2008 Atlanta Bravos -- Once More with Glavine

That was cool. Too bad it didn't work out.

I liked the highlight showing them passing the extra glove around the horn to like six different players before the batboy.

i am a lot less optimistic about them this year than i was last season, even though they are possibly better at the moment than they were a year ago now. i miss andruw!!!!!!!!! ;____;

also, i bought fancy dugout seats for the raping game on sunday.

hampton getting scratched 5 minutes before he was supposed to start was pretty hilar

http://209.85.62.26/12257/100/emo/emot-smithicide.gif

tim mccarver is so bad that buck actually comes off as a sympathetic figure in contrast. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

WAU, absolute worst blown call I've ever seen.

Sweet grand slam, 3-2 & 2 outs!

Who are current ILBB mods

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYhwVGgR5SY

ok, I lol'd

never saw a trapped-ball call reversed til yesterday.

It's just baffling to watch Glavine pitch that slow, slow stuff and not get knocked around. Too bad Boyer crapped in his hat.

Two hours five minutes - was there something particularly good on TV last night?

Wait -- was Maddux pitching?

Low-scoring, low-hitting games in Colorado still kinda confuse me, humidor or not.

Smoltz is pitching great tonight, but he's working through monster shoulder pain. Calling for mound conferences and new baseballs between pitches just so he can take a little extra time, and they panned across the dugout just now and he's sitting there holding and rubbing his shoulder.

He is single again.

FYI

if i were to base any sort of man-chrush on the game tonight it would go towards chipperl.

During a Mets / Nats game break, the guy in SNY's studio talked over a Braves highlight featuring "Larry Jones."

Glavine to the DL for the first time in his career.

Gregor Blanco is really exciting to watch. And it's cool/weird for the Braves to have a fast guy named Blanco.

wz there tonight for 3k K, forgot camera tho ;_;

smoltz' last outing; 10 K's in 5 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 2 BB.
today; 10 K's in 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 H, 0 BB

who are this guy's comparables? his past 3 seasons have probably been better than any of his younger years, aside from the cy young season. i know there's a recent precedent for ancient ass pitchers to remain dominant, but what about for their best years to be in their FORTIES? something tells me this is the last such year we can expect from him, but still... that's nuts.

I am so envious. Smoltz is one of my favorite pitchers.

I think Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux are pitching pretty well at comparable ages. Nolan Ryan pitched pretty late into his 40s but he was a freak.

Cy Young pitched until he was 44.

3,000 strikeouts used to be the ticket to the HOF. Will Smoltz make it?

Smoltz seems like an obvious pick to me.

his past 3 seasons have probably been better than any of his younger years

This isn't true if we're judging by ERA+. His prime starter years were a little bit better (but comparable). And in his greatest season as a closer, his ERA+ was way, way off the charts.

what the motherfuck is ERA+

ERA+ is ERA adjusted to be comparable with ERAs from different eras / years (100 is the presumed average ERA+, though most pitchers end up below average, obv) -- not sure how it's calculated (might just be comparing the pitcher's ERA to the league ERA w/ park adjustments thrown in), but it helps in comparing how good a 4.00 ERA in 1980 was relative to a 4.00 ERA this year, for instance.

It seems to be a decent quick-and-dirty measuring stick w/ regards to starters, but it gets kinda goofy for relievers (because of small sample size & ERA's inherent limitations) -- see Joba's ERA+ last year of 1192! (This year: a more mortal 372.) Also, there's a tendency for nerdy internet folks (not poly) to whip that shit out (also, OPS+ for hitters) in lieu of actually looking at the context of the stats.

does anyone think that his closer period have helped his longevity? did he have some injury problems before going out to the pen?

That's why he went out there, wasn't it? Rotator cuff issues coupled w/ severe bullpen issues?

Yeah, he had Tommy John surgery and missed all of 2000, and I think some of 2001.

The 3000Ks/200+ wins/150+ saves thing pretty much makes him automatic for HoF, I'd say.

i think i remember morbs loling at the notion that he'd return from relief duty to be an excellent starter back in '05 or whenever.

i think smoltz's era+ w/r/t his relief seasons isn't necessarily applicable to what cankles is saying btw

i know there's a recent precedent for ancient ass pitchers to remain dominant, but what about for their best years to be in their FORTIES?

