Those pitchers the Jays drafted, some of them must be six feet tall. I'm not sure that pick of Thigpen cut the mustard with Suzuki still on the board, but JP has demonstrated a very good ability so far with the drafts, so I'll spare him any cutting criticism.

Hopefully Speier can get The Cutter working for him again, otherwise I don't see him as anything other than late inning spot relief. I'm sure you can echo that.

I was at the Heart and Crown in Ottawa on Saturday for game 6. The bar was ten to fifteen deep spilling out onto the patio. Everybody broke out into Go Flames Go the moment the Flames grabbed the momentum. I left after the first overtime and enjoyed a Chicken Shwarma from my favourite vender on George street. Not too heavy on the pickled turnip, plenty of garlic, just enough sauce.

Those pitchers the Jays drafted, some of them must be six feet tall.

Not just another drop in the ocean
Come to the free for all
With seven tapered knives
Some of them six feet tall

I'm not sure that pick of Thigpen cut the mustard with Suzuki still on the board

Couldn`t cut the mustard
Conquering myself

but JP has demonstrated a very good ability so far with the drafts, so I'll spare him any cutting criticism.

Spare us the cutter

Wow! Very, very nice use of the lyrics from Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Cutter". One hundred million points, and pictures of a cutterandafish:

Thank you very much good sir. Undoubtedly the highlight of my hour. I don't win very often, but when I can I do what I can.

say bye bye to rios!
and i'd say that gomez has served us well. it is a shame to see him go.

Might Rios platoon with Cat? I'd rather see Cat play every day to be honest but if it would help his back and if it wouldn't hurt Rios to only play one in three, that might be a good option.

I agree
Cat is my fav,
and I hate to say it, but i've been hearing that he wont be back next year

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1817392
Expos trade Bergeron to Milwaukee.
COMN for story.

http://www.all-baseball.com/archives/2004_06.html#013831#more
All-Baseball.com has a list of all major leaguers with university degrees. Surprisingly, or not (I don't know what surprises you), the Jays have 3 grads. Chulk has a sports management *cough* degree while File and Ligtenberg have degrees in Computer Science and Chemical Engineering respectively. I'm not surprised about Ligtenberg. I've met some engineers with bizarre facial hair in my day. COMN for the full list.

Neat list Cristian...although I was looking forward to the full list of engineers with bizarre facial hair that you've met.

Damn you, dangling participle!!!! My mortal enemy in this world makes me look foolish once again.

and i'd say that gomez has served us well. it is a shame to see him go.


Bye bye Berg! If it's between him and Gomez, I say we keep Gomez.

When Hudson returns, I think Frankie Menechino might have to say goodbye.

Anybody surpised the A's two college grads (Karros and McMillon) are in economics?

cool, File's a geek - I like him more already.
Where I was at University it was 'Land Management' that was the dodgy degree all the athletes did, I guess the powers-that-be thought Sports Management was just a bit too obvious.

I think Frankie Menechino might have to say goodbye.

I hope not. I don't necessarily want him hitting lead off but he's scrappy.

Menechino is scrappy, but take off the s, he's also crappy. He's never put up good numbers, and scrappy players like him are close do being a dime a dozen.
I really like Frank, and think he's a true professional, and I hate to harp on the most basic of stats, but really, he doesn't walk a whole heck of a lot, and he has limited power. Once a guy starts having problems with his back, it's generally a rapid descent. There are a few exceptions, but in almost any sport, once the back goes, it's over.

Menechino's also more versatile than Gomez in that he can play more positions in the infield. This is critical as it helps to keep Berg out of mix.

I wouldn't say he doesn't walk a whole heck of a lot when he has 152 walks (and 27 HBPs) in 1,126 at-bats. If you count a HBP as a walk, he's walking in 15.9% of his plate appearances, which I would say has got to be one of the better rates in the majors.

This is critical as it helps to keep Berg out of mix.

Exactly, I have grown weary of Davey B. Frank is a better fielder, walks more and runs better. Neither have power or hit for average.

As the 25th man, better defense and running is important. I wish to see neither on a regular basis.

Isn't the real question whether Frankie can play left field really badly? If so, then Berg is redundant.

Hmm, I guess it depends on the school, but at Bowling Green Sports Management (actually I think it was "Sport" Management, singular in that case) was not a blowoff major. A fair amount of science required, with a healthy mix of business and econ. None of the hockey players were SM majors. Well, at least not that kind.

Transactions:
Activated shortstop Chris Woodward, outfielder Frank Catalanotto and pitcher Justin Speier from the 15-day disabled list; placed first baseman Carlos Delgado on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to May 30, with an irritated rib cage muscle; placed pitcher Valerio De Los Santos, on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to June 6, with discomfort in his left shoulder; optioned outfielder Simon Pond to Syracuse of the International League (AAA).

By my calculations, this leaves the Jays with a bench of Estalella, Clark, Berg, and Gomez.

As someone mentioned here earlier, why do we need three backup second basemen?

I don't see a game thread yet, so here are the lineups:

Johnson 7
Gomez 4
Catalanotto DH
Wells 8
Zaun 2
Hinske 5
Woodward 6
Clark 3
Rios 9

Wow, Phelps' .201/.272/.291 vs RH this year gives the always dangerous Howie Clark a start. I would have played Cat at first, but that's why I'm not a manager.

