http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/Sports/2004/04/26/436725.html
The details on Delgado's basepath antics from the Sun (COMN):

In the three-game series Delgado was thrown out at third, thrown out at second and twice was thrown out at the plate.

The concern is that Delgado slides in hard, which risks injury to his knees that sometimes have given him problems.

Barry Bonds Watch

Barry kept his average over .500 and drew seven walks as the Giants dropped two of three to the Dodgers.

Friday night

The incredible Barry Bonds reached base in all six of his plate appearances as the Giants lost a 5-4 decision to the Dodgers in 12 innings. Barry went 2-for-2 with two singles and four intentional walks; he stole his first base of the year in the fifth inning. The stolen base was the 501st of his career; he now trails Paul Molitor by three for 35th place on the all-time list.

The 2-for-2 night raised Bonds's average to .525 and his OBP rose to .703.

Bonds saw eighteen pitches; fifteen balls and three strikes. Bonds took three swings to produce his two hits.

Despite reaching base six times, Bonds scored only once as Felipe Alou batted Pedro Feliz and Jeffrey Hammonds behind Barry. Enough already!

Saturday night

Barry Bonds went 0-for-1 with three walks (one intentional) as the Giants shaded the Dodgers 5-3. Bonds scored twice.

Bonds's average dropped to .512, but his OBP rose to .706.

Bonds saw twenty pitches; fourteen balls and six strikes. Bonds took two swings, one foul and a fifth-inning groundout.

Sunday

The Dodgers beat the Giants 9-0 behind a complete-game shutout by Kazuhisa Ishii. Barry went 1-for-2 with a popout to third and a single in the loss. He was removed in the fifth inning with the Giants trailing 7-0. Barry's average remained at .512. I dont have pitch-by-pitch data for this game.

So despite not hitting any homers in Dodger Stadium, Bonds nearly kept his OPS over the 2.000 mark and managed to raise his OBP over the weekend. He currently stands at .512/.700/1.256 for an OPS of 1.956

Barry's current pace :

 G   AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB SO SB  AVG  OBP  SLG   OPS
153 367 145 188 43  0 77 171 230 34  9 .512 .700 1.256 1.956 

Barry's seven walks this weekend put him 93 behind Rickey Henderson for the all-time lead in walks. He is 26 hits behind Orator Jim O'Rourke for 65th on the all-time list. With his next double, he will pass Rogers Hornsby and tie Harry Heilman for 20th on the all-time list. He trails Babe Ruth by 116 for second place on the all-time RBI list.

If Erik Bedard goes to AAA, he could be an asset to the Canadian Olympic team. The Orioles also have Adam Loewen, so I hope they are inclined to let their players go to Athens. We met one of Bedard's best friends on the weekend; the personable and talented Maxim St. Pierre (AA Erie) might be Team Canada's #1 catcher in that tournament.

On our way home from a Pennsylvania rainout yesterday, we heard the Jays game on the radio. That was exactly what we've all been waiting for -- not a perfect afternoon, by any means, but one where a couple of the breaks went the way of the good guys and the hitting was as contagious as the "trying to do too much" slump was not so long ago.

I spoke to Jason Frasor at the last home stand, and he'll be stepping into Da Box when the Jays return to T.O. -- in the meantime, we'll try to get the various Fisher Cats features posted for you later this week. I apologize in advance for being scarce the next few days -- real life does have a way of interfering with my hobby.

By way of taking responsibility, this was me:

Ouch. I know Werth mor eor less had to be moved, and that must have made JP's position difficult in negotiations, but I have trouble seeing this as a good deal. Has Werth fallen that far?

You can tell by the typoes. :-)

Between sample size and the persistent feeling that 27-year-old AA relievers are pretty much fungible, I stand by my comment. Just because it appears to be working out doesn't mean it was intrinsically a good idea.

One of neat things from that Friday night game was that Eric Gagne intentionally walked Bonds with two out and nobody on base in the ninth inning.

