waashk/20ng huggingface dataset:
kime@mongoose.torolab.ibm.com (Edward Kim) writes:  >It is doubtful that the blue jays would have won the AL east without Morris. >Last year, when the team went 13-15 for the month of August, and all the  >other starters were being shelled, and Milwaukee was making a charge, >Morris went 5-1 with a pretty good era (I can't remember exactly). >Also, let's not underestimate the importance his 240+ innings to save  >the bullpen every fifth day.  If he didn't help us win the AL east, forget >about the pennent and the world series.  >His run support was high (5.98 runs) but so was Stottlemyer's (5.90 runs) >and he won only 12 games.  I do remember Morris winning an inordinate number of >6-5 and 8-6 ballgames, but this is to his credit.  He pitched only as good >as he needed to be.  When he was up 6-1 in a ballgame, he just put it in cruise >control and threw the ball up there and let the batters "get themseleves out" >(I hate this expression!).  An inexperienced pitcher would wear himself out  >trying to make perfect pitches to keep his era down.  But Morris, being a  >veteran pitcher, knows that winning is the only thing that really matters in >baseball.  By saving himself, he was able to reach back for that little extra >(I hate this too!) when the game was on the line.  I don't buy this at all.  I think things are colored to a very large degree of preconceived notions of who the players involved are.  Try this exercise:  XXX is pitching today.  His team scores 4 in the first inning, and 3 in the fourth.  XXX gives up 0 in the 1st through 4th.  In the fifth, he gives up 3 runs.  In the 6th, he gives up 2 more.  The score is now 7-5, with XXX's team still on top.  I contend that if XXX were Jack Morris, the assessment would be "he is a gutty veteran who pitches only as well as he has to to win."  If XXX were Mike Trmbley, the assessment would be "he is an inexperienced rookie who doesn't know how to pitch.  Needs more seasoning.  Send him to AAA.  Or to the spice rack."
In article <1qmj6h$m5h@agate.berkeley.edu> jtchern@ocf.berkeley.edu (Joseph Hernandez) writes: >Houston Astros		1		Seattle Mariners	1 >Montreal Expos		2		Toronto Blue Jays	3 >New York Mets		3		Oakland Athletics	2 >Colorado Rockies	5		Detroit Tigers		3 >Pittsburgh Pirates	5		Kansas City Royals	5 >San Diego Padres	4 (13)		New York Yankees	4 >St. Louis Cardinals	4		Cleveland Indians	3 >Los Angeles Dodgers	2		Boston Red Sox		4 (13) >Atlanta Braves		1		California Angels     PPD >San Francisco Giants	6		Milwaukee Brewers    RAIN  This leads me to believe that it's not really a rabbitball year, and that we've just had a rash of high-scoring games.  I bet this one day's worth of games pulled everything back to close to average.  Interesting, because the other day, all but three games had ten or more runs scored, and yesterday no game had more than nine.
>/ hpcc01:rec.sport.baseball / pjtier01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu / 12:23 pm  Apr 14, 1993 / > >What's up with Kevin Rogers of San Francisco??  I thought he was slated to be >the fifth starter, but he's only gotten a few relief appearences.  Are they >going with four starters for now, or is someone else the fifth? > >                                                             Thanks, >                                                                   P. Tierney >---------- > Giant's have a five man rotation of  John Burkett, Trevor Wilson, Bill Swift, Jeff Brantley, and Bud Black/Dave Burba.  Black has been put on the 15 day disables and Dave Burba will take his starts.
In article <TOM.93Apr20125808@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com> tom@ssd.csd.harris.com (Tom Horsley) writes: >The *real* way to speed up ballgames is for each home park owner to offer the >following schedule of bonuses to players on *both* teams: > [...details deleted...]   >I suspect you could finance this the same way Presidential campaigns are >paid for. Offer each fan a checkoff on his or her ticket that says "I want >5% of the price of this ticket to go towards fast game bonuses"...  Oh, great.  We fans can subsidize the cost of speeding up the games that we don't want to see sped up.  Terrific.  Oh.  I forgot.  Checking off that box to finance Presidential campaigns doesn't cost us taxpayers anything.    Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy, too?    --	The Beastmaster   (sorry.  I hate to be so sarcastic on such a beautiful day.)
