Did not make the expected and normal gains the second year back from Tommy John surgery; in fact, he declined somewhat, though his ERA was only up a little (2.97 from 2.84). Most notably, after allowing zero homers in 2009, he allowed five (one inside-the-park) last year. His strikeout and walk rates got a little worse as well, but the added power was the big concern.
You can’t really talk about Moylan without bringing up his extraordinary lefty/righty splits. Moylan, like most submariners/sidearmers, struggles against lefthanded hitters; in 2010, he solved this problem by simply walking all the lefthanded hitters he faced. That’s an exaggeration, but not too much of one. Moylan’s slash line against righthanders was a sterling .214/.283/.306, but lefties hit .308/.507/.481 against him in 76 plate appearances, and he had an amazing strikeout/walk ratio of 3/22, which is simply unheard of. Moylan has to be limited to facing righthanders, which is kind of hard, seeing as how most of the time you won’t see more than two of them in a row in any one inning, and managers can hit for them.
Moylan was, yet again, used in over 80 games; in all three seasons in which he’s been on the roster and reasonably healthy, Bobby used him at least 80 times. His 85 appearances were second in team history only to his 87 appearances in 2009. He’s already 22nd in team history in career games pitched, right behind Greg McMichael. He’s pitched more in a Braves uniform than Kerry Ligtenberg or Johnny Sain or John Rocker or Steve Avery, and another 80-appearance season would put him eleventh in team history, ahead of Bob Buhl or Rick Mahler and only a few behind Greg Maddux in tenth. (No, I am not shamelessly seeking Baseball-Reference links. Much.) Basically, he has thrown a lot and I would expect Fredi, who has mostly followed Bobby‘s lead in reliever usage in his career, to try to use him every other game again. You have to wonder if he’ll be up to it, though… Moylan actually pitched much better on no rest (2.70 ERA) than on one (4.91) or two days’ rest (3.72). I would say that this is a context illusion, though; when used on no rest, it was usually as a righthanded specialist to pitch to one or two guys, while in other situations it was to throw entire innings and possibly face lefties.
Peter Moylan Statistics
In my opinion, your best writeup yet. I talked about this on another site, but I think the Braves are going to try and keep Moylan around. He seems like too popular of a teammate to let go to another club. If he improves from his last year’s numbers, even with the pitching talent coming up, I think we’ll see Moylan again in 2012.
One of my favorite Braves, but I still watch through my fingers when he’s on the mound.
I say we use him to hit Chase Utley Dutley in the face.
Hopefully somebody in the dugout will recognize that he absolutely should not face lefties anymore. Although he faced fewer of them in 2010 than he did in 2009, I suspect it was because he just got into more trouble with them, and thus was pulled earlier than usual.
Which is to say: he should not be “the 7th inning guy” anymore. He should just face righties.
yep, facing LHrs shouldnt be an option – 22BB/3K in 13.2IP last year. Part of me thinks Peter shouldnt have been retained, but he is still very good against RH’rs.
This is a very cool article –
http://www.royalsreview.com/2011/2/14/1992424/success-and-failure-rates-of-top-mlb-prospects
The Braves had 43 Top 100 BA prospects in the years 1990 – 2003, over 10% more than any other team, but were only 15th in terms of success rate at 27.9%. Just imagine if they were even a little better over that time period – the Indians were around 43%
So Moylan should not face weak RH batter who will get pinched hit for unless base is open. We have loogy or two, why not roogy.
@6, note that teams that finish low/draft high do well and teams with fewer prospects do better on average. More playing time is available for prospects and more playing time allows higher WAR scores. Few relief pitchers have high WAR. Good reserves do not have high WAR, but contribute. Standings are based on percentage and not raw numbers.
@6,
Are they counting prospects that made it with other teams as well or just those that made it with the original team? Because, obviously, if the Braves hadn’t traded Wainwright, that would have been a big plus.
ON second thought, does that time period include Wainwright?
