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I'd much prefer to answer real newbie questions instead of rehashing old burned out steroids chat. It's my own fault rising to it. [Ask] me about the wheel play.
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| # ? Apr 14, 2011 23:25 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 16:03 |
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Why do umpires bother signaling foul tip aside from when the catcher drops the third strike? Is it something the scorekeeper wants to know?
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| # ? Apr 14, 2011 23:25 |
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Chaucer posted:Why do umpires bother signaling foul tip aside from when the catcher drops the third strike? Is it something the scorekeeper wants to know? That's a really good question that I don't really know the answer to, but my guess would be that it's habitual. If you don't call it every time you hear it, you might forget to call it in a situation where, for instance, the batter swings and barely tips the ball and the catcher misses it with two strikes. If he tips it, nothing happens. If he misses clean, it's a K and he gets to try to run to first. You wouldn't really want to hesitate there.
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| # ? Apr 14, 2011 23:30 |
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Is hitting a part of pitcher WAR for national league pitchers? I'm just curious how much above average (so merely bad rather than abysmal) hitting is worth for pitchers over the course of a season.
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| # ? Apr 14, 2011 23:59 |
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R.D. Mangles posted:Is hitting a part of pitcher WAR for national league pitchers? I'm just curious how much above average (so merely bad rather than abysmal) hitting is worth for pitchers over the course of a season. This stuff confuses me sometimes so I might be making an idiot of myself, but I'm pretty sure since WAR takes position into account pitchers wouldn't be punished for being lovely hitters. Like when you look at league OPS+ on b-r the NL average is always technically 94 or 96 or something like that due to no DH (I know that's not replacement but it's similar). e: Oh wait that wasn't really your question was it? No I don't think it's part of pitcher WAR, on FG it shows all the components lined up to the left of the total WAR and it's all pitching stuff, so I think they're calculated separately. You could always just take a pitcher's batting WAR and subtract/add it with his pitching WAR. Medical Sword fucked around with this message at Apr 15, 2011 around 01:14 |
| # ? Apr 15, 2011 01:09 |
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Badfinger posted:I'd much prefer to answer real newbie questions instead of rehashing old burned out steroids chat. It's my own fault rising to it. Tell me about the wheel play, Badfinger! (no, seriously.)
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 01:34 |
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R.D. Mangles posted:Is hitting a part of pitcher WAR for national league pitchers? I'm just curious how much above average (so merely bad rather than abysmal) hitting is worth for pitchers over the course of a season. Yes. Remember they are going to be compared against other pitchers hitting for war purposes though, not first baseman or whatever. EDIT I was wrong and confused. As SSIRL said hitting is not included in Pitcher WAR. They do compute a pitcher's hitting and fielding WAR however. Roy Halladay was -0.4 last year. euphronius fucked around with this message at Apr 15, 2011 around 12:33 |
| # ? Apr 15, 2011 01:42 |
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R.D. Mangles posted:Is hitting a part of pitcher WAR for national league pitchers? I'm just curious how much above average (so merely bad rather than abysmal) hitting is worth for pitchers over the course of a season. Asks the Cubs fan the day after a Zambrano start.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 01:57 |
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Hitting isn't included in pitcher WAR at all. Most flavors just consider R or ER and IP, with some adjustments for park and league and all that. SNLVAR (Support Neutral Lineup-Adjusted Value Above Replacement) from Baseball Prospectus is a cool stat that is WARish.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 02:20 |
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Is there an SAS IRC channel? I've been to #SAS but it seems empty.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 02:29 |
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Proposition Joe posted:Is there an SAS IRC channel? I've been to #SAS but it seems empty. I have IRC but have never used it for SA. I recommend twitter instead, all the cool baseball posters are on it.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 02:30 |
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Proposition Joe posted:Is there an SAS IRC channel? I've been to #SAS but it seems empty. #sports on SynIRC (irc.synirc.net), but it's a far different atmosphere to the forums.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 02:35 |
