On Comments
Thanks to all who wrote to tell me that the comments were down. I was unaware that there was a problem, as I was doing some VORP calculations. Things look like they are working now.
I probably won't address the nesting issue until at least this weekend. You can collapse the comments by clicking on the upper left hand corner of a a comment thread. If you don't like the threads, just add comments to the end. Remember that in a game thread the last ten comments are in the left hand column.
Sorry folks didn't like the comment threading.
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Cup of Coffee   72 LTEs
Wolves lose again by 22, Kevin Love down to 17 minutes. This is the worst possible situation for the Wolves. They are driving what is left of their fan base with a tremendous stretch of terrible basketball. Their best, or second-best, player has checked out and is getting buried on the bench. I doubt that Love is in their long term plans. How's that O.J. Mayo deal looking now?
Citizens Online 29 Users Online
Users: nibbish, Rhubarb_Runner, E-6, DK, SBG, hungry joe, Klawitter, Milt on Tilt, sean, spookymilk, 15 Guests, 4 Bots
Retired WGOM Jokes
- "The Twins should have drafted Mark Prior."
Race to the Bottom: Highest Loss Totals in T-Wolves History 67: 1991-92
63: 1992-93
62: 1993-94
61: 1994-95
60: 1989-90, 2007-08
58: 2008-09
56: 1995-96
55: 2009-10
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I can't believe there was no Jeter-love here today. The little ba--ard got another "clutch" hit Sunday night to tie the game. I saw this documentary once about behind the scenes at Monday Night Football in the glory days with Cosell and Company and how skillful the producers were at punctuating a specific storyline. It made me think of ESPNs Sunday night broadcast.
It does seem like -in every broadcast, even without the announcers saying anything, the visuals are constanly turning A-Rod into a villian to Jeter's hero. It's no wonder the guy has an image/performance problem. Maybe he needs to do one of those goofy "Dances with Steinbrenner" commmercials to lighten up his image.
Also - that Yankee line-up has always seemed menacing - but this year they seem extra-menacing. How is it that the wheels just never come off for those guys?
$200 million solves a lot of problems. If a guy doesn't work there, they move him and eat a bunch of the salary. They have means to do things that no other team in the league has.
Jeter has had a fabulous season.
Go figure. The guy has an excellent career, perhaps building the foundation toward a run at the HOF, hits the wrong side of 30 -- playing a speed/skill position, no less -- and gets better. Hits better and -- inexplicably -- fields better.
I find it sorta ironic that many statgeeks still display latent animosity toward him and seem to be behind the curve when it comes to assessing his value today.
I suppose this is a good a place as any to state that I have just three words to describe John Gibbons right now:
"DEAD MAN WALKING!"
LOL. What brought that on?
Ted Lilly gave him a bloody nose last night. It's pretty crazy, really. You should check out game recap from last night. They claim no punches were thrown, but it's tough to get a bloody nose in a heated debate without some physical contact. Lilly showed up Gibbons on the mound, so some of it was certainly Ted's fault, but it's pretty clear now that the players don't really respect Gibbons much, and having a hothead manager who follows players down the clubhouse tunnel to start a shoving match? I don't think I'd want him in charge of my squad.
Also - that Yankee line-up has always seemed menacing - but this year they seem extra-menacing. How is it that the wheels just never come off for those guys?
Today, looking at the Yankees-Red Sox box score, it finally hit me how much that Abreu trade sucks. I mean, seriously, the Yankes got a #3 hitter and a #4-5ish starter for 1 pseudo-prospect and 3 non-prospects. The only catch? They needed to absorb all of the contract money. The only purpose the Phillies had in getting rid of those guys was to dump their salary. How would this lineup look?
Castillo
Punto
Mauer
Abreu
Morneau
Cuddyer
Hunter
Kubel/Rondell
JB
We could have just stuck a guy with a career .413 OBP in front of Morneau. I likes me some Michael Cuddyer, but he's no Bobby Abreu. That would be a tough lineup generally, and Mauer/Abreu/Morneau doesn't sound a whole lot worse than Thome/Konerko/Dye.
And Lidle would either be a reasonable replica of Bonser or a reason to let Garza work on some more stuff in AAA so that he doesn't have to do so much learning in a high-pressure playoff situation.
Let's just say I'm not going (at least temporarily) to be a very happy camper if the Twins get run out of the playoffs with Mr. Abreu having a big series.
