Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with
Wilson Betemit now has the highest OPS+ and EQA among Dodger infielders except Olmedo Saenz. He has the highest on-base percentage among Dodger infielders except for Andy LaRoche. His slugging percentage is third among Dodger infielders behind Jeff Kent and Saenz.
He still does have a massive platoon split, I will admit.
* * *
Tonight's game:
Anyway, what I was saying was...
I know you can't throw out one game, but still... more than half of Kershaw's earned runs this year were given up in one game. If you toss out the May 13 outing, his numbers for the year are 7-1 with a 0.77 ERA.
That's Lincecumesque. Or rather, you could say Lincecum is Kershawesque.
302 That means there are now four regular players in MLB without a home run this year. Two of them are playing for the Dodgers tonight. Perhaps Ned is on the phone trying to acquire Sean Casey and Luis Castillo as we speak.
Funny, I was trying to come up with the baseball team I would find hardest to watch. Casey and Castillo both made my team, along with AJ Pierzynski, Ryan Freel, Chone Figgins, David Eckstein, Wily Taveras, and Pierre. Steve Trachsel was my starter.
What I'm saying is: don't joke like that.
Mike Moustakas > Matt Dominguez.
And Kevin Kennedy only wants to talk about Kevin Kennedy. No one cares when you were drafted, Kevin Kennedy.
Better than Robin Yount or Larry Dierker?
He isn't even better than Kelly Paris!
Although if I don't happen to be able to fly out of Vegas tonight, it won't be as disappointing as, say, San Bernardino.
Kansas City, here I come
There's some pretty little women there
And I'm gonna get me some
Lyons is a goofball. Phillips is a contemptible person and a goofball.
Lyons doesn't take himself seriously....Phillips is slimey and talks out of his angus....
69.0 IP, 46 H's, 1 HR, 16 BB's, 72 K's, 1.92 ERA
Here are Kershaw's totals after the same number of games:
62.0 IP, 38 H's, 1 HR, 33 BB's, 82 K's, 1.89 ERA
Kershaw has given up slightly fewer hits per nine innings, he has been nearly equally hard to get a home run off of, as difficult to get a run off of period, and he strikes out more batters. The one area where Hughes has a big edge is in the walks department. I think the superior control Hughes demonstated may have played the biggest role in getting him promoted to the next level so quickly. I would keep Kershaw in low A till late July or August and make sure he has been throwing all his pitches for strikes over a good number of games before bumping him up.
lol that is exactly what I was thinking. Those were so incredibly stupid.
If that's the case, he needs to keep the stickers on it and wear it sidewayz like tha D-Train.
Steve Phillips
Hawk Harrelson
Rex Hudler
Steve Lyons
John Sterling
Tim McCarver
Rick Monday
Mark Grace
Thom Brennaman
It was truly awful TV.
He wrote for the New York Times when the Yankees won a lot of World Series so people saw his byline.
And he's named Buster.
He does not strike me as a man with a lot of integrity and he's still trying to take credit for the Mets success now.
Bob Uecker is on your good list then?
I've never heard him so i wouldn't know if he's good or bad.
Niche hatred.
Bob Uecker as an announcer, as opposed to Bob Uecker doing comedy, is actually not bad.
If you were good at what you used to do, you wouldn't be a TV commentator now.
which is about what we can hope for.
- So then I said to Woody Allen, "Well, Camus can do, but Sartre is smartre!"
- Yeah, well, "Scooby Doo can doo-doo, but Jimmy Carter is smarter."
It works better in some sports. Such as basketball with Hubie Brown and Rick Carlisle.
i don't know if your joking or not but the balls he hits don't seem to have the same pop they had last year.
yep. i think that ball kuo hit last night was hit harder than any ball nomar has struck this year.
pasiensia amigo, in do time. one hopes.
Penny looked like he was speeding up even from the stretch because he was worried about Reyes. That's why he chucked one in the dirt.
that's what i was afraid of, he's gonna swing at 'em & there gonna keep on throwing them. Hopefully he'll lay of of them next at bat.
that's the thing though, they weren't even strikes i think.
he also has to swing at the first pitch of course.
not really, it was boderline.
83- It was.
he took 2? that's news he usessly swings at the first or 2nd pitch. nice line drive but caught by Wright.
matter of opinion Gagne55, that & gameday isn't very reliable.
well theres always replay.
he seems to be pulling a lot of balls on the outside corner, he should just go with the pitch. Plus he's been striking out on outside breaking balls.
Small sample size, but it's pretty much the line I would expect out of him this year.
Euphemism.
interesting.
