Thurston Fluff

I thought it made perfect sense. It's obvious to anyone who read it that John Fogerty in an elevator made Howard Cosell's ghost come back to haunt Booker T and the MGs which in turn got The Jackson 5 to inspire Ortiz and Hampton to pitch better and it's equally obvious Bob Segar kept them healthy. How plain does it have to be written? P.S. please forgive the color of this post. My doctors here at Sunny View mental health center said I shouldn't have sharp objects. So I had to type in crayon.

No that I want to bring this whole thing up again but I did find a perfect example of a time swinging for a hit instead of taking working a walk would have been called for. Last night JJ Hardy was up in the late innings, 8th I beleive. He was already 4 for 4 and they just showed a graphic of each ball he hit. Each one came on a different pitch in a different location. One of which was well out of the strike zone. IOW he was seeing the ball well. There was a man on second with 2 outs and he had a 3-0 count. He took a get me over fastball over the middle of the plate for a strike. The next pitch was ball 4. The next batter made an out and 2 men were left on base. I think a 3-0 count for a guy obviously seeing the ball well is one where the batter should be swinging if the ball is a hitters pitch like that one was. A walk in that instance was probably decreasing the odds of scoring more runs in the game. It was a reliever so there was no need to raise the pitch count he was going to be gone sooner than later anyway. As the game played out it would have been nice to have scored the extra run. Maybe then we wouldn't have had to use an extra reliever ourselves. There are instances where the hitter should hit vs taking a walk. That was one of them.

I found this article about Lou's job status. It isn't Big Z related but didn't think it worth starting a new thread. Figured this was as good a place as any. Only one person's opinion in one paper but the grumblings have begun.

How about something other than, "The minors are for development" I guess you missed the whole part of my watching t-rat players going through drills with coaches. Name 1, just 1 prospect that's made significant defensive strides each step in the minors in the last 10 years? That is a loaded question. How would I or anyone who hasn't seen them at every stop be able to do that? But if you wish I can tell you how much one player improved from his time in A ball the the majors. I didn't see him at every level though. Prince at A ball in with Beloit was bad to the point that I wondered if he should be traded for someone who could actually catch a ball. It appeared like his feet were stuck in one spot when balls were hit his way. Hardly ever moved his feet when a ball was hit about two feet away. Still got that impression in my head years later. Much worse than when I next saw him in the majors. So there is one who did improve. From your comments I can't help but think you are suggesting there is no defensive instruction going on in the minors. That just doesn't make any sense. I think you will be hard pressed to find anyone who agrees with you. I also don't think anyone will agree with you that they do not work on defense in the minors. They don't start working on defense at the major league level.

If you can prove that players get individual instruction in the minors I would love to be proven wrong. The lack of individual instruction was why the roving instructors originally came into being. What type of proof do you need? The minors are for development. I don't think the AAA coaches are working diligently making sure a 32 year old roster filler is getting his time with the coaches while leaving the 22 year old highly touted prospect sitting in the dugout wondering when they coach will notice him. I guess the only real evidence I have is seeing the coaches working with players here in Appleton. Back in the 90's I knew a few of the T-rats employees so I got to go there and watch the team during the day a few times. There was certainly plenty of instruction going on then. Including fielding drills. I don't think it has changed. I can tell you this, the Green Bay Bullfrog players don't work on defense much at all, they took batting practice and that was about it. I realize the coaches don't have anything invested in the players for college summer league baseball, but the lifestyle is similar and gives the kids an idea of what they can expect if they get drafted. I guess that's why the bullfrogs wouldn't come close to the lowest level of pro ball players. I kind of think there is a difference between the northwoods league and professional baseball. I also know the UW Oshkosh baseball team spends plenty of time working on defense. They also have had several players drafted. Several of which are or have been in the big leagues.

I presume there is a reason Don Money is not at the ML-level. Most certainly there are more resources here to work with Mat 1-on-1 on a daily basis as opposed to Money who must manage that ballclub. Couldn't disagree more with this. The minors are developmental leagues set up specifically to help young prospects develop. The coaches in the minors have roving instructors as well as the staff. They spend far more time with developing the rising young prospects than they are the 30 something roster fillers. The major league coaches must spend their time with all the players on the roster not specific players on the team. Develop players in the developmental leagues set up for them not on the bench with coaches who are expected to put time in with every player.