In a previous article, sweda@css.itd.umich.edu (Sean Sweda) says:  > >I've been saying this for quite some time, but being absent from the >net for a while I figured I'd stick my neck out a bit... > >The Royals will set the record for fewest runs scored by an AL >team since the inception of the DH rule.  (p.s. any ideas what this is?) > >They will fall easily short of 600 runs, that's for damn sure.  I can't >believe these media fools picking them to win the division (like our >Tom Gage of the Detroit News claiming Herk Robinson is some kind of >genius for the trades/aquisitions he's made)       Would you say the same thing about the Dodgers in '65 or '66?  True, Cone is probably as good as Drysdale, and they have no Koufax, but still, these teams were winning with home run leaders who had very bad totals, with lots of low-scoring games, etc.  And they didn't use relievers, whereas Jeff Montgomery is having a super season for them.      That being said, I still picked them 5th or so, but I think a superb pitching team can win if they have enough hitting.  There's more of a chance of that, I think, than of a team with tremendous hitting but no pitching.  At least, to me.      I wonder, though - which one do you people think would do better - a team with Johnson, Koufax in his prime, Seaver, Carlton, and Young, in no real order, as the starters, with Sutter, Fingers, and Lyle in the bullpen, but with a puny offense (assuming good defense, like Mazeroski, Maranville, etc.) Or a team with poor pitching, but with an offense of Cobb, Carew, Ruth, Gehrig, Mays, Schmidt, Wagner, and Bench - again,you pick the order.      I would postulate that the pitching one would be several games better by seasons' end.  Even the best hitters can succeed only 2/5 of the time in their best years, but a great pitcher can throw lots of shutouts - taking all the players in their prime, they might throw 50 shutouts in a year.  And all the offense would have to do is get 1 run across.      I wonder if someone with Stratomatic or something could plug such all- time teams into a regular season, have it played, and report the results I would love to see that.
April 1, 1993   I am participating in an NL-league that uses standard Rotisserie rules except that the following catagories are used:  For position players: 	lowest batting average 	strike-outs 	caught-stealing 	errors  For pitchers: 	losses 	blown saves 	higest ERA 	'taters allowed  This is the fifth year that I've participated in this Blowtisserie league.  Last year I won the pennant due primarily to the fact that I had terrible pitching.  I would like to lower my batting average which is rather high because I do have Jose Offerman (who made up for this by helping me lock first place in errors).  Anyway, someone offered:  Andres Gallaraga for Bud Black  I can afford to give up Bud Black because I still have Kyle Abbott. However, I am afraid of Andres actually doing well this season. Should I make the trade or not?  Your comments will be appreciated.  --  Warren Usui
Off and on over the last several months, threads about RBIs and related topics have gotten me to thinking about how well we can  predict a player's RBIs using information about his overall performance and the number of runners in scoring position (RISP) that he bats with.  In the Brock2 model, Bill James calculated predicted RBIs as RBI=.235*(Total Bases) + Home Runs.  This  completely ignores the context, which was all that Brock2  could do, since context was unknown to it.  So I thought I'd take that idea as a starting point and look how good a fit to the data you get by comparing (RBI-Home Runs) to SLG*RISP.  I've started with team data, using data from the Elias's that I've picked up over the years when a) I could afford them and b) I could stomach the thought of increasing Elias's profits. That gave me the years 1984-1986, 1988, and 1990.  (I don't  have team RBIs for '87 or I could add that year.)  If you run a simple least squares fit to the data you get   (RBI-Home Runs) = 0.81*SLG*RISP.  The correlation between the LHS and the RHS is 0.86, which is significant at a ridiculously high level.  So, I feel like the fit is good at the team level.  I've no started to move on to  the player level and have looked at 4 players (Will Clark, Ozzie Smith, Joe Carter, and Don Mattingly).  I hope to  add quite a few more during my copious free time this year.  It doesn't do too badly, except the equation underpredicts the low HR hitter (Smith), which may be a fault of the model or it could just be Ozzie.  The results:                             RBI-HR          Years        Actual   Predicted Carter  (84-88,90)     400       402.6 Clark   (87,88,90,92)  269       269.6 Matt'ly (84-88,90)     471       460.8 Smith   (84-88,90)     317       280.6  I think we can make a case (and I hope to make it stronger) that RBIs can be predicted simply from knowing how a player slugs overall and how many men are in scoring position when he comes up.  More later, Harold
In <C5HpCv.4HL@andy.bgsu.edu> klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu (Bruce Klopfenstein) writes:  >cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes: >> In article <1993Apr13.195301.22652@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> nlu@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Nelson Lu) writes: >> }  >> } Guess which line is which: >> } 	BA	OBP	SLG	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB >> } X	.310	.405	.427	571	177	27	8	8	87 >> } Y	.312	.354	.455	657	205	32	1	20	35   >I just love how the Alomar fans left RBIs off this list.  Give me a break!    Alomar fans left RBI fans and Runs off this list because they are dependant on the team. (To a large extent). If Frank Thomas hit first, he'd lose a LOT of RBI's; and anyways how many 2nd place hitters have you known to drive in 100 runs? Doesn't happen that often.....very unlikely with Devon White's ~.300 OBP in front of you...
