Cleveland Sports Forum

fkreutz wrote:In my mind the key problem is Shapiro....

In a word no. Shapiro was sent upstairs years ago to manage such gimmicks as snow days.

In retrospect we should all have stopped being Indians fans the moment Hart announced he was leaving. He knew something we didnt.

I agree, you should have quit.

Now, others of us were fans way before Hart and will be way after Hart.

Hart saw the writing on the wall and jumped for what he thought was greener grass. Hart proved in Texas he couldn't produce pitching talent. Didn't take Texas long to kick him upstairs and out the door.

When Nolan Ryan took over, Texas blossomed.

Sea, stop with the facts.

Who was responsible for bringing in Hershiser and Tippy Martinez when we needed them?

Hart bringing in Hershisher and Martinez was a blessing and a curse.

It got the Indians to a World Series, but it always seemed like Hart was grabbing every once successful arm he could in the hope he could get one more lightening in the bottle season from them, which I think hurt the team overall when it came to future playoff series.

husker wrote:Who was responsible for bringing in Hershiser and Tippy Martinez when we needed them?

Tippy Martinez
Dennis Martinez










Tino Martinez

Felix Hernandez with a perfect game for the Mariners against Tampa Bay.

His next start is against us....lets hope that he peaked right there and falls apart when we get there.

Six no hitters thus far this season in MLB, and three perfect games.

These pitchers aren't that much better than the pitchers of yore.....are they?


Three of this year's six no hitters have been in Seattle with Eric Wedge as a witness.

I agree with kenm's assessment that it has a lot to do with the end of the steroid era.

J.R. wrote:I agree with kenm's assessment that it has a lot to do with the end of the steroid era.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/history/nohitters

I had to look at the linked list of no hitters in MLB history twice.

At first glance it seemed ironic the number of 1-0 no hit games this year, and the number of times Seattle has been involved. Then I realized the combined no hitter this season was skewing the chart.

Melky Cabrera will be this year’s batting champion, according to projection system
By Kevin Kaduk |
Big League Stew – 43 minutes ago

And you thought Jose Reyes got people fired up with the way he sat his way to a National League batting title last year.

As has been mentioned more than a few times since the news of Melky Cabrera's 50-game suspension dropped on Wednesday, the disgraced San Francisco Giants star has a good shot at causing a much bigger controversy. Since he won't be eligible to play for the rest of the regular season, Cabrera ends his 2012 season with a .346 average over 501 plate appearances.

Ah, but doesn't a hitter need 502 plate appearances to qualify for his league's batting title? Why yes, he does.

But as was also mentioned many times on Wednesday, baseball's rules state that a non-qualifying player will have as many hitless at-bats added to his total as it takes to get him to the qualifying number. So Cabrera, who tested positive for high levels of testosterone, will have an 0-for-1 day added to his number and such a small correction will not affect his average at all — .346 is what will appear on the back of next year's baseball card.

It could also appear at the top of the NL's leaderboard if Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen doesn't step in and save the day. While the Pirates star center fielder currently leads the league with a .359 average, he also has the disadvantage of having to play the rest of the season. It's not too hard to imagine McCutchen falling below that mark, especially as the late-season pressure takes its toll. (It should be noted that Cabrera's .346 would have been enough to win every NL batting title since 2005 except the .364 Chipper Jones posted in 2008.)

Could anyone else surpass Cabrera with a late-season surge? Cincinnati's Joey Votto is at .342 but might not even qualify depending how long it takes him to return from his current injury. After that it's San Francisco's Buster Posey at .330 and Colorado's Carlos Gonzalez at .323. SB Nation's Rob Neyer notes that Fangraphs ZIPS projection system predicts that McCutchen will finish at .342 average, Posey at .323 and CarGo at .317.

Before he was suspended, ZIPS had Cabrera finishing with a .336 mark. So it would appear the lone benefit of Cabrera's drug use will be the luxury of having his numbers unaffected by the final month and a half of the season's grind. That sure isn't worth the tradeoff of missing the Giants' race for the NL West title or the millions he could lose on the free agent market this winter, but it's enough to create an end-of-season firestorm should he walk away with the season's highest average.

As for whether PEDs actually put Cabrera into this position, that's an entirely different subject. While his career rates on things like walks, line drives and home runs/fly balls have stayed in line with his previous work, his doubles total has increased from 27 in 2010 to 44 in 2011 to 25 already this season. How much of his huge spike in batting average on balls in play (BABIP) — a stat that's often cited as a measure of a hitter's "luck" — was attributable to illegal drug use will remain up for debate.

What do you think? Should MLB count Cabrera's title if he ends up winning it?

I think at this point if any hitter is any good you have to assume he is cheating. I think amphetamines which have been around for decades enabled players to play back to back games. Now they nor roids are no longer legal. The result is the rash of no hitters and perfect games. You may have to go back to the 1930's to find a clean game but at that time of course their were no players of color or from Central or South America. Basically I think the entire history of baseball has been a lie. What you got is the 2012 Cleveland Indians. Not sure I have been able to watch more than an inning at a time this entire year. Given how awful the Browns are I can not wait for CAVS training camp.

... the entire history of baseball has been a lie ...

Really, I feel like the rest of us are, unwittingly, a part of some bizarre psychology experiment.

J.R. wrote:
What do you think? Should MLB count Cabrera's title if he ends up winning it?

I wouldn't like it, but if the detailed rule book of MLB commonly accepted before the season started doesn't eliminate him, I would not either.

But I would look at "title" award changes and qualifiers for the future.

"Must end the regular season as an active and eligible player, unless due to injury or death" is a basis for a rule change discussion going forward.