When asked afterwards why he did that, Gagne responded "You'd be stupid not to"

Bonds took three swings to produce his two hits.
I wonder who the all-time hit per swing leader is. I'm biased because of Bonds' current rampage but I have to believe he'd be at the top of the pile in that category. Any guesses for who would fill out the top 5?

I wonder who the all-time hit per swing leader is.

Ted Williams would have to be in the top 5. If there's another active player in the list, I'd guess Edgar Martinez.

Beyond Williams and Bonds, though, I wonder whether it would be more guys like Adam Dunn, with a small(er) nubmer of hits but few swings, or whether we'd pick up deadball-era slap-type hitters who just put the bat on everything....

Between sample size and the persistent feeling that 27-year-old AA relievers are pretty much fungible, I stand by my comment. Just because it appears to be working out doesn't mean it was intrinsically a good idea.

Totally. I was just trying to start some discussion. But you're right on two counts:

1. It's way too early to say much about Frasor
2. Just because a move works out doesn't mean it was a good one. Sure you might win a lot of money at the slot machines, but it's pretty stupid to try.

The Jays have only scored first in 5 of 18 games this year. I don't know the numbers on this, but assuming equal home and away games, which we do have at 9 both home and away, doesn't this seem like a very low percentage? Not that there's really a lot a team can do about this, but it does seem indicative of the way the team has played so far.

I suppose that scoring first is at least partly a function of simply scoring. The Jays haven't been scoring.

Sean McNally over on Primer, those, consolses us:

In 2002, the Angels were 6-13 after their first 19 games.

My quote on Frasor is listed above, the "not much" one, and it is a good lesson for myself. I frequently roll my eyes @ postings that imply the upside of players based soley on their stats and here I was doing the samething. I don't envision Frasor leading the league in saves anytime soon but his power stuff is a nice addition to the pen.

All we have to go on is stats, since very few of us have seen these guys play dozens of games in person.

We all use stats in making our judgement. I use stats, Coach uses stats, Cam Bonifay uses stats, and you use stats. The number of strikeouts a pitcher recorded in AA is a STAT. The pitchers top velocity in MPH is a STAT. ERA is a STAT. Height is a STAT. Where the player places on the BA Top Prospects is a STAT. His age is a STAT and the number of pitches a pitcher can throw for strikes is a STAT.

To suggest that some people use stats in their judgements and others don't is absurd. We do put weight on different stats, but we're all talking numbers here.

From my comments above:

It never looks good trading someone off the roster for a AA player though.

It's obvious I hated him though he'd done nothing wrong,
I'd never really met him so what could he have done?

I like what I've seen of Frasor. He throws hard. He hasn't given up an earned run yet, which I guess is good. :-) And you can never, never never, have too much pitching.

The Jays can use a good backup outfielder - Berg and Clark are infielders who are getting playing time for their bats - but I don't know whether Werth would have been useful in that role.

In some circumstances the stat of scoring first may be a fluke but here it tells you everything about the way the Jays have played to date. Outside of Halladay, the starters have been terrible and the team collectively has not been hitting much. On the hitting side, prior to the last few games three of the worst offenders (not alone by any means) were Johnson, Wells and Delgado. With those three slumping the chances of scoring in the first were very low and with the starters pitching poorly you were almost destined to be behind in most games. I'm actually surprised to discover that they have scored first 5 times, it seems like less having wathched nearly all the games.

Last year vs the twins the jays went into the metrodome and pulled off a sweep... only to be swept shortly thereafter in their following series in the skydome at the hands of those very same twins...

So, in the third game of the series, they're handing the ball to Tatoo right???

One update I meant to make to the Barry Bonds Watch... Barry currently has 41 runs created per 27 outs, so his Offensive Winning Percentage is about .985 (a team with nine Barrys on it would score about 41 runs per game and go 160-2 over a typical season, assuming average pitching and defense).

I'm interested in stats too, its the 1st thing I look at, but then I want to know how the player achieved his stats. I am someone who values tools over strictly performance and so I discount players who have great stats in shortseason and A ball who are old for their leagues and pitchers who succeed with below average fastballs. Is my take on this 100% foolproof, nope, its just how I look at things. No disrespect to those who break down things much farther than I do, I just want the scouting report too.

