Wednesday, February 6, 2008

God Save Us

It takes a lot to get me to make two posts in one day. Here at RMC, we have focused on pitching--with good reason. We just might have our most exciting staff in decades. Hitting, sadly, is necessary, despite what Boch & Sabes think about little ball, stolen bases, and moving runners over. So, let us see what folks are saying about our hitting.

Read.

Weep.

A Giant Mess by Patrick Sullivan at The Baseball Analysts.

Position-by-postion-look at MLB's worst by Dayn Perry at FOX Sports.

Of course, we knew this already. But the Lenten season is upon us, and a little sackcloth-and-ashes routine is good for the soul. Time to get the mothballs out of those hairshirts and suit up. Meanwhile, keep thinking about Matt and his Seaver-esque mien, and Tim and his channeling of Ron Guidry. And the triumvirate of Wilson, Walker and Hennessey--an emperor will emerge from them as our Saves-ior. Right now The Beezy is engaged in some strange mystical posture, visualizing the Big Blyleven Hook blowing away batters. Join him on the yogic plane, O My Brothers. For it is written: only through the futility of the Diamond Nine can the One on the Hill achieve transcendence.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if you set the bar low enough, you just might be able to stumble and still get over it. And these comments set the bar pretty low, especially considering that the guy from Fox can't even spell his name correctly. Clearly, and with ample statistical backing, Omar, Ray and Richie are at the tail end of their careers and a return to their glory years should not be anticipated. But Omar had one of his better offensive seasons just year before last, at the age of 39. Ray had a pretty good season year before last as well, including career bests in slugging and OPS. A comparison of Richie is complicated a bit by his play for a different team. I could perhaps illustrate this if I could post a graphy thing, but I don't know how to do that, so I will try to express it. It is reasonable to expect players (and many other observable things) to tend to revert to a mean, with some expected age-related statistically valid adjustments. Given this, I would expect Ray and Omar, at least, to do better than they did last year, not even worse simply on the basis of them being a little older. Now, obviously, everyone's career ends at some point, and it might be reasonable to expect a big drop off just at the end, but we also do not really know the physical limitations of that "end" because we do not have statistics on anyone after the end of their careers. They may continue to lose ability at an rate consistent with the last few years of their careers, they may lose it more (or less) quickly. Far be it from me to prevent a good teeth-gnashing, self-flogging whine, but really, I can see Omar getting his OBP up from .321 to about .340 - not a huge improvement, and for Ray to get his slugging up to about .415 from last year's .343, which would be a huge improvement. I also fully expect Richie to have another season of pithy quotes. I mean, the Giants WILL suck, but they just may actually, improbably improve their offense and still suck.

M.C. O'Connor said...

To be fair, the analysis was a bit snarky. Aurilia is not a full time player. In a reserve role, he might be a plus, esp. if KF does OK. Durham could certainly rebound and be OK (contract year). And Omar is not there for his bat, so his poor year (on the heels of a good one) is not that big of a deal. But guys like Molina are counted on to do too much (like Feliz before him). Rowand, like Winn, is a good ballplayer, and would be a huge pickup on a already-decent team. But he'll be asked for more "o" than he has historically produced. But these are quibbles. We will have a hard time getting guys on base and scoring runs. But we knew that.