83Gator

It's up to the official scorer. Here's what the rules say: 10.17(b) [if the starter doesn't pitch 5 innings] then the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the relief pitcher, if there is only one relief pitcher, or the relief pitcher who, in the official scorer?s judgment was the most effective, if there is more than one relief pitcher. Rule 10.17(b) Comment: It is the intent of Rule 10.17(b) that a relief pitcher pitch at least one complete inning or pitch when a crucial out is made, within the context of the game (including the score), in order to be credited as the winning pitcher. If the first relief pitcher pitches effectively, the official scorer should not presumptively credit that pitcher with the win, because the rule requires that the win be credited to the pitcher who was the most effective, and a subsequent relief pitcher may have been most effective. The official scorer, in determining which relief pitcher was the most effective, should consider the number of runs, earned runs and base runners given up by each relief pitcher and the context of the game at the time of each relief pitcher?s appearance. If two or more relief pitchers were similarly effective, the official scorer should give the presumption to the earlier pitcher as the winning pitcher. ( c)The official scorer shall not credit as the winning pitcher a relief pitcher who is ineffective in a brief appearance, when at least one succeeding relief pitcher pitches effectively in helping his team maintain its lead. In such a case, the official scorer shall credit as the winning pitcher the succeeding relief pitcher who was most effective, in the judgment of the official scorer. Rule 10.17? Comment: The official scorer generally should, but is not required to, consider the appearance of a relief pitcher to be ineffective and brief if such relief pitcher pitches less than one inning and allows two or more earned runs to score (even if such runs are charged to a previous pitcher). Rule 10.17(b) Comment provides guidance on choosing the winning pitcher from among several succeeding relief pitchers. Everything after the "[if the starter doesn't pitch 5 innings]" is straight from the mlb site, including the comments. I have my own official scoring question. If a pitcher faces 27 batters and retires them all, but one of the batters hit a dropped foul popup that was ruled an error but was still subsequently retired, is it still a perfect game? There were no baserunners but there was an error. I'd imagine it's a perfect game but I don't know what the exact rule says.

Don't we need to make a 40-man roster move to bring up Linden? I thought we DFA'd him a few weeks back to get him off the 40-man roster. I count 41 players on the 40-man roster, including Linden and excluding anybody on the 60-day DL. If my count is right, I guess we could move Ross or Nolasco to the 60-day DL if we don't think they'll be back by July 6th or July 18th respectively.

brewerfan.net has a nice explanation of the option rules at this link. Here's the explanation of the Option Rule from brewerfan.net: How does "optioning" work? Generally, after 3 pro seasons, a player must be protected on a club?s 40-man roster or he becomes eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Once a player is added to a club?s 40-man roster, the club then 3 available option years during which they can place him on ?optional assignment? to a minor league club. A player can be sent up and down as many times as the club so chooses within those three seasons. Once a player is ?out of options?, he must clear ?waivers? in order to be sent down again. * If a player is not sent to the minors during a year, an option is not used. * If a player is on the 40-man roster in spring training but optioned to the minors before the season is underway, an option is used. * If an assignment in the minors lasts 20 days, an option is not used. Here's the DFA rule from the same site: What does "Designated for Assignment" (DFA) mean? Being "Designated for Assignment" has been known as a "temporary purgatory" for baseball players. When a team wants to remove a player from the 25-man roster or the 40-man roster, they can designate that player for assignment. The team then has 10 days to try to trade that player or place him on waivers. The purpose of designated someone for assignment is to open up that person's roster spot. The player movement explanation they have on the site is nice too, explaining the trading periods and waiver rules. That's at this link.

The deal with the Royals fell through but this morning, the Sun-Sentinel reported that the Marlins aren't interested in Bradley anyway, in the same blurb that said we're going to pass on Dukes. Sun-Sentinel link The Marlins also have no interest in Milton Bradley, who the Athletics designated for assignment.

According to the Sun-Sentinel this morning, the Marlins considered going after Dukes but have decided against it. Too risky. Dukes not an option According to a source who spoke with the Marlins on Friday, the team has discussed troubled Devil Rays outfielder Elijah Dukes, who was placed on the temporary inactive list. The Marlins, who were interested in acquiring him last offseason, will pass if he becomes available. While the Marlins have considered the idea of acquiring him and putting him on a zero-tolerance policy, they have deemed the risks outweigh the potential rewards.