An important modification of OPS is "Adjusted OPS" or "OPS+", which adjusts the OPS to account for the ballpark and the league that the player played in. In addition, the number is "normalized", so that the median is 100, with better-than-average scores above 100. A single-season OPS+ performance of 140 or higher could be considered a Hall of Fame level performance for that season. As an example, the 2006 American League leader in OPS+ was Travis Hafner, with a 183. In terms of career performance, the top 100 players have a career OPS+ of 136 or higher. Baseball-reference.com includes "OPS+" among the stats that can be viewed for each batter, and some serious fans consider it the best quick way to get a sense of a batter's quality.
In June Betemit is slugging .636, exceeded only by Kemp's .700 (both admittedly a small sample). Gonzo is next at .600.
This would not be that important except the #1 Furcal, #2 JP, #3 Nomar and #4 Kent are ALL slugging under .333 and OPSing under .650 for June. It is amazing we are winning any games at all.
Greg,
I think someone here could spot you the cash for the ticket and trust you to pay them back.
It's my fault. I'll buy a ticket and come over and say hi to everybody. It's okay.
But another three run inning started by Wilson "I'm back in the lineup" Betemit.
But you won't be sitting with the cool kids. Instead you will be sitting with the nerds and stoners. And possibly the emo kids.
If the adjusted league SLG and OBP are the same after today as after yesterday, Betemit currently sports a 120 *OPS+
Belatedly, but does Betemit have an easy home run swing or what? He's got so much power from so little effort (Seemingly). And hey, Pierre with an RBI. And then a nice running grab (for once properly judging it).
Canada vs Guatemala is always heated.
Stupid running inside the baseline.
Actually, Guatemala vs. anyone gets heated. Those guys play cheap. Mostly because they can't hit the back of the net at all.
Russ has no real argument there.
GEICO Caveman, do you have a response?
"Yeah...uh, what?"
can you keep the helmet or do you do an exchange thing like when a bat gets tossed to the fans?
We need to get you an Old-Timey Dictionary of Phrases. I think I have one that my grandmother was given back in Nineteen Aught Eight.
Thats 3 2-out RBI hits tonight.
4-1 Good Guys.
If you hit a ball in the gap, you can run up the line just about any way you like.
Sosa's regression to the mean happened tonight.
195 I like to read that after I get back from my weekly ether frolics or while having a phosphate at the 5 and dime.
Gonzo flied deep to right.
Nomar stole second on a busted hit and run play.
Martin out because he ran out of the baseline.
Betemit, after being down 0-2, singled in Nomar and took second on the throw.
Betemit scored on a generous hit call (good for Kemp) because he hit a hard ground ball off Reyes glove.
Sosa going out.
-Abraham Simpson
That kid is strong.
210 was an offspeed pitch, not a fastball.
224 Just like a bison - power and, when needed, speed.
Personally I think he gave them all rides on his motorcycle after the game.
Now that that barrier has been obliterated, the sky's the limit!
No ticket to DT Day, huh? What do you know that we don't???!!!
bhsportsguy: "We're not sure but I am sure Kevin Kennedy will recall a story when he was the Skipper and explain that he never liked his players to fraternize with the enemy."
Funny, so true.
Remember that Spring Training picture of Penny, lookin' all twiggy and whatnot? Did he gain it back or is the camera adding many, many pounds?
Kill him!
I'm afraid that's not the correct usage of "marching and chowder society."
They aren't advocacy groups. You could form a James Loney Marching and Chowder Society, but the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Barry Sucks Marching And Chowder Society v Selig, 720 US 312, that a "Marching and Chowder Society" must be used in a positive, not negative tone.
Furcal is stealing all of Jose Reyes triples.
Furcal is the inverse Magic Johnson.
Another triple for Raffy, wow! So much for worrying about him.
The other three:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/RySx
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/3Ma9
Bart: Dad, are you licking toads?
Homer: I'm not not licking toads. Well, it's time to get to work.
"Some varm milk? Ovaltine perhaps?"
So far, I've researched Jim Rice's game-ending GIDPs, which players have had seasons of at least 100 BB, K, R and RBI (Jim Thome leads the list), and how many times the '07 Dodgers have left the bases loaded.
Don't inhale until the tip glows.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/5uCW
But the way everything was falling for the Mets and the way their fans take it for granted make it almost satisfying.
Oh, okay.
Hello boys.
Brooms are specifically listed among prohibited items at Dodger Stadium.
A whisk perhaps?
NOT
But that was 106 years ago.
I still like Superbas. Bridegrooms, not so much.
Reporter: Brad, nice game, what happened between you and Green after you struck him out?
Penny: Nothing.
Reporter: Well you said something didn't you?
Penny: No.
