chw42

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 11:02 AM) I was watching Butler, and I think I would stay away. He hit a few line drives last weekend, but the ball doesn't have much zip coming off his bat. Maybe I am being a little too simple, but while I think he can come back and hit for a decent average, I think his power is what it is, and that is pretty unacceptable for a guy you really don't want playing the field at all, and a guy who rolls into as many DPs as he does. Butler's issue is that his swing is too flat. Normally, that's a great thing, but Butler is so big and strong that if he just puts more lift on the ball, he'd average more than 17-20 homers a year like he has in his career. He also hits a ton of ground balls. When you're the third or cleanup hitter, you're slower than Konerko, and you hit a ton of ground balls, you're going to ground into a lot of double plays. If you give Butler 600 PAs, there's almost a guarantee he'll ground into 20 DPs.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 10:52 AM) Dude still hit for a good average and had a solid OBP. He was not horrid. Worse then previous years, sure, but horrid, absolutely not. .271/.323/.379 is not horrid out of your DH? If it wasn't for a semi-decent second half, he would have had a sub-.700 OPS. I'd rather have Adam Dunn if that's the Billy Butler of the future.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 10:51 AM) To be frank, the writing seemed to be on the wall with Lester. He should have been pulled a few batters earlier. By the way, I continue to say I would really like Billy Butler. He's a good buy-low candidate. Unfortunately, the guy's a double play machine and he was absolutely horrid for most of the year. If he's a .370 wOBA guy like he was 2 years ago, he's a good DH. If he's a .350 wOBA guy like he was last year, that's acceptable at the DH position. If he hits like he did this year, he's worthless.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) He did do this, but then he mortgaged the future and traded away offense for pitching. After that he watched his team flounder offensively and get into the wildcard instead of win the division and stay out of a one game playoff. It was the exact opposite of the traditional Billy Beane philosophy. Honestly, I'm not sure what kind of GM Beane is at this point.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 02:18 AM) Great game, wow the Royals have some guys who can run. So many potential goats (Yost, Salvy, Butler getting picked off, etc) but so many heros in the end. Colon made contact on the little chopper to third, scoring the run. Hosmer blasted that ball off the wall late and those other hits he had; Salvy with the game winning poke past third, Finnegan, Aoki actually elevating and hitting the sac fly. However ... Yost. My gosh what a dumb move bringing in Ventura. Overthinking it. You don't bring in a starter who is young and wild in that situation. I can't believe managers do that sometimes in the postseason. Geezus you don't change roles this late in the game. Thank god Ozzie let the players decide it in 2005. Hindsight is 20/20, but I'd have first of all left Big Game James in, which might have turned out a bad decision since he had a pretty lousy game. IF I had to take James out, I'd start the pathetic parade of lefty/righty crap and brought in a lefty. However, that would have used up Finnegan early. It turned out OK for Ned and the Royals, considering almost the entire roster played and so many guys ended up contributing. Paulie said on Mike and Mike the winner of this game would represent in the World Series. I still like Baltimore. OH and by the way this was a victory for Hawk. Sabermetric Beane loses to old school, Mr. Bunt, Ned. Take that, Sabes. Except the Royals didn't score because of bunts...?

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 12:02 AM) Cespedes isn't that good. This loss isn't about losing Cespedes. It's about having a team built on a lot of iffy parts and those iffy foundations crumbling down the stretch. When it came down to it, they're a fortunate bounce of a ball away potentially making a run in a playoff series. Right, he's a 110 wRC+ type of player. But on an Oakland team that was basically built around Brandon Moss and Donaldson after Cespedes departed, the crumbling got a hell of a lot worse. At the very least, you know what Cespedes will give you.

Should have kept Abad in Melvin...should have kept Abad in. Hammel was awful for the A's this year.

Amazing game. What a disaster for the A's. They acquire an ace prematurely for their cleanup hitter thinking they had already won the division in July...only to fall out of contention because of their lack of offense. Then their ace more or less gives up a 4 run lead in a their only playoff game and they end up with nothing. It sucks to be an Oakland fan right now.

I'm fairly certain Hammel is going to blow it here and it'll create a storyline of how Beane's trades were bad... And he does...lol

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 11:51 PM) Nothing like a former blown Rockies' prospect to settle it...or was he with the Indians as part of the Jimenez deal? Can't remember exactly how he ended up with the A's now. I think both Hammel and Pomeranz came from the Rockies' system.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 11:45 PM) Gordon and Perez getting two more chances to walk off with the biggest Royals' win in three decades. Well, Gordon failed. I'm not sure why Melvin is taking Abad out after just one batter in a game that might go on forever... He's bringing in Pomeranz though, who can probably go 4 innings if he needs to. Edit: nvm it's Hammel.

