DrungoHazewood

Don't make fun of my stories! Gots to watch my stories!

Yea, Earl Webb is still safe. That record hasn't been seriously approached very often. Every once in a while someone will put up over 30 in half a season, but invariably they fall way off the pace. Nobody has hit 60 doubles in a season since the 30s. Helton came close in 2000. And (bizarrely, I didn't know about this) Nicholas Castellanos had 58 laste year, the only person in the top 75 who switched teams in mid-season. The highest doubles rates for years are 1930, 2007, 2006, 2008, 1932, and 2004. They've been off a bit the last 10 years but are still in the top ~25 seasons of all time. But still, nobody's seriously challenged Webb, who was a minor league star in the independent high minors of the 1920s and didn't have a full MLB season until he was almost 30. The professional record is 100, by Lyman Lamb of Tulsa in the Western League in 1924. I believe that's the record by 25 doubles, no one else in any league ever hit more than 75 doubles in a season. The preceding two years Lamb hit 68 and 71. In 54 MLB games he doubled 11 times.

There have been 24 players with 31 to 41 rWAR through age 26. 17 of them (71%) are in the Hall. The ones not in the Hall are: Vada Pinson (I think he had back problems, declined badly in late 20s/early 30s) Cesar Cedeno (Fell apart in late 20s) Sherry Magee (Could be in the Hall, but isn't) John McGraw (Was done by 30, probably because of 19th century diseases like typhoid) Jim Fregosi (Injured? Didn't play a full season after 29) Joe Jackson (banned for throwing World Series) Dick Allen (personality and other problems that kind of put Manny to shame)

I'm a huge Manny fan, but what records were those? All I can come up with is most doubles by an American League player in the first half of a season since 1997.

Once it's on the tee-vee it's fair game.

Baseball might not like the answer to who gets more viewers: Akron - Southern Illinois, or Brewers - Mariners.

Baseball is highly localized, football isn't, at least in part because of gambling (and its cousin, fantasy football). Except the Yanks/Sox/Dodgers, almost all baseball games draw fewer eyeballs out-of-home-market than MTV's latest series about illiterate homeless 14-year-olds impregnated by Sasquatch.

During the Olympics they will put curling and biathlon on, like, CSPAN12 or that channel that's a 24/7 infomercial about suing companies because you once used baby powder. I'm sure they'd do something similar with baseball playoffs.

Prior was a pitcher. It wasn't a question of whether or not his arm was going to fall off, but of when. His just fell off after a few really good seasons.

Like I said before, I'm not sure anyone fully believed it was that big. They believe it's a thing, but just not that huge. And truthfully, we're not usually comparing Molina to the worst ever. We're comparing him to his backups. And his primary backup that year was Ryan Hanigan who was +6 in 603 innings. So that's a small fraction of a run a game, and even less in a few innings of a save situation.

By Fangraphs' reckoning, in 2014 Jose Molina was +17 runs in framing in 628 innings. In 2008 Ryan Doumit was -63 runs in 909 innings. That means that, per 1350 innings (9 x 150 games) the delta between those performances is +36 - (-94) = 130 runs or 13 wins. In Barry Bonds' best, most steroid-influenced season he was 12.7 wins above replacement for his batting + fielding + baserunning. So I guess if you compare him to Chris Davis' worst than the extremes of framing aren't quite as wide as everything else put together.

I was referring to Jose more than anyone else. In '14 he had a .417 OPS yet was still the Rays' primary catcher presumably because he could trick the ump into calling a ball a strike.

Debate strategy 101: Start by telling your opponent they're totally illogical, and close by telling your opponent their argument is total nonsense. Only when you've accepted this can we craft a compromise that benefits everyone.

How about we pick to not skip any seasons? That would be my preference.

I think the magnitude was so big that nobody really could quite believe it, even the players themselves. And they all think it's going to go away. We did see things like random Molinas signing MLB contracts and playing quite a bit when they were hitting .193 with no power and the speed of Matt Wieters wearing cinder blocks, presumably because framing.

That's why you do the math, so you can figure out the relative importance of each of those. It at least appears that in edge cases framing is hugely important, much more so than most of the rest of your list, which I find ridiculous and in desperate need of fixing. Folks like Tom Tango, who I very much trust, stick by the current framing metrics. Which means at the extremes like Molina and Doumit framing has more of an impact per inning or game than a top hitter. It's comical, baseball should be embarrassed by it, but it's apparently true.

Probably because it's a thing now, and was then. It's a little like the ability to hide an extra ball in the tall outfield grass in 1890s. It's a little devious, and technology (gas mowers) came along that eliminated it. But if you couldn't do it back in the day you were behind the curve.

18th of 60-some #2 overall picks in career value. So top third of a really highly regarded group of ballplayers. In other words, 70% of #2 picks were worse, and almost half of them had careers worth less than Prior's best season. But it's the draft, and if a top five pick doesn't go to Cooperstown he's a disappointment. Success is getting to the 95th percentile.

I think they might consider a cap if it's tied to a percentage of revenues that's significantly higher than today, along with a floor that's a lot higher than today's floor. A cap is kind of irrelevant if the teams have to pay out 47% of revenues in player salaries and they're paying out 41% today. The only thing it will really impact are the gargantuan contracts, because the big teams won't be able to add payroll without limits.

20/20 hindsight. Which is kind of a cynical way to look at the draft through a retroactive crystal ball. The Tigers didn't have the greatest scouts ever, or a bunch of wizards, telling them to pick Justin Verlander #2 in 2004. They just had the #2 pick and most of the league would have taken him. Just like in 2006 when the Rockies took Great Reynolds #2, they weren't idiots, he was going to go in the top few picks in any case, but he just didn't work out. Bowden is going back in time and telling us which lottery numbers were worth it based on which got picked out of the ping pong ball machine.

Right. He's not saying it's overrated now, in that some catchers can fool the ump into calling balls strikes. But in a few years strikes will be strikes and balls will be balls and all this framing nonsense will be history.

No incentive in the NCAA to punish or catch cheating? Besides the implication that the playing field is slanted towards the cheaters and no one cares? That the sports are essentially illegitimate, not unlike pro wrestling? How would I know if teams get around the salary cap in the NFL or NHL?

You said that cheating in the NCAA was not just commonplace, but accepted and expected. But then that cheating on caps and restrictions in MLB would never happen. I don't know that there's any justification for that beyond your wish that it will be true.

No, I just like poking fun at your more absurd proclamations. Such as the NWSL being poised to pass MLB in popularity.

The Spirit's average home crowd will only be down about 6100 a game compared to last year.