LittleHurt05

Nothing like a $160 million team trailing by one in the 9th inning of a playoff game and having Herman Perez, Austin Romine, and Eugenio Suarez come to bat.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 02:29 PM) Yeah, I'm confused. He has been fully participating in practice. I didn't think you could do that unless you were cleared. From what I just read, he has only returned to practice in a "limited" role, still needs to be fully cleared.

Pete Kozma is yet again starting a playoff game. There is hope for us all to fulfill our dream of reaching the majors

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 01:35 PM) Ausmus knows he has no bullpen and goes with Anibal Sanchez B6 in place of Verlander 2 perfect innings for Sanchez. Joba in for the 8th

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 01:17 PM) The IOC Demands That Helped Push Norway Out of Winter Olympic Bidding Are Hilarious It is now down to Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing. Another victory for human rights!!!

Nick Kypreos ‏@RealKyper 17m17 minutes ago Hearing as many as 7 teams interested in #Blackhawks D Nick Leddy. Chic needs to alleviate #NHL cap space. Looking for a prospect in return.

Bushrod, McClellin, Ratliff all out for Sunday. Garza questionable Slauson probable

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 12:34 PM) I wonder if Hahn would look / consider someone like Callaspo as a potential platoon guy who can play 3B against LHP and also play elsewhere in the infield. I presume not, given the glut of infielders we have, but in general, he could be a nice value signing. I don't see what the difference is between him & Semien. Not to mention, Callaspo was awful in 2014. You better hope that was a fluke, and not a rapid post-30 decline.

Verlander gives up a 2-run shot to Markakis in the 3rd, but Detroit comes back with a 5 spot in the 4th, big blow a 3-run bomb by JD Martinez. What a free pick-up that was. Orioles bullpen already in the game. Kind of surprised they went with Verlander instead of Price today, but if they win it will put them in a good spot for game 3.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 11:06 AM) Carcillo back. Again. He'd better not f***ing play.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 09:09 AM) I would be hardpressed to believe that losing an away game to Oregon, who will very likely still be a top ten team is going to hurt Michigan State very much. Especially considering Oregon does this every year. College football is so weird this year. Reminds me of 07. Not sure if chaos is better for the playoff or worse as the gap between 1-4 and 5-8 is going to be pretty small. Given what happened last night and earlier in Pullman, I don't think that's very likely at all, that O-line will probably cost them another game at least. QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 09:13 AM) Oregon losing isn't going to affect MSU. MSU is already going to be behind two SEC teams and 1-loss champions of the PAC12, Big12 and ACC, so MSU needs at least two of those three conference champions to have two losses plus ND have at least one loss. Had Oregon finished undefeated, the committee would look differently at MSU's potential 12-1 record then it would if Oregon has 2-3 losses, including a bad home loss. I'm not saying MSU would have been in the final 4, but it would have helped them get in the discussion. Either way, it is fun about how we make assumptions about 1-loss conference champions and what not, given how many crazy outcomes always happen in CFB in October and November.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 08:25 AM) I think Julius Peppers could have been a great TE. He ran away from Jerick McKinnon on that INT. At age 34. They kept talking about how much weight he lost in the offseason and looked quicker. What, he couldn't lose weight in Chicago the last two years? It's not like the food in Wisconsin is any healthier.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Oct 2, 2014 -> 09:20 AM) So Hockey People: When is this trade going to happen? I don't know exactly when the cap situation has to be finalized, but first game is Thursday, so gotta happen before then.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 08:52 AM) Having an ongoing debate with a die-hard sabrematician about Oakland's persistent playoff failure. He insists that the playoffs are such a small sample size compared to the regular season that you can't judge the success of a team (or a GM who built the team) based on playoff performance. He essentially writes off playoff failure as "random chance." I really think it's a bunch of BS. Every time something doesn't perform to the sabremetric model, it gets written off as random chance. Now I have plenty of background in statistics and completely get that sabremetrics has greatly improved how player talent and performance is evaluated, but I'll never buy that you lose every year in the playoffs due to bad luck. One thing that I've never seen any research on is the impact of the structure of playoff series compared to the regular season and how that might impact certain teams. The regular season contains stretches of 6 up to as many as 20 days in a row with games, which requires five starting pitchers, a second catcher starting several games, and heavy bench and bullpen utilization. In the playoffs you never play more than 3 days in a row, so you don't need a 5th starter, don't need to play your second catcher, and can use your bench and your worst relievers less. Take these two hypothetical teams for example: Starting Pitching WAR: Team A: 4.5, 3.5, 2.5, 2.5, 0.0 Team B: 3.0, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5 Catcher WAR: Team A: 5.0, 0.0 Team B: 3.5, 1.5 I could go on to make similar contrasts in the rest of the position players and relievers, but this should be enough to illustrate the point. Both teams have the same total WAR in their starting pitching and catching. Over the course of a 162 game season, both teams should expect to win about the same number of games. However, in the playoffs, Team A has an advantage over Team B due to not using the 5th starter or second catcher. So, I think there are two issues at hand. (1) Is the difference in roster usage from regular season to playoffs enough to change how good teams are relative to each other and (2) if so, do GMs need to take this into account when constructing their rosters? Oakland uses platooning in the lineup more than any other team. They have RHB that hit LHP well and LHB that hit RHP well and aren't afraid to freely interchange them. That works well during the season when you face a smorgasbord of starting pitchers and managers are more conservative with their bullpen. However, during the playoffs that advantage greatly diminishes. For example, they traded for Jonny Gomes who has been great against LHP. That might work well against Bruce Chen or Joe Saunders, but in the playoffs when you have to face a Bumgarner or Lester (hypothetically), he's just another batter. Same thing with the bullpens. In the regular season, a manager may not bring in a lefty to face Adam Dunn in the 6th, but in the playoffs every out matters so it's more likely. Either you are stuck with the tough matchup for Dunn or you bring in a RHB, lose Dunn's bat, then potentially face the same tough matchup in the 8th with a righty reliever.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 08:49 AM) Rozy needs to go first. He's completely done. Well yeah, but who the hell is gonna trade for him? Given the cap situation and age of other players, you would like to get a valuable piece for the future in any trade.

