On Wednesday night, with the bases loaded and the game tied, one out in the bottom of the ninth, Mike Wuertz struck out Pat Burrell swinging. Michael Barrett though allowed the ball to get away, and though he recovered in time to catch Jimmy Rollins in no man's land, marooned between third and home, Barrett then literally threw the game away. What ought to have been a simple inning-ending rundown turned into a catastrophic game-ending score. And that led me to think, just how bad is Barrett's defence? And to what extent does it undermine his rather more quantifiable offensive value?
The common consensus, which is based based largely on just watching the two behind the plate and with which I agree, is that Barrett is at best a mediocre defensive catcher, but that Henry Blanco is a fine defender, one of the best in the game. Perhaps it would be interesting to monitor just how the two have fared so far this year.
There are plenty of complex defensive metrics around that aim to measure defence, but I generally find them just too obscenely obscure, abstract, incalculable, contradictory etcetera. But Catcher ERA, a very simple yet alarmingly crude and therefore flawed statistic, gave me an idea - calculate each pitcher's line throwing to Barrett, and then their line throwing to Blanco, and see what that throws up. And so I did...
I still love TCR, please don't hate me.
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Garbage song, I Hate Love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOcVhBu0YjE
scrubbies lose...18-28
as an aside...though jim d. hasn't been awful in the booth, it's a bit disappointing he didn't/doesn't do the amount of "homework" getting to know the team or critiquing things being done like bob did.
so far, when i hear jim d. calling a game it feels like he's a national "game of the week" generic type announcer that doesn't know the team well.
he's a full-on 100% replacement for "bad joke bob" type humor, though.
link is fine
MLB.com's error page
http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2013/5/23/4359426/mlb-error-page-gifs
Now pitching for the Pirates --- Jose Contreras?!
welly gets his 2nd walk of the season in his 141st PA.
I imagine that things will pick up a bit with the draft, promotions, and trades. It seems that most of the remaining posters are on board with the rebuilding process so the discussions have been slim.
all kidding aside, this team really has been running on a single bright spot (the starting rotation) and rizzo pounding the ball hard when he's not slumping (and his extension)
welly's doing as expected (though a few more homers/doubles would be nice)...valbuena is helping people forget about i.stewart, though he's not doing anything extraordinary...kevin gregg has been a nice surprise as the new closer...castro is being castro, though a few more walks or hits would be nice since he's performing slightly below expectations...
It's definitely hard to get excited about this team. When they suck like this it feels like a huge part of my summer is just completely missing, so I want to come here and get a little bit of a Cubs fix, but lately it's 100% split squad games at Fitch Park. I can't stand any of the major newspapers' coverage, and I really don't like BCB or any of the other Cubs blogs. I guess I just miss the good old days with 200+ comment threads, even if 90% of it was just The Real Neal arguing with himself.
The people demand more free entertainment, Rob G!
broken link...probably cuz MLB protects their rights on the innerweb on a scale music + film industries should be jealous of.
click this... http://mlb.com/ajkls
refresh for different lulz.
official Cubs MLB squad post for april/may - everyone sucks except for the starting pitching (sans e.jackson) and when a.rizzo isn't on a no-hit, major-K streak
save to cut/paste for june-september
So I haven't commented much lately, and I don't want to be that guy, but is this site now exclusively dedicated to Extended Spring Training? I absolutely love everything AZ Phil brings to the table, but could we maybe get a few posts about the big league squad?
I still love TCR, please don't hate me.
Nice start for Almora -- 3-4 with a double for Kane County.
Baez has picked it up lately, hits in 13 of his last 14 games..something like 19/56 with 3 BB and 9 K over that span.
That Liberace movie is on HBO this week end.
/just saying
wow...that rizzo K in the 8th was a swing even sammy sosa would rag on.