LOL clemens

every year since they converted him back to a starter i think ' *this* is the year he drops off... it has to be!' dude blows my mind and is a shoe-in for the hof, imho.

yes omar, he has surprised me. i still hate the fucker.

and what WAS your handle in '05, "omar"?

commander adams

^_^

i still hate the fucker.

Why? I appreciate that he keeps his super-Xtianity to himself for the most part.

Take a wild guess which team Morbs roots for.

Also, there's a tendency for nerdy internet folks (not poly) to whip that shit out (also, OPS+ for hitters) in lieu of actually looking at the context of the stats.

What do you mean by "context of the stats," exactly? I'm not sure I actually do that. I'm pretty lazy.

Oh, that. Well fuck a New York Met and all who sail on her in the eyehole, really. I thought he was talking about some personal failing of Smoltz', not what a scout or a GM failed to do 20+ years ago.

Also divorcing his wife, not exactly the cornerstone of hardcore X-tianity.

Smoltz has said some ignorant and insensitive things in the recent past. Although I think he is very handsome and a good pitcher I can understand why someone would hate him.

it helps in comparing how good a 4.00 ERA in 1980 was relative to a 4.00 ERA this year, for instance.

Hm. I don't understand how this would be done but I am reading Moneyball so I am not hopeless. It is very cute to bring up ERA+ here. Ayo, tastycakes and ERA+.

(xpost)

Poly, I was giving you a pass because this is the first time I've seen you use ERA+ :D

But on the Baseball Think Factory forum, there are so many posters that just go ahead and lean on ERA+ and OPS+ as the be-all and end-all of a player's worth and expect that to fly. At least OPS accounts for multiple things (in a quick-n-dirty fashion), so using OPS+ as a proving point is OK to a degree. But ERA is severely flawed, and using that as the basis of some measuring stick that's supposed to level the playing field just seems disingenuous at best.

Hm. I don't understand how this would be done ...

Excuse me while I put on my Boring Ass Perfesser Helmet.

Like I said, don't know how it's done, but this is what's spit out (courtesy of Baseball Reference):

Bob Gibson, 1968:
1.12 ERA, 258 ERA+ (Adjusted league ERA: 2.90)

Pedro Martinez, 2000:
1.74 ERA, 291 ERA+ (Adjusted league ERA: 5.07)

Essentially, ERA+ tries to compensate for the hitters the individual pitchers had to face and come up with a number that's a more accurate representation of the pitcher's worth (relative to peers and history). Gibson's ERA in the first year of the pitching mound / strike zone changes is obviously lower that Pedro's, but as the league ERA shows, pitchers ruled the school. Pedro turned his trick in the DH league in an era where Tony Batista hit 40+ homers. Based on that, it makes sense to think that Pedro's holy-shit performance was "better" than BG's still-ridiculous performance -- ERA+ reflects that qualitative gulf.

haha that's ridiculous. The only thing I know about their pitching is that I can't hit it.

Smoltz did some Met-related headhunting a few years ago, bsides being a rancid fagophobe.

ERA is severely flawed, and using that as the basis of some measuring stick that's supposed to level the playing field just seems disingenuous at best.

I get this intuitively because I take it on faith that ERA is a wildly crude misapproximation of pitching to begin with (or so some pal of McCracken told me /suzy) but I haven't yet fully grasped the forbidden dogma of DIPS and FIPS.

Thanks for the very good explanation of what ERA+ thinks it's doing, Professor.

xp

god, this thread is starting to remind me why i abandoned ilb in the first place. and, very similarly, why i abandoned ilm. the dissection of the subject kinds of sucks the joy out of it for me.

(or so some pal of McCracken told me /suzy)

!

Yeah this thread is not frivolous enough. Does anyone here know about the "Georgia Tuck" and whether any Braves wear it?

Hold on -- I'll check my spreadsheet.