This is easily the best Wild Card game so far. So much back and forth.

That ball Hosmer hit just hung up forever.

Callaspo, the former Royal, with the big hit.

QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 10:25 PM) Windows 8 was measurably faster than Windows 7, especially on boot-up. I don't think it was hard to use. Launching programs that I didn't have shortcuts for was in effect no different as I was just tapping Windows+S and typing a search term. It's just a matter of where the search terms appeared. I like the live tiles, but they'll be better served in the hybrid start menu they showed off today. MS Office is such a superior product, though, that I decided to dual boot with W8.1 on my Macbook because I loathe the Mac versions so much. With that said, I do like iWorks. They didn't try to make them into MS Office. They made them simpler, different, elegant, and easy to use. I can't do serious work on there, but they're fun to use for simple things. Yeah that is one of the things that made me consider putting Windows 8 on my desktop, but it wasn't a big enough improvement to make me do a complete re-install. I also like how you can get multiple task-bars in Windows 8 if you have multiple monitors.

More bunts, yay! It's warranted in this case though.

Lead-off man on for the A's.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:42 PM) Agreed. That full screen nonsense was, once again, fine for smaller screened touch devices, but it sucked on my 27" monitor. I'm still running 7 on my desktop, but I think I'll upgrade to 10 when it does come out.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:14 PM) They'll probably bunt down 4 runs late in the game Hey, it happened! I think that was all Infante though.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 08:09 PM) What the holy hell... I disagree with calling release software they've been charging for via retail/OEM as "developmental" when software IS your main product. People don't understand what you're saying about Microsoft doing "developmental" product cycles because you completely made it up, even if it coincidently seems to fit the narrative. Emphasis on coincidentally. You do NOT get to charge people/corporations for development software on a RETAIL basis, nor release it to enterprise/OEM customers as "final", and then pretend it was developmental 2 years later. Call it like it is...Windows 8 was a failed experiment to meld touch/mouse/keyboard input into one unified UI, forced into retail by Balmer, and jammed onto hardware it wasn't meant for. Windows 8/8.1 is a GREAT OS for touch based interfaces, I've said that before and I'll say it again, however, Windows 8/8.1 was a HORRIBLE OS for mouse/keyboard based computers. On desktops without touch, it did nothing Windows 7 wasn't already doing other than cause mass confusion, and nothing will change that...other than Windows 10, which is why they're admitting the mistake and moving on. Windows 9 10 looks like what Windows 8 should have been from the get go. ...and yes, it's great on the Surface 3 for the reason I stated above...it's touch based hardware. I'm so glad they're going to allow us to run Windows 8 apps in a window and not full-screen. That annoyed the hell out of me. I also like the new window snapping features.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:30 PM) Well, so much for Big Game James He wasn't allowed to be Big Game James, unfortunately.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:20 PM) Shields' full count pitch to Donaldson's just a bit closer to the corner and it's a strike em out/throw em out double play. Baseball is a game of inches, as always. Woulda/coulda/shoulda. I do think the A's match up much better with the Angels, especially without Richards. The Royals have Shields, but Ventura, Duffy and Vargas in the post-season doesn't seem to be a recipe for success, especially Vargas with how he's pitched recently. And Duffy's had two starts, one great, one bad since his injury. Yet you wouldn't want to go with Guthrie, either. The A's have much better starting pitching. All of their starters are better than what the Angels have. Samardzija vs. Weaver Kazmir vs. Shoemaker/Wilson Gray vs. Wilson/Shoemaker Lester vs. Santiago I don't think the Angels can win a 7 game series unless their offense just goes off.

QUOTE (BaconOnAStick @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:17 PM) ...and people get sick of Ventura. At least he doesnt pull s*** like that. Robin doesn't have a guy who can throw 100 out of his bullpen though, so he technically can't do anything like that. I understand Yost's mindset in that situation (you need Ks and Ventura gets Ks), but you have your #1 starter on the mound, why would you replace him with a rookie with control issues? If you're really that nervous about Shields bombing, bring in Herrera. Don't put your players out of their comfort zone during the biggest game of the year.

Yost probably should get fired after this game. I feel like the Royals won despite him being their manager this year.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:03 PM) Guess it's easy to say that Yost panicked there a little bit pulling Shields in the 6th...but hindsight is always 20/20. 2-0 fastballs. Doesn't matter how hard you throw them. 82 pitches for Shields when he got pulled. It was an awful move IMO. A good manager doesn't do things that's completely out of the ordinary. I'm still not sure why he went with Ventura instead of Herrera. It's a playoff game, you need your best relievers in there, not someone who's usually a starter.