And the Phillies are in the playoff hunt now, too! How is that not a story? A team in contention (enough so that they went ahead and bothered to acquire Jamie Moyer) dumped a .300+ EQA hitter on someone else for a bunch of 18 year olds.
As much as the luxury tax and increased revenue sharing has helped (and they have helped the teams that are willing to be helped, the Twins included), Steinbrenner can just spend a lot more money than anyone else and still make a profit. Frustrating.
I love to watch the Yankees lose in the playoffs as much as anyone, but perhaps the Yankees losing to the Marlins, D-Backs, Angels, and Red Sox wasn't such a good thing after all. I think the Yankees enduring a five-year "drought" -- of course, it isn't really a drought -- has taken people's minds off a system that is perversely skewed in favor of the Yankees right now.
Baseball being a much more luck-dependent sport can seemingly ignore the problem for longer than other sports; but I think that in the long run the vast competitive inequities are proving to be bad for baseball in a philosophical and perhaps even business sense.
There just doesn't seem to be any way to move toward a salary cap with the strength the player's union possesses.
In principle, I don't really like salary caps. I'd really prefer some sort of idealized situation where organization create their own breaks. Make good decisions, get more fans, and watch the revenue go up. Make poor decisions, see lower attendance, and watch the revenue down, which eventually leads to a change in leadership and hopefully someone making better decisions.
The problem as I see it is that the disparity in how easy it is for certain teams to create extra revenue is pretty big. When you've got 18M+ in your metro area, it's a lot easier to create revenue than when you've got 2-3M in your metro area. My favorite proposal is the Zumsteg Plan, proposed by former-BP, now-USSMariner author Derek Zumsteg. It's not perfect, but I like the idea of basing revenue sharing on population more than other plans I've seen.
After July 30, the day before the trade with NY, the Phillies were 49-54, 5 games behind the Reds for the wild card. Since then, the team is 13-8 to reach .500, making up 2.5 games in the race (to catch a .520 frontrunner). It's not the most scintillating story, yet. I guess the media may start to pay attention if the Phillies can actually catch the Reds, or even just post a winning record.
It does suck that the Phillies traded Abreu to NY without getting a single blue chip prospect back. The Yankees just bought his contract thru 2007, with an option for 2008. That's it. Sold.
After July 30, the day before the trade with NY, the Phillies were 49-54, 5 games behind the Reds for the wild card. Since then, the team is 13-8 to reach .500, making up 2.5 games in the race (to catch a .520 frontrunner).
This year's NL wild card race is weird. There are a ton of teams that are close, which usually makes it tougher to make up X number of games, but at the same time, all of the teams involved are highly flawed. So usually I would say that 5 games can be a lot to make up in a race with that many teams, but when you can make up ground just by going .500? That changes the expectations a bit.
It seems like it should be exciting because there are so many teams, but it's nearly impossible for me to get excited about any of them. It would've gotten a lot more interesting if someone who was a little closer to contention pulled off the Kearns+Lopez trade. That sort of swag could've pushed a fringe contender into the driver's seat. As it is, no one really added much, so it's still pretty wide open.
The Yankees just bought his contract thru 2007, with an option for 2008. That’s it. Sold.
Exactly. And you know what? That's a pretty nice free agent contract. Is it expensive per year? Sure, but there's basically no long term risk. What often makes free agent contracts go bad is the last two or three years of a four or five year deal. I'd be surprised if anyone signs a comparable hitter to a better contract this offseason.
I like the nesting. I do!
I do, too.
Maybe if we avoid nesting during game logs, it would be a little easier?
That's not a bad idea. I do like the nesting when I'm catching up on threads I've missed. Another thing that could help is some sort of indication that a post, specifically a nested one, is new. But I have no idea how hard that is to implement.
I don't know how to do it, but I'm not sure that everyone understands that the list or recent comments in the left hand column have hyperlinks that take you right to the comment.
I just wanted to be part of the nesting process. I have nothing useful to add to the conversation.
I was just checking out the "odds of making postseason" graph as we climbed over 50% today. It is just amazing that from May 1st through July 1st, we had less than a 5% chance of making the playoffs. To be over 50% now is incredible. For the past 30 days I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I am really feeling good about our chances to play .600 or better ball. If we do that, I think we get the wild card. If we can knock of the Tigers head to head we have a shot at the division. Did anyone feel we had even a remote chance of this in May? I sure didn't
I am stunned that the Twins now have a better shot of making it than not making it. It seems inconceivable.
