topper09er

I think people focus on the whole character thing too much. Rose is not banned because he has "poor character" and is a degenerate lying gambler. No one has ever been banned for having poor moral standing or being considered an all around jerk or racist or whatever. He is banned because before he decided to commit a certain action there was already a policy in place that said if you commit this certain action you are banned from baseball for life. It just so happens that this was an act which is associated with poor character, ie betting on a team you have control over. His ban also has absolutely nothing to do with his playing career. No one has ever debated that he doesnt belong in the HOF because his career wasnt good enough. There are many people who have been banned in MLB history who had bad playing careers also. It is purely coincidental that he has the most hits, and if you look in the record books you will see Rose is listed 1st in hits (as well as PA and ABs) and the 1974 NL MVP is still Pete Rose. Everyone alreadly knows his playing accomplishments are HOF worthy so why does it matter to have him in there, who cares, I dont get why the fans care? Its just a personal honor for him and not really that big of a deal IMO because it is obvious his career is HOF worthy. Again, the issue is not well there are other jerks in there so why not Rose, or the hit king should be in the HOF. It is that there was a policy in place, he knew it and risked it anyways and got caught. If you ignore the policy then what is the point of it. I am all for giving people 2nd chacnes when they are young and stupid, but when you are 47 years old, get caught and lie about it for 15 years too bad.

Why, his poor drafting has put us in the AAA and major league pitching situation we are in now, which is horrible. Sure he put a nice order in place but pitching is more important and should be the focus of every rebuilding team. That is why the Giants are in playoff contention with a terrible lineup and we are way out with a good lineup.

I am against ever reinstating Rose ever, even after he dies. A penalty existed before he decieded to gamble, he knew what it was and did it anyway. It was not like after Rose got caught they decided to ban him for life, it was a precidant that was already established. Removing the ban would be like letting someone out of jail for murder after 5 years because they said they were sorry (after repeatedly lying). The penalty existed and he knew it and just expects that there should be no consequences for his actions? Tough, his numbers are still in the book, hes just not in the HOF. No sympathy for him at all.

The reason we are worse than last year: 2008: 3.87 ERA, T2nd in NL 2009: 4.69 ERA, 14th in NL Not because of our coaches, it is because our pitchers are horrible and almost none of them have anything close to resembling a major league out pitch they can throw when they are behind in the count.

31% of all injured pitchers had above average career PAP totals for their career pitch counts. 9% of all healthy pitchers had above average career PAP totals for their career pitch counts. Just because these 31% had above average PAP does not mean the extra pitches caused the injury. Does this include Mark Prior's base running injury?

He is getting a pass because our pitching staff is absolutely terrible. We have the 3rd highest ERA in the NL. It is very difficult to contend with terrible pitching, we have 1 good pitcher on our team, I cant blame Macha for that. And yes I agree Suppan was obviously done with nothing left in the tank after the 5th, but what were our options? Some combination of Swindle and Chris Smith. Unlikely the Nats would have been shut out the rest of the game anyways. I can pick on some small things like Kendall leading off, hall facing RHP, Gamel sitting, Hardy playing....but Im not sure these things cost us that much. If we had respectable major league pitching this thread would not exist.

Yes but their pitching is so bad we could still win if we give up 6-7 runs, that is what I meant.

ouch, at least he is facing the worst team in the league

You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?http://www.filmdope.com/Gallery/ActorsR/14971.gif

So you are saying resting your arm for 9 days opposed to 4 has no effect at all? Based on my own personal experience I know my arm feels better when I have more rest.

The only time Yo threw 125+ pitches this season was May 25, 8 innings with 0 runs in a 1-0 game. His next outings he went:5.1 IP, 1ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 9K, 97TP. 8.0 IP, 0ER, 2H, 4BB, 6K, 110TP. 5.0 IP, 2ER, 3H, 4BB, 6K, 105TP. Maybe your stat is an average that applies overall but from this small sample this year it appears to not apply to Yo. His high walk total has been consistant the entire year and is his only weakness this season. His K total is also high, but it doesnt appear that his high walk total has anything to do with overworking.

If you notice a guy has been tiring early a few starts in a row then limit him to a low pitch count or skip a start and let him recover.