Reporter: I am sure I saw you speak to him.
Penny: I'm done.
The Dodgers were around 123 years ago, but the team will just say they've been around 117 years.
This perturbs me and likely no one else.
Beimel would be better cast in Lord of the Rings or something.
http://tinyurl.com/yp5wjx
There are even 300 cases when an active player substituted as an ump, the last occurring in 1978.
Billy Wagner obviously needed some work...
The last one was on April 29, the 14 inning win over the Padres.
Tears. Tears of joy. Can't speak...Should have sent a poet...
The Dodgers as a team only count team records from when they joined the National League and don't recognize their six seasons in the American Association.
Off Billy Wagner no less!
Thank you. When will you be serving the chowder?
Gonzalez
Martin
Kemp
Kent
Betemit
Loney
Pierre
New lineup!
Read the score
Other Dodgers with as many home runs as Nomar:
Hong Chih Kuo and Jason Schmidt.
That when you hit the ball away
You act as if you don't care
You look as if you're going somewhere
But I just can't convince myself
I couldn't start no one else
And I can only play that part
And sit Nomar on the bench
So loney
So loney
So loney
So loney
(Apologies to Sting and everyone)
This is for all the Loney people
Thinking that life has passed them by...
Don't give up until you
drink from the silver cup
and ride that highway in the sky...
My apologies to America (that old group from the 70s that was on the radio all the time when I was little. In case you didn't know).
It's Ned Colletti's Loney Heart Club Fans
We hope that you will like the Show
Ned Colletti's Loney Heart Club Fans
Sit back and let the homers go
Very nice.
He's really been a Demolition Man.
Man, exciting stuff.....
Sweep!!
3-1 since Kemp/Loney have been on the roster.
We win! There, I did it too.
Because not everyone is bilingual.
Why are Spanish speaking players expected to speak English while guys like Saito and Kuo use interpreters?
Lamentably, this is the double standard.
But the boxscore was wrong. The Brooklyn Eagle gave Sheckard three triples. Sheckard, who normally played the outfield, was tried out at third base to start the season.
He fielded .721 in 12 games and was sent back to the outfield.
The Dodgers even tried Willie Keeler at third base in 1901. And he was left-handed.
Although, its possible he just didnt like giving interviews so he used the 'dont speak english' thing as an excuse. In fact, I think I read a few times where Nomo's teammates would say he knew english fine, but just didnt want to be interviewed.
386. That's showing some restraint for him
Saito likely speaks English about as well as Furcal speaks English. But the Japanese are just very shy about speaking with an accent or saying the wrong words.
I have two friends from Japan, a husband and wife who met at Penn, and both have written books in English and they are constantly apologizing for their "poor" English.
When I get Spanish callers at work, I just push on through with my Spanish, which is far from fluent, but no one complains.
A bilingual beat writer for a paper should have a big advantage over other reporters.
my sisters use to say that a lot, i was just joking.
Mets fans are going nuts....Hope Kuo becomes extra hated in Queens...the more they hate guys, the greater they become....
i see a little more derek lee in kemp than man-ram.
Friday: Santana vs. Lowe: Lowe was a tough-luck loser in his last start but he hasn't been truly bad elsewhere; the Angels got to him in his last start with a fusillade of seeing-eye singles. Santana's road problems are well-documented, but he's never been able to string together consistent road starts, so this one ought to be an automatic Dodger win barring another meltdown.
Saturday: Weaver vs. Schmidt: Two pitchers battling injury and trying to avoid the DL. Jered Weaver claims to be fine after seeing the chiropractor following back stiffness experienced last Sunday; he got yanked in a game marked by a drizzly afternoon rain that exacerbated his pre-existing problem. Jason Schmidt's decline in velocity might prove equally problematic, and so we have the possibility of both starters getting the hook early.
Sunday: Escobar vs. Wolf: I give the Angels a slight edge here in that Wolf has started to resemble his old inconsistent self, but Escobar often tries too hard to strike out everybody and in the process leaves a few up. He looked good in his last three starts, but Wolf hasn't, giving up three or more earned runs in his last three.
Anyway, it's one of the real oddities of modern journalism that newspapers nowadays don't require their baseball beat writers to speak Spanish.
Anyway, Kevin Baxter speaks Spanish.
It's always kind of interesting, and probably rare, when an American player learns a foreign language to communicate with his teammates. Mike Scioscia famously learned Spanish so he could talk to Fernando. Ethier told me last year that he was trying to learn Japanese so he could talk to Saito. Pedro Martinez spoke some French when he was playing in Montreal.
