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I'll take someone who just gets on in front of the 3/4 on this team. With what they do, OBP should be the be-all/end-all determinant. Speed is better suited in the back of this team's lineup.

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West Oahu? That's Wainae. Don't be a JOJ haole there after night.

And you "knew" that one, eh? Nice try, it takes about 10 seconds to look it up.

Oh, come on now. You supposedly "knew" Pedroia's numbers through 40 ABs. Don't tell me you don't know these now? You done slipped up. No doot aboot it.

3-0 to go up 3-0. Hey, at least the Yankee fans have something to cheer for now. There's a possibility they won't occupy the top pedestal of postseason collapses by themselves now. Go Tigs!

They also avoided arbitration with Jae Seo. link

Yeah, that would work, but I think you'd need to go back farther, maybe 20 years, to get a big enough sample. And separating RP from SP would probably be a good idea too (as well as setting minimum IP requirements for both).

Not true. He delivered a quality start in I think all but one of those W's. His ERA was so high because when he was bad, he was completely awful. And on your point about the league adjustment. How do you propose to isolate the league as the only factor? I'm genuinely interested, but I don't think it can be done. Every pitcher fluctuates in performance from year to year for various reasons. Take Mussina for example. He just pitched brilliantly after two straight 4.40+ ERA seasons. Had he switched leagues, the league adjustment would get all of that credit in your system. I don't see any way of objectively determining the adjustment by looking only at the small number of pitchers who switch leagues due to these annual variances. It's close to impossible to isolate the league factor from all the other ones.

The smaller/lighter ball is still a wound baseball. I'd imagine it's density is about the same. So, while it is lighter, its smaller size results in less profile for drag. It's all about the density, not the mass. The drop in velocity from release to catch is probably about the same. However, with a heavier ball, the release velocity is less. I don't know which ball they use in INT play.

How is Matsuzaka any different? He'll cost more than Schmidt, leaving less money for other players, meaning he's the only marble in the basket. Both have risk to consider, but if things go wrong, Schmidt won't be a long-term acquisition, so he'll be easier to recover from. Totally untrue. A ping-pong ball leaves your hand with much more velocity and rotation than a baseball. Simple physics. Your arm is capable of providing a finite amount of energy. That is transfered to the ball. Kinetic energy is one-half the product of mass and velocity squared. If the mass is smaller, the velocity must be larger to have the same energy transfer. But, due to it being hollow, the ping-pong ball has very little density. There is very little mass to go with the profile that moves through the air. This means the drag force slows it down very quickly. By the time your eyes have registered its trajectory, it is going slower.

What don't you get? The ERA difference is the difference in the run scoring environment. Actually, the RA is the difference, but let's leave errors out of this. There is your adjustment.

BB-ref. Use the leagues link and you can look at the league pitching performance year by year. Nice try, though. Baseball-Reference.com

All of those articles do the same thing. They cherry-pick examples that agree with what they are trying to sell. None of them are sound statistical analysis.

Clement, Pavano, Vazquez (the first time), Johnson, and Kevin Brown are throw-away examples. Clement only increased by .89 runs, but pitched to a first half ERA marginally higher than the 3.68 he posted in 2004. Hindsight shows that his arm was toast. Pavano started the year very well last year, but got shelled a few times before hitting the DL. Hindsight again shows this is injury related more than a league adjustment. Vazquez (first time) started the year well too in '04, but it has been widely reported that he pitched through a sore shoulder in the 2nd half. His second jump to the AL only resulted in a .40 gain. For Brown and Johnson, look at this.... Player Year League ERA Brown 2003 NL 2.39 Brown 2004 AL 4.09 Brown 2005 AL 6.50 Johnson 2004 NL 2.60 Johnson 2005 AL 3.79 Johnson 2006 AL 5.00 They got even worse in their second year in the AL. Given their age and back problems, it's much more likely that the cause was physical than it was league adjustment. Guestimating the number at one is complete crap. If it was 1, then the league ERAs would reflect that from year to year, but they don't. The difference is usually around .30 runs.

Link? Show me an article with statistical analysis that shows the league adjustment is a full run. Off the top of my head I looked a few of the recent NL to AL transfers. Some were over a run (Loaiza - 1.20, Beckett - 1.50), most were less than a half a run (Schilling, Burnett, Vazquez), and a couple even lowered their ERA (Millwood, Haren). That figure is public perception, and that's where you likely got it from.

Where does this run arbitrarily come from? Everyone seems to think that a move to the AL is automatically +1 to the ERA. The NL ERA average over the last 6 years was about 4.30. His 3.85 is .45 runs better than league average. The AL average has been about 4.50 during that time. He's a low 4's ERA pitcher in the AL based on what he did in the NL. He didn't do that this year, obviously, but outside of a freakish HR rate, his periphs are right where you'd expect them to be for that type of pitcher.

The only way they make money in Japan is if NESN is allowed to be sold over there. Otherwise, all broadcast and merchandising dollars are shared evenly as part of MLB's general revenues. They'll make money off of him no matter who he signs with.

Of course they'd be closer since the AL is the better offensive league. But, I don't think they'd be anywhere near what Wrights career numbers are. Beckett's periphs did about what you'd expect moving from the NL to the AL. About 10% more H's, 15-20% less K's, and 10% more BB's per 9 innings, which is right in line with the league differences. What killed him was a flukey high HR/9 rate. I'm not trying to absolve him of guilt there, but I'll be shocked if that rate keeps up given his other peripheral numbers.

Busting balls, or are you really that full of it? Sure, they share early postseason success, but the similarity stops there.

Why is Matsuzaka the "easiest" to land because all it takes is loot? Isn't that true of Zito and Schmidt as well? And, I see Matsuzaka requiring the most loot to land when you add in the length of contract he'll be seeking due to his age, agent (Boras), and posting fee. Sure, they forfeit a draft pick for either of Zito or Schmidt, but they've had so many early round extras the last two years that I don't see that as a huge issue. For the total money it would take to land Matsuzaka, they could probably get Schmidt for less commitment time and Ted Lilly or Vincente Padilla. The team needs more than one SP in my mind. Don't forget to consider this either. The brilliance of his stuff is aided by the smaller, lighter ball in Japan. A bigger, heavier ball can't be thrown as hard or with as much break. Also, his brilliant command has been with a larger strike zone. I'm skeptical of his command until I see him do it with regular AL umps calling the game. I'm not saying this kid doesn't have talent, but I do question the level of hype he's getting right now. Look at Irabu's numbers before he came to the MLB. They are similar to what Matsuzaka is doing now. That should be a big red flag.