SB Nation User Blog: gossamer

Danny Darwin vs John Smoltz

gossamer — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:03:01 -0000

Back from vacation in St. Louis and killing time. Using that national pasttime program I punched in selected stats for Danny Darwin. I know that Smoltz is 10 times better than Darwin but...

Smoltz and Darwin are the only 2 pitchers in history to meet the following random criteria:

career numbers...

Era below 3.90

at least 165 wins

350 games started

50 complete games

8 shutouts

30 saves

2500 innings pitched

1930 strikeouts

allow less than 3000 hits

interesting eh...

if you take out the max hits allowed criteria and reduce the minimum saves to the magical number 7 and you get the following great pitchers:

christy mathewson

grover alexander

robin roberts

jim bunning

don drysdale

fergie jenkins

dennis eckersley

john smolts

curt schilling

danny darwin

who knew that darwin was such a great pitcher?

go bonham bullet!!

of course, if you punch in rusty greer's career numbers for hits, runs, rbi, hr, avg, obp and slugging, doubles, walks, stolen bases, triples you end up with

stan musial, rogers hornsby, babe ruth, charlie gehringer, goose goslin, lou gehrig, harry heilmann, jimmie foxx, arod, chipper jones, bill terry, larry walker, vlad guerrero, earl averill, todd helton, mickey cochran, hank greenberg, ken williams, hack wilson and rusty greer. 80% of which are or will be HOF.

OT: think there was cheating?

gossamer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:01:28 -0000

way off topic fantasy football. don't read if you really really don't care about that stuff.

Joined a league the other day. It's one of those yahoo anonymous leagues. I log on today to see that the draft was switched from autopick to live to offline. I look at my team (the league has standard qb, rb, wr, te, def, k and then a LB)

anyway. i notice that i drafted deangelo williams 4th. he wasn't in my top 4 pre rankings so I look at draft results. Adrian Peterson slipped to the 10th pick. the Commish picked 10th. um yeah. also on my team, i had no kickers, no back up quarterback. no line backer, and 4 backup tightends. i look at other teams and NOBODY ELSE drafted a line backer. the commish also has drew brees, ben rothlesberger and eli manning. the pitt, bal AND tennessee defenses to boot.

WTF? so i figure i will wait until week 2 and see if anybody else is trying to actually play in this league. I will try and trade my top players for his scrubs...if the commish lets us.

¿Miguel Jóvenes para Silver Slugger?

gossamer — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:02:51 -0000

FOTF aka Face of the Franchise has a good shot at the silver slugger award.

SILVER SLUGGER CHANCES

Comparing Mike to other AL 3rd Basemen

7 players have had at lease 400 plate appearences

Young, Figgins, Longoria, Peralta, Teahen, Inge, Arod

out of those, Young is 1st in OPS by 18 pts (.926 to AROD's .908).

Young is 1st in SLG by 33 pts (.543 to Longoria's .510)

Young is 3rd in OBP down 16 pts, ahead of next guy by 25 pts (Figins and Arod are .399 to Young's .383)

Young is tied for 3rd in HR with 22 with Arod. Arod will end up leading. Inge and Longoria are both up 2 right now

Longoria is smoking everybody with 88 RBI right now (again, Arod will likely catch up). Young is 5th with 66. Arod, Inge and Peralta all have 68 or 67, so it's a negligible difference between them right now.

Young is tied for 2nd with 74 runs with Longoria (Figgins is 1st with 96)

Young is tied with longoria with the lead in extra base hits at 59 (teahen is next with 42)

Young is the leader in Total bases with 267. longoria is next with 229

Young is tops in Runs Created with 95.9. that's 10.5 above 2nd place figgins

Young is tops in RC27 with 7.40. arod is next at 7.12. after that there's a gap to figgins with 6.36

Young is 3rd in GB to FB ratio with 0.85, basically tied with arod's 0.84. Teahen and Peratla are tops with 1.08 and 1.06. Longoria is worst with 0.61

Arod DOES have the best BB/K ratio with 0.89. Young is 3rd with 0.56

Basically it seems it's down to Young, Arod and Longoria. If the season ended today, I'd believe Young should win.

Maybe Kinsler can turn things around and enter the discussion for 2nd Base silver slugger

maybe i'll take a look at young's chances to finish in the top 5 in MVP voting later on.

