Cleveland Sports Forum

Please attempt to convince me anyone, that the GM knows what the heck he's doing.

I think Eric Wedge said it best, Civ --------------

Wedge remembers when he was hired by Mark Shapiro in Cleveland prior to the 2003 season, as the Indians were being rebuilt. "We really were new to all this, and we were flying by the seats of our pants," Wedge said. "But Mark was so great, we were able to learn together."

It's possible that Shapiro and Company are still trying to figure it out.

My worst nightmare is one in which Eric Wedge and Carl Willis fields a better team than Manny Acta and Scott Radinsky.

You really need to get over it !

rusty2 wrote:You really need to get over it !

Civ laid out well reasoned and researched rationale thought.

I choose to be optimistic about 2012 and hope some miracle and/or maneuvering gets us that new 2nd wild card and then we find a rock.

Civ laid out well reasoned and researched rationale thought.

That's me. Well reasoned and rational. Never emotional nor overreaction. Just ask my wife.

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Just answering some well thought out ideas and concerns with a dose of reality.

Perhaps you can give us your thoughts and remedies for the current state of the Indians and in particularly your "fix" for the farm system !?!?

Not a very interesting Ocker and Brantley article. Sheldon never mentions On base pct which is probably the most importatn thing for a leadoff man; and secondly how often he gets himself in scoring position which can be by XB hits or by steals. Brantley needs plenty of work on both those requirements


Michael Brantley hopes to provide spark, and steals, from leadoff spot

GOODYEAR, Ariz.: Most American League teams don’t stress base stealing these days, the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Angels being obvious exceptions.

However, three of the five teams that won at least 90 games last year were among the top four in steals. The Rays were No. 1 with 155 steals (71 percent success rate), the New York Yankees were third with 147 steals (76 percent) and the Texas Rangers were fourth with 143 steals (76 percent). The Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers, the other two 90-plus win clubs, ranked ninth and 14th in stolen bases. The Tigers stole only 49 bases but were successful 71 percent of the time. Teams that fall below 70 percent are running themselves out of too many innings.

Among American League clubs, the Indians ranked 11th with 89 steals and were successful only 68 percent of the time. So should manager Manny Acta do more to emphasize the steal? Not necessarily. It’s difficult to imagine Travis Hafner and Shelley Duncan racing from base to base ahead of the throw.

On the other hand, Michael Brantley probably could run more than he has. In 2011 he stole 13 bases and was caught five times for a 72 percent success rate.

Brantley is one of the few Tribe players capable of stealing bases, but not right now. He left Monday’s game after his first at-bat with a tight right hamstring.

“It’s very mild,” Acta said. “We took him out as a precaution. He did it when he was running to first on a ground ball.”

Until his career was undermined by injuries, Grady Sizemore was a more lethal leadoff hitter because of his expertise as a base stealer. From 2005-2009, he stole 128 bases and succeeded 77 percent of the time. His best season was 2008, when he stole 38 bases and was thrown out only five times for a success rate of 88 percent.

Why was Sizemore so valuable as a base stealer? Because he put himself into scoring position with almost every steal (except steals of third). In 2008, he scored 101 runs. The previous year, when Sizemore stole 33 bases, he scored 118 runs. Stealing bases can be important, if the right players are doing the running.

Brantley thinks he can be one of those guys. “I look forward to putting pressure on the defense that way,” he said. “I have the green light with Manny.” That means it is up to Brantley when he wants to run and when he thinks he should hold his base — unless Acta takes off the green light, for whatever reason.

With Sizemore out for at least two more months following back surgery, Brantley will take his place in center and in the leadoff spot. Neither assignment is new to Brantley, who has spelled Sizemore after previous injuries.

“It doesn’t matter to me if I play left or center,” Brantley said. “My goal is to do what the organization tells me to do and do it the best I can. It’s just to feel comfortable in both places.”

Brantley also feels at home in the leadoff spot, although he has had mixed results. Last year he batted .224 in 76 at-bats leading off a game and .231 in 169 at-bats to start an inning. But as the first batter in the order, Brantley batted .278 and scored 49 runs in 349 at-bats.

