Grant77

Maybe they factored in his hitting ability and great moustache. He was taken by the Blue Jays in the expansion draft and kicked off a pretty cool trade chain that brought us names like Damaso Garcia, Alfredo Griffin, and Chris Chambliss.

A pretty inexplicable drop after we were presumably one of the best teams before 1990.

Top 3 pitchers from each decade using fWAR: 1900: Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Rube Waddell 1910: Walter Johnson, Grover Alexander, Eddie Cicotte* 1920: Dazzy Vance, Eppa Rixey, Grover Alexander 1930: Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbell, Paul Derringer* 1940: Hal Newhouser, Dutch Leonard*, Bob Feller 1950: Robin Roberts, Warren Spahn, Billy Pierce 1960: Bob Gibson, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal 1970: Tom Seaver, Bert Blyleven, Gaylord Perry (The top 9 from this decade are all inducted, including 4th place Ferguson Jenkins. 1980: Nolan Ryan, Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris (Stieb basically tied with Morris). 1990: Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, 2000: Randy Johnson, Roy Halladay, Javier Vazquez* 2010: Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander First, I just want to recognize that Grover Alexander and Randy Johnson were top 3 pitchers for 2 entire decades. There's some luck with the timing, but that's incredible achievement. Anyways, it's clear that the author of the Stieb article used bWAR to illustrate his point and it's a good one. Even using fWAR, Stieb seems like a very obvious outlier. There are 4 other retired pitchers who didn't make the Hall of Fame and I'll address them below: Eddie Cicotte was likely to make the Hall, but was banned from baseball. Not a great comp. Paul Derringer and Dutch Leonard are good comps for Stieb in that they didn't do much outside of that decade. Unlike Stieb though, they played on bad teams and both ended up with a .513 win percentage, which certainly hurt both players. Derringer once went 7-27 with an ERA+ of 103, which is insane. If we're being honest though, both pitchers probably have a better Hall of Fame case than Stieb, even with the bias in the awards voting considered. Vazquez' only real similarity with Steib is that he pitched in Canada and was ignored by voters in truly stunning fashion. The argument is that he was never truly dominant and just pitched a lot of innings, which is somewhat true, but we can't ignore the fact that he was right there with guys like the Big Unit and Doc for the span of a decade. Does Stieb deserve to be in? I enjoy reading the arguments, but he didn't pitch enough in my opinion.

That might be a nice bonus if we can get some assets, but we really needed a backup infielder on the bench. He's here to fill that role and was the best player available at our price point.

I don't say this lightly after something like 17 years of posting, but Digitalrock may be the stupidest person in the history of the Blue Jays message board. Even the dogg and his dozens of personalities, for those who may remember, seemed to understand that he was seen as a joke. This guy though, I'm not sure.

I wish you luck in this conversation, Deadpool. I've said the same thing a few times with no success and I'm tired of doing it. Nobody who is literate could be bad enough at math to believe what he says. There's obviously another reason for his misinformation campaign, whatever that may be.

The statistics are not incorrect. You're taking two different statistics and comparing them directly to one another. One uses it's denominator as the world population and one uses it's denominator as the number of infected. This is from the WHO's website: "the 1918 influenza pandemic known colloquially as “Spanish flu.” The intensity and speed with which it struck were almost unimaginable – infecting one-third of the Earth’s population, which at the time was about 500 million people." https://www.who.int/influenza/pandemic-influenza-an-evolving-challenge/en/ Here's from the CDC: "It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide" https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html Both state unequivocally that the death rate was at or above 10%. This isn't complicated. 50 million is the numerator and 500 million is the denominator. You get a percentage. For Covid19 the numerator is about 8000 and the denominator is unknown, but not less than 200,000. To make a baseball analogy, you're essentially saying this: Ben Revere is a better hitter than Mike Trout because Revere's slugging percentage is .343 while Trout's batting average is .305. You would have to be incredibly stupid to deny this. The numbers are right on fangraphs. Are you going to deny them?

For the love of god, please quit lying. The population of the world in 1918 was 1.8 billion and 50-100 million people died. That range is 2.8% to 5.6% of the entire world. The entire world did not contract the Spanish Flu. It was more deadly than Covid19 by as much as an entire order of magnitude. You're such a huge piece of s*** for spreading lies like this. I would love to see someone call you out on the news if you do it elsewhere.

This is absolutely not correct. It means that 2.5% of the entire world's population was killed (50 million dead of 1.8 billion). Using that criteria, the Covid19 death rate is something like 0.00006%. Covid19 isn't even even remotely close to as deadly as Spanish Flu. Using that comparison freaks people out, causes unnecessary panic, and hurts a lot of people. I don't agree with maxsilver that lying to people in order to whip them into a frenzied panic is a viable solution to this crisis.

