jimmer

if you want to believe that means it wasn't child abuse, go for it.

apparently murder is the line, child abuse isn't :-)

Mike already said this to you like an hour ago 'Isn't that what I said? I still rooted for him to do well on the Twins.....doesn't mean I have to like his opinions or him. I looked beyond them while he was on the field.' Obviously, he was rooting for Hunter and doesn't seem close to stopping the cheering for a player because he said something he didn't agree with.

There's a lot of things allowed and not allowed in the bible that I imagine people would have real issues with today :-)

Suzuki's wRC+ in 2012 was 63 Suzuki's wRC+ in 2013 was 67 Suzuki's wRC+ in 2014 was 107 Suzuki's wRc+ in 2015 was 66. Is he really somewhere between 2014 and 2015 or was 2015 the real him? This is a lot like Hughes FIP trend. Ryan got outlier seasons from Suzuki and Hughes and decided to sign these guys for longer because of it. They went back to who they really are this season.

Well, we had to hope he would at least. What should we expect from him going into next season?

This was interesting to go back and read, both the article (and it's conclusions) as well as the discussions about the conclusion. What was the unexpected change, if any, that had Hughes results revert back to what he was before 2014? Should we expect a bounceback this year?

Of course.

When trying to figure out what a player will do, one normally looks back at the last three seasons which were wRC+ of 63, 67 and 104. At least that's what I've been told and what I do. And it makes sense to me. How far back does one go before what a player did becomes irrelevant? 5 years? Does what a player did in 2010 really come into play when trying to predict what a guy will do in 2015? Rule of thumb seems three years. So, by doing that, I saw that going into 2014 he had his worst season and his 2nd worse season. Then he had his way out of character wRC+ in 2014. Seeing that, I figured it was more likely he'd go back to something much closer to his 2012 and 2013 then come close to what he did in 2014. And when his change in approach was pointed out as a reason he had turned around his offensive woes last year, I pointed out then that it seemed unlikely he could sustain that. He didn't sustain it and the fall started in the 2nd half. But we disagree on methods. I felt comfortable with my method, even moreso knowing how it worked out. Exactly how I thought it would. Same thing with Hughes.

Yeah, when you point out that it was his 2nd worst season in his career, that's a bit misleading no?Technically it's true but it doesn't really tell us how much worse it was than his 3rd worst season does it? The difference between his 2nd worst season and 3rd worst season is a whopping 1 point difference in wRC+ so it's not like the dropoff from 2013 to 2015 was huge and, therefore, pointing out it was his 2nd worst season really doesn't mean much. Here are his wRC+ numbers in the last 4 seasons (which includes his worst, 2nd worst and 3rd worst offensive seasons). 63, 67, 109 and 66. One of those is CLEARLY not like the others (2014) and the other three (the ones that are his three worse seasons) are all within 5 points of each other. In other words, not much different at all and his 3 worst seasons have occurred in his last 4 seasons. In other words, they haven't been spread over his career suggesting his 2015 was out of the blue. From 2012-2015 we see his worst, 3rd worst, best by far and then his 2nd worst. But 2014, his best season ever, isn't the extreme outlier? If someone sees a over 30 year old catcher guy with a 63 and 67 wRC+ in his previous two seasons (his two worst seasons at the time), then he has a career year at 107 wRC+. which seems more likely to happen the following season when looking at magical regression? Most likely the next year is going to be way closer to the 63 and 67, no? And look what happened.

Suzuki, like Hughes, went back to who they had been for a few years. Wasn't hard to see their 2014 were outliers nor hard to predict huge regression in 2015 (especially for Suzuki who started his regression in 2nd half of 2014).

No, he may not, but he's carried an OPS+ over 110 in 3 of the last 4 seasons and 4 of his 6 MLB seasons. He gets on base over 35% of the time and his wRC+ has been over 120 in 3 of the last 4 seasons as well which puts him securely in the above average category. I'd take that any day when you also get his defense :-) He's the RF version of KCs LF A Gordon.

Then you see that Bryce Harper had 7 defensive runs saved (4th), Carlos Gonzalez had 5 (T-6), Reddick had 1 (T-9), Markakis had -6 (13th) and Hunter had -8 (14th). And it's not like Markakis and Cargo have been considered good RF. In fact, it's Cargo's first year as anywhere near a full time RF and Markakis had one good year on defense this decade. There aren't too many good defensive RF in the game right now. It's why Heyward has so much value.

