...And Down The Stretch They Come! MLB enters the home stretch

I just finished watching the Braves win with a walk-off home run from Justin Upton, and while baseball is still fresh in my brain, and before I switch my brain into English Premier League mode, I feel like I should type about baseball.  I think it's time to take a look around the leagues quick and see what's up.  

But before we look at the standings, remember Antonio Alfonseca?  That dude had six fucking fingers.  

Anyway...

 Fun.

Prediction for the AL?  I think it ends up being exactly as it is right now.  Perhaps Oakland will win the west, and Texas makes the wild card game, but that's about all I'd change.  

National League!!!!

Also fun, but maybe not as fun.  

The Dodgers and Braves have insurmountable leads.  The Reds are surging, the Cardinals are bleeding and the Pirates are hanging in there.  To me, the National League is a five team race already.  It will end up exactly how it is, and that's the way it should be.  Arizona has no business in the postseason this year. Neither do the Gnats.  

Three quarters of the season is over already.  I'm not one to advocate the watching of American League games often, but now I must do so.  There's just so much left to be decided out there.  Alright, have a good day, and go Arsenal! 

Leave Human Error In The Game of Baseball

Alright, I'm staying up tonight and catching the only late night baseball game happening, and it's the Padres and Mets.  I'm pretty sick of watching the Mets at this point, but what am I supposed to do?  They're the only game on right now.  Anyway, during the broadcast, they brought up the fact that MLB is flirting with the idea of expanding instant replay.  Call me old school, which you can freely do, but I can't stand the idea of replay in baseball.  I understand it's usefulness on home run calls, because there's no umpire out there to get a good look at that ball traveling at a high rate of speed, weather it's a home run or not.  I don't like it, but I understand how it's useful.  My problem is that baseball isn't football.  It isn't hockey.  It isn't basketball.  It's not tennis.  It's baseball, the game that at it's core, is the best at keeping the game the same for it's entire life. The reason is so you can debate whether Joe DiMaggio was a better player than Mickey Mantle.  Or Ted Williams compares to Hank Aaron.  Or whatever you want to compare.  Because I believe that this game is the closest you can get to transplanting players from generation to generation, because the game is quite similar to the previous generations.  You cannot put a hockey player or football player or basketball player from today and put them in the league in the 50's, because they will be far and away superior an athlete. Johnny Unitas would be a furniture salesman in 2013.

(the irony of this post, as I've gone on to a tangent, is that there's a "disputed" home run call that's being reviewed by the umpires.)

Shit Happens

Anyway, there's an aspect of baseball that I believe we all should have to live with, as our fathers and grandfathers had to live with, and that's human error.  I prefer an ump to blow a call every now and then.  My team, the Braves, lost their season (sort of) last year on a blown call by an umpire.  That's just the way it goes, man.  Bummer.  I love baseball and I want my team to win, but it's not, and should not be, the end of the world if your team doesn't win.  It's just a game.  I've grown so tired of the NFL, with constant analysis of every single play, every single little thing gets nitpicked to make sure the call is right.  Who gives a shit?  Just play the damn game.  Quit worrying about what the ref called.  If you don't want the referee to be a factor, play good enough that it doesn't matter if they blow a call against you.

Tony Gwynn is doing color analysis during this broadcast tonight, and he said he is a convert of the replay issue.  He used to be against it, but is for it now because he doesn't want to see teams get screwed by bad calls anymore.  Fine, I understand that argument, but he then sited the Armando Galarraga game for the Tigers, the game against the Indians a few years ago, where a blown call cost that kid a perfect game.  He said if there wasn't a blown call, he would have a perfect game and we would remember that for the rest of our lives.  Let me ask you, don't you remember it anyway?  Perhaps, if you're like me, you remember it better because the incident happened?  Baseball is a story, and people are around to remember those stories and tell others about it.  If you love baseball, you love the human error aspect as much as you love a beautiful curve ball that cripples a batters knees.  People make mistakes, and that's what makes baseball special, because it's played by people, not robots.  Just because the technology exists, doesn't mean it makes the game better.  Leave human error in the game, for the love of the game.  

