*** Official *** 2012 MLB Season Thread!!

[SP33Demon]

Just what I was talking about. Phelps, you moron lmao! Barehand it, really??

 

[raystorm]

jeez...that was some game! Crazy postseason so far! Valverde is sooooo bad. Amazing what Ibanez doing and Jeter is done for the year and I guess Nunez gets called up to replace him. Kuroda starts this afternoon on 3 days rest.

 

[Squisher]

In a previous post I said I had given up on Valverde, but that doesn't mean that Leyland has. Valverde hasn't been fantastic like last year, but he's been adequate all year until the last month of the season. He left a ball up against Ichiro and why would anyone pitch Ibanez from the middle of the plate and away? Every HR I've seen him hit was out over the plate. Pitch him inside. They won't be HRs.

I doubt Leyland and coaches decide against Valverde, but we'll see. If they do he could go to Benoit, Dotel, or Al Alburquerque. I'd love to see Al Alburquerque given a try. If he can get the ball over the plate he can be deadly with that slider.


What is with Detroit and closers? First it was Todd Jones that Ernie Harwell called "roller coaster" then we got rid of Fernando Rodney because he couldn't find the plate, now it's Valverde.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Had to turn the TV off and go to bed after Valverde fucked things up with a 4 run lead in the ninth 🙄 figured that was better then throwing the controller at the TV. Woke up a minute ago and was happy to see the Tigers actually won though, and Jeter... well, I like the guy and feel for him, but this could actually help buoy the Yanks spirits for the rest of the series so it scares me a little.

 

[iamwiz82]

I'm glad that the poor call against the Yankees didn't affect the score in any way that would have cost the Yankees the win, I wouldn't have wanted the Tigers to win that way.

 

[Svnla]

Alright Cards, leading by 2 in top of 9th.

Edit: Cards wins, up 1-0 in best of 7. Three more wins then to the World Series.

 

[Baked]

Good game between Cards and Giants. I'd like to see this series go 7 games.

Detroit bringing it, up 2-0 in the series!

 

[rcpratt]

Hopefully we can clinch when I'm at Game 5 🙂

 

[SP33Demon]

Glad Detroit is up 2-0 on those overpaid assclowns. Losing DJ is a huge blow for that team, he was one of the few guys on NY who was actually hitting.

 

[GobBluth]

NYY is done. Detroit just seems to be on an absolute tear right now, and when you have the ability to pitch Verlander 3 times in a series(not saying they will/wont), ouch..

I would like to see a Cardinals/Yankees WS (Two winningest franchises in baseball). But, a Cards/Tigers rematch from 06 would be cool too.

No interest in watching the Giants play in the WS. Especially knowing Posey will win the MVP that he, in no fashion, deserves.

 

[bigpimpatl]

Glad Detroit is up 2-0 on those overpaid assclowns. Losing DJ is a huge blow for that team, he was one of the few guys on NY who was actually hitting.

I agree but let's not pretend that Detroit doesn't have a huge payroll

 

[SP33Demon]

NYY is done. Detroit just seems to be on an absolute tear right now, and when you have the ability to pitch Verlander 3 times in a series(not saying they will/wont), ouch..

I would like to see a Cardinals/Yankees WS (Two winningest franchises in baseball). But, a Cards/Tigers rematch from 06 would be cool too.

No interest in watching the Giants play in the WS. Especially knowing Posey will win the MVP that he, in no fashion, deserves.

Um, when you win the batting title + highest OPS+ in MLB (yes, both even higher than Trout and Cabrera) you are the MVP, no questions asked. Let alone at a premium position like catcher. Let alone considering he got manwiched at the plate in a horrible injury last season. McCutchen was close in WAR due to stolen bases but Posey was still better, even defensively, than McCutchen and Braun at his position vs the rest of the league. You should look at the numbers first before posting.

A good article on the Cardiac Cards and their improbable two heroes, Frees and Beltran:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs/201...-carlos-beltran-david-freese-thriving-october

Freese's eye-popping postseason line looks like this: .386/.440/.739/.1.179. And his numbers in his seven NLCS games are ridiculous: .500/.552/.1077/1.629. Among players with as many LCS at-bats as he has had (26) or more, he ranks No. 1 in every one of those categories: average, on-base percentage, slugging, OPS.

He's now played 25 postseason baseball games -- and driven in 25 runs. Only one man in history ever drove in more in his first 25 games -- a gentleman named Lou Gehrig.
...
After 133 postseason trips to the plate, Beltran's career October OPS is now 1.305. That ranks him No. 1 in the history of baseball. His OBP is now .481. That's also No. 1.

Only one other National Leaguer in history has ever hit more postseason home runs than the 14 Beltran has now hit -- Albert Pujols (18). And only two other men, period, own at least 14 postseason home runs and a postseason batting average of .325 or better. One is Pujols. The other is Babe Ruth.

