Baseball poll

[Kingdom]

well that should have been all caps, but whatever, thanks post nazi's!

[General]

1.) Lowering prices: No, the concessions are not MLB-related and the ticket prices are low as is.

2.) Cap: Maybe, but not a harsh one. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 million.

3.) Instant replay: No thanks.

4.) Abolishing the DH: Yes! I want to see the pitcher bat! DH is for sissies.

5.) Game times: Yeah, that needs a workin'.

6.) Banning the Tomahawk Chop: Die.

[Hmark6]

It must be the off-season, because here comes the salary cap trumpet. I was thinking about writing a peice about parody, payrolls, revenue, and medeocrity, but decided not to because I thought it was a dead topic. Maybe I'll go ahead with it.

I believe the biggest problem with MLB is that not enough people are watching the Main Event. I'll look for it, but if someone can find it before me, I'd be curious to see how the ratings for the All-Star Game/Events compare to the World Series.

With attendance consistantly rising lately, I wouldn't hold your breath for lower prices at the box office or the hot dog stand.

Instant Replay is a bad idea. Umpires' blown calls are annoying if they go against your team, but (call me crazy) I think they're kind of charming. Who doesn't like to see a good Manager v. Umpire spat in the dog days of summer to spice up an otherwise meaningless game? Its a fact: Lou Pinella launching secondbase over the outfield wall = Ratings!

[ghettochild]

No, I want to see the best person for the Job. Ill take Papi up at the plate over Schill or who ever any day.

thats because you want ortiz up there, totally biased.

i'm a fan of both the AL and NL.

which brings me to the next point that i'm very glad that arod won the MVP because i belive that the MVP should not be souly based on offense, but defense, clubhouse chemistry, and how the player gives his all to the club. Most Valueable Player.

Call me oldschool, but i think that most players have lost sight of this, and that they have taken the DH to heart. Which is why i love seeing NL interleague games, because its always fun to see the game as it was ment to be played.

anywho. it shouldn't matter if you like offense or not. there are plenty of offenses (ie:Reds) that produce 10x better without a dh.

[Fishercat]

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather avoid the strategy (if you can call it that) of walking Neifi Perez to get to Mark Prior. I'd rather see an actual threat at the plate at any given time, and I said this prior to the Sox getting Ortiz when they were running some pretty bad hitters out there, like Baerga and Offerman and Daubach

[Fishercat]

And there is no effing way in hell that if you replaced the Reds pitcher with Pena or Kearns (or I would assume Griffey and Pena to center) in the lineup that they would be 10x more effective with Eric Milton hitting.

[ghettochild]

And there is no effing way in hell that if you replaced the Reds pitcher with Pena or Kearns (or I would assume Griffey and Pena to center) in the lineup that they would be 10x more effective with Eric Milton hitting.

i never said that

all i was trying to say was that it shouldn't really make a difference in if the dh is in the lineup or not, because in reality all a #9 hitter in both leagues is the least-likley-to-get-a-hit hitter. the hitters that bat not even their weight.

so if you did some lineup shuffling, the dh is really worthless.

so why should it even be in place?

[Providence A's]

The DH rewards old people and guys that can't play the field.

[ghettochild]

The DH rewards old people and guys that can't play the field.

refer to my first post

[Providence A's]

refer to my first post

I was just saying that to further anger up Fisher's blood

[Fishercat]

all i was trying to say was that it shouldn't really make a difference in if the dh is in the lineup or not, because in reality all a #9 hitter in both leagues is the least-likley-to-get-a-hit hitter. the hitters that bat not even their weight.

Unless you have Dontrelle Willis or Jason Marquis, the odds of your pitcher = your #9 hitter, or even being close, is a long-shot.

Here is Cristian Guzman, arguably the least valuable hitter in baseball considering the amount of PA he had

0.219 0.256 0.314

Here is Javier Vazquez, one of the best hitting pitchers in the NL

0.238 0.250 0.302

Come on, you're more reasonable than that. To even compare the worst real hitter in a lineup and the pitcher is a big stretch.

[ghettochild]

take an average of both leagues #9 hitters then... or maybe the #9 hitters for the al and #8 for NL

for every team.

i'm sure they're both going to come up similar to those numbers.

managers do their lineups like that for a reason. leadoff is to get on base. 2nd is to move him over any way he can (aka the second leadoff guy) third is to knock both guys in, usually your major rbi producer, fourth power hitter, fifth mediate power similar to cleanup but not quite...so on and so fourth. your 8/9 hitters are usually the batters that can't run, can only get a few hits, hit around their weight, and the pitcher.

[Fishercat]

Just going for OPS with their most common #9 hitter (or most common #8 hitter in the NL, or whichever OPS is lower for the #8 or #9). If there is another player with an OPS noticeably lower than the #9, then he will be listed with an *. All of these stats are OPS' at that hitting position (or if not listed, overall)

ARZ: .595 (Snyder)
ATL: .914 (Betemit) or .745 (McCann, noting that as a total stat, not necessarily all in #8 hole)
BAL: .580 (Gil)
BOS: .645 (Bellhorn)
CHC: .729 (Barrett)
CHW: .686 (Uribe)
CIN: .766 (Cruz), .808 (LaRue), or around .730 (est.) (Encarnancion)
CLE: .656 (Boone)* (Note: I took the lowest hitter here, not the #9)
COL: .509 (Relaford)* (See CLE)
DET: .591 (Logan)
FLA: .718 (Gonzalez)
HOU: .625 (Everett)*
KC: .672 (Buck) or .642 (Teahen)*
LAA: .546 (J. Molina)*
LAD: .638 (Izturis)*
MIL: .639 (Hardy)
MIN: .625 (Bartlett)
NYM: .540 (Cairo)*
NYY: .700 (Cano)
OAK: .692 (Scutaro)
PHI: .589 (Bell)*
PIT: .558 (Cota)*
SD: .686 (Greene)*
SF: .657 (Ellison)*
SEA: .493 (Valdez)
STL: .684 (Molina)
TB: .674 (Hall)*
TEX: .687 (Nix)
TOR: .651 (Adams)*
WAS: .624 (Carroll)*

The average pitcher OPS is .367. In comparison, that's about 130 points lower than the worst everyday hitter in any lineup for a player who consistantly hit in a position. That means that a guy like Guzman slipped through, who may have hit one or eight a lot of times. Either way, there's no comparison.

[missionhockey21]

Instant Replay is a bad idea. Umpires' blown calls are annoying if they go against your team, but (call me crazy) I think they're kind of charming. Who doesn't like to see a good Manager v. Umpire spat in the dog days of summer to spice up an otherwise meaningless game? Its a fact: Lou Pinella launching secondbase over the outfield wall = Ratings!

The fact that baseball does have the chance for human error, it makes it all that more sincere to me. With everything becoming high-tech these days, some things I don't want to change and baseball is one of them. Sure a bad call can get the blood boiling but I think it wouldn't be as interesting if every call was corrected. And like you mentioned, Sweet Lou would just get depressed on the bench if he knew that the call was 100% right and he couldn't even try to argue it.

[Lance324]

I chose the ludicrous start times for playoff games, but my actual first choice isn't on the list... TEAM WITH THE BEST RECORD IN THE WORLD SERIES HAS HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE, get rid of the stupid All-Star deciding crap and start rewarding the team with the best record. They've earned it!!!!!!