*** OFFICIAL 2011 MLB Season Thread ***

[Perknose]

Cliff F*cking Lee. :wub:

 

[rcpratt]

I don't even care if the Tigers win at this point, I just want to go to bed.

 

[rcpratt]

I am seriously going to regret this in about...4 hours.

 

[hclarkjr]

wow, another gritty win by the mets.

 

[jalaram]

Rays are barely hanging on, but James Shields gets his eighth complete game. From ESPN:

The time of the contest was 1 hour, 53 minutes -- the fastest nine-inning game in Tampa Bay history.

Oh, since this is the Official 2011 Phillies thread, I'll add this ESPN article:

Phils among greatest NL teams ever?

Shame the 1980 team wasn't added for discussion.

 

[SP33Demon]

Rays are barely hanging on, but James Shields gets his eighth complete game. From ESPN:



Oh, since this is the Official 2011 Phillies thread, I'll add this ESPN article:

Phils among greatest NL teams ever?

Shame the 1980 team wasn't added for discussion.

Yeah 8.5 back from the Yanks, still doable for the wild card but not going to be easy.

I like how in that article they don't mention Lidge in the bullpen part 0-0.

 

[Perknose]

Oh, since this is the Official 2011 Phillies thread, I'll add this ESPN article:

Phils among greatest NL teams ever?

Why yes, yes it is. I contend the ranking methodology in that article was crude and inaccurate, but I generally agree that calling this years Phillies one of the best teams EVAH is a bit of an overreach.

However, just now, the Phils have come back from being down 6-0 to take a 9-7 lead over the Dodgers. If they go on to win, it'll mark their first 9-1 West Coast road trip ever.

The bad news? Vance Worley's coach turned into a pumpkin. The good news? It hasn't seemed to matter.

 

[Perknose]

Lololololololol, unlikely hero Raul Ibanez throwing leather and possibly saving the entire game in the 9th.

 

[mwtgg]

This team is scary...

 

[hclarkjr]

nice to see brewers beating the cards, again.

 

[rcpratt]

nice to see brewers beating the cards, again.

Little early there, chief. Also no longer true.

 

[hclarkjr]

lol

 

[Perknose]

Nice ESPN piece on Verlander: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/14839/2011-feels-like-verlanders-season

The guy's a beast and probably means more to his team's post season chances than any other single player. I didn't know, and was amazed to see that he's pitched nearly twenty more innings this year than Roy Halladay, our mound beast.

In fact, Roy is only 7th in IP's. Of course, all six ahead of him are AL pitchers who don't face coming out for a pinch hitter, and several of them have made one or two more starts than Roy -- Verlander has made two more, for instance.

But Justin leads the pack by a considerable margin.

 

[rcpratt]

More good stuff on the ALCY - link

And related to that, some really interesting stuff on Yahoo! Sports, the Worldwide Leader, and Rick Reilly - link

 

[SP33Demon]

More good stuff on the ALCY - link

Interesting article. Right now I'd have JV, JW, and Josh Beckett as my top 3. CC really has not been better than JB other than the fact he has 3 more starts, yet even considering that, JB still has a higher rWAR value (5.4 vs 5.0). In fact, Beckett's ERA+ blows Verlander and CC out of the water at 190 (JV: 165, CC: 149). Only Weaver is higher. I'd be interested to see JB's FIP and SIERA as well since his WHIP is only lower than JV (.938 vs .872 vs .940).

I don't even know how CC is in this discussion with a 1.13 WHIP and his shitty ERA+ (and he has a very good defense behind him so that blows that argument out of the water). IMO Beckett is the 3rd best in the AL even with only 9 wins and 4 losses.

Oh, and this:

Beckett already has nine no-decisions, including five in which he has allowed one run or less, tops in the majors.

http://www.nesn.com/2011/08/josh-be...shadowed-by-late-game-drama-from-red-sox.html

He has outperformed CC in almost every category but really has had bad luck when it comes to the Bosox scoring runs in his starts. He could definitely end out on top in everything but total innings when it's all said and done, so don't sleep on him. Plus he plays for Boston, which you know would give him the edge over Verlander if their stats were identical. Not fair, but true.