We didn't get swept by the Nationals. When you leave an unbelievable (knocked me over when I took count) 54 runners on base in three games you "handed them" three games. Nice box, wrapped prettily and tied with a bow. Wow, I didn't realize that the runners left on base were that high. That's absolutely incredible... On a small plus side, at least we're getting runners on base. The downside of course is that they're stuck there. Actually we only left 26 on base (7 Friday, 12 Saturday, and 7 Sunday). 2003 is adding up the individual LOBs instead of taking the team LOB. The sum of the individual LOBs always seem incredibly high. Except for Saturday, we didn't have all that many baserunners (only 7 on Friday and 11 on Sunday).

How about the guy who played Fredo in the Godfather movies? He only made 5 or 6 movies.

I don't know how much weight to give this, and sorry if this was posted elsewhere, but a poster on the mlb Marlins board is saying that Gardner has been recalled and is on his way here, with an announcement before tonight's game. The poster makes it sound like he knows Gardner personally so it may actually be correct. On the other hand it may be wishful thinking - the mlb board has some Gardner groupies who would rather have released Pinto (or Gregg, Owens, etc.) outright than send Gardner down.

I thought it was a shoulder problem with Tankersley. I think the thread title is wrong. Neither is very good, though shoulder injuries scare me a bit more. Hopefully this gets no worse than tendinitis and he's throwing in a few weeks and back on the mound by May 1st.

I know these stats don't carry much weight, but here are his splits from last year: vs. Left: .167 vs. Right: .176 Home: .065 Road: .281 Day: .318 Night: .098 Grass: .281 Turf: .065 Looks pretty good if he's playing an entire season of road games, in the day, on grass. Not so great at home, in the dark, on turf. Maybe a nice pair of hornrims with a skull & crossbones between his eyes would help him see the ball better at night. haha Actually, I was looking a bit more in depth, wondering how if he hit so poorly against both lefties and righties he came up with such a decent batting average. But those stats were taken directly from the quick splits area on his player page, on mlb.com. If you look in depth at his splits, they look much more favorable, so I don't know where in the world mlb.com got the quick splits. Apologies to all. Those are Church's splits from 2004 when he first came up and only had 63 ABs and batted .175 overall. His career splits show about the same OPS against lefties (.811) and righties (.807). He has more power against righties and hits for a better average against lefties.

Here's the Yahoo splits for his career ... http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/6739/s...mp;type=Batting He actually hits for a higher average against LHP.

I was looking at Hanley's Stats that said he finished with a 292 BA. I decided to take a look at his gamelog cause I was bored, I then noticed this http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/...&statType=1 Look at the last Phillies game, his batting average was at .294, am I missing something or is this an error on MLB's part as far as stats? The mlb site is missing the game from October 1st. Hanley went 0-3 on October 1st which knocked his season average to .292

if im not mistakin...[Millar] was in the independent league playing baseball with michael jordan when the 94 strike came about and MLB was considering using replacement players aka the NFL in 87...millar volunteered and is considered a scab and as was said doesnt get any PA benefits Actually Millar was in the Marlins organization in 1994, in A ball. Replacement players weren't used until spring 1995 so I don't think Millar was in an independant league at that time and I didn't know Jordan ever was (I thought he played in the White Sox organization). I vaguely remember some replacement players, marginal prospects like Millar at the time, saying that they were coerced into crossing the picket line by being subtly threatened with release if they didn't play. Even though he can't join the union, Millar does get benefits such as pension and representation in disputes with management. He can't share in any merchandising money. Cory Lidle was also a replacement player and his pension is going to his widow.

