FR Baseball thread..w/e 9/11..Close to crunch time; NL MVP?; Will we see another epic collapse?

one man's opinion.......

[ken5050]

Good Monday morning, Freeper Baseball fans. As exciting as last week was, this week looks even better. We should see our first division clinching this week, and a few more pretenders fall by the wayside...and we'll need a little diversion form the Roberts hearing this week..

[JohnnyZ]

Some people have freak injuries every year. Then you realize it's they who are the freaks. Reggie Sanders has only once hit 140 games and 500 at-bats. Even fellow gimp Trot Nixon has hit those figures twice, in a shorter career.

[SCALEMAN]

Some people have freak injuries every year. Then you realize it's they who are the freaks. Reggie Sanders has only once hit 140 games and 500 at-bats. Even fellow gimp Trot Nixon has hit those figures twice, in a shorter career.

I fail to understand where this is going. The original point was the number of starters the Cards had out during a stretch, and the fact that they overcame it and still ran away with their division. Take any other team, remove 4 starting position players for a month and see what happens.

[Enterprise1788]

Pujols: .337BA, 39 HRs, 107 RBIs, probable Gold Glove

Lee: .341BA, 41 HRs, 99 RBIs,

Jones: .275BA, 49 HRs, 121 RBIs, definite Gold Gove winner

It would really be a toss-up between Lee and Pujols. Lee has a slight advantage in both BA and HRs, but Pujols had a wider margin for RBIs. As for Jones, he's having a great season, but I'm not sure that if I were voting that I could give my vote to someone with a .275 BA. Sure, he has 8 more HRs than Lee, and 14 more RBIs than Pujols, but his average is 66 points lower than Lee's!

If I were voting, I guess I would give it to Pujols, in part because of the fact that Bonds* has robbed him of the award just about every year.

[Enterprise1788]

Like when Pedro had one of the five greatest pitching seasons ever and lost out on the MVP to Pudge for posting a fearsome .900 OPS.

MVP awards are generally not given out to pitchers, so if given a chance between an outstanding pitcher and a very good hitter, the hitter will usually get the award. Keep in mind the fact that pitchers only play once every five days; in 1999, Pedro played in 31 games, while Pudge played in 144. There's no comparison; Pudge was out there every day, not just hitting .332 with 35 HRs and 113 RBIs, but also winning his eighth consecutive Gold Glove Award, throwing out 41 runners in 75 SB attempts. Thus, not only was Pudge valuable offensively to the team, but defensively as well. Pedro, like other pitchers, are only valuable defensively, which is why the Cy Young award exists, so that a good pitching year does not go unrecognized.

[JohnnyZ]

The original point was the number of starters the Cards had out during a stretch, and the fact that they overcame it and still ran away with their division.

The point is they're not full time players to begin with. You have Reggie Sanders on your team, you can expect 120 games played, maybe more, maybe less. The Yankees lost most of their rotation, because a lot of them are gimps. You don't get to sign gimps and say, gee, imagine how good we'd be if the gimps we signed weren't gimps. You got Kevin Brown on your team, you KNOW he's going on the DL. You got Larry Walker on your team, you KNOW he's had chronic injuries for years (only hit 500 ABs twice ever). You got Curt Schilling on your team, you don't get to say, well, gee, he's been out most of the year .... well of course he has, you KNOW coming in that he's old and his ankle may or may not bounce back from surgery. Sign David Wells and Randy Johnson, hey, you gotta figure on an injury or two, a few missed starts and some resultant poor outings.

Walker and Sanders are gonna play roughly as much as they'd be expected to. Rolen hurt, sure, that's big. Yadier Molina misses a month. That's it. One and a half unexpected injuries. NO injury to a pitching staff featuring a couple of reconstructed arms. That's unusually lucky. Cal Eldred? Jason Isringhausen? Matt Morris? Chris Carpenter? C'mon here, you guys are lucky.

How many teams do you think would take a healthy pitching staff all year in return for losing one slugger for most of the year, plus a month from a defensive catcher?

[JohnnyZ]

Keep in mind the fact that pitchers only play once every five days

Oh really? That's a revelation!

What YOU should keep in mind is that Pudge only hit a homer every five games.

What's more valuable, what wins more games: Pudge hitting a 2-run homer every five games, or Pedro pitching 7 shutout innings every five days?

A pitcher can win a game almost singlehandedly -- a hitter can only do a fraction of that.

[SCALEMAN]

OBP:
Pujols: .434
Lee: .422
Jones: .360

K's
Jones: 97
Lee: 90
Pujols: 60

BB
Pujols: 85
Lee: 73
Jones: 61

[SCALEMAN]

Ok, I get it, the Cards aren't good just lucky.