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Tell me about the wheel play, Badfinger! The wheel play is when the defense completely sells out and charges on a bunt to try and get the lead runner instead of the sacrifice at first. It comes in two flavors, force at second and tag at third. For force at second, the third baseman and first baseman both start charging as the pitch is delivered, and as the pitcher finishes his followthrough he'll commit to one side of the mound to the other. The second baseman will cover first and the shortstop will cover second. The goal is to get on the ball so fast that you can get the force at second and possibly a double play. The tag at third is similar except that the shortstop basically races the runner on second to the third base bag to apply the tag. If there are two runners on and it's a force, the pitcher might cover third instead of charging a spot. It's called the wheel because the whole infield is rotating to completely different positions. The offense doing anything to put the ball in play but bunting can gently caress with this immensely.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 02:44 |
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Badfinger posted:Please understand that if you were in Goons with Spoons and were talking about cakes, you'd be arguing that the cake in question was really, really good based on all its ingredients and preparation, but what really made it great was that it was made with love. First of all, I agree with 95% of what you're saying. The funny thing is that some of the very articles you guys have linked to me contradict some of your arguements: http://steroids-and-baseball.com/ quote:That includes expansion. Three of the four discontinuities predate any expansion, with the 1977 one exactly corresponding to a known event, the substitution of Rawlings for Spalding as the supplier. Moreover, the data show that expansions have had pretty much no effect on scoring or power, which makes sense: any hypothesized "dilution"--which in any event ignores the much-expanded population pool from which to draw baseball talent--would have to be essentially equally distributed between batting and pitching, thus zeroing out any net. Also: quote:PEDs can affect, if anything, musculature, which in baseball translates to power. They do not, and cannot, do anything to improve hand-eye coordination, vision, ball judgement, timing, or any of the factors that go into hitting except actual power, the bat speed that determines the ball velocity and thus its travel distance. Heres the thing though, if you're Alex Sanchez you're still going to suck. If you're Barry Bonds, one of the greatest hitters ever in all of humanity, your hand-eye coordination, vision, ball judgement, and timing are all world class in the first place. Increasing power and bat speed on the other hand, seem pretty useful. It really isn't a very good arguement. stuart scott posted:You don't post a career OBP close to .450 without already being one of the best hitters to ever play, regardless of other factors. And if you want to "account for" the effect of steroids, you'd better start coming up with an empirical way to account for it. Here is a hint to get you started: you cannot. That career OBP is inflated by the 2001-2004 years when Bonds ascended mortal human beings though.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 03:29 |
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Bonds also had an elbow guard that he could essentially dangle into the strike zone.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 03:32 |
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chrysamere posted:That career OBP is inflated by the 2001-2004 years when Bonds ascended mortal human beings though. Yeah I guess that career stat is inflated by particular seasons in his career
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 03:37 |
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chrysamere posted:First of all, I agree with 95% of what you're saying. Well regarding that first thing you quoted: expansion and new stadiums may not explain a league wide power increase, but I can imagine it could result in a power increase for certain individuals like Barry. As to the second, I don't know what the deal with that is, I think it's bad writing because he's contradicting his own arguments earlier on (that bat speed is generated by the lower body/core and the primary effect of steroids is to increase upper body muscle mass which doesn't have much if any effect on bat speed). I think the author meant to say one thing and it came out wrong.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 03:39 |
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chrysamere posted:First of all, I agree with 95% of what you're saying.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 03:45 |
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Badfinger posted:The wheel play is when the defense completely sells out and charges on a bunt to try and get the lead runner instead of the sacrifice at first. It comes in two flavors, force at second and tag at third. ...I've been a baseball fan for years - casual for most of them, admittedly - and I'd never known this. That is awesome.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 04:09 |
