'Can a computer comprehend feistiness?'

Wow, a player actually willing to think about how the new thinking of baseball can help him become better!

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Alu7nB73f2XguyNy.NaSqzypu7YF?slug=jp-springbannister030808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

 

He is definitely asking for a wedgie!

In all seriousness, I read that, too. Bannister is impressive. He has thoughts. Not just on this, but a lot of things. Apparently he's big-time into photography, as well. Posnanski mentioned something about how the can talk to you for hours about the lighting in different movies.

 

Bannister's supposed to be this generation's right-handed answer to Tom Glavine.

 

Tim Keown on the battle between statheads and traditionalists.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=keown/080311

 

Hmmm..

You can watch baseball with a dreamer's eye and still know that a guy who gets on base close to 40 percent of the time is going to score more runs than a guy who doesn't.

Or, you can make such absolute statements and be totally wrong:

2007 numbers

Todd Helton ... OBP .434 ... runs 86
Jorge Posada...OBP .426..runs 91
Jack Cust... OBP .408... runs 61
Miguel Cabrera...OBP 401...runs 91
Pat Burrell...OBP .400... runs 77

Curtis Granderson ... OBP .362 ... runs 122
Alex Rios.. OBP .354 ... runs 114
Jimmy Rollins ... OBP .344.. runs 139
Jose Reyes .. OBP .354... runs 119
Dan Uggla .. OBP .326... runs 113

 

Hmm ... if only there were a baseball writer in Cinci-nutty that Enquirer readers might benefit from reading. Someone who was a successful beat writer, who knew his shit and who didn't need to resort to this knee-jerk masturbation of a column when he wanted to write something insightful. If only ... : ;D

 

would you please explain irony.

 

So ... getting on base is ... bad.

Makes perfect sense.

I'm sure none of those correlations had anything to do with where they batted in the lineup, who surrounded them, the fact that they had more plate appearances (you're giving me a catcher??? Are you kidding me??), the fact that they can run and the fact that power hitters are on second and third more often to start with, etc. Nope. It makes much more sense that they scored more runs because they weren't on base very much.

 

All Keown has to do is add the clause, "All things being equal," and the sentence works just fine.

 

But that is not what he said. He said unequivocally "a guy who gets on base close to 40 percent of the time is gong to score more runs than guy who doesn't."

Again, sabermetricians ripping "traditionalists" are just as bad as old-timers ripping sabermetricians.
Nothing is absolute... but Keown is doing what you accuse some of us of doing -- just coming from the other side.

 

I doubt that, but it would make me happy beyond words if the Mets traded a 300-game winner for Ambroix Burgos.

 

Glad the Mets traded him for a used rosin bag.