General MLB 2011 thread for random game talk, juiced-baseball conspiracies, etc

ajcbraves David O'Brien
A bullpen catcher of a team (not #Braves) says baseballs are harder this year, believes they've been juiced to aid attendance in bad economy

I wonder what else bullpen catchers believe.

"Things Bullpen Catchers Believe", a new book by Murray Chase.

your ideas are intriguing to me, bullpen catcher, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

i was thinking that something was up on sunday when there were like 4 diff guys w/ multiple homers

Appendectomy epidemic -- Adam Dunn now

volquez & dice k are having a bird/magic duel right now

ok, someone explained this years ago - but i cannot find the thread.

right now Josh Wilingham's OBP is *lower* than his AVG. how does this happen?

more sacrifices (bunts, flies, grounders) than walks.

A sac fly counts as an "At-bat" for OBP but not for AVG. So if in 5 at-bats you hit one single and one sac fly your OBP would be .200 but your AVG would be .250. This is totally stupid, but yeah early on in a season it can result in some weird slash lines. Also, I think if you get thrown out trying for a double, it still counts as a single as far as AVG is concerned (but obviously not OBP), but I'm not sure about that one.

ah! v interesting.

theres a new 7-day DL? cool

its for concussions. which is dumb because it reinforces the idea that concussions are less of an injury than other injuries

also the jays managed to avoid it w/ yunel which is stupid as he's showing concussion symptoms

I think if you get thrown out trying for a double, it still counts as a single as far as AVG is concerned (but obviously not OBP)

No, a hit always counts in OBP. You were on base until you were thrown out.

it would make sense tho, in a way. more so than not excluding sacrifices.

xxxp I dunno minor concussions are really not a big deal in baseball. I don't know if those even go diagnosed or what, but I think it's a good idea. Like, most teams don't put all their injuries on the 15-day and I'm guessing most concussion victims don't end up there currently

btw I'm not really too sure about the rule about stretching out a double, I definitely remember being convinced that it worked that way at some point, but I could be wrong

AVG is a lot more complex than it often gets credit for!

OBP tells you how often the hitter avoids making an out at the plate. as soon as the hitter reaches first base safely they're now considered a baserunner and if they fail to stretch the hit into a double it's a baserunning error and not a failure to get on base.

TEX-BAL in a delay, so I guess I'll stick w/ Hudson v Lee and the end of this Giants-Cards tragedy.

if you strike out and reach 1B on a wild pitch, does that count toward your OBP?

i doubt it

that'd be a reached-on-error which aren't included in OBP

or the same status as reached-on-error at least, don't think passed balls/wild pitches are counted as errors in a box score

if the reds lose (they're down 3-1 in the 9th right now) and the cards win (they're up 5-3 in the 6th), there will be a 4-way tie for first between stl/chi/cin/mil. not sure why i'm so excited by this possibility 18 games into the season but hey

― ZERO TAXES (Z S), Wednesday, April 20, 2011 7:10 PM (3 hours ago)

TRUE PARITY ITT

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/baseball/mlb/04/21/expanded.playoffs.ap/index.html?eref=sihp

NEW YORK (AP) -- Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig expects the playoffs to expand from eight teams to 10 for the 2012 season.

MAKE IT STOP

http://imgs.sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2011/04/24/042411-424x499-sportscorner.jpg

LOL

expanding the # of teams eligible to the # of teams - and years - that ever existed BUT IS THAT ENOUGH?

It makes me ill, after all the mouth/tongue/throat cancer in the league, to see players still dipping and chewing. wtf

fuck this expanded playoffs nonsense

the fact that there are playoffs AT ALL is an abomination and contrary to the spirit of the founding fathers

i hope eventually it's like soccer and there are reg. season trophies and playoff trophies and we just kind of treat them as two separate things.

that would be worst of all!

everyone gets an award!

no it wouldn't! would suppress any notion that they playoffs determine anything other than who was lucky enough to put together some wins in the playoffs.

morbius aren't you aghast at this watering down of "postseason stats"

yes, I fear all the Jeter and Pettitte ALL-TIME records will be smashed

srsly why have a 162-game season if a third of the teams are making it? they're probably putting in a one-game wildcard playoff, no?

I'm basically okay with adding a second wild-card team. That's about my limit--unfortunately, the slippery-slope principle suggests more and more teams will be added down the line. Career postseason records no longer have much meaning, and probably haven't for quite a while. But last year's postseason was pretty entertaining; I don't think the quality of postseason play was harmed by the introduction of the wild-card, and I doubt that it'll be harmed by a second wild-card team.

xp exactly; expanded playoffs only diminish the importance of the regular season, which is huge as it is.

if anything, they should be making the divisional round best-of-seven and the WS best-of-nine. try to take out a little bit of the variance in the game.

