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Besides, what good would Strasburg do for a playoff team that apparently forgot how to score any runs?
And now we're again saddled with and forced to endure the ####### fifth-place Cardinals.
The Cards propensity to anally rape the playoffs every other year leads a man to root for the Yankees if that's the only choice.
I kind of expect a comet to hit NYS tonight to seal the Cards trip to the promised land.
SHHHH! You're spoiling the poop throwing party!
OPS+ for Pitchers with at least 5 games pitched and 20 PA in 2012
Rk Player OPS+ PA Tm G AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS1 Matt Harvey 113 21 NYM 10 18 6 2 0 0 3 0 7 .333 .333 .444 .778
2 Stephen Strasburg 105 53 WSN 28 47 13 4 0 1 7 3 13 .277 .333 .426 .759
3 Mike Leake 95 69 CIN 35 61 18 3 0 2 3 1 20 .295 .306 .443 .749
4 Jason Marquis 90 36 TOT 24 32 9 3 0 0 1 0 12 .281 .303 .375 .678
5 Jaime Garcia 86 46 STL 20 40 10 1 1 1 3 2 15 .250 .286 .400 .686
6 Jhoulys Chacin 75 26 COL 14 24 7 2 0 0 3 1 3 .292 .320 .375 .695
7 Drew Pomeranz 69 31 COL 22 26 6 2 0 1 1 1 15 .231 .259 .423 .682
8 Tyler Chatwood 54 23 COL 23 16 4 1 0 0 1 1 3 .250 .294 .313 .607
9 Cole Hamels 52 82 PHI 31 69 15 2 0 1 5 4 27 .217 .270 .290 .560
10 Jonathon Niese 46 68 NYM 30 55 12 0 0 0 2 6 19 .218 .295 .218 .513
That's one. Two is that he insulted the sport and the principles of competition by intentionally and brazenly not putting his best team on the field in the biggest games of the season.
There's a surfeit of loathable stuff in the whole mess.
I doubt it, unless Rizzo has a time-traveling Delorean.
No, but you don't #### with the baseball gods. Who knows, this might be their best chance. What Sean said makes the most sense.
No but an 80 win team that had improved with an extra playoff spot being added had to expect to at least be in the hunt. This is well-traveled ground though. I think Sean's point is the key, there were ways to do this that weren't as restrictive as the path they chose.
Hey, I hope they wind up being right. Maybe we'll look back at 2012 as the year that we finally came to a solid conclusion about how to deal with young pitchers and their arms. A watershed moment in pitcher health...I doubt that will be the case but it would be great.
The other reason GMs are pissed at this? Basically, Rizzo's blazed a new path for agents and players to strongarm teams into more aggressive rehab options like this that protect the long-term monetary value of the agent and the player, but aren't necessarily beneficial to the team that currently owns the contract. Can't you see Boras citing this as precedent in future contract negotiations or in his day-to-day dealings with one of his current young clients?
So Rizzo's possibly opened up a pathway to make pitching more expensive... or at least put a ceiling on the value a team can get from a pitcher, all for some nebulous benefit in the future for an opposing team.
They moved into first place for good on May 22. There was plenty of time to adjust their plans.
Christ, why all the Cardinal hate? They're a good team with a poor record in 1-run games, but a way better bullpen now than what they were throwing out there even through the first 100 games. I didn't see anyone getting too upset when their 105-win juggernaut was upset by some shitty "team of destiny" back in 2004---in fact as I recall, it was quite the opposite, a sickening orgy of love for the t.o.d.
They're a legitimate playoff team, as legitimate as any playoff team since 1969.
They lost Albert Pujols, almost an entire season of Lance Berkman (he had under 100 PA), and 30 starts by Chris Carpenter, yet still won 88 games, despite underperforming their Pythag by 5-7 games, or whatever it was.
They're not a crappy fluke team, they have a GREAT offense 1-through-6, they have four solid starting pitchers, and with the emergence of Trevor Rosenthal, four very solid late-inning relievers.
