if ensberg comes cheap, absolutely; a wealth of bats is not something we should consider a negative, especially if said bats fit within drayton's budget. however, if ensberg could upgrade another position, he's certainly expendable. i don't pretend to know or understand the mental aspect of the game, but he looked lost a lot last year and his now consistent, "i'm not hurt" routine, i'm guessing, has rubbed the club raw. again, if he legitimately upgrades a position of fetches a top-flight positiona prospect, i'd deal him.
interesting - why do you say that? short porch in left; the vast space in left-centerfield... the fact it was built at the height of houston's inability to field even a decent everyday LH'ed hitter....
No, I only catch them on the radio. Now that you mention it, I remember the guys talking about Huff hitting the ball hard.
Lefties have said this. I assume since RF is still pretty short, but without the tall wall. IMHO, Lamb is much more expendable than Ensberg, if Huff is re-signed. There is nothing that Huff doesn't do better than Lamb, albeit with a passable glove. And since Lamb hit better than Ensberg last year, he's more likely to get something worthwhile in a trade. Lamb should be worth a decent reliever or 4th starter to a team who needs a DH or 1B.
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were. I had the mlb package via my computer and during that stretch every team of announcers (regardless of affiliation) mentioned it seemingly every time he was in that situation. He absolutely scalded a few balls during that stretch so it's not like he was striking out or popping out a lot.
Theoretically, its easy for lefties who are both good pull hitters, and have the ability to go the opposit way down the line... problem is, there are not many good LH bats in the NL that can do that consistently (and we have one of them in Berkman). Edmonds was great at it... till he lost some bat speed. In the end, you can pitch to lefties if you keep the ball away with power pitching (assuming their bat isn't fast enough to flip it into LF). Also, Lance hates MMP simply because he hits a ton of balls to deep CF, RCF, and LCF... and its hard to hit it out of MMP that way.
Would be interesting to see the park factor splits over the past few years. I don't know where to find 'em, but I'm guessing Nomalidama does...hook us up, yo.
Boston could be a player for Morgan if they get what they might want for Lowell (Linebrink +/SDiego) as they like to have players under their control for a while before their FA.
I was incorrect. I thought I had read somewhere that MMP was actually favorable to LHB, but I guess I read wrong. LHB AVG LHB HR RHB AVG RHB HR 2005 94 86 104 140 2002-04 100 84 104 116 Makes you wonder what Berkman's power numbers would be like hitting somewhere else, say Fenway or Yankee Stadium? BTW what does Nomalidama mean?
All I was going on was observation & various opinions (Berkman, Garner, Tal, etc...), didn't have anything concrete to back it up, which is why I asked. The wind seems to blow straight out to LF regularly, I'd think that crosswind might have some effect on balls from LH batters driven to RF/RCF (usually tail L-R), and the RF gap (which gets pretty deep pretty damn quick). Dunno, though. Was really looking for something like this split out L/R (ignoring the "runs" metric, which doesn't apply in this case). Let us know if you find anything. "BTW..." = just an amalgamation of your various monikers...yankin your chain.
yeah; they built the park for bagwell. literally. just as the park in arlington was built for palmiero. which is why i think lee will be ok here despite any disappointments in western dallas.
The park factor numbers I posted should be accurate, they are from a BP article I think. I was actually thinking RHB Average would be decreased because of LF. There is less room for the LF to cover type of idea? Both of the gaps are pretty deep, but the wall in LC gap is higher also. Anyway, I'll try to look for the factors in the 1.1xx format you have from ESPN but the BP numbers I posted I think should be accurate. Also, Dama? Where did the Dama part come from?
Not so much the format that I was looking for, but broken down by type of hit, and with the other parks included for comparison's sake. I've looked, and can't find anything. I'd think that any hits taken away by the LF playing shallow(er) than normal in MMP are negated by balls that the LF could have made a play on that in MMP bounce off the scoreboard or end up in the front rows of the Crawfords. Especially with doubles - balls that ricochet off the scoreboard & keep the runner at first, being offset by flyballs that the LF would normally get to that hit high up off the scoreboard. Dunno, though, which is kinda why I was looking for the splits broken down like that. I think the bottom line is that MMP giveth, and MMP taketh away. Aside from HRs (primarily to RHers) and 3B to CF & the gaps (many of which *would be* HRs in other parks), MMP plays just about neutral the past few years. "Ten Run Field" it ain't. ps...from your favorite tv show, and your oh-so-brief foray into a certain other baseball board.
I agree, I don't think it's the big-time hitters park people thought it was. I guess pitchers just know how to pitch there now, as opposed to the first year it opened. How did you know that was me? And for the record, what did you think of that whole argument?
it helps that the astros have thrown oswalt, pettitte, clemens, ausmus, everett and taveras at it the past several years.
Yep. 2004- Beltran/Taveras in CF as opposed to 2002-2004 Berkman/Biggio. Moving the LF homerun line up helped a ton as well.
Posting style, verbiage, using the word "logical" at a Spock-like pace. The BSG nick pretty much confirmed it (as did your rant the other day about the site & certain posters), I'd remembered you saying it was the best TV show ever.
Truth and Rumors Apparently, Adam Dunn is salivating at the idea of playing for his hometown Astros. And yes, the Reds are throwing around the idea of trading him for pitching. So it's something that I'm sure both teams will look into this winter. -- MLB.com Plan B? They can't be thinking of adding Lee AND Dunn can they? Not to mention that they don't really have anyone lined up behind Oswalt yet, and no, I'm not counting Hirsh and/or Rodriguez as 4/5 starters much less 2/3 starters!
