ptatc

QUOTE (almagest @ Aug 27, 2008 -> 09:20 AM) Jon Garland this year: W-L ERA WHIP BB-K HR 11-8 4.49 1.466 49-72 20 So basically, his peripherals are worse this year than every other year except his rookie year (ERA+ of 95 is the lowest since his rookie year of 78), but his ERA is decent, and he has a decent record. Something tells me we'd be pretty unhappy with Jon if he were still here, given the numbers he's posted for a very good team that plays in a pitcher's park for 81 games. I also don't understand the "well my eyes tell me OC sucks on defense, so the stats are obviously wrong" mentality at all. We're fans. We don't know more than professional scouts, and we don't know more than professional metrics that have proven time and time again to be very good ways to measure a player's performance. We're also a lot more likely to overreact to and remember a bad or mediocre play by someone we don't like, and it's pretty obvious OC isn't well liked by a good number of the members here. No! not on this board. You must be thinking of another one, no one overreacts here.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 27, 2008 -> 12:57 AM) Thanks Angels for cooling off Minnie and you M's for winning close games. Wouldn't it be nice if the Twins went to s***? It could happen, look at the Indians on the opposite end of the spectrum. They've won nine in row. Maybe Minnie will lose many in a row. I can hope. Unfortunately we have 6 more games with them. They're getting hot at the wrong time for us.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 09:40 PM) With the 6 run lead in the 9th who needs a closer? Ahem.... I believe I was close.

QUOTE (quickman @ Aug 26, 2008 -> 11:11 AM) this sounds like he should have had surgery a month ago, but they want to get something out of him in case we make the playoffs. I am not anything close to a doctor but this smells like offseason surgery to me, and no linebrink for most of next year. That could very well be. There are a number of undersurface tears and others things that will just show up as fluid on an MRI. This just shows as white which can also mean inflammation. My guess is that there is an underlying problem and there will be at least an exploratory arthroscopy in the off season. However, it could also just be some inflammation and it will take a bit to regain the strength his lost sine being out. The article didn't sound like he was in pain just that he didn't have the "crispness" on the pitches.

QUOTE (oralsoxpodcast @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 11:08 PM) you're right, Clay (his mama called him Clay, I'll call him Clay) pitched well. I just meant that without Carlos being denied a timeout, we very well could have lost that game. We're better than the O's and should beat up on them. Let's hope this isn't a sign of how we're going to play for the rest of these road games. Nice Coming to America reference. Very funny movie.

With the 6 run lead in the 9th who needs a closer?

QUOTE (WilliamTell @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 12:41 PM) I don't and will never understand why Twins fans of all people hate Pierzynski. Being from Twins Territory, I always call out Twins fans when someone makes a remark about AJ. (Granted I never thought I'd back up AJ, but still.) I always mention that AJ got them Liriano, Nathan, and Bonser because they were making room for Mauer. I just think it's idiotic that a lot of Twins fans hate him when he helped them win a lot of games, plus helped them get one of the most lop sided trades ever. They probably met him.

One of the funniest plays I ever witnessed was an inside the park HR by Karko. He wasn't that bad of a player. Great defensively, a little pop and a really good guy.

QUOTE (shipps @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 08:57 AM) Have one of those delicious fresh lemonades for me.I drank 4 of them in one game when I was there,they have the best I ever had. Or a freshly poured Guiness from the stand on Eutaw!!! I love Guiness from the tap.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 07:18 AM) When all of the experts predicted 4th place, and everyone here agreed with them, being in first place in the end of August is a prize. Its a helluva lot better than 99.9% of people thought we would do. Is it time to bring back the pre-season prediction thread? I think we have already surpassed the victory total that some of the more pessimistic posters predicted.

QUOTE (scenario @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 02:17 PM) Here's a contrarian view from David Gassko of The Hardball Times. Here's a key paragraph from the article/analysis... Seems like Verducci is wrong. Verducci writes: The bottom line: a dramatic increase in innings on a young pitcher elevates the risk of injury or a setback to their development. But the evidence points to the opposite. Pitchers who see a large increase in workload are more likely to continue to be successful than those who don’t. It’s important to remember that correlation does not mean causation—just because throwing a lot more innings than a pitcher ever has before is correlated with future success does not mean that managers should be riding their young pitchers hard—but it does imply that Verducci’s argument is incorrect, and there is absolutely no reason that we should expect these YAE candidates to do worse because they’ve overworked. One of the flaws in the study, and he does admit there are a number of flaws, is that the number of pitches throw was not a variable. Sometimes the increased number of innings actually had a similar number of pitches. Meaning the young pitcher became more efficient at getting outs and therefore threw more innings. Even with the flaws it is an interesting study and one of the few that has really looked into this problem. Like all good research the first few studies just find more questions and lead us in the right direction to study. There will never be a study which satisfies this problem. Although baseball is a numbers game. The injuries are not. The are too many human variables which cloud the numbers. My view is pretty simplistic, each pitcher only has a certain amount of work they can handle. The variables include but are not limited to body type, mechanics, genetics and work ethic. We can work with a number of them to prolong the career but no matter what we do there are always going to be the variables we can't control and the pitcher will eventually breakdown due to the stresses placed upon the body.

