Wait a minute. Didn't we just agree a couple of months ago that Chase Utley is the best? :)
Haven't seen enough of Ramirez in the field but if he's improved to near average in the field, well, Chase, you had a short reign.

I've never seen him play, but he's my favourite player, just based on his stats. He did commit his 16th error last night though.

Stats are a great language. I've been in an ongoing battle of opinions with a local talk radio host, who has swallowed Al Gore's human-caused global warming hook line and sinker, so he's taken to berating opponents on air and in his blog. He's one of those guys that says "6000 scientists agree, its a closed case, blah blah blah". His main argument is that the numbers prove humans are causing it, to say anything different is just an opinion, and there is no room in science for opinions, just hard numbers. So I threw out the numbers .340-493-1995. Of course all of you will know that a) those are Lou Gehrig's BA, HR and RBI, and b) you can tell just by those three numbers that he was one of the best hitters ever.

Someone unfamiliar with our beloved sport could be told that a guy with the numbers 110-179,4.58 was a better overall player, and they would just have to take my word for it. I think the simple case of Gehrig's "raw" stats, on their own and in comparison to nonexistent Pitcher A, proved my point that without the framework of context, experience and judgment, numbers are meaningless. Of course I didn't tell him that the 6000 on Al Gore's side are made up of mostly non-specialists holding any BSc degree, whereas the over 31,000 signatories on the other side of the argument (www.petitionproject.org) include 3,697 specialists in atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences, and over 9,000 with a PhD.

Worst. Analogy. Ever.

Worst. Analogy. Ever.

No, no, I think I get it. Because Lou Gehrig wasn't a mediocre pitcher with a long career, and also the fact that alot of right wingers signed a petition, humans haven't contributed to global warming.

Did I get it?

Aside: If enough of us get together and sign an online petition, can we change Lou Gehrig's legacy to that of a 110-179, 4.58 pitcher? I guess all it takes to prove you're right is to have more people signing, so hey, let's give it a shot. Gehrig for pitcher!

Ah, the Petition Project. Has it really been 3 whole years since that stupid mailing? And it's not dead yet? Good heavens.

I notice that the watershed "paper" by those clowns at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (none of whom have any significant training in, or documented study of, climate science) has finally been published...in the prestigious earth science periodical of record, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. I can only imagine the rigorous scrutiny of peer review the authors must have endured to get their magnum opus into that journal.

A-Rod and Pujols.

A-Rod and Pujols.

If Ramirez is around league average defensively (big if), he may have snuck ahead of A-Rod. I hope he can stay healthy and at shortstop, his career has a chance to be something really, really special.

If Ramirez is around league average defensively (big if), he may have snuck ahead of A-Rod. I hope he can stay healthy and at shortstop, his career has a chance to be something really, really special.

Quick and dirty, but A-Rod's OPS+ is at about 170 from the start of 2007 through now, Hanley's is about 148. Baserunning is a wash, A-Rod is about average at 3B, Hanley is (at least) a bit below...I don't see how Hanley sneaks ahead. I'm open to other opinions though.

I've never seen him play, but he's my favourite player, just based on his stats. He did commit his 16th error last night though.

Stats are a great language. I've been in an ongoing battle of opinions with a local talk radio host, who has swallowed Al Gore's human-caused global warming hook line and sinker, so he's taken to berating opponents on air and in his blog.

Instead of engaging in that nonsense, you should just stop and take some time to watch Hanley actually play. He's really a lot of fun.

Baserunning is a wash between A-Rod and Hanley??? I think that is inaccurate.

Was Ramirez worth giving up to get Beckett?

The Red Sox hardly felt the loss, but Ramirez would look pretty good at short (defensive inadequacies and all) in Fenway right now, and at the plate swinging for the Monster.

BTW, is that Edward Teller's signature on the petition?

Who needs polar bears anyway.

Ramirez ran himself into an out trying to stretch a single into a double and he was thrown out by about five feet by the estimable Delwyn Young.

Baserunning is a wash between A-Rod and Hanley??? I think that is inaccurate.

73/94 over the last season and a half vs. 37/42. Can someone do the math?

Baserunning is a wash between A-Rod and Hanley??? I think that is inaccurate.