...without baseball lasting until Christmas.

When I'm World Dictator: four seven-team divisions, 162-game season, best of nine CS, best of nine WS, traveling Jeff Loria and Bud Selig dunk tanks, free ice cream for everybody.

don't get the Big Joe McGinnity-era 9-game WS suggestions, wtf?

i think it'll backfire on them pretty quickly ratings-wise when, say, a 95-win red sox or yankees wild card team loses the one game playoff to a 87-win oakland team

You can have your seven-game series as long as the dunk tanks and ice cream stay.

xpost

is it really going to be a one-game playoff??

decided by a coin toss.

home run derby imo

guys, how can the owners make more money unless the playoffs are expanded.

THINK ABOUT THE OWNERS HERE

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qLsHkXytUu8/Tf27HuqsxjI/AAAAAAAAIFU/S1zVPyafuEY/s320/jkjkh.jpg

I don't think that in the wild-card era we've ever entered the last day of the season where none of the LDS matchups were set in either league.

this is crazy, looks like we're likely to have two game 163s
that Boston one is gonna be so epic should it actually happen

batting race machinations:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/16808/jose-reyes-leaves-game-to-protect-title

brian kenny is on mlb network now?!? i love him, tbh. im like personally sorry for him he presumably cant cover boxing now also

Pujols will be sitting tonight to protect .300, right? (Yes, yes, I'm kidding.) I'm sure Morbius remembers the wild '76 finish, with Brett at .333, McRae at .332, Carew at .331, and accusations of racism from McRae (over a ball that fell in for a hit from Brett...forget the left fielder who was involved in the play).

brian kenny is on mlb network now?!? i love him, tbh. im like personally sorry for him he presumably cant cover boxing now also

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, September 28, 2011 6:32 PM (11 minutes ago)

I read a brief interview with him last week and he said he's making arrangements to cover boxing during the MLB offseason -- not sure for who, but --

ya i just read probably the same thing. espn is so monolithic & exclusionary i knew they wouldnt let him. hopefully hbo, thatd be great actually

morbs' link mentions the brett/mcrae/carew debacle as well as bill madlock's achy hammy, among others

in '76 I was more interested in seeing the Yanks get punished in October (it worked out)

Thanks, didn't click on the link. There's a link inside the link that takes you to a piece on the '76 race. I love this part:

Here's what amazes me most: this story is buried on page 31 of The Sporting News. Just one more story in the stream of basic pieces that appeared in page after page. No cover tease. No editorial on page two. Nothing.

Can you imagine if this happened today? We'd be viewing replays of the flyball round the clock, with every baseball writer in America essentially required to weigh in on the issue. There'd be a pro-McRae party, to be sure, along with a vociferous party against him. There'd also be those simply arguing that the play might instead just be changed to an error. There'd be a really cool post someone analyzing the physics of the play, and comparing the fielder's position on that play as compared to similar situations.

Pretty accurate summary of the distance between then and now, similar to how someone pointed out (in contrast to the 9/11 anniversary coverage) how the 10-year anniversary of Pearl Harbor got a short paragraph in the [i]Times<i/>.

Wish I could watch the Red Sox or Cardinals, but all I've got is the lopsided Tampa game plus updates.

braun 0-for-1

guess i should have paid for mlb.tv tonight huh

you can pay for just one night?!

in that it is the end of the regular season, yes

can't you see BOS & ATL on ESPN.com? I can.

I'm only using MLB for the Rays' audio

such a ridic night, it was crazy 2 watch all this

looking fwd 2 rays/rangs & az/mil a lot

i know no one gives a shit, but on monday i was like "ah yeah, i might as well go up and see my cousins for rosh hashana, I HAVE NOTHING TO DO ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT"

great night, amazing stuff. probably better night than any other the rest of the season.

i feel like i slept through 9/11

lol

ANDINO DID 9(/29)/11

#Kevin_Goldstein
It's like something amazing happens every 93 seconds.

they should just cancel the playoffs

Walter Matthau as J0rdan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A2zB-e3mro

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg576/scaled.php?tn=0&server=576&filename=v38i.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640

Four games will be played on Saturday.

I know everyone's focused on the playoffs, but is there any point in doing an AL MVP poll? I figure the Boston players are probably officially out now (rightly or wrongly), leaving Bautista, Verlander, Granderson, and possibly Cabrera. I don't know if Verlander's a sure-thing, or if his missing 25 and the ERA title throws it back to Bautista or Granderson.

Yes.

