chw42

QUOTE (TRU @ May 15, 2014 -> 02:48 PM) I can already do that though, I just want to hit one home run and then I will go back to just hitting line drives. Im just thinking maybe im not swinging correctly since im just used to baseball and not slowpitch softball. Then honestly, you should continue doing it. I honestly don't know anyone who can get a hit every single time (maybe 75-80% of the time, but never all the time). The fact that you can apparently get on base on-demand is way better than hitting the occasional home run. Like Kyle said, keep hitting line drives. The home runs will come. I've hit HRs that were more or less line drives and those feel way better than a towering fly ball that just happens to go out. Also, doesn't your league have a HR limit?

QUOTE (TRU @ May 15, 2014 -> 01:31 PM) I am on a work team that we just started in March. This is my first time playing competitive softball, but I have played baseball for a good portion of my life so its not much different. We ended the first season 2-8, including a wonderful 34-5 loss in one of those games. I am trying to hit home runs, but I can seem to get the right swing down. Ive hit the fence a few times, and I know im plenty strong enough to get the ball out. Any of you seasoned softball players have any advice for this? I could probably bat 1.000 but I end up popping out to deepish left and left center regularly because I am trying to hit the ball out of the park. Our second season starts Sunday, hopefully we will be a little better than last season. Few questions. What kind of softball is this? 12 inch? What association? If it's 12 inch and it's ASA, what bat are you using? If you're hitting balls to the fence with an aluminum bat, then that is mighty impressive. Getting a composite will turn you into a real good home run hitter. If you're using a good composite bat and you're only hitting to the wall...then stop trying to hit home runs. Yes, they're nice, but your job in softball is to get on base. A team full of guys who get on base at a .700 clip will be way better than a team with 3-4 sluggers who can hit the ball out 25% of the time.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ May 15, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) FCC passes rules for "paid priority" on the internet. Ugh.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 14, 2014 -> 05:41 PM) He's earned his spot. No question. His peripherals are terrible because he gives up a lot of HRs. But I've always liked him and it's good to see him succeed so far. However, from an objective point of view, he's gotta stop giving up the long ball. Sooner or later, those solos he's given up will be 3 run homers and he won't be so lucky.

QUOTE (danman31 @ May 13, 2014 -> 11:25 PM) Oh my does this game look great. I love some of the side games they've got. lol the suburb is called Pawnee. The game directors must be Parks and Rec fans.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 13, 2014 -> 12:03 PM) That's true, but we did have a guy who absolutely sucked who we had to pull from games a few times last year. Plus a lot of times you have two pitchers start games. It sounds way sweeter saying 2 complete games though. I feel like Wilbur Wood. Well, you'll never feel like Kerry Wood cause you'll never K 20 batters in one game.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ May 12, 2014 -> 10:31 AM) Last night was Silicon Valley's first episode without Peter Gregory. They obviously didn't show him on camera, but they also didn't set up a story for how he would suddenly disappear off the show either. He will be missed. His character was awkwardly hilarious.

Is it that hard to get Cody Ross out? Everyone else was having no issues with it this year.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ May 7, 2014 -> 12:06 AM) Just took a peak at Abreu's attributes. Despite being a 77 overall by SCEA's version, he does possess very good POWER attributes. They gave him 84 PWR vs. RHP, 90 PWR vs. LHP. The closest comp I saw was Jose Bautista, who had 88/90. In fact, I think Bautista, Miggy, Stanton, and Chris Davis may be the only guys with better power ratings. It appears Jose loses a lot of his overall rating to contact 54/58 (ouch), plate vision 34 (way too low) and plate discipline (50). I did this to some of his ratings..... Contact vs R - 54 -------> 60 Contact vs L - 58 -------> 65 Plate Vision - 34 --------> 60 Plate Discipline - 50 -----> 70 Fielding Ability - 54 ------> 65 Fielding Reaction - 53 ----> 65 He turns in to an 84 OVR, which is more reasonable, IMO. Not sure he should get a 70 for discipline. He does K quite a bit. 60-65 seems more appropriate. Vision should get a big improvement. His power in the OSFM rosters are fairly low and I tend to agree to the attributes SCEA gave him there.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 9, 2014 -> 10:00 AM) This tells me that 78% of people watching the NFL draft are idiots for unnecessarily subjecting themselves to Chris Berman. Or more people have ESPN than NFL Network. Not everyone gets NFL Network I believe. Most cable providers require you to get the 200 channel package to get it.

Does anyone else hit better when they sub? I'm hitting around 60-70 points better when I sub as opposed to playing on teams I pay for. It could be a sample size thing (I've subbed 16 times out of 51 games this year), but 60-70 points is a huge difference in batting average. I also slug about 300 points better, so I'm not just getting lucky with dinkers or anything.

Played a double header, won both by small margins. I got the last out in the first game at 2B and our LFer made an incredible diving catch to end the second game with us up by 1 and the tying run at home plate. Went 6-9 overall, 3B and 2 2B. Two of my outs were infield pop ups, not too happy about that. Got robbed of a RBI single on the other out, 3B made a diving stop and got a force out at 2B.

The Vikings got a steal...

