first pitch: 5:05 p.m., PT
television: ESPN
matchup: Woody Williams (7-5, 3.91 ERA) vs Matt Morris (10-12, 4.54 ERA)
previews: Padres.com | SI.com | ESPN
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A possible solution to the steroid problem in baseball would be to allow each team to field one player who can do absolutely anything to his body. Everyone else would have to be clean, but there would always be one RoboPlayer™ on the roster. Then, everything is out in the open and all teams are playing by the same rules. We’d still have to figure out a way to explain the presence of RoboPlayer to children, because some of them might want to be that guy, and who among us would wish that for our kids?
Well, except for the desperately poor folks, of course.
In unrelated news, the Padres try to avoid being swept by the Giants in San Francisco on Sunday evening. Game will be televised nationally, which means good exposure for the Pads at the cost of ignorant commentary from folks who don’t really know who we are. Enjoy…
Also, RH’s Home/Away OPS = 1.073 / 1.114 … so the road OPS tells me he can’t get too ding’d by a park-adjusted stat … right?
Re: 96. Very true (and I’m a big fan of Miller myself, indifferent at best on Morgan), but I’d bet money that the production crew had a list of things to talk about during the broadcast, and Howard is high on that list. Like LM said, what Howard has done is quite impressive.
On that note – ballgame.
“We’re sorry to interrupt this Ryan Howard discussion to announce the Padres win.”
Howard, I’m of the opinion that a win in April counts toward your season total as much as a win in August or September. I think you’ll find that reality agrees with me.
It wouldn’t shock me to find out that these two knuckleheads are still yammering on about Ryan Howard…
Joe Morgan is terrible at his job.
The media guys always emphasize it’s Most VALUABLE Player, not the best hitter. Considering the Phillies traded Abreu and gave up, then Howard went on a monster tear and will likely hit 60 and the team started playing well, I’d say the voters will consider that the most Valuable player.
That argument always irritated me but that’s how it will go down.
Just about anyone else would be fired for performing as poorly at their job as Morgan does at his.
The best hitter/fielder is the most valuable. By what other measure do you determine “value?”
It doesn’t matter what they emphasize. The problem is they don’t know the defintion of valuable. If they did, they wouldn’t vote they way they do.
Value = most talked about on ESPN telecasts
Production is Value, thus the Most Valuable Player is the Most Productive Player. That’s pretty basic. Anyone who can’t understand that is too stupid to be voting for the award.
Howard winning the MVP award in the NL would be as bad as if Jeter wins it in the AL.
Speaking of valuable, does anyone know the record for most consecutive scoreless innings by a reliever?
The voters emphasize the word valuable to the point of disorting its definition. There is nothing tricky about the defintion of the word.
112: That’s how I see it but I think the other argument is if a team is at the bottom of the standings then the best player isn’t that valuable because the team sucks.
I always thought it meant most valuable player in the league, not most valuable to his team. The one guy you’d pick first if you were drafting a team to win one game.
Speaking of things that are horrible: that offensive pass interference call in the Giants/Colts game still has me pissed off and I hate the Giants.
#114: According to Google:
Gregg Olson of the Orioles with 41 consecutive scoreless innings.
If that’s true, Cla “Lights Out” Meredith has a legit shot at the record.
re: 104 … I’ll bet most of us agree that W’s in April count towards season totals … I know i do … I stand by #77 … based on data in #95 and #101 …
Another view … W’s come from Runs … Hafner & Howard are #1 & #2 in EQR … for the season … and Hafner’s now done …
EqA isn’t on par with wOBA.
Wow … the AP game story … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap?gid=260910126 … has no mention of Meredith … but on the bright side, there’s no mention of Ryan Howard either!
Richard, can you post Top 10 wOBA? I’m interested to see the range … any chance you have a pre/post-ASB split?
This seems like it would have been a good game to get Knott an PH op …
I have the list on my other computer. Sadly, ROE doesn’t appear to be available in splits, so I lack that information.