@8/9 Oh there’s lots of questions about a moving target like rating success based on WAR and inter-team trades of prospects and assignation of success. The general conclusions at the end of the article are much more interesting/explicable than the notice I took in the Braves success rate.
Actually the best part was the general guidlines for comments, considering it’s a Royals blog… “Don’t be mean. Respect your fellow fans. Negativity and bitterness should be directed towards the team, not to other posters.” Ha!
Did you see that the Royals set up some interviews with bloggers and Dayton Moore, Ned Yost, and several players (including Billy Butler & our pal Jeffy)?
http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/2011/02/digital-digest.html
http://14for77.blogspot.com/2011/01/digital-digest-was-on-thursday-and-we.html
Here are a couple links, with lots of other links in the articles…I did think it was especially interesting to see their reactions to being able to speak w/ Jeff & ask some straight, pointed questions
6 – So, the Braves had an average development success rate and way more top prospects than any other team? I’ll take that.
Of course, we need to ask how we get better at developing those guys into the Majors. Does this speak well for our development on the farm but not on the big club? I would think it would take development on the farm to move the lower draft picks the Braves were getting into top 100 contention.
The Hardball Times had a piece on Chuck Tanner and mentioned that his last game as a manager was with the Braves on May 22, 1988. Just look at this lineup. Oy!
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT198805220.shtml
@12, I was really just speaking to the idea that we had more than our share of top guys flame out picks in recent history. It’s been discussed here before, but it was interesting to see it quantified.
Since Chipper, the top picks year by year – Kelly, Arnold, King, Shumate, Hutchinson, Zapp, Cameron, Belisle, Butler, WAINWRIGHT, McBride, FRENCHY, Atilano, Campbell, DEVINE, Johnson, HEYWARD, DeVall, Minor, Lipka
Guys in caps we can consider “successes” at this point. That list looks pretty bad prior to Wainwright, which roughly corresponds to the study period. So that’s a good thing on balance – seems like the organization has gotten a lot better at identifying top talent, moving towards 50% if one of Minor or Lipka pan out, and obviously, we like the chances of perhaps both doing so, and DeVall/Campbell/Johnson may yet.
Looking at that box score was fun Marc, thanks for the link. Wow, that was really painful to be a Braves fan in those days!
Tony Pena Jr. is trying to make it back to the majors as a pitcher:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2011/02/pena_jr_trying.html
Parish @ 12 say:
The first thing that jumps out at me here is the timeline of the study: 1990-2003. That effectively eliminates a couple of Braves prospects that would have bumped their percentages up (Glavine, Smoltz, Avery, Justice and Gant came up just prior to 1990, McCann, Francoeur and Kelly Johnson showed up in 2005.) This was also a time period when the Braves were actively filling positions with free agents more than cycling prospects up into the system.
The second thing that seems notable is the selection methodology for “top prospects.” Scanning the article, they use Baseball America’s lists. That is reasonable, certainly. For that time period BA was probably the only established source for that sort of prospect ranking exercise. But during that time frame BA also had a notable (and well noticed) bias to rank Braves prospects higher than they probably should have been. This is especially true of Braves pitching prospects, who were constantly rated as high level prospects simply because the Braves drafted them. (It was a self-feeding information loop, especially when they would have a “great year” at Myrtle Beach.)
Which brings me to the third thing I notice right off the bat. The success rates for pitching prospects is significantly lower than the success rates for position prospects (which seems to confirm conventional wisdom on the subject, i.e. TINSTAAPP.) The Braves, of course, were a pitching prospect machine for the duration of the study’s timeline, so their success rate for overall prospects is going to be lower than a team like Cleveland who 1) had more #1 picks across the years and 2) focused on sluggers (and had a DH slot to stash the likes of Travis Hafner in.)
Another thing of note is that from 1991 forward, the draft of Heyward (13?) was our HIGHEST pick and frequently we were at 25 to 32. So, to even get prospects noticed, was unusual. We probably had the lowest average first round draft position of anybody. maybe the Yankees with free agent signings would have been lower, but that is about it.