A-Rod is a great, great baserunner. Seriously. His SB % is ridiculously good, he's agressive on the bases, and seldom screws up. Pretty sure MGL had him as one of the top 5 baserunners in baseball last year, worth like half a win over average.

Quick and dirty, but A-Rod's OPS+ is at about 170 from the start of 2007 through now, Hanley's is about 148. Baserunning is a wash, A-Rod is about average at 3B, Hanley is (at least) a bit below...I don't see how Hanley sneaks ahead. I'm open to other opinions though.

Well, sure, taking A-Rod's ridiculous 2007 into account I guess. But from today through a year from today, I'd bet they're VERY close, production-wise.

As I understand it, the warm glow that comes from knowing you've done your part to frustrate Al Gore is well worth taking the chance that the earth will be destroyed and future generations will be desperately trying to adapt to climates which are no longer suited for the cities, farms, whatever that had been there for centuries.

Well, sure, taking A-Rod's ridiculous 2007 into account I guess.

2000: 162 OPS+
2001: 160
2002: 158
2003: 147
2004: 131
2005: 173
2006: 134
2007: 177
2008: 160

Looks like 2004 and 2005 were bigger outliers for A-Rod than 2007.

2000: 162 OPS+
2001: 160
2002: 158
2003: 147
2004: 131
2005: 173
2006: 134
2007: 177
2008: 160

Looks like 2004 and 2005 were bigger outliers for A-Rod than 2007.

Not sure what your point is. That A-Rod's true talent level is somewhere between a 130 and 170 OPS+? Sure, but so what? At this point in 2008, he and Ramirez are very close in value, assuming you trust the defensive numbers and you're not docking A-Rod for time spent on the DL.

I knew this would start some heated discussion, but it wasn't a trolling attempt. I would watch Hanley, but I live about a 7-hour drive from the nearest big league city.

Seriously though, if you guys would spend as much time researching things that really matter as you do baseball, you would realize that making us feel guilty for global warming is a ploy to get more money out of us. I'm all for reducing pollution and eliminating western dependence on Eastern oil, but the simple fact of the matter is, CO2 is not pollution - never has been and never will be. It makes up less than 0.04 % of the atmosphere, of which less that 3.5% is the result of human activity. Increasing its levels in the atmosphere lead to exponential increases in plant growth and productivity, but that fact is always ignored. Read some non-NGO/government positions on the causes of global warming (which is occurring, but within a completely normal cycle).

The crux of Gore's argument was the double sine-wave graph representing levels of atmospheric CO2 and global temperature, but did you notice that he never superimposed them in "An Inconvenient Truth"? That's because it would have then been apparent that increasing temperature caused increasing CO2, not the other way around. Additionally, the hockey stick effect at the right (future) end of graph has been proven to be the result of an error in the statistical model used, and can be duplicated over and over, now matter what data are used initially.

Listening to Al Gore and calling yourself informed about global warming is like listening to Buster Olney or Steve Phillips and calling your self informed about baseball. People as intelligent and curious as most of you should know better.

There's this great invention called the television that allows many of us to watch Major League Baseball from the comfort of our homes. It may rock your world, CP.

Also, I'm not going to touch your climate change comments. Suffice it to say that you're wrong, but nothing I say will change your mind, so I choose not to engage in a debate with you that will waste both of our time.

Not sure what your point is. That A-Rod's true talent level is somewhere between a 130 and 170 OPS+? Sure, but so what? At this point in 2008, he and Ramirez are very close in value, assuming you trust the defensive numbers and you're not docking A-Rod for time spent on the DL.

I mis-typed. I meant that 2004 and 2006 were outliers.

A-Rod's true level is somewhere between 155 and 160, I'd say. He's better than Ramirez.

I guess this is the "ridicule" stage. Thanks for the hot tip Kyle. I'll have to tune into TBS the next time the Marlins play the Braves.

He's cheaper than Arod. And younger. And faster. So he's better value at least.

CP's knowledge of TBS's baseball coverage is as great as his knowledge of global climate change.

I think CP is just eager to watch a little "Everybody Loves Raymond."

I don't understand how your "favourite" player can be someone you've never seen before.

And how can the anti-global warming rant be thought of as anything but trolling? And from someone that admits to "an ongoing battle of opinions with a local talk radio host." I take that to mean that you repeatedly call his program to berate him with the same points that you made on this page, without the slightest provocation, and with the lamest pretext for relevance.

