ksushi

Dude. Go look at a guy's career stats before you say someone is "over-achieving." Don't be a joke. JD has made consistent improvement, more or less, in each half he has played in Boston. His second half boost last year came from an INSANE September, but he was amazing for your favorite team down the stretch after having an incredibly tough year at the plate and at home. How can you call a guy who turns it on so well in September and October soft? Maybe you need to choose your words more carefully. " I believe he misses to many games with things a lot of guys play through" is what I think you are trying to say. Sure, that is valid and a very frustrating truth about JD Drew. However, he has yet to miss significant time with the Red Sox, and despite a rough start has been very productive in his year and almost a half here. Very productive. .323 15 HR and 57 RBI since august first of last summer. Keep complaining

Is there another city out there more like a big college campus? I've never seen sports teams root for each other like here. I think it's awesome. Love him or hate him (both for me) I also think it is pretty sweet that Schill blogs about his experience as an athlete and as an idiot. Its great.

Yeah, I take some good offense to this as a long-time from day 1 Drew supporter. Name names, and quote quotes or endure the wrath of all five of us.

Dude, first, instead of just linking an article, maybe add something to the conversation. We all have yahoo, and secondly, Curts blog is on the internet, and I think Curt was pretty non-judgemental of Kobe, just said he was surprised to see how basketball players play their game. I don't have the article up right now, but I remember him saying something to the effect of "Hey he puts up 30 a game, can't argue with that." C'mon, man. Calling out Curt Schilling is supposed to be easy, I think you may have failed at it if thats what you were trying to do. But since you said nothing, I guess I don't really know.

Congrats to David Ortiz, then! Next goal: run for Governor.

Taliesin, stop posting three times in a row. Consolidate all that crap into one, incoherent, substance-less, perhaps drunken post. Who ever moderated your post did you favor. And I bet who ever did it is also incredibly handsome and suave.

This is off topic, but do you know why pierce was stabbed? Edit - prediction: Not trying to be a homer, but I think the celts are locked the f*** in. Celtics pull it out like Kobe in Colorado, 99 - 96 on a James Posey 3. Not guilty.

I called CC's poor playoff showing last year and I don't like his weight. I want a guy who can pitch in october, with the weight he already carries around, I think it could be tough for him to also be carrying around 200+ innings at the end of the season. No, thanks.

I don't know what numbers you envisioned, but I think that a solid fielding, .318 hitting, .523 slugging right fielder is pretty damn solid. Since last august (5 months of baseball including the post-season and this season), he is hitting .326 with 14 HR's and 56 RBI. In each half he has played with boston he has showed steady improvement putting up a .258/.368/.391 line in his first half in Boston, which left a lot to be desired but it was his first three months in the american league. He followed that up with a .286/.379/.462 line, that doesn't tell the whole story - it is solid, but his july and september numbers were night and day. He lost his mind last september and october. And so far this year he has showed that he is more of september and much less of what he was in july going .318/.419/.523 so far this half. It was an adjustment, but he has made it, and at this point, no one has ANYTHING to complain about.

I think his question wasn't about what the team had to gain by his return, but at the time of the injury, what did pierce or the celtics gain by him being carried off the court? To fake an injury with the intentions of coming back to pump up your team is just about the most unlikely thing I've ever heard of.

edit - nevermind actual work to do, pedro stuff coming eventually.

Since, and including the day of the brawl, I've seen a difference in the way Pedroia is attacking pitchers. I don't know if that will show up on any stat sheets, but he had some loud outs during that game, and had a couple of brilliant at bats against Bedard. THAT is how a pro breaks out of a slump, and Pedroia is exactly that. He'll bust it, and be that corner-to-corner hitter he was last year. I'm confident in that. After seeing him emerge from that early season slump last year, and seeing him be one of the most consistent hitters on the team down the stretch, I trust him to break out of whatever slump he is in. That is what good hitters do.

I think if he had been tossed and MLB ruled it was unintentional, I would be fine with that. Basically his suspension amounts to literally nothing, so I don't think it is worth wasting time on. It's an extra day of rest. Big woop. And, Yaz, Lester didn't get in the crowd during the brawl.

