By my count, there are eight position players in the Hall of Fame who had a higher on base percentage than slugging percentage.
Four were Veteran’s Committee’s selections:
Ray Schalk
Billy Hamilton
Rick Ferrell
Richie Ashburn
Two were selected by the Old Timer’s Committee, the predecessor to the Veteran’s Committee
Johnny Evers
Roger Bresnahan
The other two were elected by the BBWAA. Can you name them? Â You must give your answer in surnacronym form.
Answers in white text below, highlight to view:
Ozzie Smith and Luke Appling
Surprising Moments Inure To Hall
Offensive Zero, Zenith of Infield Excellence
Christ.
Given the way states are eradicating education policy, it’s hard to blame national republicans for following suit.
It still sucks, though.
On top of my bookshelf I have a Ray Schalk model catcher’s mitt that my grandfather used sometime in the mid-1930’s.
The New York Post at its best:
Meh. Imma go with Teh Intertoobz FTW.
Misread the bottom banner, and thought it was going to be about this guy.
A-fuckin-men:
Kinda Elfin Early League Elite Right-fielder?
Just another FKing reality show?
It might just be that I’m paranoid about privacy, but this seems like the Info Era equivalent of selling a kidney (at least in terms of “great idea!” appeal)…
I don’t get why/how they’re paying people … I understand the security issue/reservation/barrier to adoption — but someone smart enough to be worried about the security issue ain’t gonna be swayed by $50; and if they get enough people participating to make it worthwhile, they won’t have enough money to pay.
There’s certainly something interesting about the conceit — what I think would work better would be a wikileaks-type send-us-all-your-documents project, with instructions for people to physically clip off identifying info before scanning in docs.
Ah, I’ve got it — that outfit is likely run by trial lawyers. Someone’s angling for a massive price-fixing suit.
Uh… wanna rephrase that?
Yikes. Mere blocks away from mb hq.
Slusser’s new-content-free season preview
By “new-content-free” are you describing some sort of sfgate access thing, or characterizing the content of the article as lame? Because if you mean the latter, I couldn’t disagree more.
I mean, it’s about RBIs and lineup protection.
Slusser is a great reporter but, like most beat writers, her analysis is usually underwhelming. Spending the first few paragraphs talking about how everyone gets to hit in their “rightful” place in the order now (which incidentally includes Barton hitting sixth behind Kouz) is pointless babble.
I wouldn’t go quite as far as the last two words there. I think it was patently obvious that Zk and perhaps Kz tried to hit as if they were actual 3-4 hitters — possibly/probably in response to an organizational dictum, or perhaps just not wanting to get Custed. And the fact that, awful as they were/are, they weren’t necessarily among the three worst hitters on the team, is a fact that lies (unaddressed by Slusser) behind the issue.
But, geezus, yeah — Barton 6th? Kz fifth? Stoopid. Though that might not be “analysis” originating with Slusser — she’s usually a pretty accurate barometer of Beane’s thinking.
Well I originally meant as in there’s nothing in there that’s actually broken news to us, but now that you mention it, What Nevermoor Said.
You’re right, there’s nothing new reported. And nevermoor’s right in that everything is measured with classic inexact stats. But she’s not writing for you and the (maybe 1,000 or fewer) A’s fans who’ve already heard of and formed opinions about every offseason move. This is the “here’s what you missed since last season” pre-spring intro article. As such, I thought it rather a good snapshot of the flaws from 2010, the moves to address them, and the key questions heading to AZ. That’s what a good beat writer does in February.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that she isn’t a good beat writer.
Sure sure — but I ain’t writing for the 1001st and above, I’m writing for us.
Hence, my original, quite simple, point: nothing new here.
I guess, since you’re just posting for the benefit of the very well-informed, then I don’t understand why you bothered to link Slusser’s State of the Team piece at all. So I made the assumption it was in order to imply the tiny forearms/impending meteor critique yet again, and in this case, I found that critique misplaced. If you had some other purpose in linking an article you found useless, it escaped me.
Sal–check your email.
Ugh. I am so dumb. Of all the days not to check my email. Thanks anyway.
“It really is an arts town, and has everything Dallas has, except for congested traffic and elevated attitudes.”
Reverse dustbowl migration has Californians heading to Oooooooooooklahoma.
I like OKC too, but I could never live there.
Moving out of the Bay Area a couple years ago has opened up my mind and changed my notion of what my priorities are. I used to think the liberal political and social culture was important; turns out not so much. I live around people with “NObama 2012” and NRA bumper stickers and get along with them fine as long as we talk about recreation and the weather. Easy access to great recreational opportunities is most important and that’s where anyplace in the Midwest is disqualified (never been to Oklahoma City but I can’t imagine it’s much different from Kansas City or St. Louis). I thought Utah would be out of the question due to social climate but Utah is now actually pretty high on the list of possible future destinations.
