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Monday, September 12, 2005 |
Deconstructing Gammons' Latest
The wild card has introduced an enormous amount of excitement into the tail end of the season, as it should; being an Angels fan, how can you not be in favor of it? But the trouble is, with so many teams in contention, I guess Gammons feels he doesn't need to do his homework. How else to explain his latest column?
... the Braves are not the dominant pitching team of the past -- they are last in the league in strikeouts and fifth in overall ERA. Yet they can beat anyone.Well, except the Padres, who are 5-1 against them in the regular season.
[The Angels also think they can beat anyone], with Bartolo Colon and Kelvim Escobar added to their already strong bullpen.You mean the mediocrity that's sixth in the league by ERA? That "strong" bullpen? And when did Bart move to the 'pen?
The White Sox have earned the right to be called the team to beat after the Cardinals because of their starting pitching...A good thing, because the Angels just beat them, three times in a row. Speaking of the Angels:
"We have really struggled the last six weeks trying to score runs," said Angels manager Mike Scioscia, whose club is ninth in the AL in runs and severely lacks power. One source of help might come from Finley. "My problem isn't age," he says. "I hurt my shoulder on the wall the second game of the season, and it never got better. But it is now. I'm finally starting to swing the bat. I just need to get some at-bats."I guess I spoke too soon the other day about the home run in Saturday's game being the last of Finley's season. But, really, given everything going on before, isn't it reasonable to expect little off Finley's bat? And if it isn't, how many more ballgames did he help the team lose because of his incessant popups to second? His -3.7 VORP ought to answer that question.
Here's something I often screw up: age as a factor in prospecty goodness:
Cuban refugee Michel Abreu, the 26-year-old, 6-foot-4, 225-pound right-handed slugger that they signed this week for $425,000, outbidding the Marlins and Yankees? The plan is to have him play in the Mexican League, come to spring training and see where he stands, although he may start next season at Double-A Portland. Abreu's numbers his final season in the Cuban professional league (.356, 23 HR, 207 TB, 82 RBI, 78 G) were superior to those of Angels signee Kendry Morales.Kendry is also twenty two, a fact that makes a huge difference in his potential.
But enough. I don't do this kind of thing very often, and for a reason: I make too many mistakes as it is. Is it too much to expect the guys who get paid for these things to actually do a little fact checking?
Comments:
Clearly, you do not understand the power of the Gammons AND. The Gammons AND is no ordinary AND. The Gammons AND comes equipped with flexible and invisible parentheses.
So where you read the sentence as:
The Angels also think they can beat anyone, with (Bartolo Colon AND Kelvim Escobar) added to their already strong bullpen.
The sentence should really be read as:
The Angels also think they can beat anyone, with (Bartolo Colon) AND (Kelvim Escobar added to their already strong bullpen).
And Mike Crudale.
So where you read the sentence as:
The Angels also think they can beat anyone, with (Bartolo Colon AND Kelvim Escobar) added to their already strong bullpen.
The sentence should really be read as:
The Angels also think they can beat anyone, with (Bartolo Colon) AND (Kelvim Escobar added to their already strong bullpen).
And Mike Crudale.
# posted by 
: 9/12/2005 08:57:00 AM
: 9/12/2005 08:57:00 AM
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