Out of the Past

I guess WAR (wins above replacement) is supposed to be one the greatest if not the greatest of the great "new" stats so I was curious about what the standings would be based on WAR: Team --- Games back: Phillies --- 0.0 Marlins --- 6.4 Nationals --- 7.0 Braves --- 8.4 Mets --- 13.7 Brewers --- 0.0 Cardinals --- 6.9 Pirates --- 7.2 Astros --- 9.9 Cubs --- 10.4 Reds --- 14.4 Dodgers --- 0.0 DBacks --- 5.7 Rockies --- 6.6 Giants --- 8.5 Padres --- 9.8 Wild Card ========= Marlins --- 0.0 Nationals --- 0.6 Cardinals --- 1.1 Maybe I'm missing something but if I'm not then WAR does not impress me.

The Gosselins or however you spell it. I have no idea who they are but am sick of watching their faces every time now for months when I'm at the checkout counter.

I guess the ball could carry well but even so it's a pitcher's park but not ridiculous so. It's actually pretty fair.

They really shouldn't allow Obama to speak without a teleprompter. ================================ http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&sid=aJ01reSCujDQ Obama Goes Postal, Lands in Dead-Letter Office Commentary by Caroline Baum Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.� -- Barack Obama, Aug. 11, 2009 No institution has been the butt of more government- inefficiency jokes than the U.S. Postal Service. Maybe the Department of Motor Vehicles. The only way the post office can stay in business is its government subsidy. The USPS lost $2.4 billion in the quarter ended in June and projects a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal 2009, outstanding debt of more than $10 billion and a cash shortfall of $1 billion. It was moved to intensive care -- the Government Accountability Office’s list of “high risk� cases - - last month and told to shape up. (It must be the only entity that hasn’t cashed in on TARP!) That didn’t stop President Barack Obama from holding up the post office as an example at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last week. When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx, he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance. What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office? What’s more, if the USPS is struggling to compete with private companies, as Obama implied, why introduce a government health-care option that would operate at the same disadvantage? Obama Unscripted These are just two of the questions someone listening to the president’s health-insurance reform roadshow might want to ask. Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day. For all the president’s touted intelligence, his un-teleprompted comments reveal a basic misunderstanding of capitalist principles. For example, asked at the Portsmouth town hall how private insurance companies can compete with the government, the president said the following: “If the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining -- meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do -- then I think private insurers should be able to compete.� Self-sustaining? The public option? What has Obama been doing during those daily 40-minute economic briefings coordinated by uber-economic-adviser, Admin Summers? Capitalism Explained Government programs aren’t self-sustaining by definition. They’re subsidized by the taxpayer. If they were self-financed, we’d be off the hook. Llewellyn Rockwell Jr., chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and editor of LewRockwell.com, put it this way in an Aug. 13 commentary on Mises.org: “The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government’s involvement at all.� Rockwell sees no “economic reason for a government postal system� and would abolish it. Of course, there’s the small matter of the U.S. Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, grants Congress the power “to establish Post Offices and Post Roads.� A series of subsequent statutes gave the USPS a monopoly in the delivery of first-class mail. Congress thought that without such protection, private carriers would cherry-pick the high-profit routes and leave money-losing deliveries in remote areas to the post office. (In those days, the USPS covered most of its expenses with revenue.) Less Bad Option It was only through exemptions in the law that private carriers, such as UPS and FedEx, were allowed to compete in the delivery of overnight mail. Short of a constitutional amendment or a waiver from Congress, we are stuck with the USPS. But back to our storyline. Everyone makes a mistake or flubs a line when asked questions on the spot, including the president of the United States. We can overlook run-on sentences, subject and verb tense disagreement, even a memory lapse when it comes to facts and figures. The proliferation of Obama’s gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won’t lead to rationing by government bureaucrats as opposed to the market. And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke. The public is left with one of two unsettling conclusions: Either the president doesn’t understand the health-insurance reform plans working their way through Congress, or he understands both the plans and the implications and is being untruthful about the impact. Neither option is good; ignorance is clearly preferable to the alternative.

Baseball HoF writers division or whatever they call it.