[Something or other about blogs, mothers' basements]

lol felicity -- just as the late-90s offensive stats were 'inflated' relative to the history of mlb as a whole due to steroids + tons of other factors, so the diff eras throughout history are equally biased against the mean, due to the players & theories & rules -- for example, the mound was a full 5 inches higher in '68 than it is now, giving the pitcher a pretty tremendous advantage relative to the one he has today. so the idea behind era+ is basically that a pitcher's performance is historically best measured by his success relevant to his enviroment - be it the parks he pitched in or the success of his peers pitching against the same hitters, in their respective parks, during the same season.

xps sorry

btw kev, u can totally ignore all this bs & not have yr enjoyment of the game sapped one bit

I bet cankles knows what a Georgia Tuck is.

Is that like a Dirty Sanchez w/ a dash of Southern hospitality?

oh yeah welcome back cankles!!!

I don't understand why analysis has to be pleasure-sapping. However, I don't know anywhere as much as how these metrics are calculated as many of you, so that's my shield.

"Save the speeches for Malcolm X. I just wanna get laid."

Bonkers stats and the availability of bonkers stats: big reason why I got back into baseball.

Gross Dave!

btw kev, u can totally ignore all this bs & not have yr enjoyment of the game sapped one bit

i know, i ignored this board from roughly mid-2004 until spring training this year.

I don't understand why analysis has to be pleasure-sapping.

because what starts as analysis usually ends in a pissing contest. big fucking yawns soon follow for me.

i hope youll keep reading/posting kev, just sayin i agree its not necessary to delve into theory/analysis to enjoy the game itself, or to make good posts to random internet msg boards about it

"Based on that, it makes sense to think that Pedro's holy-shit performance was "better" than BG's still-ridiculous performance -- ERA+ reflects that qualitative gulf."

EXCEPT that it is more complicated than that because Gibson pitched 304 innings to Pedro's 217 so when you actually calculate everything out, it's pretty much even (Pedro was 2 PRAA--Pitching Runs Above Replacement--and above half a win--according to WARP3--Win Above Replacement Player adjusted for era, etc--better.)

I think all this stuff is really fun and it coincided with me loving baseball more. Yay for dorkiness!

so batting average is hits divided by at-bats?

i hope youll keep reading/posting kev, just sayin i agree its not necessary to delve into theory/analysis to enjoy the game itself, or to make good posts to random internet msg boards about it

yeah i know and i don't want to piss on your parade either. i don't mind cogent analysis but when it devolves into some pissing match over who uses stats to more accurately measure blah blah blah i find myself thinking "it's just fucking BASEBALL." just as when i accidentally click on ilm i think "it's fucking ROCK N ROLL, get over it."

unless, y'know, the thread i click on isn't about rock n roll at all.

i'm with you kev - i usually just tune out the posts that drone on about KPLABP etc - my life is complicated enough as it is.

because what starts as analysis usually ends in a pissing contest.

But this didn't happen in this thread. I used a stat, and then cankles said "wtf why is there a plus sign on that stat, fuck that shit nword" ... as is his wont.

Alex -- that's one of the reasons I don't put much weight behind ERA+!

Also, in the future, instead of being publically butthurt and ad-hominemy re: one side ("what starts as analysis usually ends in a pissing contest", "KPLABP") or the other ("wtf why is there a plus sign on that stat, fuck that shit nword") of the awesomely played out "stats kill fun" debate, can we just assume folks feel differently about these things and tolerate these differences as President Bush would want us to and hold hands across America or some shit instead of taking that long torturous flying leap into Fuck Your Mom Canyon?

yeah, alex correctly points out the fatal flaw of era+

whats right & wrong, baseball-wise, as far as statistical analysis, or an infielder's defensive ability, or a pitcher's mechanics, or a hitter's swing, are widely disagreed on by everyone who follows the game, scouts & geeks & avg joe fans alike, incl amongst those in each supposed grouping - different sides are invariably proven correct at different times, & arguments invariably happen & its as much about subjective opinion as it is about knowledge.

so yeah, butthurtedness or any feelings whatsoever about this shit are pretty dumb, basically

btw i dont see cankles using the nword at all; he was either genuinely curious or sparked a pretty decent discussion - he seemed pretty sincere on that other thread & while i dont blame felicity for temp banning him i dont think hes a troll & he seems to have good things to say

(please replace my post with deeznuts')

