|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 177 OF 914 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
May-17-10
 | | Phony Benoni: <JB> Got the figures for San Francisco. Since 1958, they are under .500 against two teams: the Dodgers (as you guessed) and the Braves. Very close against St. Louis and Cincinnati, but still ahead. Florida .619
Arizona .564
Colorado .555
New York .539
San Diego .5322
Milwaukee .5319
Philadelphia .531
Pittsburgh .524
Washington .520
Chicago .517
Houston .515
Cincinnati .506 (392-383)
St. Louis .505 (320-314)
Atlanta .494 (382-392)
Los Angeles .483 (439-470)
Through the mid-1970s, they trailed only the Braves. In 1977 they were finnaly ahead of all the other teams, but then fell behind both the Braves and Dodgers. They also bounced back and forth with St. Louis and Cincinnati. Their overall winning percentage in the period was .518, which does not look very good against the Yankees. |
|
| May-17-10 | | Jim Bartle: Interesting. By 1977 the Dodgers had won the league or division six times and the Giants twice. I guess the Dodgers had a few really bad periods in there, while the Giants were pretty consistently a second-place team. No surprise that the Giants are barely over .500 in SF. They've had periods of losing, and even in most of their good years they've only won 90-95 games. |
|
May-17-10
| | Phony Benoni: My impression is that the Dodgers generally had a better record, but the Giants kept close in head-to-head games due to the rivalry factor. You know, the old "You can throw away the records for this one" cliché. |
|
| May-17-10 | | playground player: <Jim Bartle> I remember what happened to Brien Taylor, whom you accurately described as a total bust for the Yankees. After Taylor signed a humongous contract negotiated by his mother... he blew his arm out in a rockfight with some local teens! I wonder if he got to keep the money. <Phony Benoni> Your research is awesome. Unlike <Jim Bartle>, I grew up with the Giants in New York... so, Jim, I guess my Giants were better than your Giants! But it may be that the best is yet to come. |
|
| May-17-10 | | Jim Bartle: Taylor blew out his arm in a rockfight? Unbelievable. In that case I think the team would have a case to get some of its money back. |
|
| May-17-10 | | Jim Bartle: The Giants-Dodgers rivalry was white-hot during the 60s. The Padres didn't exist yet, so they were the only NL teams on the west coast. Plus the only Giants games on TV were the nine games from LA. Giants fans despised Drysdale, Regan, Perranoski, and Maury Wills. Everybody had a lot of respect for Koufax, though, and for Jim Gilliam. Giants' fans got incredibly frustrated with the Dodgers ability to scratch out a few runs on cheap hits on their rock-hard infield, despite really having no hitters at all (this is post 1963). |
|
May-18-10
 | | keypusher: <Ken Henderson, failed to become the next Willie Mays (this is totally unfair--not a bust, formed excellent OF with Mays and Bonds)> Bill James wrote that the Giants in the 60s judged outfielders according to the Willie Mays standard -- if they weren't as good as Willie Mays, the Giants got rid of them. No idea if that is true. He also wrote that the post-63 Dodgers weren't really bad hitters, but their ballpark made them seem bad. On the road they put up decent numbers. No idea if that's true either. |
|
| May-18-10 | | Jim Bartle: The truth cannot stand up against the anger and frustration of a fifteen-year-old Giants fan! Yes, Willie Davis in particular was a good hitter whose numbers looked terrible playing in Dodgers Stadium during the most pitcher-friendly era of the past hundred years (or since 1920). Ron Fairly, Jim Gilliam, and even Wes Parker were also probably pretty decent hitters. And Tommy Davis, of course, before his injury. My immediate thought about the Giants getting rid of outfielders was that it wasn't true, but the list is long: Felipe Alou, Matty Alou, Downtown Ollie Brown, Garry Maddox, Bobby Bonds, Garry Matthews, Ken Henderson, and Willie Mays (when he was no longer <Willie Mays>). They also traded George Foster to Cincinnati without giving him a chance; they figured they didn't need him. Henderson was no longer as good as Bonds-Maddox-Matthews, so his trade wouldn't count. but the later trades of those other three were to some extent out of frustration of not reaching expectations, or of just having a long slump (Maddox). All three had good careers post-SF. |
|
May-18-10
| | Phony Benoni: Just for fun, I looked at the Dodgers' record against other clubs since they moved west in 1958. They almost pulled out the sweep, falling just one game behind St. Louis during the 2009 season. Their overall percentage is .538, far better than the Giants. If you want to compare player statistics at home vs. the road, Retrosheet can help out. Find a player, then click on the <splits> link for each year. One of the breakdowns is home vs. road. For example, here's Willie Davis for 1965: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... .206 at home, .265 on the road. Someone else can have fun with this; I've done enough research for a while. |
|
| May-18-10 | | Jim Bartle: Willie Davis: 14 walks with 550 at-bats? Not good. And this from the fastest player in the league. |
|
| May-18-10 | | Jim Bartle: I think I just saw an umpire make a bad call intentionally for the first time ever. Pedroia took a 3-1 pitch which looked low, and took off for first base, the ump called a strike. Didn't look too pleased with Pedroia, who didn't complain. 3-2 pitch, same general area, but lower and farther outside. Pedroia starts toward first base, a little delay, and the ump very emphatically calls strike three. The pitch was clearly not a strike. The ump had to do it to get back at Pedroia for "showing him up." |
|
| May-19-10 | | technical draw: Hey, the list is out. The top ten sports team name value. This is of course the merchandising value of a team. Here they are. 1. New York Yankees
2. Manchester United
3. Real Madrid FC
4. Dallas Cowboys
5. Barcelona FC
6. Bayern Munich
7. Arsenal
8. Boston Red Sox
9. New York Mets
10. New England Patriots
From $328 million to $150 million. Sports talks, chess walks. |
|
| May-19-10 | | NakoSonorense: Is that a new list? I remember Manchester United being first last year. Or was it a different list? |
|
| May-19-10 | | technical draw: This is the brand new list. Just came out today. You're right, Manchester United was first last year. |
|
| May-19-10 | | twinlark: I see the Tumbarumba Wombats haven't made the list yet. The top ten million that is, but they're working on it. |
|
May-20-10
| | Phony Benoni: <twinlark> Too bad John Lennon wasn't a fan of the club. We could have had a lyric like this: <Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna,
Tumbarumba Wombats.
