OH BOY! BASEBALL!!!

To continue Moffatt's work from the previous thread, here's the handsome Jobu, as if you fellas didn't see enough of me at baseball. You're incourigable!

Nice picture. You're an idiot for dumping your wife, BTW :)

She dumped me! Thanks for stirring up painful memories Moffatt. Looks like I have nothing to be thankful for again this Thanksgiving...

One of the Yankees or Red Sox will lose the next series they play and be bounced out of the playoffs.

If that isn't something to be thankful for, I don't know what is.

Except baseball of course. Roger gives the Braves 2 runs in the 2nd inning.

Yes...that is true. Either way there's gonna be alot of angry psycho fans somewhere. That and I invented my own hairspray shield out of a motorcycle visor.

We should have some kind of pool to guess the number of ejections during the Sox/Yanks series. Or possibly somekind of over/under for ejections. Im thinking 1.5 and I'll take under.

I think under is a safe bet. Don Zimmer won't be around this year. :)

Ortiz has been a disaster today. But I've always believed he's done it with smoke and mirrors every year with the number of hitters he walks, high pitch counts per inning, and basically no feel for pitching whatsoever. He's a free agent who should be on the cheaper side but I'm hoping the Jays don't pursue him. If Leo Mazzone can't teach Ortiz how to pitch and not walk 100 batters then I'm not putting good odds on the Jays doing it. He might be worth a risk as a cheap inning eater for one year if you put a lot of money towards the offence and pen but it would be a mistake to give him a contract similar to Batista's which he might command anyway.

Alright so far we got two votes under, none over.

Me, too, R. Billie. There's no way that Ortiz will go cheaply enough to make him a reasonable signing.

I agree with both of you.

Is it just me, or is there something about Ortiz that just screams NEW YORK MET?

I like Ortiz... well sorta. JP wont persure Ortiz if he is smart, because he would realize this would be Miguel Bastista part 2.

There is no way Ortiz can switch to the AL without taking a major hit in the Walks Department and with Ortiz he already dances a line that is too thin.

Ortiz is an NL pitcher only.

Over.

I only mention it because Ortiz was mentioned as a possible Jays target a couple of years ago (I think just before they got Lidle). JP said he was an admirer of Ortiz's since his college days. Meanwhile Escobar was moved to the pen and ironically, Escobar was a much better bet to perform as a starter than Ortiz.

Back then many people seem to comment that Ortiz is a bulldog who frequently works his way out of trouble. Few seem to mention how frequently he gets himself into trouble. He's an OK #3 or #4 starter on a good staff but he's not worth anywhere near the $6.2 million he's making this season.

J.P already tried to trade the Giants for Ortiz but he didn't want to come to the Jays, which would make a FA signing highly unlikely at any price.

I never heard of a trade actually being completed. Ortiz had a no-trade clause? That would be the only way he would be consulted about the trade beforehand.

LaRoche hits a 3 run BOMB to tie the game at 5.

This series ain't over yet.

Qualls? Where'd he come from? Send him back...

I love those Astro uniforms.

Don't they have 8 or 9 in total, currently?

Yesterdays AFL boxscore finally posted. Vito continues to hit over .500 going 1 for 2. Hill was 1 for 4 and played 2b. Those were the only Jays in action.

Ortiz just complained in the press while the Jays/Giants discussion was going on (I don't think that he wanted to go to an AL team either.

In the end he was traded for a pitcher who got dumped at the end of the year.

2 Unders, and an Over.

Great play by Giles and Smoltz, but once again the slide into firstbase... if Palmeiro had kept running he might have beat it out.

Its amazing how some Managers can completely ruin a game.

I've got a strong feeling Houston will come away with game 5.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3545
As there is no roundup today (or maybe this is the roundup) I will throw this out here.

BP has some freely accessible stats on their site (COMN). Interestingly, Jason Werth had a VORP of 15.6 this last year. Jason Frasor had a VORP of 16.7. David Bush was at 20.5.

Although a lot of people have criticized JP for the trade, it looks like it was good for both teams and that Frasor was just as valuable to the Jays as Werth was to the Dodgers.

Allow me to ask, what is VORP?

Its a stat that basically tries to Identify a players value and his impact on a team.

That trade was pretty much as win-win as you can get. Werth wasn't going to get playing time with the Jays and has been quite valuable to the Dodgers. At the same time, Frasor had an excellent 2004 for the Jays bullpen which badly needed another arm.

Allow me to ask, what is VORP?

Value Over Replacement Player. The number of runs contributed beyond what a replacement-level player would contribute if given the same percentage of team plate appearances.

From the Baseball Prospectus Glossary.

By the way, fine pictures of Moffatt and Jobu. Handsome young men, probably beating the women off with a stick or whatever you have to do these days...

Alas, the Magpie's image can not be captured by modern technology; it appears not on photographic negatives, nor does his reflection appear in mirrors.

And this is a good thing.

I don't subscribe to Baseball Prospectus, so I can't comment on Joe Sheehan's piece. But the first sentence is certainly interesting:

After a season in which he never once brought in a lefty reliever to get a left-handed batter, Mike Scioscia went away from his successful approach and paid the price.

Ouch.

Its' not quite true. Sciosia brought in a LH reliever exactly once this season. On June 9, with the Angels trailing 7-2 in the 8th inning, Dusty Bergmann came in to pitch to Geoff Jenkins with two runners on. They both scored; Bergmann allowed three more in the inning, finished the game, and went back to the minors.

