Sidney Ponson? Seriously?

Well, at least I'm not a Reds fan; I mean, two live bullpen arms are good, but for Kearns and Lopez?

Did the white sox make a deal with the devil last year?

Almost every starter had a career year last year but they now all are are all having a career year in the bad way except for Contreras. It seems like the only pitcher that is pitching well is Garland but his ERA is still over 5. This reminds me of the white sox teams from the early 2000's. All hitting but no pitching:(

Ksigkid or ksigrc, what do y'all think is the problem with Buerhle? Without his control, he has nothing and teams are figuring him out methinks.

[quote=sigtau305]


as for the Tribe, Jason Johnson will be a good fit as the fifth starter. quote]

for fun I went back an re-read this thread. wow to the above quote.

RC is more the numbers expert than I am, but I'll take a stab...

He's not a high strikeout pitcher, so a lot of his success the last couple of years came from being a groundball pitcher. Of course, the trouble with that is if you start getting balls up in the zone, and you're not missing bats, guys are going to start pounding you.

This year, his K's have gone down even further, and he's giving up more than a hit per inning (batters are hitting .286 against him). That all is going to add up to a tough time for any pitcher.

Yep, thats how I see it as well. When his pitches are not located properly than he is average at best. The sox announcers were ripping Garcia today big time as well. That guy has lost a ton of speed off of his pitches which is never good. The staff as a whole could easily be confused with the royals stats minus the win loss records. Why they got Vasquez instead of inserting McCarthy into the rotation last offseason, I have no idea.

For all the talk of a central division resurgence, the yankees and red sox have sure ripped apart the tigers and white sox this year.

That sweep of the Chi Sox was huge for the Yankees. I even got to watch the games this weekend, being in CT.

On another note, a guy from my hometown just got called up by the Reds (Chris Denorfia). I played high school baseball against him, he ended up going to one of the rival high schools. It's funny, there were a few other guys on that team who I thought were better prospects (three others who were High School All-Americans), but he's the only one to make the majors.

I think this is right on track - the thing is, Buehrle clearly got a little lucky last year, too, as his peripheral stats didn't really reflect his record very well.

Anyway, this season, he's right about the same H/9, and his HR rate isn't any different. However, the striking statistics are these: WHIP of 1.31 (bb/9 up about 40%) and a K-rate of 3.96 K/9, which is down about a third. It's nearly impossible to exist with fewer than 5 K/9 in the majors, and you're seeing how that works out - at some point, you just have to miss a bat or two.

The other interesting thing is that the Cell really deflates his numbers - hitters' OPS against him on the road is .899, meaning that he turns every opposing hitter into Carl Crawford when he's not in the Cell. The only other really suspicious number is that his GB/FB ratio is down to about 1.22, after averaging about 1.40 for the past few seasons . . . not a huge drop (possibly not even significant) but it might account for an increase in solid contact across the board.

The thing that sucks is that he hasn't pitched this bad his whole career. Some point out that Vasquez pretty much the same numbers as Buerhle last year minus the W/L and ERA. That goes to show how lucky he was last year but still has been a high 3 ERA pitcher his whole career.

Ric Flair always used to say "to be the man... you have to beat the man" and the sox sure played like ass vs the two best in the AL:(

Oh don't get me wrong - I think Buehrle's a quite solid pitcher, and has been for years. I really like the guy - it's just that his decline probably isn't as precipitous as it has looked, that was more my point: his numbers looked lots better last year due to the w/l record, when he'd slipped a little (and really gave up a LOT of hits).

Combine that with more walks and almost zero strikeouts, and he's going to struggle a little - hopefully he figures it out.

God the Braves need someone in their bullpen...Jorge Sosa could possibly be the worst pitcher in the major leagues...he deserves to be demoted to the Gulf Coast League.

Sosa does suck...However, in my 22 years of being a Braves fan, I don't know that I've ever seen them play this kind of offense.

yea but eventually the offense is going to run out and then we are going to see them with another 6-21 month.

The worst thing that ever happened to the Braves was the AOL-Time Warner merger...the franchise has been going slowly down hill ever since.

Don't look now but the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, adjacent to Garden Grove, near the Riverside county line, near Newport Beach, mascot is a monkey, of California are on a hot streak.

About freakin time.

usctke, yeah and the proposed sale wont help either. Why won't Blank buy them

Nice work last night, Sox. Glad to see you're not sucking any more, RIGHT?!

Howie Kendrick is awesome. You'd better hope they don't do something stupid and trade him.

[QUOTE=Thrillhouse]*Cough* it was a good Idea at the time *Cough* :(

but He's doing no better in Boston. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=sigtau305]
Nah, it was never a good idea - the money was too much, the expectations too high (even for a 5 starter) and the ignorance of his history insane.

Also he sucks for the Sox, but they're only paying him ~200k . . .

[quote=KSig RC]huh?

Anyway, I am still waiting for the tigers to show that they are a decent team. 3-11 vs the three best in the AL yet 59-20 against everyone else. Quite the pattern there, Detroit.

Duuuuude. I'm watching the Angels game right now and the camera man just totally ZOOOOOOMED in on a group of girls titttttties. So awesome. He must have left it there for 30 seconds. The group of 3 girls were dressed very appropriately for the 90 degree weather we are experiencing out here. Gotta love the commentary too. " Oh yeah, looks like good old Ronnie has found himself a goldmine!"

