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How can a NY team say shiz like that when they have a lower payroll than the Twinkies? It sucks to be a Mets fan.
I have no idea. They're billionaires who "weren't impacted by the Madoff scandal" who haven't spent $10 million on FA"s in two seasons since the Madoff scandal.
This time two years ago me and some friends went to tailgate the World Series. We definitely couldn't afford tix so we just went to walk around and take in the atmosphere. We noticed our team's owner going inside through a gate. As his grandson was walking through me and my friends just slipped on in behind them and shuffled along in the crowd so no one could find us. We ended up finding a standing room spot and got to chat with these guys the entire game! We had beer, the Rangers won, and we snuck into the World Series. Probably one of the greatest days of my life.
Last Edit: Oct 10, 2012 19:09:00 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
"You would've liked to have thought that if he was going to do that, that he would've done it in the offseason or waited until this offseason to do it," Ryan said during an appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Galloway and Company this week. "So the drastic effect that it had on him and the year that he was having up to that point in time when he did quit, you'd have liked that he would've taken a different approach to that."
Nolan Ryan must just wake up every day and think to himself, "How could I be more of an assh*le?"
And this is coming from someone who strongly dislikes Hamilton and thinks his whole born-again excuse is a massive joke.
"You would've liked to have thought that if he was going to do that, that he would've done it in the offseason or waited until this offseason to do it," Ryan said during an appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Galloway and Company this week. "So the drastic effect that it had on him and the year that he was having up to that point in time when he did quit, you'd have liked that he would've taken a different approach to that."
Nolan Ryan must just wake up every day and think to himself, "How could I be more of an assh*le?"
And this is coming from someone who strongly dislikes Hamilton and thinks his whole born-again excuse is a massive joke.
How does this make Nolan Ryan an @sshole? I actually agree with him on this. Have you seen someone who has used tobacco all their life go through withdraw? It is absolutely brutal on them both mentally and physically. Mentally, you cannot concentrate and constantly want nicotine. Physically, you fluctuate between feeling incredibly weak to incredibly lethargic.
Hamilton was carrying the team at that point, and it could be argued was the most important player on their roster. He already has other demons that he is battling, and he adds this mid season after all the slack the Rangers have given him? The guy has 0 impulse control, and doing this put him in a position to fail. And when failed, so did the Rangers. Ryan has every right to be pissed.
Nolan Ryan is ALWAYS right. Didn't ya know? Hamilton quitting dip midseason was the stupidest thing he could have done for himself. It not only hurt us as a team but also his own worth. Dude couldn't see the ball the same as a result. I just wish our lame, quacking fans would have treated him better this year. He's my favorite hitter we've ever had. I don't like how this ended for him if this is indeed the end.
The only answer he'll give the media regarding his future is basically "God will tell him who to sign with." He can't play for Heaven unless he dies (which I would assume be his first choice). Basically Texas gets first dibs but he'll likely sign with the highest bidder. He also guaranteed the Rangers the opportunity to counteroffer if it comes to that.
Last Edit: Oct 11, 2012 16:28:04 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
The only answer he'll give the media regarding his future is basically "God will tell him who to sign with." He can't play for Heaven unless he dies (which I would assume be his first choice).
"You would've liked to have thought that if he was going to do that, that he would've done it in the offseason or waited until this offseason to do it," Ryan said during an appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Galloway and Company this week. "So the drastic effect that it had on him and the year that he was having up to that point in time when he did quit, you'd have liked that he would've taken a different approach to that."
Nolan Ryan must just wake up every day and think to himself, "How could I be more of an assh*le?"
And this is coming from someone who strongly dislikes Hamilton and thinks his whole born-again excuse is a massive joke.
hahaha i like this person's comment at the bottom:
Hamilton didn't pick the middle of the season to quit tobacco because his doctor said it was urgent. He quit then because Jebus spoke to him (possibly through the hair dryer). Hamilton has adult "minders" who watch the baby and make sure he doesn't mess up, so clearly it's too much to ask him to take care of business while he's getting paid millions to produce, and take care of personal health concerns on his own time (the offseason).
Post by LoveLuckLaughter on Oct 11, 2012 23:28:32 GMT -5
Nick Swisher was in the outfield eating a hot dog, Granderson has surpassed my record of 9 strikeouts in a row. Ichiro looks like he is trying to hit the ball with chopsticks and Jeter seems to have hit more balls than the entire team combined. Get it together boys!
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.
Let's go through the arguments that people are making for Cabrera to be the MVP. And I'll do it on hard-mode by not even mentioning WAR one time.
"He won the Triple Crown! That hasn't happened in so long! He must be better than Trout!"
Well, that's nice. I understand it's rarity and difficulty, but the Triple Crown is just an arbitrary, seemingly random, collection of 3 stats. One of which tells you nothing about individual effectiveness and is completely opportunity-based (RBI) and one of which is very misleading and again tells you very little about individual effectiveness (.AVG). If you want to pull the Triple Crown card, though, Trout had a collection of 3 random stats that were even rarer than Cabrera's (30 HR, 45 SB, 125 R, which has never been done in the history of the MLB). Winning the Triple Crown does not automatically equate someone to be being the best offensive player that year.
"Well he leads the league in OPS! That includes all the aspects of hitting. His OPS is over 1!"
While an OPS of 1+ is very impressive, OPS is kind of a flawed stat in the sense that it treats OBP and SLG as the same importance, when in reality each point of OBP is worth more in terms of creating runs than each point of SLG.
A better stat to look at is wOBA (weighted on-base average), which is similar to OPS but weighs every individual offensive outcome (1B, 2B, 3B, HR, SB, CS, BB, HBP) based on their true run value. SLG assumes that a double is worth twice as much as a single, which is actually false as a single is worth about .44 runs to a double's .77. 2 singles are better than 1 double. This year Trout posted a league-high .421 wOBA to Cabrera's .417.