Ah, the ’88 Braves. I think if you looked up “Blech” in the dictionary, they’d present the team photo.
————–
I really, really, really hate the “balanced” schedule. This means we get to face two of the best pitching staffs in all MLB more than any of our Wild Card rivals.
Who thinks this is a good idea? Oh yeah, ESPN and Fox. So they can show more Yankees v. RedSox games.
And while we’re on the subject of American (not English) whores, there is talk that they’ll allow sponsors’ names on baseball jerseys. Grab the pitchforks, guys!
#19
Hey, MLB as NASCAR!
#13
I’m quite sure that in my lifetime, I’ve seen way too many games pitched by either Rick Mahler or Bob Walk. But, yeah, 1988 was the nadir. The only upside from that campaign: We weren’t as bad as Baltimore.
Re: Strat-o-Matic Heads
Here’s a nice NY Times story about the 50th anniversary of the Strat-o-Matic game.
http://tinyurl.com/4onz9rf
I was always much more of an APBA guy, but the story really rings true. From years of playing those games, it’s amazing how much info you commit to memory. And a little frightening to be honest, as the story mentions, when you realize how much time you’ve put into it.
@ 19, remember Channel 17 uniform babbed by baseball?
@13 – Whooo boy. A blast from the past when Atlanta Braves and excellent organization were mutually exclusive terms. Dion James, Andres Thomas. Man did we suck back then.
#20 – It seemed like everytime I watched the Braves Mahler was pitching. I thought it was a conspiracy.
#19 – The schedule is unbalanced. If it were balanced we would play each team the same number of games split as evenly as possible home and away like God intended it to be. I think I hate the unbalanced schedule more than the DH.
Wonderful story about Strat-o-Matic. I loved playing it when I was growing up and I looked forward every year to getting the new cards. The realism was amazing. One year (1971 playing 1970 cards), I played the NL schedule and a friend played the AL and we ended up with the Reds and O’s in the World Series, as happened in real life. However, in our World Series, the Reds won in 7 (instead of losing in 5), largely because their pitchers were healthy, which they were not in real life. I would love to play the game again now that they have incorporated so many advancements.
#23
Yeah, missing Wayne Simpson was a big deal for them in the real Series.
About 12 years ago, I played an enormo APBA tournament that included every team that had ever won a pennant. Except for the first round, it wasn’t single-elim. Instead, each round was thick with playoffs—2/3, then 3/5, then 4/7 the rest of the way. Took forever to finish the thing.
The winner: The 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Did it again a year later, except this time I included every team that had ever made the post-season (an endeavor perhaps better suited for those serving long prison sentences).
The winner: The 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.
I’m not thrilled about it, either, Martin.
@25
can’t get the twitter message at work. care to elaborate?
He’ll be at 3rd soon enough.
“Martin Prado wasn’t exactly thrilled about being moved to LF, but said he’s got to take it professionally, for benefit of team.”
My standard story of attending games in 1988 was sitting in the upper deck and yelling “Dion, you the man!” at Dion James. A telling story for two reasons: one, on that team it could be argued that he WAS the man (or had been in the recent past); two, he could hear us clearly in the empty stadium, and would turn around and wave.
#27
Exactly
this scenario isnt going to happen, but it’s fun to speculate…
if martin were to completely butcher LF to the point of a trade, what could we get for him?
to Mr. Moylan,
I thought in 2007 Moylan seemed to be better than 2006 against lefthanders. He gets fastball action tilted about 75 degrees right off of ordinary 4 seam action and could throw 92 to 94 at the lefthanded batters thigh and put it on the inside corner. He did it over and over. His change up gets circle change motion which takes it down, as does his “sinker” (which may really be a 2 seamer with a backwards 2 seam grip to make it break down where ordinarily a “cut” would make it move, in Moylan’s plane, up).
Anybody got 2006 and 2007 splits? Am I crazy on that?