Right, but you're still using stats. Yours just happen to come from the back of a radar gun and not the back of a baseball card. Or to re-write one of your sentences:

I discount players who have great performance STATS in shortseason and A ball who have high age STATS and pitchers who succeed with below average speed STATS.

At the end of the day, it's all stats.

Hrmmm I wonder if the phrase '12-6 curve' will ever go out of style in favour of the 'sin (126 * pi) curve'??? :)

Hrmmm I wonder if the phrase '12-6 curve' will ever go out of style in favour of the 'sin (126 * pi) curve'??? :)

Hahahahah... I'd love to hear a commentator refer to someone's curveball as "parabolic"

Moffat, yep like I said stats are the 1st thing I look at. I had more here but have erased it because a debate about stats with an economist is a battle I'm going to lose.:)

I don't think we're speaking the same language.

All *any* of us look at is stats, whether they be performance stats or tool stats or phase of the moon stats. It's all statistics and numbers, unless we're talking about grit, determination, or hustle. Since none of us watch the players in person on a regular basis, we're not in a position to make those kinds of judgments.

Saying some pitcher "brings the heat" is just a stat couched in generalities, like "that dude hit a lot of homers last year".

I really wish this false dichotomy of stat people vs. non-stat people would come to an end. We're all speaking nothing but stats!

It's all statistics and numbers, unless we're talking about grit, determination, or hustle.

If we wanted to, we could even attempt to quantify that too... Perhaps you could clock a guy at his maximum sprinting speed and then measure how fast he runs while attempting to leg out a ground ball and call that his hustle pct.... :)

If we wanted to, we could even attempt to quantify that too... Perhaps you could clock a guy at his maximum sprinting speed and then measure how fast he runs while attempting to leg out a ground ball and call that his hustle pct.... :)

Hahaha.. too true. I picture a bunch of scouts with stopwatches clocking how long it takes the player to leave the outfield and run into the dugout after the 3rd out has been recorded. :)

To all you Frasor haters:

I can't understand
whaaaaaat makes a man
hate another man
help me understand

Very nice. The song is indeed People are People by Depeche Mode:

People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully
People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

and if memory serves me correctly the instrumental interlude follwing goes:

dah dah dunk dunk...
dah dah dunk dunnk...
dah dah dun dun dun dun dun dun da da dun dun dun....

or is that the art of noise?

ok HICJACK here...

so I fark (fark.com) a lot whilst browsing these pages during my time lolly-gagging on campus and I ran into an article too amusing not to share...

http://www.floridatoday.com/topstories/042604arson.htm

ahhh gold...

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=1790092
COMN for Gammons' latest. Nice quote from Flanagan on Baltimore's bullpen usage, which summarizes my feelings precisely.

Here is an interesting piece from Bob Elliot in the Toronto Sun: Giving it right back to 'moneyball'

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.orioles26apr26,0,4859135.story?coll=bal-sports-baseball
I was slow in getting around to reading the Baltimore summaries of yesterday's game. I found this amusing tidbit in the Baltimore Sun (COMN):

The Orioles chose Little League Day to turn in probably their worst performance, rivaling the Easter loss to Tampa Bay. Kids paraded around the field in their baseball uniforms before the game. Hopefully, their eyes were covered once it started.

"You get a few like that," Mazzilli said. "It was just an ugly game. Ugly."

how do you think we'll match up vs the twins???

gm 1: Radke v Lilly
gm 2: Santana v Batista
gm 3: Lohse v J. Miller

I think that Radke looks the toughest at this point given the way the other two are pitching... but looking at the series I'd think getting 2 out of 3 is very doable...

I don't think that any of those are in our favour, Matt; although cases could be made for all three.

http://www.waynesderbyworld.blogspot.com
"So, in the third game of the series, they're handing the ball to Tatoo right???"

I just hope that if he serves up a home run, no one says, "Da plane, Boss, da plane!"