Missed much of the season with mono, starting around the All-Star break and sidelining him, or confining him to mopup duty, for most of the second half. When healthy, he was excellent, working mostly as a lefty specialist but occasionally pitching full innings; Bobby was always willing to try to move his LOOGYs into a larger role. It remains to be seen what Fredi will do. O’Flaherty is a better bet for a seventh-inning guy than Moylan or the Scotts. While he’s better against lefties than righties, it’s not extreme; he tends to walk some of the tougher ones. He did pitch more full innings than in 2009, but some of that is from late in the year when he worked a lot of long relief. He probably would have topped 80 appearances if he’d been healthy; as it was, he still had 56.
Is actually only about six weeks older than Venters, even though he’s been in the majors four years longer. The Mariners rushed him, and wound up wasting three years of options and losing him.
If Linebrink can keep the ball in the park, then he’s probably as good a bet as O’Flaherty to pitch the 7th. The latter really does have a platoon split, albeit not as extreme as Moylan or Sherrill.
Honestly, I’d rather just have Marek up and Proctor down (or gone). I feel like Marek, not O’Flaherty, Linebrink, or Moylan, provides the best longterm option to take over the 7th-inning role, but for some reason the organization hates him.
Why rush Marek? Options can be a problem.
If you’re only worried about Marek’s options, then you *should* rush him. He’s already on the 40. If he stays in the minors, he burns his last option year.
However, I don’t think that’s the number one concern.
@PaulV/2
How would the Braves be rushing Marek? He turns 27 this season, and this will be his seventh pro season. Should we wait until he’s 30?
1—They’re probably having trouble getting the Kotchman Stink off of him.
On another note, these baseball players are really full of themselves. There was a note in the Washington Post the other day about Nyjer Morgan saying he was expecting to have a “Nyjer Morgan year.” Not realizing that Nyjer was a cinch HOF inductee, I was wondering just what would a Nyjer Morgan year look like? I guess one thing would be if he didn’t throw his glove down in disgust while the ball was still in play and runners are going around the bases.
Next, we’ll be hearing about Jeff Francouer demanding regular playing time . . . oh yeah, he already does that.
I am a shallow person.
Albert is one of my favorite players, but all this talk of ten years at $30 million per is having a leavening affect on my admiration for him.
Gotta work on that.
151 games of Chip!
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!!
@8
A plane could crash into an animal shelter killing 236 puppies and 74 kittens, and still only be the 2nd most horrifying news story of the day.
Chip for 151 game?! Holy Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! Look’s like the mute button is back on the menu.
In Germany, you can mute the soccer announcers and still hear the stadium atmosphere. Why isn’t that an option on MLB.TV? I’d pay 10 extra bucks for it! Call it the Chip Caray package!
@8/10, you can all join in the joys of baseball on AM radio as I have done for 2 years now.
@8, from the linked article: The broadcast team for the 45 Peachtree TV games will be announced at a later date.
So maybe there is still some hope that those games will be Chip-less.
@8, WHHHYYYYY?
How come Ozzie was never this kinda crazy when he played here?
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/3838466-419/say-what-you-will-about-ozzie-but-dont-dare-criticize-his-family.html
‘‘Look, I never get caught doing stupid [bleep] in Chicago. People can’t wait until I [bleep] up. So instead, they look for my kids to. But know this: If anyone says anything about Oney or my family in front of me like that, I will have to kill them.
‘‘Now if Oney, Ozzie Jr., Ozney do something wrong or deserve it, I will kick their ass myself. But I have no problem spending 20 years in jail for my kids. I will die for them.’’
This is almost as bad a day when the Phillies signed Lee.
http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
I think I can feel the tension in St. Louis from here.
What are the odds that they actually signed an extension, and they’re going to announce it at 11:30 instead of announcing the non-deal?
And in news from St. Louis…no deal
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/article_bc64f076-39ed-11e0-80df-00127992bc8b.html
“The Cardinals’ position remains unclear; however, a source familiar with talks said their initial offer was less per season than the $25 million average negotiated by Philadelphia Phillies first baseman last April. ”
They are going to screw this up, just you wait and see. The Cubs and Angels will be more than happy to overpay for his services, among others.
Those others including myself.
The Braves Radio Network needs a shortwave broadcaster.
Radio Free Braves!
Good time for this question:
Does anyone make a device that synchs up the radio feed with the (various) tv feeds?
