David O'Brien interviewed Braves GM Frank Wren and asked him about Heyward: Q. What’s your response to the rumor that the Braves have discussed trading Jason Heyward? - A. We’ve never had one discussion about trading Jason Heyward. That’s the furthest thing from our mind. That’s never come up. Nobody’s contemplated it. Nobody’s talked about it. I’m not sure where that came from. The reality is Jason made some progress this season; he’s got to continue to make progress. And he’s going to be in a battle unless he continues to progress at a good rate. It’s not a given he’s our right fielder. We’re going to go into the offseason (keeping) in mind that we’ve got to have offensive production from right field. And we didn’t get that this year. - http://www.faketeams.com/2011/10/1/2461426/fantasy-baseball-offseason-thoughts-matt-kemp-jason-heyward-matt-moore
None of those four teams made the postseason the year after fading down the stretch. All but the Mets (who were one game better) experienced declines in their record, often significant ones. (The four averaged a record more than seven games worse the season after the collapse.) Furthermore, for each of those four franchises, the collapse lingered. The Phillies didn't make the playoffs until 1976 -- 12 years and five managers later. The Red Sox didn't get there until 1986. The Angels took seven years to reach the postseason. The Mets haven't made it yet in four seasons since 2007. That's an average of nearly eight seasons per franchise, with the Mets seemingly poised to increase that number over the next few years. The history suggests that the change at manager by the Red Sox is a positive step. Continuity after the collapse didn't exactly work for Boston's historical forerunners. None of those four franchises ever made the postseason under the manager who presided over the collapse. The Angels' Marcel Lachemann and the Mets' Willie Randolph survived public outcry that off-season, only to lose their jobs midway through the next - http://soxblog.projo.com/2011/10/how-do-teams-hi.html
THE HARDCORE - Needs no postseason introduction. Deeply engaged since the season's beginning. Spent two-thirds of marriage nest egg on solo spring training research trip to the Grapefruit League. Sabermetric tendencies, but not a cliche. Thinks Clayton Kershaw should win NL Cy Young, end of story (Halladay, Schmalladay). Torn about the idea of adding an additional wild card. Once saw Bud Selig eating yogurt at an airport. - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204612504576607132803864372.html
Two reasons why American baseball is now a broken sport: (1) steroids and (2) the New York Yankees. (1) Once claims came out about Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds taking anabolic steroids, my faith in baseball statistics perished. You see, steroids distort baseball statistics. A statistical tradition that was around for a century was destroyed by steroids. Who hit the most home runs in a season? Who got the most strikeouts in a game? Who stole the most bases in a season? We still have baseball statistics and records, but in my humble opinion, some of the records today are illegitimate, distorted, and false owing to steroids. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco…all distorted historical statistics of baseball. - http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2011/10/03/just-a-handful-of-thoughts-on-baseball-after-the-end-of-the-regular-season
Many popular opinions of pitching prospects are formed from general scouting reports. While these reports are invaluable resources, they can’t always be trusted. Hundreds of minor league hurlers are credited with “mid-90′s velocity,” but very few MLB starters actually have that grade of heat, for example. It’s incredibly frustrating to hear about a pitcher with “a mid-90′s heater and plus curve,” only to have him come up to the big leagues and show a fastball that averages 90.5 mph and a slider. When a pitcher come up to the majors, we can finally get a foolproof reading on what exactly his arsenal is comprised of, thanks to the great Pitch F/X system. In this series, I analyze just that–the “stuff” of recently-promoted MLB pitchers. Now that they’ve achieved their big league dreams and thus factor directly into the MLB picture, it’s high time that we know exactly what these guys are providing. - http://lasordaslair.com/2011/10/03/interesting-article-on-dodgers-rookie-nathan-eovaldi
No comments:
Post a Comment