Baseball discussion thread

[Brother Shatterstone]

As far as I could tell, Fox lost on a lot of fronts this year: the usual inane commentary from its 2 broadcasters;

God I couldn't agree more! Where Jon Miller and Joe Morgan??? Buck Jr. would rather talk about anything not going on the field and Tim McCarver just needs *sigh* I guess I just cant say what he needs.

(Yes everyone I know their doing the game on ESPN radio.)

 

[stevelabny]

now we're just getting silly

outfielders are supposed to be run better run producers than infielders?
maybe once upon a time, but this is 2003
maybe you guys have met arod, nomar,tejada, kent , soriano?
youre defensive position no longer has any impact on what you can do with a bat. as more and more 1st and 3rd basemen become severe power threats rather than 7-spot hitters who bat for average, and more middle infielder become the best offensive players in baseball rather than rey ordonez...
there are more and more outfielders who are there to be contact guys or speed guys or (gasp) glove guys.

berroa outslugged matsui which is surprising because he WEIGHS less? this could be the most nonsensical comment in this thread. what does weight have to do with ANYTHING. soriano doesnt weigh a lot lets throw random accolades on him for no apparent reason. or just to be fair lets compliment a fat guy who steals bases. should we compare hairstyles or skin tone next?

fox "rooting" for theyankees or predicting yankee victory? funny, i hear this one a lot from yankee-bashers (and stupid bandwagon jumper yankee fans say the EXACT opposite). can someone PLEASE write down all the pro-yankee quotes cuz i dont see it.at all. and as much as i dislike tim mccarver because he broadcasts every game like its someones first (dear tim, you broadcast the game to me, and I'LL teach my girlfriend, or my foreign freind, or my kids) i still like joe buck. but i cant believe someone is REQUESTING joe morgan and jon miller? miller is a cure for insomnia and joe morgan is awful... do we really need to hear another big red machine story? every play he calls is a comparison to himself or the big red machine. its BRUTAL.

 

[Storm Raven]

now we're just getting silly

outfielders are supposed to be run better run producers than infielders?
maybe once upon a time, but this is 2003
maybe you guys have met arod, nomar,tejada, kent , soriano?
youre defensive position no longer has any impact on what you can do with a bat. as more and more 1st and 3rd basemen become severe power threats rather than 7-spot hitters who bat for average, and more middle infielder become the best offensive players in baseball rather than rey ordonez...
there are more and more outfielders who are there to be contact guys or speed guys or (gasp) glove guys.

Now you are just getting silly.

Look at the ranks of the best hitters in baseball. You will find that they are dominated by (a) outfielders, and (b) first basemen. Still. Even in 2003, the best 25 hitters in baseball are mostly outfielders and first basemen.

Look at the bottom 25 hitters in baseball. You will note that those ranks are dominated by shortstops, second basemen, and catchers. Even in 2003.

Jeter is one of the best hitting shortstops in baseball, but when you compare him to outfielders, he would rank in the middle of the pack in terms of hitting. The same holds true for guys lkike Tejada and Garciaparra. The key isn't the absolute terms in which you hit, but the relative value of your contribution compared to the contributions of other guys at your position on other teams. Matsui through the season was a decent hitter, but virtually every other team in baseball fielded a left fielder who was about as good a hitter as Matsui, which makes his contribution less valuable than the contribution of a guy like, say Posada, who outhit his peers by quite a bit.

 

[Storm Raven]

Well we'll just have to agree to disagree John. Cause I think rings mean more than you're trying to downplay them as. I didn't begin the comparision of Pedro and Sandy. I only answered that while their career numbers are similar there are some differences. And one of those differences is winning in the postseason.

Koufax's rings mean less than you think though. The big negative for Koufax on that score is that he played in a era when it was easier to get to the World Series (fewer teams). His raw numbers are also affected by the fact that he played in an era where the rules of the game favored pitchers in several ways.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

now we're just getting silly

outfielders are supposed to be run better run producers than infielders? maybe once upon a time, but this is 2003
maybe you guys have met arod, nomar,tejada, kent , soriano?

Yes, by pretty much anyone’s standard on baseball you should get most of your offensive production from the corners. Even in 2003, we will look into this statement but first one more quote.

more middle infielder become the best offensive players in baseball rather than rey ordonez...

That whole statement proves my point... (I even cut out the part that made you look foolish... 1st and 3rd Baseman are almost always powerhitters and bat much higher than 7th)

Leys go look at some starting infielders to see the "incredible" offensive numbers their putting up. (note all the numbers have links that will take you to their numbers)

2nd Base, their was 2 people who had more than 30 homeruns and only one player to have more than a 100 RBIs!

Shortstop, their was 4 players with more than a 100 RBIs and again only 1 player that had more than 30 Homeruns. (Though he did lead his league.)

Shall we look at the corners?

1st Base, their was 6 players with more than 100 RBIs, damn that ties SS and 2B by itself! Their was 7 players that had more than 30 homeruns which is a little more than twice as much that 2B and SS combined.

3rd Base, theirs really not that many great power hitting in the game that play 3rd today but they still managed to have 4 players have 100 RBI seasons and 1 player had 30 homeruns.