In article <1993Apr8.195853.10650@midway.uchicago.edu> as16@midway.uchicago.edu writes: >My question to you all is why does the media seem to embrace the theme of the >death of baseball so strongly?  I have seen articles of a similar vein in  >the Chicago Tribune and in sports editorials on tv.  Maybe because baseball is the only business where those who are responsible for the fiscal aspects of the game preach gloom and doom.  These allegedly intelligent people seem to predict bad times, losing money, bankruptcies at an alarming rate, and there's going to be an increased degradation of the product they produce.  Could you imagine IBM, with all their problems, promoting themselves the way Major League Baseball does?  Their stock would plummet to unthinkable depths (not that they are too far from it now :-).  What would happen at GM?  Where would GM be if they admitted to cutting corners and producing an inferior product because of alleged labor problems? I think it shows a lack of confidence for the people who run the game.  >Anyway, it just frustrates me when the media says such things, because it >inevitably leads to owners trying quick fixes like increasing play-offs to >satisfy television or trying interleague play to drum up interest.    Forget it.  Word has it three divisions with a wild card is just about a done deal.  It has to be decided soon since negotiations with the networks also have to begin soon.
There's a lot of whining about how much players are overpaid.  I thought I'd put together an underpaid team that could win a pennant.  I splurged and let four of the players earn as much as half a million dollars; the highest-paid player is Frank Thomas, at $900K.  I cut some players, like Kenny Lofton, Chris Hoiles, Keith Mitchell, Tim Wakefield, and a bunch of pitchers, all of whom could have arguably made the team better at a cost of $1 million for the lot of them.  The total team salary is  $7,781,500, averaging slightly over $300K a player.  If that's too steep, you can dump Thomas and Bagwell, replacing them with Paul Sorrento and a minimum wager to save a bit over a million dollars, and still have one of the best teams in the majors.  p, Juan Guzman, 500 p, Mussina,	400 p, Castillo,    250 p, Eldred,      175 p, Rhodes,	155 p, Militello,   118 rp, Rojas,	300 rp, Beck,	250 rp, Melendez,   235 rp, Hernandez,	185 rp, Nied,	150 c, Rodriguez,	275 c, Piazza,      126 1b, Thomas,	900 1b, Bagwell,    655 2b, Knoblauch,	500 2b, Barberie,	190 3b, Gomez,	312.5 3b, Palmer,	250 ss, Listach,	350 ss, Pena,	170 lf, Gonzalez,	525 cf, Lankford,	290 rf, R.Sanders,	275 of, Plantier,	245
In article <1993Apr14.081214.3921@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> nlu@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Nelson Lu) writes: >>>>>second basemen in history. He probably didn't even have as good a season as >>>>>Alomar last year. >>> >>>Guess which line is which: >>>	BA	OBP	SLG	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB >>>X	.310	.405	.427	571	177	27	8	8	87 >>>Y	.312	.354	.455	657	205	32	1	20	35 >> >>>The walks should give it away.  OBP's, in general, somewhat more valuable than >>>slugging, and Alomar's edge in OBP was quite a bit larger than Baerga's edge >>>in slugging. >> >>I'm no SDCN, but what's more valuable: >> >>28 hits w/5 more doubles, 12 more HRs   OR >>7 more triples and 52 BBs?  (Let's not forget the 39 extra SBs. How many CS?) > >Of course the 28 hits and 12 homers are more valuable. > >But don't forget the 58 outs.  You can't have it both ways; Baerga's higher >raw numbers are due to him having more playing time, and thus he had more >hits and homers, but don't forget the cost of those outs. > >(BTW, just to answer your question, Alomar had 49 SB and 9 CS; Baerga had >10 SB and 2 CS, which gives a minute plus on Alomar's side.)  Something else to consider:  Alomar's H-R splits were .500-.363 SLG, .444-.369 OBP! Baerga's was .486-.424 and .392-.318. Pretty clearly, Alomar got a HUGE boost from his home park.  I'd say you could make a good for them being about equal right now. T&P rated Baerga higher, actually.  Mike
In article <1993Apr15.214032.1@acad.drake.edu> sbp002@acad.drake.edu writes:  >> Not clear to me at all.  I'd certainly rather have a team who was winning >> 4-1 games than 2-1 games.  In the 2-1 game, luck is going to play a much >> bigger role than in the 4-1 game.   >But you still need the pitching staff to hold the opposing team to >one run.  Not if you've scored four runs, you don't!  Why strain even the best pitching staff?  Why not make it easier for them?    In the 2-1 game, the best pitching staff in the world can't compensate for a blown call, a bad hop, a gust of wind.  Winning close is the  wrong way to win; both keeping opposing runs down AND scoring a lot  yourself are insurance against the "Shit happens" aspect of baseball.  Not every great teamhas even *good* pitching.  The Big Red Machine of the 70's was league-average in pitching.  But somehow, Rose-Morgan-Bench- Perez-etc. managed to win 100 games more than once, peaking at 108.