LOL @ droste effect recursiveness of being argumentative douchebags about whether statistical analysis of baseball begets being argumentative douchebags about baseball

Everyone on ILBB must choose exactly one of either:

1. red stat-flavored pill or
2. blue non-stat-flavored pill

blue or red. CHOOSE CORRECTLY (those who choose blue come to the Cubbie thread)

That's right. cankles didn't use the bad word. He said "what the motherfuck is ERA+." It is not only permitted but is practically one of our most prominent poster's middle (and I presume mother's maiden) name.

btw i dont see cankles using the nword at all; he was either genuinely curious or sparked a pretty decent discussion - he seemed pretty sincere on that other thread & while i dont blame felicity for temp banning him i dont think hes a troll & he seems to have good things to say

He didn't, I was just trying to be cheeky. I'm a cankles fan, mostly.

cnakles is one of the funniest posters boardwide.

cnakles=the evil twin? the good one?

if ilx didn't have a humor alarm that went off as soon as things hit custos levels, there would be excelsior threads justifiably filled with nothing but cankles posts

cankles+

i feel where ur comin from kev, i stopped reading ILM years ago, i just got so tired of the 'house' style or something. also i stopped caring about music, at all. but this is different to me bcz, i dunno - what i found irritating abt ilm is that every wannabe rock crit has oodles of OPINIONS4U about shit, yet they never are able to tell you anything new. you can count on one hand the number of dudes on there who know their musical-type shit and can talk about it in a technical manner, and that's the kind of thing that would be infinitely more interesting to me (as a guy who doesnt know shit about actually playing music) - finding out about the mechanics of this stuff, what's really going on under all the crazy noises. kogan was good at providing that kind of thing, in addition to all the literary fuckin analysis and that bullshit. it just seems like most ppl who want to write about music just want to do it so they can talk about their, like, FEELINGS and shit. fuk dat!!!

uh anyway. my point is, i think the beisbol stats stuff constitutes an entirely different kind of nitpickiness. i love this sabr shit even though I understand maybe half a percent of it, and it has definately enriched my enjoyment of the game. i even bought my first BP a coupla weeks ago~

Why? I appreciate that he keeps his super-Xtianity to himself for the most part.

-- Rock Hardy, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:39 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

otm! i'm sure smoltz has a lot of vile beliefs i wouldn't care to learn about, but it's to his credit imo that he's always kept that shit really private and not shoved it in anyone's face.

so batting average is hits divided by at-bats?

-- brownie, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 7:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

lmao i love u lk

oh, and Georgia Tuck... i have no clue. is it a play on Georgia Tech?

Yes. It is an element of the Dirty South rap game. The Georgia Tuck is when you wear your shirt tucked in front and untucked in back. Mentioned in Lil Jon & the Eastside Boys' "Throw it Up" on their long-playing album Kings of Crunck:

DSGB you know the name Wood grain in the muthafu**in Dooley truck,
got the black and red seats with the Georgia tuck

Even with that clue, someone familiar with the Dirty South idiom would still have to tell you what it is. And now she has.

genuine LOL @ cankles+

i think the beisbol stats stuff constitutes an entirely different kind of nitpickiness. i love this sabr shit even though I understand maybe half a percent of it, and it has definately enriched my enjoyment of the game.

yeah, i'm not saying i don't either but like i said, i stopped reading around 2004 or 5 so i'm sure it's changed for the better. my original gripe was more of a personal eureka moment i guess. probably should have been kept to myself.

heh, that's a pastor troy verse my dude! figures that he's a dawgs fan~

lol Braves' 3-4 inning pitching aces

i don't mind sports analysistalking about sports but when it devolves into some pissing match over who uses stats to more accurately measurewhose team is better blah blah blah i find myself thinking "it's just fucking BASEBALL."

So, you prefer that everyone sits and silently watches the games and never discusses anything or starts any arguments. Or you can't be bothered to turn on your brain for five seconds to understand a few simple stats.

So it's like we can argue all day about whether Pedro or Gibson was the better pitcher, and the differences between baseball in the 60's and now, and who had a better fastball, and be all "WHOA, check out how good their ERAs were", etc., but as soon as someone busts out ERA+ then all the fun (and air) has been sucked out of the room. What crap.

wow! angst+

ha ha they're making smoltz a closer again

ughhhhhh

so what does this mean for soriano?? and more importantly, soriano fantasy owners!!???