There's some fuzzy math going on there, if not outright deception (either by Samson or the writer). Sampson talks about things that are outside EBITA and the article then lists marketing, baseball expenses, and admin expenses. Those items are all part of EBITA, in other words those admin expenses and marketing expenses are taken before calculating EBITA. Samson already admits that the Marlins have a positive EBITA so he's admitting that they have a profit after deducting marketing and baseball/admin expenses. Why bring it up like it's after EBITA? EBITA exludes 3 things - Interest, Taxes, and Amortization. Marketing expenses are not any of those 3 things. The other thing I don't believe is that Admin expenses, which are listed separately than baseball expenses, are in the "tens of millions" of dollars. I'm guessing that Admin Expenses are for the accountants, computer geeks, clerical staff, maintenance, office space, paper clips, etc. - people and items that any company would have. "Tens of millions" implies to me that it's at least $20 million. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say it's $20 million on payroll, which is typically the biggest admin expense. That's over 300 employees making more than $60,000 per year each. I find that hard to believe in a company the size of the Marlins. I think Samson is referring to the same expenses twice in both baseball expenses (which I truly believe is in the tens of millions) and admin expenses. I don't think they're making tens of millions of dollars in profit this year but I don't like them implying that the profit they admit to doesn't include marketing and admin expense.

If I'm not mistaken, the ligament replaced by Tommy John surgery is the Ulnar collaterall ligament. That doesn't appear to be down in the forearm. As long as there is no tear, Johnson should be fine, I think, although I am far from knowledgable. That is not in the forearm. I don't want to be a real killjoy, but when AJ went down in spring of 2003, it was originally forearm tightness, not a complaint about his elbow (link). An elbow problem will sometimes show with forearm symptoms. So anytime a pitcher complains about his forearm, I get scared. That being said, the fact that they're using the word "strain" not "sprain" is encouraging. They did an MRI on him, didn't they?

I understand that there is a possiblilty that's its not a "new" announcement but the word "announcement" is used in the text. :whistle They say that an announcement is "on the horizon" not that the announcement is coming tomorrow in the Sun-Sentinel. My guess is that it's about the San Antonio deadline and Hialeah's hopes for an announcement sometime this month. It seems unlikely to me that the Sun-Sentinel of all papers is going to have a meaningful announcement about the stadium and if they did have such a scoop, that they'd sit on it for a day, giving the Herald and Post a chance to get and announce the same info. I'm thinking that at best, they might say that the Marlins are going to make a statement that they're letting the San Antonio deadline pass to focus on local options. I can't imagine that the Marlins are actually going to make an announcement in the Sun-Sentinel. I've been wrong lots of times before though so maybe the Sun-Sentinel does have something new that they have to sit on until tomorrow (or tonight online).

It's an ad for an article that's coming tomorrow about the positive stadium rumblings of late. It doesn't talk about an announcment coming tomorrow. Here's the exact wording (I'm bolding what the ad is bolding): Marlins Stadium Update Could a good-news announcement be on the horizon? Tommorow in Sports Then the ad has a picture of Miguel Cabrera. The ad is right under another ad for "Working Out, Feeling Good." I don't suspect there will be anything new tomorrow in the Sun-Sentinel, just them finally catching up to everything that y'all already know.