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 8, 2014 -> 03:25 PM) Lineups: Cubs: Kalish 8, Valbuena 4, Rizzo 3, Castro 6, Schierholtz 9, Castillo 2, Coghlan DH, Olt 5, Lake 7; Arrieta 1 Sox: Beckham 4, Gillaspie 5, Abreu 3, Dunn DH, Viciedo 7, Ramirez 6, De Aza 8, Sierra 9, Flowers 2; Carroll 1 I like Conor in the 2 spot. I'll stop b****ing about Beckham until he starts hitting like crap again.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 8, 2014 -> 03:46 PM) Thought I would share this with you guys http://www.roverplusnine.com/mm5/merchant....-dye-sub-shirts order of 12 brings price to 40 per jersey, fully customizable Sent the link to the manager of my USSSA team.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 8, 2014 -> 08:10 AM) How the hell do you lose after being up by 16 runs? Jesus. That's hard to do in slow pitch softball, let alone professional baseball.

I guess we get the Crosstown cup now.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 7, 2014 -> 02:29 PM) I understand, I just disagree that they are so much more accurate as it's the true number of runs scored and given up that creates a win or loss. Again, I'm not saying it isn't useful. It's just that I think they are abused and used to try to make poor comparisons like Bernstein did. I think you're getting scapegoating the wrong thing here. Bernstein's article was flawed because the sample size he used was too small and he was making judgements based on those sample sizes. As Dick Allen mentioned before, Rizzo had a .797 OPS two weeks ago. Now it's up around .900. A lot can change in two weeks this early in the season. The issue with Bernstein's article isn't that he used wOBA or wRC+ to make his case. The problem was that he exploited sample size to make his case.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 7, 2014 -> 02:23 PM) Correct. But we knew that by watching each of the players, so the numbers really didn't help either way. Except the advanced metrics also showed that Trout was a lot better than Philips...

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 7, 2014 -> 01:50 PM) This is true. However a few points. I'm not sure that saying someone who was better this year will be better next year. You will need a pattern of 5 years or so to determine this and I bet I could look at the "basic" stats and tell this as well. Even with those numbers did you really think that Phillips was better than Trout. I don't need any numbers to tell me that. Also if you use the runs scored +RBI -HR formula Trout winds up with 179 and Phillips 165, so even that shows Trout had a better year. Also, in the dawning age of non- (or decreased) PED usage, not all players will be able to put up great numbers across the board. So I think players will need to be separated out. It's kind of like comparing a WR to an RB in football. Players are going to sort themselves into the OBP specialists and others in the SLG groups and there will only be the select few that can do both and this will be obvious. The only problem is that Trout was better by a lot and it's not even close.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 7, 2014 -> 12:48 PM) Correct. However, that is the game of baseball. You cannot control everything to win the game. So why make up a stat that doesn't use it. It came about so agents can get more money for their client because "he did what he could control" nothing else really matters. That is not why sabermetrics exist today, not even close. Weeding out dependent variables in the equation is behind most statistics in general. Because it allows us to evaluate current production and predict future production. There's nothing wrong with trying to objectively look at a player's performance. That has nothing to do with sports agents. Just because you can't weed out every dependent variable doesn't mean you shouldn't try to. That's such a complacent attitude. Stats like wOBA have a much higher correlation to player value and talent than RBI and Runs. Why? Because it's less dependent on what other players do. Why wouldn't you try to isolate player performance? Baseball is an extremely individual sport.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 7, 2014 -> 12:41 PM) 1 week ago, Rizzo had 3 homers 10 rbi and a .797 OPS. Abreu had 10 homers 32 rbi and a .960 OPS. That could be the reason there hasn't been this much deserved Rizzo-mania for which Bernstein is apparently campaigning all season long. It's also hard to get excited about the Cubs in general.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 7, 2014 -> 12:29 PM) Exactly. His points are spot on, but they're delivered in a package of "screw you for being happy about something, idiots." Having moved from Chicago fairly recently (February), I've been away from the local hype train. All of what he's saying has been pretty obvious through the lense of the indifferent NY media. Is everyone really freaking out in Chicago over Abreu enough to warrant this kind of article? I tend to agree with Bernstein on a lot of stuff, but he is just a douche in a can.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ May 7, 2014 -> 12:35 PM) i know rizzo is 24 and abreu is 27, but hes still a rookie seeing these pitchers for the first time. look at rizzos numbers his first 3 years. im pretty sure he knows abreu has more talent and has been better but its just as mentioned, to stir the pot and hes getting exactly what he wants. I personally think Abreu is far better, and going to be far better than Rizzo. Rizzo's heated up like this before, only to come crashing down. Now, he is only 24 and he does have talent, but using a small sample size to try and make a point like Bernstein did isn't what I'd call good statistical analysis.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ May 7, 2014 -> 11:42 AM) The problem I am having with Dan Bernstein is that I picture him watching a game, seeing the result and then looking at the advanced stats to see if he should be happy with the result. I like sports I really do but at the end of the day the s*** that seems to now go back and forth now a days takes away from the enjoyment. I want to like Avasail Garcia but I can't because he hits too many ground balls and not enough fly balls. Sports are entertainment, tanking with the hope that in five years everything will be roses and p****cats mystifies me. That would be like taking a television away from someone that really likes television by telling them in four years, they may get the mother of all televisions. I get that it is a business and teams do things with the bigger picture in mind but I want my three hours of daily entertainment. That is all I seek from sports. At the end of the day my life is no better the following morning after a teams win or lose. This goes for the fall of 2005 as well. For some reason advanced statistics are doing the same thing for me. I can't enjoy Tyler Flowers, why...his BABIP tells me he will suck from now until mid-July. The stats tell me so. Rizzo and Abreu are having good starts. Rizzo has been a round for a few yeas Abreu for a month. THAT IS THE f***ING STORY NOT RUNS CREATED V WOBA or whatever the f*** he is talking about.. Nobody is telling you how to enjoy the game of baseball. We're just saying what he's doing wasn't sustainable. There's a huge difference.