If his skills set doesn't play well in SD it isn't going to play anywhere. A big park with lots of space should play into a slap hitter with speed. It should also increase his value defensively. If we actually played Gerut we might see who got the better end of the deal but as long as Gerut sits on the bench the trade was just meaningless. I don't want to go to go far off topic but this has been my only criticism of Macha so far. He really needs to rethink how he handles the bench players or he'll never have one worth anything.

From what I have read, Perez has been pretty wild and LaRussa has been reluctant to use him in any higher leverage situations lately. He was supposed to be the closer at one point this year but lost that job. Long run he may find his control but the Cards needed a RH bat moresoe than an erratic hard throwing RH pitcher in the pen. Thanks MJ I really didn't know much about him. Just saw his numbers and seemed to be pretty average bu tit was pretty hard to judge in 20 something innings. A little high in the walks department but young and a hard thrower. I guess it makes more sense to me now from the Cards perspective.

How much does it help to trade and average performing reliever on an average performing bullpen for an average performing everyday player? I really don't know. I see trading from a position of strength to shore up a weakness but I just didn't see their pen as so strong it can lose a player in it without noticing a decline there. I guess since they haven't had to use their pen as much as most teams they felt they can get by without one player in it. If their rotation doesn't continue to give them deep starts or they lose a guy in it or the pen this could hurt them as much as it helps. I'd rather win 2-3 than lose 6-7. They did need help offensively. Just not sure if this is big enough a boost for them to compensate weakening the strength which has been pitching. If all remains the same this is going to help them. If there are a few injuries in on the pitching side it could hurt them. It's not as certain to boost the team through the season as it would have if they traded minor league talent for him. Short term good move by the Cards. Long term, season wise, it may or may not be good depending on health and the current pitching staying as strong as it has been so far. Over the next couple years maybe not so good. In any event I'm more worried about what the Brewers do to straighten their own house than what the Cards do with theirs. We had the better team going in and still think ours is the better so I don't think we need to make a move to keep pace. We should make a move simply to improve our chances of wining the division and beyond not because the Cards made a move that will make them marginally better.

He's not dead. He's just pimping his new product the life preserving stasis gel. JUST LOOK AT HOW WELL IT WORKS. JUST RUB A LITTLE OVER YOUR WHOLE BODY AND YOU WILL BE PUT INTO A DEEP, STRESS RELIEVING SLEEP. THIS ONE TUBE WILL GIVE YOU OVER 35 DEEP STASIS SLEEPS. REJUVENATING YOUR WHOLE BODY AND FRESHENING YOUR OUTLOOK. LOOK YEARS YOUNGER, FEEL FRESH AND REVIVED. BUT WAIT. THAT'S NOT ALL. IF YOU ORDER WITHIN THE NEXT 30 MINUTES WE'LL GIVE YOU A FREE BOTTLE. ALL FOR THREE EASY PAYMENTS OF $19.95. IF THAT ISN'T ENOUGH WE'LL EVEN GIVE YOU THIS CLOTH APPLICATOR. THAT'S A $35 VALUE FOR FREE JUST FOR TRYING OUR RISK FREE DEEP STASIS GEL NOW. RIP my good hawker.

I was just looking at JJ's career stats compared to this season. I was surprised that despite getting on base at a sub .300 clip his OBP is only about 30 points lower than his career norm. His career OPS is 737 which is ok but not all OPS's are created equal. The heavier the slugging the less chances of scoring runs. Just how valuable is he if he can only get on base at a .325 clip unless he can also be a gold glove caliber fielder or hit for even more power? With a heavy slugging OPS shouldn't we expect him to produce closer to .800 or am I out of whack on that? How much of a drop off would we see if we had the better fielding shortstop who got on base at the same rate but less power? I don't want him traded this summer but think he could very well be replaced in the winter without any drop off at all.

Anyone my age is in tears today. Farrah has passed away. I don't know any teenager in 76 that didn't have a poster of her on the wall or any female that didn't have her hairstyle.

Probably right TLB but hearing James say he's revisiting that made me wonder. It has to be one of the hardest things to quatify since clutch is a subject ive term to begin with. I'd be interesting to see his new take on it if there is one.

