This is overdue I must say. My renew is due today actually and I was really thinking that I would not renew, and I've been here since the beginning. I guess I will reconsider over the next couple days.

Why did Zimmerman deserve higher? You have to have total trust in the defensive metrics to give him that big a boost. His bat was in a large grouping of the 5th-15th best in the league. I don't have that kind of faith in the defensive metrics yet to give Zimmerman more support, especially for a last place team. He was 9th on my ballot.

If this article is indicative of your usual writing, I'm very excited to have you aboard. Welcome.

My favorite sub .200 batting average piece of trivia is that the 1988 World Champion Dodgers had not one, but two near regulars that finished under .200. Alfredo Griffin hit .199 in 354 PAs and Mike Davis hit .196 in 310 PAs. Yes, the same Mike Davis that Dennis Eckersley walked in front of Kirk Gibson.

A lot of you probably know this, but it is one of my pet peeves. The Mendoza line is not .200, but a shifting line in the newspaper wherever Mario Mendoza appeared. It goes back to when the Sunday newspaper used to print everybody's batting stats in order of batting average. Thus, you could look for Mario Mendoza's name and see that anyone underneath him was really struggling.

Am I mistaken in thinking that WARP was a Baseball Prospectus stat first?

I was under the impression that ricky Nolasco's bullpen on Wednesday went well. So where does this: but if the knee is bothering him enough that he can't complete a bullpen session, I'm not sure how the team expects him to get through a game and not risk altering his mechanics, creating a bigger issue. come from?

Not pointing fingers, but one also shouldn't say that W-L record doesn't matter at all. Sometimes the stat community goes overboard on that point.

Matt Kemp was the reason for a 4-7 spell?

You act as if someone said that the sign stealing was definitely the reason. Calm down.

Great point, as I found myself wondering why some people were raining on this parade.

Simply awesome! Strasburg threw out a performance for the ages there. Let the hype machine really start rolling. Dwight Gooden 1985, step aside.

If you've held on to Coghlan THIS long, might as well keep holding on to him. Those that dropped him 2 weeks ago have missed a stretch of 22 for 53 with 10 runs, a HR and 4 RBI. He's raised his average from .210 to .262 in a mere 12 games.

I was wondering about the 10% velocity loss comment. For most pitchers this is a 9 MPH loss. That seems quite extreme and an obvious sign of a problem. Do you really mean that a 5-6 MPH drop doesn't bother you?

Yeah, for real unexplored territory it would have to be a sim type game that at least did things differently than Scoresheet, IMO. I enjoy Scoesheet quite a bit but there are some things that could be improved upon.

I know what the guru saw in regards to Clayton Kershaw, but what was he suggesting exactly? Kershaw looked bad because he threw some hittable pitches. He was no more wild than usual, and I actually think he was missing the strike zone slightly less than usual. Is this statement just thrown out there for a "take it for what it is", or does it mean something?

We know that Brad Lidge was dealing with at least some injury issues last year, and that he has been tremendously successful in the past. Isn't there at least a chance that he comes back and pitches really well this year?

Jim Tracy apparently, and that's the only one that matters in this situation.

I certainly agree a demotion after 34 ABs is ridiculous. But 2009 was a lousy year in the NL for catchers except for McCann and Montero. So 3rd best is damning with faint praise. Perhaps the guy said he didn't look good at the plate because he watched a lot of Rockies games? All I am saying is that on my teams I will be dropping Chris Ianetta.

No, just in general. There is always a chance that a player is done being good. He was good for a .220 hitter in 2009, but a .220 hitter has limited value. I wish Tracy played him more, but he didn't. I owned Ianetta in 3 of 5 leagues I am in this year (NL Only leagues) and I am not going to be holding on to him simply because nobody else wants him either.

Regardless, he is only owned in 5% of Yahoo leagues, and dropping him while he is not accumulating stats will not hurt your team. Nobody is going to trade for him right now in fantasy ball. There is at least a chance that Ianetta just won't be good again.

I remember Bill James writing about this in regards to Mariano Duncan in the old Baseball Abstracts. Do you have any numbers on him? Eventually Mariano did give it up, and went on to a pretty long career.