Bud Norris Makes O's Debut...Against the Team That Traded Him

Today is the first day of the "dog days of August."  This is the month where your favorite team plays against it's divisional enemies like 80% of their games.  As a Braves fan, this means a ton of Nationals, Phillies and Marlins games.  Also as a Braves fan, this is a good thing.

Today's match ups are okay, I suppose, but there is one game on the schedule today/tonight that really got me intrigued.

Here's all the starters and what not from around baseball today.

As you can see as of my writing this, the Indians have already beaten the White Sox today 6-1.  It's interesting because I would have maybe picked Masterson against Sale as a potential Match Up Of The Day candidate, because Chris Sale can't get a win despite pitching quite well lately.  Anyway, he lost again, and I feel bad for him because he's a good pitcher on a terrible team.  

The most intersting thing on the schedule today has to be Bud Norris making his Orioles debut against the team that just traded him to Baltimore, the Astros.  I wonder who has the advantage here, the hitters who have seen every one of Norris' starts this season, so they know what he likes to throw, or Norris, who knows these hitters weaknesses?  I imagine that since the O's are a far superior team that they will probably win, but it's a weird element to what would normally have been a rather mundane Thursday night game in Baltimore.  

Matt Cain against Cole Hammels is interesting because they're both regarded as top pitchers, but they've not performed up to their expectations this season.  In fact, neither the Phillies nor the Giants have played like themselves this year.  But that's really all that makes this interesting.  The game itself is pretty meaningless.

Will the Royals finally lose? They're playing right now and I don't know the score, but they're heating up, as much as the Royals can really heat up, I suppose.  I believe the term for them would be "Streaky."

Hey, how about those red hot Atlanta Braves, eh?

Okay, that's all for today.  Enjoy baseball.  

Probable Pitchers for 7-23-13 around the MLB

Tough day here at Safety Squeeze.  Why is that?  Trying to pick a pitching match up to highlight for tonight.  Sure, there are some quality pitchers toeing the rubber this evening, but most of them are against far infurior pitchers.  Well, see for yourself...

You see, not much to choose from.  Even the pitchers that are quality aren't that great.  I suppose this is what you get when everyone is on their fifth start after the All-Star break.  But if I have to choose one, I'll go with Jose Fernandez of the Marlins against Jhoulys Chacin of the Rockies.  Now, this game features two teams that are not doing too well in the grand scheme of the National League, but both of these pitchers are notable for different reasons.  Jose Fernandez is expected to be the teams ace...eventually.  He's pitched well this season, especially for a rookie on the worst team in the NL (maybe.)  Jhoulys Chacin is just flat out pitching over his head, but until he proves to me and everyone else that he's coming back to earth, I have to expect he's going to have a quality outing time in and time out.  I think Fernandez will be a solid starter...eventually. Right now he's doing fine, and I'll be curious to see how this one shakes out.  Well, as curious as anyone would be when the Rockies and Marlins get together.  

Okay, that's it for today.  Watch some baseball, eh?

7-22-13 Probable Starters

Probably the biggest story of the past few days in this post-All-Star game period is the potential trade of Matt Garza from the Cubs to anywhere else, which completely fell apart for Texas. The Cubs tried to jump the gun and get something for Garza ten days before they had to, asking teams for their best offers now, presumably in an attempt to get good prospects before they are moved in other deals. It's a logical move, but you can't really hold another team's feet to the fire like you can at 3:58 PM on July 31st, when teams get desperate and show their hands, finally indicating the prospects they're willing to deal. 

Starters for July 22nd (and thank goodness there's so many games on a Monday!)

The best matchup I see is for the two guys who pitched first and second for the AL in the All-Star game, Scherzer vs. Sale at Chicago. The Pale Hose are in the crapper this year and don't have much of a farm system to speak of (Baseball America ranks them 26th) but they aren't interested in trading Sale and I don't blame them - he has too many years of team control and the Sox could easily get back into contention. You also have Tom Gorzelanny making his first start in a while. Matt Garza might get a start in before he gets traded, or he could get the Ubaldo Jimenez treatment (he got traded mid-game after pitching an inning. You would think Cleveland would have re-evaulated after seeing him give up four runs.) He coincidentally is also throwing. Yu Darvish is coming off the DL - you see a lot more players take the DL stint this time of year over working through an injury since the All-Star break keeps a player off the field regardless.  

