ORS

Clearly he's destined for greatness.

Range.

Lowell's been awful quiet lately.

I think Remy was right, you can see the reception effected him. All Douchebaggerer needed to do there was get it over, but he couldn't even do that.

Please explain how Cashman makes these types of trades more likely. I contend that the goal is to get the Yankees in the playoffs for TV ratings, and I note that the beginning of the questionable period from JHB's analysis coincides with when the chances of the Yankees missing the playoffs was greatest. That is a really simple connection, one without assumption. I think your explanation will be best served if speculation and assumption are removed as well.

Think about what you are saying. You are suggesting that, supposing collusion did occur, the willful improvement of the Yankees in order to get them into the playoffs for TV ratings is OK because they didn't happen to win a championship. If you find that acceptable, so be it, but I don't.

When does the trend he mentioned start? 2005. In which year did the latest Yankee dynasty stop holding 1st place in the AL East standings on July 31? 2005. No connection there, right?

I think it's more complicated than that, almost a chicken and the egg scenario. I think Boras certainly filled his head with visions of a longer more lucrative contract than the options presented. But, why did he hire Boras in the first place? All we heard prior to him hiring Boras was that he wanted the options picked up. I think Manny became a bit paranoid that it wouldn't happen, then went out and got the agent with the big money reputation for his, in his mind, impending free-agency. Many have claimed the Sox could have put this issue to bed by making a decision on his options at some point earlier in this season, and I agree, that would have assuaged his concerns, one way or the other. What I don't get is why it's fair to expect them to make the decision before the contract says they have to.

In short 26, you've posted your "feelings" on the issue, and you've demonstrated you aren't going to investigate if your feelings are perhaps misguided. Since they won't change, there's nothing more you can add to the discussion. Now run along and let the grown folks talk. Mmm'kay?

Childish? Read your posts in this thread, then read mine and JHB's. Which sound more emotional? A child is incapable of removing emotion and discussing things rationally. You have done nothing other say [paraphrased], "I don't like this make it stop", and then insulted people. That is childish behavior. Jealousy? What do I have to jealous of? The results of these games have no impact on my life. I don't place the amount of importance on the outcome of sports as you seem to, given the amount of times you tried to tell us how much better life is as a Yankee fan, another childish idea. My boy? I think I've explained my reasons for agreement with JHB when asked. You've chipped in with, "lol pwnt" and the like, in support of the bluster of Gom. Wonderful examples of your maturity. On the field? Gee, I wonder if the people on the roster have any impact who wins on the filed? Look into if for me, would ya, and let me know. No evidence? Are you really this unfamiliar with what we call evidence in our justice system? We use things like blood type, dna, fingerprints, forensic pathology, etc to prosecute crimes and build a case. All of these things paint a picture despite none of them having 100% accuracy as to the identifcation of a person or the cause of death. JHB has built a case on the data he examined. You have whined like a slapped bitch in response. Who's the child now?

This is the stats vs. scouts argument, and you are going into it with bad information. Tabata is not making consistent solid contact. Consistent? Maybe. He's on pace for 100 K's in 650 PA. Solid? Not even. His IsoP is a microscopic .062. Even if he's not developed enough to take it out of the park regularly, he would be driving it into the gaps for XBH's with more frequency if he were making "consistent solid contact".

Look how far out of the park that s*** is on Gameday.

By Batting Runs, courtesy BBRef, which are linear weights (most accurate) relative to league average, Manny is at 22.2 to Bay's 21.2. Over 110 games, their offensive contibution is only separated by a run. Add the baserunning and defense, and I like this. The only complaint I've seen that has some validity is concern over an AL/NL adjustment.

I was looking for something more fundamental. A baseball trade is the exchange of assets between two businesses. When you remove titles and names and lingo, it's a business swap. When it has been demonstrated that some of these businesses can benefit financially through the success of another due to the confederation that they have formed, the league, it opens a pandora's box where conflict of interest lies, with the conflict being that the goal to make money is sometimes at odds with the goal to be successful on the field. We've all lamented the lower echelon payroll teams for pocketting the money distributed to them from profit sharing. The simple truth is that for some of these owners, it is more about the bottom line than it is about fielding a legitimately competitive team. In such an environment, it's not possible to simply dismiss the idea that collusion could exist and call it common sense. If fact, the exact opposite is true. Common sense should recognize the conflict of interest and the nature of some teams who are more profit oriented, and accept that collusion is and should be part of a reasonable discussion, provided the discussion has merits through analysis of the transactions that occur. So, for you to say that tampering is possible and likely, yet to dismiss collusion as a possiblity, I feel you are missing the big picture. That's all.

About the only thing it's good for is looking back and using to figure out who's contribution was more meaningful for their team over a given season (or period of time). Even so, there's a better stat than that for determining "clutch" value.

Mr Clutch himself.... .938 career, .930 RISP http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=ortizda01&year=00

Nice, .969 career, .959 RISP. Choker.

Well, if you think about it, the first and the second kind of say the same thing. What the studies that have been done have shown is that there is very limited demonstration of "clutch" performance by players when you look at their whole careers in the various "clutch" splits. Given a large enough career to have a season's worth of stats in any give category, the large majority of players will have numbers that are in line with their career stats. Not surprisingly, Bay, a .281 career hitter, is a career .280 hitter with RISP. If you prefer more telling stats, and I do, he's .901/.891 in OPS.

I would like to correct two incorrect posts earlier in this thread. One, Jacko said PNC favored RH batters. Wrong, the configuration of the park has the biggest part of the OF being LF and LCF. Two, somebody said Bay's hit chart favored RF. This is wrong too, at least it is if you go for the larger sample size and look at his career in PNC. He hits the majority of his HR to LF, and a very large amount of his 2B. There are quite a few FB that are beyond the dimensions of the monster. He'll be a good fit in this park.