Saturday, January 5, 2008

Links A'Hoy!

Lots of random links since the beginning of the new year.

-The Herald Sun out of Australia has an article on Peter Moylan out. Your basic "God, this Aussie is ever so cool" article with movie references. Sorry Lauren, not much new info here.

-DOB talks about Braves FanFest and the players that will be, but also touches on Jeff Francoeur. Nothing really amazing, just a look back at Francoeur and nothing on a possible contract. I wonder if this season is the season Francoeur signs or drags it through arbitration first.

-Ohhh, a DOB reference _AND_ a Bowman one. Marky boy is out with a look at the Braves catchers. If Bowman is the propaganda specialist for the Braves, Javy Lopez is the backup catcher as I said. Some have commented that Javy's going to have to *earn* his shot, but even if he's outplayed, I believe he has it clinched.

While McCann is certainly an adept offensive catcher, he has room for improvement from a defensive perspective. His .987 fielding percentage ranked second-worst among NL catchers. In addition, only Milwaukee's Johnny Estrada and Colorado's Yorvit Torrealba had a worse caught-stealing percentage.

While I agree he badly needs to improve, what the hell does fielding percentage tell you about a catcher? I don't mind people not using stats or hating stats all together. But if you choose to use them, at least use reasonable ones. Caught-stealing percentage is decent, though you can't ignore the pitchers' impact on things.

Still, McCann's knowledge of pitchers allowed Braves pitchers to produce a 3.90 ERA when he was behind the plate. That figure ranked first among all NL catchers.

Ahjesus, not catcher's ERA. Pick a stat that tells you something ABOUT the catcher's ability, Mark.

-Scott Proctor's Arm, a blog on the Yankees, has this tidbit. "Matt DeSalvo also signed a minor-league contract with the Atlanta Braves." Baseball America confirms it. I'd do a Meet and Greet, but not a lot to meet. He had a couple of decent games with the Yanks last year, but is all guts no talent, it seems.

-Oh, my first ten prospects of my Top 30 prospect list is finally up at chopnation.

-And buh bye.

2 comments:

Lauren T. said...

Actually, there *was* some new info in that Moylan article, Tommy. As I posted over at Braves Love yesterday, the article revealed Pete left Australia for the States on Thursday, and we can now safely hope he will be at FanFest (as he hinted in the podcast interview a few weeks back).

Not that I'm a Moylan stalker. (I'm not!) I just get the Google alerts and seem to have a lot of Aussie readers. :)

Tommy Poe said...

I hope Moylan brings his security.