I think he's in the HoF.

It seemed to me we've being getting a lot of bloopers or other balls hit softly to fall for hits lately so I looked up on the yahoo box scores the number of "shallow" balls we've hit that ended up as hits compared to our opponents. I looked at the last 10 games beginning with the series in Philly. We've "outshallowed for a hit" our opponents 48-15 the past 10 games. For us to have a chance I think we'll need to keep kicking ass in "outshallowing" our opponents and I don't think this is sustainable.

The stimulus seems to be working. At the start of this year, the last thing we should have worried about was the deficit. We needed to jumpstart the economy. I don't have time to be reading and posting but I'll just say even before the stimulus was passed we were projected to be out of the recession by Q3 or Q4 and almost the entire stimulus (~80%) was projected to be spent after we were out of the recession. We've being through this before so you know it. Who says we were projected to be out of the recession by Q3 or Q4? Please provide links. The economists surveyed in the WSJ's forecasting survey published February 13. 2009. Do you have a link for this? I don't remember hearing any such forecasts. However, I do know that the stimulus has drastically underperformed in terms of curbing unemployment, which is what it is primarily assigned to do. I remember reading a couple of weeks ago that unemployment levels were actually higher than predicted if we did not pass the stimulus bill. This is when the U6 numbers were over 16% unemployed. I haven't checked the numbers lately but headlines remarked that the percentage has been going down despite the fact the total number of unemployed has risen. If we are experiencing a temporary bubble inflation (and again, since we haven't liquidated any malinvestment, slipping back a couple of years down the road would still be characteristic of the very same recession), is entirely attributed to the policy of the Federal Reserve and not characteristic of the stimulus. Economists are basing this "bounce" almost entirely upon rising stock prices (which is, in my opinion, a terrible indicator). The Federal Reserve has been engaging in quantitative easing (extension of credit) into the banks at low interest, while the banks in turn invest it. This is precisely part of the problem that brough us here and we will certainly again face these consequences; it's just difficult to know exactly when this will occur. In the February '09 survey the economist were predicting GDP to grow 0.7% and 1.9% in Q3 and Q4 of this year. http://community.cen...rther-away.aspx

The stimulus seems to be working. At the start of this year, the last thing we should have worried about was the deficit. We needed to jumpstart the economy. I don't have time to be reading and posting but I'll just say even before the stimulus was passed we were projected to be out of the recession by Q3 or Q4 and almost the entire stimulus (~80%) was projected to be spent after we were out of the recession. We've being through this before so you know it. Who says we were projected to be out of the recession by Q3 or Q4? Please provide links. The economists surveyed in the WSJ's forecasting survey published February 13. 2009.

The stimulus seems to be working. At the start of this year, the last thing we should have worried about was the deficit. We needed to jumpstart the economy. I don't have time to be reading and posting but I'll just say even before the stimulus was passed we were projected to be out of the recession by Q3 or Q4 and almost the entire stimulus (~80%) was projected to be spent after we were out of the recession. We've being through this before so you know it.

Trades don't always work out, but you can't bash the front office too much for that. The Marlins have fielded nearly playoff caliber teams every season since Loria and Beinfest took over. This is all in spite of them having limited financial resources to work with. We have a .503 winning percentage since they took over. We have won a World Series, and have had a winning record four of the seven years since they sook over, with the smallest payroll in the MLB. If you don't think that's impressive, then I don't know what to say. The WS is impressive but the .500 regular season record is not. I consider a .500 winning percentage to be mediocre.

If you're 10 games out with two weeks to go you're "in the race" (wow, sounds impressive) but I'm not impressed.

Trades don't always work out, but you can't bash the front office too much for that. The Marlins have fielded nearly playoff caliber teams every season since Loria and Beinfest took over. This is all in spite of them having limited financial resources to work with. We have a .503 winning percentage since they took over.

The electronic strike zone would be great. It would put an end to the complains about balls and strikes.