We'll get a petition going!
vr, Xei
The American players get interpreters who follow them around all the time. But some Americans do try to learn Japanese. Bobby Valentine has tried very hard.
But most of the players are just there for a year or two.
Some of the guys who have been there for a while will pick up some Japanese. I think Tuffy Rhodes can speak a bit. Rhodes has played so long in Japan that he's not even classified as a foreigner.
I can think of more than a few words to describe Ned, but gutsy isn't one of them. Maybe my definition of gutsy is different than Cowherd's, but has Ned made any moves that one would consider gutsy?
For the most part, this is because MLB and the Dodgers (understandably) insist on playing the Angels for more than the normal allotment of interleague games. MLB tries to create a lot of Mets-Yankees and Dodgers-Angels games, which results in fewer interleague games for those teams against other opponents.
Good story on former Dodger farmhand Ryan Ketchner.
Ketchner's currently on the Padres 40-man roster and is pitching in the PCL.
4.86 ERA so far. Very average peripheral numbers so far, but it is his first year back from TJ surgery. It'll probably be a big story if he starts a major league game down the road.
The Dodgers played in Chicago and 2005 and got swept by the White Sox in very dispiriting fashion.
The Sox won one game on a walkoff homer by Pierzynski against Brazoban and the sweep was finished on a Sunday night ESPN game when Morgan pretty much spent the entire broadcast lauding Ozzie Guillen's "Smartball" as the dawn of a new era in baseball.
That was a really depressing weekend.
vr, Xei
I was quite upset. And I sounded like a jerk.
And I kept saying the White Sox would lose in the first round of the playoffs.
Lo Duca hit an ITP homer in a losing cause in the Sunday game of the series.
Actually, there were a lot of Giants players interviewed for that book too, so maybe one of them discussed Taylor as well.
Of course, English doesn't make me look too great either. I believe it was Herodotus who said>>>>>DSL SERVICE FAILS...>>>DISCONNECTED>>>NETWORK CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE>>>
my intial thought is that those numbers seem to be low.
furcal
martin
gonzalez
kent
betemit
kemp
loney
ethier
Second baseman says he won't play beyond next season, and even that's not guaranteed.
http://tinyurl.com/2ld5ct
WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that reading an article by T.J. Simers may be hazardous to your health.
http://tinyurl.com/346y9r
Because Ch-i knows that Loney's .900 OPS last year was too piss-poor to merit a starting job this year. And he hit a monster bomb off of Billy Wags, which happens all the time for lefties.
Maybe Kemp and Loney will drop .310 EqA's, and they'll be allowed to stick around.
After many, many hours of deliberation...Kanye's "Touch the Sky" beat is really better than "Move On." I know, I'm a huge Mayfield fan myself...It's blasphemous. But it's an improvement over the original. I don't like Kanye West at all, and I really hate samples, but the arrangement is awesome.
I have a feeling you won't agree.
Gallagher, the 116th pick in this years draft signed for 250k. I wonder how much over slot did they go for Orr.
Kanye West is great. But Curtis Mayfield is Curtis Mayfield. #449 is a rule 11 violation if ever there was one.
2006 $280,000
2005 $162,500 (this was well below slot... Toronto pick)
2004: $280,000
2003: $300,000
I've done both graduate level orals and radio interviews in French and even though I've been living in France for 20 years, it's still a nerve racking experience to speak in public. And even though I can write and spell French better than many natives, hardly a day goes by where sometime doesn't listen to me speak and say "So, where are you from?"
------
France is elated with Loney and Kemp on the team ! ! !
If they bring up shortstop Hu at the end of the season,(I think that's his name) then we might see a complete Dodger farm system infield. Would this be the first time since Garvey, Lopes, Russell , Cey ?
Canuck, to answer part of your question, a common spoken vernacular in China is a modern innovation. Before the twentieth century, educated Chinese (a very small minority of the population) learned to read and write literary Chinese, but this was something altogether different from different regional dialects. The comp in the west would be Latin in the Middle Ages--the language of state and learning, but at home on a day-to-day basis, even the educated would use whatever vernacular language they grew up with. Or, to use another example, the Romans made sure Latin was the language of state, but they didn't really care if lower-class provincials spoke Aramaic or Greek or whatnot. The Chinese government declaration of what was essentially the dialect spoken around Beijing as the common vernacular, and then ALSO making that the primary WRITTEN language, was a reform measure of the twentieth century designed to help "modernize" China.
WWSH
I prefer "Los Loney Boys"
Where do they all come from?
You, Mia Hamm, and the woman with the ugly van.
I still think Nomar will eventually come around, but I also don't mind if Loney encroaches more and more on the former's playing time. Nomar may also just need the rest.
WWSH
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