jackie hayes

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 04:59 PM) But what you're saying then is that even a deal on the shorter side, perhaps three or four years, would be a huge risk? I don't know the exact odds, but consider that this is the first year after the surgery. A four-year deal would mean the last year would be five years removed from the surgery. None of the college athletes finished their college careers, so they were all done before five years, max. (That would be if they got the surgery before they even got to college -- that doesn't seem common, since the average age of the athletes was over 20 when they got the procedure.) Those don't sound like good odds to me.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 04:40 PM) Basically, they didn't make any permanent structural fixes to Joe's back, they just reset the "pain meter" to zero. Am I about right? That's the way I understood it. It's not a "permanent structural fix", but you'd have to ask ptatc about the details. If I answered that, I'd just be reciting something from WebMD.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 04:02 PM) I'm not sure about that. From everything I've read, the surgery should pretty much take care of the back pain. And I'm not exactly certain who it is that has had this injury that you are comparing Joe to. I had a discussion with ptatc (who knows more about player injuries than anyone else on this site) a little while back about the surgery, and the basics are that Crede can delay the recurrence by strengthening his back, staying on a good regimen. But there are no guarantees that he'll stay healthy for X years, and it will eventually come back. The one study I found that dealt with athletes looked at college athletes who'd had the same procedure (lumbar discectomy), average age around 20. 9 out of 10 who had single-level discectomy continued to compete through the end of college. Only 3 athletes had a double-level discectomy (which is what Joe had), and all 3 stopped competing before they finished college (because of "continued symptoms"). (Abstract of the study here.) It doesn't mean Crede can't be good this year, but no, he's not good as new.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 03:32 PM) Well, Lincecum has been mentioned, Harden has been mentioned. It's really a case of how the season develops though. You have to see who is in contention, who is not in contention... Taking a quick look though, some teams that may need a 3b now or in the future include: Anaheim, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minnesota, Oakland, Seattle, Texas, Toronto, Atlanta, Florida, Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. The only offseason rumor involving Lincecum (that I know of) was Rios-for-Lincecum. That's taking into account the concerns about Lincecum's durability -- if he makes it strong through to the deadline (which is the only way the Sox would want him), his value only increases. I don't think the Sox have enough. And no matter what happens with Crede this year, it won't mean that he's been proven healthy. The injury he had tends to recur. Signing him is a huge risk no matter how he produces.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 02:33 PM) The Sox dropped more than seven in a row in '05 didn't they? The Sox lost 7 in a row in 2005, the Cards lost 8 in a row in 2006. Just looking at the recent WS winners, most have losing streaks of 5 or 6 games at some point in the season. (Last year's Sawks are the exception -- they had a few 4-game losing streaks, and no 5+-game streaks.)

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:52 PM) Could be in certain situations. True/false strikeout pitchers tend to have more walks/more pitches thrown? Top Strikeout pitchers from 2007: Peavy 1.06 WHIP Kazmir 1.38 Santana 1.07 Bedard 1.09 Harang 1.14 3 out of the top 5 have a higher flyball ratio as well. As for the true/false question, I don't know. It would probably depend what you control for.