 

[Perknose]

Interesting base running saber stats.

I can't easily get the tables to render properly here, so you'll have to click the link to see that, by this metric, the Rangers, Phillies and Padres are the top three base running teams so far this year.

[SIZE=-0]One of the more popular sections in the annual Bill James Handbook is the analysis of baserunning. The Baserunning section reports how often teams go first to third, second to home, how often players are thrown out on the bases, among other data.

We evaluate a team’s baserunning prowess in two parts: Baserunning Gain (or loss, if it’s a negative number) and Stolen Base Gain (or loss). Baserunning Gain is the total of all the types of extra baserunning advances minus the (triple) penalty for all the baserunning outs relative to the league average. Stolen Base Gain is the number of stolen bases minus two times the number of caught stealing. Plus numbers are above average and negative numbers are below average.

Once we have a team’s Baserunning Gain and Stolen Base Gain, we add them together and get a team’s Net Gain.[/SIZE]

It was a revelation to me, because I wouldn't have thought the Phillies, long an excellent base stealing team, would also be one of the best base running teams, the always superb Chase Utely aside. Too much watching Ryan Howard lumber around the bases, I guess.

 

[rcpratt]

Last 8 wins by 1 run for the Tigs. I love me some Valverde.

 

[Perknose]

The Marlins just released Wes Helms. Former Phils PH hero supreme, right-handed power bat, plays third, can be signed for the minimum. Do I smell a Phillies move here? <---- Scratch this. I confused Wes Helms (also briefly a Phil) with Greg Dobbs. Helms is toast as a player.

Also, Ryan Howard now leads all of MLB in RBI.

Yay.

 

[rcpratt]

Tigers picked up Delmon Young today, which I think is an awesome deal. Hopefully it means the end of Magglio.

I'll have to go watch the '06 ALDS highlights in commemoration.

 

[SP33Demon]

Interesting base running saber stats.

I can't easily get the tables to render properly here, so you'll have to click the link to see that, by this metric, the Rangers, Phillies and Padres are the top three base running teams so far this year.

It was a revelation to me, because I wouldn't have thought the Phillies, long an excellent base stealing team, would also be one of the best base running teams, the always superb Chase Utely aside. Too much watching Ryan Howard lumber around the bases, I guess.

Yep, the Phils were in the top 5 via some other metric I saw 2 weeks ago. Not very surprising considering JRoll, Valdez, Utley, Victorino, and even Pence are all threats to steal.

PS: Since I wrote the above post about the ALCY; Beckett, CC, and Weaver all got lit up in their last starts. It's really looking like Verlander is running away with this thing.

 

[mwtgg]

Thome just hit his 600th home run. I was in the seats to see him hit his 400th HR June 14, 2004 against the Reds. That was incredible to see. He's a great player.

 

[rcpratt]

Congrats to big Jim, great guy. Couldn't have done it without the Tigers

Sixty. Five. Against Detroit. Jesus.

 

[sjwaste]

That's funny, I saw him hit his 300th with the Phillies. I was at most of that game, there were several long rain delays.

 

[sjwaste]

The Marlins just released Wes Helms. Former Phils PH hero supreme, right-handed power bat, plays third, can be signed for the minimum. Do I smell a Phillies move here? <---- Scratch this. I confused Wes Helms (also briefly a Phil) with Greg Dobbs. Helms is toast as a player.

Also, Ryan Howard now leads all of MLB in RBI.

Yay.

Helms was awful in Philly, but he always destroyed us when he played for another team. Seemed like a good dude, though. Never complained about being a role player. Dobbs used to be one of the game's best PHs. What happened there?

 

[sjwaste]

Whatever stats aside, watch Verlander. He is flat out dominant. Lock for the Cy Young unless he seriously melts down, and that's without any help from the competition getting smoked in their last starts.