I very much enjoy the radio team and, if it was easy, would choose to listen to their feed while watching almost every time.
http://deadsp.in/eGtUad
A pretty handy guide for syncing a radio broadcast to the tv via computer. It’s one of the few helpful (as opposed to salacious, juvenile, and borderline libelous) things I ever read on Deadspin.
For anyone who hasn’t listened since Skip and Pete, Don Sutton and Jim Powell make for a really really good listen. Don is stubbornly old school and thus annoying on occasion, but he does know a lot. Jim is a pretty young guy with a fantastic voice, a good sense of humor, and a demonstrated willingness to sound intelligent. It’s not Skip and Pete, but it’s enjoyable in its own way. I almost enjoy driving around and listening to them more than watching games.
I hear the State Department is dispatching Chip Carey to describe the Iranian protests. They figure if anything gets Ahmadinejad out, that will.
@23, that’s a decent start, but a couple of words. First, you can’t use the Gameday radio app. It has more of a delay than TV.
Also, for Mac users, although you can use Garageband, it’s kind of heavy, and it sometimes skips if it’s been on a while (at least, using an oldish laptop). I just use Audacity, which is lightweight, easy, and free. Also, of the loop options they mention, Soundflower is really simple and also free.
The problem around here is the radio signal, which isn’t always the clearest. I would actually use a shortwave Braves broadcast, but I can’t usually find much beyond the Yankersox.
@24
they are fun to listen to…
I can take or leave Sutton, but Powell is pretty awesome.
The real question is, will the Whipping Boy winner take on Chip to claim Ultimate Whipping Boy status?
@26 If your Gameday broadcast is behind the tv, some deft DVR manipulation should sync things up pretty well. Running thousands of miles of coax between your cable box and tv might help a little, but the signal would probably degrade pretty fast. The surround sound tip in that article seemed pretty great, but I don’t have 5.1 channels to test it on (supposedly the front speaker gets nothing but the crowd feed on a surround sound broadcast, so if you mute the other speakers you’ll just hear ballpark ambiance, which would be pretty awesome I imagine.)
I know it’s Ken Rosenthal, but if I were Pujols and the Cards offered me $19-$21 I’d demand a trade.
Wow, 19 mil? All that costs Lowe and KK, right? Crazy.
If Rosenthal’s tweet is true, it sounds like the Cards have decided Pujols is gone.
I bet they try and trade him. Not sure if they will pull it off.
The deal everyone first thinks scares me, a Ryan Howard for Puljos swap.
michael young and nelson cruz for prado and lowe. who hangs up first?
@34
My wife’s family is from STL. Unless I’m sorely mistaken, there’s no way in hell that the Cards trade Pujols (unless they fall completely out of contention). Their fanbase would go nuts!
@36,
They would, but if they aren’t going to seriously try to keep him, why not move him? Howard is a St Louis guy and would ease the sting. That is why it is scary.
I am not sure why they would pay Howard and not try to keep Puljos though
1/2 a year of Pujols would still bring a Teixeira-like package to STL. Without Pujols, their team will have gaping holes in 2012. If they fall out of contention, sure, but I’d bet my left you know what that it doesn’t happen pre-season.
I’m not sure the fanbase would go nuts if Pujols insists on $30 mil/yr or something like that. In the shortrun, yes, but it’s the Midwest and fans think the players are greedy anyway. They know that giving Pujols the contract he wants would cripple the team in the long-run. I think that’s what the organization is counting on. I think the people there are Cardinal fans first and Pujols (or whoever) fans second.
Upon further review, Vinny Castilla has to be added to the official Whipping Boy roll, as he got even more abuse than Lockhart in 2002. I know, it’s hard to believe. Anyway, if anyone ever worked his way off the Whipping Boy position, I guess it’s Vinny, who was actually sort of decent in 2003.
Yeah, it would take some impressive mental gymnastics to agree to pay Ryan Howard $20-25mill/year after having refused to pay Pujols $30mill/year. The only value in Howard is his relatively short contract, and even accounting for that, I’d probably bet on Pujols to come closer to justifying his paycheck in the last four years of contract than Howard. Pujols is a much, much better player. Now, if Philly threw in Cole Hamels and Dominic Brown, and maybe some cash…
@39
Do you think the fanbase will see through the bullshit of a 19-21 million/year offer to their greatest player to ever put on an STL uniform? If they’re as smart as you say they are, they will.
However, you’re right. They are very loyal fans, and will still attend games in hoards, pissed or not.
The Cards never offered 19-21 mil/year to Stan Musial.