Corner Outfielders? Sure why not!
Left field, okay their was 5 players that had more than 30 homeruns and 7 players that had at least 100 RBIs.

Right field, 5 100 RBI players and another 5 30 HR guys.

Well that’s your corners and that where your production comes from... Even in 2003.

berroa outslugged matsui which is surprising because he WEIGHS less? this could be the most nonsensical comment in this thread.

No I think I proved that this comment has that honor…

now we're just getting silly

outfielders are supposed to be run better run producers than infielders? maybe once upon a time, but this is 2003
maybe you guys have met arod, nomar,tejada, kent , soriano?

Anyhow back to work.

what does weight have to do with ANYTHING. soriano doesnt weigh a lot lets throw random accolades on him for no apparent reason.

Well let see slugging, often abbreviated SLG, is a statistic based upon how many bases your getting per an AB. If you hit 1.000 and hit an homerun every time your SLG would be 4.000 if you hit a 1.000 but only hit a single then your SLG would only be 1.000 (quite impressive but you can tell already that the statistic is against single hits and favors power hitters. Also if you look at baseball history the highest SLG are always dedicated to power hitters…. The list goes something like this, please note I couldn’t find the actually list:
Bonds
Ruth
Ruth
Bonds

Ruth was no light guy, I think we will all agree that he weighted more than either Berroa or Matsui and Bonds we will cover below.
Here are the leaders from this season: link
Here are the top few with there playing weight.
Bonds’ weight: 238 and his weight when we came up as a rookie… 185. Now the last time I looked he has been hitting more homeruns of late. Now not all of it is weight, but lets keep this simple for now.
Pujols’ weight: 226
Helton’s weight: 204
Edmonds’ weight: 212
Sheffield‘s Weight: 205
Rodriguez’s Weight: 210
Delgado’s Weight: 230
Ortiz’s Weight: 230
Ramirez’s Weight: 213

Okay that was the top ten. All of them weight more than Berroa by 30 pounds, yet a few of them are lighter than Matsui, but lets leave that to the side for right now.

See power and homeruns are generated by a few things:
Bat speed (which comes from strength, either upper body or lower body. Strength comes from Muscle that we all know weighs a lot. Hence heavy people slugging more.)
Leverage (often over looked by it’s a proven fact that people who weigh more, Hence heavy people slugging more.)
Pitch recognition and hand eye coordination. (The reason why my 240 is not hitting homeruns in the majors.)

So yes weight does have more than a subtle effect on the ball and how far it flies, but it isn’t the only factor and that’s why Berroa can out slug Matsui. Isn’t Matsui a big time power hitter? That’s why the Yankees are paying him 6 Million a year to play in this league and not the Japanese league. I see Matsui season to be a major disappointment as everyone was prediction 30 to 40 homeruns out of him and he didn’t even make 20. Not everything in a Yankee uniform is golden.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Koufax's rings mean less than you think though. The big negative for Koufax on that score is that he played in a era when it was easier to get to the World Series (fewer teams). His raw numbers are also affected by the fact that he played in an era where the rules of the game favored pitchers in several ways.

Fewer teams meant it was HARDER to get to the world series. Fewer teams means better talent. Since expansion, there are guys playing now who wouldn't be good enough otherwise. If you have 10 teams with 25 players, that's 250 guys and the 251st is just not good enough. Add another team and he's the first to be picked. In Koufax' "era" (which I take as an insult since he retired two years before I was born, grrrr) it was a lot harder to get to the world series.

 

[Storm Raven]

Fewer teams meant it was HARDER to get to the world series. Fewer teams means better talent. Since expansion, there are guys playing now who wouldn't be good enough otherwise. If you have 10 teams with 25 players, that's 250 guys and the 251st is just not good enough. Add another team and he's the first to be picked. In Koufax' "era" (which I take as an insult since he retired two years before I was born, grrrr) it was a lot harder to get to the world series.

No.

Fewer teams makes it much easier to get to the World Series. That means that there are fewer teams to compete with, hence, each tem has a higher percentage chance of making it to the World Series to begin with. Plus, when there are fewer levels of playoffs, getting to the World Series is much easier (more levels of playoof make a World Series appearance exponentially more difficult to achieve).

Further, the "dilution" argument doesn't work. The population base per major league slot is much greater now than it was in the 19502/1960s. In other words, there are many more people in the population for every single Major League job than there were in Koufax's era. Assuming that baseball talent is more or less evenly distributed in the population, that means that there are many more people competing for every major league job now than there were in the past.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Fewer teams meant it was HARDER to get to the world series. Fewer teams means better talent. Since expansion, there are guys playing now who wouldn't be good enough otherwise. If you have 10 teams with 25 players, that's 250 guys and the 251st is just not good enough.

Don't forget theirs more countries playing baseball now, hence more players to pool from, and MLB is a world league now.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

This thread has gotten very quite... Is anyone even watching the World Series?

Another great came tonight, I think the Yankess where going to do it AGAIN.

 

[Dungannon]

I for one have very little interest in this World Series, but it's nice to know that the Yankees lost.