I don't think it's probable Hughes returns to how he was in 2014. Looking at his career, 2014 was the outlier and 2015 was his bounce back to his norm.

I enjoyed this season. Their win/loss record exceeded my expectations by a good chunk. Here is hoping for even better results next season!

Here's an interesting article about conflicts, many centering on unwritten rules http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2015/09/30/mlb-bench-clearing-brawls-unwritten-rules-ethnic-backgrounds/73066892/ Since the debate about what happened last night has taken place on two threads, I posted this link on both.

Maybe I believe a ton of baseball's unwritten rules are more about not upsetting a bunch of children who get butt-hurt because someone hit a HR and then 'disrespected them' because he showed some joy in doing so. Maybe next time, don't serve up the gopher ball and let a sub .650 batter crush it. The team was already pissed before that bat flip ever happened. Losing 7-1 in the bottom of the eight, wild card within reach and this loss hurting their chances, perhaps the team was emotional and over-sensitive before the flip ever happened? And just because a bunch of people want to stick with old traditions/ideas handed down from generation to generation doesn't make it right. I could name a bunch of examples to illustrate that point throughout history. For a long time in this game alone (let alone society), all the baseball people thought black men shouldn't play the game. I guess group think made that opinion correct? No, it did not.

Calling for a player to be hit is calling for a physical act. And who has been taught that honor doesn't or shouldn't exist? You think because some people think hitting a defenseless batter with a 90+ MPH that can cause real damage because a team, that was already pissed off, saw what they perceived to be a disrespectful, but not violent, act? I would opine there is no honor in throwing an object at such extreme speed at such a close range at a defenseless person.

If I shoot a guy for stealing a pack of gum he won't be stealing that pack of gum again, but I'd think the punishment was probably way out of proportion to the crime, unless maybe if I was born and raised in Saudia Arabia or Iraq, where they run a kids arm over with a big truck, crushing his arm bones to tiny bits, for stealing a loaf of bread. When I hear people call for beaning a guy, I often wonder how many people have been hit with a 90+ MPH pitch. This isn't a tap on the behind, this can cause real physical damage. Probably not a good punishment for a perceived disrespect that is done to a team that was already emotional from losing 7-1 at the time and seeing their pitcher serve up a meatball to a guy they chose to pitch to. Cause make no mistake, with the wild card so close and the Twins getting pummeled, they were already heated up. Then the HR happened after their strategy backfired which made it worse. The bat flip gave them an excuse to let all that rage out and focus attention on what the batter did as opposed to what the Indians just did to them when they are so close to the playoffs.

and would you say the proper way to defend yourself against a perceived disrespectful bat flip was a 90+ MPH pitch to the body? :-)

Without Dozier's great first half, I doubt we would have had a 55% winning percentage. I'm pretty sure with or without Sano's great second half performance, we'd still have a losing record in the 2nd half like we do now. :-)

Don't we also teach kids that violence isn't the answer when having conflicts with kids on the school ground? Reminds me of the time I was at a game and a fan, upset that another fan was swearing with his kid around, decides to sucker punch the swearing fan when he wasn't looking. The parent had problems with his kid hearing bad words but no problem with his kid seeing him assault a man? But hey, the guy who got punched got tossed from the game and the man who committed assault was allowed to stay in the game. So, who knows.

Yeah and that's stupid too, but don't most of those come about when someone takes a cheap physical shot at someone first? Not something like I'm gonna fight Kane because he scored a 5th goal on me because my defender fell down and he shouldn't have even tried to score when that happened? In any event, your comparing contact sports to non-contact sports. I would also have an issue is a fight broke out at a chess match. Another strategic, but non-contact, game. :-)

All those other sports you refer to are contact sports. Baseball is not a contact sport. And, with the exception of hockey, the whole point of those other sports is to fight. And with hockey, checking is part of the game. So yeah, I think it's easy to say people can like those sports and can still stand behind the idea that violence in baseball shouldn't be allowed and is childish.

Maybe the people in the game have done them a disservice in that regard. Maybe that should change with the complete abandonment of a good chunk of the old school unwrittten rules.