yahoo story

Carter died on Thursday after suffering from brain cancer. His daughter Kimmie Bloemers published an announcement on a family website. The Hall of Fame catcher, the biggest face of the Expos franchise and a leader among superstars on the World Series champion Mets in 1986, was 57 years old. He hit 324 career homers, made 11 All-Star teams and seemed to have a blast doing every bit of it.

RIP Kid.

Tim Kurkjian remembers the life and career of Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter. (This is a youtube video)

On this date in 2006 the Rangers signed Ramon Vaquez as a free agent.

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The Yankers won game 2 all 3 times in the 90s. They won the series.

Rangers won game 2 last year against the Rays. They won the series.

Rangers won game 2 last year against the Yankees. They won the series.

Giants won game 2 last year. They won the series.

Rangers won game 2 this year against the Rays. They won the series.

Rangers won game 2 this year against the Tigers. They won the series.

Rangers won game 2 last night against the Cardinals. Outcome yet to be determined.

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these are all regular season stats.

Game 1 starters

CJ away- 2.31 ERA, 1.15 Whip, .219 BAA

Carpenter home- 3.05 ERA, 1.24 wHIP, .256 BAA

looks like CJ wins this hands down, especially if we assume (hope?) that Ceej has a good start on his 4th try.

The cards will likely roll out a right handed lineup, as will the rangers

CJ vs righties- .227 BAA/.323 OPBA/.303SLGA

Carpenter vs righties-.268 BAA/ .313OBPA/ .333SLGA

again CEEJ has the advantage.  yay!

HITTERS

Rangers on the road-.269/.326/.413/.740

Cards at home-.270/.340./406/.745

I would say that that is a push

Rangers vs righties- .286/.339/.460/.799

Cards vs lefties- .268/.331/.437/.768

rangers look to have the advantage here!

Be proud of your team. That was one heck of a series.  Games 1 and 2 could have gone either way. A bad bounce here, a hustle play there and that's the series really, oh and Nelson Cruz being historically good. (can never count on that).  For the most part every playoff game for the Rangers game has been a GREAT one. The Tigers and the Rays are both good teams and played VERY well.  Most of the games have been tight and definitely worth attending or watching.  Keep your heads up, you lost to a great team.  There is always next year.

Please Forgive me if this has already been posted.

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right now we have 1 spot open FOR SURE.  in keeper leagues we usually turnover a handful of teams so i'm sure we'll have at least a few more. post here if you want to take over a team.  also, post here if you haven't emailed me yet about wanting to RENEW your team. 

my wife is having a baby in (hopefully) 3 weeks. i'm gonna be quite busy. i need somebody to take over commish duties, at least for this season. if nobody does it, i'll get a draft date in for sure but will certainly be absent.  please if interested in being commish please please let me know.

the team that needs a new owner for sure has these top players on his roster. you get to keep 3 of them:

matt schaub

jamaal charles

peyton hillis

michael turner

calvin johnson

pierre garcon

vernon davis

hakeem nicks

mike vick

marques colston

jonathan stewart

etc...

Not sure if this has been done before, but here goes. Really complicated. Maybe I'll do another player sometime.

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There have certainly been arguments made the past week or so as to where Dirk goes in the all-time greats list.  Some in the media say he is not top 25. Others say around #20.  I say he's ahead of greats like George Gervin, Scottie Pippen, John Havlicek, Elvin Hayes, and Dr. J. I think I heard somebody say some idiot put Kevin McHale over him a few days ago. Whatever.  What I'm wondering is where does Dirk rank among his peers.  I'm looking at guys drafted between 4 years before him and 4 years after him.

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I went ahead and submitted a couple of ballots.  Later on I'll send a Rangers Ballot....

This is my ballot, please share yours:

1b -  A Gonzalez

2b - R Cano

SS - A Ramirez

3b - A Rod

CA - A Avila

DH - M Young

OF - J Bautista

OF - C Granderson

OF - M Joyce

wish we could vote pitchers, OGANDO FEVER!!!!

what are the chances of  Ogando and/or  Ceej making the team?

hmmm...says current word count 77 but won't let me post...

I re-activated espn the league. those owners that were on the league the past couple seasons, please answer your invites and rejoin. you must select your keepers by Tuesday, March 15, 4PM central.

the draft is live online snake type. draft is thur march 24 and 630 pm central.

we have one team whose owner has quit, that's sweet sassy molassey (you can change team name)

post here if you want a chance at the team.  i will look here later on, preference given to somebody that's been active at least 6 months.  don't get discouraged though, because if some owners don't join within a week of the keeper cut off date i will deactivate them (after trying to contact them) and invite a replacement owner.

here is the current roster for sweet sassy molassey , you keep 3 players:

ryan doumit, joey votto, jose lopez, chone figgins, derek jeter, chris young, torri hunter, manny ramirez, victor martinez, gordon beckham, nyjer morgan, yunel escobar, dexter fowler, adam laroche, chris carpenter, scott baker, roy oswalt, rich harden, gavin floyd, joakim soria, brandon lyon, jon rauch

edit:

if interested, reply here and if your email is not in your profile send me a message to: gossamer1234@gmail.com with your lsb user name

Yao of course was voted in, but ain't gonna play.

