Team Lincecum

So its official I have to change my name to Team Lincecum in honor of my newest addition. And although he will undoubtedly be a 2009 all star team member, my man crush for him is so supreme it requires a name change... for a week at least. Don't share my man crush?


Lincecum allowed only one run in five AAA starts, going 4-0, 0.29 while holding opponents to a .119 batting average. He struck out 46 batters in 31 innings while walking 11.

He spent only 62 innings this year and last in the minors, where his final minor league statistics almost defy comprehension: 6-0 with a 0.99 ERA. He allowed 26 hits and 23 walks in 63 2/3 innings while striking out 104. THATS A 15.6 K/9

My video game self doesn't even have those kinds of numbers

Our league is worthless in the eyes of Joe Morgan

Sorry guys but according to Joe morgan our league is crap because we are basing our league on a little thing called statistics, and accroding to Joe Morgan on an ESPN chat:

"My point is you can't compare things with statistics."

Don't believe me here is the whole answer:

There are so many guys with long term contracts and guys who are into statistics. That's not their fault, because everyone hypes the statistics and talks about statistics. I'll give you an example, I saw a quote that Billy Hall had a monster year last year, but only drove in 70-something runs. He hit 30 HRs, but only drove in 70 runs. That's not a monster year, but that's how people compare statistics. My point is you can't compare things with statistics.

Sorry guys I don't know how else to compare out teams, maybe by the team who has the most players with cute uniforms....I'm open to suggestions.

Well I fucking love Manny

Seriously, name one guy who is more entertaining in the batter's box. I know, if he's not on your fantasy squad, or your not a Sox fan, or you're playing me this week, you have the right to say "fuck manny" or perhaps "fuck josh". But if you like baseball, you can't tell me it's not bad ass watching him hit a shoulder high pich about 400 feet to the opposite field and just throw his arms in the air, wathcing it go. Ken Griffey Jr may have had the prettiest homer swat of our generation, and we all love that Sheff bat speed, but for my money, I go with Manny. He makes baseball look fun. Kinda like those wonderful Bravos that are frequently discussed on this bloog. Sorry for the sappy shit, but between Manny and Soriano waking up and the Brett Myers as the Phila closer era beginning, I'm really into my squad. Too bad it won't matter b/c TBX is gonna put 5 points on the whole field b/c Jeff and his Radio Shack computer aren't quite ready to start "comming back on all our asses". Seriously, are asses are waiting. That's not a sexual thing, well, unless u need money for a new computer; then maybe we can work something out. I've said to much allready. (I'm such an enabler right now...)

by the way, thank's to everyone for the prompt denial of my trades. Quick bad news is way better than no news. Even jeff got back to me in under 24 hours, and he had to use carrier pigions. Autodraft, meanwhile, is on day four of no response. You would think a super computer could check it's own e-mail. Seriously brah, I'm always reading shitty poems in your away messages about how you hate your office job so i had an idea; PLAY WITH YOUR FUCKING SQUAD AT WORK LIKE THE REST OF AMERICAN DOES!!! you have no excuse. agian, jeff doesn't even have a computer that will stay on for more than 5 minutes, and yet...

Oh yeah, thanks again for Carl Crawford. You're a sweetheart. JWest offered me his entire pitching staff, an above ground pool, and a lifetime supply of tartar sauce for him, and i still won't budge. That's why i'll never give up on you, just hit "accept", and let's move on. be a buddy

The Bloog: I fucking love the Atlanta Braves

So there are so many reasons why i love the Braves. They have given me, aside from last year, 14 strait years of great regular season baseball. I have seen some of the best pitching ever all on one rotation. And lately, their team has been one of the more fun teams to watch. Whether its the Jones boys laughing at eachother, or Francoeur and McCann buying eachother late night T-Bell. And now, most recently the kid with the longest name in professional sports history, Jarrod Saltalamacchia. I have been waiting for today since i first saw him in spring training in '06, and finally today he got his first start, on his 22nd birthday. He was about 10 feet short of hitting a home run, got a walk, got hit by a pitch, got thrown out at home and won his first game to go up .5 games on the Mets. Watching this game on espn reminded me why i love this team, and this sport so much. Seeing Bobby Cox, and Andruw, and Chipper, and Terry Pendleton all hitting him on his helmet in the post game congrats, and Salty just having the biggest smile on his face made me think about how great this sport is over all the other big pros. These are all kids when they come in...and not like the only other sport you can start so young, the NBA, where the youngest ones are just the cockiest people on the court. Go Braves, Go Baseball.

First Nerdy/Sabermetric post of the year

Yes boys, this is the first post regarding regression analysis. For all of those of you who didn't pay attention in statistics class regression analysis looks and two seemingly independent variables and looks if one has to do with the other.

In this case we are looking at Winning Percentage, because that's what matters in our league.

The scale basically ranges from 0-1, the closer to 1 the better correlation there is, the better correlation, the more it matters.

R .79

HR .09

RBI .17

SB .32

AVG .70

OBP .80

SLG .32

OPS .65

So it looks like the most important stats so far are OBP and Runs, mainly because those

two categories are aggregates of other categories. You can't have a good OBP without average, and the more you get on base the more runs you will score and rbi's you drive in.

I guess I’m surprised about how little HR’s have to do with Winning Percentage. Every time you hit a home run you earn points in R, HR, RBI, AVG, OBP, SLG, and OPS. I guess its early and we are under a severe sample size warning, so funny things happen…like me being in second to last place.

The Bloog: Give me your struggling players.

I have decided to create a little bit of a side business within our wonderful league.

Do you have any players that just aren't reaching there full potential for you? Do you find yourself asking "Do I just stick with him? I know hes gonna heat up eventually." Well now there is something you can do about it, with a simple 1 week turn around.

Just sign your struggling players for The Bobby Cox Experience. This proven training program has turned around the fantasy careers of such former all stars as Garry Sheffield, and most recently David Wright. As said by Baseball Tonight's Fernando Vina, "I think Sheff is gonna have one of the best Mays in the league, (The Bobby Cox Experience*) has awakened a sleeping giant."

David Wright, who is batting .266 on the season with no homeruns since August of last year began this week benched, and thus begining The Bobby Cox Experience. Mr. Wright went 3/4 on Tuesday night with 2 runs and his first Homer; way to go David!

So give me your Drew's, your Wiggington's and your Carlos Delgado's. After going through my strict program of being benched...I will return your newly refurbished players to you in the best condition in this brief, but for some, excruciatingly long season thus far.


*Mr. Vina's comment was actually regarding Mr. Sheffield being hit by a pitch from Baltimore Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera. Mr. Vina has no association with The Bobby Cox Experience.

15-0

Thanks to an Alex Rios homer Aaron has acheived what I believe is the first 15-0 moment of the season.

Let the appropriate shit talking commence.

-B

P.S. Travis if you are reading this, these are the things you miss by not having the raker.