And they certainly never offered 19-21 million a year to Hornsby, and he (eventually) wore two different STL uniforms.
That’s incredibly f’in stupid. They gave Matt Holliday a 7 year, $120 million contract, which is $17.1 million a year. Albert Pujols is more than two million dollars better than Holliday.
When they gave all that money to Holliday, everyone wondered how they could possibly afford Albert as well. I guess the simplest answer is the correct one: they couldn’t.
I didn’t do it.
But Auburn fans are the stupid, classless ones, right?
Well, on average.
Revenge speculation centers upon the coaching statues outside Alabama’s stadium, but they’ll be under surveillance. I expect a misdirection attack against the flowers outside the President’s mansion or Denny Chimes. Then we’ll kidnap War Eagle and pull out his tailfeathers. Then you’ll bomb Foster Auditorium. Then we’ll set your entire campus on fire. Etc.
I wonder where it will end? Nuclear warfare?
It would be hilariously ironic if the nuclear holocaust came not because of the Cold War missile race between the Soviet Union and the United States, but because of Alabama and Auburn.
I’d like to say that I hope cooler heads prevail, but come on, this is Alabama-Auburn. The odds of that are roughly the same as those of Cam Newton winning a Nobel Prize.
Someone up here once asked me what I thought the craziest college-sports rivalry was.
I said, “Auburn/Alabama.”
“Oh, c’mon… bigger than Ohio State/Michigan?”
“You have no idea.”
I should say that Alabama-Auburn, for all the name-calling and nuttiness, is usually relatively civilized — you don’t see violence, normally, like seems to be fairly common in the cold-weather states. In a lot of places you’re can be risking serious injury to wear the wrong team’s colors in the wrong place, while here you’ll rarely see anything worse than some thrown popcorn. This is an obvious escalation.
Tweet of the day, by Mengus23: “If the 2010 game is any indication, Bama fans should wait until the oaks in Toomer’s Corner are completely dead before celebrating.”
regarding musial and hornsby…
hornsby won 1 mvp in 15 years as a St. Louis player. no comparison.
musial vs pujols could be a legit argument, but through age 30, pujols has him beat.
Ga/Fla can get pretty vicious. And Augurn/Ga has had it’s moments. Note the common denominator.
hornsby won 1 mvp in 12 years as a cardinal. no comparison.
Well, you’re sort of right…
Hornsby through Age 30 season – OPS+179, WAR 90.6 (all as a Cardinal)
Pujols through Age 30 season – OPS+172, WAR 83.8
Hornsby had single seasons of 207, 209, and 222 – Albert’s career high is 190.
Ryan, take a look at the MVP voting: there was no NL MVP between 1914 and 1923. In 1924, Hornsby finished second. (Yes, he finished second during the season that he hit .424.) In 1925, he won the MVP; in 1929, he won it again.
If there had been an MVP for him to win, he would have won it quite a few times between 1916 and 1923. He was the best hitter in the league.
What I’m talking about with the Auburn/Alabama rivalry is the level of involvement, not necessarily the capacity to injure or deface property.
I’m not sure that there’s the same percentage of people in any other state that would identify so completely with one school or another, despite the fact that they may never have stepped foot on either campus. That was certainly my experience with the folks I grew up with.
Georgia/Florida is ugly, always has been. The “cocktail-party tradition,” of course, is a big factor.
I’ve been to a ton of Georgia/Auburn games going back to the very early ’80s & it’s never been that bad, really (give or take one firehose episode). It’s still my favorite game of the year.
In fact, back when UGA played Clemson every year, those games were usually nastier among the fanbases. I wish we still played Clemson every year, but I’m sure the people from Athens don’t.
This VU-UGA game could get ugly. I wish I could make myself not watch …
Yeah, there was a bronze bulldog statue outside Memorial Hall that the Clemson kids used to paint orange when they came to town. And that was fine, because the paint came off and nobody was deprived of anything. This story is just sad.
@57 and 58
oops. my bad.
however, on 57, didnt hornsby have more years through the age 30 season? so, WAR wouldn’t be the best stat.
and, someone with more knowledge of baseball during hornsby’s time should pick up this argument. i admit that i’m out of my league.
doing the quick research, musial, through 30, doesnt look to be comparable. albert has him beat in basically every category and has double the home runs.
well, I used their careers through the same age – seasons were shorter, and it took Hornsby a minute to become a regular, so it’s quite close – Hornsby compiled a better resume in a similar amount of PT.