I kind of like Chris Narveson as a dark horse type. Not a fantasy candidate in a MLB league, but in NL Only, he could be worth a look if he gets the 5th spot.

Steven your subjects and my interest don't always mesh (I don't mean that in a bad way), but I love these pieces. Keep pumping them out please.

As a Dodger fan, I'm sure glad Logan White is on our side. I do hope part 2 focuses in on specific players in the system.

A critique of the critiques if you will: People, this isn't Prospectus Idol. BP has hired him to write some pieces, and I'm sure they are editing the pieces and in touch with the author about what they want. Stop acting like he is in a contest to win your hearts. If you like the articles, read on, if you don't, don't.

Great stuff.

Fun...and dumb. But mostly fun.

Agree. Obviously losing Nathan is a blow, and may be worth a few less wins. A few less wins may cost them the division but I'm not sure anyone would say it knocks them out of contention.

Love these articles. Keep them coming!

Is Ryan Madson considered a closer?

Interesting. The thought about the closer being a given has entered my mind before, but I never put it in concrete terms. Makes a lot of sense now a days (sadly) to judge bullpen management in this way. I find it quite interesting that Joe Torre does so poorly.

Good lists. I would have a real hard time putting Rickie Weeks up that high. I will undoubtedly rank Howie Kendrick and Martin Prado above Weeks for instance.

Another question. How easy is it for a human being to assess in the 3 to 4 seconds a fly ball is in the air, "Gee, I think that tagging up has a 75% chance of success, I should send the runner"? Or "Hmmm, that fly ball has only a 58% chance of success, he needs to stay"?

Not that early. I ordered something like January 28. I am in Indianapolis.

Does this mean that the pitcher projections in the book are overly pessimistic or does this not affect the book? If it doesn't affect the book, then why is there a difference?

I must be the first. I received my book today, February 12th via UPS from Amazon!

I think you may be onto something exciting here. Can't wait for more.

Oh, and Ken Funck, the BP Idol winner, can definitely be a fun writer. I would love to see him take over BP Today or something like it. Nobody here has mentioned him, and I think he was a very deserving winner of that competition. Use him!

I guess before I renew (2 days left!) I should ask, Jay Jaffe and Kevin Goldstein are still here right? It's those 2 plus Sheehan that keep me around.

It is certainly possible that Cliff Lee could help Seattle into the playoffs.

Tim you are probably talking about The Rathskellar on Massachusetts Avenue. It is still alive and well.

Was I imagining that Dave Duncan left the Cardinals? I know there were rumors, but then I thought I heard he did not re-up with them.

Joe, thanks for these articles. You have been a prolific (and entertaining) writer since the tail end of the regular season, and you and Kevin Goldstein (the hardest working man in Internet baseball?) are making my subscription worth it by yourselves.

Not questioning the facilities, or the town's ability to handle it. I live here. Just wondering why a cold weather non MLB city would get the meetings.

I am also here in Indianapolis. Will, how the hell did we get the winter meetings? I was dumbfounded when I first heard they were coming here. I was surprised that Indy pulled off getting a Super Bowl, but at least we do have an NFL team. When you think about baseball, Indianapolis is tied for last place on American cities that come to mind.

irablum, that is a beautiful and apt analogy. I think you summed the whole thing up so well that you are going to forever take the fun out of reading all the griping that comes every year during award time. Good, good stuff.

I would like to see a breakdown of Kemp's defensive case as well. He ranks very highly in the FRAR stats here on BP. He also was 2nd in the league in outfield assists, which I'm not sure if any of the defensive metrics take into account. I think Kemp was deserving, or at least extremely close to the top 3 in the NL. Can somebody provide some deeper info?

Only complaints in this thread are Utley complaints. Phillies fans at it again?

Yeah, but there were 2 outs, not 0 outs. Now, everyone is claiming a runner on 3rd takes away Lidge's slider, but does anyone really believe that? Is it common knowledge that pitchers don't throw balls in the dirt with a runner on 3rd? No, it is not. In fact, I am quite sure that pitchers throw balls in the dirt with runners on 3rd all the time. So I am calling BS on that bit of wisdom. Announcers have been talking about the Phillie pitchers trust in Ruiz in those situations all post season long by the way.

