I'd guess somewhere in that drive his speeding tool flashed elite, just didn't get a gun on him at that time.

I'm guessing he's referring to a game a couple weeks ago against Toronto. It was a 1PM scheduled start weekday game that suffered from a 2 hour+ rain delay prior to the game and 30-something degree gametime temperatures. It didn't feature a marquee starter for either team(Porcello/Buehrle, I think). Combine those factors with strong season ticket sales and I think that explains most of the discrepancy between tickets sold and people who actually showed up. If a full season ticket holder was going to pick one game this year to skip, that was probably the one they would have picked.

That was it. Looks like Farnsworth doesn't really rush the plate, but he did deviate pretty significantly from the script of "Hang around the mound and let them come to you". Looks like he had wandered about halfway to home by the time Wilson decided he wanted to scrap. I remembered that fight being in the dirt by home, but now I see part of that was due to how far Wilson flew backwards after getting tackled. Good times.

You mentioned how pitchers never rush the plate, but I seem to remember an incident with Kyle Farnsworth when he was with the Cubs when he pretty much did. There was a second or two of jawing between them and then Farnsworth just took off towards the batter. If anyone was crazy enough to do that, it would have to be Kyle Farnsworth.

Um, wow. I don't think I have the words to express how awesome this is. The spreadsheet is a wonderful touch, keep it up!

I sure hope so. Otherwise we're gonna have to form a support group or something.

What, no Shane Halter?

Well that pretty much finishes my christmas shopping.

You use the MLB At Bat feed, which was delayed several seconds behind the TV coverage. At least that's how I did it.

Unfortunately we have to listen to McCarver/Buck on Fox. So everyone loses there.

Only problem with that is only 1 of 4 potential starts in SF are coming from Sanchez or Scherzer, the theoretical Game 7 in SF.

Hey Derek, CBS is reporting that Wei-Yin Chen is being pushed back to Monday which lines him up vCHW and @NYY this week. Where would you slot him in the rankings assuming that's accurate?

Isn't that why Kickstarter exists? Figure out the costs, divide by 500 and figure out a way to let us know. I for one would throw in.

Local media has been reporting all week that Fister is in line to start Monday @SEA. Unless he re-injures himself before then those 2 Below starts should to go to Fister.

Can we get an honorable mention for Austin Jackson's 9th inning catch in Armando Galarraga's "Perfect" game?

Oh thanks, now everyone knows you're a better person than me.

2nd or 3rd, probably.

Hey, the Blue Jays don't cheat! You can't prove that!

Agreed. My hypothetical solution to this would be sign Pena, play him at 1st against RHP, DH Cabrera. Against LHP put Cabrera back at 1st, move Delmon Young to DH and play Ryan Raburn in LF. It's a net gain on defense, albeit not at the same position every day, and it doesn't take up any additional roster spots that weren't already booked for DH. With the gains in defense and the lefty/right splits of Raburn/Pena complimenting each other nicely it could work out to be a wash or even a small net gain on what Martinez would have produced in the DH spot.

I promise I typed my response before reading yours and just got delayed by work. Great minds think alike I suppose!

The "pitching to the score" theory is generally applied to Morris as a reason/excuse for his ERA not being that of a hall-worthy pitcher. Because of this I don't think it's misguided at all to use the outcome as a determination of whether it happened or not. If it didn't affect the outcome then it's an irrelevant defense of Morris' run prevention abilities (or lack thereof) and should be discarded. If pitching to the score didn't affect his ERA then why should it matter if he tried to do it or not, at least in the context of a Hall of Fame discussion?

Didn't you know stat gurus don't watch baseball games? They're too busy playing with their computers in their mom's basements.

I agree completely, and despite potential sample size issues I think we can safely conclude the Jaffe-stache is going to be a driving force of book sales. Well done Jay, well done.

Out of curiosity, why isn't Brennan Boesch slotted into RF in their projected lineup? It seems to me he's pretty likely to be slotted in as the everyday guy there given his performance and usage in this past season.

I'm sure we can pull up any random year in the data set and see the draft bonuses skewed, sometimes heavily, in favor of either the younger or the older players. In order for it to contradict Rany's work though, you would have to consistently see the opposite of this year with higly talented, bonus demanding youngsters dropping in draft slot and then outperforming because of their superior talent.

I'd like to see the signing bonus issue addressed as well, but my instinct is that it's something that would even itself out over the years. Unless either older or younger high school players are overwhelmingly more likely to ask for insane bonuses I would assume they sign over slot at roughly the same rate. I could certainly see it having some minor effects on the numbers, but I would be shocked if it dramatically changed the results.

