditional ways of doing things. Some people ignore the whole pyscological aspect of dealing with players because it cant be measured by a stat and assume that if they just make the best on paper decisions for the lineup and playing time everyone will be fine with it and they will get the most out of the team. Ideally it would be nice to say you would just sit Ramirez on the bench until he learned his lesson and grew up, but based on his reaction with the maturity level of a 10 year old it seems like the only way to keep him happy is to cater to his every need. He is the best player on the team and the best SS in the league, he needs to be on the field and it would not be in the Marlin's best interest to trade him. I think if Dusty Baker, a 19 year MLB vet, would have benched Ramirez this story would not exist, it is easy to pick on Dusty for making questionable in game decisions, but he does have a .540 career winning % without always having the best teams in the league. I'm not defending Ramirez but this story shows that when you have to deal with these adults playing a game for millions of dollars "baseball people" are sometimes needed to gain the respect of the team needed for leadership which shouldn't be required but often is. These clubhouse type issues cannot just be overlooked and one aspect of being a manager is keeping your players happy so they give maximum effort because it is not something you can always just expect to occur on its own.

He had two full seasons in the majors prior to the trade, where he put up OPS' around .800 in each. Games played in his career before the trade: 48, 25, 37, 78 with 153 games started over the 4 seasons = 39 GS/season Career OPS at trade: .715 An .800 OPS out of a catcher puts him near the top in offensive output at the position. In 2004 among catchers with 200 PA a .800 OPS would rank 12th in MLB, not too bad. Same sample a .715 OPS would rank 20th in MLB http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=200&type=1&season=2003&month=0 Again, he wasn't traded for to be a backup. The outcome stinks, but the reasoning/justification for trading for him WAS there at the time. Im not saying he was traded for to be the backup, but that based on his career and age he was clearly a backup-type player who was never going to become a good starter who can contribute anything of value. Just look at his numbers before the trade, how could anyone look at that and think he will all off a sudden put together 4 straight .800+ OPS seasons while starting 120 games. Why would you trade an all-star type guy for a bunch of guys who will never be an all-star, its not like we were a few pieces away the pennant?

Im pretty sure he was refering to Carlos getting his job done

Should be tied if Rickie Weeks would have grounded out in the 5th inning

I'll kick off the Morgan bashing with his first point of the telecast, the Phillies are the best team in the NL not because of their pitching or league leading offense, it is because they compete for 9 innings.

Thats where I would start if I was Melvin

My real point was that he was a player who sucks and had been easily replaceable his entire career and 29 years old. He was not worth trading for because he will never contribute to the team winning the WS, which is the only goal of every team. We would have been better off trying to get someone who could be a starter/all-star because you need to build up a good amount of those types of players to get to the playoffs. Obviously the Brewers were not going to be good for a while in 2004, but I still dont see how adding backup-types will ever make a team as hopeless as the '04 brewers better in the long run.

I only want to trade Fielder for ALL blue-chip pitchers, just like we would have probably been better to trade Sexson for all blue-chippers and maybe have one still contributing to the team today. This season we are already showing an offense centered around Braun and some reasonable contributions from others (with Fielder's production easily replaceable) would be one of the best in the league, all we need is pitching.

He may have started the most games but he was not a "starter" in the majors. Just like Kendall was a "starting" catcher last season and the worst offensive player in the entire NL. The only season that Moeller started the most games as a catcher was 2004 with a line of: 101 G, 349 PA, 317 AB, 25 R, 66 H, 13 2B, 5 HR, 27 RBI, .208/.265/.303 OPS+ 47

I still maintian the Sexson deal was terrible, any/all of the players we got were terrible and could have been replaced by any AAA player or FA signing. We would have been much, much better to try to get at least 1 quality player who could be helping the team now. Seriously, Chad Mohler?? Why would you trade for a backup catcher? That was so useless, we should have just promoted Rock to backup catcher/broadcaster.

Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ vs RHP as RHB 27 68 60 13 2 1 2 10 2 1 8 16 .217 .309 .383 .692 23 3 0 0 0 0 1 .262 72 91 vs LHP as RHB 16 39 33 11 3 0 2 6 1 0 5 3 .333 .410 .606 1.016 20 1 0 0 1 1 1 .310 150 174 The platoon is the only reason he is in the majors, if he would be playing every day he'd have disgusting numbers. He should be platooned exclusively, including when he starts against a LH starter and then has to face a RHP in the later inning. But Macha cant pinch hit in the middle of the game because "its Corey's day to start"

Not if they want to pull a Sabathia type deal where they understand they only get him for 1/2 season for a WS push. It is possible, and if they want Fielder we better ONLY get young ace-potential pitching in return, if we get even 1 non pitcher it will be a terrible deal.

I said at the end of last season we should resign Lopez and move Weeks to the OF. A lineup with Lopez, Weeks 1-2 would look very nice

The brewers are not going to trade Fielder until they offer him a contract, probably around 5yr/100MM, that way they can save face with the fans when he rejects that. There are too many Fielder jerseys in the stands for the brewers to just trade him without making it look to the average fan that he turned down 100MM and is greedy and the brewers did all they could. I dont see them doing that during the season, but they will in the offseason and Boras will laugh and then we will shop him. Also, we better be asking for a pitching STUD for Fielder or nothing (someone like Lester?), I really do not want another Sexson deal where we get a bunch of below average players who we could have justed signed or called up.

I can name all of the perfect games (including Wisconsin native, HOFer and UW-Madison alum Addie Joss in 1908), they have a very special place in baseball history and lock you into the history books forever. The same is not true about multiple no-hitters even if it is more impressive.

No, Hawkins was being warned for delivering a quick pitch, he never came set before he threw. The umpire just warned him, no ball was called. Rock does not know that is a quick pitch is illegal, but I think the umpire did the right thing.