If you look at just the time spent on the field and you don't consider time on the DL as a strike against, Pedro was dominant from 97 to 03.

Honestly, I think we get max value by trading another first basemen on our roster. Youk's perceived value is pretty high, and I think Carter is more likely to sustain a reasonably productive pace at the plate for an entire season. The question is, does Youk's defense level it off a little bit? I would be quick to think not, only because I am a firm believer in defense up the middle, offense at the corners, but that is my personal philosophy, and all of those are always subject to change.

I know it makes a difference, but what I'm saying is simply that the pitcher doesn't neccessarily determine how many innings he pitches during a season because we know now the reprucussions of a workload of Koufax-esque proportions and keep our pitchers now from putting such stress on their shoulders. It is a difference in era, the game has changed drastically over the last 50 years.

Chances Carter ever sticks with the sox?

The usage patterns for starting pitchers now as opposed to back in the sixties is drastically different, and last time I checked people are still being built the same way, but the game has changed. A starting pitcher then was expected to finish a game, where as now, completing six innings is acceptable. Point: (all you really need to read) Pitchers now can't be knocked for their lack of IP per season as compared to their predecessors. Don't hate the playa, hate the game. I'd like to see the avg. IP for a starter now as compared to the 60's. I bet the difference makes guys now look like sissies.

Ain't that somethin'. How do they figure that? And... to clarify I was only question his ability to field his position.

I think it is important to mention that Pedro was dominating while baseball was just in the beginning stages of its return to the forefront of the sports scene in the U.S. AND it wasn't pitching that brough us all back. It was the long ball. America fell in love with the home run. Pitchers were not as idolized as hitters in the 90's which I think is interesting because five of the best pitchers ever to throw (Johnson, Clemens, Pedro, Maddux and Glavine) thrived during the 90's. And I'm sure I'm leaving some pitchers out.

And the avg. league ERA during 2000 was over 5. Amazing.

JD has been hitting the cover off the ball.

So, I'm at work today and I have nothing to do but sit and stare at BaseballReference.com and think about baseball. Today, I was looking at Sandy Koufax for awhile and the traditional wisdom seems to be that he is the best pitcher ever. Obviously, there are a whole bunch of other names you can throw in that discussion (Randy Johnson, Bob Gibson, etc...), but I want to start a debate. I think Pedro Martinez is the best pitcher to ever tow the rubber. To start, look at each of their best years. They both had great careers, and dominated for a decent stretch (Pedro longer, but if Koufax was around in our day, he wouldn't have had to retired early). Someone could call me out on what I consider to be each of their best years, but to determine that I'm only using the staple-stats (W-L, IP, ERA, and K). I think that paints a clear enough picture for the sake of starting this thing off. For Pedro we're looking at 1999. Koufax, 1963. Koufax dominated 1963 hardcore. 25 - 5, 306 K in 311 IP and and a 1.88 ERA. Dominant. It's not by accident people think he is the best. I heard somewhere that his curveball spun twice as fast as the average major league curveball. I don't know how they measured it, or anything like that, it could just be myth, but thats very impressive if true. Clearly had very good stuff. I just don't think this qualifies as one of the best years ever. Randy Johnson had a six or seven year stretch in his 30's in which I would say every year he had until his back injury was better than Koufax's best year. In a tougher league, for nine years, Johnson sustained a high level of dominance against more impressive competition facing over 1000 batters a year, I think twice. I think Koufax is very very good, but even though it wasn't the best pitching era, I would argue that the 90's into the early 2000's (?) was an era that featured the best pitchers ever. The league ERA in 1963 was 2.99, and how can you judge the dominance of one player without taking into consideration the performance of the rest of the players of that era? He dominated in a pitching dominated league. Impressive, yeah, he is crazy, but Pedro RAPED 1999. I'll get to Pedro later, I'm getting kicked off of this computer, but come on, debate! someone yell at me for being wrong cause I must be some where.