IF Moylan can’t do better against lefthanders than in 2010, some kind of way, he will be marginally in baseball after this year, if at all.
@30, screw that, trade Uggla for a decent LF.
/kidding. Sort of.
Anybody have any interest in doing a FanGraphs fantasy league with Braves Journal folks?
Looks pretty interesting.
Today, in Ozzie Guillen Tweet Greatness:
Yeah Ozzie totally has a writer translate stuff for him on his website. The English is still a little off, but it’s nowhere near his Twitter levels.
Also lol @ him cutting that onion with what looks like a scalpel.
Stu, I’m interested sure, though I’ve never done a dynasty league. I’ve been wanting to try one for a while though.
33 — I’d definitely be interested, but can’t/shouldn’t be a heavy contributor for a couple of reasons:
1. I’m a tinkerer when it comes to lineups.
2. I’ve got to write my dissertation one of these days…
But if you set it up as the manager and want to gather a few more guys for the front office, then count me in.
I meant having a league of only Braves Journal peeps. So, like, 12 teams, 12 different owners. You know you wanna…
Stu, after reading through the rules it sounds great, put me down. You going to be the commish?
Well, if I do it, I’d be willing to be. Still can’t decide if I want to. Well, I can’t decide if I should. It will probably come down to whether another league I’m in dissolves.
This set-up looks pretty awesome, though.
I’m kind of in the same boat. I do three now and was deciding between adding an NL-only or some sort of keeper league, and I actually really wanted to get some folks from Braves Journal to do one. This one sound really great though, so that kind of sold me.
Which scoring do you prefer the 5×5 standard, 4×4 SABR, or the weighted points?
Yes, I kinda wanna. Keep me in the loop.
(Edited) But I better not. Must. Graduate. Some day.
I’ll take over for someone down the road…
41—Well, I’d be open to anything, but I’d probably lean toward one of the first two. The linear weights look kind of overwhelming.
But I’ve been getting tired of the surface level leagues that I’m in. I might could be convinced…
Jayson Stark implied today that Luke Scott might be available. Would the Braves show any interest or is another LH bat- and according to B-Ref a pretty mediocre glove- not ideal?
I would like to look it over a little more, but I think I might be interested Stu
@45 – I won’t believe Luke Scott is available until I see an original long form trade proposal.
Besides, he’s 33, due for a major regression, likely overpriced based on last years performance, and has a brutal platoon split. I wouldn’t mind him, but I don’t see the Braves giving up what BAL would want for him.
Buried deep in part two of the DOB interview of Fredi is this little nugget:
Yes, Fredi Gonzalez’s son is named Alex. So I guess that makes him AAAG.
@47- At first I thought you meant his splits versus LH/RH pitching, which aren’t great but are about what I would have expected- but I surmise you actually meant his home/away splits, which show far more Camden Yards bias than I guessed. You’re right that pretty much any price Baltimore asked would be too high…
would this be a daily or weekly roster type league?
The fangraphs thing looks fun. I’m game.
@48
Lol!
I must’ve missed that when I read through it earlier. I do think Fredi missed a great opportunity by not forcing DOB to ride bitch in a side car for the interview.
I guess we should decide what type of league before someone actually creates one. I like the Fangraphs Points, but I’m flexible.
It’s daily
@48 – I read that DOB interview all the way through today. I don’t see how he can call himself an objective reporter anymore. How can you give people fair, accurate information about the team when you are taking motorcycle rides with the friggin’ manager?
What a joke his coverage has become.
Well at least he was kind enough to include the answer in most of his questions.
Would there be a transaction limit? Ive been in too many daily leagues where people will do a complete roster make over every night. Ill check out the link later.
56-Yeah a lot of leading questions in that interview. Not sure I care about the objectivity thing, I mean if bonding with the manager of the team you are covering over a ride helps gain you a little access, I’m for it. DOB’s hardly the harshest critic of the org, but he’s reasonably fair it seems to me. Maybe I’m off base…
Any time you have a chance to get exclusive access to a subject, you do it. (Plus, your boss loves it.) How it’s written up is another conversation.
