Here's my thought about it: We can sit here and say "what if" about different games that didn't go our way over the season. In reality, that's baseball. That's why you play the games. This is how I look at it: We lost Matt Kemp (the best player in the game) for over 50 games and we still could crack 85 wins. That itself, makes us pretty spoiled that we're even in this position right now IMO. Yeah, the new additions didn't work right away, but look what's happening now. There needs to be a time for adjustment period. If we don't get in, I'm damn excited for what this team will bring for next year. Moving on to another topic, The Cardinals' luck has to run out. Sick of that franchise getting incredibly lucky year-in and year-out. Barely sneaking into the playoffs, almost choking a playoff lead, just ridiculous performances from old has been players (Berkman, Beltran). Bottomline is they've been lucky for awhile. That shit needs to run out.
I've been really stoked for these final 3. I'm going on Tuesday I believe. But I hope when I check the score tonight I am not let down, you know?
2 weeks ago I thought we'd be out of it by now 10 days ago, the same thing but for the past week I've hoped for one thing... just let us still be in it for the final series and here we are we might not control our own destiny but we're still in it and now the one thing I hope for is this... that we're still in it tomorrow and tomorrow, the day after that and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that all the way into late October/early September whether rational or not hell, who would have thought we'd have gone 7-2 and 5-0? don't look now... but WE are the hottest team in baseball every year there's one team one team that gets hot at the right time the one team NO ONE wants to play and guess what? that one team THIS year is us now if only we can somehow manage to sneak into the postseason all we can do is win out the season don't worry about the Cards, let THEM worry about US what, you don't think they're looking over their shoulders the pressure is now on them, not us they're supposed to win (see US Ryder Cup team) dare to dream Go Dodgers!
Kemp's WAR last year was 8.8 (career best). Normalize that to 5.0 and his effect on those 50 games would have been MAYBE 2 wins... that would mean tied for the second WC... I'm not a fan of saying "we lost Kemp, we had this and that injury" because then you also have to say "Cruz has overachieved, and we won a shit load of games in April and May with a AAA lineup"... as you said, the games have to be played.. I do like what the future holds... our lineup next year will be BEYOND sick... the Cards luck also amazes me... how do they do it? sure its a solid team, no doubt, but their rotation is not that good (or at least shouldnt be)... they just find a way to keep winning every year... i hate them...
shocking... not the table, but that you posted it not using a poem style... I remember when we used to OWN Cain... how times have changed...
This is why I don't agree with Sabermetrics. You must be outside your mind if you think having a healthy, dominant, MVP caliber Matt Kemp for all 162 games only helps us for two games. We had Tony fucking Gwynn Jr taking his spot. We obviously should've played better over the course of the year; but not having Kemp and Ethier together (they were our only stars) was killer.
I like the poem thing. fuck the giantsthey are retardslets sweep these bitchesand chant "fuck the cards"
again, if you count that you need to take away the work that Cruz has done, Capuano's solid season and even AJ's decent batting... also, remember that Kemp comes up around 4.25 times per games, that would translate into 213 ABs. As he hits, lets say, .333 (being SUPER optimistic), that translates into around 71 hits. His regular replacement, say Rivera, Gwynn, Abreu (who actually was hitting well at some point) can be counted for a, lets say, .240 (low balling them), which in 213 ABs is 51 hits. The difference between Kemp and the replacement could have been 20 hits, or about 1 hit every 2.5 games. Many of those 20 games where he would have got a hit it would have meant a difference??? and again, I set a really high AVG for Kemp and a mediocre avg for the replacement... the reality is that a healthy Kemp would have produced around 3 more Ws... remember, this is baseball, where there's other 8 players around you that need to produce...
I looked it up a while ago. Teams are designated as teams A, B, and C. Teams A & B play. Team C plays the winner at the home of A or B. The winner of the second game is the WC. Designation of A,B, and C is 1st decided by head-to-head records. I think it's decided by a random drawing after that. In the case of a St Louis/Mil/LA tie it should go to a drawing because all teams have a winning record against one team and a losing record against the other.
poetry rules tonight I'll be drinkingand smoking some bluntsand we WILL beat the giantsthose no cal homo cunts
Well, it isn't really that you are disagreeing with the metric cause he wasn't really accounting for what was replacing Kemp. I love Tony Gwynn, but unfortunately this year he played below replacement level as a starter so what Kemp adds in terms of WAR is even higher than anyone states when comparing it to what the alternative is. I don't know if I worded that correctly, but basically you are right, it wouldn't exactly only be two wins. Well, maybe it would, just saying under the thought that when Kemp was down he would have compiled 2 Wins Above Replacement, the difference between that and what the replacement compiled (which I don't know off-hand) is greater than 2 wins since the replacement was below replacement level. I love sabermetrics and I'd have to agree it's probably a huger difference than 2 wins (I don't even know if WAR when calculated correctly would suggest Kemp would simply add 2 wins, I'm just going off what was previously said) just cause a team that earlier in the year was offensively structured around 2 guys getting one guy down has a huge ripple effect in who gets the ABs he would have gotten.
He was using a career WAR for Matt this year and not his WAR from last year or this year prior to his Ham string. That was off the charts at that point also wasn't it? Matt was having another career year and perhaps on his way to one better than last year. Just look at his stats after the Giants series and compare them with his career avg pror to the 2011 season. So much for average when talking about Kemp and a number of other star players once they hit their prime. Average includes their early years and will eventually include their declining years if they hang around.
Been pretty busy with classes, but I sure as hell am going to try to catch as much of this series as possible. Time to pull off a miracle.