It was a very interesting and entertaining play to be sure, BUT, in my mind, it had nothing to do with the outcome of the game.

Why do you hate the Phillies?

Is there any potential for this McCourt thing to get totally ugly and force Colletti into dropping the payroll to say 60 million? I'm just not liking anything I am hearing so far in these divorce proceedings.

The one manager that would have done it is Charlie Manuel. In fact he did do it in game 4. Down by 1 with one out in the bottom of the 9th, Manuel pinch hit for Pedro Feliz with Matt Stairs. The pitchers spot was due up 4th in the inning overall, 2 spots after Feliz, but may have never come up at all if it were a 1-2-3 inning. I thought it was a brilliant move at the time (especially given Broxton/Stair's history) and paid off tremendously. Torre must have been in the shower with Manny when that happened.

I also think the ump made the right call on the so called nieghborhood play in this instance. The majority of the time on that call, the middle infielder is at least on the bag at some point. Aybar never touched the bag at any point in the play, and frankly never came that close to touching the bag. To call him out there would be taking the neighborhood play to far over the extreme, and THAT would have truly been the farce.

MMMM..I love me some Matt Kemp.

Hey this is like a Jayson Stark column, only 30 times better. Thanks Jay!

SLG on balls iin play? It's so simple, I can't believe I didn't wonder about this sooner. Thanks a lot for this piece!

And now I am also eager to see what you have to say about Wagner Mateo.

Kevin, I've been eager to hear anything you might have to say about Angel Villalona.

Fun article. I recently hard Mark Grace insinuate that Byung-Hyun Kim greased up a baseball like nobody's business (in reference to the thought that the Dodgers' Ramon Troncoso did also). Anyone know anything about that? By the way, I nominate the D-Backs Grace and Darren Sutton crew as the most annoying announcer combo in the league (Hawk Harrelson wins the individual award)

Listen, I know that wins are not the way to measure a pitcher. But it is also very wrong to say that wins are completely meaningless. Wins do have some meaning, and saying they don't is going too far in the opposite direction. I would take 7 or 8 stats above wins when judging the quality of a starting pitcher, but wins are not completely meaningless.

I am a huge Dodger fan and watch them almost every day. My observations are about an approach that Torre and Mattingly have seemingly went with in regards to both Loney and Kemp. I feel like since Torre/Mattingly's arrival that they have pounded the approach of going the other way. Both Kemp and Loney became very good at the approach in 2008. Almost too good however, as I feel that it really limited their power. They would each get pitches that looked very "pullable" and still just sort of serve them the opposite way. 2009 started out the same way for both of them, but I feel like Matt Kemp either got the green light to pull the ball, or decided to finally abandon that approach sometime in May. Loney however is still in the mindset of going the opposite way way too often. I don't know if the data backs up my claim, but I would love to see if it did. Therefore, I hypothesize that a change in approach for Loney will take him back to a .500 slugger. I don't think he is really a .550 slugging type.

Fernando Vina said that it was the best defensive play in baseball history on ESPN News.

How nice of you. Serious congratulations to you Mr Funck. It was a real pleasure.

We want the Funck. Gotta have more Funck. owww

If that is what you saw then you saw the wrong at bat.

Of course the above are just opinions. My opinion is that Funck and Kniker have done better work than Swartz. So there.

I have never understood so many people being so adamant about getting rid of the representation for every team. This allowance is absolutely the only reason that some people watch the game. It at least allows some interest for every team's beat writers and spectators to contemplate who the rep will be. I still love the All Star game and still watch it from beginning to end, so I don't have that many problems with it. I would not mind if the starters stayed in for longer either though.

Not Peavy's deed, but Brad Penny.

Kevin, it seems like a lot of your daily sleepers have been Padres. Is their system looking a lot better than it did iin the winter?

Agree that I would love to read more of these type of articles. Mr Goldstein, you have been working your tush off this year with all the little updates, big articles, Prospectus Idol, etc. Appreciate all your hard work.

Kind of leaves me feeling...meh.

This did seem to be kind of all over the place. I am glad it is not just a newspaper recap though. This is the first one I've read, so we'll see how it stacks up to the others.