It happens all the time beyond the “toy department” of sports. This isn’t a big deal at all.
@58, I have a lot of empathy for beat writers. I don’t expect them to be investigative reporters. The thing with DOB is that not only does he pimp the party line, he’s pretty shitty towards anyone that doesn’t go along with the gag. He can be sloppy at times too, and gets even nastier when that gets pointed out. It’s amazing that someone who shares three of my main passions – Harleys, baseball, and country music – can come off as the kinda person I’d like to never be around.
@60
man, i must be easily pleased today. first, mac nailed the moylan entry, and now spike nails DOB. that is pinpoint on, spike.
Ok, I’m in Stu. When do we start?
Jadeveon Clowney, over or under 10 sacks in his freshman year?
Usually, I think high school highlight videos are worthless for projecting future performance against college, but this is against good competition and pretty amazing:
25… in junior college.
His high school coach seems pretty sure he’ll qualify.
Moses Malone got straight As his last semister in HS to obtain his 2.0 to qualify for admission to MD. Wonders that his teachers could do once they were motivated. He got a job screwing in light bulbs for DC metro, did not even need a ladder. But he was smart enough to go to ABA. He is listed as one of Lefty’s players to make in pros.
My understanding is that he has to do really well on his ACT to qualify, and I’m sure that the NCAA will be taking a hard look at his testing.
The scouting services won’t rate recruits so highly nowadays if they don’t think they will qualify.
Also, the USC staff seems to think he’s in good shape.
#63
That’s hysterical.
He’s like the superhuman Charles Jefferson (Forest Whitaker) in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
I wanna see a video of Clowney’s high-school opponents watching his game films before they have to play him.
Yeah, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. It’s like he beams to a place.
@63
I’m with Mac, I think Coffeeville CC is going to be awesome this year.
I just watched the Clowney video. I like how some dudes whiffed so bad, they looked like they weren’t blocking.
Rafael Belliard, defensive specialist.
I’m with Ububba on sports journalists and access obviously, so lemme lay out my cards: I interviewed DOB for a piece I wrote on Fangraphs, and he was nice and helpful. I think he might come off as a bit more thin-skinned than he actually is.
I don’t see why you think that interviewing Gonzalez on a motorcycle ride is a bad thing. Anything you can do to get one of these guys out of the clubhouse, where they might be more likely to give you something more than a robotic cliche straight out of the “We’ve just gotta play good fundamental baseball” handbook, strikes me as a good thing. So, okay, I guess you can complain if you thought the presentation was too rah-rah about the new guy, but I don’t understand how you could complain about the fact of the interview itself.
Fredi and DOB both know that they aren’t gonna be best buds. They’re just two guys who are going to get to know each other real well this year, because they’re going to be talking to each other pretty much every day for the foreseeable future, as long as they’re both in Atlanta. Anything that DOB can do to add a little variety to that daily conversation is fine by me.
Come on, guys, if you had to moderate that cesspool of blog comments, your skin would be totally worn off after a few weeks.
Fair enough – I don’t mind THAT he gets mad, it’s the THINGS he gets mad at. At one point he was complaining that people were holding his blog posting to the same standard as his published material. Now, absent a banner ad that says “blog posting – not guaranteed to be accurate!” all the site pages look the same, and can be reasonably expected to contain at least marginally fact checked content. Or if a poster questions his take on something, often in the most innocuous way, he will berate them rather than engage on the topic raised. It’s just weird – I mean he’s supposed to act like the minder, not one of the inmates.
Clowney is fast, but this guy was faster:
I completely agree with spike re: DOB.
I saw 78 comments under Peter Moylan and my brain read that as 78 appearances. I wonder how high that number would have to be for that to not happen. Maybe 90.