That leaves a center starting spot open and a handful of centers and power forwards.

which of these candidates will be left out:

Blake Griffin 22.6/12.8
Kevin Love 21.6/15.7
LeMarcus ALdridge 21/9
Pau Gasol 18.6/10.5
Dirk 23.1/6.9
Tim Duncan 13.6/9.5

I imagine griffin and love are mortal locks.

bla bla bla bla bla

I have all the projections, but don't have time to post them with the results all at once.  So I'll post a few at a time.  If you want to Rec this so it doesn't get buried be my guest.  When I update i'll update it in the main post and post update so you see there's a new post.

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Matt Harrison
(link: harrison )

actual stats:
78.1 IP, 4.71 ERA, 46 K , 39 BB, 10HR
projected stats:
133 IP, 4.75 ERA, 98K, 46 BB,14 HR

closet person:

Mizzou12

70 IP, 5.05 ERA, 55 K, 24BB, 9HR

I think it's safe to say that Harrison didn't quite live up to expectations.  His walk ratio was quite a bit higher than what was hoped for, and he sure gave up more HR then we expected.

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C.J. Wilson
(link: ceej)

actual stats:
204 IP, 3.35 ERA, 170 K, 93 BB, 10 HR
projected stats:
155 IP, 4.11 ERA, 140 K, 66 BB, 16 HR
closest person:
LSJ

175IP, 3.70 ERA, 150 K, 85 BB, 17HR

Ceej definitely outperformed what we hoped for.  No bones about it.  We were wrong! Nobody projected 200 IP.

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Taylor Teagarden

(link: teabags )

actual stats:

85 PA, .155 avg, .259 obp, .338 slug

projected stats:

273 PA, .237 avg, .306 obp, .401 slug

closest person:

Randy Richardson

188 PA, .212 avg, .280 obp, .371 slug

Yeah, a bit of a disappointment I'd say.

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Salty

(link: noodle arm)

actual stats (as a ranger)

5 PA, .200 avg, .200 obp, .200 slg

projected stats:

329 PA, .256 avg, .317 obp, .410 slg

closest person:

Athos:

250 PA, .215 avg, .250 obp, .350 slg

Don't really wanna say much about this one.

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Chris Davis

(link: crush )

actual stats:

136 Pa, .192 avg, .279 obp, .292 slg

projected stats:

538 Pa, .273 avg, .326 obp, .517 slg

closest person:

pfrog:

305 pa, .245 avg, .291 obp, .440 slg

See salty, except much worse because he was in the lineup for 136 plate appearances. salty just embarrassed OKC.

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Rich Harden

(link: dick)

actual stats:

92 IP, 5.58 ERA, 75K, 62BB, 18 HR

another turd. *sigh*

projected stats:

153 ip, 3.79 ERA, 156K, 55BB, 18 HR

closest:

LiamP

123IP, 4.35ERA, 110K, 58BB, 23HR

.////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Scott Feldman

(link: scooter )

Actual stats:

141 IP, 5.48 ERA, 75 K, 45BB, 18 HR

Projected stats:

194 IP, 4.21 ERA, 130K, 65 BB, 19 HR

Closest :

Josey Wales

170 IP, 4.68 ERA, 97 K, 67BB, 21HR

Another underperformer.  ERA was off by over 1.20, K rate was way down.  We were right on for BB rate.  Gave up more homers than anticipated too.

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Elvis Andrus

(link: elvis )

Actual stats:

674 PA, .265 avg, .342 obp, .301 slg

Projected stats:

593 PA, .276 avg, .340 obp, .388 slg

Closest:

Sprite:

580 PA, .258 avg, .322 obp, .360 slg

Elvis got more PA's than anybody predicted.  We had assumed that his batting average would improve, not stay the same.  His obp was right where we predicted but his slugging fell DRAMATICALLY.

