TBJESE

Except that offence didn't spike until 1994, well after steroids were common in clubhouses, and the peak ended around 2002, well before Juiced, the Mitchell Report, or the JDA.Offense doesn't really fit with steroids.http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-few-different-ways-to-look-at-the-steroid-era-graphically/

Game 3 actually, but that's still a big advantage if their #1 is significantly better than their #2 and/or if they also have to burn a good starter in Game 163. No starter who pitches a Game 163 or WC can pitch twice in the ALDS without short rest.

Pillar has a great arm. He has like 6 rARM this year, which is one of the best in the Majors. Also Major League teams are too smart to be fooled like that - they know the strength of everybody's arms (except Bautista - they might be wondering about his health, but they're not going to buy a bluff that Revere has a strong arm: Atlanta has played dozens of games against him). That's a small trade-off but it's way more than offset by the ability to catch shallow no-man's bloops/Luis Gonzales flares that the drawn-in infield would otherwise catch.

I think Sale is going to have some of the most varied support. He'll get lots of first-place votes due to his strikout-related FIP-domination, but he might not even make some voters' ballots due to him not even being in the top-10 in ERA or wins. Price is going to be top-3 on everyone's ballots and number 1 on many.

The Rangers actually have been playing like the worst of the three - they've just been bizarrely clutch. Except when the Jays played them Alright? Doesn't chance the fact that Revere is a much worse hitter against lefties than Valencia, Pennington is a much worse hitter against lefties than Tulo, and Barney is a much worse hitter against lefties than Travis. Three bangers are good. Nine bangers are better.

Darwin is by far the best healthy MIF bat against LHP. Pennington + Goins/Barney platoon is probably the best tactical move, though I could see why Gibby might want to give Goins more experience against LHP given that he'll definitely see some in the playoffs.

I think the "Jays mash lefties" thing might be a little overstated these days: it was a thing when we had Travis, Reyes/Tulo, and Valencia but now we have Pennington, Goins, and Revere.

I thought he was ineligible for the playoffs after having been put on the 60-day DL past Aug 1st. Maybe his retroactive placement gets around this?

Those are completely independent points. You can be uncertain about both of them. Thanks for false dichotomizing though!

Or maybe they've been watching for decades and they understand that a come-from-nowhere rookie who put up 150 great at-bats then got injured is extremely unreliable. Even healthy Travis would be a "that's excellent, prove it's not a fluke" situation. Chronic injury Travis is a whole new level of uncertainty.

"You telling me that our light-hitting SS hit two soft flies off the Monster against this pitcher one time? Better start him in LF at Rogers Centre." Carrera and Valencia were fine. Valencia in particular was learning the position on the fly, acquitting himself well, and thanks to Gibbons is one of the best hitters on the Oakland A's. The OF misery was mostly from playing injured Saunders, injured Pompey, and Hanley Colabello. This was very strangely on display last night. Buck and Pat explained the ridiculousness: Lowe will pitch in the 8th if the game is tied, but Sanchez will pitch in the 8th if there's a lead (and in the 9th if it's still tied). Never mind that Sanchez for his career has been literally the most effective pitcher in baseball against RHH (while being pretty bad against LHH) and the 8th inning had 3 RHHs lined-up (after the lefty faced by Cecil) and the ninth had 2 LHH (one of whom Sanchez walked). His bullpen decisions are weird and arbitrary and the only reason they work is because all the pitchers are pretty good so the possible damage is minimized (except for of course the three times per week that he leaves the starter in too long).

It's mostly evidence that pitching elbows are unreliable.

The skill isn't volatile but it's the most perishable. The performance is extremely volatile, which a) makes evaluation of the skill less certain, and makes the expected results more volatile. For these reasons, it's pretty rational to pay less for defence unless you have a way to systematically reduce the risk. Unlikely. The Tulo contract is much better because a) Tulo is a better player now than Reyes was then, and salary inflation makes Tulo's deal comparatively cheaper.

We were all charged $5 instead of $2.50. We complained, provided the emails we signed-up with, and got the charges reversed. Email them, give them until your statement comes in, if they don't reverse it do a chargeback.

Why'd my reply get removed?

Right, but when you're talking about the value of a player, it's more important to consider the positions he can play play rather than the positions he is playing.

Hutchison should never have been allowed to start the 6th in a close game. By now all managers and most laymen know about the times through the order penalty and that Hutchison is exceptionally vulnerable to it: he has a career opp. OPS of .914 the third time through the order. At that point, literally any reliever is a better option. Hutch is an archetypal short-starter and he needs to be treated like that in close games with deep and fresh bullpens : max 18 batters and 60 pitches. Letting him go any deeper in a close game with a 10-man bullpen is just bad management.