Came here to say the same thing about Santiago's bunt. Because anytime you've got a shaky pitcher in an elimination game who just walked the first batter you should definitely give him a free out. Absolutely indefensible.

Yes, they definitely do. I wouldn't say it happens all the time or anything, but I've seen a handfull of balls hit off said ankle/lower leg gear this year.

If I recall, wasn't Wilson bloodied up pretty good in that one? That also wasn't the last time Farnsworth form-tackled anyone, he came out from the bullpen in a Tigers/Royals brawl in... 2007?.. then proceeded to seek out Jeremy Affeldt and drive him into the ground like a middle linebacker. Rod Allen was announcing the game for Detroit and just about lost his mind with excitement when that happened.

Probably too highly owned already. He's almost 40% owned on ESPN, twice as high as the most owned guy on here. I picked him up last week in a mixed league and I'm starting him this week.

Well, for Cabrera at least I don't think they wanted to speak anonymously to praise Cabrera. I think they wanted to speak anonymously to say "...nobody else in the Tigers lineup offers much of a deterrent."

Are you suggesting we should start referring to him as "Obi-Wan Tulowitzki"? I will admit, it's got a nice ring to it.

Kenny Rogers is a TOS guy that probably pre-dates your database. If memory serves he had surgery for it in the early 90's and lost a few ticks off his fastball that he never got back.

Hey Kevin, when the Tiger's inevitably need another starter is there any chance they call up Furbush over Oliver, or is Oliver almost certainly getting the first chance?

I think Miguel Cabrera playing short would be the thing that finally convinces me to buy season tickets.

They're viewed as a contender only in the context of the AL Central. It's a very weak divsion and the other two "contenders" have just as many questions as the Tigers do.

That's one possibility, the other is that they're getting 4200+ PAs at DH out of a mix of every player on their 40 man and many that aren't. That's what I'm rooting for at least, it would certainly make for quite the amusing collection of play by play logs.

I don't recall what PECOTA predicted the last few years for the Sox, but I rather distinctly remember it predicting 72 wins for them in 2007 after back to back 90 win seasons. There was a pretty good amount of media uproar over that and if I recall correctly even Ozzie and Ken Williams spoke up on what a crazy prediction it was. The best part of it was that when all was said and done the White Sox finished that season with EXACTLY 72 wins!

Reports And Postulations on Expected Rates of health and Safety, otherwise knows as REAPERS

Look a little closer guys, it looks like the players themselves have ben put in the right spots and their playing time updated, however those look an awful lot like last years PECOTA numbers. I think it's just this years lineup with last years PECOTA projections. A step in the right direction nonetheless!

Actually, hasn't the formula been adjusted to reflect a higher standard of replacement player? I believe the new level used in last years stats uses a Gerald Laird/Dan Uggla level baseline, which approximates out to "Just a little grumpy".

I can't locate the article, but I beleive Clay calculated that Junior was worth 3.2 WARP (Wins Above Replacement Prankster)this season, up from 1.1 in 2008.

Actually, new firearms ARE packaged with warnings that say something to that effect. All kinds of "This is not a toy, Do not point at people, Always assume gun is loaded" kind of stuff. The Instruction Manual for my rifle that I purchased this year included two full pages of warnings at the front of the book. To comment on the story though, would warning labels really change anything? I would assume leagues already restrict the most dangerous of bats (My beer league softball does, so I would assume youth baseball would do the same). Getting hit in the temple with any ball travelling at any kind of speed is going to be dangerous, does anyone really think the outcome would have been a whole lot different if the ball had been hit with a wooden bat and had been travelling a few MPH slower? I would think the BEST case scenario would be a significant head injury with lasting brain damage. Will is absolutley correct here, we need to protect the player in this kind of situation, its much more likely to decrease injuries than worrying about the bats.

I guess I don't get the uproar on this one. If BP has decided that one of the responsibilities of the winner will be to at least occasionally be available for podcasts, radio spots or whatever, how is it even remotely unfair to test them on that? I enjoyed Matt's writing throughout the contest, but his radio work was decided to be the lowest quality of the 4 contestants. For all the fun we've had with Idol, lets not forget it's essentially an extended job interview with BP's subscribers and we collectively decided that Matt didn't perform as well as the other three in this particular aspect of that interview. It stinks to lose him, but I see nothing unfair, unwise or otherwise not right about it.