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stuart scott irl posted:Yeah I guess that career stat is inflated by particular seasons in his career His single-season home run record is inflated by 2001.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 04:24 |
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Laynee posted:So, you want a stupid question? I got some. I'll start easy (for you guys). How do I read the score?!? I turn on a game, and there's a ton of numbers! I just want to know who's winning! I'm digging up a week-old post, but hello fellow Pirates fan! If you have any questions about the team in particular, I'd be glad to answer them, here or in some possibly-more-topical venue.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 09:21 |
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chrysamere posted:Heres the thing though, if you're Alex Sanchez you're still going to suck. If you're Barry Bonds, one of the greatest hitters ever in all of humanity, your hand-eye coordination, vision, ball judgement, and timing are all world class in the first place. Increasing power and bat speed on the other hand, seem pretty useful. It really isn't a very good arguement. I don't think I've ever involved myself in Steroids Chat and since everyone else seems content to call you an idiot (you are) instead of wasting their time replying to something you won't ever actually listen to, here you go. Think about what you're saying here, just a little bit. If you're a sucky hitter, it's not going to help, if you're awesome it will. Couldn't it just be that he was loving amazing? It's completely contradictory. "Oh, well this guy sucked anyway so of course steroids didn't help him. But yeah, this guy was really awesome so he had to be helped by steroids!" Even if that somehow made sense and steroids were these magic pills that somehow made you sock some dingers, how could you possibly explain that he broke 50 home runs one time? His high in every other season of his career is 49 which is a ton of home runs don't get me wrong, but did he take some super special steroids in 2001 that gave him an extra 24 home runs? Also, how do you think that steroids would help bat speed? The bigger you got, the more mass you'd have to move, and the slower you'd end up being. If it affected bat speed then all that crap you said at top wouldn't matter. If you suddenly had much greater bat speed then your hand-eye coordination wouldn't have to be as good, vision, timing, ball judgment, all of those could take a backseat because suddenly you'd have extra time to think before you had to swing the bat.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 12:23 |
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as this is a newbie thread, i may be walking into a hornet's nest here, and i'm trying like hell to follow all of these arguments. (#safespace?) is there serious support for an argument that steroids have no effect on performance? or is the thrust of the ire that they just don't affect as much as people make it out to be? as someone who has followed baseball from the fringes for years and walking into this school of thought, i should be clear that I make one main assumption about steroid use in sports in general: -- they enhance performance it seems like people are arguing that they make you worse or something (bat speed slower due to more muscles, quicker to breakdown physically therefore shorter career). so i'm curious: does everyone at least agree that steroids increase your ability to play baseball, at least from an athletic perspective? if everyone in here is saying "yes, but..." and i'm just missing it, then ok. you can argue all day what things might be better or worse through steroid use but overall they are aimed at increasing your ability to play sports. if you're saying "no, steroids don't affect performance, and if you argue you can't read/dont' understand things in life/<stats> etc" then i think you're off your rocker.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 12:49 |
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It is not "no they don't" and more "they might". It is impossible to isolate for just steroids to figure out what effects and performance enhancements they give or dont give especially because no one knows who and when anyone started/ stopped taking steroids. Since you can not accurately judge it or quantify it everything becomes conjecture and gently caress arguing conjecture. So most of sas just assumes it prolly had some effect but very small and sure as hell was not the reason Bonds put up video game numbers. Where as all the other things listed expansion, change of the ball, newmparks, ect... Have known dates and times and you can compare the stats before and after and see the effect any of them had. If ever player that ever used steroids came out and posted their usage dates then we could analyze and find out, but that's not happening. vvvvv I agree. Scrotos fucked around with this message at Apr 15, 2011 around 13:05 |
| # ? Apr 15, 2011 13:00 |
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Please stop the Steroid Chat. There is a thread for it. This is not that thread. You are making GBS threads up the NEWBIE/LURKER QUESTIONS THREAD with inane steroid debate.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 13:04 |
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How long will it be before the Astros start going places again?
