I have it on good authority that much of our site traffic is constant re-loading by readers checking the site 5, 10 times a day. Therefore I declare this Friday official Boeing Employees Frequent Update Day.
w/r/t to emails and questions on what I was talking about when I mentioned the one guy that hates me… there’s a dude out there (Al Bethke) who believes that my casual writing style is part of my plan to be intentionally deceptive, and that (I’m summing up here) I’m the worst writer in the world, a kind of evil mastermind who is ignorant and can’t write well.
I’m not going to talk about this dude directly. I don’t know what to say — I write about baseball, and I’ve written about baseball for years. I’ve worked on style, being a clearer, better writer, and I’ve always to be insightful where I thought I had something to offer and at least amusing if I didn’t. I’ve never written anything I knew was false, though I’ve been wrong. There have been three surprises in my long progression from Usenet to Baseball Prospectus:
1) Some people enjoyed reading my stuff more than I thought reasonable, which inspires me to write better to try and catch up to them
3) Many people read my stuff and step up to offer criticism, suggestions, and corrections, which is amazing in its volume, thoughtfulness, and often in its insight, even when it’s pointed, or annoyed, and makes me feel good about the community of readers
2) Some people hated me and my stuff more than I thought possible, and ascribed all kinds of terrible qualities to me, which I don’t know what to do with
What’s baffled me, though, is when I encounter people who, had I met them in a bar, or at a game, would probably have a good natured argument over some player, find a lot we agreed on, and left on good terms… and these people hate me as an online writer. I don’t know what to do about it, but it’s disappointing and a little scary. It has also made me a lot softer in my own criticisms: I complain sometimes about Levesque, to pick one Seattle writer, but I don’t think he’s a bad guy.
(shrug)
I don’t know.
Hi all, Derek here. You may me remember me from my post about why Freddy can’t be sent to AAA.
Well, maybe he can. While the transaction information available on the web led me to believe that players had three years of options after the clock started, some behind-the-curtain scuffling has led to this:
“Any player with 5+ years of service time is allowed to refuse an option to the minor leagues. Freddy Garcia does not qualify, as he has 4+ years of major league service.
Any player may be optioned during any 3 years of their first 4 years of service, and, in some exceptions, in all 4 years.”
I’m still not entirely sure if this is the case, and need to do more research on this. I would also like to say that none of this is helped by baseball’s insane paranoia about having fans like you and me understand rules like service time, options, and roster transactions.
So I headed down to Tacoma last night. Before the game we went to the Swiss Pub, which had a huge bunch of good taps at good prices, and the most delicious pub fare ever. No kidding, I had this deli-sized sandwitch and it was so good I almost ordered another one. Jeff Bower, formerly of Baseball Prospectus, also was amazed at how good his sandwitch was. We got a chance to talk to the owner, who told us all of the food made from scratch (or, at least, base component parts). I’m not kidding when I say it was some of the best food I’ve ever had at a bar (the pizza at Big Time Brewery in the U-District being the best ever). And the Swiss is a nice bar, wood tables, good service, good pours on your beer, and it’s an easy drive from there to Cheney Stadium. If you’re going down to a Tacoma game, it’s absolutely the best place to go for pre-game eating and drinking. I was so impressed with the Swiss, I’m giving it my almost full endorsement*.
Snelling looked good, he’s really up there hacking though, if he thinks he can get the bat on it he’s swinging. Bower believes that coming back from his injury Snelling just wants to take his swings and will revert to form. Snelling’s feeling a lot better about his knee, though he’s still getting used to playing on it, and it turns out he’s read “Moneyball”. Snelling’s defense was sloppy — he almost made a great catch in right, but later he plum dropped a fly ball. Jamal Strong doesn’t have much of an arm, as reported, but he did cover a lot of ground in center field.
Conversation of the night featured the umpire crew chief, who was sitting behind us, having injured his knee in Edmonton:
PL: “What do you think of Questec?”
PCL umpire chief: “It’s awful. As an evaluation tool, blah blah blah…”
Jeff Bower: “Umpires should all be replaced by machines.”
PCL umpire chief: (gets up and leaves)
Jeff Bower: “You kids get off my lawn.”
* cramped bathroom prevents me from giving it my full endorsement. I think bathrooms are a reflection of the quality of an establishment: if don’t have a nice bathroom, or they can’t keep the bathroom clean, what other corners are they cutting? Why should we expect that the kitchen or storerooms are any cleaner than an area that, while unpleasant to clean, is visible to every customer?
I tried fixing the formatting, but I can’t do it, because I’m an HTML idiot. Sorry.
Want to feel excited about the Mariners bullpen? Here’s a comparison between two pretty well known relievers and one you’ve never heard of. Okay, thats because he doesn’t actually exist. Reliever three is a combination of Julio Mateo and Rafael Soriano since June 1st. Look at those ratios; I think its time for those two to get some more important innings.
Gagne IP H R ER HR BB SO
2003 56 25 11 10 1 13 94
Rates BAA WHIP ERA K/BB BB/9 K/9
0.130 0.68 1.61 7.231 1.915 15.107
Smoltz IP H R ER HR BB SO
2003 57.1 41 6 5 1 8 62
Rates BAA WHIP ERA K/BB BB/9 K/9
0.197 0.85 0.78 7.750 1.261 9.772
Matiano IP H R ER HR BB SO
2003 60.2 37 11 11 5 8 69
Rates BAA WHIP ERA K/BB BB/9 K/9
0.170 0.75 1.64 8.625 1.196 10.316