Increasing its levels in the atmosphere lead to exponential increases in plant growth and productivity, but that fact is always ignored.

What about when the CO2 comes from burning off massive amounts of the world's forests? Why is the current atmospheric CO2 level the highest in over half a million years?

Listening to Al Gore and calling yourself informed about global warming...

Scarecrow.

Seriously though, if you guys would spend as much time researching things that really matter as you do baseball, you would realize that making us feel guilty for global warming is a ploy to get more money out of us.

I wrote my bachelor's thesis on Holocene climate change, for which I spent 2 months in the Antarctic doing field work. My wife has a Ph.D in climate science, has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals (including Science), and currently lectures on this and related subjects as a professor at one of the top ten research universities in the world. I am quite comfortable with the extent of my knowledge on this topic.

The crux of Gore's argument was the double sine-wave graph representing levels of atmospheric CO2 and global temperature, but did you notice that he never superimposed them in "An Inconvenient Truth"? That's because it would have then been apparent that increasing temperature caused increasing CO2, not the other way around.

I'm not certain which graph you're referring to, but it's likely the two weren't superimposed because of the difficulty in resolving timing on the longer timescales. If you look at changes in temperature and CO2 going back millions of years, a very small tweak to your age model can produce very different relative timings simply due to the physical limits to the resolution of your sample. And there is of course inherent nonlinearity in the relationship between temperature and CO2. What we know for sure, though, is that over the course of human history CO2 has never lagged behind temperature. For as long as we've been around, CO2 has been a driver (notice I did not say the driver) of temperature change, not a result of temperature change.

Goddamnit.
We can't talk about one of the most exciting players in the game without the convo turning to a political subject two posts in?
Is this REALLY necessary? There are places on the internet devoted to political/scientific discourse yall know..

I like taking care of all my internet needs on one site.

I did ask upthread if the Red Sox made a mistake in trading Hanley. Was Beckett worth it?

Ramirez pretty much single-handedly won that game last night... well, with a little help from the bullpen.

I did ask upthread if the Red Sox made a mistake in trading Hanley. Was Beckett worth it?

Flags fly forever. I'm no Red Sox fan, but I have to think they consider it worthwhile.

I believe that, salary aside, a case could be made for A-Rod over Hanley right this minute. But is there a player you'd rather have for the next four seasons than Hanley? Sizemore? Upton? Longoria? Hanley is entering rarefied territory.

Flags fly forever. I'm no Red Sox fan, but I have to think they consider it worthwhile.

I think that this was one of those trades that worked out for both parties.

I wrote my bachelor's thesis on Holocene climate change, for which I spent 2 months in the Antarctic doing field work. My wife has a Ph.D in climate science, has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals (including Science), and currently lectures on this and related subjects as a professor at one of the top ten research universities in the world. I am quite comfortable with the extent of my knowledge on this topic.

That's awesome Mattbert, I'm envious. I recently read about work being done tracking the carbon cycle in deep sea environments off the coast of Monterey (deep sea ecology is more important than you think people!) and I realized I made a wrong turn in my life. Climatology is a hell of an exciting subject, something I never would have believed when I was 18.

Also, I wondered why this thread had do many posts. I knew it couldn't be about baseball.

Hanley is very, very good.

Mattbert - despite what Kyle S. says, somebody like you may be able to change my mind (not that you should or do care - I'm one person). I will listen to people who back up their arguments with experience and a firm grasp of the topic. You don't seem to me to be a vested-interest type person.

I've never called the talk show guy, but I do comment on his blog and e-mail him occasionally....and I never resort to name-calling or belittling. None of these stories ever touch upon the effect of water vapour, which causes 95% of the greenhouse effect and is not caused by us.

I sort of lost it today after seeing an experiment in Brazil where they had a huge vinyl bag strapped to a cow's back, which a surgically-inserted probe to collect the methane from the cow's stomach. Meanwhile the US is building 50 permanent bases in Iraq, in an obvious attempt to break their addiction to foreign oil. Give me a f^^^ing break.

MM1f - this is my last non-baseball post.

At least I will get to see Hanley in the All-Star game!

Flags fly forever. I'm no Red Sox fan, but I have to think they consider it worthwhile.

