biggentleben

FTFY

But you're missing my distinction. A control-focused pitcher without overwhelming velocity is different than a soft-tosser. Because you can spin a breaking ball effectively in college doesn't make you a great control pitcher. Moyer flamed out and went back to work on fastball/changeup control to turn himself into the pitcher he became. Guys with exceptional control at 91 without major velocity do actually have a higher percentage of making it at least to the big leagues. Impacting at the big leagues is a very, very different thing. A guy who plugs the 13th spot on a pitching roster is not the same as an 8th inning reliever. Effectively Wild referenced a study done a number of years ago on velocity not correlating with major league appearances in draft picks. I've also seen a few attempts at a "weighted" study of the same variety, putting weight into draft position along with velocity, and it sways even further away from correlation between velocity and success in development because high velocity typically gets drafted higher as well. Once again, I'm talking about the guys who are mostly fastball/change with 91-92 top end velocity and grade 6-7 control, not guys who simply throw a lot of different moving pitches that are typically labeled as a soft tosser in spite of more like 3-4 control.

In general a control pitcher (not a pure soft-tosser, but someone who locates very well) will be more likely to at least have a major league career, even if it's in the bullpen. I think that's where the risk is lowered, but for every 1,000,000 guys LIKE Greg Maddux, there's been one Greg Maddux. I remember for years hearing every control lefty compared to Tom Glavine. Glavine's the extreme outlier result of a control-specialist lefty. Your 95% result is Jamie Moyer with more often the starting career (if the guy even lasts as a starter) looking a lot like Shawn Estes, a guy who sits well at #4-5 in the rotation for a long time because he eats innings at a 90-100 ERA+ rate. Control righties have a lot more variability.

I'm cheering for the Royals, but I am more cheering against a Mizzou series, so let's go Dodgers! (dang I feel dirty saying that)

News has been coming out left and right from Atlanta since Wren was fired, one of which was the negotiations he had for Span before going crazy and signing BJ Upton. The Twins first asked for Julio Teheran AND J.R. Graham for Span. That pissed Wren off enough that after going through the league and finding his value not to be what they thought, Wren dismissed them when they offered Span for just JR Graham. Graham and Meyer were very similar prospects at the time, and in some circles at that time, Graham was much higher-though-of. Now Graham's had two years of injury and is most likely done as a starter while Meyer is likely going to pitch himself out of the rotation at the major league level rather than being hurt and forced out. Twins fans should be happy with what they got. When you trade for young pitching, you take on a TON of risk.

This is a very different discussion than the original question. To the original point, the role of objectifying a person to sell a product is absolutely sexism AND opportunity. I cannot walk into Google and tell them I want to be their lead programmer without any modern programming experience (my last experience was in college with Visual Basic). Yes, I have the basic tools of a programmer, but I don't have the specific set of tools that someone should have. The opportunity is there for someone who does have that set of tools. Not in the same breath, but akin to the fact that while I can lift more than most models you'll ever see, you'll never see me on the cover of a magazine because the muscle I have is not "pretty" muscle. Those with the right set of muscles and a decent face will get every male modeling gig over me any day (trust me, no one wants me modeling anything, just saying!). It is a sexist opportunity in that it is a position born of demand that requires a specific set of physical attributes that not every person can attain. On the more recent discussion, I've seen Emma Watson's speech, and I was a big fan of what she said, but my takeaway might truly mess up the conversation here. I don't think we should be chastising men for noting a woman's attractiveness, just like we should not be chastising women for noting a man's attractiveness. Steps taken beyond observation and appreciation of that attractiveness (and it isn't difficult to know where the line between appreciation and unhealthy obsession is for most anyone, except maybe lawyers - I kid, I kid) are not healthy for the observer or the observed. Emma Watson had multiple websites dedicated to counting down the days until she turned 18 and was "legal". She's dealt with the poor end of things. The interesting part to me is that I work in a very female-dominated career - social work. The team of 8 that I'm a part of has nearly always had 3 guys on it during my time with the agency, and there are roughly 50 employees in the whole agency, and it has oft been the case that our 3 guys constituted half or a higher percentage of all the males in the entire agency. I've been discriminated against in my field because I'm male. I tell folks that I work in social work, and they assume I'm not intelligent enough or determined enough to work in a different, more male-dominated field. Our view of sexes absolutely has classes. Ask a room of people their response to a movie like the recent "The Fault In Our Stars", and you'll have a number of women admit they were brought to tears and the room supports them. One guy says he was brought to tears, and the snickers in the room would be audible. I'm very used to phrases like "he cries at movies, but he'll never admit to it" or "he's got a soft spot for kittens, but you'll never hear him say so" or similar things that would infer that a guy has a caring, sensitive nature about him, but that he has to hide this nature lest someone find out about it. Heck, for years I had coworkers and acquaintances assume I was gay because I was open about my feelings without covering them up. True equality of the sexes isn't about boys will be boys and girls will be girls...it's about people being people and allowing for however and whomever a person is be who they are, not some sort of defining role in the scope of gender. TL;DR /soapbox

I did a similar thing that was based on standings, and I led the nearly 70 people that entered. It's a complete crap shoot sometimes.