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 14:19 |
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SpermyShermy posted:How long will it be before the Astros start going places again? 4 or 5 years from whenever they fire Ed Wade and get a good GM
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 14:40 |
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SpermyShermy posted:How long will it be before the Astros start going places again? A long time. The major league team is already at the bottom of one of the worst divisions, and the farm system is devoid of talent. There is hope, though. Recently there was speculation that the owner waned to sell the team, which is ultimately what the organization needs.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 14:40 |
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SpermyShermy posted:How long will it be before the Astros start going places again? It depends on the development of the current players, the drafts that occur, and free agency moves. There are a few pieces in the farm that might be pretty darn good (Ariel Ovando, Jordan Lyles, JD Martinez), but they are all very young. Ovando is 17, Lyles is 20. Things are slowly starting to turn, but we are looking at a best case scenario of 2 years for them to be anything but a joke, and likely 5+ before they are competitive. This is an optomistic view. I mean, if everyone hits their top projections, and if we draft some more good talent who also meet their top end projections, and if they acquire the right free agents, the club could be pretty darn good in 5 years. Also, Drayton wants to sell the team, so he won't be investing money into free agents. This has a good side to it, though, since the last time he threw big money anywhere it was paying Carlos Lee $100m to be slow and fat.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 14:45 |
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Pumpkin McPastry posted:Bonds also had an elbow guard that he could essentially dangle into the strike zone. Elbow Gaurds and Juiced Balls: The Barry Bonds Story quote:I'm really having trouble figuring out why this is such A Big loving Deal to you. The overarching point was that steroid use correlated to baseball skill is a really flimsy and prone to confirmation bias and is also impossible to quantify. Do you have anything to say in that realm or do you just want to keep blubbering about stuff that has nothing to do with the actual issue and more to do with you being a grandstanding dunce? I don't buy this line of thought which everyone on this forum buys into. If PED's don't do anything, why did several high end players probably use them? Why did Manny get busted twice? The incentives were most definitely there for players to use them. quote:It is not "no they don't" and more "they might". It is impossible to isolate for just steroids to figure out what effects and performance enhancements they give or dont give especially because no one knows who and when anyone started/ stopped taking steroids. Since you can not accurately judge it or quantify it everything becomes conjecture and gently caress arguing conjecture. So most of sas just assumes it prolly had some effect but very small and sure as hell was not the reason Bonds put up video game numbers. Again, just because we can't pinpoint them 100% exactly doesn't mean they should be totally discarded...its one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Both the stadium AND expansion argument was thrown out in my previous post.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 15:07 |
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chrysamere posted:I don't buy this line of thought which everyone on this forum buys into. If PED's don't do anything, why did several high end players probably use them? Why did Manny get busted twice? The incentives were most definitely there for players to use them. http://www.phitenusa.com/ I believe most players have them, they must work. I just ordered a dozen. Edit: Just by looking at the website, I got a call from my agent and I was drafted. They won't go overslot though so I'm going to go back to my museum job until they're willing to pay me what I'm worth. Edit2: Some guy just offered me some magic beans for my magic necklace, I made the trade but now my knee is sore and my agent won't call me back. Any advice? Edit3: Ok, I planted the beans and a stalk appeared so I climbed it. Long story short, I felled a giant, rescued a maiden, and found out the magic was inside me all along. Thanks PhitenUSA! Jummy fucked around with this message at Apr 15, 2011 around 15:14 |
| # ? Apr 15, 2011 15:10 |
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Ok, so while this is indeed a "safe space" and all, please do not ask about PEDs, Steroids, Barrold Bonds or any other sort of performance enhacement related questions. They steer us off of the main point of this thread, which is to expand knowledge of this beautiful sport and welcome new people to its ways 
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 15:34 |