They did a similar thing for the Mets/Cubs game over the weekend. One of the analysts was on a rooftop near Wrigley, with a beer in one hand and surrounded by a group of girls. He said "Beer, attractive women, I might never leave."

The guys stuck in the booth didn't sound so happy about that one.

We used to do that while "scouting" other teams. You would see most of a game until a hot girl was walking through. The camera would show her instead of the next play:D

The Indians are paying 2M of the 2.2M he has left on the contract.

Yeah, it's interesting . . . as the pitchers pass their highs in IP, it'll be interesting to see how they hold together. For sure.

I never defended the signing of Jason Johnson, don't know what happened with the quotage from above.

First, Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle for not a whole lot. Then, getting Craig Wilson for Shawn Chacon?! All of this, without giving up Hughes or Tabata?

On behalf of all Yankees fans, thank you Brian Cashman.

Yeah, the world series may well have been won by New York this past weekend. If, and I say if their injured players can come back than the yankees will be tough to beat. They have been doing great with guys like Melky, Terrance Long, Andy Phillips, etc.

I want my team to get the wild card (or division but theres too much ground to make up) but if not.... I would love for the yankees to beat the sh... out of the tigers in the first round.

If they can get Bernie and Phillips off the field, that's worth some wins right there. I don't like the decision to dump Aaron Guiel though; if anyone should have gone, it should have been Phillips with the acquisition of Wilson. Andy is one of "Torre's Boys" now, though, so he may be entrenched in a roster spot.

The whole thing is that someone has to catch the ball at first, and Phillips is really the only guy who can do that on the current roster.

Adding Abreu pushes Bernie out, although Lidle will help about the same - good pickups, although they're still quite vulnerable when they throw the ball, it might not matter if they average 11 runs per game.

Massive deals - why would the Pirates make that trade? It's not like Wilson would be expensive in arbitration, since they NEVER PLAY HIM. I get the salary dump, to the only team that can actually take on the entire salary - OK, Gillick is a tools guy, so he got terrible prospects back. That's fine, it happens. But Chacon for Wilson? A valuable commodity for a terrible scrap-heap definition of replacement level?

In the immortal words of Happy Gilmore, "Why don't you just give him the trophy?"

True, I'd forgotten that aspect of it. At least his at-bats will dip, though.

The pitching staff still worries me quite a bit, as you pointed out.

Wilson will take ABs against lefties, too, so you prob won't see too much Andy Phillips . . . at least, comparatively. Then again, Wilson's 1B defense isn't exactly stellar, so who knows what Torre will do, after factoring in the "Cult of His Guys".

Yeah, but again . . .scoring 1,000,000 runs solves a LOT of pitching problems . . . I just couldn't be that worried, especially with Matsui scheduled back at the end of the month.

True, although isn't there a history with guys who try to come back from similar wrist injuries?

I'm probably just being too nitpicky though. A month ago I thought the Yankees would miss the playoffs, and hopefully these additions, plus the comebacks of Shef and Matsui, will prove me wrong.

Is there such thing as clutch? Some people would call David Ortiz clutch because he always seems to get the big hits when needed. Others like to argue that he is just a good hitter under pressure but no different than anyone else.

There are some that believe in it and some who don't depending on the type of fan that you talk to. Personally, I don't believe in clutch. Ortiz puts up numbers every game regardless of the situation. Especially when a young-en like Carmona is pitching.

Tonight should be a good pitching matchup Mark Buerhle vs Odalis Perez:p

A little - his injury is pretty similar to Derek Lee's, and he f-ed himself trying to rush back. However, most 'clean' injuries (breaks, not ligament issues) are better for the wrist - he might show some loss of power, but other than that the history isn't too negative for him. Add in that he plays through nearly everything, and I'd expect solid stuff, although maybe a slight dip in 'counting' stats.

You'll be proven wrong, I'm pretty sure of it. Most are guessing that Lidle and Abreu are each worth about 2 wins over the guys they replace in these last 60 games . . . an increase in 4 wins from the previous (WC-leading) squad should be more than enough to win the division, or run away with the Wild Card if the Sox get hot.

to me, Ortiz's the best in the A.L. in clutch hitting.

Phillies are 5.5 games behind in the Wild Card race. It won't last.
(I know better than to get all optimistic.)

If I were you, I'd be writing hate mail to Pat Gillick.

Now there's an idea with some real merit!

Prove it.





Seriously though -it's not so much that 'clutch' doesn't exist, it's just that there's no way to measure it or quantify it (that we know of, anyway).

Ortiz has come through a ton in the clutch - trust me, no one knows more than me - but you only remember the good, never remember the bad, so selection bias ahoy. Plus, how much better is 11 times than 5 times? The sample size is impossible . . . there's no way to really know for sure.

Ortiz is sick - but we can't really show 'clutch' to know either way, other than just seeing it and going "Holy God, he did it again!"

Exactly - look at Jeter's numbers in the past two playoff series against the Red Sox, both ALCS, and people still talk about the "clutch." Not to say he hasn't had some big hits and big plays, but the mind plays tricks on you.

Where people get into trouble is when they want to ignore all other stats for awards, and focus on "clutch," like in last year's MVP race, or in the 91 race when Terry Pendleton won. It's like when they base the Cy Young award on wins alone.