Comments on: IGD: Padres vs Cubs (24 May 07)

By: The Fathers

The Fathers — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:25:41 +0000

Fair enough on Corey Brock. We can agree to disagree. BTW, I’ve read the mailbags and have not been impressed at all. If there is one thing that can make a guy like Brock look better, it is having to answer a question from the knee jerk, chicken-little know nothings that infect the padres.com message board. Even there, he hasn’t been that good.

Take for example the Jake Peavy for Cy Young question from the May 14 mailbag. Okay, that is a softball if I ever heard one, and Brock starts off fine with reciting Jake’s numbers. But then he blows it by making a straw man argument - identifying as challengers the hot starters who will most certainly NOT be there in the end - except for maybe Brad Penny, who always has had Cy Young quality stuff. He completely ignores legitimate Cy Young threats like Roy Oswalt and John Smoltz.

The rest of the questions go downhill from there - typically, one guy making a silly suggestion based only on what has happened to X point in the season, and Corey shoots it down. Fish in a barrel stuff doesn’t impress me.

Then again, I guess I should be happy that Brock is a step above the padres.com poster mentality. Still, he makes me miss Lyle Spencer.

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By: Geoff Young

Geoff Young — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:03:28 +0000

Intending no disrespect to our commentors, I disagree. I’ve enjoyed Corey’s work so far. He’s still learning about the team, but his mailbags are quite good.

Incidentally, here’s further evidence to support your theory about Maddux’s stat:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/.....adres.html

So it looks like I’ll have to recalculate everything or just let it go. Given that I’m not entirely comfortable with the assumption that changing conditions don’t affect future decisions and results, I think I’ll do the latter and defer to the future HOFer. It still seems “wrong” to me, but how many games have I won in the big leagues?

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By: The Fathers

The Fathers — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:51:38 +0000

Re 189, part 1. All I needed to see on that article was the byline of "Corey Brock". Sorry, that guy has demonstrated so far that he has no clue how to think or write about baseball, so I am not surprised he could not clear that up. Let's hope he gets better, or even better that MLB or the Padres replace him with someone from the comments section here, like Tom Waits or lynchmob or any one of the great commentors here.

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By: Geoff Young

Geoff Young — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:51:13 +0000

Then maybe what I really need is clarification on what Maddux was actually talking about and what kind of sample he was using. Either that or a good swift kick in the rear.

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By: The Fathers

The Fathers — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:45:53 +0000

Re 2: We can only go with what we know and what actually happened, and I don’t think it is impossible to estimate, particularly since pitchers (and particularly guys like Maddux and Young and Peavy) do not tend to change their pitch sequences with a runner on first as opposed to a runner on second. The only thing that we can be certain that changes is the sign sequence from the catcher, which needs to be changed so that sign stealing isn’t an issue.

I guess we can agree to disagree, because I think it is fair to assume that DeRosa would have hit a double to the wall with a runner on first or on second or third or even bases empty, in that situation, with two outs.

Feel free to remain skeptical, but if you are doubting the Professor, you’ve put yourself in a tough spot.

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By: Geoff Young

Geoff Young — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:19:37 +0000

#188: Thanks, TF. You may be right, and that would make a bit more sense. Two issues I have:

1. The article in question doesn’t make this clear.
2. It’s impossible to know what would have happened had the runner not stolen the base. The conditions would not have been the same, and so pitch sequence, etc., might have changed as a result. In other words, we cannot assume that DeRosa would have hit a double to the wall if the Cubs runner had been on first rather than second.

I guess my main point is that I remain skeptical of Maddux’s contention.

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By: The Fathers

The Fathers — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:07:45 +0000

GEOFF, you are rarely wrong, but you might want to correct your blog post regarding stolen bases scoring. It is NOT “17% of successful base stealers score runs”. It IS “17% of successful base stealers score runs that they otherwise would not have if they did not steal the base”.

The manifestation of this statistic shows itself all the time. It happened in Wednesday’s game. A Cub runner on first stole second base. It got to two outs and he was still on second. Mark DeRosa followed with a double to the LCF wall which scored the runner. The runner would have scored even if he hadn’t stolen second base, b/c of how deep the ball was hit, the speed of the runner, and b/c he was running on contact with two outs.

Hope this clears things up for you.

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By: JP

JP — Fri, 25 May 2007 06:39:55 +0000

McAnulty should be on this Padres roster right now ! It is absolutely ridiculous that the Pads carry Blum AND Robles. Sledge's bat is slow as molasses right now. I don't want a replay of the Cust disaster and have the Pads move McAnulty before he gets at least 150 at bats - Wonder how many at bats (30 years old) Sledge gets batting at .180-.200 clip ?

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By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 25 May 2007 06:25:55 +0000

Off topic, but I’m sorry, I cannot forgive people that made me read post after post about getting a replacement 3B before Kouz even had 100 ABs (Edwin Encarnacion, Phil Nevin, really people?). I mean I’m impatient as the next guy, but that was just incredibly annoying. Especially considering that a big reason we got Adrian was because the Rangers didn’t give him enough ABs to see how good he was. If you think this post is directed at you specifically, it isn’t, unless you’re Geoff Blum and you were saying those things to Kory the other night, because I hate you, though it’s probably Buddy’s fault for insisting on playing you (Did he promise it to Boch as a parting gift or something?)

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By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 25 May 2007 04:48:34 +0000

It's going to be tough winning games with only 4-6 hits every night. As good as Cammy and Kouz have been in May, it has coincided with down turns by almost everyone else outside of NOG. And I am sorry, Adrian needs to be batting third every night. At least he has a better chance of hitting that key single with a runner in scoring position.

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