Manny, Howard, Berkman, Sheff & Pujols For the most part, those guy's OPS differences are based mostly on the fact that they walk way more with RISP. I would say some players do perform better with RISP, but I would also say for the most part guys don't hit better with RISP, and for the most part RBI is context dependent. It's a truly overrated stat. It is mostly based on opportunity, and to hang your hat on it is pretty pointless. We agree some players perform better with RISP. I think those players should be applauded for it. I don't hang my hat on RBIs. Obvioulsy OBP and SLG are waaaaaay more important but RBIs and RISP hitting are things to also consider. Anyway, it takes a person like Tommy Hutton to take Manny's incredible RISP hitting and turn it into a negative as he did the other night.

Manny, Howard, Berkman, Sheff & Pujols

That the 10 additional runs is worth 30 OPS points seems high.. the 30 OPS points.

CBP is a good park for homers but it's bad for everything else. Overall it's a hitters park but not as good a hitters park as people think. and guys like werth and Howard benefit tremendously from that park. They are way more valuable to the phillies than anyone else because it accentuates their skills and hides their flaws. How do you figure that? Howard's career splits are almost identical home / away and since joining the Phillies Werth has done better on the road than at home.

I'll be watching and rooting. It's a lot of fun to watch events of such historical importance (if he wins).

We're 5th in runs scored (4.56 per game) but we're 12th in OPS at .723. The run scoring will go down by a good chunk if we keep OPSing .723. But we're also one of the best base running teams http://www.beyondthe...the-baserunning +10 runs 10 runs is worth roughly 30 OPS points So that'd put us at .753 which would be 5th but that's not all that accurate because that doesn't change other teams. Doing 1 run = .003 points that'd put us 6th col .823 phil .780 lad .779 mil .759 stl .755 flor .753 was .742 so we should be able to keep that up give me a bit and I'll try doings XR per game + baserunning runs That seems very high. We're scoring around 0.30 to 0.40 more runs per game that what we should be based on the .723 OPS and the baserunning would explain maybe 0.10 of that.

We're 5th in runs scored (4.56 per game) but we're 12th in OPS at .723. The run scoring will go down by a good chunk if we keep OPSing .723.

RBIs depend to a large extent on home runs and on how well a guy does with runners on base. I don't understand why people don't understand this. because it depends to an even larger extent in getting players on base in front of him and for most players, hitting with risp is not a repeatable skill. Some players adjust their approaches when hitting with RISP and others don't. The number of runners on a guy has will definitely impact his RBI total but the homeruns he hits and his ability in driving in the runners on also have an impact on the RBI total. How so many people ignore this is beyond me.

You know I was reading through this topic again. It's kinda funny. FIPhillie: RYAN HOWARD WAS LEADING THE LEAGUE IN HR AND RBI! Person with brain A: He was having a horrible year and RBI are useless when evaluating an individual! FIPhille: THAT'S RIDICULOUS RBI IS WHAT EVERYONE ON ESPN TALKS ABOUT AND SO IT MUST BE IMPORTANT HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY BE A USELESS STAT?! Person with brain B: Because it depends on the rest of the team getting on in front of him. FIPhillie: NO THEY'RE STILL IMPORTANT I WILL NOT REGARD THIS LOGIC BECAUSE I AM STUBBORN AND YOU'RE ALL JUST BEING HOMERS!! Person with brain C: No, really...in order to get RBI he has to have RBI opportunities, which depend on other people not named Ryan Howard. FIPhillie: YEAH RIGHT YOU'RE ALL STUPID I CAN'T ACCEPT THIS BECAUSE IT GOES AGAINST WHAT I ORIGINALLY LEARNED WHILE PLAYING THE GAME AND YOU'RE ALL NECKBEARD STATFAGS WHO NEVER PLAYED BASEBALL! It reminds me of that scene from Family Guy with the Mule. NO KEVIN WASN'T IN FOOTLOOSE! NOPE. EEEHHHAWWW!!!! EEEEHHAAAWWW!! Persons with no brain ignore RBIs.

CBP is a good park for homers but it's bad for everything else. Overall it's a hitters park but not as good a hitters park as people think.

If the goal is to win games it's an epic fail. If the goal is to stuff hundred dollar bills in Loria's pocket it's an epic win. I say epic fail.