It does not "lump them into one calculation" or say "a walk is worth X number of runs regardless of situation." It does not differentiate between how a walk occurred. A walk given to the #8 hitter with a pitcher coming up and a man on third with two outs has a better chance of preventing a run from scoring than not walking the guy. Yet it is assigned the same value as a walk issues to the lead off man in the first inning. For the most part that is fine since over a regular season most of those circumstances sort of even themselves out. What is not fine is to add about 500 walks from a source completely out of the blue that has never been part of the analysis and just expect it to accurate. Maybe example will be useful outside of baseball stats will be helpful to my point. I'm sure you have seen those alcohol analyzers. You add your weight and drinks you've had and the period of time you drank them in and it tells you your blood alcohol level. For a normal person it works fine. For an alcoholic it does not. That is because hardcore alcoholics get drunk at a different rate than normal. The same thing is happening with the fake player who walks all the time. It is an outlier that may not compute normally. I don't know if it would mess with it but I don't think you should be as confident as you are it will work the same. I don't think any of them were accepted as accurate until they actually proved themselves to be so. In the circumstance where an unusual situation arises I think it has to be shown to work as accurately as it does in normal situations. Now you're just being absurd. The effect of these potential side-effects is so minor that it is irrelevant compared to the huge gains that a walk every plate appearance would create. Again, I see that this really boils down to your not understanding how a lineup/run scoring simulator works. Maybe stop with the absurd stuff it does nothing to help make your point. I think I do understand. I have used them. They make a lot of sense if you want to see how a player like 3TO would produce over a full season or how a player would do if he maintained his current rate of production. What I think you are missing is they are only as good as the statistical analysis they are basing their outcome on. That means they should be used in circumstances at least roughly similar to the data used to make their analysis. I don't think it's absurd at all to think predictive tools based on past results work best when used in similar circumstances to the data gathered in making those analysis. Nor is it absurd to question the validity of using them in predicting what would happen in outlier cases. Heck there are cases each year where a player or two do much better/worse than these same formulas tell us he would so they have their hands full doing normal stuff 100% let alone weird situations. Thecrew07 did you happen to see the piece on Bill James on 60 minutes? I thought it was well done. One of the questions was about clutch hitting. Judging from how he answered that question it appears he is revisiting clutch hitting again. It would suck to finally accept there is no such thing only to have him come out and prove there is.

Your general line of thinking seems to be anti-statistic. I'm not anti-statistic at all. I just question how well something can work when it is calculating something that was not incorporated in the calculation. Walks occur for a variety of reasons. Some of them because the pitcher is tired or just not very good. Some walk because they are setting up a double play. Some walk because they are so good the pitcher would rather take his chances with the next guy. Some walk because the next hitter is so bad the pitcher decides the chances of scoring are less with the inferior hitter even if there is a man on first. The simulators take all the reasons for a walk and lump them into one calculation and come out saying a walk is worth X number of runs regardless of situation. That is perfectly fine when calculating normal occurrences. Most hitters will end up walking for most if not all of those reasons sometime or another. But here is the sticking point. There is no part of the equation that incorporates what happens when a player cannot not walk. It is hard to know how that would turn out. Does the pitcher not pitch to him and thus is less likely to show the next batter his stuff? Does the pitcher hit the batter in the leg so he can't run as well? Does the pitcher save himself for the next hitter and not expend any energy on that guy? Does the pitcher throw pick off throw after pick off throw until he finally gets him? Does the opposing team game plan how to approach the next batter in the lineup differently with the knowledge there will always be a man on first when he comes up? Who knows. Since it never happened and the calculations are based off real happenings the simulators don't have that information available for their calculations. Why do you trust OPS at all? Given a player with a 1.000 OPS how do we know that he won't strike out 100 times in a row? Or he could hit into 30 double-plays in a row, right? Doesn't that mean we should mistrust OPS as well? However unlikely it is at least possible for a player to do all the things you said. They are all based on how well, or poorly, the individual player performs. over the long haul player streaks evens out. Nor does any of those things change the criteria of the calculations. The concept of a player walking every time he comes up is not. It is based on both his ability and the pitchers willingness to throw him non strikes. Any pitcher not named Jorge De la Rosa would throw strike after strike until the player proved he could hit it. Really this is all academic and probably pretty boring for anyone stuck reading it so, as fun as it has been, maybe it's time to move one. But thank you for the debate it was compelling. All in all I think Reynolds was pretty far off base by any measure. That doesn't mean there are not times a hitter should try to get a hit vs take a walk. Just not all that many.