I assume we have the better shot due to upcoming schedule, as we have a lighter schedule than the White Sox. Is this the case?
That might be part of it, however, the Twins have a better adjusted winning percentage (WIN3) than the White Sox, so BP thinks that the Twins are a better team than the White Sox.
I remember right before they started this streak when they were getting their collective a$$es handed to them by the likes of the Mariners. I had pretty much quit watching any game not started by Santana. I had totally left them for dead, which I assume most everyone else had done, too. It seemed like there was no heart on this team whatsoever.
I wonder how their current run compares to that of the Astros last year or the year before was it? What about the A's nice runs a few years back? Is this an historic comeback? Let's just sit back and appreciate this remarkable season regardless of the outcome.
Actually, once they dumped the dictator duo, I tended to watch the team more. Mauer was just unconscious at the plate--he was a complete freak show around the end of May/beginning of June. And seeing JB play was a lot of fun, too, along with every Liriano start I could catch. Then they started winning 80% of the time, and that's pretty fun to follow along with.
At that point (dumping Castro/Batista), I knew the Twins weren't going to make the playoffs unless something crazy happened. And what do you know? Something crazy happened.
The Twins at their lowest point were 17-24 (.415) on May 18.
I can't do an exhaustive search of all-time historic comebacks, but in recent years the 2003 Marlins won 91 games and the World Series after posting a 19-29 (.396) mark on May 22. The 2001 A's won 102 games despite a 8-17 (.320) April, posting an 11-20 (.355) mark on May 6, and still reaching just 15-22 (.405) on May 13.
Some famous comebacks in baseball history:
The '51 Giants started the season with a 2-12 (!) mark, slowly recovering to .500 by the end of May. They trailed the Brooklyn Dodgers by 13 games on August 11, but won 37 of their last 44 games to catch Brooklyn on the last day of the season. The Giants beat the Dodgers in a 3-game series, capped by Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard Round the World," but lost in 6 games to the Yankees in the World Series.
The '64 Cardinals were 29-31 (.483) on June 16. Not so terrible, but they had to climb out of 8th place in a 10-team league to win the pennant and go on to beat the Yankees in the World Series.
The '69 Mets were 7-11 (.388) on April 27, and 18-23 (.439) on May 27, trailing the Cubs by 9 games at that point. On July 1, they still trailed by 8, with a 40-34 mark, and still lagged by 6.5 games at the end of the month. But the Amazin's posted a 45-18 record in the last two months of the season to win the division by 8 games.
The '73 Mets were 36-48 (.429) after losing the first game of a doubleheader on July 13, stuck in the NL East cellar, trailing the Cubs at that point by 12 games. On August 26, they were still 12 games below .500 at 58-70 (.453), stuck in the cellar; but the Cubs had tanked, and the Mets' deficit on the 65-64 Cards stood at 6.5 games. New York won 24 of its last 33 games to finish with a 82-79 record, good enough to win the division by 1.5 games.
The '74 Orioles had a 26-29 (.473) record on June 10; on August 28, they were still 63-65 (.492), stuck in 3rd place, trailing the Red Sox by 8 games. Baltimore won 28 of its last 34 games to take the division with 91 wins.
The '78 Yankees never had a losing record after a 7-8 (.467) mark on April 24, but had to make up 14 games on the Red Sox after July 19--which they did by September 10. Of course that race ended with the Bucky Dent game, and the Yankees moving on to beat the Dodgers in the World Series.
The greatest comeback in the standings that I've witnessed or can remember is by the '95 Mariners, who trailed the Angels by 13 games, with a 43-46 (.483) record on August 2, and were still behind by 12.5 games on August 20, but came back to win the division in a 1-game playoff (pitting Randy Johnson vs. Mark Langston).
The 2004 Astros actually got off to a decent start (32-26 on June 9), but stumbled into and through the All-Star break. By July 20, they had fallen to a 45-48 (.484) record. Memory might tell you that it was Beltran who immediately turned their season around; but, actually, the Astros were 38-34 when acquiring Beltran on June 24, and suffered a 7-14 stretch just after he joined the team. After winning a few series to wind up July, a string of series losses in early August had the team back down to a 56-60 record on August 16. Then things took off. They ended up with 92 wins and the wild card.
The 2004 Astros seem more like the 2003 Twins, who were 38-27 on June 13, but 44-49 at the All-Star break before recovering to win 90 games and claim a division title.
Good Stuff frightwig!