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance...> |
|
| May-20-10 | | twinlark: My thoughts exactly. Or maybe even like:
<Oompa Loompa doompadee doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doompadah dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me
What do you get following a bad team?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of thirteen
Why not try the Tumbarumba Wombats?
Or do you think that this really lacks?
You'll get no
You'll get no
You'll get no
You'll get no
You'll get no commercials
Oompa Loompa Doompadee Dah
If you're not greedy you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Tumbarumba Wombats do> |
|
| May-20-10 | | playground player: The year Omar Moreno played for the Yankees--ostensibly to be their leadoff man--they gave him a contract that called for him to be paid per at-bat. Walks are not official at-bats: therefore Omar got paid for striking out, but not for getting a base on balls. He soon figured that out. What he didn't figure out was that a leadoff man who NEVER gets on base is gonna be gone toot-sweet! Really, you've got to wonder about some of these contracts teams offer to players. What are they thinking? |
|
| May-20-10 | | Jim Bartle: I never knew that. All these performance-based clauses in contracts are a problem, as managers/coaches are forced to take them into consideration while running the teams. When I first started reading Bill James in the mid-80s, Omar Moreno was his #1 example of a bad player. People thought he was a good leadoff man because he could steal bases, but James pointed out he hurt his teams because he was on base so seldom. In 1984 James wrote, and I quote: "Eccch. Unless Buddy Biancalana happens to make the Royals, Omar Moreno is the worst player in the major leagues. There can be absolutely no excuse for writing his name on a lineup card." At baseball-almanac.com his nickname is given as Omar the Out Maker. |
|
May-20-10
| | keypusher: And here's a 1985 column from the Lawrence World-Journal headlined "Moreno proves James Wrong For Now." Pretty good column, actually, featuring an interview with the great man (no, not Moreno). http://news.google.com/newspapers?n... Ain't Google something? |
|
| May-20-10 | | Jim Bartle: How cool is this?
Brooks Conrad, 30-year-old with 100 career ABs, your basic career minor leaguer on the bench with Atlanta for a while. Braves trail 9-6 in the ninth, bases loaded. Phenom Jason Heyward strikes out. Conrad pinch hits, drives a ball toward the wall in left, stops past first base with his hands on his head, starts back to the dugout thinking the ball was caught, almost gets run over by teammates celebrating his walk-off grand slam. The ball had bounced off the leftfielder's glove and over the fence. Conrad probably won't have much of a career. But he'll remember today. Money quote: "I don't know why I'm so tired. I only ran once today." |
|
May-20-10
| | Phony Benoni: http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/video... Conrad sure didn't take the Grand Tour around the bases. I think he wanted to score before he woke up. |
|
May-21-10
| | keypusher: Wow, wonderful clip. So there were two grand slams in that game? What's the record? I assume Lou Gehrig still holds the grand slam record? Pretty amazing for a guy with fewer than 500 HRs. I wonder if some sabermetrician has ever calculated percentage of grand slams hit v. opportunities? But I guess box scores don't provide the necessary data. |
|
May-21-10
| | Phony Benoni: <keypusher> Baseball Almanac has stuff like this. For grand slam records by players, see http://www.baseball-almanac.com/rec... Gehrig's 23 still leads the way. Willie McCovey holds the NL record with 18. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/rb_...
gives two games with three grand slams each:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... In the Wrigley Field game, Larry Andersen was probably Houston's Player of the Game. |
|
May-21-10
| | keypusher: It's funny, I was clicking on various players' names from the Cubs game to see their lifetime stats. I noticed that Pete Incaviglia hit 30 HRs his rookie year and never managed 30 in a season again. So then I looked up Rob Deer, and -- what do you know? -- 33 homers his first full year, and that was his career high. I guess part of it is that these guys got fewer and fewer plate appearances over the years as their managers realized they would never stop striking out. The only other guy I could think of to check was Steve Balboni. He reached his career high (36) his second full year, but he was already 28 years old. He was also a model of bat control compared to Incaviglia and Deer -- his career high in strikeouts was 166. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 177 OF 914 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
