The Gurgling Vortex of Suck(TM) beckons. Want optimism? Look elsewhere tonight... :-(

The Gurgling Vortex of Suck(TM) beckons. Want optimism? Look elsewhere tonight... :-(

4 months ago Jim McLennan Comment 12 comments 0 recs |

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Well portrayed, sir, well portrayed.

It's like living with a six-year old.

by 4 Corners Fan on Jul 10, 2008 2:05 AM EDT 0 recs

If that’s the Diamondbacks, I feel like we’re the hapless child in Australia....

"Evil lurks everywhere, often in plain sight... Can you lurk in plain sight? Or is that just walking?"

by kishi on Jul 10, 2008 2:24 AM EDT 0 recs

I have a question:

I got turned into a cow, can I go home?

By all means hit at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.

by soco on Jul 10, 2008 10:36 AM EDT 0 recs

You’re excused. Anybody else?

by Azreous on Jul 10, 2008 5:23 PM EDT up 0 recs

We really need to get over it

I mean get over April.

It really wasn’t even a full month that they were great. It was a 17 game stretch.

In the first 17 games (Thru April 19th) they went 13-4 and hit .281 with a .860 OPS, averaging 6.6 R/G

In the remaining 11 games of April, they managed to go 7-4, but they only hit .249 with a .740 OPS. They averaged 4.8 R/G during that stretch, but that was a little lucky. Teams that hit .249 with a .740 OPS don’t score 4.8 R/G. So really the regression started on April 20th, even though it didn’t show up in the W/L column.

From April 20th to today, a span of 74 games, they have hit .237/.311/.384 and averaged just 3.8 R/G.

So we really ALL need to just accept the fact that the offense has sucked for 81% of the games and stop talking about April. It wasn’t even a full month of excellence.

by shoewizard on Jul 10, 2008 3:44 PM EDT 0 recs

Or, at the very least...

Stop talking about that part of April as a harbinger of things to come. I think the problem most people have with this is that while deep down we accepted they were probably playing over their heads to start the season, it didn’t seem like the regression would be this harsh. Coupled with the fact that this is still a team in contention thanks to the god-awful NL West, and it’s all very bizarre. In a way, it seems like it’d be better if we were 10 back right now.

by Azreous on Jul 10, 2008 5:21 PM EDT up 0 recs

Offensively, yes

But over the late April stretch, our pitching restricted the opposition to .237/.307/.339 – an OPS of .646. That’s very much in line with the .634 posted during the early part of the season. Compare May (.719), June (.740) and July (.734 to date), and while the offense may have fallen off, it’s clear the pitching was a significant part of the equation that led to our success in April.

by Jim McLennan on Jul 10, 2008 5:30 PM EDT up 0 recs

But that was also an anomaly

.630-.640 OPS against is not sustainable. Not even nearly so…and we all knew that was going to come back to earth. The Team ERA+ at the time was like 130-140.

There is only one team in Majors with a sub .700 OPS against…the Dodgers at .691. D Backs are second with .702, on the strength of that flukey April.

Anyway, I am right there with the crowd that never dreamed that the team would regress this badly. I am just trying to point out that the OFFENSIVE regression, which we all agree is the primary cause of the team’s troubles, is really more like a DEPRESSION. It’s a deep deep hole, and a signal that something is fundamentally wrong with the club, the roster construction, the evaluation process, the coaching….from top on down. I was wrong about this team. Time to fess up.

by shoewizard on Jul 10, 2008 6:39 PM EDT up 0 recs

I'm just too stubborn to give up on this team.

I think once again, the team is eventually going to regress to the mean. The offense isn’t as good as we thought they were in April, but there’s no way they are as bad as they are now. I know that has been said before, but it just feels like it to me that they are going to heat up, and play better. I will be quite surprised if they continue to play this bad for the rest of the year.

Please platoon Chad Tracy with someone other than Chris Burke!

by Zephon on Jul 10, 2008 6:44 PM EDT 0 recs

Differences

1.) This years team is not receiving the benefit of Eric Byrnes career year

2.) The bench is weaker than last year

So all things being equal, this team needs to get major improvements from all the other starters to make up for that, and that improvement is not just there. Not as a group.

From the start of 2007 to the current point in the 2008 season, no fancy begin and end points:

253 G, .248/.321/.410 .731 OPS 4.38 R/G 853 BB

Thats the average. The last 73 games, as I pointed out above they’ve hit just .237/.311/.384 and averaged just 3.8 R/G.

So the average of the last 250+ games is a very poor offense, and the trend is downward from that. What makes you think they haven’t been regressing to the mean all along? As sad as that is to contemplate, we have to concede that may at least be a possibility.

by shoewizard on Jul 10, 2008 8:01 PM EDT up 0 recs