They might be the best playoff team of the 10 that began the postseason.
That said, they can still easily lose today and tomorrow and then everyone will be happy.
You mean, the team that never trailed against the Cards during that four-game blitz? That team that thorougly throttled the representative from the weaker league? That team?
Sorry, but anyone who thought the 2004 World Series was an upset wasn't paying attention. Sure, if your top starter hadn't gotten hurt, maybe you get a game. But the better team won.
This is the equivalent of Yankees fans asking this same question. Because they routinely sneak in the back door of the playoffs and then run the table on the short series, which is ########. Then their fat assed fans dance and crow about how great they are for it. They're basically the worst elements of the Yankees and Red Sox blended together in a steaming #### stew.
Then you weren't paying attention.
They're a mid-80 win also ran that snuck in the back door.
Oh, brother.
One item that I would add to the list is how irate many of the pathetic sycophants in the local D.C. sports media are over the fact that people even have the temerity to keep bringing Strasburg up. Listening to some of these guys, you would think that Ken Rosenthal was one of the worst people in the world because he's still talking to players on the team about the situation off the record.
I always find it a little disturbing whenever people in the media adopt the "just keep your mouth shut" attitude. Their job is supposed to be to ask these kinds of questions, not to just blindly kiss Mike Rizzo's ass.
On Strasburg, I mean, obviously with him in the roster you increase your chances of winning the series by several percentage points. Several percentage points aren't going to turn the tide every time, and if the Cards womp up the jams today, it's unlikely Strasburg would have made a difference.
The issue is, coming into the series, the Nats made a decision to increase their risk of losing to the Cardinals. That was a radically new and strange decision, the evidence presented for it amounted to "we have a secret plan", and I can't imagine being anything other than highly skeptical.
Cleveland was in first place as late as June 22 playing in a weaker division. We know how they did.
No one honestly thought that when the Nationals took over first place on May 22 it was for good.
(They also could have noted in preseason that they had a significant chance at making the playoffs, and scheduled Strasburg around that. Why sign Edwin Jackson for 1 year / 10M if you don't think you're a plausible contender?)
Teams that have won World Championships in the last decade while winning 90 or fewer games in the regular season:
2011 Cardinals
2006 Cardinals
Nobody wants to see a third entry on the list.
Speaking for myself and as a Phillies fan, I certainly thought there was a reasonable chance that it could be for good. Lots of young talent jelling around a few key veterans? Those are the teams that can jump 15-20 games in a year.
You just made my point.
Christ, why all the Cardinal hate?
I don't get it, either. This isn't that sourpussed Whiteyball team that specialized in bouncing hits off the Astroturf. This is a legitimately good team that's had numerous key injuries and is now able to operate at approximate full speed. If you want to fault the playoff setup that got them into the postseason in the first place, that's one thing, but if that's the case then you should be equally mad at the Orioles.
--------------------------------------------
Because they routinely sneak in the back door of the playoffs and then run the table on the short series, which is ########. Then their fat assed fans dance and crow about how great they are for it. They're basically the worst elements of the Yankees and Red Sox blended together in a steaming #### stew.
Yes, while that stalwart Braves team always finds a way to choke in the crunch, while their zombie fans just sit there waving their little foam tomahawks in cadence to a canned chant over the loudspeakers, when they really want to be at a football game instead.
2011 Cardinals
2006 Cardinals
Nobody wants to see a third entry on the list.
Then take it out on Selig and the owners for letting all these lesser teams in, and let's just skip the playoffs and go straight to the Yanks and the Nats in the World Series. That'd work for me.
Yeah, I don't really care one way or another about your larger point. I just like nipping any "Cards were better than the Red Sox in 2004" talk in the bud.
The over-the-top Cardinal hate is another thing. I can understand it when TLR was there, but he's gone now. It's not like they're the Yankees, a club that deserves every bit of scorn hurled its way.