Belt then hits a home run to make it 2-1

18th inning, 1-1 in game 2 currently. Wowsers!

This time of year is when the real crazy trade ideas come out, even more so than either trade deadline. The comment earlier about the dearth of good free agent pitching options is simply wrong. This may be one of the best free agent pitching classes in decades. With the commonality of extensions for young players, especially pitchers, you don't typically see guys like Lester, Shields, and Scherzer in one free agent class, let alone the guys in the tiers below. I think someone's going to get a very good deal on a guy like Gavin Floyd this offseason because there's so much good pitching available that people will see "injured elbow - out for rest of 2014" and think ligament and leave him alone. The interesting part will be seeing which players get drastically overpaid because a team thinks it's "setting the market" early.

I actually liked the Samardzija and Hammel trade even more, seeing as they really gave up Russell as far as players who had a future in Oakland. Straily had struggled in Oakland, but reportedly had some big issues between his ears when it came to relating to his coaches and veteran teammates, and was intended to be traded or waste away in AAA. McKinney is going to have to move off of center field, and he likely won't have the sort of bat to profile in a corner, nevermind that he was struggling to hit in the hitter-friendly Cal League. He did have a revival in high-A for the Cubs, but he still hasn't shown the speed he was rumored to flash in high school and doesn't display the type of power to really profile as a corner sort of guy. They could not have seen how far Hammel was going to fall off, but Samardzija was excellent for them this year, and he's theirs to control this offseason. If they choose to trade him this offseason, I'd wager they could even get a better return for him alone than the Cubs did for moving two starters.

Morneau had been day-to-day through the whole month of September due to an intercostal injury. He did not start the entire last weekend, but he did actually hit on Sunday, which is something people don't mention. Heck, he only played one Sunday the entire month of September.

I cannot follow your logic whatsoever here. How would Oakland losing be good for baseball? Players are commodities in the game. It sounds cynical to say so, but follow baseball for any amount of time, and you quickly see that players are not treated as people, but as assets. Cespedes as an asset is much less valuable than Lester for possible postseason success, so it was (and still is) a good move to make. It was good for Kansas City to win because no fan base should have to wait 30 years between playoff appearances, but not because it was good in some way for Oakland to lose...

At the time of the trade, Cespedes was hitting .256/.303. He was slugging well, but his overall value was quite low, frankly. If you want to go into non-measurables like "clubhouse leadership" or any such thing, then there's really no argument that will satisfy that on either side other than conjecture.

Donaldson had a putrid June (.509 OPS) and a bad September (.686), but he was the only one that had normal peaks and valleys in the season rather than absurd peaks through June and then dropped off a table afterward.

It really has little, if anything, to do with Cespedes, but that's the media talking point. They quickly neglect that the Athletics had 8 players who at the time of that trade were achieving career high OPS+ numbers and three more hitting over 100 OPS+. That leveled out, as anyone looking at the situation would have figured, but it all happened at once rather than having guys peak and valley at various points during the season. The Tigers had Victor carry them for multiple months, but it was as if when he had an average or below average month or so, that's when Miggy hit out of his mind for a few weeks. Good teams have various peaks and valleys at the same time. The A's had all their peaks in April through June, and seemingly all their valleys in July through September.

This is starting to become another re-hashing of a discussion we've had a number of times...

True, but they also are in a spot with revenues that they could make a run at him in free agency as well.

Not liking the Gophers = sacrilege

Multiple message board sources were quoted, no one naming a source, but one Ball State forum quoted "a friend of Hoke", stating that he's not a fan of being at Michigan, but he loses significant money if he quits versus if he's fired.

Should read TD records.

So, word is now that Hoke was attempting to tank the game. I don't care who you are, but if you watch that game, there's no way he was tanking a thing. The Gophers dominated both lines in a way that's pretty hard to fake. Someone brought up a name that bugged me the other day. He mentioned Maxx Williams starting his receiving career so strong and as a redshirt sophomore could give him a chance to beat Ron Johnson's TE records. I remember playing with and watching Ron, and I really was amazed that he couldn't get it done at the next level, so when I hear guys talk about him as one of the "obvious future NFL players" on the current roster, I'm hoping he achieves more than the last guy I saw with his receiving skills in a Gophers uniform (yes, even better than Eric Decker, who has had a nice NFL career so far). That also brings up an interesting question - better Gopher WR pairing: Ron Johnson/Luke Leverson or Eric Decker/Ernie Wheelwright? 2007 Decker/Wheelwright put up better stats, but Johnson/Leverson in 1998/1999 with that offense might be the more impressive pairing...

Cuddyer will have a chance this offseason to cash in and go to a competitive team if he chooses.

But without moving Greinke, they don't have Escobar and Cain.

Best defense I've seen on the field since David Gibb left.