Your boy Eric Byrnes is playing in deep right field.

For some reason, I kinda like Byrnes. He always ticked me off when he was in Oakland but I think I dig his whole act now.

Fox dropped the ball.

the pregame show.
the hooking up of the keyboard delay for a poor rendition of 'god bless america'.
Tim McCarver.

all bad.

that inside the parker was the first ever at an all-star game, right?

This is great stuff. Love the stream of consciousness insights.

Here are several such comments of mine...

McCarver may have been thinking of his best in triples, which was 13 and which led the NL in 1996.

It looks like you went to bed a bit to early...

As for the Battle of Thermopylae comments, I would have to assume McCarver was referring to the film 300, in which Xerxes was portrayed as a giant.

It was great that they bothered to notice that Victor Martinez has lead all catchers in almost every offensive category over the last 3 years.

One of the biggest differences between the English and Spanish broadcasts was that none of the external stuff made it to foxsportsla. No Mays, no anthems, no US nationalism. When rosters came out countries were mentioned for each player. It was interesting seeing the same chevy truck ad but without the xenophobic music.

BTW: Does anybody know why Estados Unidensos is
EE.UU.? Do they double the leters to indicate plural? Maybe we should call them RR.B.I. ;-)

does fox understand listening to those 2 for 3 hours is aweful????!!! seriously, they cant possibly think those 2 are good.

my favorite part is them trying to recognize pitches.
"92 slider from peavy holy smokes!!!!" ughhhh

and is tony larussa THAT great of a manager. how do you leave the BEST NL totally out of the game? If you want him as a ultility guy THEN PINCH HIT HIM FOR HUDSON.
not to mention he bats bonds second, utley 8th and a guy hitting 260 in beltran 3rd. no wonder the NL loses every year.

1) reyes ("why is he stealing 2nd" (becuase joe buck he NEVER does that or anything)
2) utley
3) griffey
4) bonds
5) wright
6) martin
7) beltran
8) feilder (utley is throwing me some heat over here!!!)
should have been the order

So are you being serious with Beltran or are you just busting his chops? He's maybe not as good as what? He had that 95 ops+ in 2005, but that # was the lowest of his career other than his second full year when he was 23 and had an OPS+ of 68. So you're pulling out two years of his career to make a point? Would you like to, say, throw out his best and worst years and then add up the numbers or something to get a best result?

I'm not even going to add up those numbers, I know that it's going to come out very close to his total career numbers. He's got a 114 OPS+ for his career, beginning as a full-time player at the age of 22. All while playing a very good centerfield and stealing almost 30 bases a year at about an 85% success rate.

Um, what are the negatives that you have with this guy? I can't see any, so why the no-love stance?

Batting Bonds second isn't that crazy of an idea. Rob Neyer was advocating it years ago, and it makes some sense with his consistently ludicrous OBP. It does have the effect of getting him more at-bats in both the long run and (possibly) the short run -- as long as you don't ask him to change his approach (and what do you suppose he would say if you did?), it would probably work out pretty well.

Fair question, Nathaniel. He was paid perennial MVP candidate money, has a reputation that I would say is about in line with his contract and I would just say he falls a good bit short of that.

But as you laid out, he is a very good player.

I wish someone would revoke all FOX rights to broadcast baseball. Given the slower nature of the game compared with football, there's too much exposure for the comedy team of Zelasko and Kennedy. At least there was just one shameless shilling of a network program, when Zelasko "interviewed" Homer Simpson to promote the upcoming movie (although that was fairly well done: Maglio Ordonez as Sideshow Bob?). Thankfully there were no actors from FOX shows in the crowd to chat up as there seem to be during the World Series ("So, Keifer, what would Jack Bauer, your character on 24 find more troublesome: nuclear terrorists or standing in against a Billy Wagner fastball?"), And they wonder why ratings are down? I would much rather have seen more of Jeter and Griffey with Willie Mays.

RE: C Joseph

1) this is an all star game so getting more ABs in one game dosent matter becuase he was going to play th whole game anyway
2) the difference between batting 2nd and 3rd throughout the cant be more than 10 ABs difference.
3) i understand the OBP arguement, but, this is an all star game...he could have used his amazing OBP in front of griffey or wright or fielder...my point being that the lineup is so loaded him getting on base in front of anyone would be great...
and him hitting second dosent make sense also because of how slow he is...clogging up the bases

i can see how it might make sense in the reg. season to bat second, but def. not inthe all star game

To be fair, I didn't actually watch the game, but even in the All Star game, it seems like it could bring about an extra at-bat before he has to play very many innings in the field and be benched. After all, it is just an exhibition. (Which is why I didn't watch it.)

That said, batting Beltran third in a lineup that has a resurgent Griffey, Bonds, Utely, and Wright probably isn't the best idea.

As to point number two, that's a complicated question to answer, and I don't have the data to do it right now. My memory is that batting leadoff can garner a hitter as many as 60-70 extra at-bats over batting lower in the order. Even if the difference between batting third or fourth and batting second is only ten at-bats, with a guy like Bonds, that's still five times on base, including an extra-base hit. It's not massive, but it's not completely negligible either.

The whole batting order question is an extremely difficult one to answer. Most compuer simulations I've seen seem to indicate that an optimal arrangement would be to have your two best hitters bat second and fourth, which seems intuitively correct to me, if not completely in line with received wisdom. Of course, those simulations are what they are -- computer simulations. If you asked Bonds to bat second on a regular basis, he could have any of a number of negative reactions that could have a deleterious effect on his performance: He could pout, he could change his approach, he could press, and so on. Computer simulations wouldn't take that into account.

Those 10 or so ABs ARE negligible when you consider he has fewer RBI chances throughout the whole season batting second.

yeah a lead off hitter will get more ABs because the way the lineup turns over in a 27 out game blah blah, obviously the leadoff hitter will get more ABs than someone farther down the order.

but the only difference between 2nd and 3rd would be every time the number 2 hitter makes the last out in a game with the 3rd hitter on deck..probably wont happen that much.

its pretty well known that you want a guy who can bunt and move guys over to bat second.

in an all star game, u can just wait another inning to give bonds another AB lol...there is a huge difference between batting 2nd in the all star game and throughout the year...bonds shouldnt be htting 2nd in either