OT: LSB fantasy football 2009

gossamer — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:50:05 -0000

I have sent out invites to all of the people that were in the league last year. So this is a heads up in case you don't check your email.

The drafts so far is live Wed Sep 2 and 630 PM.

I guess I will give until August 21ishy before inviting/asking you to invite more people to join the league.

Settings will be the same as last year.

12 teams max

head-to-head

max moves 75

4 team playoffs (wk 16 and 17)

fractional and negative points

Roster Positions: QB, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, W/R, K, DEF, D, D, D, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN

passing yards 50 yards per point (double yahoo default); 1 points at 300 yards

passing tds 6

int -2

rush yds 10 yards per point; 1 points at 100 yards; 2 points at 200 yards; 6 points at 300 yards

reception yards 15 yards per point; 1 points at 100 yards; 2 points at 200 yards; 6 points at 300 yards

return yards 25 yards per point; 1 points at 150 yards

fumbles lost -2

fg 0-19 yds 3

fg 20-29 yds 3

fg 30-39 yds 3

fg 40-49 yds 4

fg 50+ yds 5

pat 1

defensive /special teams...

sack 2

int 3

fum rec 2

safety 2

block kick 1

Points Allowed 0 points 10

Points Allowed 1-6 points 7

Points Allowed 7-13 points 5

Points Allowed 14-20 points 2

Points Allowed 21-27 points 0

Points Allowed 28-34 points -1

Points Allowed 35+ points -4

defensive players

Tackle Solo 1

Tackle Assist	.5
Sack	2
Interception	3
Fumble Force	2
Fumble Recovery	2
Defensive Touchdown	6
Safety	2
Pass Defended	1

Tanner Scheppers Considers playing in Japan ####### MLB.Com reporter Daniel Paullinh spoke with...

gossamer — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:47:17 -0000

Tanner Scheppers Considers playing in Japan
#######

MLB.Com reporter Daniel Paullinh spoke with Greg Genske, the agent for Tanner Scheppers who was the Rangers supplemental first round pick in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft.

According to what Genske told Paulling...

* Scheppers is working out six days a week at the API Institute in Carson, California and is in good shape. There were reports, which Genske said were false, about Scheppers needing shoulder needing surgery about two weeks ago.

* Genske is setting up an audition for Scheppers for about a half dozen Japanese teams within a couple of weeks. There were Japanese scouts who saw Scheppers pitch with the St. Paul Saints. He hasn't decided whether to invite the Rangers to the session. (Genske should know more on Monday.)

* Dr. Lewis Yocum and Keith Meister, according to Genske, have given Scheppers a good bill of health.
####

you may have to be on facebook to see the source, but i quoted the entire page.

Click Me and you can win a prize!

Who am I

gossamer — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:11:53 -0000

This would have been a "where are they now" but I could not find any info on this guy.

Shortstop born in 1964. what could have been a really solid career was ruined by shoulder issues, but prolonged (i suspect) by steroid use--just look at his stats before the 96 season if you can figure out who it is.

was drafted by the mets in the 2nd round of the 84 amateur draft. guy that was a terrible hitter, but good with the glove.

put up a .257 avg in short season that year.

1985 saw him play in A ball and AA combining for a .276 avg and .388 slg

1986 played complete season of AA ball hitting .269 and slugging .340

1987 made it to AAA hitting a nice .310 and upped the slugging too at .439

1988 replaced the great Rafael santana on the mets as the fulltime shortstop where he held that post until after the 1992 season when he was granted free agency. hit .224/.288/.343 in 7 seasons as a met

1993 signed as a free agent with the Dodgers. played 10 games in AA for the dodgers.

dec 1993 signed as a free agent with the padres, released in march of 1994

1994 signed as free agent with the yankees. over 2 seasons hit .054/.103/.081/.184

June 8 1995 the yankees release him

June 29,1995 signs with the royals. plays a handful of games for them in the minors

july 3, 1995 royals release him

july 7, 1995 signs with the phillies. plays 26 games for them hitting .208/.302/.377/.679

oct 5 1995 granted free agency

jan 16, 1996 signs with the RANGERS. has career high in home runs (24, previous high was 10) rbi (99, previous high of 55) batting avg (.252). also had .317 obp (career high was .318) and slugged .462.