Here's a proposition, take whatever team you root for and contemplate trading your right fielder for Mabry, your left fielder for Taquchi, your 3b for Nunez and your catcher for Mahoney for the last of June and most of July. Wanna do it?
If you make the trade do you think the team would lead it's division by 13 at the end of July?

The Cards pitching staff is good, but you can't win without quality players to back them up and the replacements the Cards threw on the field stepped up to the plate and got it done.

[JohnnyZ]

Ok, I get it, the Cards aren't good just lucky.

In terms of the number and severity of their injuries, they are very lucky on the pitching side and a little unlucky on the hitting side.

Here's a proposition, take whatever team you root for and contemplate trading ...

... your dominant former closer and setup guy for John Halama, your ace for a gimpy Wade Miller, your right fielder for Gabe Kapler, and your closer for Mike Remlinger.

Injuries happen, especially to injury-prone players. You don't get a medal for it, and the Cardinals have been quite healthy considering the medical and old age cases on their roster.

[SCALEMAN]

No deal. Obviously I like the team I have right now.

I wasn't the one denigrating the performance of a team that overcame some large obstacles, and still dominated their division. As a matter of fact I don't run down the accomplisments of other teams (other than the Cubs, but that's just a good natured rivalry), and am a Cards fan year in and out, good or bad.

[JohnnyZ]

I wasn't the one denigrating the performance of a team that overcame some large obstacles,

My point is you didn't have large obstacles. You had one unexpected obstacle, period, Scott Rolen. You have injury-prone players who missed games, as expected. You have injury-prone players who have stayed healthy all year, fortuitously.

I'm not denigrating anything. You're the one sitting there begging for bonus points because you lost a light-hitting catcher for a month, and I'm calling BS.

[misterrob]

Not at all. I'm a Sox fan but if you say you don't want the Sox you won't want the Wankees either. They suck to pitch to.

[misterrob]

He is the best in the game. We see enough of his pitches to have some success against him but he beats us far more than we beat him.

[JohnnyZ]

While any closer is going to do the job more often than not (one would hope!), Rivera has been very considerate to lose key games and blow key saves the last couple of years. Any time you're depending on staging a 9th inning comeback against, well, anybody, you might want to reconsider that as a winning strategy in the long run.

[SCALEMAN]

You're the one sitting there begging for bonus points because you lost a light-hitting catcher for a month, and I'm calling BS.

That was rather hostile. I ain't beggin for anything. Never have never will. Charles somewhere upthread mentioned about the Cards injuries and Ken asked about them. They were stated as to the players and the extent of the absences and you jumped and in offered the opinion that the injuries were somewhat meaningless.

Your opinion is different from mine, but in the greater scheme of things, since neither of us can affect the outcome of the season, they are just that, opinions posted on an obscure thread on a web site.

Have a nice day.

[JohnnyZ]

They were stated as to the players and the extent of the absences and you jumped and in offered the opinion that the injuries were somewhat meaningless.

And you got your panties in a twist. Uncomfortable for you, doesn't bother me.

[SCALEMAN]

And you got your panties in a twist. Uncomfortable for you, doesn't bother me.

Actually I was just sorta grinnin about the whole thing. Baseball is a game I happen to enjoy. It doesn't affect my life. I don't get mad if other people don't see it my way, just shrug it off.

Have a nice day

[JohnnyZ]

Baseball is a game I happen to enjoy. It doesn't affect my life.

Now THAT I find offensive.

And they call St. Louis a baseball town! Hah!

[GraniteStateConservative]

Yankees would host Red Sox in tiebreaker playoff

September 12, 2005

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Yankees won a coin flip Monday and would host the Boston Red Sox if a one-game playoff is needed to break a tie for the AL East title.

The Yankees, who trailed the Red Sox by three games entering play Monday, end the regular season with three games at Fenway Park from Sept. 30-Oct. 2. If the teams finish with identical records and the wild-card club comes from another division, the Yankees and Red Sox would shift to New York for the tiebreaker game.

New York and Boston last finished the regular season in a tie for first in 1978, when Bucky Dent's three-run homer boosted the Yankees to the division title.

If game is needed to break a tie between Cleveland and the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central, the Indians would host, and if the Los Angeles Angels and Oakland need a tiebreaker in the AL West, the game would be at Anaheim.

In the event a tiebreaker is needed for the wild card, New York and Oakland would play at Cleveland, and Oakland would play at New York.

If three teams finish with the same record and a tiebreaker is needed, the teams in the same division play a tiebreaker for first place, and the loser meets the team from the other division in a one-game wild-card tiebreaker.

If a tiebreaker game is necessary in the NL wild-card race, Philadelphia would host Houston and Florida, the Marlins would host Houston, the Astros would host Washington, and the Nationals would host the Phillies and Marlins.