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Colby Lewis

(link: cobra )

Actual stats:

201 IP, 3.72 ERA, 196 K, 65 BB, 21 HR

Projected stats:

169 IP, 4.72 ERA, 139 K, 49 BB, 18 HR

Closest:

WyoRanger

205 IP, 3.85 ERA, 170 K, 70 BB, 20 HR

Pretty far off on ERA and the K rate. Walk rate and HR rates were right on.  Projection vs. Results feel much better with Colby and Ceej than they do with feldman and harden

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David Murphy

(link: murph )

Actual Stats:

467 PA, .291 avg, .358 obp, .449 slg

Projected Stats:

405 PA, .279 avg, .342 obp, .451 slg

Closest:

AceJC

422 PA, .288 avg, .357 obp, .448 slg

Last year many of us felt that Murphy was the easiest to project.  Not necessarily the case this year.  He out performed everything except slugging, which was a push. .807 OPS ain't bad for a 4th outfielder.

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Josh Hamilton

(link: hammy )

Actual Stats:

571 PA, .359 avg, .411 obp, .633 slg

Projected Stats:

484 PA, .289 avg, .351 obp, .518 slg

Closest Person:

James Welch

577 PA, 352 avg, .423 obp, .634 slg

Only one person had Hammy with an ops over 1.000. I think that I can comfortably say that Hammy exceeded our greatest expectations.

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Vlad Guerrero

(link: vlad )

Actual Stats:

643 PA, .300 avg, .345 obp, .496 slg

Projected Stats:

492 PA, .301 avg, .355 obp, .515 slg

Closest:

philkid3

500 PA, .300 avg, .345 obp, .500 slg

After just appearing in 100 games the year before, we expected Vlad to put in about 500 plate appearances.  He played quite a bit more. Batting average was right on. We were .029 off on OPS.  Not bad at all.  If his drop off at the end wasn't quite as bad we probably would have guessed it right on. 

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Nelson Cruz

(link: cruz )

Actual Stats:

445 PA, .318 Avg, .374 OBP, .576 Slg

Projected Stats:

573 PA, .274 Avg, .344 OBP, .538 Slg

Closest:

GoFrogs

525 PA, .282 Avg, .380 OBP, .580 SLG

We REALLY wish Cruz would have been healthy enough to play more.  He outperformed us in every other category! 

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Julio Borbon

(link: borbon )

Actual Stats:

468 PA, .276 Avg, .309 OBP, .340 SLG

Projected Stats:

587 PA, .287 Avg, .344 OBP, .405 SLG

Closest:

iblum

485 PA, .267 Avg, .330 OBP, .355 SLG

Some  disappointment from the expected lead-off hitter that was gonna steal 50 bases. No really close on any of the projections here.

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Ian Kinsler

(link: kins )

Actual Stats:

460 PA, .286 Avg, .382 OBP, .412 Slg

Projected Stats:

611 PA, .284 Avg, .355 OBP, .495 Slg

Closest:

AceJC (again!!!)

633 PA, .288 avg, .360 OBP, .452 Slg

Why in the world would we have projected Ian to get 611 PA given his injury history?  His batting average was right on!  He learned how to get on base, that's nice, but his power was quite lacking.  This was a weird season of Kinsler.  Nobody was really close on projections, and I'm sure very good arguments could be made for others to have closer projections.  My blind spreadsheet process of elimination though led me back to AceJC (it was down to him and another winner, GoFrogs who projected 575/.285/.350/.460.

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Michael Young

(link: face )

Actual Stats:

718 PA, .284 Avg, .330 OBP, .444 Slg

Projected statats:

647 PA, .308 Avg, .361 OBP, .467 Slg

Closest:

Whipsmart

640 PA, .292 Avg, .341 OBP, .444 Slg

Nobody projected his batting average or obp to be as low as it was (there were over 100 projections). A little over 10% of the projections were lower than his actual slugging. Only 1 person projected his OPS to be as low as or lower than what it was.  Add that to the fact that his actual plate appearances out numbered his projected appearances  and it was a bad year for Young. This guy was the #2 guy in the lineup?

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Performed better than projections:

Ceej

Lewis

Hammy

Cruz

Push:

Murph

Vlad

Kinsler

Performed worse than projections:

Harrison

Davis

Teagarden

Feldman

Harden

Elvis

Young

Borbon

Doesn't count:

Salty

Didn't plan on actually doing one for the ALCS, but every time I make one they win!  So I gotta keep making them right?

Anyway, here is the link.

If it's good, like it and pass it around.  If it stinks, unlike it and do nothing.  This one features a fight between Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum in the end.

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This is your time.  You are the underdog. Your talent is being overlooked.  In the aftermath of the disaster that was game 5, talk radio and tv pundits are just assuming Texas will lose game 6.  They seem to agree that Cliff Lee will win game 7, but I find this insulting. A lot of them don't explain why they assume the yanks will win game 6. Many don't even mention the game 6 starters.  They just assume YOU will let us down. They assume the yankee bats have awakened, but forget they have an off day, a travel day to fall back asleep.  They forget that you have played very well this post season and Phil Hughes was slaughtered in game 2, that a young pitcher like him might have that still on his mind, especially since it was in Texes where he will be pitching Friday night. Phil Hughes has 18 wins. So what? He's also got $200M behind him. 

