Out of the Past

First major league start tonight. 11th overall pick in 2006. Struggled a tad with his control in AA Mobile last season. But the guy is unhittable. Since his first year in college in Missouri in 04 he hasn't had as many hits as innings pitched at any level of collegiate or pro ball. He can pump the K's the best of them too. He's been lighting things up in AAA so far this year, 23 ip, 12 h, 38k and 3BB. When he's not walking guys, look out. He's the dude who had 7 k's no hits or walks in 4.1 innings in his relief debut against Houston. Arizona is starting to look really scary, especially if Scherzer's effective this year. he starts against Moyer and Philly tonight at 9:40. Jaime Moyer disagrees.. he's 2-2

I think there are actually some valid points in the article, but one thing I have to dispute is the notion that a team's record in one-run games is somehow attributable to luck and that it will even out in the long run. How many years has this team been horrendous in one-run games? The reason is not luck, or a lack thereof, it's the bullpen. If our starters can keep games close, we can win games on the back of our bullpen. If our bullpen continues to pitch as well as it has thus far, our record in one-run games will continue to be stellar. good point... I'm sure the correlation between bullpen ERA/WHIP/etc and 1-run games has been looked at before... I'd imagine there would be some relation there, but I wonder how much. Well I was bored and curious. Just looked quickly at the 3 teams with the best bullpen ERA in the NL over the past 6 seasons. These 18 teams have gone 466-377 in one run games for a .553 winning percentage. The average record is 26-21.

Hendrickson has pretty amazing numbers vs the Padres. I saw it last night and from memory the ERA is under 2.00, the WHIP under 1.00 and the BAA was close to .200. This is over close to 40 innings with much of the great work over the past two seasons.

For some reason people here are getting the impression that I said OBP is better than OPS when that simply isn't true. I think you left the impression that OBP is just as good as OPS and in my opinion that's ridiculous. OBP is good. OPS is much better. Where? All I said was that there was a correlation. There certainly is. You are reading far to into this. I guess I misunderstood you.

For some reason people here are getting the impression that I said OBP is better than OPS when that simply isn't true. I think you left the impression that OBP is just as good as OPS and in my opinion that's ridiculous. OBP is good. OPS is much better.

I think Miller will be sent down and Waechter will take his spot.

He's saying there is MORE of a correlation between OPS and Runs then OBP and Runs Yes.

I'm undecided at the moment but something sounds off to me regarding the argument "there is no correlation between runs scored and strikeouts, so strikeouts are inconsequential." While I agree that studies have found no such correlation, I'm having my doubts that it is a definitive response to the problem. Basically I'm saying even if there is a worthy reason, I'm having trouble finding one. Of course, as we know there is such a correlation between runs scored and OBP. The stat with the strong correlation to runs scored is OPS, not OBP. No, in the past I've seen studies with reasonable correlation (ca 0.9) for both OBP and SLG individually as well. I don't buy those studies. I'm not a statistician but I do know how to use excel and used it to calculate the correlation between runs scored and OBP and OPS for the NL for each of the last three seasons. 2007 Runs & OBP - .855 Runs & OPS - .964 2006 Runs & OBP - .747 Runs & OPS - .948 2005 Runs & OBP - .802 Runs & OPS - .882 I'll bet you get similar results for just about every other year. OPS rules.

I'm undecided at the moment but something sounds off to me regarding the argument "there is no correlation between runs scored and strikeouts, so strikeouts are inconsequential." While I agree that studies have found no such correlation, I'm having my doubts that it is a definitive response to the problem. Basically I'm saying even if there is a worthy reason, I'm having trouble finding one. Of course, as we know there is such a correlation between runs scored and OBP. The stat with the strong correlation to runs scored is OPS, not OBP.

Jesus...Trade Olsen?!?! What is with you people? This makes me almost embarassed tp be a Marlins fan... I mean seriously - we are a winning team right now, and our biggest weakness is SP, and you guys want to trade our best SP? Nevermind the fact that he is young and dirt cheap. I mean I could at least understand the argument for trading Hendrickson down the line (although I wouldn't be in such a hurry to do that either), but OLSEN?!?! Who watches a guy go out and give QS every outing, and throw 7.1 innings of shutout baseball, and then says "lets trade him!" You're obviously not aware of how much pitching depth we have in the minors. If they offered Saltalamacchia and Taylor Teagarden, I don't think the Marlins could say no. You obviously enjoy kool-aid.

http://www.miamiherald.com/591/story/510568.html THIS ISN'T A CANDY STORE Joe Girardi caused a stir when he banned candy and ice cream from the Yankees clubhouse. But the truth of the matter is, many teams, including the Marlins, don't allow sweets in their clubhouses. The reason: It's bad nutrition. The only candy found in the Marlins clubhouse is Mike and Ike's, which don't contain any fat. But forget about chocolate bars and peanut-butter cups.