In his rookie season, a 21-year old Oscar Villarreal made 86 appearances, pitching 98 innings, maybe because Bob Brenly used to be a catcher and wanted revenge or something.
His arm was basically wrecked for the next two years, as he pitched a grand total of 31 2/3 innings in 2004-2005. Then Bobby got ahold of him and pitched him for 168 2/3 innings in 109 games over two years.
Having destroyed whatever was left of his arm, we traded him to the Astros for Josh Anderson in 2008. That year he pitched 37 2/3 innings with an ERA over 5.00.
He hasn’t been seen in the majors since.
Whatever Bobby did to Moylan and Venters, y’all, it ain’t that bad.
Oscar may have been ruined by two managers who rode the f**k out of his arm, but he got to pitch in the majors. I’m still a little jealous.
I fail to see what Bobby did wrong with Villarreal. That’s not a particularly heavy workload (number of appearances is more telling than number of innings), and Oscar did pretty well with it. He showed up in Atlanta with decreased velocity due to a prior injury, and so every time he pitched two days in a row you’d have thought he was being put on the rack, what with all the hand-wringing. Wrecking arms is what pitching does, not always what managers do.
I agree sansho. If Bobby had better options out of the pen, he would have used them more.
All of the sports media ask leading questions. It drives me nuts. Bob Costas is one of the worst; he wants to get the “right” reaction from the interviewee so he basically feeds them the answer he wants. Whatever happened to the old journalistic standard of “what, why, when, and how?”
Innings arent what kill arms, its the appearances. I always like seeing a manager letting a reliever get a 2nd inning of work in on certain nights and then giving them a day off. Its less stressful on that shoulder and elbow.
I’m ready for baseball.
Vandy/UGA tomorrow night for second place in the SEC East. Win over the Dores would put Georgia dang near close to punching its dance ticket (assuming no slip-ups against USC or LSU).
Without our top two 4s, against the toughest post team in the conference, in a building where we can’t win even when the home team is terrible … I’m not optimistic.
Georgia has as many conference wins on the road as they do at home. This is both disappointing (as they lost two they probably shouldn’t have) and a source of optimism (this program stunk on the road even when Harrick was coaching).
88 – I’m still hopeful that bad Georgia shows up, or that Jenkins goes on a ridiculous tear.
Most of all, I just want Vandy healthy for the post-season. Is this possible?
90—The Jenkins-going-off possibility is my only hope.
Yes, we should be healthy and extremely dangerous, come Tourney time. Tchiengang is close to 100%, finally. Goulbourne should heal once Stallings gives him the next game or two off. And they’re being extremely cautious with Walker, so I have hope that he’ll be ready to play effectively by the SEC Tournament.
Guys, it’s time for me to make the annual payment on this place again. It’s not that much money, but I’m pretty hand-to-mouth these days and, well, every little bit helps. If you can put in a little money using the Paypal button top right, it would be much appreciated. And if you can’t, just being here is appreciated too.
#87
You’re probably right.
But, assuming the Dogs win out at home, I’d like to see UGA pick up one win at Florida, Tennessee or Alabama to feel a little more comfy on Selection Sunday.
so, in the fantasy baseball world,prado will qualify for 1b, 2b, 3b, and OF this year, right?
I think Prado will only be a 2B/3B option to start the season. After he plays 10-15 games in LF he’ll then become eligible for the LF/OF spot
B-R.com’s Sean Forman Wins Research Prize – From Our Editors – SBNation.com.
No probelm Mac. It is a worthy casue.
I forget: was Cam Newton at Auburn for a year and a half or just half a year?
One half, justhank.
Wow. Talk about Haley’s Comet. Has anyone ever made such a difference in such a brief period of time?
Is there any doubt the Raiders will take him if he’s still available?
#100
Herschel Walker, as a UGA freshman.
We’re talking an undefeated season & final #1 AP/UPI rankings in his first academic quarter (Fall, 1980). They went 6-5 in 1979.
Marvin Williams, Jamal Crawford, and two future #1s for Carmelo Anthony — get it done, Sund.
