By The Common Man and Bill
Austin’s Astros Blog: Astros deny Wandy again in Labor Day loss
Austin’s got some beefs with ‘Stros manager Brad Mills.
Capitol Avenue Club (Braves): TLR’ed
CAC is understandably salivating over Colby Rasmus, and is hoping that LaRussa insults Rasmuses mother (or vice versa) sometime in the next couple days.
Disciples of Uecker (Brewers): Celebrating Rickie Weeks
The Brewers 2B has a terrific 5.0 WAR and counting in 2010. It’s great to watch a young player finally playing to his potential over a full year.
Fungoes (Cardinals): Carpenter hurls best Cardinal start of season
Pip recounts a terrific outing by Chris Carpenter. It’s going to take a lot more like it for the Cards to claw their way back in the NL Central race.
The View from the Bleachers (Cubs): Are the ’10 Padres the ’69 Cubs?
Daver feels a twinge of schadenfreude over the rapid plummet of the San Diego Padres.
Dodger Thoughts: The cup of coffee, if not the entire meal
For all the manure the Dodgers have provided in the news this year, their decision to call up 33 year old 1B John Lindsey for his Major League debut makes up for, like, 43% of it.
Mets Today: Loss to Nationals
“Mike Pelfrey was bad. Really bad. Like, July bad.” But, hey, Ollie Perez was only kinda bad. Progress!
Nationals Baseball: NatsPLOSION!
The Nats have a bevy of hot hitters in the lineup right now, led by Danny Espinosa. No, I don’t know who he is either. Better learn fast.
Ducksnorts (Padres): The “W” Word
Geoff steps back from the ledge. A little.
Crashburn Alley (Phillies): Phillies Offense: Just Inconsistent, or in Decline
Wow, this is a sober assessment, “Realistically, you can’t expect an aging, injury-prone team to continue to lead the league in offense year after year.”
Fire Brand of the American League (Red Sox): Josh Reddick Got the Call...in August
The tale of two Sox outfield prospects -- Ryan Kalish, the disappointing one before the season who played well and got the call to the majors on July 31, and Reddick, who seems to have taken Kalish's promotion as a wake-up call.
Sox Machine (White Sox): Minor League Roundup, September 6
White Sox notes on the last day of the MiLB regular season.
The B-List Indians Blog: B-List Lite: 9/3 - 9/6
Recaps from the Mariners series and the Labor Day victory over the Angels.
The Daily Fungo (Tigers): Tigers Today: September 7, 2010
Recap, preview, and those historical notes. Eric Munson hit a home run in his first major league at-bat? Great news for Daniel Nava, Luke Hughes, Starlin Castro and Jason Heyward.
Royals Authority: Jarrod Dyson Gets the Call
"Dyson might instantly become the fastest player in the majors, but he will need to find a bat to make an impact." Clark's excited about getting to see him, though, and you can understand why.
Nick's Twins Blog: Tuesday Notes
Lots of interesting notes about what's going on with the team, including the division race, Matt Capps, Ben Revere, and Jim Thome.
It's About the Money, Stupid (Yankees): Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Jeter's .440
Jason on Jeter's .440 offensive winning percentage. I'm a big fan of both Jason (who makes a good point about what it means for the Yankees' 2010) and of ESPN New York's Mark Simon (whose article inspired Jason's post), but I think this misses a pretty notable flaw in Simon's piece. Offensive winning percentage is a neat little toy, but it compares players' offensive performance to all other players. AL shortstops as a group currently have an OPS+ of just 83, and shouldn't be compared apples-to-apples with right fielders (114), first basemen (116) and designated hitters (104). So while the Orioles' offensive winning percentage of .440, as a whole team, is really bad, Jeter's .440, as a shortstop, isn't nearly so bad. Still way off his own standards, obviously, but I don't think it's fair to Bill James or statheads of any ilk to say, as Simon's headline does, that it means Jeter is "not a winning player."
Okay, that probably should have been its own post.
Baseball Time in Arlington (Rangers): The Thing About Tommy Hunter
Joey does some serious soul-searching while contemplating his conflicting emotions about Ranger pitcher Tommy Hunter.
2 comments:
Your thoughts about the winning % for SS is different than other position players are right on, but I didn't set out to debunk or support that stat.
Really, it was just me being a bit fed up with the way so many are trying to find ways to say that Jeter's having a down year. We know that. He had a down 2008 and then a magical 2009. I'm not ready to throw dirt on Jeter just yet.
Jason, no doubt. I didn't intend my comment as a criticism of your piece at all...just a little troubled by the way Mr. Simon (who, again, I like a lot) phrased the issue. Calling Jeter "not a winning player" or a "losing offensive player" really overstates and oversimplifies (as the OWP stat is pretty much designed to do), and it seems to me like pure Yankee-fan baiting. Which I have no problem with (Craig's brilliant at it, and really, baiting of any type can be fun), except that this one is designed to get the standard "pointy-headed geeks who live in their mom's basement" response...which is inevitable anyway, but here it's kind of justified, since the statistic (in my opinion, and to the extent it has any practical use at all) is being misapplied.
So like I said, I should've just written a post. :)
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