June 26, 2003
Okay, now that I've got that off my chest...
Over at BaseballGraphs.com, the 2003 Win Shares numbers are up and posted. Personally, I never really got all that excited about Win Shares, but it is certainly a good stat and anything that attempts to include defensive contributions in a player's value is worthwhile to look at.
The early Win Shares leaders (through last week):
American League
1) Carlos Delgado
2) Bret Boone
3) Nomar Garciaparra
4) Ichiro!
5) Alfonso Soriano
National League
1) Albert Pujols
2) Barry Bonds
3) Gary Sheffield
4) Austin Kearns
5) Todd Helton
The site contains a bunch of cool Win Shares-related stuff. In addition to the AL and NL rankings, it also has breakdowns by position and team, as well as defense.
For example, the top 10 Twins:
1) Corey Koskie
2) A.J. Pierzynski
3) Doug Mientkiewicz
4) Kyle Lohse
5) Johan Santana
6) Jacque Jones
7) Bobby Kielty
8) Eddie Guardado
9) Torii Hunter
10) Latroy Hawkins
That's not a bad list. Koskie ranks 9th overall in the AL and, in case you're wondering, Luis Rivas is 23rd on the Twins and 15th among AL second basemen (and yes, there are only 14 teams in the AL). And no, there aren't any starting pitchers besides Lohse on the list!
My entry about Joe Morgan from earlier this week was apparently a big hit. It resulted in the most "traffic" in the history of this blog. Over 2,400 visitors stopped by on Tuesday to read about "The Adventures of Little Joe."
I want to thank everyone out there who came here and especially all of the other websites that linked to the entry I wrote. Among them...
Lee Sinins' Around the Majors Report
And I am probably missing like 10 other places that mentioned the entry. It's tough tracking where everyone is coming from when there are 2,400 people to account for. But hey, I could definitely get used to it! Heck, I got 2,800 visitors during the first month of this blog's existence, so 2,400 in a day is pretty amazing to me.
It also never gets old for me to see my name or this blog mentioned somewhere. I get a huge kick every time I see something I wrote linked to from another website. So, anytime you want to make my day, just mention me on your site! I'm that easy...
While almost everyone really loved reading about Joe Morgan's adventures, I did get a few angry emails from people. That's perfectly fine with me, but I do want to make the point that I am not saying Joe Morgan is an idiot or a bad human being or was a bad baseball player or even a bad announcer. Just that he tends to make strange statements that aren't really all that factual and, in particular, he has been saying many weird things recently, including spouting off about someone writing a book he didn't write and denying something he had said himself, in print.
My favorite "angry" email, by far, was a lengthy and very thoughtful one I got from a reader named Josh. That said, he made one statement that I find terribly amusing:
"If someone where to pore over the things you've published (with full fore thought and time to reflect) I'm sure they could find a fair share of less than stellar bits."
Meanwhile, that is exactly what Josh has done here. He has poured over something I have written and he has found what he feels is a "less than stellar bit." So Josh, I guess we are in the same boat, huh? I pick on what Joe Morgan says and you pick on what I say. It's kinda fun, isn't it?
Oh, and I don't consider writing something, denying you wrote it when questioned about it the next day, and then scolding people for "putting words into your mouth" to be just a "less than stellar bit." But maybe that's just me.
In case you missed the entry in question or you want to read it again:
The Adventures of Little Joe (June 23, 2003)