For the rest of the season?
Now, if you want to trade Joe Johnson for half a season of Mello, I’m all in?
No way the Hawks could re-sign him. Trade Machine gives a go-ahead.
Tony La Russa, genius, is accusing the union of forcing Albert Pujols to accept more money — despite admitting that he hasn’t talked to the union or to Albert about it.
Is he just providing plausible cover for the inevitable trauma when the Cardinals can’t afford to re-sign Albert? Or is he just being a jerk?
But as long as we’re dreaming… [/stillbitter]
104—I wouldn’t suggest it if the Trade Machine didn’t OK it!
Also, to be clear, they’d have Carmelo through the end of next season …
106—Hell yes, “[That] Trade is Successful!
The trade machine is the best featureon ESPN and really the best part of the NBA.
@100/101, just from an Auburn standpoint, Bo Jackson’s freshman year takes the team from 5-6 to 9-3 with a Bama win and a bowl win.
105 — I saw that article and just laughed when I got to this part:
REVISED PROPOSAL: Marvin Williams, Jamal Crawford, Mike Bibby, Mo Evans, and four future #1s for Carmelo and Chauncey Billups!
I don’t think you can trade that many future picks at once.
Oh. What’s the maximum? Trade that.
There has never been a more persecuted man in history than TLR. He should just fill out his app for martyrdom now – they might be hiring now that JP’s paperwork has gone through, and he meets the miracle test in that he’s turned his own blood into wine, at least by alcohol %.
Newton took an 8-5 team (was lucky to be that) and led them to 14-0. That type of impact was just unreal. It was cool to be an Auburn fan again.
He was unbelievable, but that line he had in front of him was really good. Those guys will be missed next year too.
@115, that’s what makes the CK thing really hurt. They have a spectacular class of OL this year, and he would have been an epic cap on the Westerman/Dismukes/Robinson/O’Reilly/Fulse signings. As it is, Auburn’s O-line should be back near the top in a year or so.
Is This the Real Thing? Coca-Cola’s Secret Formula Discovered by This American Life – TIME NewsFeed.
Yet another reason to stop funding PBS.
Trump interest in the NY Mets? One can only hope…
http://tinyurl.com/4ec4g6x
I dunno, I’m real happy with the Madoffs, er, Wilpons owning the New York Debts.
It would be fun for Trump to buy the Mets and hire their manager via a reality show in which he picks the best ass-kisser, but as Craig pointed out today it will never happen. MLB would never approve him, even if he didn’t have significant casino interests, and he doesn’t really have as much money as he pretends.
I think publishing the secret formula is grounds for secession.
Speaking of which, anyone remember (and enjoy) the movie “The Coca-Cola Kid”?
That secret 7X formula in the article is almost exactly the one from Pembergrast’s book from 2000 (and can be found on wikipedia referencing the book)… 11 years on is a bit late to the parade to jump on the chastisement bandwagon guys. The formula This American Life worked with sounds like it was an early iteration of that… almost certainly not the actual secret formula used during any portion of any of our lifetimes (just a re-hashing of Pembergrast’s info with a bit of new “history” regarding the AJC article).
#120
The New York Debts, owned by the Wilponzis.
With apologies to Steve Somers.
I don’t think anyone was being serious, BFed
per mlbtr….The Marlins appear to view Young as a $6-7MM player, according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (on Twitter). They could want more than $30MM in salary relief in possible trades with Texas….
Its good to see that some owners do pay attention to a players true value. There’s zero chance a team will take Young at 3/48 and to think the Rangers want a top prospect in return also.
mac, no cocaine in formula?
Shasho, Willie Wilson was going to MD and was going to replace friend at SS (football grant) but wisely went pro.
There’s no cocaine in the formula, hasn’t been for a very long time. There is coca extract. Basically, they have a plant (in New Jersey, I think) which is one of the few places in the country that’s legally allowed to import coca leaf. They take out the cocaine (which has some legitimate medical uses) and then use the leaves to produce the flavor extract.
