CUR: Care to give another run down on HB for those that don’t know or remember?

The last three years the Phillies have been 3rd, 2nd , and 1st in LEAST amount of strikeouts in the NL. Too many strikeouts is not the problem. Power on the other hand whether slugging or home runs has been middle of the pack since 2010. Michael Young averages 102 k’s a season but really why are you focusing strictly on strikeouts?

…nope, nowhere in there. I think what I said was that, despite having similar batting averages, Bonds was much, much better than Grudz.

Also, I agree, Ryan Howard’s 2006 WAS an awesome, awesome year. His 2007 and 2009 were very good years. Ryan Howard was a good baseball player. He wasn’t that overrated in the years above, but in other years, he absolutely was. When a fellow first baseman posts an OPS .233 points lower and narrowly finishes second in the MVP race (2008)…yeah, that is being pretty overrated.

Howard is a good player, (assuming he bounces back from his awful 2012). It is possible to be overrated AND good.

For instance, some people will tell you that player A(.250 Batting Average) hit better than player B(.300 batting average) and that player B was just lucky because his BABiP was 100 points higher than player A’s. While this may be a good indicator for what will happen the following year…in other words, I would be willing to bet that luck will even out and player A will outhit player B in the following year, BABiP should have ZERO bearing on how the season actually played out. So what if player B got luckier? He still hit 50 points higher than player A.

I like hard core Sabremetrics when they are used properly. To me, they are used properly when they are used to predict future performance, not when they are sometimes used to nitpick about how well a player did. When Ryan Howard hits 58 bombs and knocks in 148 runs, it’s a frigging historic power year, I don’t give a shit what his BABiP, FiP, dWAR, VORP, PLORP, and every other stat you want to give me. Now, when the sabremetricians of the worls beat up the Phillies for Howard’s extension, they used SABR stats for future performance predicting, and for now, they have been pretty correct. However, he was injured last year. We will see what happens this year. Either way, the Phillies have the money so it was no big deal to them. A team like the Rays, who pay over 30% of their payroll for one guy 8 years down the road…well, they are just plain stupid, but nobody calls them out on it.

To each his/her own.

I thought it was a self-imposed ban?

He originally was banned for posting some not-so-nice things. After apologizing to Craig and asking if he could be let back in, Craig allowed him. Then about a week or two later, ‘cepts realized he wouldn’t be able to maintain the stipulations that Craig asked for him to continue posting, so ‘cepts told Craig to permanently ban him.

Are you implying that Mark Grudzelaniak was as good in 1996 as Barry Bonds?

http://deadspin.com/5901026/mark-reynolds-is-the-worst-third-baseman-in-baseball

If Michael Young were to make the hall (which he almost certainly won’t), *he literally would be the worst player in the hall of Fame*. His 22 WAR is tied with that of Waner (whichever one wasn’t the awesome on, I can never remember which is which unless I look it up) for the lowest WAR of a HOF.

I actually do miss his posts sometimes. Insane? Yes, but he was never boring.

Here are some other players who clearly need to be removed from the Hall of from consideration due to their careers being extended by the DH

Reggie Jackson
Carl Yastrzemski
Frank Thomas
Dave Winfield
Jim Thome
Eddie Murray
Frank Robinson