I agree Yo's future is more valuable than any 1 game, but my point is that if you watch a guy closely during a game you are not risking anything because he will not get hurt if he is not tired. So maybe he pitches 140 pitches in 8 innings in a 1-0 game, this is fine if he was still strong in the 8th. It may mean that now his next start he may not be fully there and may get tired after 80 pitches, so the next game you better pay attention and use caution and pull him a little early if you detect some tiring. It is still worth it if you thought your best chance to win the 1-0 game was to leave him in the 8th inning.

I bet if you look in your glove compartment you find an owners manual which specifically tells you that your specifc car needs oil in the engine or it will fail. I would not recommend draining the oil. My point is 1) if he is not tired then there is no risk of injury and 2) If he will get hurt in his career then it will happen no matter what. If there is something about your mechanics or physiology that will cause a problem when you pitch it will eventually come out. Also, the in game situation clearly dictated that you leave Gallardo in on Saturday. You have a guy who has shut a team out for 7 innings and just came off of a 1-2-3 9 pitch inning where he got everyone to ground out. Preventing the other team from scoring is much more important that scoring another run for yourself. Yo struck out the first hitter the next inning and walked McLouth on a full count. I think it was a good strategy to say, this guy has owned this team, lets leave him in because he is doing so well today, however, if he finally begins to struggle we can bring in our best relief pitcher to finish them off and then hand it to Hoff. That way you have option A and option B to shut down the other team, which again, when it is 2-0 in the 8th, is the primary concern of the manager. Not trying to score more runs.

I dont think it is for losers. I think it has a value and teams should keep pitch counts for every pitcher. Infact, if I was in charge I would keep a much more specific count which counted different pitches and you could possibly notice things like that a certain pitchers tends to lose velocity on his heater after he has thrown 60 of them or whatever. Or after this guy has around 80 pitches he starts to throw his fastball for more balls or his curve is hanging more. I think anytime you try to apply some numbers to something you may see a trend develop which will help you make better future decisions. My only problem is that the overall average pitch trend for every pitcher in the league gets applied to everyone equally. If you watch the game you should know when to take your pitcher out without ever looking at the pitch count. This will change every outing for every pitcher. Yo was cruising on Saturday, his pitches were still nasty and he wasnt missing the zone. His second last inning he threw 9 pitches and got 3 weak grounders. There was absolutely no reason to pull him, he was fine. Also, how do you explain things like Tim Lincecum (who was "overworked" last year and is young and is fine this year) or David Riske, a guy who threw his arm out without every throwing too many pitches. Some guys get hurt, some guys dont. Some guys get tired after 80 pitches through 3 innings or some guys are still fine after 130 pitches. And the next outing those same guys will tire after a different number of pitches. I am not mocking pitch counts, just saying you should rely on in game baseball judgement over blindly using pitch counts no matter what is going on on the mound.

Thank you, so this doesnt apply to anyone in particular.

That Reggie Jackson story was funny because in '97 Rickey got traded to the Angels and his first game was in Milwaukee. I saw him a few hours before the game outside of county stadium with my brother and like 5 other people. As he was walking in I asked him for his autograph, he looked at me (I was 12 at the time) and said "Rickey doesnt sign," everyone laughed because we thought we was joking (it literally would have taken him less than 1 minute to sign an autograph for everyone) but then he laughed and just walked right in. If I only knew he was still upset over Reggie Jackson doing the same thing to him.

Sorry, I meant it was a good example of a time when someone can struggle below the magical 100-pitch mark. I am just saying it is silly to apply the same standard to every player with different physical makeups and abilities.

Can you show the volumes of research done on how many pitches per game is the optimal number for Yovanni Gallardo? I have never seen such a study. I have seen studies which are just averages based on dozens or hundreds other pitchers, however, none of those pitchers was Yovanni Gallrado. You cant just apply the average results of some study where the results were tailored to prove the findings that the research set out to prove, and all of the times where the theory of the research did not apply were ignored. Everyone is different, to think you can apply average results to any individual and expect perfect correlation is rediculous. Pitchers get hurt when they are still throwing as hard as they can when they are tired, getting tired happens differently to everyone and changes every start. Another bad this about pitch counts is that not only do people unnecesarily remove pitchers after 100 pitches when they are fine, they also unwisely leave pitchers in until they get to 100 pitches. Yesterday was a great example, Looper, who looked terrible and could not command any of his pitches, had less than 80 pitches going into the 6th, so obviously he must go back since he is less than 100 pitches. I wanted him out, he was terrible, but no, less than 100 means automatically you have to go out for the next inning.

