Baseball Thread 6 - Steve Garvey's got a lot of mouths to feed

Then you're the only person around who doesn't BARF when they're with BYH that many times.

 

My wife nods in agreement, and then goes to have her afternoon cry.

 

The interesting thing is, Bill James wasn't that good at it. It was neat for him to shine a light into how stats could be used, but his execution included a lot of pointless stats. You are right, a lot of stats oversimplify for no good reason. VORP is fun if you want to try to put a value on a guy, and it introduces a key concept (comparing a player's value to that of who he could reasonably be replaced by), but it's not something you'd want to run a team by.

Billy Beane isn't/wasn't all that good at it either. He borrowed a hole in the system discovered by others, made a ton of hay for a few years until other teams caught on and the hole was filled, and he doesn't have a next trick.

 

So, I'm at the ballpark today and get suckered into offering color commentary when one of the radio guys didn't show. All of a sudden, my Blackberry starts going off like the Fourth of July. Texts. Emails. Calls. I can't answer anything. I'm furiously trying to figure out who the opposing centerfielder is as he dives for a ball. I finally check my phone...

Carl freaking Pavano?

Lord.

(But let it be known that IJAG got the news to me first. Followed by my Dad. BYH totally dropped the ball. I award him no points, and may God have mercy on his soul.)

 

Also, Shorter BABIP=Hit It Where They Ain't

It's only use is looking for a wide variance. If a guy's is way low, he's been unlucky. Way high, same thing, in reverse.

Simple stat, for a simple game.

 

The Rays have acquired Gregg Zaun from the Orioles in a waiver deal for a bucket of unsalted sunflower seeds.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090807&content_id=6299548&vkey=news_tb&fext=.jsp&c_id=tb

To quote both The Who and the Scorpions, I can't explain. Maybe they want somebody to pick up Burrell's slack.

 

Which is why I'm your new God...and BYH isn't.

 

Burrell and Navarro, probably. Navarro isn't quite having the best season he could have hoped.

 

Whatever the opposite of Executive of the Year is immediately goes to whoever claimed Alex Rios. Unless Ricciardi pulls him back. In which case the award is retired in his honor.

 

BABIP? Is that the shitty movie with Halle Berry and Martin Landau?

 

Anyway....Honest question for folks who know more than me (which is everyone): Shapiro keeps trying to spin this as the Indians being competitive in '11. I don't see it. Course, i don't follow farm systems.

Is that a pipe dream? OR are the other teams in the Central going to get that much worse in 18 months?