bobbob1313

If I remember correctly, that 2003 club only gave up like 40 unearned runs. So, while the ERA was league average, I would imagine we were in the top third in total runs against. We go from 7th to 6th in the transition from ER to R.

I don't need an "excuse" to jump all over Hermida. Nor I am looking for one. A bad play is a bad play whether the player's name is Jeremy Hermida, Alex Rodriguez or Luis Aparicio. And btw, nice hitting by him going to the opposite field. It would be a little hard for a 3B or a SS to get that ball though, wouldn't it? Definitely a web gem though.

I wonder what everyone's going to say if our two main "contact" guys fail to drive in a run here with runners on 2nd and 3rd. I swear, I need to stop posting. The Marlins go against everything I say in game...

Hermida is hitting .357 in July I'm pretty much the biggest Hermida supporter on the board, but come on.

Scoring more runs didn't help them last year when the pitching staff performed better. It's not helping the team this year. They will never make the post season with their current roster or any roster like it. You will realize this in a few years when the team is still doing the same stupid things over and over again. Huh? The Padres?

Point is, that the 2003 team was not this one dimensional. The 2007 Marlins have power hitters, and THAT'S IT. They are ranked third in the league in runs scored. The Padres are a much worse hitting ball club and yet have a much better record. People are becoming way too enamored with the home run. Its not gonna make you a winning team. They are winning because they've got ridiculous good pitching. Like, their pitching is stupid good. Not because they don't hit home runs. Guess what, if they hit a few more home runs, they'd be an even better team. just for the record, the 2003 Marlins team, the one built on pitching and defense, had an exactly perfectly league average ERA of 4.04. (Now that I look at it, has there been a worse World Series winning team in the last decade?) but our defense was superb...and we had timely contact hitters...now our defense sucks and we have a bunch of whiffers I disagree with pretty much your entire analysis, but thats ok. We won won because we got hot in the postseason. We hit a ton of home runs in the post season and had some historic pitching performances. One could argue our outfield defense was pretty awful for the most part, aside from Encarnacion, who is a pretty good defender. Pierre is overrated as a defender and we had Hollandsworth and Cabrera playing left field much of the time. Yuck.

just for the record, the 2003 Marlins team, the one built on pitching and defense, had an exactly perfectly league average ERA of 4.04. (Now that I look at it, has there been a worse World Series winning team in the last decade?) I'd venture last year's Cardinals team was worse. Yeah, you're probably right, but in their defense, they did have 2 players who were better than anyone on our entire team. Who other than Albert Pujols? Chris Carpenter.

I like Sabathia alot. He's great. Haren's going to see that ERA ballon in the second half. I'd be surprised if he had an era under 4 from the all star game on.

just for the record, the 2003 Marlins team, the one built on pitching and defense, had an exactly perfectly league average ERA of 4.04. (Now that I look at it, has there been a worse World Series winning team in the last decade?) I'd venture last year's Cardinals team was worse. Yeah, you're probably right, but in their defense, they did have 2 players who were better than anyone on our entire team.

just for the record, the 2003 Marlins team, the one built on pitching and defense, had an exactly perfectly league average ERA of 4.04. (Now that I look at it, has there been a worse World Series winning team in the last decade?)

I guess we'll never agree on this because if I understand you correctly your position is that Lowell's '05 power decline was due to bad luck and I don't think luck has anything to do with a player's yearly fluctuations in power. Thanks for crunching all the numbers. I guess if in '05 Lowell had his normal power year then his overall production would have been similar to his career average or in other words he had a bad year because his power went down the tubes and not because of bad luck. Can you agree that a player can hit a ball extremely hard but right at a guy, whereas a guy can hit a ball extremely poorly and have it drop for a single or even a double? And can you agree that this would be attributed mostly to luck? And can you also, then agree that it is possible for a player to have this type of thing happen to him maybe 9-10 times a year, which would cause like a 30 point fluctuation in his batting average and OBP/SLG? Thats what BABIP tries to find out. You can also study line drive rates and infield fly rates and pop fly rates and all that and get a much better view, but BABIP does a much better job of explaining why a player may be playing below his career levels besides just "losing his power". Players don't lose the ability to hit for one year and then all of a sudden find it again the very next year. I think it's logical to assume some of it is based on luck.

Cool to see that because of a decent # of knuckleheads I have went from the worst poster on this board to just kind of crappy. Thanks fellas. Keep up the hate. Just making me look good. Wait, I can't tell if you are calling me dumb or them dumb? BABIP is one of the lamest stats ever. Batters whiff.....plain and simple. And batters "whiffing" has what to do with seasonal fluctuations in the amount of balls a batter puts into play that fall for hits?

Great another meaningless stat to overuse! Batting Average? RBI? batting average balls in play Thats strange, because batting average is just as useless as BABIP and it's way more overused. Odd...

