SB Nation User Blog: yurizanow

Anybody interested in meeting up?

yurizanow — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:53:05 -0000

I'll be in Baltimore on Monday December 29th and Tuesday December 30th. I'll be in Brooklyn from New Year's Eve until January 9th and would be willing to get together anywhere in New York City within reason (sorry, no Bronx meet-up for me).

If anyone is interested in getting together at either location to talk Orioles or Ravens or whatever, let me know. For a week or so I should have the time and always have the inclination.

ESPN says the Orioles are no longer in the running for Teixeira

yurizanow — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:32:43 -0000

I just saw on ESPN that the Orioles are not going to upgrade their bid on Mark Teixeira, effectively putting them out of the running unless he is willing to accept significantly less than the offers from other teams to play for them. Personally, I don't think that's very likely to happen. I really wish it would. I really wish the Orioles would throw a boatload of cash at him and Dunn, but I also wish I could eat chocolate cake and lose weight as well.

See link below.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3775042

Baltimore or New York Meet-Up?

yurizanow — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:04:41 -0000

I'll be back in Baltimore from the December 23rd to around New Year's Eve and in New York City from New Year's Eve until January 9th.

I'd love to get together in either location with Camden Chat people past and present. We can have a few drinks, lament about the Orioles, I'll defend Mike Mussina and argue that he should be in the Hall of Fame. It'll be fun.

Jonnypops, I'm looking in your direction.

Shysterball doesn't want Mark Teixeira

yurizanow — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:57:28 -0000

http://shysterball.blogspot.com/2008/08/os-fans-dont-know-whats-good-for-them.html

The gist of the article seems to be that if the Orioles sign Teixeira, it will contradict the work Andy MacPhail has been doing to build the Orioles from the bottom up by reverting to Peter Angelos free-spending ways.

I don't know I necessarily buy that. Although I would go after Adam Dunn, who probably cost less money for similar offensive output, the Orioles will eventually have to sign somebody who didn't come up through their own system and Teixeira is young enough that he could meld nicely with the young players who will be coming up in the next few years and still have some productivity in him when the O's are ready to compete.

Please trade George Sherrill

yurizanow — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:03:55 -0000

The guy enters the game with a 7-3 lead and exits with a 7-6 lead. This guy has gotta go and sooner rather than later because eventually other teams are going to catch on.

The numbers don't lie. The guy is on pace to set career-highs for hits, runs, home runs, and walks and he's 31 years old. It's not likely he's going to get any better. If there is a team willing to give actual baseball players for him, do it. The O's should be grateful they got a player in a trade that they could turn into more players. That's the kind of slick front office action I would love to see come out of Baltimore.

The Ten Commandment of Sabermetrics

yurizanow — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:59:41 -0000

I mentioned this in an earlier post. I snooped around and eventually found the complete list.

Hey Dave Trembley, pay attention to rules number one, two, and four! Hey front office, pay attention to rules number five and nine (although they've been better about that lately).

Encouragingly enough, Trembley obeys the rules related to pitching.

The Ten Commandments of Sabermetrics

By Bill James

1) Thou Shalt not Bunt.

2) Thou Shalt Have no Low On Base Percentages Before the Cleanup Hitter

3) Honor the three-run homer and the leadoff walk.

4) Thou shalt not steal at anything less than a 70% success rate.

5) Thou shalt make no idol of the light-hitting middle infielder.

6) Thou shalt not count to the credit of the pitcher that which is done by his fielders or by his hitters, nor charge him with their failings.

7) Thou shalt not abuse thy starting pitchers.

8) Thou shalt make no effort to ride the hot hand, for the hot hand is but a shape in the wind.

9) Place thy faith not in veterans, when youth be available to ye.

10) Thou shalt not pass freely thy opponent's number eight hitter, nor his cleanup hitter, nor his left-handed pinch hitter, nor any hitter that is thy opponent's.

Small Ball Debate Returns!

yurizanow — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:19:39 -0000

I've decided that the one thing I want to contribute to this site is instigating heated arguments about small ball. In that spirit below is a link to a great posting on firejoemorgan.com on that subject. They're talking about an article about playing small ball (a.k.a. playing the game the right way) written by former shitty baseball player Jose Mota.

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/search/label/jose%20mota

Some highlights -

Aggressiveness is not a style, but the right way to play the game, and it is the right way to teach the game.

Oh. It's black and white. Home runs are wrong. Walking is wrong. Clogging the basepaths is wrong. We should accept this wisdom because...why again?

We can go back to our Little League days when our best coaches encouraged us to be aggressive and to have fun on the basepaths, to move a buddy over with a bunt so he can get closer to scoring that big run, to be unafraid of taking a chance on a wild pitch, to choke up on the bat with two strikes and make contact. Most of us can remember the coach who said, "I won’t be upset if you get thrown out as long as you are being aggressive and smart."

It's funny, because so many of these well-worn baseball ostensible truisms are diametrically opposed to say, Bill James' 10 Commandments of Sabermetrics, which include:

1) Thou Shalt not Bunt.

2) Thou Shalt Have no Low On Base Percentages Before the Cleanup Hitter.