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chrysamere posted:I don't buy this line of thought which everyone on this forum buys into. If PED's don't do anything, why did several high end players probably use them? Why did Manny get busted twice? The incentives were most definitely there for players to use them. Here are the issues with your argument. 1) You're focusing exclusively on already-generational talent. You haven't mentioned any of the guys that bounced between AAA and the majors, and are now out of the league. 2) You haven't judged everyone equally. You can't suggest that steroids would benefit a big dude more than a little dude just because. 3) You haven't mentioned pitchers AT ALL. Only hitters. 4) There really, truly isn't anything that you can point to on a stat sheet and go "Right there. There's the steroids." because everything, EVERYTHING you've mentioned can plausibly have an explanation that's not steroids. No one is suggesting that steroids do nothing. If you said "Hey, steroids make you stronger" and the goal of baseball was to lift heavy things we'd agree it was a clear and obvious advantage. In fact, if you wanted to make the argument "Barry Bonds was able to hit home runs for a longer time because PEDs allowed him a faster recovery time and enabled him to extend his career" I would agree with you, although again it's impossible to quantify that (I would argue the biggest advantage Barry Bonds had over Ruth/Williams/Foxx/Aaron et al is the surgery he made a full recovery from in 1998 that probably would have ended his career not even 10 years earlier). But everyone makes the argument "Steroids make you a better hitter" and if you're making an intellectually honest argument you have to either assume that it helps everyone equally, which puts everyone on equal footing anyway, or you have to disregard their effects until we can prove it because baseball isn't won by being hulked out. Don't make any more posts about steroids in this thread please. If you just can't STAND it and have to talk about a personal theory about ROIDIN' that can't be quantitatively proven in 2011, take it to SteroidChat http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=3404603
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 15:36 |
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Just going to reiterate what others have said and ask that you take Dumb Steroid Chat to the Dumb Steroid Chat thread so it doesn't continue to overrun this one. Thanks.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 15:41 |
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Here's a newbie question: I just finished Moneyball. In the book Beane sorta poo poo on scouts going after high school pitchers. However, I read on Wiki that right now he's been targeting them. Why the change? Are they now so undervalued that they are worth signing just to trade them later or something. Is this the new inefficiency he is exploiting?
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 16:11 |
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From in-depth statistical discussion to necro-assaulting an expired horse. SA baseball newbies must be absolutely salivating and making GBS threads their pants at the opportunity to follow and contribute to N/V and GDTs.
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 16:21 |
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Joe Don Baker posted:Here's a newbie question: I just finished Moneyball. In the book Beane sorta poo poo on scouts going after high school pitchers. However, I read on Wiki that right now he's been targeting them. Why the change? Are they now so undervalued that they are worth signing just to trade them later or something. Is this the new inefficiency he is exploiting? There's been a lot of progress in ways to bring along pitching prospects and understanding pitching mechanics so it's no longer the case that sometimes their arms just fall off. Of course from time to time there will still be the case where an arm blows up, but it's no longer the way it used to be where a guy's arm would explode and everybody would be like "well nobody could see that one coming."
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 16:35 |
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Joe Don Baker posted:Here's a newbie question: I just finished Moneyball. In the book Beane sorta poo poo on scouts going after high school pitchers. However, I read on Wiki that right now he's been targeting them. Why the change? Are they now so undervalued that they are worth signing just to trade them later or something. Is this the new inefficiency he is exploiting? I think it's a combination of understanding pitcher development a little better than they did back then and college pitchers no longer being undervalued enough to make it worthwhile to exclusively target them. Similarly, he has a harder time getting slow high OBP guys cheaply now, because the rest of baseball has caught up and better understands the value of taking pitches and getting on base (except Dayton Moore). MourningView fucked around with this message at Apr 15, 2011 around 18:02 |
| # ? Apr 15, 2011 17:59 |
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ManifunkDestiny posted:Ok, so while this is indeed a "safe space" and all, please do not ask about PEDs, Steroids, Barrold Bonds or any other sort of performance enhacement related questions. They steer us off of the main point of this thread, which is to expand knowledge of this beautiful sport and welcome new people to its ways ok 
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 18:11 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 16:03 |
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I remember hearing something that all catchers were either left or right handed, I forgot which. Am I making something up, or is there a reason for that?
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| # ? Apr 15, 2011 18:47 |
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