The Baseball thread...

[redsock]

Should be an interesting season, for us in Boston. No expectations. I like it.

18-7 at the moment. Best record in MLB. So good to have those wins in the bank before May.

[JackRiddler]

That's a lot of fucking wins in April.

I'm hating on the Mets this year and so have missed everything so far. Meaning it will probably be the year someone hits .407 and breaks the 190-ribby barrier, or wins 30 games, or a team goes 120-40, or another one comes back from 14 1/2 games back to tie on the final day of the season, etc. etc.

[FourthBase]

Should be an interesting season, for us in Boston. No expectations. I like it.

18-7 at the moment. Best record in MLB. So good to have those wins in the bank before May.

Yeah, they're looking good!

One guy I'm really happy for is Nava:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... da01.shtml

.299/.402/.522 in 82 plate appearances so far.
Biggest hit of the season last Saturday.
All, of course, in the major leagues.

See this:

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/25242-daniel-nava/

As you can see, SoSH is populated by quite a few assholes.
I'm actually happy they booted me. Fuck them, the assholes.
So sweet to say to them: Called it! (Nava was 1 of only 2 prospects I ever adopted.)
Nailed it! Told you so! Suck it, you flaming assholes! (Hopefully they'll see this, lol.)

[JackRiddler]

.299/.402/.522

Oh, intriguing. Just .01 and a single away from that 300-400-500 money zone, such a turn-on.

[Burnt Hill]

That's a lot of fucking wins in April.

I'm hating on the Mets this year and so have missed everything so far. Meaning it will probably be the year someone hits .407 and breaks the 190-ribby barrier, or wins 30 games, or a team goes 120-40, or another one comes back from 14 1/2 games back to tie on the final day of the season, etc. etc.

You will regret not watching Matt Harvey pitch so stop hating at least every 4th or 5th day!

[Burnt Hill]

That's a lot of fucking wins in April.

I'm hating on the Mets this year and so have missed everything so far. Meaning it will probably be the year someone hits .407 and breaks the 190-ribby barrier, or wins 30 games, or a team goes 120-40, or another one comes back from 14 1/2 games back to tie on the final day of the season, etc. etc.

You will regret not watching Matt Harvey pitch so stop hating at least every 4th or 5th day!

I'll have to take that one back, even with Harvey pitching it has become far far too painful to watch this team.
Just check out the hi-lites for Harvey if you havent yet.

[MinM]

[Laodicean]

[elfismiles]

Vancouver Space Centre hoaxes baseball UFO sighting - OpenMinds (VIDEOS)
http://www.openminds.tv/vancouver-space ... nter-1137/

... See best video at bottom of above page ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDRj2zGzvic

Vancouver Space Centre Hoaxed Mass UFO Sighting Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/article/vancouv ... o-sighting

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre press release
http://www.spacecentre.ca/images/spacec ... 091013.pdf

Witnesses tweet UFO photos during Canadian baseball game
http://www.openminds.tv/witnesses-tweet ... game-1132/

UFO at Baseball Game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irItgeBZ7ds


Soccer Defeat Blamed on UFOs in Ecuador
http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2013/09 ... -ufos.html

[MinM]

Bill James sucks on JFK research .. but he knows baseball ..

10/31/2013 @ 1:12PM |1,012 views
Bill James For The Hall Of Fame

Baseball sabermetrician and Boston Red Sox executive Bill James, 2010.

Boston Red Sox senior advisor Bill James, baseball’s original sabremetrician who has been extolling the virtues of on-base percentage over batting average since the 1970s. Written off by the establishment as a kook back then, James analytical methods are now fully mainstream since being popularized over a decade ago by Oakland’s Billy Beane. His research has fundamentally changed the way baseball clubs value players.

Lurking behind the scenes for Boston general managers Theo Epstein and Ben Cherington – both of them young enough to have grown up with his work – James has helped transform the Red Sox into a three-time champion whose M.O. has been finding the right role players with which to surround a couple of big hitters in the regular lineup. Consider that the Red Sox hired James right after the 2002 season. Within three months, as MLB Network anchor and committed stats guru Brian Kenny recently noted on Twitter, the team had acquired David Ortiz, Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, Mike Timlin, and Bronson Arroyo. All turned out to be key pieces for a club that promptly went out and reached the 2003 ALCS, losing in a heartbreaker to the Yankees, and then won it all the following year.

“Bill James is an absolute Hall of Famer even if he had never worked for a Major League team,” says Kenny. “He spurred an entire change in the thought process.”