3) Honor the three-run homer and the leadoff walk.

4) Thou shalt not steal at anything less than a 70% success rate.

5) Thou shalt make no idol of the light-hitting middle infielder.

But then again, I have no idea if Bill James ever coached Little League, and he certainly never accumulated 36 at bats for the 1991 San Diego Padres, so you can probably throw his opinions out the window. That's all they are, right? Opinions, from some nerd who's only pored over reams and reams of data and carefully used statistical analysis to determine what baseball plays actually contribute most to scoring baseball runs.

Who needs that kind of opinion?

I played with seven organizations during my 12-year career, including big league stints with the Padres and Royals, and I can tell you that every one of them emphasized what they thought were the key components to winning. During spring training, we spent countless hours not talking about hitting three-run homers, but on how to maximize opportunities when it was our turn to hit.

Argh. Back to the craziness. Those Padres and those Royals OPS+ed 94 and 87, respectively. Maybe you should've chatted more about power hitting, yeah?

Many lessons had to do with playing the game with a high level of awareness. Every morning during spring training the routines were similar when talking about creating runs: bunt runners over, execute the hit-and-run, move the runner over from second to third with nobody out by hitting the ball to the right side. And when baserunning, recognize where the outfielders are positioned and know their arm strength. Tag the bases and slide properly. The ways to gain an edge are endless.

Other ways to gain an edge:

1. Get on base more than the other guys.
2. Make the other guys throw more pitches than your guys.
3. Don't bunt (except for the rarest of circumstances).
4. Don't give away outs.
5. Have more powerful dudes.
6. Force Edwin Encarnacion to bunt, making him so angry he hits a gargantuan home run.
7. Repeat with Adam Dunn.
8. Hit nine 3-run home runs every game.
9. Fold your arms in the dugout and smile.

By the way, anyone who can find the Rob Neyer/Bill James 10 Commandments of Sabermetrics would be my hero for at least a day.

Matt Wieters

yurizanow — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:48:00 -0000

I don't know if anybody has noticed, but Matt Wieters is literally beating the shit out of the ball down in Frederick with a line of .324/.420/.566 and 12 home runs.

I realize that those are A ball stats, but I'm still pretty impressed. Does anybody have any idea when he will arrive on the big-league club or when he should arrive?

Second, jonnypops and I talked about him when we met at the New York meetup a few months ago. Jonny said that a guy with his stats shouldn't be a catcher. I thought "let him play where he wants", but now I'm reconsidering. He's supposed to be an amazing defensive catcher, but I worry that catching will detract from his potentially greater value as a hitter. Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, and Mike Piazza didn't seem to benefit from having their catching duties removed, but Jimmie Foxx, Dale Murphy, and Craig Biggio did. What do you guys think?

Allow Me To Flog A Dead Horse

yurizanow — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:05:41 -0000

I'm going to try and make this the last time I pick on perfectly good player and Oriole with a promising future Nick Markakis. I realize almost everybody here understands that the O's need better players than him if they're going to become an elite team, but I decided to illustrate this with the Orioles' own past success.

Nick Markakis' best season so far is his current one where he's hitting for an OPS+ of 125 making him pretty much tied with Luke Scott for the best hitter on the team this year. Not too shabby, but the 1966, 1971, and 1983 Orioles had five guys with over 300 at bats whose OPS+ were either almost or exceeding 125. The 1969 and 1970 Orioles had four and the 1979 team had three.

On the 1969-1971 Oriole pennant winners Don Buford's OPS+ was 128, 126, and 153 (and just for shits and giggles, it was 148 in 1968). Even though I think Buford is an underrated player, no one thinks about him as one of the standout players on those teams. I bet a lot of you are like me and sometimes get him mixed up with Don Baylor and Al Bumbry.

My point is not that Nick Markakis sucks or will never be a great player, it's that the Orioles own history shows you have to have better players than him to win it all. There are no shortcuts and as it stands now, he's just not good enough. He is valuable and if they're going to win they'll need players just like him, but they need players substantially better than him as well.

Did this bug anyone else?

yurizanow — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:51:18 -0000

I went to the Mets-Marlins game last night, so even though I live in New York I wasn't able to watch the Yankees-O's game. The only way I could keep tabs is by periodically checking the out-of-town scoreboard. When I went home I was pleased to see that I could watch the end of the game and was throughly happy with the outcome.

However, one thing bugged me and I wanted to know if it bugged anyone else. In the final inning, after the Yankees intentionally walked Kevin Millar, Dave Trembley Dave Trembley used Luis Hernandez, who I believe was the last man on the bench, to pinch run for Millar.

Why?

As far as I can tell there was no reason to do that. If the guy on third scores the game is over so it doesn't matter how slow the guy on first is. There was only one out, so even if they force Millar out on second, the game is probably over. If there is a double-play opportunity, the guy who will make the biggest difference in preventing it with his speed is batter, not the guy on first and I would think a bigger guy like Millar might do a better job of breaking it up than Luis Hernandez.

If the Orioles didn't score, then the game continues with no first baseman and nobody left on the bench. The move ultimately had no consequences for the Orioles, but it still struck me as strange.

Did anyone else notice or am I just nitpicking?