I haven't read the entries yet, but the topic seems very appropriate. It certainly doesn't have to be a game recap (hope that's not what all of them are). Joe Sheehan's Baseball Today can take something that happened in a game he is watching and go off on an interesting tangent about it. In fact, that's usually what he does. That's what I'm hoping for this week. Well, off to start reading them.

I think BP as a rule loves Chase Utley. Someone's way too sensitive here.

There's still a lot of gap between Walter Johnson and Jeff Suppan, no?

Loved, loved, loved it. The idea was a great one and I think he nailed it. Jimmy Wynn not an apt choice? Jimmy Wynn is exactly the first guy in my mind, followed by Kirby Puckett, and Ron Cey. WHere is the Penguin (was he too tall?) Funck is the only one I think that has a definite style of his own that is already fully formed. He consistently writes entertaining pieces and comes up with weird ways to meld statistics. By far the most Jamesian of the writers.

Good article and left me wanting more. That can be a positive or negative I suppose depending on your viewpoint.

Tim, rest easy, there are a few Win Share lovers out there. I am one of them, and this article uses them exactly the way I believe Papa Bill would have hoped. I thought this was a great piece.

I loved reliving this awesome Series. Win expectancies in-game can be pretty interesting to follow as well. BUT, in a 7 game series like this it has to be a given that the big moments are going to be in game 7. So it seemed kind of like a movie where I guessed the ending long before the ending even came around. Still well executed overall. Thumbs up.

The topic of historical pitcher usage is one of my favorite, and has a goldmine of possible material waiting to be dug into. This article said some things I was intrigued by, but didn't quite go where I hoped. This one is very close to thumbs up, but I will reserve judgement until I see the rest.

Really? What good are translations if the 40th best pitcher in the league (maybe giving Suppan or Batista too much credit?) in the 2000s would be the best pitcher in the league in the 19teens? Any way you slice it, Babe Ruth was one of the 5 best pitchers in the AL in 1916-1918. Granted, you did the best with a very tough area to translate, my only problem is the conclusion drawn. That you have convinced many posters here that Ruth wasn't that good of a pitcher is a little troubling to me, because I'm not sure that is correct.

In other words, Braden23, I'm not sure that your initial impression is wrong.

A great topic, but I'm still not sure I buy the conclusion. Agree with Mr Goldman that some more depth to why Ruth's numbers looked better than they were was in order. I mean Babe Ruth was in the top 10 in wins 3 times, ERA 3 times, WHIP 3 times, hits per nine 4 times, Ks per nine 2 times, IP twice, complete games 3 times. No matter how you translate them, does this look like Jeff Suppan, Miguel Batista, or Carlos Silva?

Other than some Manny Ramirez thoughts, I don't think there has been a single article on the Dodgers (the team with the best record in baseball) on BP all year.

Tyler, good work. You were always solid and seemed to be improving as well. Keep writing!

tcfatone: "Principal: We caught your child cheating on the SAT's. Jo: So? He obviously did a cost/benefit analysis and thought the risk was worth it. Who are we to judge? Come on son, let's go get some frosty chocolate milkshakes!" "Objecting to cheating makes one a "moralist" worthy of mockery. Is that the lesson you teach your children? Just checking." With quotes like these, are you seriously wondering why you get labeled as sanctimonious? I believe that sanctimonious and any quote with "...won't someone think of the children" pretty much go hand in hand.

Not mentioning Jim Tracy is an error akin to Luis Castillo's muff from Friday night. I love ya Sheehan, but I'm going to have to vote you off the island in Prospectus Idle this week.

As I noted in my individual comments, the topic this week was vast, yet limited the authors in a way. All 7 put in quality pieces, but nobody really went away from the structure of Marc Normandin's profiles. Everything really looked about the same. My voting is based more on the authors previous work than their work this week just because I can't distinguish anything to separate out their work this week.

Solid for sure. I have now read all 7, and I still really can't distinguish one from another. I am pretty sure that is the topic and the more strict guidelines than it is the authors. Nobody really went outside the box in structuring their piece.