QUOTE (sox-r-us @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:36 PM) Rodney's return has been delayed; and according to Leyland, Zumaya is "light years out" .... buh bye season Right, but it was delayed from mid-April or so. Early- or mid-May still looks plausible, since they've said there's nothing wrong in the medical exams. Zumaya's a long ways off, but I thought it was still looking like July or August. Which obviously isn't good, but he could still help them for a good part of the season if that's the case.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 05:32 PM) Lower the WHIP the better in my opinion over anything. Both walks and hits are the worst thing that can happen to a pitcher. Outs are outs, but the K-rate is considered very important, but can also be modified by less walks. But that gets back to the issue of sustaining whip from one year to the next. Take two pitchers who walk exactly the same number of batters. If one gets significantly more strikeouts than the other, that means fewer balls in play. The low-k guy could get lucky one year and have a very low babip, which would give him a lower whip, but that doesn't mean he can sustain it. Except for certain types of pitchers (especially strong gb pitchers), babip tends to revert to the league-average, meaning the next year he'll probably have a higher whip. In that sense, whip is more a measure of success than a predictor of future success.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:09 PM) their bats will heat up but not to the level they did last year.... magglio won't hit .363, polanco won't hit .341, granderson even when healthy likely won't go 20-20-20-20 again, sheffield is a year older and perhaps another year without roids and always an injury waiting to happen, Renteria has been a terrible AL player, pudge is allergic to walking, jacque jones hit 5 HR in an entire year last year in a park where alot of games lazy fly balls to center turn into HR....yes they added cabrera, but he has to adjust to a new and more difficult league their bullpen is god awful, and looks to have no help on the way their rotation is average....willis cant throw strikes, rogers is old but decent at least, bondermans career best ERA isnt even under 4 and his career average is nearly 4.8, robertson is solid and verlander is very good...Heres the KEY though....that rotation is going to have to adjust...teams already know to get the starters pitch counts up early to get into that bullpen....we got into the pen all series and rogers threw 60 pitches in 3 innings today....thats not gonna cut it for them that team reminds me of the white sox so much just a year later....sox go all the way in 05, very good but miss playoffs in 06, bad in 07....tigers nearly go all the way in 06, very good but miss the playoffs in 07, and maybe bad in 08 Well...they added Miguel Cabrera. The Sox added Darin Erstad. The bullpen will eventually get help. Rodney's been slow to recover, but he'll return in time. Zumaya will return middle-late. Granderson's looked like a pretty remarkable talent, whether or not he goes 20-20-20-20-20-20-20-20-..., and one bad year doesn't convince me that Renteria is incapable of playing in the AL. If everything continues to implode for them, hey, great. But I think it's unlikely that we're looking at anything like a 72-win team.

I do wonder if they wouldn't be better off with Cabrera in lf and Inge at 3b. It's close, anyway. Not that it would happen, I know. Too much a point of pride with Cabrera.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 02:12 PM) I think one would be hard-pressed to find a pitcher with a sucky K:BB ratio who doesn't range from mediocre to bad. My original statement was worded a little wrong. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I'd just say that a good k/bb ratio is necessary but not sufficient (unless we're talking about an extreme gb pitcher or something like that).

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:55 PM) That much is true, there are exceptions to every rule though. You have HOF guys like Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson who walked and hit an insane number of batters every year, but their ratio is offset by the fact that it seems like they struck out damn near everyone else. When you can throw triple digits consistently you pretty much get a free pass on the # of walks you give. Even there, Ryan had a better than 2/1 k/bb ratio. Johnson's actually had a fantastic k/bb ratio, except for his first 4-5 years. He's been 3/1, 4/1 or better since those early years. (And imo he's been a much better pitcher than Ryan, too.) I used to look at RJ's numbers and think, See! There's still hope for Daniel Cabrera! I just love watching that guy when he's on.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:37 PM) Yeah that's what I mean though. If you look at a young pitcher who strikes out a lot of batters but walks almost as many (or more) he is going to have trouble when he moves up a level, or if he's already at that level, it's going to catch up with him. This is why I'm not particularly worried about John Danks in spite of his high ERA, that ratio is like 2:1 for him. Gavin Floyd also in the last year or so has done a lot better in that area, his ratio from Philly blows. I know you know all this, so I don't know why I'm saying it. lol. I dunno about that. A fly ball pitcher with a good k/bb ratio and a poor k rate may still struggle quite a bit. If Danks struck out fewer hitters, I would worry about him, but he actually gets a good number of strikeouts. (More than 1 per inning in the minors, last year about 100 k in 140 ip -- that's a pretty good rate.) My own impression is that a good k/bb rate is necessary for just about every pitcher. (Though young pitchers can and do improve that over the first few years. Alas, Daniel Cabrera...) A good k rate is necessary for most pitchers, though not everyone.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 01:19 PM) I think a better measure of success using K's is to compare how many K's to BB's a pitcher has. Then have a glance over at their ERA. Well, I don't know if judging "success" is really what people use strikeouts for -- it always seemed more useful as a tool to predict -- if success is sustainable, or if a pitcher might make a jump.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:28 PM) /hijack Strikeouts are also, IMHO overrated for pitchers. I'd rather a guy have a 1-2-3 inning with all ground outs and 7 pitches than 1-2-3 with strikeouts and 18 pitches. /back Everyone would prefer that. But there aren't many pitchers who can guarantee a batted ball is a ground out and not a single. Even those who think strikeouts are very important DO admit that there are exceptions. Extreme ground-ball pitchers can get away with fewer (guys like Wang, Carmona).