Among players with at least 500 PA…
1) Jermaine Dye
Lance Berkman
2) Travis Hafner
3) Carlos Beltran
4) Albert Pujols
4) Manny Ramirez
6) Ryan Howard
7) Jim Thome
9) Miguel Cabrera
9) Matt Holliday
11) Nick Johnson
12) David Ortiz
13) Jason Giambi
13) Garrett Atkins
15) Derek Jeter
15) Paul Konerko
17) Vernon Wells
18) Justin Morneau
19) Chase Utley
19) Joe Mauer
Took me a while to figure out that ROE = Reached On Error …
Richard … I’m interested to see the range of results … if all of these guys are bunch’d within +/- 1%, then I’m OK liking the guy with the post-ASB momentum (and “pennant chase contribution”) …
Richard … here’s an idea … calc pre/post-ASB wOBA assuming that ROE is constant (ie. same pre & post-ASB) … that seems like it’d give a reasonable estimate …
Athony (#16): No offense buddy, but, “That’s how I see it but I think the other argument is if a team is at the bottom of the standings then the best player isn’t that valuable because the team sucks,” … is wrong.
The way it works, is a better team has a bunch of productive (as Richard put it production=value) players. The Yankees aren’t in first place because Jeter>Ortiz… They’re in first because Giambi+Jeter+team > Manny+Ortiz+team…
Richard – on what are you basing that wOBA is better than EQA? And how do you take defense into account, or the possibility that a pitcher could be the most valuable player in any given year? I do agree that either Pujols or Beltran deserve the MVP award over Howard this year.
Anthony (re: 116): I think you would have to expand your definition of most valuable to be the first pick for the construction of a team for a whole season, since if you’re just looking at one game a pitcher will be the first pick every time.
re: 129
It models run scoring more accurately. That’s how.
As for fielding, the best thing that is publicly available is zone rating. From that we can take the average value of a play at a given position and the the league average ZR and total chances and we can determine a player’s run value relative to the league average or whatever you prefer to look at it relative to.
128: I think we actually agree. I was stating what I think the traditional argument is against a good player on a bad team. If Beltran is better but the Mets are loaded and Howard is a little behind but he carries the Phillies I don’t think Howard should get extra credit just because he happens to be “more valuable” to his team. The team should have nothing to do with it.
The award shouldn’t be “Most Valuable Player on a playoff contender” but that’s the way it seems to go. IMO if Beltran can be shown to be the best player in the league he should be MVP no matter where the Mets are in the standings because he has the most value of anyone in the league, he’s the most productive.
I took the top 20 guys by runs above replacement and adjusted them all for position. Those top 20, ranked post adjustment:
1) Carlos Beltran (86.51)
Grady Sizemore (79.77)
2) Jermaine Dye (85.94)
3) Derek Jeter (85.06)
4) Ryan Howard (82.59)
5) Chase Utley (81.45)
6) Travis Hafner (80.98)
7) Miguel Cabrera (80.00)
9) Manny Ramirez (79.05)
10) Vernon Wells (75.98)
11) Garrett Atkins (75.55)
12) Matt Holliday (75.44)
13) Albert Pujols (73.91)
14) Lance Berkman (70.32)
15) Alfonso Soriano (70.09)
16) Jim Thome (69.60)
17) David Ortiz (69.40)
18) Nick Johnson (68.67)
19) Jason Bay (68.45)
20) Paul Konerko (64.41)
Once you add in defensive value, the rankings would obviously change. Beltran would get a boost, Jeter would fall, stuff like that. I think that Utley has been more than one run better than Howard, so I stand by my earlier assertion that Howard isn’t even the Phillies’ MVP.
Best Joe Morgan moment of last night’s game (even better than the Ryan Howard blah blah blah):
“In the playoffs, anything can happen – with the short series, short rest, short games…”
Is that new this year? Will playoff games be only 6 innings?