Don't forget, Big Gorzy is pitching. Enjoy the games today. Too bad there's no day ball!

Probable Starters for MLB 7-21-13! Harvey vs Lee

So what happened here?  I'm allergic to posting in July or something?  I'll tell you what happened, I had my family visiting for the week of the 4th of July and didn't really have the boring downtime to write up the daily pitching matchups of the days.  Then the family left and I felt weird jumping back into it as if nothing happened, and now I'm sitting here wondering what went wrong after that?  I guess it was just an All-Star break.  Not much to write about there, except perhaps a recap, in my own opinion, of the first half of the season.  But I didn't do that either.  Now I'm here, back at the same spot before I had a week or two of posts that were not even that bad for once.  Oh well, let's just jump back into it.

Today there are many pitching match ups that you should be aware of, and some are better than others, as usual.  That's why I highlight one here and call it the Safety Squeeze Pitching Matchup of the Day ™

First off, a screen grab of those match ups from around the league.  (also I think I'll finally admit that matchup is two words starting now.)

For me, I have to choose Cliff Lee against Matt Harvey.  Matt Harvey had a bit of a coming out moment getting to start the All-Star game on Tuesday, which is nice for him.  I mean, he mostly got the nod because he's the home town hero right now, as much as the Mets have as far as heros go.  He's been solid, as many predicted.  Cliff Lee is absolutely no slouch, in fact, I'd say he's at least top five in the world.  Too bad he plays for the Phillies.  And too bad Harver pitches for the Mets, too.  Because I really want to like these guys, but man, I just can't do it too loudly because of the hats they wear.  I pick this one because I really don't know who's going to win this game.  I think the Mets are a better team than the Phillies (seriously) but Cliff Lee is too good to lose to the Mets.  What a quandary.  

Other notable match ups include Doug Fister against "Big Game" James Shields.  Did you know Big Game James gave himself that nickname?  YOU CAN'T DO THAT JIMMY.  It doesn't work that way.  Other people have to call you a name before it becomes a nickname that can be repeated,  

Enjoy baseball today.  

Make Love Not WAR (wins above replacement)

So this morning I learned what Wins Above Replacement, or WAR is all about.  I thought it was probably stupid based upon it's name, and after actually looking into what it calculates, I would say it's not as stupid as I thought it would be, but it's still a rather useless statistic.  So basically it measures how much better a player is better than an average AAA-level or bench player?  That's stupid.  Number one, not all AAA players are average.  Sometimes a guy comes up and rips it up because he's pumped about playing in the majors.  It measures how valuable a player is to the team.  Like as if to say "without him, we'd be stuck with this jabroni over here and we'd be screwed."  Okay, fine, but if you watched a baseball game once in a while, you would see a guys value using your own two eyes, no?  Why not just look at his ERA, or even his SIERA?  Wins?  K's? I get that WAR is a composite score of a dudes value, but it doesn't tell me much.  So Cliff Lee and Clayton Kershaw have really good WARs?  NO SHIT.  Just look at any of their regular, standard numbers and you could gather that yourself.  Or better yet, watch a Phillies or Dodgers game.  That's how I figured it out.  I don't need WAR and I will probably forever roll my eyes whenever I hear or read anyone mention it.

I'm stuck in this spot between embracing advanced stats and stepping back and realizing that advanced stats are clearly for people that don't watch baseball.  I don't watch Rockies games, so I can learn how Michael Cuddyer is doing by reading about his WAY inflated BABIP this morning.  Makes sense to me, because he's Michael Cuddyer, so I knew something was up.  There's no way the Michael Cuddyer I remember could be putting up these kind of numbers without some luck.  But I imagine if I watched a few Rockies games, I could tell you he's on a hot streak right now, and baseball has this wonderful thing called Regression to the Mean, where every player either gradually gets better or worse over the course of a career.  Any jumps in productivity means their slumping or on a hot streak.  Many, many players throughout the season and throughout the history of baseball go up and down throughout their careers.  Things like BABIP help to show you when that's happening so you don't have to watch baseball, because who would ever want to do that?