I don't see the comparision -- the Whiteyball teams won divisions. And they won 92, 101, and 95 games, not 83 and 88. Nobody wants to see the fifth-best team in the NL, an 88-game winner, get lucky and ruin the playoffs.
The Red Sox played a brilliant and dominant series, but that roster was more than capable of losing four of seven to a Cardinals team that easily would have won 90 in the AL. No team is baseball history has ever been so good that they couldn't easily lose four of seven to a team within 5-10 games of them in overall quality.
Well I suspect "nobody" doesn't include Cardinal fans who obviously would. And I imagine for many fans that the Cardinals were the fifth best team in the NL but still has a chance to go all the way is a feature not a bug. I like the Cards, I'd be fine if they went all the way. They didn't get in through some nefarious means, they played by the rules at hand and earned their spot.
Try to keep the official and accepted hierarchy of hate in mind when you post this stuff, OK?
speaking only for myself as i stated at the end of last year i was disgusted that a wide swath of cardinal fans gave up on their team in the latter stages of 2011 and then were rewarded with a championship.
i found that.........................distasteful
but that's just me
I don't think you need to put the teams that closely together. With the exception of serious extreme matchups (e.g. '27 Yanks vs. '62 Mets) I don't think I would make any team more than a 75-25 favorite in a seven game series.
You're always quaint and entertaining in your way, Andy. Of course, no one is really talking about the Braves but you, are they? Not that you're new to the "having your own conversation with the voices in your head" idea, of course.
The question was asked "why all the Card hate." We're explaining that to the boy. First, because the Cards have won "championships" they don't deserve, and second, because their fan base is obnoxious.
Mikael, I was noting the way that series played out, the availability of Carpenter wasn't going to dramatically alter the outcome. I'd never claim that the 2004 Cardinals could never beat the 2004 Red Sox in a 7-game series. But I firmly believe the Sox team that took the field in the 2004 postseason was the best team in baseball, and the outcome most definitely wasn't some kind of upset.
This, exactly. Just a lot of people longing for the "I told you so".
Rizzo knows they're going to win the NL East a few more times, but he shouldn't expect to win it when the team is in first place after a third of the season? He can't have it both ways.
Because I am sick and tired of them oozing into the playoffs every f#cking year and having the cosmic forces conspire to get them into the World Series and as earlier indicated, listen to Joe Buck leech off his father's legacy relaying the superior nature of their fans to us all.
I haven't given up. It's two games. Comically, people are blaming Davey here, I guess for not figuring out a way to have his #2 and #3 starters and partners in crime give up 20 runs in two fu#king games. Let's go Nats.
To be fair, a great many of us didn't need the 2-1 hole to begin telling so.
This would be a nice tack for Rizzo to take in the post-series press conference. "Our team was so inept, we wouldn't have won if we'd activated Strasburg, Frank Howard, Goose Goslin and Walter Johnson."
And if you didn't at least appreciate Whiteyball, you probably aren't a baseball fan.
I could've easily appreciated Whiteyball if it'd been played on anything but a Superball playing field. I've got nothing against the running game---hell, I would've enjoyed the deadball era---but if you consider "artificial turf hits" a legitimate part of baseball, then I'd say you're not much of baseball fan yourself.
-----------------------------------------
If only we had Strasburg then we could've lost 3-0 instead of 8-0
O ye of little faith. Strasburg would've obviously led the Nats to a 0 to -2 win.
Artificial turf was great, even if I didn't realize it at the time*. It opened up an entirely new way of winning baseball games. You could play Earl Ball or Whitey Ball, and both were winning formalas if you had the talent. It's much better than the single style that small parks, jumpy balls and thin bat handles have wrought.
(And yes, Randy, your objection has been noted).
* Not speaking aesthetically, of course. It was ugly, and every instinct I have says that playing baseball on plastic should be an affront to the game. But it really did bring running into the game, and that's enough to overcome my gut feelings (even if my Red Sox had very little hope whenever they traveled to KC).