Joe, I think a big issue that you didn't mention that causes a lot of this non-competitive atmosphere is a general awareness and concern for the risk of injury, especialy for the pitchers. With today's closely monitored workloads and pitch counts most teams are pretty wary of having anyone other than their people handle their players. We all saw how teams were unhappy with how some of their guys were handled in the WBC, either they got too much work or not enough. I'm not saying the concern is right or wrong, but I do think it weighs into a manager's decision not to throw Tim Lincecum out there for 7 innings and 3 at bats even if he's dealing zeroes and striking out everyone in sight. Lord knows I'd like to see the game be competitive, I don't remember the last time I watched an All Star Game from start to finish, but I think as long as teams are watching their player's health as closely as they are it's just not gonna happen.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I would like to add though that the comparison of steroid users to Bernie Madoff is a good example of people's irrationality about the whole steroid issue. While with both people feel cheated out of something that they willingly accepted at the time despite some circumstantial evidence to the contrary (Lots of home runs and unrealistic returns on investment), in the end baseball fans have lost nothing but innocence, while Madoff's investors lost their life savings, ther retirements and everything they worked hard for. One seems a litle worse than the other.

achase, I won't provide you with a quote about Sosa hating baseball because I don't think there is one. I simply used that as an exaggerated example of how many people look at a very gray issue in stark black and white terms. If you don't believe that, go have a look at whats in the online versions of the Chicago papers this morning, or read the lead story on ESPN.com. Is there any question the tone of these articles is that Sosa is a terrible person who did awful things to baseball out of pure selfishness without any consideraion given to even the possibility of extenuating circumstances surrounding his decision to use? How is pointing this out moral grandstanding on my part? Second, the reason it seems like I'm refuting part of the so called "Sheehan sheep arguement" is because I am not a "Sheehan sheep". Sheehan's arguement, if I recall it correctly, is that there is nothing in the numbers that is a smoking gun to prove someone did steroids. It is logical and reasoned and if you disagree with it, disagree with better logic and reason. I'm no number cruncher and the best number crunchers I know say its inconclusive and fuzzy. I've yet to see anyone argue these numbers with better numbers, its only argued against with emotional reactions. If someone has done a better job crunching the numbers and DOES have that smoking gun, by all means I would love to see it. On the other hand, my arguement is an emotional one. I'm not saying people didn't use steroids and that there's not a good chance it helped them be better baseball players. I'm simply saying that maybe, just maybe, they didn't do it because they are awful people who like to cheat. Maybe they did it because they saw themselves in a tough situation and they made the same decision a lot of people would have. I don't think anywhere in my post did I state something as an absolute "This is what must have happened", because I don't really know what happened. Neither do you, or Joe Sheehan or any other writer out there. My post is pure speculation and theory based on what I know of people and their nature. It might be right, it might be wrong. I just wish more people would admit the same.

Why is it that the MSM and most fans seem to think players made the decistion to use steroids with some sort of casual malice? We completely villify them without any consideration for WHY they might have done what they did. Somehow I seriously doubt that Sammy Sosa took steroids because he hated baseball and just wanted to give a giant middle finger to everyone who ever followed the game. All this moral grandstanding makes me absolutely sick. I can't believe a majority of players made the decision to use steroids lightly, especially the older ones. Why can no one picture them sitting there before spring training with an achy knee and shoulder, agonizing over the decision of whether to use or not? Afraid that they might have to leave the game they love, the only life they've ever known. Or maybe go out and play and not live up to their contract and be booed by fans and eviscerated by local sports writers because they're not good enough anymore? Now add in the fact that there are no repurcussions from MLB for using them and that you see other players doing it everyday. How many of you can honestly say you wouldn't, at the very least, seriously consider using steroids in this situation? Imagine the players that had conversation with their wives, best friends, maybe even parents about what they should do. For some of these borderline guys this decision could very well have been the difference between living a comfortable life after you retire from a modest MLB career or selling used cars every day for the next 40 years. In that situation I'm really not sure what choice I would have made. I'd like to think I would have taken the high road and stayed clean, but that's just not being honest with myself. I think there's a good chance I would have used them. I just wish writers and fans alike would try and really put themselves in the place of a player making that decision rather than just demonizing them for making a choice they've never had to. One last question to ask yourself, would you trade 5, 10, 20 years off the end of your life to have been Sammy Sosa or Mark McGwire during the summer of '98?

1. I had the pleasure of attending a Justin Verlander-Johan Santana pitching duel in 2006 at Comerica Park. The game was scoreless with 2 out in the bottom of the 8th when Vance Wilson(!) launched a 2 run shot off of Santana for the only runs of the game. A great game between two great pitchers turns when the backup catcher hits a bomb off the best pitcher in baseball. You can't make this stuff up. 2. Brandon Inge has been my non-sexual man crush since 2003.

Maybe they\'ve changed their menu or their ways, but 5 years ago when I lived in St. Petersburg my friends and I used to send people that came to visit us to Evos as a joke because the food was so terrible. Not a one of us thought it was anything but bad.