Yeah, I think OKC fails that critera.
Here’s Stiglich’s entry into the broad Spring State of the A’s contest. Includes team claim that season ticket sales are up 50% over this time last year. Also Beane re Matsui vis Cust: “In the past, when we’ve needed a sacrifice fly or even just a ground ball, sometimes that’s been lacking.””
Matsui has 37 sac flies in 4370 career plate appearances.
Cust has 18 sac flies in 2311 career plate appearances.
That’s almost exactly the same rate: the difference is about 1 sac fly for every 2 years of full time play. And Matsui probably had more opportunities, given the teams they were playing on.
As for productive ground balls, there’s probably a bigger difference there. But the flip side of those are double plays: 91 for Matsui, versus 29 for Cust, a difference of about 5 GIDPs per year.
Remember when the A’s management was the smartest?
In the past, I’d mark a comment like that from Beane as empty, positive rhetoric but now I have a nagging feeling that they actually might believe it…
Ba’al Almighty, but that’s stupid. When did Beane turn into Jim Bowden?
FWIW, one “trend” over the last few years is that Cust seems to have gotten worse at turning his batting abilities into wins while Matsui seems to have been improving in that regard. That said, it’s probably just noise as opposed to any kind of real skill.
Year BRAA / WPA:
Cust
2007 28.2 3.59
2008 23.8 2.55
2009 9.4 0.18
2010 18.8 0.43
Matsui
2007 19.8 0.90
2008 6.4 0.55
2009 20.2 1.44
2010 16.2 2.44
You’d need to do a WPA baseline for this to reach that conclusion (i.e. one explanation would be that the recent A’s teams sucked, so Cust rarely hit with an opportunity to add much WP).
There’s a proverb about removing all doubt that applies here.
A fool’s mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul.
I endorse this 100%.
Anyone know why this isn’t on the long lists of things Conservatives want to cut?
I would guess it has something to do with the zinc lobby.
Wasn’t there some idea to mix zinc into a dollar coin, so net zinc purchasing stays constant?
My dad traveled to London many years ago and brought back some excess local cash. Before mrs trebuchet and I explored London about six years ago, papa trebuchet gave us the coins and bills – amounted to <10 pounds - and told us to spend it down while there.
In the time that had elapsed between pap trebuchet's trip and mine, the pound note had gone out of circulation. Thus, when I went to use it, I had people looking at it like it was counterfeit.
Neyer > Chass.
Murray Chass is still alive? Huh. His stuff seemed dated back when I was a 12-year-old reading him in the Sporting News.
Wholesome All-American Dad that I am, I’m at the horse track with my kids.
Meh – I’m just back from a bar with Lily.
Yeah, but you’re European.
Memo to all you FKing wannabe authors:
A good friend of mine just left her law job to become a book agent, and apparently the way to get out of menial-task-ville in that job is to start finding authors. If any of you are nursing book ideas and have a few chapters I can promise you you’d get a read and notes back.
Let me know.
I am storing this knowledge away for future use.
actually, i do know someone looking for a publisher. i’ll be in contact with you in the next month or so.
Good deal. My screenname at gmail
Fiction or nonfiction?
They do both.
Atlast Shrugged: The movie!
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Part 1?!?
Easy joke (seen elsewhere many places): Part 2 is The Speech.
So, yeah. The hole in Mia’s heart is getting bigger, and it looks like she’s going to be having heart surgery in a month or two. If it’s May, that’ll be right about when Stef is due with JL Jr. v3. We’re planning to come back in July, when she’ll still be needing post surgery meds. No idea yet how we’re going to afford said meds, or how much they cost, or what will be happening re: insurance.
But hey, I just made a snowman and had a snowball fight outside my apartment with the first snow that’s stuck in this town in years.
Yeah, pretty crazy day.
Ah, geez. Hang in there.
Persevere, friend.
That really sucks. Let us know if there is anything we can do.
My understanding is that if you’re coming back for a job she and her preexisting condition must now be covered, but that the individual market is not quite as far along. There are also the high risk government-run pools that may make sense.
Oy … it never rains but it pours (or snows in your case).
Again, if there’s anything any of us can do you know where to find us.
Hang in there JL!