rangers let him walk. put up pitiful numbers in pittsburgh

1998, comes back to texas and went for .232/.311/.354/.665

did not play in the majors in 1999.

signed free agent contract with the dodgers in 2000 where he finished his career.

career numbers: .228/.300/.377/.677 in 2844 at bats with 88 homers.

highlights:

10th in league in strikeouts in 1996. 3rd in league in sacrifice hits in 1996 with 16. 3rd in league in sacrifice flies in 1996 with 11.

between 1988 and 1989 he held a then record of 88 consecutive games without an error for shortstop (cal ripken would later break that record)

in 2000, the very first game at Pac Bell park he had 3 home runs.

had a part in the movie Little Big League

Craig Counsell was the best player of the past 15 years.

gossamer — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:52:00 -0000

Craig Counsell was the best player of the past 15 years.

The Source

Top AL Rookies thus far... Nolan Reimold (bal) LF 209 AB 28 Runs 27 RBI .287/.374/.464/.838 6...

gossamer — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:14:27 -0000

Top AL Rookies thus far...

Nolan Reimold (bal) LF
209 AB 28 Runs 27 RBI .287/.374/.464/.838 6 SB

Andrew Bailey (oak) RP
60 IP 13 SV 2.25 ERA 68 SO 1.03 WHIP

Ricky Romero (TOR) SP
102.2 IP 3.59 ERA 82 SO 9-4 Record 1.38 WHIP

Brett Gardner (nyy) CF
200 AB 36 Runs 20 RBI .275/.354/.400/.754 20 SB

Brad Bergesen (bal) SP
119.1 IP 3.47 ERA 61 SO 6-5 Record 1.28 WHIP

Elvis Andrus (tex) SS
274 AB 41 Runs 19 RBI .266/.323/.372/.696 20 SB

Chris Getz (chw) 2b
275 AB 38 Runs 23 RBI .262/.320/.367/.687 14 SB

//////

Clearly Andrus isn't the front runner. i put them in a hurried approximate order. did i leave anybody out? what's your order.

ignore away.

Gossamer.gossamer

how good has the angels hitting been?

gossamer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:04:58 -0000

Pretty much the entire month of July the angels have been without 2 offensive forces, Vlad and Hunter. Most of us figured that they would take a hit offensively.

The team OPS for July is an amazing .886 while for the season it's been .795. that's a .090 jump.

the team batting average for july??? .320

a look at the guys that have the bulk AB's for the month and their OPS for july, the season and career. everything here can easily be found at espn.com

player ops for july (for season) (for career)

jeff mathis .633 (.602) (.599)

kendry morales .941 (.879) (.789)

howie kendrick .963 (.701) (.752)

chone figgins .930 (.814) (.751)

erick aybar 1.101 (.787) (.692)

juan rivera 1.009 (.873) (.810)

garry matthews .574 (.605) (.737)

bobby abreu .946 (.849) (.900)

reggie willits .542 (.553) (.687)

mike napoli .894 (.867) (.861)

maicer izturis .938 (.787) (.731)

with the exception of willits and matthews, everybody has exceeded their career numbers by quite a bit, and july is dragging up their season numbers.

at the exact same time, rangers hitters are putting up horrible numbers.

******

the angels staff ERA for july is 4.65 and 4.68 on the season.

their whip is 1.37 for july and 1.43 on the season.

so their pitching is slightly better for the month as well.

the rangers staff era for july/season is 3.41/4.22

the rangers staff whip for july season is 1.24/1.37

so the rangers pitching has gotten quite a bit better as their hitters have faltered.

******

we can assume that the angels hitters will fall off a bit can't we? what about when hunter and vlad return?

assuming their pitching stays consistent, will a slowing down of their bats be enough for texas to catch up?

we HOPE HOPE HOPE the rangers hitters will start hitting again(and i didn't put their numbers up because we all realize how bad they have been) , but will the pitching stay strong or fall to earth?

i'm not gonna look it up, but i think the angels went into the ASB with a 1 game lead. july is nearly over and it's grown to a 3.5 game lead at the moment. with amazing hitting they only gained 2.5 games. i don't think that is TOO terribly bad.

*****

no real revelation here, other than showing just how impossibly good the angels offense has been.

nothing gold can stay.