"But he had so many RBI! He had 50 more than Trout! He's such a better run producer!"
While the RBI totals would tell you Cabrera is better at driving in runners, it's a lot closer than the numbers suggest. See, RBI is the most flawed and useless stat that constantly gets thrown around when comparing player performance. What resulted in his misleading RBI total was a league-high 444 runners on-base during his plate appearances. In terms of actual effectiveness of knocking runners in, they were close to equal. Cabrera this year drove in 31% of his runners on base to Trout's 28%, a lot closer than the 50 RBI margin would have you think. In addition, Miguel batting 3rd meant most of the time his baserunners were Austin Jackson and Quintin Berry, the two fastest players in Detroit's lineup, making them easier to drive in. Since Trout hits leadoff, his baserunners were slower bottom of the order hitters like Chris Ianetta and Vernon Wells.
But if you want to play the RBI (opportunity) game, you must also consider the other side to having the most opportunities with men on base, with the fact that Cabrera grounded into more double plays (28) than any other player in baseball this year.
So you can either ignore the gross difference in opportunities and give Cabrera credit for driving in many more runs while also penalizing him for creating many more outs, or adjust for opportunity and realize that Cabrera hasn’t actually been that much better than Trout at bringing his teammates home once they get on base.
"OK, well maybe his offensive numbers aren't any better, but Miggy is so clutch! He gets the big hits when it really matters and carried his team down the stretch!"
Although "clutchness" is hard to quantify, WPA (win-probability added) does a pretty good job of it. It uses win probability, which takes into account baserunners, outs, and what inning it is -- all the things people used to describe "clutch" -- and measures the win probability before and after each player's at-bat, crediting them with the difference in win probability that resulted from their at-bat. It essentially measure's how much each individual player contributed to their team's win (or loss). For example, the highest single-game postseason WPA of all-time was David Freese in Game 6 of last year's World Series. I don't think anyone would deny that he was as clutch as they came in that game.
So let's look at Trout and Cabrera's season WPA this year:
Trout - 5.67 (1st in AL) Cabrera - 4.55 (4th in AL, behind teammate Prince Fielder and Edwin Encarnacion)
So Trout actually contributed (offensively) to more wins, even taking into account context-based (clutch) situations for his team than Miggy this year.
WPA by month Trout -0.08 - April 0.89 - May 1.63 - June 1.42 - July 1.45 - August 0.36 - Sept/Oct
Cabrera 0.86 - April 0.83 - May -0.28 - June 0.99 - July 1.05 - August 1.11 - Sept/Oct
So yes, while Cabrera was more clutch and effective over the last month, does it really make up for the previous 4 months
[/u] that Trout consistently beat Cabrera? After all, a win in June is worth just as much as a win in September at the end of the year.
So now we've come to the conclusion that they were virtually equal in runs created for their team, with the slight edge to Trout, they were virtually equal in driving in baserunners, with the slight edge to Cabrera, and Trout was consistently more clutch throughout the course of the season, with the edge going to Cabrera in the final month. I think it's safe to say they were virtually equal offensive contributors for their teams, you really can't give an edge to either one.
But wait, there's more! (to the game of baseball than just offense). You have to play defense too. And while we couldn't really decide upon who has the advantage offensively, I don't think anyone would really debate that Trout has a MASSIVE advantage over Cabrera defensively, while playing the hardest position in the game. (Although I'm not a huge fan of defensive stats in baseball - and you don't really need them in this situation for it to be clear who the advantage goes to - the defensive numbers are there to support Trout pretty soundly as well).
One more thing to consider is Trout's obvious, and again MASSIVE, speed advantage over Cabrera. Yes, we already included this earlier as SB and CS are included in wOBA, but let's even take steals out of the picture. Trout added so much more value to his team by all the times he used his speed to go from 1st to 3rd, scoring from 2nd on singles and taking extra bases by just being faster and better base runner. This is something that Cabrera simply cannot offer to his team, and frankly, he hurts his team (takes away value) by his deficiency in this facet of the game.
So how can Trout not be the Most Valuable Player this season?
"Well Cabrera's team is in the playoffs! And Trout's isn't! Ha! See? Cabrera is MVP!"
Well, the Angels winning percentage when Trout was in the lineup (.582) was the better than the Tigers with Miggy in the lineup (.543), plus they had a better record overall than the Tigers. So Cabrera should win the MVP because he plays in a weaker division than Trout and his teammates are better? What else did Trout have to do to make up for his team's shortcomings and his stronger division? Should he have played the other 7 positions and pitched like Justin Verlander?
He added more value to his team than Cabrera, plain and simple. Player value to me does not change based on what team you are on. That implies that your team has something to do with an individual award, and that's not the case. It's not the "Most Valuable Player plus other valuable players around you" award, it's just "Most Valuable Player". And Trout was the Most Valuable Player to his team in the entire MLB this year
Cabrera had an incredible season, no doubt, and I'm glad he won the Triple Crown (for both my fantasy team and my wallet, not to mention the sport of baseball), but he was not the Most Valuable Player to his team this year.[/quote]
I stay out of this thread for the most part, due to my lack of the appropriate appendages. Therefore I am late to the game here. But what a bunch of Moneyball, Billy Bean, New Age bullshit. Not that anything I'll say can convince you that the the way that baseball has been measured for the last 100 years has validity...Yet Cabrera is in the ALCS and Mike Trout is sitting at home on his mom's couch crying and watching Moneyball. September does matter more, Cabrera led his team to the playoffs and Trout led his home.
We're all a mess of paradoxes. Believing in things we know can't be true. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. But when it all becomes too big, and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music.