I certainly believe Sandy believes this team will outperform expectations & if he’s correct, let’s say in third place @ ASG, those fans who chose not to attend may be seduced back whereas if they added Manny & some thought they were back to contention level, they’d be lost forever if a third place was the outcome. Thus by reducing expectation levels, poorer outcomes are more tolerated & may lead to gradual attendence increases rather than decreases by a more disappointed base.
Personally I’m anticipating between 82-85 win season in third place in front of Fish & Gnats, just behind ATL by a smidge(as my ceiling for this season, to which I shout… “LGM!”)

and if you are talking about just hitting, like I was, and i can take anybody from any era, i would take ruth over clemente in right, and piazza over berra behind the plate.

yes, piazza over berra. he didn’t win those world series by himself.

clemente and Berra? What about ty cobb, is he in the mix too?

BTW, clemente had a career OBP of .359 and Berra .348, so they were far from OBP challenged.

and clemente is probably one of the most notorious bad ball hitters ever, so hard to compare him to anyone now.

and you sir, need to get a life. Aren’t there other philly fans that can tolerate you? Maybe you can get together, have some scrapple, and complain about Andy Reid.

that’s why i think it’s worthless and lazy to try to convince people that a guy is good with one number.

i think OPS come closest, but give me postion played, runs, rbi, and ops, and i can pretty much figure the rest out.

and like you noted, the 1st guy probably has about the same number of RBis, if he is swinging at balls out of the strike zone.

but even if he gets a few more (sac fly here and there, lucky base hit to drive in a run), the extra outs will offset the benefit of those runs, specifically because the next guy has less to work with (or at best, same # on base, same # outs).

guys who swing at bad pitches in rbi situations still get the rbi’s, but the fact that they are exchanging walks for outs shows in their lower obp. that’s why obp can be a valuable stat in addition to rbi.

it’s what separates the mannys from the wrights in my mind. you should be able to relate to that.

The Mike Jacobs ref is awful example.

If you get on base and drive in runs, you’re Manny Ramirez. Joe Mauer doesn’t hit lead off but you’ll take him because of his OBP over Victor Martinez in the middle of your lineup

tampa is looking to 2015-2020 as dynasty years, and if you look at the bloat in ny and boston in that timeframe, they’ve got a real shot.