Thank goodness for the NL Central. There's no other division where you could lose 12 of 15 but come back and enter a tie for first place.

Milwaukee plays at Minnesota this weekend then hosts Arizona and Cincinnati to close out the half. Our guys go to Tampa Bay, then host Cincinnati and Arizona. The time for dicking around is over.

Uh-oh. The Red Sox DFA'd Mike Cameron. That has "Randy Winn" all over it.

Switching gears, who had June 30 in the Lance Berkman 20 HR pool?

For that matter, who had Lance Berkman with 20 HR?  And those were man-sized blasts tonight--about 880 feet worth of home runs.

Any chance Milo Hamilton is working the All-Star Game?

Brandon Dickson is coming up.

forsberg_us wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

Brandon Dickson is coming up.

Who?????

Right-handed starting pitcher. I think he led Memphis in wins last year. I presume he'll work out of the pen.

"For that matter, who had Lance Berkman with 20 HR?"

Not me. I didn't think he'd have 20 XBHs this season.

Speaking of injured players, what happens to Tony Cruz when Laird is healthy? Or what ought to happen to Tony Cruz when Laird is healthy? Laird was fine when before he got hurt. But he doesn't give you anything Cruz doesn't. I suppose the prudent thing to do is send Cruz back to Memphis so he can get more at bats than he would in the majors, but he's been pretty darn good up here.

forsberg_us wrote:

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

CC Sabathia improved to a meaningless 11-4

Was that dig at me, or am I seeing things that aren't there?

Not you in particular. I'm just getting a little tired of people who are trying to prove they're smarter than everyone else by coming up with yet another new statistic while devaluing one that has been around since the game began.

The award for the best pitcher is called the Cy Young Award. In very simple terms, Cy Young won more games than any pitcher ever has or likely ever will. I haven't checked, but I suspect he doesn't have the all-time best WHIP, he may not have had the best WAR or the lowest fielding independent ERA.

I'm not saying that the pitcher with the most wins should get the CYA, nor am I saying that there isn't value in the sabr numbers. I just wish people (again not directed at you) would just quit trying to convince me that other basic stats like wins or RBIs aren't important. At the very heart of the game, a win is the most important outcome that takes place on the field.

The issue is the hyperbole: I never said pitcher wins are meaningless, but I have said they're stupid.  I don't object to debating things I have said, but I object to arguments that unfairly caricature what I have said.

Pitcher wins and RBIs are very different things to me because of their definition.  The definition of a pitcher win is what makes it so goofy to me, particularly when we observe that someone will get the win, whether it is the starter or a reliever.  RBi is a perfectly good stat, although I do not doubt that statisticians can find a way to control for the effect of ballpark, opposing pitcher, and other variables that allow us to get a better predictor of effectiveness at batting a run in than RBI.

As I said Max, it wasn't directly specifically at you.

I just don't see the point of writing an article about how many wins Carpenter could have. As Artie said he is what his record says and right now that's a 3 win pitcher. The game isn't played in "hypothetical
land."

There has been a movement to devalue the RBI under the theory that it's dependent on the success of others (you can't drive in runs unless others get on base). Mostly it's by the same people who argue there is no such thing as a clutch hitter. Again, at it's simplest, the idea is to win, and the way you win is to score more runs than the other team.

Think about it this way, if you watch the NFL, do you judge your team's QB by wins, yards and TD passes or by QB Rating?   You're a Jim McMahon fan, aren't you? I don't have a clue what McMahon's QB rating was, but I seem to remember he had a pretty sick winning percentage as a starting QB.

forsberg_us wrote:

I just don't see the point of writing an article about how many wins Carpenter could have.

I posted it because it addressed two points we have discussed:

1. pitcher wins

2. quality starts

I agree with you that I don't really care about hypothetical stats, but in this case I think Goold was trying to write an article that tried to quantify how much better Carp was than his W-L record, as an homage to Carp and his fans, but I think he kind of failed.  Not a big deal to try and fail . . . that's where about 99% of the most valuable part of human efforts go.  Those guys have to fill lots of pages, and I find more value, and less harm, in an article like that, than in a muckraker's attempts to stir the pot.  With umpteen dedicated sports writers just at the PD, we are fortunate that we don't have deal with muckrakers' muck.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"You're a Jim McMahon fan, aren't you? I don't have a clue what McMahon's QB rating was, but I seem to remember he had a pretty sick winning percentage as a starting QB."

With that defense, Maggie Smith could have QB'd the Bears to a 15-1 record that year. And I don't mean even the 1985 version of Maggie Smith, I mean the today's wrinkled Minvera McGonagle version who looks like she's one stiff wind gust away from being blown into a coma.

That would have been something to watch.  Sort of a sequel to something that might have been called The Prime of Mr. John Brodie.

Last edited by JV (7/01/2011 11:52 am)

artie_fufkin wrote:

Oh, and he went to Stanford. Probably because his grades weren't good enough for admission to Arizona State.

Hmmm. And all this time I thought ASU was for the University of Phoenix students who weren't smart enough to turn on their computers.

Oh, and left handers. I hear lefties get automatic admission to ASU.

Thanks for picking up on the reference, Artie.  I wish we had a 'like' button here as I'm too lazy or busy to acknowledge some of your best material.  It gets noticed.

I once walked past, and exchanged "Hello"s with, Brodie in full NBC Sports regalia (oddly-colored sport coat with logo) at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.  At that game, my buddy and I were castigated by Browns fans for daring to cheer for the Raiders instead of our "home team".  Nowadays, I think I'd be pretty quiet in a similar situation.