The Sons of Sam Horn (SoSH) is pleased to announce its annual online auction to benefit amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The year's auction will be held July 6-19. Last year, SoSH was able to raise the incredible sum of over $65,000, with all of the money going to the Massachusetts Chapter of the ALS Association. This year's auction items can be found on SonsofSamHorn.net. Also, the Massachusetts Chapter of the ALS did a nice story about SoSH's efforts last fall, which you can read about here. Read More...
Posted by: Frisbetarian in Untagged on
Jul 2, 2009
The Hartford Courant asked me to write a short piece about the competition for the 2009 American League All Star Team at first base. This can also be seen in today's Courant, sans the last paragraph.
Kevin Youkilis is a clear choice offensively as the starting 1st baseman for the American League in the 2009 All Star Game. His on base percentage, which of the easily calculated stats corresponds most closely with runs scored, is almost 60 points higher than Mark Teixeira’s. To put that into perspective, in sixty fewer plate appearances Youkilis has reached base only seven fewer times than Teixeira. Teixeira does have 20 home runs to Youkilis’ 14 (more on this later), but Youkilis still has a 20 point advantage in slugging percentage, which makes his OPS (On base plus slugging) almost 80 points higher than Teixeira’s.
Daisuke Matsuzaka is injured yet again. After winning the MVP of the WBC, Daisuke has gone down twice with shoulder fatigue. He simply continues to lose his control and has moments where his arm looks completely drained.
Daisuke pitching after the WBC this season
Daisuke has looked bad this season. This has led people to scream crazy things like "trade him" or "option him" which simply would not work with the contract he has. Even worse some people have said cut him and that he is a completely bust already. This is a man a season removed 18-3 season with 2.90 ERA getting fourth in the Cy Young voting. Even with this terrible season Daisuke has a career 114 ERA+ and a record of 34-20 in less than three years in the AL East which is right around what Beckett did in his first two years and third here in Boston. This is also a guy making 8 million a year (he is not getting paid the posting fee, and it really shouldn't be looked at as a payroll expense, I will get into that later). The guy is an absolute icon in Japan and his signing has already influenced other signings including 23 year old prospect Junichi Tazawa whose 2.92 ERA leaves him in the top ten of Eastern League starters.
So can a couple of bad starts make someone with those numbers called a bust this early in his career. Well Daisuke is a victim of his own hype.
The annual SoSH fundraiser is about to begin, and while you guys have been great offering to win the Fin some tickets to a future game or a collection of Sox books, this items is what he really wants. So buy it for me. Then buy yourself something for a good cause.
This thread is actually a two-page squabble in which folks parse posts about Manny Acta in a way that is normally tiresome (I can't even summarize it for you, something about whether Acta is actually incompetent or if the Natinales are so awful that Blessed Julian Tavarez himself would not succeed there). Anyway, the reason this thread has some charm is that the real debate centers on the towering achievement of assembling a professional baseball team so bad that its badness warps out ability to judge its constituent parts. That's NATZTOWNE!
It is just your typical game thread until Tek goes deep for the second time in one game (around page 18 of the thread)...the emoticon for a jaw dropping was in play, thanks to poster "Sprowl". That sequence, plus the sequence a few pages later when Bailey scores with an assist from overmatched home plate umpire Todd Tichenor is made all the more fun when one witnesses the confusion among those who can't follow the game live-posters asking for descriptions of the indescribable...
Key Line: "According to my computer, Tek just homered. I feel like I'm missing a lot here." --glennhoffmania
Miguel Tejada! Hanley Ramirez! Jhonny Peralta! Chita Rivera! With Lugo being Lugo and Lowrie being injured this thread has scared up a dozen potential shortstops to be had in trade for one of our dozen grade-A prospects plus the suddenly expendable Brad Penny. There is even a Kayson Gabbard-for-Alex Gonzalez scenario thrown in.
The Red Sox have now reached their quarter point in the season, so now is as good a time as any to take a look at where the Sox are compared to expectations coming into the season.
Keep in mind that that we’re only talking about 25% of a major league season here…not trying to re-invent the wheel.
This one started was split out from the Big Random Soxian Megathread. It opens with some pretty good discussion on the percentages in play when Ellsbury took off for third. There's a kind of boring middle stretch where folks get into a geeky dick-measuring contest and feelings are hurt. It seems to be back on track, and for what it is worth the conclusions seems to be that he shouldn't have gone for it, strictly speaking, but we like the aggressiveness anyway. The black hole that is Papi's lineup spot is now warping the fabric of the sabermetric universe.
Key Line: "I am for trying to steal third at times and generally being aggressive. I am not for stumbling or bumbling or starting and stopping and then running anyway against a strong catcher." --yecul
What in the name of Lars Andersen is this thread about? Lowrie might be an .800 ops player, unless he isn't. George Kottaras sucks unless he doesn't, and we should trade the players we don't value for players we do. This thread started on the Main Board, was demoted to the Minor League forum when it seemed to be about trading our prospects and now is about to be DFA-ed Along the way, we learned that Internet Explorer has a spell-check feature. Remember that book/movie "Flowers for Algernon" when Charlie gets stupider and stupider toward the end? That's this thread. Charlie.
Key Line: "I have no idea what the hell you're saying." --Shelterdog
