Padres vs Marlins
12:35 p.m. PT
DIRECTV 726 (Fish feed)
AM 1090, FM 105.7, XM 186
MLB, B-R
Fun game Tuesday night. Nice to see Scott Hairston finally get on track — two doubles, a homer, and an out to the wall in left-center works for me.
Chip Ambres, Brian Myrow, and Joe Thatcher all were recalled to the big club before the game. Ambres got the start in right, singling and walking twice in his Padres debut. Myrow knocked his first big-league homer in the seventh while pinch hitting for starter Randy Wolf.
Among the casualties of this latest roster shakeup (does it feel like 2002 around here, or what?) is Paul McAnulty, who cleared waivers and returned to Portland. The Padres don’t seem to want the guy, and neither does anyone else. Bummer. I still think McAnulty can play at the big-league level, which probably explains why I now edit software documentation for a living.
The rubber match of this series won’t be carried on Channel 4SD, so your only chance to see Cha Seung Baek pitch is to get down to Petco Park. I know, it’s really tempting, huh?
#150@Kevin: I think you can use batters faced because it shows how many hitters he got out. It’s hard to say he’s gotten lucky (or it’s a fluke) when he’s faced 270 hitters, however you could say that if he’d only faced 30 or 40. Also by using batters faced you are separating pitchers from hitters, again I could say small sample size for 15 at-bats but when you are talking about 250+ it’s harder to use that argument.
John Smoltz is a better example: 27 starts, 207 innings pitched in the postseason. That’s still just one season added to his resume, but it’s better than nine starts.
Hairston is just on fire right now!
#151@Schlom: Right, but the measure of pitchers’ usage is almost always starts or innings pitched. For batters, it’s plate appearances.
Beckett faced 822 batters last season in the regular season. That helps to illustrate the sample size of his postseason. Whatever measure we use, the sample is small.
#153@Masticore317: Career high for homers.
#152@Kevin: Obviously, more starts gives us a better idea of what they can do but I don’t think we can just discount 9 starts as too small of a sample size and ignore.
Smoltz is also a Hall of Fame pitcher, I think Jake has about a 1% chance (at most) of having a career as good as his. In reality, he will never be as good because he’s never going to get a chance to shine in the postseason like Smoltz did.
#156@Schlom: But the postseason is not what make Smoltz a near-Hall of Famer or Hall of Famer.
And nine starts shouldn’t be disregarded. But it’s nine starts out of 191 total. It’s much more important that he had a 5.01 ERA in 2006. If he would have pitched like an All-Star, maybe his team would have made the playoffs that season. Beckett was a weakness to his team that season.
The Blue Jays are the greatest baseball team of all time, as they are 8-4 (.667) in their 12 World Series games. They’re followed closely by the Americans (5-3), Marlins (8-5), Red Sox (36-23). The Yankees (130-88) are fifth.
#156@Schlom: Through their age 26 seasons, Peavy has had a better career than Smoltz. 1% of equaling his career value seems an insanely pessimistic estimation.
#157@Kevin: And nine starts shouldn’t be disregarded. But it’s nine starts out of 191 total. It’s much more important that he had a 5.01 ERA in 2006.
That’s one way to look at it.
#160@Stephen: Yes, it’s the correct way to look at it.
#161@Kevin:
There you go again. And here I thought the goal was to win championships. I’ll excuse the occasional off year.
#162@Stephen: You don’t think an entire season of pitching poorly ought to outweigh a couple very good post season games when deciding a player’s value?
#162@Stephen: Yes, and the Red Sox might have one another if Beckett had pitched like an All-Star that season. Beckett doesn’t win titles. The Red Sox do.
#164@Kevin:
Kevin,
They’re going to inscribe your headstone, for better or worse, with the phrase “Check out the sample size, stupid.”
#163@Richard Wade:
I’ll put it this way: If I am a Red Sox fan, I’ve forgotten or forgiven Beckett for his 5 ERA season. BTW, his numbers were great in that PS, no? I’ve never felt so exasperated over a thread, and I didn’t even read every post.
Bleh are we still having the Peavy vs Beckett debate? Can’t we just except that they are both valuable pitchers and move on?
#165@Stephen: The point is that the Red Sox didn’t make the postseason in 2006, thanks in part to Beckett’s 5.01 ERA.
So, no, his numbers were not great that postseason.
They won a WS championship in 2007 (not to mention earlier w/o Beckett). That’s one more than every other team in baseball. Why do we – I mean – you care so much about ’06?
I don’t even know where to go with this or why I even bothered. Steve C is right.
#167@Kevin:
And using your own logic, Beckett’s 5 ERA was only a contributing factor. He was just 1 of 25, plus other callups.
#169@Stephen: You were the one making the case that Beckett was such a key to the World Series wins.
#168@Stephen: I really don’t care at all. I just thought the arugment that Beckett was more valuable than Peavy — or more valuable to the Red Sox than Peavy is the Padres — was really specious. So I responded. Then there were 160-some posts. Oh well.