QUOTE (thedoctor @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 12:48 PM) you know, i've always had an issue with the innings pitched stat as it relates to pitcher health. wouldn't pitches thrown be a more reliable and accurate way to measure the chances of a pitcher breaking down? some pitchers can get through an inning in 10 pitches, others use many more. kind of an off the topic thought but it's always something i've wondered about. i'm sure some of the more stats-oriented folks here could provide the rationale behind using innings pitched as a primary measure that dictates pitcher health. There was that debate. That is where the dreaded pitch count came from. While there isn't much research on it, pitchers who throw more than 130 pitches, more than a couple of times in a year tend to lose time with injuries. Again, this is by no means good research. Alot depends on mechanics and many other reasons but the pitch count has become the standard on which to base pitcher's workload.

QUOTE (That funky motion @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 11:11 AM) Game worn Caldaron, KW, Dent or Orta. If that's Ivan Claderon, you are my hero!!! :notworthy :notworthy

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 10:12 AM) 2008 IP to date is 150.3 2007 IP was 139.0 What was the litmus test on acceptable increases to innings pitched before breaking down your pitchers over the long term? Most coaches will use somewhere between 15-25% of the previous season, unless injuries are involved. This has no basis in the research literature and is strictly based on anecdotal evidence from coaches.

Alternate between game worn jerseys of; Warren Newson (black jersey), Wilson Alvarez (white jersey), Roberto Hernandez (gray jersey), and Chris Snopek (green St. Patrick's Day jersey). Hats vary.

QUOTE (Felix @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 09:47 AM) And thats what I edited right after I posted Sorry, I missed that part. I think you get the point though.

QUOTE (Felix @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 09:38 AM) That certainly wasn't my purpose, as I've enjoyed reading these. I apologize if that did happen as a result of me. And I didn't mean to turn it into anything else. However, if I'm reading these things and something is said that clearly isn't true, I'm going to say so. I don't think I did anything out of line, as I thought the whole purpose of these forums was to promote discussion about baseball (and other things). Now if I were to start talking politics in this thread, I could see how it was out of line, but when I was merely talking about the worthiness of saves in a thread about the guy who holds the saves record, which doesn't seem off-topic or out of place at all to me. This is the point they are making. You may think "it is clearly untrue," however other people think otherwise. There are many ways to look at it. Is it arguable, yes, is it clearly untrue or a definitive right answer, no. You can argue it, but don't attack it as if it were fact. As a great philosopher once said, it is true, from a certain point of view

QUOTE (Texsox @ Aug 21, 2008 -> 05:43 PM) By wins, and if a closer doesn't earn a save, it's generally a loss. I like guys who win. Some like guys who put up great stats. To each their own. You'll never win the discussion here with those numbers. I've been saying that wins are the most important number but most just don't seem to agree. Give me the pitcher that wins over the other stats and I'll be perfectly happy.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Aug 22, 2008 -> 07:42 AM) Wise hurt his adductor muscle, the same thing that kept Podsednik in and out of the lineup Typical for "speed" guys. It's the muscle that pulls the trail leg over during the crossover step.

QUOTE (oralsoxpodcast @ Aug 21, 2008 -> 12:33 PM) If Swish continues to be hot and helps us get into the postseason, then yeah. But really you have to look at it big picture. We got a solid player (whose numbers should go up) for a few years at a very reasonable price. We gave up prospects. Who knows how those prospects will turn out, but I'd say it was a good trade. Probably for both teams it was good. I still don't know if I have faith that Swish will continue to swing the hot bat. as your stats show, he hasn't shown any sort of consistency. but he his fun to watch. --Fake Ed Farmer Quote: Did you see who Nick Swisher hip bumped in the dugout? Claude Raines, the invisible man folks. LMAO!!! If you hadn't added the invisible man part, I wonder how many on the board would've gotten that.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 21, 2008 -> 09:41 AM) As Costas was signing off on the NBC primetime coverage last night, he said that May/Walsh had the most impressive performance of the day in the Olympics. What a joke....I'd say that 19.30 seconds says otherwise. I agree. There was nothing more impressive in the Olympics than that. A guy that tall and can get out of the blocks the way he does and with that speed. Unbelieveable. I would love to see him run the 400. That stride would really give him an advantage.

QUOTE (scenario @ Aug 21, 2008 -> 12:56 PM) And scouting is by no means a perfect science... If it was, Albert Pujols would not have been a 13th round draft pick. Well no one knew how much his body would develop in such a short period of time. (except maybe his pharmacist)

QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Aug 19, 2008 -> 04:11 PM) I know a guy who does this all the time. Pretty much every job he has had he amazingly gets hurt and collects. They get "special" treatment when I work with them. These people really tick me off.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Aug 18, 2008 -> 09:55 PM) he will give hope to guys who never get into games that they too can get injured. It is the dream of some people to sit home and collect worker's comp. I see many of them in the clinic.

QUOTE (thedoctor @ Aug 19, 2008 -> 09:23 AM) we did, didn't we? (and there's no "e" at the end of calderon) No you din't. You need the accent on the the RO in the middle as the PA guy used to say it when he came in the game.. I probably should have put a few more Os in it also. That's what I meant to say. I've never been much aof a splllerr. Salome BaROjas!!!!!