Melky realizes that he is fat, is trying to do something about it.
129 – Would have been nice to read that article last spring training.
On May 16, 2002, the Braves moved Rafael Furcal to second so Mark DeRosa could get a spot start at short.
Mark DeRosa was Matt Diaz before Matt Diaz (to me, anyway).
Another one of Bobby’s whiffs. Both DeRosa and Diaz could have contributed a helluva lot more than the guys he kept running out there.
Uh … DeRosa got plenty of opportunity to “contribute.”
Respectfully, Derosa was so terrible by the time he left, he had to go. Offensively and defensively, he was a disaster. He had both a negative offensive and defensive WAR(!). Maybe he could have been managed better, but when presented with the chance for significant PT, he fell apart. I am happy he managed to build a career somehow, because he seemed like a very genuine player who owned his struggles, but really, he was so terrible in ’04, there is no way he could have come back.
Yeah, but this was 2002. The real problem then was that the Braves were playing Vinny Castilla and Wes Helms at the corners and moved Chipper to left field; the double-play combo of Giles and Furcal was one of the best in the game. DeRosa was definitely a better player than Vinny or Smelms.
@135, a case of being the tallest pygmy, but I suppose you are right at that.
I’m going through some of the 2002 entries for a project, and… I was so innocent then. How could I have known, that day, how that high schooler from Georgia would affect my life?
Except in his own mind, Trump is a terrible businessman. He was the chief inheritor of his father’s $300 million estate, and has managed to turn his vast holdings into bankruptcy more than once. Trump is good at being famous, but he isn’t good at running things. If he took over the Mets, he’d be Hank Steinbrenner II.
If ever there was a man who overpaid for young talent…
@129
he did “look” a lot better in that picture. great…we got the fat, lazy melky, then he goes and gets in shape to play for the f’n royals.
Anyone with experience:
Is a cover letter a waste of time?
A well written cover letter is definitely not a waste of time!
135 — Giles didn’t actually start playing regularly until ’03. He did play semi-regularly early in the year in ’02, was mediocre, then severely sprained his ankle. Bobby then started playing Lockhart most of the time at second with DeRosa against LHPs. First base was a platoon of Julio and Matt Franco. But Vinny was a black hole at third and stayed in there with the excuse of defense.
141 — No.
#141
Not necessarily.
Make it brief & to-the-point. And for goodness sakes, don’t make any typos.
Depends on your business of course, but the cover letter is where you connect the data points from your resume into a coherent argument for why you ought be considered for this particular position.
/And for heavens sake, don’t use pedantic affectations like “ought”
A cover letter isn’t a waste of time. Even less of a waste of time, of course, is knowing somebody over there.
@129
There you have it spike, Melky was fat because he was being lazy.
If Melky was simply relying on his god given talent last year, I think I’ve finally made up my mind.
There is no god.
This camera angle in the UK-MSU game is the worst thing, ever.
I’m not sure I would reduce the opposite of “working harder” to “being lazy”, but sure, he could have worked harder during his tenure here, I suppose, having no insight as to what his regimen was while Atlanta. And let’s see the results before concluding that this is some kind of difference maker/moral failing that produced his poor play.
141 – No. And again, no.
Also, this is the second hilarious rumor about Trump I’ve heard this week.
@ 141 They are absolutely not a waste of time. I’ve been on a few hiring committees where the cover page determined whether a candidate received an interview (or not). Typos kill careers (as do other errors).
Damn, Smelky looks good.
@141
make it say what your resume doesn’t
Bobby kept playing him. What was his incentive to work hard and be a positive force in the clubhouse?
Obviously, that approach didn’t work for Matt Diaz.
New post.
When I interview people, the cover letter is one of the things I really look at because it is an opportunity to see how people actually express themselves. But don’t bullshit too much because it’s easy to see through, ie, vague, meaningless phrases don’t do much.