It means free money in the Holds category.

:'(

1.
Sometimes Yunel Escobar seems to play like he's stoned, or not paying attention, or doesn't know the rules of the fucking game. (Almost always baserunning fuckups.)

2.
After Joe Simpson's emergency appendectomy Sunday morning, he missed two whole games before coming back last night.

Good thing the Padres are doing everything in their power to give this game back.

Now if they could just figure out how to play like this on the road.

Jurrjens for NL RoY

A 25-year-old man died from injuries sustained after falling about 150 feet down a stairwell at Turner Field during Wednesday night's game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.

The senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office, Mark Guilbeau, said Thursday that the man who fell was Justin Hayes of Cumming, Ga.

Guilbeau said an autopsy will be done to determine the cause of death.

Atlanta Police Department spokesman Ronald Campbell said Hayes was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital with serious head injuries. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hayes was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Braves spokesman Brad Hainje said Hayes apparently fell from the club level to the landing on the stairwell on the field level during the eighth inning.

Campbell said Hayes may have been sliding down the handrails when he fell and that alcohol may have been involved.

2008 Darwin Awards Regional Semifinalist

I knew Hayes had to work on his slider.

2-15 in one run games!

OMG, Leo Mazzone is the color guy for Fox's Braves-Reds game! Has he been doing this all season? They should put him in a squeaky chair and mic it.

Oh, this is going to be great. It's already great.

Apparently Leo is the funniest guy Leo's ever met. He's been cracking himself up all day. His revelation that they generally didn't ever expect anything from a fifth starter was kind of o_O.

Yunel Escobar, EAT SHIT AND DIE.

what is your obsession w/ yunie??

I used to love the guy, but he hotdogs it in the field and is a total premature ejaculator at the plate.

game winning HR for your fav player RH? yunel has taken your criticism to heart AND RESPONDED

I'm sure his ears were burning from all my cussing. But thanks to an off day for the Rays, he was still in my fantasy lineup today.

I wonder how the new arm angle is going to work out for Smoltz. He sure didn't fool anybody tonight.

smoltz to have season-ending surgery

dangit

the back-to-pen thing sounded ominous from the start.

Needless to say, it'll be pretty sad if he's forced into retirement by this injury.

god has other plans for him

time for smoltzie to move into god's pen and start saving souls

i don't think he's dead, dude.

I look forward to Smoltz the color-commentary guy. He's really good. (He spent an inning in the booth for today's Braves game and was pretty funny talking about Glavine's wooden legs.)

I guess I can't get over the whole thing about him equating gay marriage with being pro-bestiality, as charming as he may be on other topics.

mike rabellol

once more without glavine (or 3 other starters)

can chipper pitch?

Braves please trade for Greg Maddux and Randy Wolf, whaddayasay.

they should trade Teixeira, Hudson, and Ohman and look to the future.

oh, and send Francouer back to Myrtle Beach while they're at it.

They shd just shore up their bullpen w/ some duct tape & caulk and make a run @ their weak-ass division -- what the hell are you talking about, GM?

Tho I def. agree on the Francouer bit -- welcome to the ass end of Tom Brunansky's career, Jeffie!

Oh fuck you for homering.

Yeah I don't understand some of the fascination w/ Francouer (Joe Sheehan picked him as a breakout candidate this year.) He had a few more walks last year and that's all nice, but his BABIP was also very high and he still didn't break .800 on his OPS. .270/.310/.450 is about his range and for a corner outfielder that's sub-Garrett Anderson territory.

Well Francouer certainly has Zambrano's number today.

ya, well, sheehan says a lot of dumb shit. i've never been v high on francoeur (tho his defense is outstanding) but the braves are sorta married to him at this point because of his freakish popularity.