No credibility indeed. You are a liar and a coward. You and digitalrock could be responsible for further deaths with your irresponsible and disgusting actions. Quit lying to people and intentionally trying to scare them.

The WHO is advising people to stay calm and follow their instructions. People like me are obviously supporting that view. Stay calm and go about your normal day to day lives, being careful to wash your hands and self isolate if you feel ill. Almost all experts are advising against panic and fear mongering. By intentionally portraying the death rate as over 10%, people like digitalrock and JimCanuck are trying to scare others. It is certainly nowhere close to that of Spanish Flu. That kind of false information is not helping anyone. They are truly disgusting human beings.

All viruses are susceptible to some level heat and humidity. Each and every one that has ever been discovered. You are outright lying when you try to say otherwise. You are intentionally spreading misinformation. Early studies on this virus show that this virus may be highly susceptible to heat and humidity. I have posted links to these studies from reputable universities. This is the last thing I will say on the matter. I have offered no opinions. Take it up with the researchers if you have issues with their conclusions and quit lying to people. You said that the death rate was similar to Spanish Flu, which had a death rate between 10 and 20 percent. (500 million infected, 50-100 million dead). The widely stated death rate of 2.7% for Spanish Flu means that 2.7% of the entire world died. You are misusing these numbers in an attempt to scare people and it's frankly disgusting.

Good lord the hypocrisy. There is an infinite amount of evidence that all viruses are sensitive to certain levels of heat and humidity. There isn't any debate but on this forum. You guys choose to pick on that completely innocuous statement instead of addressing people saying that we have no treatment for pneumonia, that antivirals can't cure viral infections, and that the death rate for this may be north of 10%. Holy crap.

Can we ban this guy and delete his posts? Someone reads two ignorant asshats saying that this is as bad as Spanish Flu and might actually believe it. That can have real world consequences. All experts are urging calm and fact based information, not outright lies and fear mongering.

"Reputable sources are comparing the mortality from covid-19 to the Spanish Flu." Jim, I'll buy you and all of your reputable sources a beer when Covid19 kills it's 50 millionth person.

There is a case in Qatar, therefore the idea that a virus could be affected by the environment is invalid, even if it is overwhelmingly supported by the scientific community. -JimCanuck If anything is dangerous, it's you saying that: - Reputable scientific studies are not to be believed - This is on par with the Spanish Flu - Antivirals do not exist -There is no treatment for pneumonia Continue if you wish, but I'm done with the conversation. Quit spreading lies. You are only hurting people.

If the virus spreads better in cool and dry conditions then the logical conclusion is that it spreads more poorly in warm and humid conditions. Early studies, including the one from Guangzhou, indicate that this difference is fairly significant. That doesn't mean that it won't spread in less ideal environments, but it could be slowed. Use Occam's razor here Jim. These are early studies, but it's more reasonable to expect Covid 19 to show similar characteristics to other known coronaviruses than to be entirely unaffected by environment as you are suggesting.

There actually is a cure for some viral infections. They are called antivirals and can reduce or eliminate symptoms. People use them all of the time and they save many lives. They will be used for this virus in time.

The ideal temperature for Covid19 was determined by a research team from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou and it is 8.72 Celsius. It's yet to be peer reviewed, but it is the only study available and falls within the expected range for other viruses in the same family. Every virus that exists has conditions in which it spreads well and spreads poorly. None of this is controversial with anyone but you and your fellow conspiracy theorists.

Lying about what other people said doesn't make you look like less of a fool. Nobody said that hot weather kills the virus. It spreads most effectively at 8.72 C according to reputable studies. That means that the virus could spread more slowly at temperatures far away from 8.72 C.

I love how the people saying that this is as bad as the Spanish Flu are calling people idiots for citing statements and numbers from scientific institutions. Panic and misinformation are just as bad as the nonchalant attitude that some others are taking. Jim and Digitalrock maybe you should self isolate from the internet for a couple of weeks to protect others from fear mongering.

If the numbers are to be believed then they are approaching 2 months with a death rate not much different than influenza. The initial spike in Wuhan province was pretty devastating, however.

Given that the virus is very sensitive to heat and humidity, I would expect Florida to be one of their first places cleared to play. Of course politics and healthcare can alter the spread as much as it's biology, but it gives me hope that ST can get started quickly.

It's a shame about what happened with the NBA. Other leagues have no choice but to follow suit even if they don't think it is the best course of action.

I don't know if calling their pitching staff mediocre would really qualify as hate. I said nothing disparaging about the team in this exchange. You guys are just perceiving a bias without reading the text.