His greatness would have led the umpires to declare that a shutout was not enough credit and that only by putting the Cards in negative numbers could justice be served.
I like Stras very much of course, but he really didn't pitch very well his last few starts. Is it a given that he would have in the postseason?
Swept in the most dominant victory in World Series history. I think that was the year it became obvious the NL was the weaker league. The Cardinal team was good (Carpenter + Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds and Walker is pretty good) but it wouldn't have won anywhere near 105 games in the AL. 90? Sure.
In fact, only 2 other teams in the entire division era have won with fewer than 90 wins. The 2000 Yankees, and 1987 Twins. And only the 1995 Braves (in a strike shortened season, and 1974 A's won with 90.
First off, the 83-win team did win their division. Just like the 82-win Mets in 1973 and the 85-win Twins in '87. And yes, I acknowledge that between the questionable quality of the team and the lackluster effort put forth by their opponents in the 2006 WS, that title is viewed by many (myself included) as cheaper than might otherwise be the case.
If by "sneaking in the back door" you mean winning their division (2006) or being a 90-win Wild Card team (2011), well, ####, I don't know what to tell you. That sounds pretty legit to me.
Even if I give you 2006 as being cheap---again, they won their division, but were fortunate to face a sleepwalking Detroit team---what are the others? Between 1968 and that 2006---almost 40 years---they were in 4 World Series, three of which they lost.
Where's the legacy of back-door sneakery? Was it last year??? That's ########, a 90-win team that finishes strong is legit. They beat the favored Phillies in a great series culminating in an epic 1-0 elimination game. That's great baseball, not sneakery. They averaged 7 runs a game and slugged .500 in taking the Brewers in 6, then battled through a classic World Series to emerge as champs. That's just great playoff baseball.
We all know the playoffs and the World Series aren't about finding out who's the "best team," and I realize that people at least want the teams in the running to be "deserving." But once you've made the playoffs you are deserving, by definition. Sh!tty, crappy teams don't make the postseason. Look at the roster of that 2006 Cardinal team, or the 2011 team, or this year's team, and you'll see a good, playoff-caliber team.
Once you're in, it's a crap shoot. For a team that's so lucky, to have made the postseason 9 times since 2000 but only have two titles doesn't seem so hot.
The only counter I'll offer? That the one of three was his dismantling of the Cardinals.
Sure, I think everyone knows this, including Rizzo. What's happening here (by "here", I'm referring to the media reaction, not BBTF) is a post facto explanation for the Nationals failure (which isn't even yet assured) being the absence of Strasburg. The reality, if we're doing that sort of post facto explaining, is that they're losing because of a lack of timely hitting, and because the pitching has been much worse than it normally is.
I guess tell us that you disagree, which you have. Those are still back door entry...
Cue Mike Piazza reference
I hadn't thought about it from the perspective of other teams/GMs, but yeah, I don't think it's appreciated. This definitely opens the door for players/agents to make bolder demands as far as rest/rehab/usage.
Might have been nice to use Detwiler out of the bullpen in games 2 or 3. May not have made a difference, but they could have had a fresher bullpen for today's elimination game. Although I'm sure Rizzo already knows the bullpen won't be the reason they lose today. (Still hoping they win, by the way, although beyond this round, I'm not so sure)
It'll look especially bad if this turns out to be the Nats' only real chance at a title, and they chose to handicap themselves. I wouldn't necessarily predict that to be the case, but plenty of teams people thought were going places turned out to be one-year wonders. They did have several guys on both sides of the ball suddenly be markedly better than they had ever been before.
Teams have seasons where absolutely every last thing they do works out and some other seasons where absolutely nothing does. The latter is obvious while it's happening (see this year's Red Sox and to a lesser degree, this year's Phillies) while the former isn't except perhaps in retrospect.