Sending prayers, light, and general good vibes…
I forgot which thread I clicked on, and thought “That’s not a surnacronym I recognize …”
You don’t remember Antoine Splaggv? He sucked at baseball, but boy, he was sure upbeat! One of my favorites…
I think elcroata played with him on a semipro team …
Good luck JL. As others have said, if there’s anything we can do from a world away, let us know what that is. Unless it involves Elliot Smith. Then you’re on your own.
that sucks. She is in good hands with you.
Thanks, guys. It’s good to have your support.
Just don’t hesitate to give us a chance to prove we mean it.
Except the Elliot Smith thing.
(Seriously, I agree with nm)
Perhaps someone with connections or firearms could get the airlines to not be such greedy jerks and not charge me so much for one way tickets back home.
I’m trying to coordinate a one-way flight for my wife and three(!!) kids that could also act as the return flight for my mom and step dad, who would be coming to Japan four weeks and two weeks earlier, respectively. Such a bloody headache.
Can’t you buy returns (which I seem to recall you saying were cheaper) and just not use the inbound portion?
Isn’t this something travel agents can sometimes magically make go away?
Well, as of now, round-trip (return) tickets for the beginning of July are a lot more expensive than a one-way via Singapore Air (which stops in LAX, but not in Singapore). It’s about $2200 for wife + 2 “children” + lap child through them, and I haven’t found round trips for less than $800-1000 more (and the ones I found seem to have disappeared), which might be a bigger deal to me than to most.
Anybody know a good travel agent?
good luck and positive energies, doc.
Interview with a
VampireGMWe’re fucked.
I can’t be the only one that thinks the opposite, can i?
With more efficient throwing mechanics and perhaps even overall conditioning it’s very possible to “teach” velocity (see Anderson, Brett)
Thanks, and go As.
Lilly, too – didn’t Peterson get him a few extra ticks on his fastball?
I watch portions of maybe 3-4 golf tournaments a year tops, but one of those is always the Crosby Clambake at Pebble Beach, because the golf course and the Monterey-Carmel-Big Sur coastline are so freakin beautiful. Some dude named D.A. Points won yesterday, on the strength of an eagle on the 14th hole, one of the hardest holes in all of golf. The Chron’s Ron Kroichick describes it as:
The better analogy for us Bay Area fans would have been Marco Scutaro hitting a walkoff homer off Mariano Rivera.
Stupid-tracker, Entry #4
ZOMG The Giants are inaccessible because they are crazy-far from Denver’s airport.
I’m not going to use Gershman’s age to judge his baseball analysis, but clearly his age comes into play in that post, because he’s apparently too young and probably too poor to rent a car when he goes to any of those cities. I wouldn’t rent a car on a trip to New York or San Francisco, but in most MLB cities a car would be an absolute necessity to enjoy the trip, with places I’ve been to such as Arlington, Anaheim, Kansas City and Milwaukee coming immediately to mind. Edit: (thinking of upcoming spring training trip) And Phoenix, of course. You’re not just going to ballgames, you’re going to restaurants too, maybe even a concert or something. In a sprawled-out, mass transit-challenged place like the Valley of the Sun a car adds enormous value to your trip.
That too. I mostly think the “no one can fly into LGA”/”BWI is the Washington DC Airport” argument is hilarious.
Good to see the salad bar is still in business:
this
For those non-readers of ** this was posted and is pretty disturbing.
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Thanks, and go As.
Ah, that explains it — Matsui is represented by Aramark.
2 prices 1 cup
Turns out it isn’t actually a scam. (warning: NBP)
The small cup isn’t filled to the brim, it’s filled to a lower point, that holds 16 oz. The large holds 20.
More disturbing is that the beer appears to clear.
Soylent beer is made out of people!
Holy shit, there’s a whole lot of stupid going around.
I’m going to have to ask you to stop swearing so much, fella.
That’ll teach you to stay over there.
Is the “tick” getting bigger?
spoon
I’m not sure what this is referring to, exactly, but let me say this: I enjoyed the ebb and flow of 162-game Oakland A’s seasons for many years before Al Gore invented the Internet. To the extent participation in a web site enhances my enjoyment of the season, that’s great, I’ll join in. When I begin to feel participating in the web site is detracting from my day-to-day enjoyment of baseball, I’ll just quit the site and go back to focusing on the games.
there was baseball before the internet?
That’s pretty much exactly how I feel about **.
Yes, that’s what I was referring to; perhaps that wasn’t clear. It was advice to front-pager Dan: Don’t let yourself get so stressed out over the front-page duties and game-thread moderation that you start to lose the enjoyment of the A’s season.
Thanks, soaker. I’ll keep that in mind.
who are you?
He’s PaulThomas with social awareness.
Whoa, what are YOU doing here?
Er, I mean, welcome!
FK: for when real life friends just don’t get how annoying two asterisks are