Going with a pitcher can be considered outside the box in this week of amazingly similar pieces. Still I didn't think it was as well written as others I've read this week. The competition is definitely getting harder as the weakest writers are no longer here. This one pulls in just shy of the other pieces.

And by all these articles, I mean this week's articles, not all of Swartz' articles.

I'll just copy and paste my comment for all of these articles. Solid but not distinguishing.

4 for 4 now of the ones I've read have all been good but not distinguishing themselves yet. I saw what I wanted to see in regards to Hunter Pence from this article.

Thanks Ken. I do understand the "outlier" nature of Inge's season to date certainly. I'm sure it didn't come across as such, but I actually wasn't referring to your article in regards to HR/FB as much as the typical writing on the topic. Thanks for the answer though, and keep up the good work.

I have read 3 of these now and am coming to the conclusion that there is not a lot to distinguish them by. They have all been solid and a lot like the BP Player Profiles. I don't particularly find the average Player Profile here all that interesting either, which is why I now only read the one's about Dodgers. This week is going to be tough for me to judge.

A solid piece. Humor is good, though this one was trying a bit too hard at times. I wish there had been even more on his unexplained power this year. Anyone care to point me to something that would explain why HR/FB rate is considered a luck stat by some? It seems intuitive to me that hitting HRs should really never be considered as lucky (except in ballpark context) so if someone's HR/FB rate increases, why doesn't that signify hitting the ball harder?

Pretty thorough, and overall pretty solid. It hit all the points I would have wanted it to. Thumbs up? This is the first one I've read this week, so I guess it depends on the competition. In past weeks this would be a solid thumbs uop, but the competition is getting tougher.

Good article. Fun is probably the best word for it. I think someone needs to dive into an article looking into the use of AAA recently. Are the best prospects just not going to AAA anymore? Does seem to be shifting that way. Is it just pitching? I've noticed teams with Pacific Coast League affiliates jumping their pitchers over the hitting havens of AAA. Am I correct in this observation?

I have liked all of Swartz' pieces, but I thought this was the least interesting of his work thus far.

This read almost as an autobiography. It was interesting though. Definitely showing a side that he needed to show, so he gets his first thumb up from me. (that sounds dirty)

Tim is starting to pull away as my favorite as well. It is a mark of great writing to take a topic I really have no interest in and make me become interested in it. That's what happened here. I don't know what I could possibly do with this information, but it was fun getting there anyway. Definite thumbs up!

After really liking Brian's entry piece, the next 3 have all just been skating along in the so-so range. This article is well written but just doesn't interest me. That could be as much my fault as the author.

This was something I could easily see being published in Baseball America (that is a compliment by the way). It has major potential, but I agree that the "translations" got in the way and were too cutesy. Still, a very refreshing piece, and a thumbs up.

Enough negative comments already, I don't really need to chime in. All I will say is that I thought this was her best work yet.

I think Ryan might know a thing about pitching, and I am very interested to see if he can reverse the trend of starters throwing fewer and fewer innings. Eighteen, I think you are the one that might need to get a clue here.

Mr Goldstein, wondering what you thought of Jayson Stark's draft article on ESPN.com today. I think it is asinine. Anyway, he wants a strict slotting system because the draft is "broken" because Strasburg wants a lot of money. Another writer swallowing the billionaire owners garbage?

I am a Strat guy myself (actually just get a lot of enjoyment playing the game by myself), and also loved the RM reference title. However, I find myself in a quandary as to what to make of the article. It is aimed at someone who hasn't played Strat before, and hits that goal. But it's very hard to fit it into the criteria of the week.

This is definitely geared to fantasy baseball, which I'm not sure that other articles this week can claim. All 3 articles by this author have been in my upper half of the rankings, but none would be in the top 3. Thumbs up this week, but it really is time for him to step up with something truly original soon.

Being apologetic about his fantasy abilities does not do him any favors. Even if it is true. This is a decent article, squarely in the average category. Just curious, how do you do in your fantasy leagues? I have found that punting any category is a losing strategy in the long run.

Thumbs up but barely. I loved his 1st 2 pieces which puts this one over the edge. This article finishes strong and really hammers the topic home nicely.