This would be a nice tack for Rizzo to take in the post-series press conference. "Our team was so inept, we wouldn't have won if we'd activated Strasburg, Frank Howard, Goose Goslin and Walter Johnson."
To be fair, some of those guys are dead.
Yes, and as Nolan proved in the other thread, those gods are bigger than Josh's god.
or something like that.
Swept in the most dominant victory in World Series history.
Oh, really?
Exactly as much as it's a given that he would have gotten hurt.
I don't know. Criticizing this argument, while possibly valid, only seems to affirm the "Rizzo was right" argument, which I still think is highly dubious. The details of the narrative were undoubtedly going to change as the Nats' playoffs fate was determined (and as their future with Strasburg plays out), but the underlying criticism hasn't changed at all: the Nationals made a decision to put less than their best team on the field for the playoffs.
This is not a team that should be rewarded for its stupidity. If I wasn't living in DC right now I'd be cheering for a metor that takes out both teams.
If I wasn't living DC and have a chance to get WS tickets the team I'd be cheering to go to the Series in the NL would be the Giants since they would be the least objectionable team still standing. Over in the AL it would be the A's followed by the Orioles.
From a margin of victory standpoint, the 2007 Red Sox beat all of them (though not the 2001 Diamondbacks or 1961 Yankees).
Yeah, for 6 innings. Then he was at 100 pitches and left the game and the Birds got into the pen for 3 runs in three innings.
Do you think if Strasburg wasn't shut down he'd be going longer than 6 innings in a postseason game? He's routinely at or above 100 pitches after 6...
Oh, really?
From a margin of victory standpoint, the 2007 Red Sox beat all of them (though not the 2001 Diamondbacks or 1961 Yankees).
That's fine, but I was responding to a point about 2004, not 2007.
I think I miscommunicated. My point is that the results of the playoffs simply can't validate or invalidate Rizzo's decision making process. As all of us here know, Strasburg's presence would increase their chances of winning each series by a few percentage points. That's not a trivial thing at all, especially when considering the multiplicative effect of going multiple rounds deep. What I'm objecting to is any sort of narrative about the playoffs being blamed on Strasburg.
Because the whole thing makes me feel snarky (and I suspect this is the case for others), we're inclined to point out that the narrative being painted doesn't even describe what's actually happened on the field.
No, but you can't assume the pen would be any better than their current demonstrated level of postseason effectiveness... (10 earned runs in 13 innings, with a 1.69 WHIP)
1. The very fact that people are wondering about this is bad.
2. The defense of this move has involved people seriously arguing that the loss of the team's best pitcher - and one of the best pitchers in the league - is not significant.
3. If it's not the time for Strasburg, with the Nats in the playoffs with arguably the best team, when in the hell are they saving him for? Speculative future playoff runs with teams not as good and when they only have him under team control for a limited time? You play the game for a playoff run like this - or so I've been told by some of the same people who are fine with this move now.
Rizzo's move was silly and bizarre at the time, and looks no better now.
And the biggest problem is that Rizzo pulled this 160-IP limit out of his ass.
With 6 of those runs and 5 of those innings coming in Game 2. Should we expect Gio or Stephen to only go 3 innings in game 2?
Rizzo didn't think shutting Strasburg down for a month and then starting him back up would be a good idea. He thought it was too risky.
I think the reality is that Rizzo like most people at his level in his profession was risk adverse. He had a "book" and he was following it and furthermore by following it the advantages would be almost impossible to measure when it would matter.
As to the Cardinals, I have as much right to hate them as anybody, but I have to say that Chris Carpenter is a serious pitching mensch. It's very hard to hate someone who consistently goes out there and kicks playoff butt, even if your team's is the butt being kicked. My respect is accorded.
Well, a WS win covers up a lot of things but it doesn't actually prove that his plan was correct. If they win the series next year the argument can be that not only could they have won in 2013 but in 2012 as well.
Except both teams are no longer 98 and 97 win teams because of injuries and usage decisions.