I think what you really mean is that given certain situations where the outcome is unknown, you would sometimes rather have the player try to get a hit than take a walk. I don't think there is ever a circumstance where the outcome is known so I thought that was a given. That is why I said attempting to get a hit. If you are attempting something the outcome is unknown by definition. I think our problem here is semantics. 2. You think computer programs that simulate run scoring using different lineups are bunk (if so, please explain). I don't think they are bunk but i do think they are only as good as the formulas they use to predict outcomes. The formulas used are based off real life outcomes not some hypothetical unrealistic what if situation. I do not know how well a formula that was based off actual outcomes works when you use them to run a simulation of an extreme, unrealistic, circumstance. I have a feeling the basis for the calculations would change if those extreme circumstances really happened and were included. There certainly should be room for debate on their accuracy to assess something they were not meant to assess. Not sure if I'm explaining my misgivings very well but simply put they work well enough in normal usage but not sure if it follows that it works the same in unrealistic ones.

Who said anything about giving you an entire arsenal of superstars? (Reread, please. Don't complain about misquoting if you're going to do so as well - thank you). As stated in my previous post, given a one for one swap, you would get the raw end of the deal. You are right I did miss the word "or" in your sentence. I just assumed if you were taking the case to the extreme case you would take it all the way. If one guy who walks every time is so great then it stands to reason every guy getting on base as such would be better. But fine you win I was wrong you only want one such guy. Not sure how you think one person will win you anything since your hypothetical team could be made up of Bill Hall types but I guess you have an answer for how that won't hurt you if you have someone who is on first when he strikes out. I'll await your explanation as to how that helps. That said I don't see how that gives you the right to cut a sentence in half so it appeared to say something completely different. Especially when you admitted it was out of context. I do not appreciate things like that being done intentionally. It certainly does nothing to help the conversation. Mistakes are one thing blatantly misrepresenting what someone else said quite another. Going back to your trading me one guy who will be get to first base, and only first base, 5 times a game for one of those three I think I'll take you up on that. My guy would be able to score on his own your needs help every time. If both our teams are full of Bill Halls but I have Pujols and you have Jonny take your base who do you think will win more games? Harold Reynolds probably knows a lot about playing the game of baseball and the little things do matter, he still has no idea at all about how important OBP is vs AVG vs SLG. I think you are absolutely right about this. That does not mean that sometimes walks are viewed as more important by some than other aspects of hitting though. Just because he is off base does not mean he doesn't have a semblance of a point hidden in there somewhere. The trick is to decipher it in all the incoherent rambling.

I'm quoting you out of context, but all I can say is YIKES. Not only out of context but not even the whole quote. I think adding the next part...attempting to hit the ball than take a walk and hope an inferior player can score the run... needs to be added or the YIKES is your blatant misrepresentation of what I really said. If you want to trade me Jones, Manny and Pujols for one player who only walks you may get to the world series but I'd be the one who beats you in the World Series. You'd have a guy on first every ninth person in the order. Granted I'd have a guy on first less often but two left who could actually score him from first. If you don't have people who can drive in the ones on base then you don't have an offense that can score runs. Setting aside hypotheticals in all reality you need both to have an effective offense. I don't know why Reynolds is so set against walks but I also don't understand why some think walks are so much more important than any other aspect of hitting. And yes I did see that before. It was a publicity stunt not a real attempt to win games through walking everyone home.

Apology accepted bernie. Just don't let it happen again. The Wisconsin German society would hate to have to force you to move to South Carolina in July. At least don't get caught doing it until January.

Anyway, if I'm a GM, I would gladly trade you Pujols or Chipper or Manny for Willie Walks-Every-Time. And you, sir, would watch as my team walked all the way to the World Series (well, unless we have the Nationals' pitching rotation). No I wouldn't. You would never finish one game. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/laugh.gif You also would have no fans at all and no income to keep said team together. My point was you can't really say one thing to an extreme is better than the extreme the other way. The person endaround mentioned doesn't exist nor will ever exist so it really doesn't matter. I like players who take their walks but that does not mean there aren't situations where I would rather the player made an out attempting to hit the ball than take a walk and hope an inferior player can score the run. I'm not really defending Reynolds as much as I am trying to understand him. I do believe he was off base but I also believe there is a thread of truth to what he says. Not more than a thread but a thread. If walking all the time was more important than being able to actually hit the ball every team would be made up of jockeys and little people. Since it isn't I'd have to assume there is a reason for that. Either nobody thought of it or there is more to scoring runs than walking every time. Personally I think if you can't have a lineup of players who all hit for power and get on base at a high rate you need a well rounded group of players each capable of either getting on base, hitting for average or hitting for power.