A good topic that still hit a bit of a dead spot. This is similar to what I do myself in preparing for a league. A good effort that could have been better. I am holding off a thumb until I read the rest of the competition. By the way, am I the only one that prefers my acronyms pronounceable. I can say "vorp" and "pecota". I can't say "vofp".

Excellent and an easy thumbs up. BP, hire this guy right now to be your fantasy analyst. This article has it all. A set up, an explanation for why PECOTA can be tweaked, great examples, and a highly satisfying conclusion. All while being easy to read and yet allowing the reader to go exploring further. Loved it.

Sorry, I just don't get the love. For a fantasy article, using wOBA as the main stat is odd. Very few leagues use OBA at all, and pretty much none would use wOBA. The idea of figuring out breakout players is a fantastic topic, but again the numbers and graphs don't tell me anything. A whole bunch of numbers that lead to nothing. It's not that I don't comprehend them, it's that there are so many they are undistinguished. When we hit the Matt Wieters topic, I thought the breakout player section was over. That it wasn't is thoroughly confusing. I think this author is a great statistical mind. I think he would be a much better research assistant at BP--pulling numbers and getting things ready for other people's writing--than he would be a writer for the site himself.

Once again, I think the author comes to a poor conclusion to the data in the 1st half of the article. I think it is flat out the wrong answer to the question for the second week in a row. I actually liked the second half of the article. May or may not be a BP type article, but would have had a much better chance to get a thumb if the entire article were like the 2nd half.

I am also surprised that the percentage doesn't weigh heavier than the vote total. Or that I didn't know this before hand. Luckily I did read all 10 articles (which showed up pretty early in the day on Sunday actually). Still, I would not be too happy if I were Byron.

I'm not seeing a voting deadline, but Will just mentioned that there are on;t hours left. When is the deadline?

Thank you BurrRutledge, because that was my first of many problems with this piece. I don't think it adequately explains ground/fly ratios, and that is a huge negative. I also think the theory that is espoused is far from proven and would just thoroughly confuse a BP beginner. I don't think it fits the criteria or makes any sense. Does anybody really think that the answer to Ortiz woes this year is for him to hit more groundballs? It seems like the author truly believes this, and I'm not just unconvinced, but I think it is nearly ludicrous.

I thought this one was fantastic. Easy thumbs up, and good thing too, because I was on the fence about his qualifying piece. I liked Hissey's article on the same topic, but this one is better. Congrats! Also, I find it amusing how often Bill James name is popping up in all of these articles. James is probably one of the top 10 most influential people in my life, and not surprisingly, that seems to be the case with so many of us.

Good article, but from the start I was thinking "Is the term 1st pitch strikes really a stat that would qualify for a Basics article?" VORP, DER, DTs etc definitely, but 1st pitch strikes is not really a stat that you see in anybody's stat lines. The topic is worthy of an article no doubt, but did this really meet the rules of the week?

Also, your picture reminds me of Rick Sutcliffe, whose analysis I find very poor. :)

Thumbs up. Nailed the basic approach in an interesting way. However, nothing really stands out about it either. Understood that it is hard to stand out in a "basics" piece.

It makes a thumbs up grade for me. I think this article more than others I've read (so far) better followed the rules for the week.

This one has my thumb perched in the middle ground. It's hard to get much more basic than OBP at least for the BP crowd. Not faulting you for that though. You did take it an interesting way. I did have to read the paragraph that morphed into a WHIP discussion, but on just 1 reread it made a lot of sense. Anyway I am reserving a thumbs up until I check out more of the competition first.

Yeah, this line: Play Runners Outs Additional Runs Scored 1 000 0 1 2 100 0 1 3 120 0 1 4 120 1 1 5 023 1 0 6 123 1 0 I'm sure did not come out how the author intended. At least I hope not. Still, thumbs up from me. Run expectancy has always fascinated me anyway, and the added bonus of what changes by lineup position makes this a big time winner. Basics yes, and I learned some things. great job!

Nice work. Draft strategy is a topic screaming for more research. I have now read all 10 and this one would rank 3rd for me. Good job.

I also didn't understand the chart the first time through, but seeing it now, this article is very informative. While reading the BP annual, I often get hung up that BP assumes it's defensive stat is accurate when I myself have no such confidence in it. Maybe we actually are at the point where we can rely on these new defensive stats.