In article <1ql93bINN1s5@postoffice1.psc.edu> boone@psc.edu (Jon Boone) writes: >       Spanky is too slow!  If he were quicker, he would still be here. >But with Slaught and Tom Prince, they didn't want to lose Prince in order >to bring up that 11th pitcher.  Slaught is about as good as Spanky and >Prince is coming along nicely!  Tom Prince is a 28 year old no-hit catcher.  Think of him as a young Dann Bilardello.  I can't begin to fathom why the Pirates have been so afraid of losing this guy, who's been in AAA most of the last 5 seasons.  The Pirates released Kirk Gibson last year because Prince was out of options, then eventually sent Prince down anyway, and he cleared waivers without a peep. He's another year older, and still can't hit; why do they think he wouldn't clear waivers now?  Why would they care?
I am planning a weekend in Chicago next month for my first live-and-in-person  Cubs game (!!!) I would appreciate any advice from locals or used-to-be locals  on where to stay, what to see, where to dine, etc.  E-mail replies are fine...  Thanks in advance! Teresa
In article <1993Apr14.173236.14321@esca.com>, vigil@esca.com (Sandra Vigil) writes: |> Yesterday, April 14th, a friend and I were discussing the theory put |> forth by a local sports radio station personality that the |> Commissioner-less baseball owners had snuck a live ball into this years |> baseball games in an effort to increase home run numbers and attract |> fans.   It's always possible, but if this is the case, I think that there is some blatant discrimination going on here. Clearly Selig is allowing the opposition to use pre-1920 baseballs against the Dodgers.     |> Well, guess who stepped up to the plate for his first career grand slam |> last night against the Jays?  None other than my boy.  It was truly a |> sight to behold.  And almost more impressive was that he also got an intentional walk. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------            We will stretch no farm animal beyond its natural length    paula@koufax.cv.hp.com   Paul Andresen  Hewlett-Packard  (503)-750-3511
To make room for Harkey, the Cubs sent Shawn Boskie down to AAA.
O.K.  It would be a shame for Cards fans on the net to go through the 1993 championship season without a  mailing list to talk on so I would be willing to look at starting one.  Except there's one little problem...  I don't know the first thing about how to do it or  what it requires in terms of resources or time.  So if some kind soul could e-mail me the particulars of getting starting and managing a mail list, I'd see if it would be feasible for me to start a Cards mailing  list.  Thanks in advance,  Dick Detweiler
>But I like the way he butchers Andres Galarraga's name. Y'all lighten up on Harry, Skip'll be like that in a couple of years!!> >It comes out like "gahlah rrrraggggah". >And don't forget his frequent references to the great SF Giant star >Bobby Bonds!  Harry's a great personality.  He's the reason I like Cubs broadcasts. (It's certainly not the quality of the team).  Chop Chop  Michael Mule'
In article <steph.735349318@pegasus.cs.uiuc.edu> steph@pegasus.cs.uiuc.edu (Dale Stephenson) writes: >In <C5sysG.KAD@odin.corp.sgi.com> luigi@sgi.com (Randy Palermo) writes: > >>In article <13586@news.duke.edu> fierkelab@bchm.biochem.duke.edu (Eric Roush) writes:    >>Did you see the same game I saw? Gant, most reasonable, argued a >>horrible call which Hirschbeck, correctly, did nothing about. Gant >>then proceeded to walk halfway to 3rd base, lean on his bat and >>glare at Hirschbeck. While I don't necessasarily subscribe to the >>theory of showing people up, this was an obvious attempt by Gant to >>do so to Hirschbeck. He left Hirschbeck no choice but to take control >>of the situation. The bottom line is: Gant started a dangerous >>power struggle with Hirschbeck when his team needed him most and >>he lost.   >The events I saw were: >1)  Called strike by Hirschbeck  Was it just me, or did it look like Hirschbeck pointed to the 3B umpire before calling that strike?  I thought that's why Gant was asking for the appeal to the 1st base umpire; he thought Hirschbeck had gotten checked-swing help from the wrong umpire.  >2)  Shocked-looking Gant asks for appeal to first >3)  No appeal to first >4)  Gant steps out of batters box. >5)  Hirschbeck *immediately* orders Gant back in.  [bad move] >6)  Gant ignores Hirschbeck and walks off. [bad move] >7)  Hirschbeck yells at Gant.  Gant is silent. >8)  Hirschbeck calls for the pitch.  After Hirschbeck called for the pitch, but before the pitch was thrown, Cox came onto the field.  It was obvious that he was trying to get time called before the pitch, but no one was watching.  >9)  Pitch is called a strike. >10)  Cox argues (couldn't see when he came on the field) >11)  Cox is ejected, players everywhere >12)  Play finally resumes.   >Gant shouldn't have ignored Hirschbeck.  Not returning made the strike >call fairly likely.  Although I suspect an argument might have gotten >Gant tossed altogether.  But if Hirschbeck had let Gant step out, the >whole incident probably would have been avoided.  Your listing pretty much agreed with what I saw, with the aforementioned addendums.  Perhaps it appeared differently at the ballpark.  Personally, I was amazed that Gant didn't get ejected.  But that's why Cox did; it's called protecting your players.  And to those people who would have thrown everyone out of the game, all I can say is that you'd be making baseball history.  Even in the worst baseball brawls, usually only the major instigators are ejected, not everyone who comes onto the field.  And I'd have to  say that those brawls are considerably more threatening to the game  than what the Braves did Fri. night.  Anyhow, that's my last two cents on the subject, barring outrageous postings.  I will try to keep my eyes open for more incidents involving Hirschbeck. I think there will be some with other teams as well.  I hope not.
In article <12718@news.duke.edu> fierkelab@bchm.biochem.duke.edu (Eric Roush) writes: >Path: news1.cis.umn.edu!umn.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!concert!duke!news.duke.edu!bchm.biochem.duke.edu >From: fierkelab@bchm.biochem.duke.edu (Eric Roush) >Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball >Subject: Scott Erickson >Message-ID: <12718@news.duke.edu> >Date: 5 Apr 93 18:21:18 GMT >Sender: news@news.duke.edu >Organization: Biochemistry >Lines: 13 >Nntp-Posting-Host: bruchner.biochem.duke.edu >USA Today reports that he may be going on the DL >(arm pains of an unspecified nature). > >Further news would be appreciated. > > >------------------------------------------------------- >Eric Roush		fierkelab@	bchm.biochem.duke.edu >"I am a Marxist, of the Groucho sort" >Grafitti, Paris, 1968 > >TANSTAAFL! (although the Internet comes close.) >--------------------------------------------------------  Erickson did go on the 15 day DL with a pulled muscle in his left side (near  rib cage).  He is on until 4/18/93.  No news as to who the Twins will bring up. ---------------------------------------------- Kevin Hansen MN Twin Family Study - University of Minnesota (612)626-7224 khansen@staff.tc.umn.edu ---------------------------------------------- Contact: University of Minnesota Women's Basketball
Do you realize that the yankees are paying Matt Nokes 2,500,000 dollars   this year!!!! GEESH. And Maas only gets 125,000.        By the way, the yankees are going to WIN IT ALL   Yankees are the BEST.
In article <9304202040.PN27738@LL.MIT.EDU> ejb@ll.mit.edu ( Ed Baranoski) writes: >In article <1993Apr20.181245.11319@VFL.Paramax.COM> davidm@gvls2.vfl.paramax.com (David Madden) writes:  >   2. If a pitcher throws to an occupied base more than X time (X = 3 to 5) >      without successfully picking off the runner, the runner advances a base >      as if walked. > >This last suggestion will probably increase the number of stolen bases >considerably.  Suppose the pitcher uses up (N-1) of his N pick-off >attempts.  The runner can probably stretch his lead off the base, >given that there will be extra pressure on the pitcher to get it >right this time. >  If it encouraged the runner to stretch his lead, it would probably also result ina greater number of pickoffs. I think it would be a workable rule, but it would probably be best to experiment in another league before trying it in the bigs.