Tiger337

I could see Harris trading minor leaguers for relative young players already in the majors. I don't see them trading good propects for a rental.

The Fox Headline will be: "JURY REJECTS CLAIM OF RAPE"

That is a good point. I also don't remember the shift being used as much in the limited number of games I attended.

yeah, I think you need to go beyond BABIP. Perhaps, neither is an anomaly and they are two very different samples. For example, Major League hitters are a lot better than minor league hitters, so maybe they are better able to take advantage of the new rules. I don't know how that would work, but I don't know if what happens in the minors would be expected to translate to the majors. If I remember correctly, there was also not a big difference in stolen bases with the changes in the minors, but there has been a substantial difference in the majors.

I don't have time to search right now, but I would think that someone has looked at ths before. I know teams that are involved in a lot of close games tend to stray from their pythagorean estimates more than other teams. Teams that play in a lot of low scoring games are more likely to be involved in close games, so I would guess that weak hitting, good pitching teams would be the ones which might not fit the pythagorean model as consistently especially if they have a good or bad bullpen.

You can't fill in 13 position players via acquisition either. Pitching is no more difficult to acquire than hitting. They key with pitching is to have your good pitchers healthy at the same time.

Nothing significant will happen with guns in this generation. Perhaps, the young people who grew up terrified of guns will get into power some day and do something about it, but that's a long way off. Creating a gun-centric culture in this country was a mistake, but we are stuck with it for now.

Archie used to try to engage though. PigSnuggler is all links.

Yes, I know. I played mostly first base as a kid!

It was Baez's fault, but Torkelson has been making that type of play.

Tork is a hitter now. Forget about those scoops at first base.

yeah, that was his name. I remember reading his posts in the Tigers forum and he was just a normal poster. Then I saw him in the political forum and it was like night and day.

No, I didn't think it was one of them and I don't have an idea of know who it is. It just seems odd that someone would troll a small pollitical forum on a sports site so aggressively if there wasn't something personal going on. There was a retired guy from Florida (ex school principal?) who used to constantly post crazy conspiracy theory links about Obama at the beginning of his presidency, but I doubt it's him.

So, has anyone figured out which former poster PigSnuggler is?

You are right, but, I'm just a fan who doesn't know anything about these guys and sees pitchers get hurt all the time! Realistically, there are exceptions but with a top three pick, I am hoping for a hitter.

But what they did this off-season, for the most part, was exchange guys that can't walk for guys that can. A 5% walk rate isn't going to cut it in the long run unless they happen to be a bunch of sluggers which the Tigers aren't.

My friends and colleagues usually say Black. Some of my more activist colleagues will say African American. I agree there is a problem with the term "African American" since most of the Blacks I know are not Americans.

Some people consider "Black" to be offensive and use the term African American. I struggle with all of this myself when I write about the Negro Leagues.

I think it depends on the audience. There is a difference between what you say at a SABR meeting versus a TV broadcast. You can say Negro Leagues to a SABR audience and they know what you're talking about. On the other hand, if you are addressing a more casual baseball audience, some of them might not even know what Negro Leagues are and the word might sound offensive.

Yes, it can be a function of the bullpen. Jazayerli and Woolner discovered that teams with strong bullpens exceed their pythagorean by an average of 1-2 games over a full seson. Teams with weak bullpens fall behind their pythagorean by an average of 1-2 games. I think if it gets up to four or more games then there is probably some luck involved.

I trust that they know what they're doing and I still don't want a pitcher.

One of my favorite places is Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire where I hike to get away from everything. Just this week, someone posted a photo in a facebook hiking group of someone at the summit aiming an AR-15 with a sophisticated scope. Apparently, you just can't get away from this ****.

I don't think a 30+ year old pitcher with a history of injuries is somebody whose service time you worry about.

I don't think it's being done to manipulate service time. He has pitched poorly this year and it should be mutually beneficial for him to work things out in the minors.

Maybe people in the deep south can't afford an F-Series?