A player who walked every time he came up to the plate would by far be the most valuable player in baseball no matter who else was on his team. You don't swing at pitchers pitches just to avoid taking a walk, that is why a guy like Pujols is so good, he doesn't chase at bad pitches just because he doesn't trust his teammates. Taking a walk every at bat would have been good enough for fourth in OPS last season. I think Chipper Jones, Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez were more valuable last year than the player you described. Maybe that type of flawed thinking is partially what Reynolds was attempting to point out though his point is even less accurate. I think the point Reynolds was making is guys in certain situations are supposed to try to hit. For instance If I had the current Pirates lineup with Vlad Guerrero in his prime and Halliday on the mound Vlad could score more runs swinging the bat, even on a ball 6" off the dirt, easier than the rest of the lineup could with Vlad on first 5 times in the game. If you have a hitter hwo is better at hitting good pitches than his teammates are at hitting bad ones then he will maximize his teams run prodcution by actaully attmepting to hit even if it means his actaul numbers suffer some in the process. There are circumstances where hitters should hit. There are far more where they should take their walk. Reynolds might be more wrong than you are with your statement but yours has flaws as well. Walks are not always the best thing. Just most times. Your example of Pujols is fine but I think it shows you are looking at how player's numbers would help a generic team produce not how a particular team can maximize it's run production. Every team is built differnetly and eahc player on that team has to do what is best for that particualr team to maximize run production.

I kind of hope not. It's going to take more than one good start at AAA to convince me that he's back to the point of being an acceptable major league starter. Especially considering he walked 4 in that start. His control was the problem here and until he gets that fixed he will likely be pummeled again.

Both topped with coleslaw, not kraut. You have to move further South if you do that. Traitor.

CC could have easily declined to pitch every three days knowing that he'd still get paid in the offseason, but he did it anyway because he's a class act and a winner. i don't like the idea of anyone happy that any player gets injured. I don't know how easily he could have done this. He was expensive for a rental and had a responsibility to the team that paid that much for him to do everything he could to make himself worth the investment. He did so I was happy with him but I do not think it was as voluntary as some do. What do you think the rest of the team would have said to him if he declined to go when asked? As far as what happens to him now I couldn't care less to be perfectly honest. He is a Yankee now so his fortunes are the Yankees fortunes. As a person I wish him the best because, by all accounts, he is a good guy. But as a person he has had a great life so far. He is a millionaire 170 times over and has had a great amount of personal success in his career. How much better off does he really deserve or need to be? As a player his fortunes do nothing for my team so they do nothing for me one way or the other. I do not like the Yankees because I don't like their owners so, in that way, I want the Yankees to suffer but not necessarily CC's expense. If it is at his expense though I can't say I care all that much. Like I said CC has already had a charmed life so I'm not going to lose sleep over it if he has a bump in the road. I hope he doesn't much the same way I hope nobody does. I don't wish bad things on many people...other than the Stienbrenners and all things Cubs or Cardinals.

A month ago the rotation was winning us games while the offense struggled. With the type of starters we have there will be rough stretches. Bush, Soup, and Looper are all established enough to know they will come out of their current struggles to be serviceable again. Parra's struggles have hurt but he has shown he can be a good pitcher if he can just regain a little of his form. YoGa has been fine. We never should have expected to ride the rotation this year. It was supposed to be good enough to allow a good offense to win. Despite the struggles of the rotation we had enough to go .500 on the road due to the offense. I think that is going to have to be part of the solution. As far as trades I don't think we need a top of the line starter. I think it's the short starts that are hurting us more than anything. We need inning eaters now more than anything. That's why I believe we can get by with a smaller trade for a innings eater who can keep his ERA under 5.5 and be fine with the offense. If our rotation can go 6 or 7 innings on a regular basis the pen and offense is good enough to win most of those games even if the started gives up 4 or 5 runs. All in all we are still a competitive team in the division and even while we are going through a rough stretch we are still in contention. We don't need a CC type trade this year nearly as much as we did last year. We have a better offense and much better bullpen. We do need one more reliable starter but it doesn't need to be top of the rotation IMHO.