There are a few Red Sox fans here who will say the Sox lost that trade. I tend to agree with Jon. This one worked for both.

I don't understand how your "favourite" player can be someone you've never seen before.

With 5 sisters and a father who didn't care about baseball and about 1 televised game a week on anyway, I saw next to no baseball when I was little. I did listen to the games on the radio and poured over the box scores from age 7 on. My favorite player was Frank Robinson, whom I saw once in a while on TV, but other favorites like Willie Mays and Stan Musial I only saw on HR Derby. It is possible. :) I'm sure that Harveys W. has a compelling story to tell around this.

Yep, they don't win last year without Beckett. And I'm quite satisfied that the Sox didn't keep one of the best young talents in baseball. Spread the wealth.

CP -- If you want to argue that that Gore's approach is political sleight-of-hand and of the idiocy of using a thimble to bail out a sinking ship while shoveling coal as fast as we can into the steamer, you'd have more than a little agreement here.

whom I saw once in a while on TV, but other favorites like Willie Mays and Stan Musial I only saw on HR Derby. It is possible. :) I'm sure that Harveys W. has a compelling story to tell around this.

This is how I decided stegosaurs were my favorite dinosaurs.




I kid! I kid!

On global warming: I was reading this article just a few minutes ago. It's just strange more than anything else.

On Hanley: he is a beast. I think Utley is still better; Pujols is at about the same level, though he'd be higher if he were hurt less. I just have a weird feeling that Hanley will fall off a cliff sometime soon, though. There's just something about his swing and his approach that doesn't seem sustainable. I have no evidence for this.

It wasn't the sight that was significant. I assumed that he had never actually followed (by TV or radio) a live game in which Hanley was playing.

And he is an adult. It is easy as a child to build a world of imaginitive joy out of a tiny scrap of information. There are probably millions of kids that decided on their favorite player because of a single baseball card.

Seriously though, if you guys would spend as much time researching things that really matter as you do baseball, you would realize that making us feel guilty for global warming is a ploy to get more money out of us.

This isn't trolling? Just checking.

Who are the people getting all the money?

I was fond of Rowland Office and Biff Pocoroba as a kid, and you can't talk junk about Dusty Baker in my presence.

A lot of the most compelling arguments I've seen for global warming come from scientists who weren't even studying global warming but just stumbled across it while studying something else. Ornithologists, marine biologists, geologists, etc, people who had no financial stake in sounding a warning about global warming. At the end of the day it just seems common sense to me that the massive amounts of pollutants we pump into the air and the widespread ecological changes we make on the environment in such a short period of time are going to have an effect. (Indians also made large scale changes to the environment but they didn't use anywhere near the amount of resources we use, they weren't industrialized, and they had thousands of years to find a balance, something we don't have.) The trick is measuring the effect and then acting responsibly. This is interesting but...it's weekend time suckahs!

Some people see AIT as an attempt to sell florescent light bulbs.

Stegosaurs?
STEGOSAURS?
Anyone who doesn't agree that Sauropods are the greatest dinosaurs doesn't even have a child's grasp of statistics and is most likely an idiot.







/fake flame

Who are the people getting all the money?

One of the rightwing talking points is the claim that researchers get more grant money for sounding the alarm about Global Warming than vice versa. Considering the amounts of money one specific industry giant has been paying "experts" to say that Global Warming is a hoax, this talking point is not only false but operates at a level of chutzpah that mere mortals can scarcely hope to reach...

And he is an adult. It is easy as a child to build a world of imaginitive joy out of a tiny scrap of information.

There were lots of adults in the late 1800s well into this century who had favorite players whom they never saw. And I'm sure there were plenty of arguments around the ole cracker barrel about who the better player was.

Is this REALLY necessary? There are places on the internet devoted to political/scientific discourse yall know..

What's scary is that the political/scientific discourse here tends to be more intelligent and respectful that on other places on the internet

I think the Marlins have a really good shot at winning the NL East. Johnson had awesome stuff yesterday and Olsen and Nolasco are having good years and they just have a team filled with guys who hit homers. I didn't think they had a shot even when they were ahead of the Mets but I do now.

There were lots of adults in the late 1800s well into this century who had favorite players whom they never saw.