Besides what Juanky said about the effects of the sell-off on the fanbase, here's some other thoughts. Sorry this ended up so long and rambling. You could just check out the first sentence of each paragraph if you're interested ... You could look into the effects of the '94 player strike on the eventual sell-out by Huizenga. Actually not the strike itself but the result - the players won. I'm going from memory, but I think Huizenga was one of only 2 owners to vote against the settlement. I think he was a strong proponent of using replacement players. Huizenga wanted to break the union and institute a salary cap. When the owners caved (after losing an NLRB ruling in 1995), Huizenga lost any chance for cost certainty. It became inevitable that he would bail. I'd bet that Huizenga only bought into MLB in 91/92 becase Selig convinced him that the owners were going to go to the wall in the next labor battle in 1994. They did go to the wall - they cancelled the World Series - but they caved in the following spring, totally wasting the sacrifices they made. From a baseball side, you could see why the Marlins were so woefully unprepared to compete after the 1997 sell-off. That was year 6 of the team at a MLB level, year 7 or 8 as an organization. Where were the minor leaguers that should just have been hitting the majors? Was it a problem with our drafts? If so, you could check out those first 5 or 6 Marlins drafts and see where they failed (if they did) - was it bad drafting or did we lose too many picks while signing free agents? You could check out some of the Marlins odd marketing over the years. For example, last year, the marketing focused on ordinary fans - they had fans in the commercials, pictures of Pin Guy on the tickets, etc. Last year was the best collection of talent we had in the history of the franchise - shouldn't the marketing have focused on the players during the one season we had gobs of All-Stars? Continuing with the marketing, you could talk about the roof issue. When South Florida made the original pitch for the team, they convinced MLB and the public that a roof wasn't needed because it always stops raining in Florida by 6:00 PM and the games would start at 7. The team reversed this position and pushed for a retractable roof but they've pushed so hard that I think it's become a negative marketing aspect. The owners are literally telling the fans of South Florida that JRS is a terrible place to watch a game. That may be true but there are ways to push for a roof without knocking the product you're currently trying to sell. MLB has had a part in this - taking away the All-Star game hurt. Letting two sell-offs happen hurt, though I don't know what they could've done to stop it. The moves that MLB orchestrated with Henry and Loria (Henry getting the Red Sox while underbidding the competition and Loria getting the Marlins after the Montreal mess) reeked of dirty back-room deals. You could talk about the present location of the stadium. Is there a good spot in South Florida? South Florida's geogrpahy is a bit different - we have 6 million people in a long thin area stretching over a hundred miles. Is there any location that doesn't cut off half the fans? If there's not, then we're basically a 3-million person area, at least as far as night-in and night-out attendance and we'll never be a big attendance draw. You could look into the current lease and the money flow and the near impossibility of making money in the current location/lease (at least with a top-third team in payroll). Even Forbes said the Marlins lost a lot of money last year, even with $60 million in national money. You could look into fan loyalties and why so many South Florida fans kept rooting for the Cubs, Mets, Yankees, and Braves instead of switching and becoming Marlin season ticket holders. We're not the first city of get a new team. I'm sure Atlanta and Dallas and San Diego people rooted for other teams before they got franchises. Did those fans switch allegiances right away? Or does it take a generation for that to happen? You could debate the season ticket growth after the 2003 championship. Was the large percentage growth sufficient? Or was the high percentage growth just a factor of having such a low starting point? Should we instead have had a large absolute growth in season ticket sales? If Loria had stayed the course - done a truer market correction instead of a gutting of the team - would the fanbase had continued to grow? The attendance rise between 2004 and 2005 was pretty small (1333 per game or 6%) but it was growth.

Going way back, Hank Sauer was 31 years old during his first full season. 4 years later he won the MVP. Another late bloomer was a name that's near and dear to Marlin fans - Bill Robinson. He didn't do much of anything until he was 30 and then he had about 7 years in which he was a solid hitter, though not All-Star level.

Here's a good news, bad news blurb from the Sun-Sentinel. The bad news: 3 Marlins officials are keeping a previous appointment to tour potential stadium sites in San Antonio. The good news: The quote by Samson is promising. It sounds like the Marlins are just keeping their options open if things don't work out down here. Being a pessimist at heart, I'm probably more concerned about the tour than I'm happy about the quote. Here's the article: Officials to view San Antonio sites -- Sarah Talalay Posted May 3 2006 Despite significant progress in talks to finance a stadium in Hialeah, three Marlins executives will make a previously scheduled trip to San Antonio this week to look at potential stadium sites, Marlins President David Samson said Tuesday. The visit was scheduled about a month ago, "before the recent progress with [Miami-Dade] County and the city of Hialeah," Samson said, adding, "I'm very pleased with the progress." Samson, who will not make the trip, reiterated the team's intention is to stay in South Florida, but decided its head of stadium development, chief financial officer and general counsel should still attend. The Marlins have yet to respond to a May 15 deadline set by a San Antonio official for a response to his offer of help to finance a stadium.

Andy Larkin may be one of the least effective pitchers ever who got significant playing time. We gave him 14 starts in 1998 and he responded with a 9.64 ERA. For his career, he had a 8.86 ERA in 133 innings, the highest ERA I could find of any pitcher with at least 100 innings. I remember Luis Pujols as being a pretty terrible hitter. He had a lifetime OPS of .500 (.240 OBP, .260 SLG). He survived 9 years mostly because he was willing to attempt to catch the knuckleball, though I don't remember him being particularly good at it.

