pan6467

I wouldn't say Webb is far superior to Sabathia. I'd say given the fact that Sabathia has played on some truly bad defensive teams and the fact that he's an AL pitcher, it is a fair comparison. In all honesty, I'm not sure Webb could compete full time in the AL. There is a different style of pitching in the leagues. Both could still flourish in a league change or both could fail miserably. I think CC would be every bit as good as Webb if he were a strictly NL pitcher.

As for Webb being as good as Santana, I don't see it. I love Webb can't stand Santana because I think he's over rated pitching in Minnesota , a pitcher's park.... but he is as far as strikeout power pitchers go, the best today.

Oswalt if he can get some meat on his bones and not be such an injury risk, could be the best NL pitcher in this generation, IMHO. But again, there's a difference between styles in the leagues and his style I'm not sure would fit in the AL.

Harang has a great arm, out of the 3 mentioned he would be my most likely to succeed in the AL. He doesn't get great run support or defense behind him and feels he has to win it. That causes him to make mistakes. You put him on a strong AL team, I think he is as good as anyone (short of a healthy, happy Santana, who's just a freak but is owned by the Tribe).




Yes, it's cheap (but look at the player)... And yes, had it been played by the rules and just called a ball the crowd probably would have gone apeshit.

I think the issue is that MLB leaves a lot of judgment calls up to the umps. Which in turn keeps a human element in the game. However, in this day and age of ratings, selling merchandise, cheating, officials gambling, etc etc... it is easy for those judgment "gimmes" such as the example above to be easily turned into a "by the rules" so that it takes away the normal breaks and can destroy momentum.

I was always taught in baseball to slide into second doing your best to break up a double play. You didn't want to hurt the guy but you wanted to take that precious split second away. I was also taught to prepare for it and to release asap. Now, if you solely move into the guy just to break it up then it is interference but it's a judgment call. And again, follow the ump, if he normally never calls it but all of a sudden does, you have to ask why. If he always calls it, then it should be no surprise when he does. Look for the consistency of an umps calls.

Hell, I've seen players from the pros to little league run in the line of the throw so that the fielder had to move around or hit the runner. According to the rules as I always knew them, that is legal, because the basepaths belong to the runners. However, I have seen interference called because the runner impeded the throw.

I like the fact the umps have the luxury of judgment calls, keeps the human factor in the game. But if I'm MLB, I'm watching and making sure the umps call on a consistent basis the same calls.

The one thing that pisses me off and makes me wonder about an umps bias is the strike zone more than anything. I have seen games where umps change strike zones. That is the fastest way to control the outcome of a game. If you let one team have the corners but don't let the other..... you can effectively make sure the team that doesn't have the corners has to work that much harder to win... and the team that gets the corners you give a huge amount of momentum to. Or change the strike zone midway through the game for one team, you can take away that momentum fast.

IE Give team A starter the corners and not team B, team A's pitcher is going to nibble the corners all day... team B's pitcher will have to work harder all day, tiring faster and pretty much hanging pitches over the plate.

Now you let team A's starter have the corners for the first 3 innings and he's pitching great but team B is the one you want to win.... inning 4 you change the zone take away the corners and all of a sudden team A's pitcher who was pitching well and hitting the corners is walking people, losing control, and tiring real fast trying to "refind" the strike zone. Team B meanwhile tees off gets the momentum as team A loses it and the game goes to team B.

Not that any of that would ever, ever happen.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"