And our dear friends (Cesar, Jayson, Shawn) bat 1-2-4 for the Dodgers.

Sorry about that.. a game thread is now up.

For lack of a better place to post it, I have a couple of basic statistical questions to ask here. I'm trying to compile an advanced (compared to hockey standards - very basic, really) hockey statistic I'll call "Points Plus" (pts+) just for the hell of it. Does it work for me to : Add up all of the man games played on a certain team (i.e. the 79-80 Edmonton Oilers with 1,413) ; add up all of the points scored by non - goalies (840 in their case) and arrive at their players' average pts / 82 GP with this - 82 / 1,413 X 840. I know that this is very basic, but I just want to have all of my bases covered. In turn, would it then work to add up the NHL's entire non-goalie man games played in a specific year (i.e. 29,927 in 79-80) ; add up all of the points scored by non-goalies in that season (14,573 in this case) and arrive at an average pts / 82 GP per player with - 82 / 29927 X 14573?

If this makes sense to anyone (and isn't too far below their level of statistical thinking ;-) ) I'd like confimation that this works. The above numbers aren't quite exact (certain portions of some traded players seasons are counted twice) I only did this in an hour or two this evening. I chose 79-80 because it was Wayne Gretsky's rookie year and I want to compile these numbers to help settle a Gretzky vs. Lemieux argument I have been embroiled in for nearly a year.

My way of thinking is that the perfectly average offensive contributor would score a zero in this for the particular season. These are the numbers I have looked at so far:

79-80
Average NHLer - 40 pts / 82 GP
Wayne Gretzky - 143 pts / 82 GP and therefore has (143 - 40) 103 pts+
Morris Lukowich (Winnipeg's leading scorer) - 78 pts / 82 GP and 38 pts+
Ian Turnbull (Leafs content, yay!) - 43 pts / 82 GP and 3 pts+

This, by no means, would ever be able to tell you who the most complete hockey player is (defense and intangibles mean more in hockey than, say, baseball or basketball IMO), and it compares defensemen and forwards as offensive equals, but it will, I hope, be a way to compare offensive contributions across eras (I once had somebody tell me Joe Sakic was better than Gordie Howe because of their average point outputs. The difference, of course, being the era wherein Sakic has 1 Hart and 0 Art Ross' while Howe has 6 of each). I've been thinking about looking at a stat like this for awhile and was bored this evening. Hopefulyl what I've done is legitimate (albeit primitive).

Remember, I am NOT looking for perfection but merely something quick and dirty. Something that takes a little work, but is by no means difficult. I want to be able to show this to someone who still feels a player isn't great if they don't win a championship and will say a great player isn't great based on the small sample size of a playoff year (he is, however, still in his early 20s so maybe I can convert him to the statistical side ;-) )

Thanks in Advance.

I don't claim to have any statistical expertise (and I'm not a big hockey fan), but I'll give you my thoughts anyways. I like the concept, it does a nice quick job of adjusting for era.

What you've created sounds more like RCAA (Runs Created Above Averge) than OPS+ (OPS adjusted for league and park). This only matters in that your name for your stat might confuse people familiar with OPS+.

To create a fast and nasty stat which is more similar to OPS+, divide a player's Points/82 by the League Points/82. Thus Gretzky has a 357 P+ for '79-'80, Lukowich a 195, a league average player 100.

I'm guessing that Rink Factors in hockey would be much less significant than Park Factors in baseball, but team factors would be far far more important and you may want to make an adjustment for that... take Steve Sullivan - low on the depth chart in Toronto in 97-98, he scored 36 pts/82. Earning some more respect in 98-99, he jumped up to 52 pts/82. As a big fish in the small tank that was Chicago 99-00, he jumped it up further to 72 pts/82.

My example may be lousy because it may be that Sully's development as a player had as much to do with it as anything, but the point is that a hockey players' situation can really effect his scoring opportunities, and thus his pts+. A baseball player can bang out doubles and his OBP and SLG will be the same no matter how bad his teamates are - it's the Runs and RBIs that suffer.

A fairly simple improvement would be to make an adjustment based on the quality of a players' team, which you alluded to in your first paragraph. I'd be happy at that point to use it to compare elite players like Howe & Sakic.

To step it up a notch from there, treating lesser players more fairly, you'd need to look at minutes rather than games, and power play minutes (power play points may be the best you can do in the stat-hating hockey community). Further yet, maybe you find a way to give credit for penalty killing minutes, which are going to unfairly hurt pts/game.

Good concept, good luck with it!

I neglected to state that the "P+" stat I'm talking about needs to be multiplied by 100. That is,

P+ = 100 * (Player Pts/82) / (League Pts/82)

"To create a fast and nasty stat which is more similar to OPS+, divide a player's Points/82 by the League Points/82. Thus Gretzky has a 357 P+ for '79-'80, Lukowich a 195, a league average player 100."

That's exactly what I wanted to hear, Jonny. I had no idea how to make it a stat where 100 was average , and that was a bit of a goal of mine. As far as minutes and what-not, that might be an ultimate goal and by ultimate I mean I hope someone smarter than me does it ( or I might eb able to tackle it when I'm 50 ;-) ). Things like team factors intrigued me - wondering what playing on the Oilers really meant to a player's stats in 1987, say. I have a feeling that my strange mixture of boredom and ambition this evening spelled a figurative end to my summer *sigh*.