The Colonel: I've been thinking a lot about Earl Weaver since guest writing about Bruce Bochy. Basically Bochy thinks about baseball the same way Weaver looks at baseball. The year the Giants won the world series they basically won using the Weaver strategy, "pitching, defense, and the three-run home run". Bochy like Weaver is all about matchups and that is where the problem is.
49er16: Weaver could play the matchup game because Baltimore used to have good hitters.
The Colonel: Exactly! The Giants have very few good hitters so when Bochy is playing the matchup game, he ends up hurting this team. Now the Giants actually won yesterday with Bochy playing his lefties can't hit lefties game, but this has been a rare occurrence lately. Bochy needs to play his best players.
49er16: But the Giants win games with Pill in the lineup! Home runs! Rib eyes!
The Colonel: God I hope that's just a coincidence. I can see an idiot like Bochy taking this little phenomenon seriously and starts Pill everyday because the Giants seem to win with him in the lineup.
49er16: Just thinking about Bochy right now is giving me the willies. Let's just move on.
The Colonel: What are we suppose to make of the Oakland A's? They're a game over .500 in 2nd place of the AL West and are 5 games back of the Rangers. Their lineup is receiving contributions from Josh Reddick, Jonny Gomes, and even Brandon Inge. They have solid pitching. Do we take them seriously?
49er16: I've taken the A's so seriously that I've barely watched any of their games. I don't think I have sat down and watched an A's game since they played 12 straight games against the Mariners to start the year.
The Colonel: I'm not going to lie, they are a hard watch. They fall into the Phillies/Giants category of pitching first and hitting last. You should at least watch a couple of their games.
49er16: I'll watch three of their games this weekend against the Giants!
The Colonel: Speaking of Interleague, I couldn't be more thankful that this is the last year of the unbalanced schedule. Because of the goofy scheduling, the Cardinals only play two games in San Francisco this year and every team this week plays two two-game series'. Blah. Go away unbalanced schedule.
49er16: Are you ready for Interleague games pretty much everyday in the future?
The Colonel: I don't mind Interleague like most people. I don't love it, but can live with it. Also it will be interesting how the schedule plays out in the future years. I think we're going to like the schedule more than you think in spite of the Interleague games.
49er16: I'm just happy the unbalanced schedule is gone. 20 games against the Rockies and Padres are a little too much. It will also be interesting to see how the Interleague games are scheduled. I'm sure they'll schedule Interleague games around teams playing in certain area. Teams would go on road trips where they visit both the Giants and A's now.
The Colonel: Did you see Andy Pettitte returned yesterday and was shelled by the Mariners? I love how no one mentions Pettitte used performance enhancing drugs except when he goes to the stand in the Roger Clemens case.
49er16: Pettitte is case in point that you should admit what you did and while it will probably always be brought up it won't be brought up in a derisive way to make the player look bad.
The Colonel: Or don't be an asshole to the media like Bonds.
49er16: Speaking of Bonds. What do you think has been more damaging to records? Steroids or sabermetrics?
The Colonel: Oh interesting question. I know everyone immediately points to steroids when they talk about records not having the same meaning, but I do believe sabermetrics have had more of an impact than people realize.
49er16: Exactly. Sabermetrics have trained us that basically the stats we're used to, except home run records which has been destroyed by steroids, are basically useless. Oh Ted Williams hit .400 in a season? Big deal. Steve Carlton won 27 games in a season? Whoopie, he only won those games because of the defense around him. Pete Rose has 4,000 hits? Oh well he should have walked more. Sabermetrics have a bigger role in the downfall of records than most people realize.
The Colonel: THEY'LL ALWAYS BE THE SAME TO JOE MORGAN!
I'm looking forward to those mid-week Giants-Royals games.
ReplyDeleteWeaver had all of those good hitters, because he had quality pitchers. And they pitched deep into games. The year the O's won the pennant, 1979, Weaver had 9 pitchers on the roster. 9! Easy to play matchups when you're carrying 16 hitters and you have 7 at your disposal in every game.
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