Boston’s 2007 championship team included key acquisitions Coco Crisp and Mike Lowell, who complimented sluggers Ortiz and Manny Ramirez by combining for 8.3 Wins Above Replacement (fan favorite Johnny Damon, the guy the Sox let go in favor of the cheaper Crisp, put up a 2.7 WAR for the Yankees that year, below Crisp’s 3.3).

This year’s key role players: outfielder Shane Victorino (6.1 WAR), first baseman Mike Napoli (4.1), both signed as free agents last winter, and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia (2.9), picked up in a 2010 trade with Texas for practically nothing.

The Sox have turned in winning records in 10 of the 11 seasons that James has been on the payroll, reaching the postseason in seven of them and, of course, picking up three World Series trophies. Talk about a culture change: what was once the unthinkable and doomed to curse is now the expectation.

We don’t know if James was necessarily in on every Red Sox player move. We do know that his tenure has coincided with a major performance upgrade. And that lots of front office people around the league are doing their best to keep up with his methods. Effect on the game? Marvin Miller pales in comparison to Bill James. Put him in Cooperstown.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper ... l-of-fame/

[JackRiddler]

That I can think of, only four out of the 30 teams appeared more than once each in the last 10 World Series, 2004-2013:

- Red Sox 3-0 (basically the same team that won 2 out of 4 years in '04 and '07)
- Cardinals 2-2 (same team, again basically, appeared in '04 and won in '06, and another same team won in '11 and appeared in '13)
- Giants 2-0 (same team, 2 out of 3 in '10 and '12)
- Phillies 1-1 (same team consecutively won in '08 and lost in '09)

These 4 organizations won 8 out of 10 championships and occupied 11 out of 20 positions. Red Sox-Cardinals happened twice, in '04 and '13.

So much for the myth of parity!

Besides being all above-average spenders, they're also all non-expansion organizations - and I think organizations are at least as important as the given current team. This is a long-term trend, non-expansion has always dominated even now, almost 20 years since the last expansion. Why is that? The organizations are better established and more experienced going back forever? They were first in the biggest cities and so from the beginning richer in the long term?

[FourthBase]

Well, that was a fun season.

[FourthBase]

That I can think of, only four out of the 30 teams appeared more than once each in the last 10 World Series, 2004-2013:

- Red Sox 3-0 (basically the same team that won 2 out of 4 years in '04 and '07)
- Cardinals 2-2 (same team, again basically, appeared in '04 and won in '06, and another same team won in '11 and appeared in '13)
- Giants 2-0 (same team, 2 out of 3 in '10 and '12)
- Phillies 1-1 (same team consecutively won in '08 and lost in '09)

These 4 organizations won 8 out of 10 championships and occupied 11 out of 20 positions. Red Sox-Cardinals happened twice, in '04 and '13.

So much for the myth of parity!

Besides being all above-average spenders, they're also all non-expansion organizations - and I think organizations are at least as important as the given current team. This is a long-term trend, non-expansion has always dominated even now, almost 20 years since the last expansion. Why is that? The organizations are better established and more experienced going back forever? They were first in the biggest cities and so from the beginning richer in the long term?

Those four just happen to be four of the smarter and luckier organizations in recent MLB history. There will always be a handful of franchises managed better and blessed with more luck relative to competition, anything approaching equilibrium over the course of 10-20 years would be far more improbable. Besides...

The Marlins have had their share of worldly success, 2 out of 7 at one point, but they've been owned by vultures and run by idiots. You also forgot the Yankees, of course, they won 5 and made 7 out of 18...and their ability to buy any player and withstand any loss has led them to neglect their system, and they're scrambling now just to remain relevant despite squandering a quarter of a billion in luxury taxes alone the last decade or so. Take heart. The Rays have been fairly successful, with almost nothing to work with. The Rangers made it twice.

Who can win 11 of up to 19 games in just the right sequence is, to a significant extent, a crapshoot. Subject to momentum and random fluctuations, anyway. And, on occasion, miraculous awesomeness a la 2004. Don't be bitter just because you're a Mets fan in the 21st century.

[FourthBase]

p.s. Nava finished the year with an OPS+ of 128 over the course of 536 plate appearances.

[FourthBase]

Nah, who am I kidding, still are. 1986 will never die, not for me.
Even the most cinematic comeback miracle ever can't change us.
We love complaining more than rejoicing...well, not quite...but...well...
Winning felt a little weird, losing is comfortable, losing is...home.

That finally changed this past season, I think. Thankfully.
What now feels like home here is: Coming back, to win.