Is Matt Kemp ever going to play again? Tonight is the third straight game he's started on the bench. Ridiculous.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Apr 7, 2008 -> 04:05 PM) wow...i would consider pat burrell a bit better than j.d. drew I think he meant when healthy. Burrell's more productive b/c he stays on the field, but he's .259/.368/.483 career compared to Drew's .285/.390/.502. Drew's got a pretty great bat when his hamstrings allow him to walk out to the batter's box.

The 'racist' stuff was always weak. The Anderson stuff...sorry, I still believe there's something personal there.

I think those are reasonable expectations, DBAHO. For this year, 20-odd hr with a .350 obp and .450 slg look plausible...IF he gets enough pt. (I'm still not convinced Owens won't get enough abs to cut into that dramatically, though.) The way his spring started, I didn't think he'd recovered from the injury, but that looks wrong now. It was a good trade and I expect he can and will be a core player for the Sox. That doesn't mean, though, that I think the Sox are right in how they've used Anderson. That topic usually swerves off and hijacks a thread, and I don't mean to do that -- I'm just saying, I think that "pressure" was warranted, but it doesn't mean I have low expectations for Quentin.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 6, 2008 -> 12:14 PM) Willis had some positives. He only gave up 1 hit. His walks were ridiculous and 0 strikeouts have to be a concern, but he has something to work with. I just don't think the Tigers can win if they can't do anything about their bullpen. You cannot win today with a bad bullpen. The low number of hits is not impressive, imo. Why swing when he's putting everyone on for free? And he couldn't strike out a single batter. He can't succeed like that, he can't even be adequate.

QUOTE(Disco72 @ Apr 6, 2008 -> 11:35 AM) On Sportscenter yesterday morning, they said that no team in the last decade has started 0-4 and made the playoffs and no team has ever started 0-4 and won the World Series. EDIT: A Tigers blog has some more info on this. It doesn't look that promising from a purely historical perspective. Then again, I'm not sure how many teams as offensively talented as the Tigers have started out 0-4. Most of the teams starting out bad were probably just bad teams to begin with. Coincidence. I'm sure some WS winners had 4-game losing streaks. Just because it didn't happen at the start of the season doesn't mean much. What should worry them more is how wretched Dontrelle looked yesterday. Even when he was throwing a no-hitter he looked like crap. If he can't be at least a competent innings-eater, that's big trouble, especially with the bullpen woes.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Apr 6, 2008 -> 10:45 AM) Oh I dunno.....forgive? No, sir. Jesus would have written umpteen columns for TownHall and the WSJ and posted every single redundant one in a new thread. That's what Brian Boitano'd do.

I had this whole expletive-laden tirade ready for Rich Hill yesterday, about how he's a filthy whore for pitching well against me -- ME! -- the guy who gave him a goddam chance last year when the rest of the world just laughed. But he didn't get the win, so I gave him a pass. For now.

QUOTE(Wanne @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 07:50 PM) When I was that age it was 19. I turned 19 in October (of '79) and they switched it to 21 that Jan 1 and didn't even have the nads to Grandfather Clause it. So I had 2 1/2 mo. to drink legally. But I was a master of the ID doctoring...so it didn't matter too much. Holy s***, that's funny. Great message. Kids, get f***ing HAMMERED NOW -- and I mean, BIG f***ing time -- cuz it's gone in a couple. Slainte!

QUOTE(ROC Sox Fan @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 03:43 PM) Had some trouble late in the game yesterday, but today has been going fine. ditto