Pirates vs. Astros, 22 July 2008

get Jon Rauch from Nats for Bonifacio.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3500802

Jerome Holtzman, the Chicago baseball writer who “created the saves rule,” according to AP, died Saturday.

So HE’S the guy responsible for one of the worst rules ever? Hardly what I’d want leading my obit.

(FWIW, my obit will begin, “Bucdaddy, 105, shot to death by a jealous husband …”)

was the first one to come up with the idea of an official “save” statistic to measure relievers, but his invention was a more restrictive definition (can’t remember exactly, but I think the closer had to face the tying run). It was later changed to make it easier to get a save. So Holtzman is not responsible for relievers getting saves when they allow a 3-run lead to be cut to one.

According to this excerpt from the Big League Stew blog, the inspiration for the rule was a Pirate – Roy Face.

TH: You are the person responsible for creating the save rule in baseball. How and when did that come about?

JH: I think it came about in 1960. Elroy Face was 18-1 with Pittsburgh in 1959. I was traveling with the Cubs. The Cubs had two relief pitchers: right-hander Don Elston and left-hander Bill Henry. They were constantly protecting leads and no one even knew about it. The year Elroy Face was 18-1 he blew 10 leads. Did you know that? But they had such a good-hitting team they came back in the last inning and won the game for him. Elston and Henry were terrific. I thought it was not fair and that there should be some kind of index for the effectiveness of a relief pitcher. You couldn’t judge him by his victories. You couldn’t judge him by his earned run average because it should be lower than everybody else’s. A lot of the runs a reliever gives up are charged to the preceding pitcher. So I came up with the save rule and obviously it’s caught on.

quit have opinions.
please.
the idea of a ‘save’ was pretty advanced.

it is aguable that the pirates’ regarding zack duke as a major league pitcher based on the 2005 season, was the worst non-drafting decision that the organization-well that, and not understanding arbitration rules, and super twos-, made.
somehow this organization tethered its future to the idea that a left-hander, giving up a hit per inning, throwing a whole lot of line drives, and few pop-ups, walking a few here & there, was a part of a major league staff.
it wasn’t that they tagged him as a staff leader; it was that they believed that a whole lot of really poor pitchers could get together and put on a show
and they went out and collected a basketful of not really good throwers, without much athletic ability, a bare grip on the strike zone, and declare them “pitchers”.
hey, shoot, it worked with duke.
ksw

the railing above the yellow line. That’s one good thing about having the HD Houston feed here near New Orleans. Showed it clearly.

How long does this have to keep up for Freddy before I get to say I told you so????

Regarding Illionois Pirate Fan and the need for Huntington and Coonelly to pull the trigger.

Look, as a Pittsburgh native, I’m a student of the business of baseball first and a Pirate fan second.

But Illinois Pirate Fan is absolutely right. All he is saying is that the C & H boys have done very little in nearly ten months. We don’t know what kind of trades that they could have made or what they have been offered as the trading deadline approaches.

But no trades are slam dunks unless you are dealing with a Littlefield or another GM who needs to dump salary or is just simply inept at evaluating talent.

So trades are a calculated crapshoot that usually can’t be measured (although many have immediate opinions) at the time the trade is made.

If the Pirates don’t make some moves before the deadline, I, like Illinois Pirate Fan, will be very disappointed.

Let’s see what new management is made of.

by Wiggington as Nady’s double went by.

Nate…#20

for Maholm. Some of our other “starters” need to take lessons.

Wiggington’s range to his right hasn’t improved any. He barely moved.

Bautista from grounding into a 2nd double play.

In response to the Cards fan way back when… I’d take Reyes and Bryan Anderson…he’s not playing in STlouis with Molina so he’s way more valuable to us.

Bourn’s speed vs. Maholm’s pickoff move.

to drop his pants on Marte or Grabow so they went with Bowden ( not a great GM imo) and Rauch?

I doubt Arizona is looking at anyone on our roster now unless we’re willing to shop Mclouth.

Doumit should have got to second. When he didn’t, Freddy should have scored.

off the hook.

a crooked number instead of a fence post.

is gunning them down. Good work.

I thought this is what our young rotation was supposed to blossom into?

Who thought Maholm would be the ace? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

I think Dejan can fairly raise his hand. He said more than once in spring training that Maholm looked like the best starter and would have a good year.

wish this solid start came against a team with a lineup as good or better than our own.

sorry… 15 years can make a guy pessimistic.

Doumit just destroyed that pitch.

seen Doumit hit one like that right handed…that was CRUSHED. Lee never moved.

Nice to see Bautista upset in the dugout because he cost Maholm a shutout by bobbling that DP ball.

If you can’t hit ‘im, try to kill ‘im.

we’ve seen the last of Maholm for tonight.

which I think most of us would have been comfortable with before the Rockies series started.