Baseball discussion thread

[stevelabny]

Stevelabny, thanks for showing my point far better than I could have.

um, no problem, except for the fact that i dont work for the yankees and didnt force mattingly out. he really did just retire. HE COULDN'T MOVE. you know it was his own idea, because he didnt even attempt to go to another team.

but i am curious what you would have preferred? Mattingly stay around for another 5 years and bat .150 with no power? How is that preferable to his retirement?

I appreciate that you mighta been a young kid with mattingly posters on his walls and lots of rookie cards you were hoping to sell to go to college, but let's be honest...he was DONE.

and i dont want to hijack the thread completely so new picks for the next round:

yanks in 6. cubs in 6. yanks still win series after the cubs kids hit the wall.

and by 2010 will all of you yankee-bashers be just as upset after seeing the cubs in 5 of 7 world series?

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

but i am curious what you would have preferred? Mattingly stay around for another 5 years and bat .150 with no power? How is that preferable to his retirement?

One more year and he could have had his post season, you did when the world series, and he would probaly have gotten in to the hall of fame. What was wrong with that?

I appreciate that you mighta been a young kid.

I could have been...

and by 2010 will all of you yankee-bashers be just as upset after seeing the cubs in 5 of 7 world series?

Probably not, they’re due! and they haven't won over half the world series ever played. A statistic that the Yankees meet or are darn close to.

 

[Dinkeldog]

yanks in 6. cubs in 6. yanks still win series after the cubs kids hit the wall.

Don't think that I'm a "yankee-basher", but I'm pulling for the Red Sox, and I don't think it will take the Cubs 6 games. I'm also not sure what this "wall" is, and why you think the Cubs will suffer, but the Yankees won't.

 

[Krug]

boy did the as blow it. some heads should roll. anyway, hope either the cubs or sox take it all.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Note: Merged Red Sox thread. Limit: one OT thread per topic, please.

 

[stevelabny]

I'm also not sure what this "wall" is, and why you think the Cubs will suffer, but the Yankees won't.

"hitting the wall" as usually defined in sports: what happens to a young player his first full season in professional sports when he is exhausted from playing a longer season then he ever has before.

professional sports seasons are longer than high school/college/minor league seasons. rookies or 2nd year players going through a full season for the first time usually have a period at 3/4 of the way through the year where they go into a slump. it is described as "hitting the wall".

it is usually even worse for pitchers in baseball. zambrano and prior threw over 200 innings for the first time in their careers. fans complained all season that dusty baker wasnt watching pitch counts (most notably priors, as he was the big name projected young stud in fantasy baseball circles) and they have thrown A LOT of pitches.

now, on top of all their games and innings and pitches they are being asked to pitch for another month.

most fantasy baseball gurus will tell you to avoid these kids like the plague next year, as there is a common rule of thumb that if a pitcher pitches 200 major league innings after never pitching 150, he usually "burns out" the next season.
this has happened a little less over the past few years presumably because they are finally conditioning the kids right and taking care of them better. i personally believe that prior will be even BETTER next year. i think the fact that he didnt hit the wall but only got better in the second half is telling. his delivery is perfect. he will be one of the best ever.

BUT by the time the world series rolls around, prior will be looking at around 240 innings pitched, and as zito showed last night, all it takes is ONE bad inning to lose a game. he pitched 114 major league innings last year (and 50 in the minors) hes already at 220 this year. probably with 4 more starts coming.

the yankees wont have this problem because as everyone is fond of pointing out, theyve been here before. the whole team is used to playing well into october, the pitchers especially.

 

[Storm Raven]

Yanks in 5 and that's only if Pedro gets to pitch in Game 4. Lowe? Please. Wakefield? Please. Bullpen? Ohmygod! How did this team beat the A's?

Um, perhaps they won because you don't pay very good attention.

Lowe won 17 games this year. Last year he won 21. In 2000, he led the AL with 42 saves. His career ERA going into the 2003 season was 3.31.

The Red Sox the past season had one of the best offensive units in major league history, scoring 961 runs. The A's only scored 768 runs.

The Red Sox had one of the highest team slugging percentages in history (.491). The average hitter on the Boston team hit .289/.360.491. By comparison, Chavez hit .282/.350/.514, and Tejada hit .278/.336/.472.

The best hitters on Oakland's team only hit as well as the average hitter for the BoSox.

Basically, the Red Sox beat the A's because they are pretty much a better team.

 

[John Crichton]

plus if old "donnie groundout" didnt retire, i woulda personally taken him out myself. how much did he suck at the end of his career? he couldnt move his back at all. if he was a horse they woulda shot him.

Mattingly had a great postseason in 1995. He nearly beat the M's himself. It would have been nice to see him get a championship but he was physically in pain and didn't want to hurt the team in the next year. Tino was a fine replacement.

Back on topic - As for my picks, they are somewhere back in the merged portion of the Red Sox thread. In short - I'm routing for Cubs vs. Yanks.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Why is it that the Cubs are the lovable losers and have fans all across the county while the Red Sox who have been losers almost as long only seem to have fans in Boston?

WGN...

WGN helps but TBS hasn't made the Braves into America's team. There has to be something else.

As for the Red Sox - A's series something had to give. You have the Red Sox losing tradition vs the A's chokeing tradition. Aparently the A's tendency to choke in the playoffs was stronger. [Edit: same can be said for the Cubs - Braves series, how can you win a dozen division titles and only win 1 world series]

 

[Morpheus]

Um, perhaps they won because you don't pay very good attention.

Lowe won 17 games this year. Last year he won 21. In 2000, he led the AL with 42 saves. His career ERA going into the 2003 season was 3.31.

The Red Sox the past season had one of the best offensive units in major league history, scoring 961 runs. The A's only scored 768 runs.

The Red Sox had one of the highest team slugging percentages in history (.491). The average hitter on the Boston team hit .289/.360.491. By comparison, Chavez hit .282/.350/.514, and Tejada hit .278/.336/.472.

The best hitters on Oakland's team only hit as well as the average hitter for the BoSox.

Basically, the Red Sox beat the A's because they are pretty much a better team.

Not going to bite on the "I don't pay attention" line, but Lowe won 17 games...with an ERA higher than any of the A's (or Yankee, for that matter) starters. Can you say "run support"? And if there is one thing that baseball teaches us, good pitching and defense always beats good hitting in the end. Yanks advance...Sox go home. But how is that different than any other year?