Cool stats. I wonder if he threw overhand. 1883 was the first year pitchers could throw overhand. It was also 8 balls for a base on balls and the pitcher's box was 50 feet from home plate.

The numbers are solid except for the HRs. He's on pace to hit only 11 HRs (prorating to 500 ABs). He's hitting a ton of doubles, on pace for 60 (again prorating to 500 ABs). A lot of the doubles are from the Green Monster - 2/3 of his doubles are in Fenway. It's not all Fenway though as his away numbers overall are better than his numbers at home. He's not hitting lefties too well, which is how he was early in his career.

I went to www.retrosheet.org, downloaded their transaction file, dumped it into MS-SQL 2000, and wrote some SQL to get all the transactions between the Red Sox and Yankees. I didn't spend much time on this so it's possible I missed something if one of the transactions is coded weird or there was a 3-team trade or something ... Player yyyymmdd Type From To Tom Hughes 19031220 Trade BOS NYA Jesse Tannehill 19031220 Trade NYA BOS Bob Unglaub 19040617 Trade NYA BOS Patsy Dougherty 19040617 Trade BOS NYA Deacon McGuire 19070607 Waivers NYA BOS Frank LaPorte 19071013 Trade NYA BOS Hobe Ferris 19071105 Purchase BOS NYA Jake Stahl 19080710 Purchase NYA BOS Jake Thielman 19080800 Purchase NYA BOS Harry Niles 19080817 Trade NYA BOS Frank LaPorte 19080817 Trade BOS NYA John Knight 19090200 Waivers BOS NYA Jack Chesbro 19090911 Waivers NYA BOS Harry Wolter 19100118 Waivers BOS NYA $1500 Clyde Engle 19100510 Purchase NYA BOS Red Kleinow 19100526 Purchase NYA BOS Les Nunamaker 19140513 Purchase BOS NYA Guy Cooper 19140527 Purchase NYA BOS Ray Caldwell 19181218 Trade NYA BOS Frank Gilhooley 19181218 Trade NYA BOS Slim Love 19181218 Trade NYA BOS Duffy Lewis 19181218 Trade BOS NYA Ernie Shore 19181218 Trade BOS NYA Roxy Walters 19181218 Trade NYA BOS Bill Lamar 19190613 Purchase NYA BOS Carl Mays 19190729 Trade BOS NYA Bob McGraw 19190729 Trade NYA BOS Allan Russell 19190729 Trade NYA BOS Babe Ruth 19200103 Purchase BOS NYA $125000 and a $300000 loan Muddy Ruel 19201215 Trade NYA BOS Wally Schang 19201215 Trade BOS NYA Hank Thormahlen 19201215 Trade NYA BOS Del Pratt 19201215 Trade NYA BOS Sammy Vick 19201215 Trade NYA BOS Mike McNally 19201215 Trade BOS NYA Waite Hoyt 19201215 Trade BOS NYA Harry Harper 19201215 Trade BOS NYA Joe Bush 19211220 Trade BOS NYA Rip Collins 19211220 Trade NYA BOS Sam Jones 19211220 Trade BOS NYA Bill Piercy 19211220 Trade NYA BOS Jack Quinn 19211220 Trade NYA BOS Roger Peckinpaugh 19211220 Trade NYA BOS Everett Scott 19211220 Trade BOS NYA Alex Ferguson 19220224 Waivers NYA BOS Chick Fewster 19220723 Trade NYA BOS Joe Dugan 19220723 Trade BOS NYA Elmer Miller 19220723 Trade NYA BOS Johnny Mitchell 19220723 Trade NYA BOS Elmer Smith 19220723 Trade BOS NYA Lefty O'Doul 19220723 Trade NYA BOS George Pipgras 19230103 Trade BOS NYA Al DeVormer 19230103 Trade NYA BOS Harvey Hendrick 19230103 Trade BOS NYA Norm McMillan 19230130 Trade NYA BOS Herb Pennock 19230130 Trade BOS NYA George Murray 19230130 Trade NYA BOS Camp Skinner 19230130 Trade NYA BOS Howie Shanks 19241210 Trade BOS NYA Mike McNally 19241210 Trade NYA BOS Steve O'Neill 19241215 Waivers BOS NYA Bobby Veach 19250505 Trade BOS NYA Ray Francis 19250505 Trade NYA BOS Alex Ferguson 19250505 Trade BOS NYA Roy Carlyle 19260615 Waivers BOS NYA Ken Williams 19300129 Purchase BOS NYA Red Ruffing 19300506 Trade BOS NYA Cedric Durst 19300506 Trade NYA BOS Ivy Andrews 19320605 Trade NYA BOS Danny MacFayden 19320605 Trade BOS NYA Hank Johnson 19320605 Trade NYA BOS Wilcy Moore 19320801 Trade BOS NYA Gordon Rhodes 19320801 Trade NYA BOS George Pipgras 19330512 Purchase NYA BOS $100000 Billy Werber 19330512 Purchase NYA BOS Freddie Muller 19340515 Trade BOS NYA Lyn Lary 19340515 Trade NYA BOS Babe Dahlgren 19370217 Purchase BOS NYA Red Nonnenkamp 19400911 Purchase BOS NYA Don Lang 19421102 Rule 5 NYA BOS Clem Hausmann 19431101 Rule 5 NYA BOS Bill Zuber 19460618 Purchase NYA BOS Bob Alexander 19490000 Unknown NYA BOS Mel Hoderlein 19490000 Unknown NYA BOS Paul Hinrichs 19501116 Rule 5 NYA BOS John Mackinson 19520500 Unknown NYA BOS Ray Scarborough 19520822 Purchase BOS NYA Bill Renna 19570314 Trade NYA BOS Gordie Windhorn 19570314 Trade BOS NYA Eli Grba 19570314 Trade BOS NYA Billy Gardner 19620612 Trade NYA BOS Tom Umphlett 19620612 Trade BOS NYA Pete Magrini 19670803 Trade BOS NYA Elston Howard 19670803 Trade NYA BOS Ron Klimkowski 19670808 Trade BOS NYA Bob Tillman 19670808 Purchase BOS NYA John Wyatt 19680517 Purchase BOS NYA Bobby Mitchell 19681202 Rule 5 BOS NYA Sparky Lyle 19720322 Trade BOS NYA Danny Cater 19720322 Trade NYA BOS Mario Guerrero 19720630 Trade NYA BOS Mike Easler 19860328 Trade BOS NYA Don Baylor 19860328 Trade NYA BOS Scott Bankhead 19940901 Purchase BOS NYA Tony Armas Jr. 19970813 Trade NYA BOS Randy Brown 19970813 Trade BOS NYA Mike Stanley 19970813 Trade BOS NYA Jim Mecir 19970929 Trade NYA BOS Michel Hernandez 20040108 Waivers NYA BOS