Did he ever point to any evidence for that belief other than his "gut?" If that was his basis for ruling out what would seem to be the optimal solution, I can see why people are pissed.
And 4 more (earned) runs coming in 8 innings in Games 1 and 3, meaning the starters (including Gio) only went 5 innings in each of those as well.
nor does elimination prove it wrong.
OK, so they'll actually have to win in '13 and '14 to come out ahead :)
it doesn't actually prove that his plan was correct.
nor does elimination prove it wrong
I think we can take this whole nil post facto doctrine a bit far. If you can't argue from results, then any decision in the long run is the same as anything else. I think it's human nature, and not particularly irrational, to ask "hey, how is that choice working out for you?"
Nothing would make me happier than for catchphrases from comedy podcasts to take over sports discourse.
It kinda does. Sitting Strasburg down decreased the chances of winning games and he did so while gaining virtually nothing. Rizzo's plan for Strasburg is not the only way to go about handling this situation. Win or lose there were better ways to handle it but Rizzo refused to alter his decision.
He claimed he talked to doctors and experts on this subject and he came to his conclusions based on their advice. Yet the doctors have stated that they were not part of the process.
And the Cardinals suck.
Nor do the doctors have anything meaningful to add, other than pronouncing a pitcher injured or healthy or healthy enough to start rehabbing or pitch in games.
They have precisely nothing to add on the subject of a 160-IP limit, or what IP-limit is best for pitchers coming off of TJ, or whether preventing a pitcher from increasing his workload by >50 innings from season to season is best, etc etc etc. Rizzo pretty much made up the basis for his decision from whole cloth.
Rizzo decreased his team's chances of winning a postseason series, and now in an elimination game the Nats have their 5th starter on the mound instead of Strasburg.
The Nats almost need to win a future championship on the back of Strasburg to make up for reducung an opportunity to win one with the best team in the league. And even if they win one, there's not much to say that Rizzo's decision helped in the least.
And if Strasburg gets hurt in future years, or Bryce Harper does, or the Nats aren't as good, it's a problem that they reduced this opportunity.
Yes, he did. I'm sure people will correct my details, but he had, I believe, a 50-page binder with information and statistics. He also had the plan formed with the doctor who performed the surgery, and also Dr. Andrews.
People are welcome to disagree with the conclusions, with the data, or even with the credentials of the surgeons, but it's disingenuous to claim that he pulled the number out of his ass.
Except the doctors have stated they were not part of the planning and were not involved in creating the plan.
We had a whole thread about this a month ago.
However, I think your post treads close to disingenuous in describing the binder and the data. I can't disagree with the conclusions or the data because I haven't seen them. I have no idea what Rizzo's reasons are, what his data is, how it was collected or analyzed, any of that. In the absence of any actually available evidence, I see no reason to assume that he's right.
A "50-page binder" that nobody in the public has seen and that couldn't have informed any 160-IP or similar limit for pitchers coming off of TJ as opposed to any other strategy. There was nothing that could possibly have concluded that one reasonable strategy was better than another (e.g., having him take 2 months off in-season), or even that any strategy was better than letting him pitch, other than the simple fact, known for over a century, that pitchers who are pitching might get injured. As I've said, it would be like having a "50-page binder" on whether God exists.
And the doctor first specifically denied any involvement in the plan, later walking back that somewhat in a bizarre follow up statement that conflicted his first statement on the matter in various material ways.
No, it is not. He doesn't have evidence that this strategy is better than any other reasonable strategy, including letting Strasburg simply pitch. He can't have.
2012 NL run differential leaders:
WSN 0.8
STL 0.7
ATL 0.6
CIN 0.5
SFG 0.4
The Cards belong this year. Which, ironically, you can tell just from the obvious fear emanating from the comments of the Cards-haters in this thread
Imagine if the '81 Expos had shut down Steve Rogers.
Pythag wins aren't wins. Wins are the things that show you belong.
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