This team's going nowhere. Their best pitcher basically just retired, Glavine is as old and washed-up as Mets fans thought he was, and Teixeira is gone after this year anyway. Instead of trading away more prospects for futile quick fixes they should try to make good deals for next season and beyond. I don't think a complete rebuilding spree is in need, since they do have a relatively young offensive core, and with a few smart deals and off-season pick-ups they could contend next year even without Tex, Hudson, etc. I mean, I don't really want them to trade Hudson, but he probably has more value than any other Brave, since he's been really good the last two years and is under a reasonable contract for two more. So, y'know, it might be in the franchise's best interest.

Is Texeira def. gone? I thought there was talk about a hometown discount somewhere?

I can't believe the Yankees wouldn't love to rent Texeira for the year although given that they'll probably get him next November probably lessens his value there.

the yankees would probably love to have him, but they won't give up any of their best young arms to get him.

Given the flameout of their young arms, I could see them packaging a couple of dudes for him. Ian Kennedy's got to be on the block, right haha? But it'd be a light package def. given that again they only get him for 80+/- games.

Tex is pretty much gone. He's never said anything about any discount, has said he'd love to play and live in New York a few times, and Boras is his guy, anyway, I think. So, yeah, unless they stupidly cough up $140 mil or so over 7 years, he's only got a few more months as a Brave.

Yeah Teixeira's good, but he's not proven himself to be $20 a year good (yet anyway) and he'd definitely be entering the old part of his career by the end of a 7 year deal. Still he's a pretty good athlete whose been pretty healthy and who might put up a string of .300/.400/.600 seasons with GG defense over that period of time so I don't know if it's the worst signing either.

jesus

Chipper has 12-13% chance of hitting .400+ in 2008:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7652

http://rchrd.com/weblog/images/morton_feldman_nyt_1985sm.jpg

Morton vs Feldman tonight

I lol'd

xxp: with 499 PAs?

Chipper's down to .394

THANKS A LOT OMAR

I swear!

¯\(°_o)/¯

I would bet moneys that Yunel is sitting today as punishment for last night's tantrum. They're saying "strained shoulder," but I think Cox is trying to break a wild horse.

Jurrjens' manager lauded his young pitcher after the game.

"That was as good a game as I have ever seen pitched," said Cox.

Jurrjens has not given up an earned run in his last three starts, a streak spanning 21.2 innings.

Francoeur sent to AA Mississippi to get his shit together. I didn't expect anything that sensible.

heh...sounds like he saw Frank Wren's face on every baseball he swung at during his 3-day demotion.

is he back already? whatta crybaby

"the bases have been loaded all day... and i wish i was"

huddy and larry going down in the same night pretty much seals the deal for me re: dumping tex, just get what you can for him at this point

I think I just finished watching this passel of little-leaguers for the year.

this team has been more perplexing than the last couple years' versions, i just hope they get somethin decent for tex and ohman and whoever the fuck else.

Two doctors have advised Tim Hudson to have ligament-transplant elbow surgery, but the Braves pitcher will wait a week before making deciding whether to have the procedure that would keep him out for the rest of this season and most of 2009.

watch 'em give Sabathia $150 million just in time for his long-prophesied collapse...

I don't see current ownership opening their wallet that wide for anybody.

well, not enough data yet to really evaluate current ownership, and there's a lot of money coming off the books this year.

liberty media's already displayed a lot of penny pinching tendencies, tho frank wren did assert on the day after the kotchman trade that they offered tex a market-value contract at the beginning of the season that would've put him among the highest paid players in the game.

Infante in the glare! get that man some goggles.

Don't forget Ohman's "oh shit was I supposed to cover 1st?" gaffe that tied the game.

Koyaanis Kotsay (Team Out of Balance)

haha!!

A+

nice reverting to form, crackers

LARRY JONES ERROR = 2 RUNS

I look forward to Smoltz the color-commentary guy. He's really good. (He spent an inning in the booth for today's Braves game and was pretty funny talking about Glavine's wooden legs.)

― Rock Hardy, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 2:53 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

I've had to fast-forward through some of the Brewers-Phillies series but what I've heard from Smoltz has been some of the best commentary I've heard in a long time.

http://assets.sbnation.com/fan_shot_images/29233/image_8280663.jpg

Jeff Francoeur signs one of the new easier-to-hit baseballs that will be used when he comes to the plate this year.

lol, is he in a Home Depot demo kitchen?