Well, probably some, but I imagine that the nature of fandom was so radically different then that we can't even speculate about it. Radio hadn't been invented.

What's scary is that the political/scientific discourse here tends to be more intelligent and respectful that on other places on the internet

Amen. I may be guilty of a little plagerism on multiple subjects, but I assure all your royalty checks are in the mail.

Probably the best source for climate change information is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

http://www.ipcc.ch/

That, or Rush Limbaugh.

Hanley Ramirez is the player Jose Reyes would be if he ever lived up to the hype.

Stop trolling, Kincaid. Reyes is a fantastic player, but not as good as Hanley. Hanley's taken another step this year and has a shot at being historically great. Reyes is still one of the best players in baseball (top 20-30), and as long as the comparison isn't with Hanley, he'll come out well. The development of Reyes into a true superstar is one of the best fortunes to happen to the Mets organization.

It was two years ago (I think) where I suggested that I would take Hanley over Miggy - against a large majority of opinion in that thread. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Also, on the global warming issue, Freeman Dyson had a very insightful piece on it a while back.

i think that's unfair to Reyes, and given that Reyes is a very good defender while Hanley is below average i don't think that they're insanely far apart value wise.

i will say that i didn't expect hanley to be so good, so fast. flags fly forever, and Beckett is no slouch (nor is Lowell), but Hanley's gonna be real good real long.

also, global warming is real. anthropogenic warming is also real. and regardless of whether you agree with the more critical warnings sounded, you might find the following statement by John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of the Economist, useful: "I think about climate change in the same way that I worry about my house catching fire. Even if I am not 100 percent sure that it is going to happen, its ramifications are awful enough for me to justify spending a lot of “insurance” money now to stop it."

it's not a perfect analogy, but it's one that i think connects the issue and what's at stake more closely to things that people know and think about during the course of their lives.

"Trolling"? That wasn't very nice.

Point is, Reyes, at least here in the NYC area gets a lot of hype. Certainly a lot more than I've ever heard/read about Ramirez. And you're right, Reyes is a better defender. But I think the offensive gap that favors Hanley is only getting bigger. Reyes' biggest weakness happens to be arguably the most important aspect of the game: he makes lots of outs. Not that he's bad (.354 in 06/07, .365 so far in 08), but even when he was posting a putrid .300 OBP a few years ago people were creaming their jeans when about all he could do was run fast. I saw the cover of an NY publication last year that compared Reyes to Mantle! The hype to reality ratio for Jose has to be one of the highest in the game...but he's still very good.

People around here thought that Reyes was more Cristian Guzman than Barry Larkin after 2005. Then he started walking more, and has been a very, very good player since then. Given that he's probably considered the 3rd or 4th best player on the team (behind The David, Santana, and maybe Beltran) I don't really see the hype towards him as much. There may be gushing about what he might be able to do in the future, but that happens with every player under 27ish who's really good.

Hanley is criminally underrated, but that's what playing for the Marlin's will do for you, he's like Vlad when Vlad was with the Expos- a bonafide superstar but virtually unknown.

I never heard the hype that Reyes was an all-time great with 40-HR power. I thought the hype was he'd be a great basestealer and good hitter and good fielder. Living up to the hype.

I never heard the hype that Reyes was an all-time great with 40-HR power.

Never listened much to Fran Healy did you...:)

I never heard the hype that Reyes was an all-time great with 40-HR power.

Never listened much to Fran Healy did you...:)

...or Gary Cohen...McCarver...every shmuck on WFAN save for Mike & the Mad Dog...they're still shmucks too...I didn't make up what I said about the comparison to Mantle...belive it was the Village Voice.

I am sure that there's been some hype that makes out Reyes to be better than but he has also been hated on a great deal. He is a guy who could be HOFer. That's plenty good.

Maybe there are some random media sources with unrealistic expectations - I haven't heard too many mainstream New York sources comparing Reyes to Mantle. But actually, I think the hype is about where Reyes is - a great player (yes, I know, it all depends on where you put the greatness cut-off). Only when compared to Hanley does Reyes pale. But if you have a SS who can post a .350 OBP, slug over .450, serve as one of the fastest baserunners in the game, play an excellent SS, and give you 150+ games a year, that's pretty special.

Hanley is one of the best players in the game.