By unanimous consent then.

this is slightly ott, but a nice summary video of last night in chronological order: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=19789807

can't-find-on-the-internet type question: Is there anywhere on the Web I can get all the 2011 regular-season game results on a single page in a more-or-less simple table? I've been through mlb, baseball-reference etc, but can at best find per week, per team etc.

may i ask why you're looking?

Easy import into excel for analysis etc. Historical seasons is easy because of Retrosheet; current season less so.

So is theo going to the cubs or no

Brewers-Tigers is the WS I'm hoping for btw.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/03/oh-good-a-j-pierzynski-to-be-a-part-of-foxs-world-series-coverage
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/03/oh-good-a-j-pierzynski-to-be-a-part-of-foxs-world-series-coverage
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/03/oh-good-a-j-pierzynski-to-be-a-part-of-foxs-world-series-coverage
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/03/oh-good-a-j-pierzynski-to-be-a-part-of-foxs-world-series-coverage
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/03/oh-good-a-j-pierzynski-to-be-a-part-of-foxs-world-series-coverage

still more likeable than joe morgan/tim mccarver/joe buck/almost every other baseball broadcasting personality

yeah the announcers have been terrible so far. the only decent one is Brian Anderson. maybe this is just because fans of the teams watch so many games and thus are exposed to so much more, but it's crazy just how often these guys are totally off base on just about everything. it's not enough that they suck at calling the games!

Joe Simpson is top-notch, you guys are crazy.

no one is as bad as chip caray was a few years ago

No argument there. He's a little improved, but still not very good. Fewer Mister Haney impressions, at least.

Watching the Rangers-Rays game, I realize I'm close to the point where Buck Martinez's voice is nails-on-a-chalkboard for me, maybe because I've put in extra time with him on local Jays broadcasts.

yeah the announcers have been terrible so far. the only decent one is Brian Anderson. maybe this is just because fans of the teams watch so many games and thus are exposed to so much more, but it's crazy just how often these guys are totally off base on just about everything. it's not enough that they suck at calling the games!

― frogbs, Monday, October 3, 2011 5:46 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

I've liked him fine during Brewers telecasts, but he has been absolutely terrible during the ALDS.

Would Jason Giambi make a good commentator? He's got to be approaching the end (though all signs point to him being on the Rockies' 25-man in 2012) and seems to be full of personality - I understand he's one of the most popular players in the locker room.

I'm 100% in favor of Giambi as commentator if he throws "Your wish is granted, long live Giambi" out there at least once a day.

I've liked him fine during Brewers telecasts, but he has been absolutely terrible during the ALDS.

how so? tbh I thought the ones going the NLDS for Milwaukee/Arizona were awful because they knew absolutely nothing about the teams but kinda yammered on about them anyway, at some point just making things up. I suppose I wouldn't really know if the other announcers were doing the same things...

Michael Kay -- I mean Brian Anderson -- on Garcia having to remove a bracelet:

"...the Tigers searching for any possible advantage..."

― A Chuck Person's Guide to Mark Aguirre (Andy K), Sunday, October 2, 2011 3:37 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Also, Brian Anderson: Tiger Stadium has been demolished. The Tigers do not play there.

― A Chuck Person's Guide to Mark Aguirre (Andy K), Sunday, October 2, 2011 3:39 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Cabrera ranging too close to second has been a "constant theme for the Tigers this year." Probably the first time I've seen it happen all season. It was a problem when Cabrera first converted from third, though (years ago).

― A Chuck Person's Guide to Mark Aguirre (Andy K), Sunday, October 2, 2011 3:57 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

He wasn't bad for game three, but there are several other things I could have posted about, including his reaction to Russell Martin making a routine block on a pitch in the dirt. Something like "For a catcher, that's like hitting a home run!" It's not like preventing a runner from advancing?

Yeah I admit that what he says doesn't really line up with the facts sometimes but really very few announcers do that. I like BA because he has a good sense of the moment and has a good voice for TV, plus he can inject a little humor sometimes which is always welcome (at least, on the Brewers broadcasts). A lot of national announcers may not be terribly different but they don't really have "the voice". He's always struck me as fairly knowledgeable though. I guess it must be hell to have to suddenly announce another team as there are so many things to learn. It annoyed me on the NLDS broadcasts because the announcers were giving shit to the Brewers for doing things like "watching their home runs", c'mon nobody on the Crew does that (outside of Braun's big one that clinched a playoff berth), that's the Cardinals! I mean you can give them shit for untucking years ago, or the "beast mode" thing, or whatever Nyjer Morgan does, but come on, if you're gonna rail on a team at least get the facts right