SB Nation User Blog: Jeff

10/6: Rays vs. White Sox, Game 4

Jeff — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:21:43 -0000

Lineup

10/06/08 2:07 PM PDT

Tampa Bay Rays	Chicago White Sox
Akinori Iwamura - 2B	Orlando Cabrera - SS
B.J. Upton - CF	AJ Pierzynski - C
Carlos Pena - 1B	Jermaine Dye - RF
Evan Longoria - 3B	Jim Thome - DH
Carl Crawford - LF	Paul Konerko - 1B
Cliff Floyd - DH	Ken Griffey Jr. - "CF"
Dioner Navarro - C	Alexei Ramirez - 2B
Gabe Gross - RF	Dewayne Wise - LF
Jason Bartlett - SS	Juan Uribe - 3B

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Andy Sonnanstine	13-9	32	32	1	1	0	0	193.1	212	105	94	21	37	124	4.38	1.29

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Gavin Floyd	17-8	33	33	1	0	0	0	206.1	190	107	88	30	70	145	3.84	1.26

Here's your chance, Andy. Make the world love you as I do.

10/5: Open Rays Thread

Jeff — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 04:31:49 -0000

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Matt Garza	11-9	30	30	3	2	0	0	184.2	170	83	76	19	59	128	3.70	1.24

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - John Danks	12-9	33	33	0	0	0	0	195.0	182	74	72	15	57	159	3.32	1.23

I'm trying not to let my hopes get too high for this game. I hear BJ Upton's too lazy to sweep.

10/5: Non-Rays Division Series Thread

Jeff — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:14:36 -0000

Please note that a separate Rays thread will go up at 12:45.

Next Game

Philadelphia Phillies
@ Milwaukee Brewers

Sunday, Oct 5, 2008, 10:07 AM PDT
Miller Park

Complete Coverage >

Next Game

Los Angeles Angels
@ Boston Red Sox

Sunday, Oct 5, 2008, 4:17 PM PDT
Fenway Park

Mostly clear. Winds blowing out to center field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 55.

Complete Coverage >

10/4: Division Series Thread

Jeff — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:31:29 -0000

Next Game

Philadelphia Phillies
@ Milwaukee Brewers

Saturday, Oct 4, 2008, 3:37 PM PDT
Miller Park

Jamie Moyer vs Dave Bush

Sunny. Winds blowing from left to right field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 60.

Complete Coverage >

Next Game

Chicago Cubs
@ Los Angeles Dodgers

Saturday, Oct 4, 2008, 7:07 PM PDT
Dodger Stadium

Rich Harden vs Hiroki Kuroda

Mostly cloudy with a 40-percent chance of rain. Winds blowing out to right field at 5-15 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 65.

Complete Coverage >

It's really great how this place is running an occasional Frank Caliendo ad in the right menu. I think it speaks to the audience.

My Favorite Non-Lawn Dart .Gif Of All Time

Jeff — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:03:31 -0000

With certain games or certain series, it can be impossible for your head to figure out which team it would rather see win. Whether each team is loathsome or likable, sports require a rooting interest, and sometimes it can be tough to pick one team over the other. In those situations I find the best thing to do is to sit back, watch, and let your heart decide.

Turns out that, as far as this series is concerned, my heart lies pretty strongly with the Red Sox.

I guess I just hate the Angels more than any other team in the league. Yes, part of it is jealousy. Yes, part of it is me being bitter. Yes, it's sad that I have to find joy in losses by another team rather than in wins by my own. Yes to all of those things. I will freely admit to wishing that the Mariners were even close to as good as their LAnaheim rivals. But despite all that, this is an absolute fact - as I sat in the bar watching the game, I found Drew's home run and Rodriguez's subsequent reaction to be an absolute delight. And regardless of why I felt that way, or where that feeling came from, the feeling was real, and the feeling was awesome.

Thanks for sucking, Francisco. Down 2-0 and going on the road, things are looking bleak for the Fightin' Erstads. And I couldn't be happier.

10/3: Thread

Jeff — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:49:29 -0000

Next Game

Boston Red Sox
@ Los Angeles Angels

Friday, Oct 3, 2008, 6:37 PM PDT
Angel Stadium of Anaheim

Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Ervin Santana

Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to center field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 70.

Complete Coverage >

10/3: Rays Rays Rays!

Jeff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:18:22 -0000

Lineup

Chicago White Sox @ Tampa Bay Rays

10/03/08 3:07 PM PDT

Chicago White Sox	Tampa Bay Rays
Orlando Cabrera - SS	Akinori Iwamura - 2B
Nick Swisher - LF	B.J. Upton - CF
Jermaine Dye - RF	Carl Crawford - LF
Paul Konerko - 1B	Evan Longoria - 3B
Jim Thome - DH	Willy Aybar - 1B
Alexei Ramirez - 2B	Rocco Baldelli - DH
AJ Pierzynski - C	Dioner Navarro - C
Juan Uribe - 3B	Fernando Perez - RF
Brian Anderson - CF	Jason Bartlett - SS

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Scott Kazmir	12-8	27	27	0	0	0	0	152.1	123	61	59	23	70	166	3.49	1.27

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2008 - Mark Buehrle	15-12	34	34	1	0	0	0	218.2	240	106	92	22	52	140	3.79	1.34

Approximate Championship Odds

Jeff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:46:49 -0000

Simple calculations, assuming every game is nothing but a coin flip:

Dodgers: 22%
Phillies: 22%
Rays: 17%
Red Sox: 17%
White Sox: 8%
Angels: 8%
Brewers: 3%
Cubs: 3%

Obviously not the most accurate way to do it, but considering how closely matched the teams are by this point in the season, coin flips get you most of the way there.