What site are you using to get those splits from? This site has them: http://firstinning.com/players/Cameron-Maybin-525/

Give Jeremy a break on the flyball. He's only 24. I had no problem with Porter sending him. It took a perfect play to throw him out and even so it was pretty close. It's not like in '05 under Jeff Cox (?) when we frequently had guys thrown out by 10 feet. Seriously.........There are a couple thousand High School kids that could have made that catch. The fact that he is 24 makes it worse. I wasn't serious.

Give Jeremy a break on the flyball. He's only 24. I had no problem with Porter sending him. It took a perfect play to throw him out and even so it was pretty close. It's not like in '05 under Jeff Cox (?) when we frequently had guys thrown out by 10 feet.

Joe Morgan gets my vote since the 1940s. I don't know about the ones before then.

And next time Diaz is up, knock him on his butt. What did he do?

A lot of baserunners is maybe 1.50 or so per inning. Miller allows 2.21 per inning. There's a difference there. To allow 11 baserunners and allow only one earned run means he did an excellent job of spreading out the baserunners over the 5 innings. Awesome. He still belongs in AA.

do guys on BBTN believe we could gave mets and phy,brave run for nl east miamibaseball, I'm not on Baseball Tonight but I'll give you my opinion. I think it's too early to tell if we can compete with the big boys. So far this season we have several guys like Jacobs, Cantu, Hendrickson, Hammer and Olsen putting up numbers that noone would have predicted. I thinks it's doubtful all of them or even most of them will keep it up. Also, the rotation spots 3 to 5 is a mess. I think Nolsaco may turn out to be fine because he did have some success in '06. But the 4 and 5 spots are a mess and I wouldn't count on Sanchez or Johnson doing anything this year. The bullpen is a major strenght but I'm concerned we may have injury problems if they keep pitching as much as they are. Mitre could help but keep in mind Mitre has a career ERA around 5.00 so he's not a sure fire savior.

Another step forward in the maturation process for Miller but he needs to get his pitch count down his next time out. In his first five starts, he's thrown 21 pitches per inning. To focus on the pitch count is ridiculous. The reason his pitch counts are high is because he allows too many hits and walks too many people. Last night for example he faced 24 hitters (excluding the pitcher) and 11 of them reached base on a hit or a walk. I don't know how allowing almost half the hitters you face to reach base can somehow be spinned into it being a good thing.

He hasn't hit .300 since 2003. Because batting average matters. :lol Try looking at OPS and OPS + And even if you are a fan of batting average, Inge isn't very strong in that department either. So OPS is the end all to be all? Yes.

In the blowout win in Washington Fredi let him get up to 120 pitches but then in the close games he took him out after 82 and 98 pitches. I guess there's some logic behind Fredi's thinking. I just don't know what it is. Pulling him after 82 pitches right after a 120 pitch performance this early in the season makes me think he was looking after Scotty's health more than anything. The way Scotty was cruising MAYBE he could have gone the whole game. But MAYBE that potent line up would have had him figured out and started their own rally, down by only 2 runs at that point. Both were close games when Scotty was pulled. Fredi went with pitching matchups with fresh pitchers instead of letting the hitters see more of our starter and then our offense padded those leads. I see no problem with going with one of the best bull pens in the NL to help protect a lead and get the starter a win. And we did chalk up 2 wins this way. To me, that's the logic behind it. If a pitcher is mowing down the opposing team and has a low pitch count I would keep him in and more so in a situation like ours in which 3 of the 5 rotation spots barely pitch 4 or 5 innings per start which puts a great toll on the bullpen. I don't know why but I thought you subscribed to Jack's "finish what they started" theory but I guess my memory failed me or maybe you changed you mind about it.

The fact that you wanted 2-12 slumping Helms to pinch hit instead of Rabelo shows that you don't know much about baseball either. Helms did win the game Saturday night with a hit...

The improvement in Hanley's defense from 2007 to 2008 has been stellar and no disrespect meant* when I say you don't need stats to confirm the obvious (although I suppose it doesn't hurt). * literally no disrespect meant Yes, I agree, I just worded it poorly. It's obvious he's playing imporved defense. I just like to quantify things.

Ryan Sandberg? That's just off the top of my head, there must be more. I'm not sure if Sandberg even belongs. He's a borderline guy. If he's so deserving then Trammel and Whitaker should get a lot of consideration. I would probably leave all of them out. Other than Ozzie, are there any other worse hitters to make it to the hall of fame the past 30 years (excluding the veterans committee guys)?

Yeah Chipper has been playing like an expensive aged wine lately. Not a big fan of the guy but the numbers speak for themselves. I think he gets the nod 1st ballot as well. I've been thinking about this and didn't want my dislike for the person to taint my view of the player. That said, IDK Chipper will be a 1st Ballot. There have been many more deserving players that didn't get in until 2nd or 3rd ballot just b/c of the way some guys vote. Voters will also have to consider his numbers in the context of a murky era of baseball rank with steroids allegations. It will be very interesting to see how his candidacy is received. Can you name a few?