For his career, Brantley has compiled similar kinds of numbers. Leading off a game, he has been a .212 hitter, .218 when he leads off an inning. But as the No. 1 hitter in the lineup, Brantley is batting .273.

“As a leadoff hitter, I have to set the table for the guys behind me,” he said. “And the pitcher has got to know I’m a threat to steal.”

It seems like Brantley has been a fixture with the Tribe for years, but he played his first big-league season last year and won’t be 25 until May. Put in that light, he did relatively well in 2011, batting .266 with 24 doubles, seven homers, 46 RBI, 64 runs in 451 at-bats.

Moreover, he didn’t play after Aug. 22, when he broke the hamate bone in his right hand and was forced to undergo surgery. “The hardest thing for me last year was not being able to finish the season,” Brantley said. “It was tough for me to just watch.”

Brantley is not a finished product. “Everybody [who leads off] wants a better on-base percentage and more steals, but I need to improve on everything,” he said. “A player always thinks he has a higher ceiling than anyone else thinks.

“I still feel like a young guy. I haven’t seen everything yet. Hopefully, I’ve just scratched the surface of what I can do. I feel like my teammates have taught me so much that I’m way above the curve at 24.”

he did relatively well in 2011, batting .266 with 24 doubles, seven homers, 46 RBI, 64 runs in 451 at-bats

If those numbers and 13 steals and a 318 OBA equal "he did relatively well", the question is relative to whom?

joez wrote:<

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You really need to get over it ! 

Just answering some well thought out ideas and concerns with a dose of reality.

Perhaps you can give us your thoughts and remedies for the current state of the Indians and in particularly your "fix" for the farm system !?!?

I was talking about your child like obsession with Eric Wedge. Get over it.

At the same time, you have no well thought out ideas.

Oh, I've had plenty of ideas over the years. The problem is a penny pinching owner who refuses to support his baseball team and a scouting department that has under-achieved to put it mildly.

Joez what do you think of the Forbes data?

Joez what do you think of the Forbes data?

?!?!?!

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/martinse/www/ ... sdata.html

Forbes' DataThis data set is discussed in Chapter 1 of Weisberg's book. In the 1840's and 1850's, Scottish physicist James Forbes measured the boiling point of water (in degrees Fahrenheit) and the barometric pressure (in inches of Mercury) at a number of locations. The goal was to predict barometric pressure, and ultimately altitude, from the boiling point of water. Forbes believed that the logarithm of barometric pressure should be a linear function of the boiling point. Here is the data set, with independent variable = boiling point and dependent variable = 100 times log base 10 of barometric pressure.
I analyzed the data using SAS. Here is the SAS program I ran. The five procedures in the program input, print and plot the data, fit the regression model (ANOVA table, F test, R-square, parameter estimates and standard errors), and plot the residuals, which are just the actual values of 100xLog(Pressure) minus the fitted values using the regression line.

Here is the output SAS gave me. The plot certainly looks linear. The fitted regression line is

100xLog(Pressure) = (0.895)(Boiling Point) - 42.131.

The F-statistic, i.e., the mean square for the model divided by the mean square for error, is huge: 2965 on 1 and 15 degrees of freedom. The regression is therefore significant, i.e., the slope is significantly different from zero and the boiling point does indeed help to predict the logarithm of barometric pressure. R-square is 0.9950, so the regression on boiling point "explains" essentially all of the variability in the logarithm of barometric pressure.

The residual plot generally looks fine: there is no noticeable pattern or lack of linearity. There is one residual, corresponding to case 12, that is much larger than the others. Later in the course we will learn how to test cases such as this one to see if they are outliers.

#1, I have a headache just reading it.

#2 If applied to the Indians, it's as linear as it gets.

#3 I don't need no stinkin' formulas to tell me when I've reached my boiling point with the owner or the front office

#4 They don't make a slide rule long enough to help me figure that article out.

#5 I flunked physics.

#6 Now I know why I skipped over this article.

#7 Sorry I can't contribute anything meaningful to your query Ken.

LOL several times over Joe!