A small sample size, but still mind boggling.

 

[Squisher]

NYY is done. Detroit just seems to be on an absolute tear right now, and when you have the ability to pitch Verlander 3 times in a series(not saying they will/wont), ouch..

I would say Detroit pitching is on a tear. I know everyone is pointing fingers at the Yankees and saying their hitting for crap, but Detroit's starting pitching, namely Fister, Sanchez, and even Porcello started to step it up about 8 weeks ago and it has just gotten better and better. Even Verlander and Scherzer seem more focused. The bullpen has even stepped it up except for the backend.

 

[BrokenVisage]

I had to Google the Matt Holliday slide because I missed it, found this. Yeah that's pretty dirty, I don't know if he meant for it to go down like that though.

 

[jalaram]

They just replayed it on the broadcast. That was really late.

I'm glad that Marco got his revenge on offense.

On another note:
Dusty Baker gets 2 yr extension

 

[IAteYourMother]

NYY is done. Detroit just seems to be on an absolute tear right now, and when you have the ability to pitch Verlander 3 times in a series(not saying they will/wont), ouch..

I would like to see a Cardinals/Yankees WS (Two winningest franchises in baseball). But, a Cards/Tigers rematch from 06 would be cool too.

No interest in watching the Giants play in the WS. Especially knowing Posey will win the MVP that he, in no fashion, deserves.

Who the hell deserves the NL MVP if Posey absolutely does not? What are you, some sort of Dodgers fan? Learn baseball, scrub.

 

[raystorm]

The Giambino will interview for the Rockies vacant managerial position. If anything I figure he'll get a coaching gig somewhere in the Rockies system to start if he really wants to become a manager someday. Then again you have Robin Ventura and Mike Matheny doing their thing now with no previous managerial gigs so you never know.

He hasn't retired yet, but Jason Giambi is already looking past his playing days.

The 41-year-old will interview with the Colorado Rockies for their vacant managerial job, the Denver Post reported on Tuesday.

Giambi has no coaching experience, having just completed his 18th year in the big leagues and his fourth with Colorado. The slugger was limited to 60 games last season and underwent hernia surgery last week with an eye toward returning to the field.

Giambi is the last in-house candidate for the Rockies, according to the Post. Bench coach Tom Runnells has already interviewed for the position.

Jim Tracy stepped down after the team set a franchise record for losses with 98.

Giambi is a career .280 hitter with 429 home runs. According to the Post, he often worked with Rockies hitters and talked strategy with Tracy.

 

[SP33Demon]

Beltran now batting over .400 for the highest postseason batting average, ever (minimum 100 at bats). Holy hell.

The slide by Holliday really rallied the Giants, dumb on his part. I like how Scutaro hit the ball back at him and he missed it. "The baseball gods enacted justice".

Vogelsong pitched great for SF to make up for Bumgarner's subpar couple of past months. If Bumgarner and Lincecum pitched like they had in their WS year, they would sweep every series. Matt Cain has proven that the is the real deal, I take bad all the shitty things I said about him after getting that huge contract (which at the time, was ridiculous). He has been the rock of that rotation and earned his money.

 

[SP33Demon]

The Giambino will interview for the Rockies vacant managerial position. If anything I figure he'll get a coaching gig somewhere in the Rockies system to start if he really wants to become a manager someday. Then again you have Robin Ventura and Mike Matheny doing their thing now with no previous managerial gigs so you never know.

Giambi can show the players that their asses (with a needle) can help with their assets.

 

[GobBluth]

Who the hell deserves the NL MVP if Posey absolutely does not? What are you, some sort of Dodgers fan? Learn baseball, scrub.

Its all relative to what you consider for MVP. You chumps look at offensive numbers only.

Posey had a great line, no disputing that, but he is mediocre at best behind the plate. Not to mention SF got to where they are with the help of Melky who as been par his whole career, gets juiced, and blows up this year.

First of all he gave up 86 SBs (in 200 less innings than the catcher mentioned below). Yes, he threw out a lot, but that is a product of no one being afraid to run on him. Not even in the top ten for fielding his position, all things included. And don't tell me all the SBs are on the pitchers. That is BS.

He has a whopping .304 CS%, and a .991 fielding percentage.

Defensive WAR..... 0.5

Lets compare that to some other MVP candidates, namely, Yadier Molina (not saying yadi should win, but since you want to talk catchers)

38 SBs allowed, 35 CS. CS% .479 and a .997 fielding percentage! And his offensive line was no slouch either.

.315 .373 .501 .874

Defensive WAR... 2.6

All that said, who had better seasons than Posey behind the plate? Well, since you asked.

Molina, Hanigan, Wieters, Avila, Ellis, Montero, Suzuki, McCann, and Rosario. .