It doesn't matter how good your QB is if your offensive line is garbage. Sucks for Michigan State, their "marquee" non-conference loss is suddenly not looking as tough.

Did you guys just start reading my posts yesterday? I've been on the Royals-hate bandwagon for years now. I'm not gonna stop just because they suddenly give the media a funny feeling down below. Moustakas is just an ugly Gordon Beckham, just got lucky to get the barrel of the bat on one last night.

First two episodes of the new BlackList season were great

Ugh, the Royals are so unlikeable. We need more tomorrow Trout

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Oct 2, 2014 -> 11:37 PM) Is it just me or do these Angels fans look fake It's LA. Everything is fake

The Arizona/Oregon game over/under opened around 70, it got all the way up to 84 this morning, and ended up around 81.5. It's a 7-3 halftime score.

And Mike Scioscia falls into the Ned Yost trap of bunting, just stop it managers

Postseason David Freese is good at baseball

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 2, 2014 -> 10:54 AM) Paul Konerko, Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, Joe Crede, Alex Rios...there are a ton of players that would say that Walker helped them turn their careers around, Joe Crede especially. Prior to 2006, he was a .250 hitter who hit 20 home runs and would always pop out to 2B from pulling off the ball. He worked his ass off that offseason with Walker in staying on the ball better and he had an absolutely phenomenal year until the back injury that ruined his career creeped in. What? 2004 Thome was great. 2005 he only played 59 games due to elbow injuries and sucked. 2006 Thome was great. Unless Walker is a doctor, I don't see how he turned Thome's career around?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 2, 2014 -> 08:50 AM) guys can we talk about Brian Anderson? Sox need all the bullpen help they can get