The next time Sciosia brought in a LH reliever was Jarrod Washburn to pitch to Ortiz... Washburn's last relief appearance was in 1999...

The Tigers claimed Colby Lewis off waivers from Texas. I don't know if he's been permanently damaged by the surgeries he's had, but he's still only 25 and showed lots of potential in the minors. I'm very surprised J.P. didn't put in a claim.

http://jobsearch.mlb.careers.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=24558961&AVSDM=2004%2D10%2D08+11%3A03%3A25&Logo=0&col=dlt&cy=&brd=5835&lid=28763&fn=&q=
COMN --- Is Mr. Fordin moving on this year?

Also, if anyone wants to be a stat stringer: Click here

http://www.cincypost.com/2004/10/09/reds10-09-2004.html
Toronto also could have claimed Ben Kozlowski (COMN). Texas has pitchers to burn, apparently.

For all those interested Mike Wilner will be on OTR tommorow. A model is alson on the panel.

Uh oh. The last time we saw Wilner on TV, we debated which female sportscaster was the most attractive. Putting a model there doesn't help things. And Mr. Wilner...OTR? With Michelle Lansberg?? Explain, please. ;)

probably beating the women off with a stick or whatever you have to do these days...

LOL. If there are any women chasing me they're either asking "Mr. Moffatt, how do I answer question six on the assignment?!?" or yelling "Hey buddy.. you have to pay for those pitchers of Keith's!!!"

Rivera has left the Yankee team due to personal tragedy. This changes things quite a bit in the AL final starting Tuesday. What a horrible way to change things. The story is on tsn if anybody can or wants to read.

Ron - thanks for reminding me. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that.

Ron - thanks for reminding me. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that.

LOL glad to help. Maybe if you pulled a no show, Landsberg might have thought you were now too "big" to do the show!

I was just watching the end of the Dodgers-Cardinals game and after St. Louis clinched the LA players came out of the dugout and shook hands with their opponents before leaving the field.

Why is this practice not more common in baseball?

The Jays have a lot of 40-man issues to consider this off-season. They have to worry about which players to protect so I doubt they'll make a waiver claim unless they REALLY feel strongly that a player can step in and help over any of their current prospects or free agent targets.

Baseball America did an article on closer prospects in Prospect Pulse today. Here's what John Manuel had to say about Brandon League:

Their respective organizations hope Blue Jays righthander Brandon League and Rockies righthander Ryan Speier can be closers, even though their track records and backgrounds present interesting obstacles.

League, who hit triple digits on the stadium radar gun during the Eastern League all-star game, has some of the minors' best stuff, but without the dominant results to prove it. The 2001 second-round pick, who features a low three-quarters arm angle, has a respectable 3.42 career ERA in 365 innings, allowing just 342 hits (.250 average against). His high-90s gas isn't his only weapon.

"He's got tremendous life on his two-seam fastball," said Rick Adair, who had League during his stint as pitching coach of a talented staff at Double-A New Hampshire in 2004. "There are some nights when he has three plus pitches and average command of them. His change is better, and his slider is sometimes a plus pitch. He's a pleasure to watch."

Yet League has just 295 strikeouts in his career; 90 came in 104 innings in '04. His strikeout rate actually increased late in the season after a move back into the rotation, as the Blue Jays worked to get him more innings to speed his development. If his command continues to improve, Jays officials think the strikeouts will come, and League could join the Toronto bullpen soon thereafter.

The question is, if his strikeout rate and overall numbers remain good in a starting role, why plan this early to put him in the bullpen? Are the Jays that deep in power starters? So far at the major league level they have Halladay and pending the return to health of McGowan they only have Rosario and League in the minors.

I know I've beaten this subject to death already but I keep seeing things that suggest the Jays have already made up their minds about Brandon as a reliever. If that's true then it's puzzling to me as an outsider.

I'm guessing the Jays see League in the bullpen because we don't have any other legit closer prospects (Peterson lost his confidence after his suprising call up). I would like to see League as the closer sometime next season.

League as a closer this early is a mistake as well. Not saying he can't do the job but you're going to run his arbitration potentially needlessly high if you start putting a lot of saves next to his name.

If he MUST be a reliever then keep him as a multi-inning setup man which is probably just as valuable to this team as a closer and doesn't put him in line to make $3+ million once he hits arbitration. Should he prove himself in middle relief for a couple of years you can ink him to a multi-year deal and then move him to closer when his cost is certain.

But I'll re-iterate, it makes no sense to make League a reliever just because the Jays have a short term need for one. No more than it would making Rosario or McGowan (if he was healthy) a reliever. You don't take potential Roy Halladays and limit their role just to fill holes on the major league club.

Just to re-cap the positions of the over/under 1.5 ejections in the Yanks/Sox series pool:

Under:
Me
Moffatt

Over:
Donkit R.K.

Bauxites have until the day of game one to enter. The "Winners" get a picture of my "ex-wife".

Over.

Over. All it takes is an ejection when already warned and the manager is chucked too-that's a quick 2.

i'll also take over. All it takes is one incident.

Come to think of it, can I add the prediction that Tanyon Sturtze will be involved?

Under.

As an optimist and supporter of fair play, gentlemanliness, and the Lady Byng Trohy, I choose the Under.