So learn baseball before you start talking shit like you are some baseball guru. Posey is a good player, but he isn't MVP. The SF market will carry this one though, I fear.

My vote goes to McCutchen. Besides being as much of an offensive threat, he had only 1 error in the outfield and a .997 fielding percentage. Would have won the batting title until a nagging injury caused his 3-25 spell to end the season.

 

[rcpratt]

He has a whopping .304 CS%, and a .991 fielding percentage.

Defensive WAR..... 0.5

30.4% is well above league average.

Defensive WAR is absolutely and completely useless for catchers.

There are some good catcher defense studies out there. It's 2012, looking only at stolen bases is silly. Posey is far above average. If anything, WAR doesn't give him nearly enough credit. He's not Yadi, but nobody is.

And, as a Tigers fan - Avila is not better than Posey defensively.

 

[GobBluth]

30.4% is well above league average.

Defensive WAR is absolutely and completely useless for catchers.

There are some good catcher defense studies out there. It's 2012, looking only at stolen bases is silly. Posey is far above average. If anything, WAR doesn't give him nearly enough credit. He's not Yadi, but nobody is.

And, as a Tigers fan - Avila is not better than Posey defensively.

If you are going to be an MVP, imo, you need to be elite in all aspects of the game, not just "above league average". This is my case against Posey since, I feel, he isn't as good an all around player as some others in the league. Same argument I have for Trout over Miggy.

 

[SP33Demon]

If McCutchen was really that good, then why did Posey amass a higher dWAR than him (-0.2 vs 0.5). To be fair they were both at around the league average but Posey was slightly more valuable. Posey still posted better numbers than him, Trout, and OmgTripleCrown Cabrera while winning the batting title in both leagues. That's unheard of for a catcher not named Joe Mauer, and for the record, Posey's OPS+ of 172 is 1 higher than Mauer's MVP year of 171.

One thing to note with McCutchen is that he played more games (673 to 610 plate attempts) and as a result received more chances to accumulate WAR. However, he still didn't surpass Posey in WAR with 63 more chances to hit, and that's including his 20 stolen bases. That means Posey was more valuable, at least considering their defense is a wash and looking at pure offensive output including steals, McCutchen was a wash (7.5-7.1) just as Posey's .7 advantage on defense is a wash. Since WAR is cumulative, Posey simply did more with the plate attempts he was given, and that's even considering the guy cannot run like McCutchen on the basepaths.

Looking at Molina, it's the reverse. Posey had 74 more plate attempts yet still batted 21 points higher in average. OPS+, 172 - 137 is slaughter-licious. Yes, Molina had over 5X the dWAR but that is too large an offensive gap. If you really really value defense, then you could make the case for Molina. However, McCutchen would be a better case because he actually played more games (see: durability) than Posey. However, if McCutchen was really that good on defense, he'd be robbing homeruns like Trout over the wall and even a 1.0-2.0 dWAR would have been enough to make up the difference in offense vs Posey. However, he isn't as good as Trout so it's a moot point.

 

[IAteYourMother]

First of all he gave up 86 SBs (in 200 less innings than the catcher mentioned below). Yes, he threw out a lot, but that is a product of no one being afraid to run on him. Not even in the top ten for fielding his position, all things included. And don't tell me all the SBs are on the pitchers. That is BS.

He has a whopping .304 CS%, and a .991 fielding percentage.

Defensive WAR..... 0.5


Molina, Hanigan, Wieters, Avila, Ellis, Montero, Suzuki, McCann, and Rosario. .


So learn baseball before you start talking shit like you are some baseball guru. Posey is a good player, but he isn't MVP. The SF market will carry this one though, I fear.

My vote goes to McCutchen. Besides being as much of an offensive threat, he had only 1 error in the outfield and a .997 fielding percentage. Would have won the batting title until a nagging injury caused his 3-25 spell to end the season.

I'm curious if you actually watch him behind the plate, because Posey is definitely a very good defensive catcher. He calls games well, blocks balls and has a quick release and a good arm to 2nd.

Of course, the fact that you seem to put someone like McCann or Ellis as a better defensive catcher than Posey makes me think that you don't actually watch these players.

Oh hey, and while we're looking at defensive metrics, why the fuck would you pick Andrew McCutchen if he's considered horrible at defense? (Not that I believe that, but if you're going to go by dWAR and other metrics) Oh right, because fielding percentage is the most important defensive stat in baseball.

Scrub.

 

[rcpratt]

If you are going to be an MVP, imo, you need to be elite in all aspects of the game, not just "above league average". This is my case against Posey since, I feel, he isn't as good an all around player as some others in the league. Same argument I have for Trout over Miggy.

Let's see...Trout was well below average in K% - 39th out of 143 qualified batters in the league. I hereby disqualify him from the MVP discussion.