I've always considered the 1975 Reds to be a team that could challenge the '27 Yanks. The '98 Yankees are probably the most balanced team ever. Thats the year Joe Morgan had like a 190 OPS+ right? Didn't they have a team OPS+ of 135? But if I remember correctly their pitching wasn't all that.

You guys misspelled "America". I wish I wasn't sick today, but thanks for the birthday wishes.

It'd be kind of hard to beat the 1927 Yankees. Thats a ridiculous team.

The 61 Yankees were actually an extremely weak team. Bill James goes over it in his 61 Baseball abstract. His main argument is that their pitching was not all that good, and that it benefitted from career years all over, they didn't have a good bench, and they relied too much on the home run, which meant if they played in the 1900's they wouldn't have been able to score much since that was a period that relied less on the home run for scoring.

Great another meaningless stat to overuse! Batting Average? RBI?

Actually, speedy guys are able to influence their BABIP a bit more than most. And as for how hard you hit the ball, no that doesn't really matter at all. If you hit more line drives you have a better chance of sustaining a high BABIP, but for the most part, a player has very little control of whether he gets a hit or an out once it's put in play. This is shown by the numerous amount of balls that are just stung but right at someone or the defender makes a bad play, whereas a guy can hit a little bloop that drops and he'll get a hit. I completely disagree. See, when I see guys like Miguel or Utley with really high BABIPs and then I see guys like Alex Gonzalez or Jack Wilson with low BABIPs to me what that tells me is that Miguel and Utley hit the crap out of the ball while Alex and Jack are pretty crappy hitters but based on what you've written according to you Miguel and Utley are not better hitters than Alex and Jack, they are just luckier hitters. Actually, you are right. I apologize. Obviously there are players who are simply better than others. Where the luck comes in is when a player like Gonzalez has an uncharacteristically high average or Cabrera's is low. You can't really use BABIP to judge different players since they are all different, but you can use it for judging whether one player is having a flukey season or an unlucky season. Although home runs and strikeouts will significantly affect your BABIP, which is a partial explanation for why Cabrera's is so high. I think it's nuts to assume luck is the reason for players yearly fluctuations in BABIP. Is luck also the reason for their yearly fluctuations in Ks and HRs? Also, HRs and Ks are removed when calculating BABIP so why would HRs and Ks impact a guy's BABIP? So what would you say is the culprit behind yearly fluctuations? Why does Ichiro Suzuki hit .372 one year with 49 walks and 66 k's and then hit .303 the next with 48 walks and 63 k's? Why does Mike Lowell hit one year .234 and .284 the next while having only a 1 walk and 3 k difference? More precisely, what I meant to say was HR and K's will show a bigger discrepency between your actual average and your BABIP. Also, HR's and K's generally don't fluctuate year to year as much as average does.

Happy V-GB Day! :cool Wouldn't it technically be V-A day, since victory was had in America?

Actually, speedy guys are able to influence their BABIP a bit more than most. And as for how hard you hit the ball, no that doesn't really matter at all. If you hit more line drives you have a better chance of sustaining a high BABIP, but for the most part, a player has very little control of whether he gets a hit or an out once it's put in play. This is shown by the numerous amount of balls that are just stung but right at someone or the defender makes a bad play, whereas a guy can hit a little bloop that drops and he'll get a hit. I completely disagree. See, when I see guys like Miguel or Utley with really high BABIPs and then I see guys like Alex Gonzalez or Jack Wilson with low BABIPs to me what that tells me is that Miguel and Utley hit the crap out of the ball while Alex and Jack are pretty crappy hitters but based on what you've written according to you Miguel and Utley are not better hitters than Alex and Jack, they are just luckier hitters. Actually, you are right. I apologize. Obviously there are players who are simply better than others. Where the luck comes in is when a player like Gonzalez has an uncharacteristically high average or Cabrera's is low. You can't really use BABIP to judge different players since they are all different, but you can use it for judging whether one player is having a flukey season or an unlucky season. Although home runs and strikeouts will significantly affect your BABIP, which is a partial explanation for why Cabrera's is so high.

Such a great day. Ray Charles' America the Beautiful really should be the official theme song of the day. That version of the song should replace the anthem.

Jeez, in 1906 they had a 150 ERA+. Thats ridiculous.

Actually, speedy guys are able to influence their BABIP a bit more than most. And as for how hard you hit the ball, no that doesn't really matter at all. If you hit more line drives you have a better chance of sustaining a high BABIP, but for the most part, a player has very little control of whether he gets a hit or an out once it's put in play. This is shown by the numerous amount of balls that are just stung but right at someone or the defender makes a bad play, whereas a guy can hit a little bloop that drops and he'll get a hit.

I'm extremely excited for this book to come out. I've read the last 4 the same day they came out (I read really fast) and I expect to do the same for this one. I got into these books before they became a huge phenomenon (Like, when the 2nd book came out) so I've been waiting for this to come out for ever.