mediocore

You are.

But at the same time, all the other Colts starters were resting too, so it's not like Painter was working with the same tools. (Plus Brees had a better statistical year as far as QBs are concerned.) I can understand Manning winning it, but I think voters are too quick to heap praise on QBs and often times completely overlook other positions. Johnson not getting a single vote is crazy.

Manning won his (record) 4th MVP award. Chris Johnson, on the other hand, didn't get a single vote. It boggles the mind.

Bump

Mora Jr. out in SEA. Pete Carroll is supposedly the favorite to take over, as long as he can bring his offensive coordinator with him from USC.

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Here's more, per TMZ: As TMZ first reported, after the Olympics, Jay Leno will get his 11:30 PM time period back. We're told network execs have told Conan they will let him decide if he wants the midnight to 1:00 AM time slot. If he does, Leno's show will only be a half hour. If Conan walks, Leno will get a full hour, informed sources tell TMZ. Our sources say Conan has not decided what he wants. We do know he's pissed, because he was given no advanced warning this was coming. Conan's people told NBC they are considering the offer. We're told if Conan gets another offer, even though NBC could block the move, they will let him go and give Leno the full hour.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/update-nbc-plans-leno-at-1130-conan-at-12/ After the Olympics, Leno would get his 11:35 time slot back, which would push Conan to 12:05. Kinda fucking lame, especially since Leno sucks, which has no doubt hurt Conan's audience because he doesn't get the benefit of a decent lead-in. Laaaaaaaaaaame.

Finished AC2 today. Such an awesome game. Just need to tidy up some achievements. I think I'll go back to Mass Effect next.

Don't sleep on the Reds. 5-8 years is a long time in a bad division.

The only time I can remember classes being canceled in college was for rolling blackouts (in CA). Luckily I had a night class so I could take advantage of it.

I wish I would've kept track more. I have a pretty good idea of all the bands I've seen, but can't remember exact shows/venues on a lot of them. Plus I've lost a ton of ticket stubs over the years, so that doesn't help. Maybe I'll do something with the ones I do have.

Yeah, bad timing on Valve's part. I loved L4D1, but haven't really been interested in playing L4D2 all that much lately because of MW2, AC2, etc. I guess I'll get around to it at some point.

Haha, I'm in the same boat. And I was playing the shit out of MW2.

Oh, my bad. I meant "average" in terms of other HOF pitchers. Not pitchers as a whole. I probably should've made that clearer. And, yeah, he was awesome with only around 6 hits per 9 IP (and I think his opponents' BA is an all-time low too [.204]), but when you factor in the enormous amount of BB, he's allowed over 11 baserunners per 9 IP, which isn't all that great. Most modern statistics view pitchers as being able to, more or less, control 3 things: strike outs, walks, and home runs. Ryan was good at one of those. So I guess my main argument is that he's a tad overrated and I wouldn't consider him to be an "all-time great." But he's definitely not an average pitcher in the grand scheme of things -- just among his HOF peers.

so, ERA+ is how you judge if a pitcher is historically good? his other numbers wouldn't matter as much? I just want to understand if there are other stats that are average besides the ERA+. he did have 222 complete games, too... thats still only 120th all time... but I think the closest to him in CG that is active is Roy Halliday, and he has 50? Yeah, I think ERA+ is a good way to put a pitcher's career into some sort of historical context. It's tough to compare players across eras, but I think the "+" stats do a decent job of rating players against their immediate peers and showing how they fared against them against similar competition. As far as other stats that put some chinks in Ryan's armor: he gave up a ton of BB (4.67/9 IP), a ton of WP, and a ton of HR. He averaged a 14-13 record (over 162 games) for teams that were over .500 overall. He played mediocre defense. Re: CG = It's a different game now. Managers don't let pitchers making huge contracts pitch 300+ innings anymore. Like I said, Ryan definitely deserves to be in the HOF. I just think his "legend" is bigger than his reality. He threw hard and worked hard and said a bunch of interesting things. He was the prototypical flamethrower. I just don't think he qualifies as an all-time great.

His career ERA+ is only 111. Which means that he was only about 11% better than the average pitcher from his era, ERA-wise. Granted, that's over 5000+ innings, so it's probably a tad more washed out than it should be. But he only had two seasons with an ERA+ over 140, which is typically thought to be a damn good year. He was a good pitcher, but I think the mystique surrounding him (blazing fastball, no-hitters, Robin Ventura) tends to obscure reality. I still think he belongs in the HOF... but I wouldn't put him in my top 10 all-time.

Close to finishing up AC2. Can't wait for the DLC.

Yeah, I think he probably deserves to be in. But he's more historically "average" than most people consider him.

I will say, however, that the whole "first ballot" thing is kinda lame. Either you're a HOFer, or you're not. There shouldn't be arbitrary levels of greatness that exist outside of the purview of the HOF itself... yet another example of the BBWAA imposing their will where it doesn't belong.

this is exactly my point. 324 wins only tells half the story. dude pitched for 27 years. that's 12 wins per year. hardly "other-worldly" if you go by that alone. he just pitched longer than anybody else pitched, so he amassed greater (read: more) statistics than everybody else. i'm not knocking you, mediocore. i think you're one of the 5 smartest baseball minds to post in this thread. you just wrote it's what the BBWAA needed to see, and that's the problem. they should have taken other things into consideration, just like they're all claiming to do now that "500 HRs just doesn't mean what it used to" because of other circumstances. Yeah, I was agreeing with you. The BBWAA is such a ridiculously misguided and myopic group... they seem to get far more decisions wrong than they do correct.

Ryan was a decent pitcher with a crazy fastball. His career ERA+ is only 111, so there you go. He did win 324 games though, which is probably -- along with the strikeouts (and no-nos) -- all the BBWAA needed to see.

If salaries continue to climb like most people think they will, $17MM/year won't look that bad.

Pujols is fine. He's still on his first non-rookie contract. He'll get somewhere in the neighborhood of $25MM/year after 2011. There are still other holes to fill though (SP/CL/3B). It does some like the Cards were bidding against themselves though. And I'm a little worried about the length of the deal. We'll see I guess.