1534G 6617PA 5798AB Hornsby
1558G 6782PA 5733AB Pujols
The computer beat the humans down on Jeopardy
That’s where it begins.
Ken Jennings is no John Henry.
@51 – Has a Nobel Prize ever been vacated?
Looks like a repeat of the Florida game.
Terrible, terrible shooting by Vandy and only 4 trips to the line.
Scottie Hopson has three highlight dunks against the Cocks.
My Jeopardy theory: that abominable, slow-talking computer had a big advantage in timing with the buzzer, the easily overlooked factor that I think decides more than games than you’d think. Ken Jennings spoke in interviews about how he made a fake buzzer out of a highlighter tube and practiced buzzing in before and during his historic run. As in most areas of life, knowledge is necessary but not sufficient.
Wow. Can not believe Vandy pulled that out. And closed out the game with a 24-3 run. Big win for the ‘Dores. Jenkins WILL NOT be denied his 20 pts.
Helped that UGA went ice-cold. Thanks Dawgs.
There is no way the Cards only offered $19-21 million… right? I just can’t believe that.
Also, Pujols will veto any trade and will play out the year in St. Louis. Then he’ll sign with the Cubs, which will be hilarious. (or the Angels or Jays, which will be less hilarious but more acceptable, since he’ll be out of the NL)
@64
but isnt WAR a seasonal stat?
That story…. Oh my god! That’s just so… awful. And mean. Why would you do that?! That is some serious hatred. Killing trees?! Damn….
No, WAR is a counting stat, so that means that it’s related to playing time. A longer season would mean more time for WAR to accrue. (Also, because WAR is partly based on single-season UZR, that means that you should regard single-season WAR with the same skepticism that you regard single-season UZR.)
I think the pre-Madoff Mets would have offered Pujols 12-years, $400 million and a nuclear warhead. After extensive rumors, he would have politely declined.
#73
Just watched a DVR of the game.
Dogs went ice-cold, and a lot of that came from their guards’ inability to recognize & attack the man-to-man, which Vandy switched to when UGA began to really hit their threes. They didn’t get any good shots in the last 8 minutes, much less make any.
Despite the crap result, it was one of the better defensive games I’ve seen in a while.
If Puljos signed with the Cubs he would break his leg running the bases after hitting a game winning home run in the first game of the season and never play again.
Well, that’s what my Cubs friend thinks.
79—I thought our offensive rebounding, which came out of nowhere, was the biggest determining factor, but yeah, you guys could’ve exploited the man-to-man — how many times did VU switch and leave Jenkins or Fuller on Thompkins? — and just didn’t.
@65 Smitty
But can it tell a decent joke?
Miguel Cabrera got another DUI and resisted arrest last night
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2011/news/story?id=6131020
@77
not trying to argue. i’m actually trying to learn here, but still a bit confused.
while i understand that someone who played 120/162 games could have earned more WAR in a season, due in fact to the rest of the competition still playing baseball, i dont understand how, if a season is naturally shorter, how WAR can differentiate.
so, more chances to win increases WAR even if the rest of the competition plays the same amount of games?
@83
that’s just sad. i know people who have had duis in the past few years, and they still drive after drinking mass quantities. it’s just not worth it…
@83 – Wow.
The Braves should offer Kawakami and McLouth for him and see what the Tigers say.
Ryan, WAR is a counting stat, like hits or homers, which means that it accrues over the course of playing time; as opposed to a rate stat, like slugging or on-base percentage, which is an average and therefore not dependent on playing time.
The more you play, the more at-bats and fielding chances you get, the more chances you get to increase your WAR — just like it was easier for Roger Maris to hit 61 homers in a 162-game season than for Babe Ruth to hit 60 homers in a 154-game season.
A player’s WAR is not affected by the number of games played by the competition. But you would expect average WAR totals to be lower in a 154-game season than in a 162-game season. So, an 8-WAR season would be further above average in a 154-game season than in a 162-game season.
@86
Thanks, Alex.
@84 – don’t think of it in terms of seasons, but chances. Each “play” or PA is an opportunity to accumulate WAR. In the example above, Pujols and Hornsby had roughly the same amount of PA and G, so we can assume a similar rough equivalence of defensive innings as well. This means they had a similar number of opportunities to accrue WAR.
New post.
http://www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=14048912
Arrest made in Toomer’s Oaks case.
Bethany, if a lynch mob forms, please post so I can drive down and join.