Official MLB 2006 Thread

[Yoshi]

Wagner is pitching for a first place team. Wins matter. Nothing else does. I believe the Mets have won after each blown save, so no farm no foul.

[Gohron]

That's all well and good but they're not going to come back and save his ass all the time. He got knocked around a little tonight too. Gordon's ERA is almost 4 times lower, opponents are batting less then .100 against him and his WHIP is a 0.66.

Wagner is good but he wasn't worth the price-tag, that's all there is to it. That desicion could really come back to bite the Mets in the ass if they need another good starting pitcher (or somebody else) next year because Wagner's pay-roll is so ridiculously high.

[Yoshi]

It's too bad the rest of that shitty staff has given up 151 runs in 29 games.

Oh, and Mets win again.

[raystorm]

That was a hell of a game... I'm freakin exhausted from watching it. Well..next game is 13 hours away. yay

[SpoDaddy]

Yoshi has sunk to a new level of stupidity in trying to pass off Wagner's blown saves as irrelevant, since the team won anyway. It's not a closer's job to give up the lead so the rest of the team can score more runs in extra innings. So far Wagner has been dissapointing, although I do think he'll round into shape.

The Mets just won a huge game, and Beltran deserves a lot of credit. If he doesn't take second Wright hits a ground rule double and it's 2nd and 3rd 2 outs instead of game over.

[Gohron]

It's too bad the rest of that shitty staff has given up 151 runs in 29 games.

Oh, and Mets win again.

David Wright the hero, Jorge Sosa has been sucking it up this year, couldn't be a worse time for a ball to get through the catcher.

Oh and concerning the Phillies pitching staff, April was a bad month, it always is for the Phillies, in the past week or two their pitching staff has been a lot more effective. A pitcher on the Phillies only has to post a 4.0-4.3 ERA to be successful with the team.

The Mets have a good staff and I'm not denying that, Pedro is definately better then Lieber, Glavine is better then Myers for the time being but that could change once the season gets a little deeper and they get a better gauge on how much Myers will improve this season. Take out his first start (or first two) and take out Pedro's first start and their numbers arn't too far off. Lidle is comparable at the very least to Traschel, Floyd is better then Zambrano and right now Madson doesn't look like he's going to hack it in the starting rotation after spending two effective years in the bullpen.

The Mets WILL finish with superior pitching stats if Pedro remains healthy and Glavine is able to hang on for a good season. The Phillies WILL finish with superior offensive stats as long as a third of the team doesn't get hurt, especially because they're looking a lot better offensively this year then they were last. Add a DH in there and the Phillies probably would've finished 2nd-3rd in total MLB offensive stats last year (AL teams have higher R/G obviously), as it stands I believe they finished 5th in the MLB and finished even above the Cardinals in the NL.

You're mostly spot on about their pitching and that's the reason why they havn't made a post-season with their offensive numbers and this year may follow that trend but I'm sure as long as you've been a Mets fan that you've learned that jumping to conclusions at the beginning of the season like you've been often ends in disappointment. If Pedro's health declines and if the Mets don't do something about Zambrano you guys are going to have a hell of a time fighting off the Phils, even if you don't care to admit it.

[SpoDaddy]

Why don't you compare their numbers from last season or the last few seasons instead of the limited sample size of one fucking month that means nothing?

Damon's only had this "bad" contract from the Yankees for one month. By any sabermetrician's measure 100 at bats is a workable sample size, but if you like I'll put up their lifetime stats, is that enough of a sample size?



Varitek- hit the majors in 1997, 34 year old catcher

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BA OBP SLG
2006 25 85 12 21 5 1 1 10 1 .247 .330 .365
Career 989 3259 445 886 217 9 120 498 24 .272 .350 .454

Varitek caught on average 27% of basestealers in his first 6 full seasons. In his last 2 seasons that number dropped to 24% and 23%. His CERA has climbed steadily the past 2 seasons after declining his first 6. Every stat shows that he's clearly been declining since around his 800th game caught, which is the common point that catchers start to decline. Varitek was always solid at calling a game and has a lot of leadership qualities, but he's never been a great catcher defensively.


Damon- hit the majors in 1995, 32 year old center fielder

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BA OBP SLG
2006 27 110 27 34 10 0 4 18 7 .309 .395 .509
Career 1581 6283 1098 1821 336 80 134 717 288 .290 .353 .433

Damon has steadily averaged a .992 fielding percentage in center field with zero measurable decline. As a much more athletic and traditionally injury-free player, he's far less likely to rapidly decline as Varitek already is. According to all the stats, Damon isn't even out of his prime yet. Defensively Damon is one of the best center fielders in baseball.



If you like we can also compare their 2005 offensive numbers in-depth:

Varitek 2005:

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
133 470 70 132 30 1 22 70 62 117 2 0 .281 .366 .489

Damon 2005:

G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG
148 624 117 197 35 6 10 75 53 69 18 1 .316 .366 .439

Damon, hitting leadoff in center field on the exact same team as Varitek, had 5 more RBI's (hitting in front of Ortiz and Ramirez as opposed to behind them in the same lineup), a vastly superior strikeout-to-walk ratio, stole 18 bases as opposed to Varitek being one of the slowest runners in baseball, and Damon hit for a 35 point higher batting average. Damon had 65 more hits, 5 more doubles, scored 47 more runs. If you compare their runs-created it's off the charts in Damon's favor.

[Dipstick]

SpoDaddy, your comparsion is lacking context. Who would have the Sox signed if they did not re-sign Varitek? The drop off from him to their next available option was significant. Whereas with Damon they traded for Crisp (and Pena), and the dropoff in production there is slight (before he had that freak injury, Crisp was batting .333/.385/.458) -- and Crisp has yet to peak, while Damon is in the decline phase of his career. Sure Damon has better offensive stats, but you need to put it in the context of each position. Premium offensive output at catcher is a hell of a lot harder to replace than premium offensive output in center field.

Varitek looking like he did during the end of last season (looking tired, with slow bat speed) is a concern, though.

-Dippy

[haohmaru]

Wagner is pitching for a first place team. Wins matter. Nothing else does. I believe the Mets have won after each blown save, so no farm no foul.

I think it's 3/4. Didn't he lose the game on opening day?

[burgundy]

Yoshi has sunk to a new level of stupidity in trying to pass off Wagner's blown saves as irrelevant, since the team won anyway. It's not a closer's job to give up the lead so the rest of the team can score more runs in extra innings. So far Wagner has been dissapointing, although I do think he'll round into shape.

The Mets just won a huge game, and Beltran deserves a lot of credit. If he doesn't take second Wright hits a ground rule double and it's 2nd and 3rd 2 outs instead of game over.

Eh. A closer's job is to not give up runs. Same as any other pitcher. The existence of a save opportunity is pretty much irrelevant. Wagner gave up a huge HR last night that was worse than any save he's blown (because he gave up a lead) but that won't show up in his save stats.

One guy who didn't give up a run is Jorge Julio. This guy is reclaimed.

Huge huge win last night. I don't even care if we get another game this series, but our chances got better with the Atlanta pen (and Jorge Sosa!) in tatters.