I've been to Australia. The highlight of my trip was going to the Outback and Uluru (Ayers Rock). To some it's just a big red rock but I thought it was amazing. I didn't climb the rock partly because the Aboriginal people believe Uluru is sacred and partly because I'm a great big wuss. I spent a couple of days in Sydney and loved it. It's a very clean city and they like Americans. You'd have to see the Opera House - it's very cool from the outside; inside it's just an opera house but I'm glad I did the tour anyway. If you have a few hours to spare you may want to climb over the bridge but I didn't do it (again because I'm a great big wuss). There's a million places along the water between the Opera House and the bridge that you can have dinner at - eat outside so you can enjoy the view and the ambiance. We also went to a small zoo someplace in Sydney so we could pet a koala and a wombat (nasty animal if you piss it off) and feed some wallabies. I spent a day in Melbourne - meh, it was just a city. We did dinner in the cable car restaurant and it was way too hot. I'd never do that again. We went to a winery outside of Melbourne that was pretty cool. The flies were really annoying; they're annoying everywhere in Australia. Cairns was another place that was just a city. We did a balloon ride, which was pretty dull actually. The best thing about Cairns was catching a tour to the Great Barrier Reef. We did a Quicksilver tour. No matter how well or badly you swim, they have a program that will get you in the water. We ended our trip in Brisbane. I liked Brisbane a lot. I was just real comfortable there. We did the city river boat ride but it was hot and boring - it's like riding a subway on the water. We had dinner at a a real nice restaurant on the river.