I agree that BP could use another fantasy oriented writer, if that is what direction you would go. Good article.

Reading them in order, this article is head and shoulders above the 6 preceding. Truly a Baseball Prospectus piece. Congrats!

I just don't see how this entry made the final ten. It seems to me that a writer that has been published gets an extra 3 or 4 points just because. There is nothing wrong with this article per se, but I don't see how it makes the grade for this contest or this website. I have been quite frustrated so far with the articles that have made it in. Sour grapes? Probably.

I'm reading these in order and this one blows out the first two on the list by a wide margin. This is definitely a BP worthy piece. Good job!

A lot of numbers here. I agree this would have been more interesting with at least a few examples of real life players.

Will the originally submitted article be the 1st article up for a vote?

30 years from now I will remember one thing about Eric Byrnes. He will dive sometimes 3-4 steps after he catches a fly ball. He is a bigger outfield hot dog than anyone I've ever seen play the game.

Hanna-Barbera reference? Where did that come from?

Will, I feel like you\'ve always been very hard on Billingsley. You have commented for years that he won\'t make it through the season, and in fact last year insinuated that he was already injured going into spring training. I\'m sure it is nothing personal, but suffice it to say, you have been badly wrong on him from the beginning.

SInce Jesus Flores came to the big leagues so soon due to the rule 5, we don\'t really know what kind of plyer he can be. Kevin, what do you hear about Flores long term?

Vin Scully

Indianapolis? Are the winter meetings here in my home city next year?!? If so, Why?

BartPachino, you have the sequence wrong. Perez stole second on the 1-1 pitch. The ump called that pitch a strike, so the count against Zobrist was 1-2. the Fox guys, and their linescore on top of the screen thought it was 2-1, but they missed the umps strike call. With 2 strikes, Zobrist was forced to swing at any strike, and he hit the very next offering on a line to Werth. Stealing 3rd was a good idea, but they never had the opportunity.

After the fact, it seemed that Maddon made at least 3 mistakes in 3 innings, the biggest was letting Howell bunt just so he oculd face the right handed Burrell and that\'s it. Maddon was adamant that5 they thought it was the right move but it sure seemed stupid to me.

That\'s exactly what it sounds like. Before the game, Garza would be thought to have the advantage over Moyer, that\'s all he meant. And phuturephillies, it only sounds like Hamels balk was overanalyzed, and the umpiring mistakes of game 2 and 3 were underanalyzed because you are a Phillie fan. I think we have had equal coverage both at BP and elsewhere.

tooci4, I was not assigning blame to Howard for any of that, I was addressing where at least some of Sheehan\'s disdain for Howard is coming from. I did not state agreement or disagreement with Sheehan\'s theories on Howard for this series, only that I agree that Howard should not be a top MVP candidate.

There is also some disdain, rightly so, that Howard should not even sniff the NL MVP this year, but is being talked about among the top 3 candidates.

Jay, I thought Amy Nelson\'s piece on ESPN.com about a Billingsley/Martin dispute was bush league. Billingsley talked about poor pitch selection, but to my knowledge never mentioned that the blame went to Martin. I don\'t know all that went on, but to me, it did not seem like anything. In the LA Times, apparently, Billingsley blamed himself for the poor pitch selection. Amy Nelson seemed to run with any hint of controversy that she could. If there is more that I don\'t know, I\'d like to hear it.

All you are talking about is 2 hitters there (Rollins and Victorino), both of which he got out if not for the error. You have to manage a little differently in the post season, but I don\'t think any manager would have truly removed Lowe after Victorino reached on an error.

I think Mr Sheehan does need to keep writing these articles. Yes, the Bill Jaems disciples and long time readers are \"the choir\", but yet we still hear the same crap over and over again on TV and radio. Baseball Prospectus continues to get more and more popular, and that message needs to continue to be spread to new readers. I, for one, realized these things long ago, yet Ii still enjoy reading the articles.

How do you figure ERAs with bases empty or with runners on, and wouldn\'t everybody\'s ERA be monumentally higher with runners on if you could figure it out?