I wonder what, if anything, yesterday is going to do to Sabathia's FA contract.

Edit: skip this post and just go here

The Most Underappreciated Player In Baseball

Jeff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:54:19 -0000

There are people out there who think that Jim Rice is worthy of being in the Hall of Fame. Lots of people, in fact. Lots of people who think that Rice's bat has earned him that honor, the honor of being enshrined as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. It's a divisive argument, but it's a common and popular one, one that seems to come up in some way or another every single year.

Albert Pujols just wrapped up his eighth full year in the Major Leagues. His worst offensive season so far was better than Rice's best.

I didn't think I'd ever be in a position where I'd feel the need to write this about a guy with a career batting line of .334/.425/.624, but here I am, and I'm not kidding. Albert Pujols does not get anything close to as much love as he deserves. Don't get me wrong, people know that he's great - I think even the most casual fan understands that Pujols is the best player on his team. But what seems to pass unnoticed is just how great he really is. It's the level of greatness that strikes me as being almost universally underappreciated.

Albert Pujols is the perfect hitter. Not 1.000 perfect, but perfect in the sense that he is all strength and devoid of weakness. This season he was 14 runs better at the plate than any other hitter in the league. With a busted elbow. Last season he came in seventh despite fighting through an assortment of injuries. In 2006 he was nine runs better than second place. In 2005 he was a run behind first but ten runs above third. And so on and so forth. He has as good an eye as Todd Helton. He makes as much contact as Ichiro. He has as much power as Alex Rodriguez. He makes more contact on balls out of the zone than Jack Cust makes on balls in it. He's flawless. As an opposing pitcher, you can't draw up a plan to retire Albert Pujols. You can draw up a plan to pitch to Albert Pujols, but no matter how many different approaches people take when he's at the plate, the one point they all have in common is "close eyes and cross fingers." A high-leverage at bat against Pujols from which a pitcher escapes without developing symptoms of PTSD can only be considered a resouding success.

But that's not all. You see, it wouldn't be enough if Pujols were simply the best hitter on the planet. He's also the best defensive first baseman in baseball. By one reputable metric, between 2005-2007 he made 41 more plays than the next best defensive 1B. He's led first basemen in RZR two years in a row and three of the last five. UZR loves him. PMR loves him. In the field, Pujols looks to be a 10 < x < 15 run player, which gives him an almost unfathomable edge over less graceful sluggers like Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder. He might only have a moderately substantial lead over them with the bat, but once you factor in defense, you're talking about an overall difference of anywhere from five to eight wins. Five to eight wins! That's like the difference between 2008 Tim Lincecum and 2008 Brian Burres.

And to think that Ryan Howard is being talked about as a candidate for the MVP. This year, perhaps more than ever, anyone who doesn't list Pujols #1 on his MVP ballot deserves to be subjected to an experiment in which he has his conscience irreversibly swapped with a looping version of Brad Lidge's from October 2005. Brad Lidge understands. Oh, does Brad Lidge ever understand.

Albert Pujols is amazing. He is the sort of player who is so unbelievably terrific at everything that it's almost as if he's been genetically engineered. His reliable level of extraordinary production doesn't seem like it should be possible for a human to generate, and yet Pujols does it, and he does it every year, every day. The only thing more remarkable than his talent is the way that people, when you ask them for a list of the NL's best players, include Pujols' name almost as an afterthought. Like "oh yeah, and Pujols is in there too," as if it's no big deal that he's able to do what he does. As if people have simply come to expect it.

That's probably what it is, really. Why he's so underappreciated. People love talent, but more than that, they love a story. They notice a guy who comes out of nowhere. They notice a guy having a big bounceback season. They notice a guy putting up monster home runs and RBI. Pujols meets none of the criteria. He's just a guy doing the same thing he's always done, and while that 'same thing' is absolutely sensational, nothing bores the masses quite like consistency. So they stop caring. They stop caring and they turn their attention to something newer, something shinier. Something worse. And Pujols just keeps chugging along as one of the greatest players the game has ever seen.

Albert Pujols has played so consistently well that he's spoiled the world. I can think of no higher praise.

Note: obviously there's no way of measuring who is actually the most underappreciated player in baseball. There are several contenders for that title. Albert Pujols is one of them.

10/2: Other Stupider Games

Jeff — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:52:43 -0000

Next Game

Milwaukee Brewers
@ Philadelphia Phillies

Thursday, Oct 2, 2008, 3:07 PM PDT
Citizens Bank Park

CC Sabathia vs Brett Myers

Mostly clear. Winds blowing from left to right field at 5-15 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 60.

Complete Coverage >

Next Game

Los Angeles Dodgers
@ Chicago Cubs

Thursday, Oct 2, 2008, 6:37 PM PDT
Wrigley Field

Chad Billingsley vs Carlos Zambrano

Mostly cloudy with a 30-percent chance of rain. Winds blowing out to right field at 10-20 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 60.

Complete Coverage >