There have only been 16 perfect games since 1900, and only 18 perfectos since 1876 in 388,364 games played, so 18 out of 776,728 starts have resulted perfect games (0.00002%). I think they are pretty cool because they are so rare. They are a part of history, when I saw McGwire hit his 65 HR in 1998 I thought that was really cool even though I wanted the Brewers to win. If I was at a Brewer game and the other pitcher had a perfecto going late in the game I would want him to get it. A no-hitter no, I would want the brewers to get a hit, but saying I was at a perfect game would be pretty cool I think.

Well now his next start he has a chance to tie Johnny Vander Meer's record of 2 consecutive no hitters

If Wise caught that to presevre a perfecto for CC on the Yankees it would go down as the 2nd greatest catch in MLB history after Willie Mays in the '54 series. If you like upgrading plays based on the situation then that is the web gem of the year hands down.

Yo and Sheets are pretty close, (Sheets 3.38 FIP '08, Yo 3.96 FIP '09) as of now Parra has been worse than last year (4.16 FIP '08, 4.58 FIP '09) Suppan has been better than last year (5.51 FIP '08, 5.14 FIP '09) Bush has been worse than last year (4.93 FIP '08, 5.81 FIP '09) Obviously CC is much better than Looper. The questions is, what should Melvin have done? What FA should he have signed or what trade should be ahve made? It easy to say our staff is bad but theres not too many more options. And as you said the H boys have been terrible.

sorry about that.

The Twins scored 13 runs and lost 1 run due to a bad call. So all they had to do was allow 12 or less runs to win the game. Whoever was responsible for each of the first 12 runs the A's scored has an equal amount of blame as the ump. Infact, Matt Holiday hit a Grand Slam on a 1-2 pitch, so that pitcher is much more to blame than the umpire, he allowed 4 of Oaklands runs to score. And later in the season, an umpire will make another call which will give the A's a run and they will be even. First of all, I would not take a loan from a house of question marks, once I was alerted that I had reached my limit I would have switched to a different form of puncuation. I would consider a period or maybe a dollar sign or star for a while until I get back under my quota. Also, it looks like the rate is about $200/ question mark, that is very high in my opinion^ I would probably at shop around at the domestic house of ?s to see if I could get a better rate if I really needed to use some extras$ You also did not elaborate on the interest rate or how it is compounded% I would need to know these things as well. To be safe I would proabably consult a lawyer because I am not sure if there are international laws that I am unaware of that will affect my loan in anyway@ That might get expensive... I got no such alert form my original post but I will address your logical hypothetical situation anyway& Here is why your example is not the same, if you take ALL of my money at one time then you are 100% responsible for me not having my money so you owe me it. The umpire affected 1 of the 13 runs not to mention that they were not all needed if the defense/pitching was better. Also, maybe it was my fault I got into debt, it may have been avoidable. What really happened is closer to if I had raised say $1500 to pay back my load of $1000. I was most likely able to do this because I was not only saving up pennies but also nickels, dimes and Susan B Anthony Silver dollars. Now, as I am going to the airport to go to wherever the IHQM is, I just $100 and throw it is the gardbage I thought it would be funny to do that in front of a bum. Then I lose $100 because I forgot it at a museum, then I give a $100 tip to the waitress at George Webbs because actaully doesnt seem like she would rather be killing herself than working there, then I ran out of toliet paper...there goes another $200. Now I have $1000 and you take $100 from me because I know your gun isnt loaded but I just want you to leave me alone so I give you $100. Now, I am $100 short and it doesnt make sense to say the last time I lost the $100 is any more responsible for me being short than any other reason. Plus the judge would punish you for assault with a deadly weapon (assuming it is licensed which I'd guess it wasnt, that some more time on top there). I guess you should have used the exclamation point instead.