greginpsca

That was Appier's ostrich.

I thought Arte owned the team.

That avatar is pretty funny.

After the collegiate season is over , they should hire Erstad.

That is Donnelly, not Lackey.

Snow and cold weather.

I don't really care if they make it to the 2nd round or not. As long as they kicked the Lickers asses in sweeping the season series. I am happy.

The whole staff now has "Kazmiritis"

The A's will not swing at any breaking pitches, and will walk  6 times as a team.

Can he pitch? Seems that we could use an arm that can throw the ball in the strike zone.

Yarbrough seems like he will be a perfect guy to bat 2nd someday in the Angels lineup.

When the suspension is up, the Angels will release him. I think we will see this as standard operating procedure for the organization in handling offenders.

I thought that was his girlfriend.

These players should get jobs as ditch diggers. They sure know how to dig themselves into deep holes

Fan since the inception of the team.

Turtleman threw out the 1st pitch?  Geez!

In the games i got to see on tv this spring, Hanks bat speed stood out the most to me. He seemed to be more aggressive at the plate, and more confident. Defensively, his ability to block pitches in the dirt and his framing of pitches seemed really improved. Yes he had trouble throwing, although that one game with the 3 throwing errors should be chalked up to having a horrible one game. The other throwing error would have been hardly noticed if it wasn't for that horrible game previous. Just remember the team use to have a catcher who thought 2nd base was in medium cf. I think if Trumbo stumbles out of the gate, we will see Hank getting some dh time when he isn't catching.

855

I don't mind Aybar bunting late in the game when it is a tie or 1 run game. But the 1st inning? NFW!!

If Ryan didn't have an offense comparable to a A ball lineup behind him, he would have won twice as many games. He lost so many games 1-0, or 2-1, it was ridiculous. Because of his wildness, the opposing teams almost always scored their run or runs in the first inning. It use to drive me crazy that the Angels back then would "give up a run for an out" , knowing that run given up would probably cost them the game. As a rule, from the 2nd inning on, Ryan was pretty much unhittable.

I suppose that if Wells starts in left, they give fishing poles to everyone in that section and give a prize to whomever can reel Vernon in.

Glad nobody has berated "Swamp People" yet.   But seriously, one of the funniest shows i have seen in several years is "The Exes".  It doesn't get much exposure because it is on TVLand.

A very generic way to look at it...if you don't do ROC with 1 out, that means to drive in the run you most likely need a hit by the next batter (passed ball, balk, etc. would work as well...but statistically that wouldn't move the needle much)...so, in essence you need a base hit. If you say the average occurrence of a base hit is .300...that means ROC needs to work approximately 3 out of 10 times to break even.

 

So, let's be generous...let's say it needs to work 4 out of 10 times to be considered "successful", and then you take in to consideration that if the runner gets thrown out at home...but stays alive long enough to let the hitter advance to scoring position, a scenario in which a base hit more often than not scores the runner (obviously not as much as from 3rd base, but I'm guessing it's a fairly high ratio).

 

So, back of the napkin...it's really not a huge statistical risk and I'm guessing depending on the general speed of the team it might make the the team more likely to score that inning, and because it doesn't change the number of outs, doesn't have a significant impact on limiting the "big inning".

 

As for why Scioscia has "fallen in love with it". Much like Black Jack...the best way to play the odds is play it consistently. If you are going to buy insurance, you always buy it, or you always don't. If a team "knows it's coming", it doesn't really make any difference, they still have to execute.

The problem with saying to even it out would be .300, is that the Angel hitters that are asked to hit in a ROC are usually hitting about .200 - .220.  The odds of this play working just got worse.

Famous Daves for bbq.  For burgers, it would be Fuddruckers and In n out. Phillipes for French dips.

Sign me up .