YOU are the better player.

Your WAR on the season was 4.4 His was 2.4

Your FIP on the season was 3.55. His was 4.25.

Your k/bb was 3.02. His was 2.52.

Your ERA was 3.72. His was 4.19.

Your ERA+ was 116. His was 102.

You are quite a bit better than him. 

Their hitters on the season were better than the Rangers hitters, but they are down Mark Teixeira. Your hitters have heart, their hitters have money.  Your hitters have a backbone, their hitters have magazine covers.  Your hitters have antlers and claws, their hitters have bentleys and diamonds.  You have the metroplex behind you, they have a city of jerks overpaying for rent.  You have us, they have the mainstream media.

Your team has been described as "pesky".  Good, help your team irk them. Get under their skin and put them away.

Dominate their hitters.  Embarrass them and let Hammy and Cruz and Vlad and Ian and Elvis take care of the rest.

Friday night is yours.  Take no prisoners.

You are the Cobra.  Strike First, Strike Hard, Show No Mercy.

season stats

hunter: 3.73 era, 1.24 WHIP, 0.53 K/Inning, 2.1 k/bb ratio

burnett: 5.26 era, 1.51 WHIP, 0.78 K/Inning, 1.86 k/bb ratio

advantage: hunter

september stats:

hunter: 4.25 era, 1.45 WHIP, 0.72 K/Inning, 2.1 k/bb ratio

burnett: 6.14 era, 1.55 WHIP, 0.93 K/Inning, 2.1 k/bb ratio

advantage: hunter

burnett hasn't pitched since october 2nd.  so no post season starts.

hunter lasted 4 innings against tampa. he allowed 6 hits and struck out 7 walking none.  gave up 3 runs, 2 earned.

hunter pitched against the yanks once this year. he went 5 striking out 8 and walking 3. 2 earned runs in a no decision.  it was at home.

burnett pitched against texas three times this year.  18 innings, 17 strikeouts, 7 walks,  earned runs.  1-0.

advantage: burnett

sounds like a tossup to me. 

go rangers!

Finally, after copyright issues and then uploading issues I have the video up.  The quality is reduced 50% because of said uploading issues.  The Joe Esposito song in there wasn't what I had wanted (pantera - cowboys from hell) but it's what i got.

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Just finished it.  Didn't start working on it until about a month ago so I'm sure I missed a couple things from earlier on, but I think I got most of the things of note.  Hope you like it.  If you do, spread it around to other Rangers fans you know. 

the video

Hopefully the "sequel" will have a happy ending.

ENJOY!

• Your FanPost must be at least <strong>75 words long</strong>. Right now it's only <strong>64 words long</strong>. If you just have a quote, link, video or photo you'd like to share with the community, try <a href="/newfanshot?community_id=10">creating a FanShot</a> instead.

my contest is over, butSchrute Farms is giving away a pass code.  look down to 9:56 for details

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Is up for grabs.  Correctly predict todays final score.  The person that's closest (and a regular poster on LSB) will get the pass code.  Look in this thread after the game some time and I'll post the winner in the original post.  To make sure that nobody else takes the code, you will wanna put your email address with your guess (or maybe facebook account) so I can send the passcode. You have until the top of the 4th inning.

FINAL SCORE: 6-5

winner: studcracker (6-4)

I will email you in a little bit

From my email:

YOUR ALCS TICKET OPPORTUNITY BEGINS TOMORROW

Congratulations! You are a winner for the 2010 Texas Rangers ALCS Ticket Opportunity. We are pleased to offer you the opportunity to purchase up to four tickets for one potential game of the American League Championship Series at Rangers Ballpark before they go on sale to the general public.

Beginning at 9:00 a.m. CT tomorrow, Thursday, September 30, you may take advantage of this online-only ticket opportunity by using the exclusive one-time use passcode: _________

Your ALCS Ticket Opportunity will continue until 5:00 p.m. CT Friday, October 1.

Most of us can agree that the 4 most dangerous hitters in the Rangers lineup are Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, and Vladdy McVladdyVlad.

How often have they actually played together this season?  How much better is the team with all of them?  The numbers after the jump.

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Usually I don't publicly make fun of competing stations in my market, but this story is hilarious.

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i'm gonna look back and try and make a list of best moments of the season...but in case i miss some please post some of the moments.  i'm gonna make a video probably of this season

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An overly simplistic (and yet optimistic) look at Cliff Lee this year compared to last year.

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