Who is season's surprise?

[Zagi-CRO]

Going into seventh season's week who is the biggest season's surprise /player, team/?


- looking at standings, Tampa with their fifth consecutive victory /7-1 beat the Yankees/ and 23-16 for the first place in the ALE?
- the last-place Tigers have lost eight of 10 and have dropped all four games to the Royals this season!? Is it time to fire Nate Robertson?
- Oakland have a weak rotation on paper but they have 23-17 this season
- The last-place Mariners rotation is pretty good but they are only 15-26
- After the blockbuster-trade with the Tigers /Willis, M.Cabrera/ the Marlins have a seven-game winning streak and 23-16
- The Padres dissapointed their fans, last place with 15-25
- Edinson Volquez, excellent young pitcher 6-1 1.12
- Nate McLouth with the best career numbers
- Or maybe another season's surprise Ervin Santana 6-0 2.63

What's your opinion?

[bailiff]

David Murphy's year so far
Josh Hamilton's year so far
Rangers being only 1 game under .500, after the start they had

[Zagi-CRO]

It's total crazy...
Verlander 1-6 6.43
Liriano 0-3 11.32!!!
M.Morris 0-4 9.67
NYY's prospects Kennedy and Hughes 0-6 9.00
an old, good Zito 0-7 6.58
Francis 0-4 6.27
C.C.Sabathia 2-5 6.00
Buehrle 1-5 5.81

etc.. what's going on??

Many of excellent pitchers with so poor results /4 W- 40 L/... awful

[ipitch]

The title of this thread should be "Who is this season's surprise, other than Cliff Lee?"

6.29 ERA last year. So far this year.... 0.67. Only about 5 pitchers ever have had a lower ERA after their first 7 starts.

[bob]

Yea Cliff Lee is clearly the biggest surprise player for me so far.

[DodgerBlue8188]

Wow, why did it take so long to hear Cliff Lee's name? His ERA is .60 something but people seem to forget he gave up almost all those runs in one outing.

Team wise I'd def say Tampa Bay is the biggest surprise. While the Tigers were a surprised in the beginning of the season I was not THAT surprised because I've seen teams in the past who stack up there roster with lots of talent and money and they don't even make the playoffs.

[insanefishpossay]

I'd say the Florida Marlins, who have one of the best records in baseball despite having one-tenth the payroll of the Yankees. The next lowest payroll in MLB is still more than double that of the Marlins.

[Old Sweater]

Marlins and Rays, not only can't they count votes, those fans as a whole don't attend many games down there. Two fine young clubs they have.

Cliff Lee and I'd also like to give a shout out for Aaron Cook who go's into his match-up against Webb with a lower ERA then Webb and he won his last game against Peavy but still is under the radar at BBF.

[dgarza]

Carlos Quentin
Cliff Lee
Zack Greinke
Rafael Furcal
Edinson Volquez
Fredi Gonzalez
Joe Maddon

[STLCards2]

It's total crazy...
M.Morris 0-4 9.67

Many of excellent pitchers with so poor results /4 W- 40 L/... awful

Am I missing something here?

[SamtheBravesFan]

Am I missing something here?

He added up the current records of names that he could recognize, which comes to 4-40.

[Zagi-CRO]

He added up the current records of names that he could recognize, which comes to 4-40.

A nice poor rotation:

Verlander 1-7
C.C.Sabathia 3-5
Buehrle 1-5
Zito 0-7
Francis 0-4
Liriano 0-3

How much a team could pay this rotation, less then Yu Darvish??

[steveironcity]

Nate Mcclouth .304 10 HR 32 RBIs

[Jermz]

I am looking like a genuis so far, as my fantasy baseball team has Cliff Lee, Ervin Santana & Geovany Soto. Three guys that people laughed at me for taking in our draft.

[SamtheBravesFan]

A nice poor rotation:

Verlander 1-7
C.C.Sabathia 3-5
Buehrle 1-5
Zito 0-7
Francis 0-4
Liriano 0-3

How much a team could pay this rotation, less then Yu Darvish??

*rolls his eyes* I don't know what Yu Darvish's posting fee has to do with this, but you have to take each of these people in their own contexts:

Justin Verlander (25 yrs. old) has pitched pretty poorly in terms of runs given up, coughing up four or more runs in seven of his nine starts. He has three or four walks in five starts, and he seems to be striking out less people, so it could be a command problem.

C.C. Sabathia (27 yrs. old) had walk problems earlier, but those seem to have settled down. He just pitched a complete-game shutout with 11 strikeouts and 2 walks yesterday and his strikeout numbers have been mostly up. I wouldn't exactly put him on this list to begin with.

Mark Buehrle (29 yrs. old) has never been too much of a strikeout pitcher, but whatever he's doing right now is causing him to get hit and hit hard. He allowed 9 and 10 hits (7 and 8 runs) in his past couple of games.

Barry Zito (30 yrs. old) was never really that good in the first place.

Jeff Francis (27 yrs. old) usually allows a lot of runs, which is just part of being in Colorado, I suppose. Last season, he started out 1-4, so this isn't foreign to him. He'll be fine.

And although Francisco Liriano is pretty young, (24 yrs. old) you just can't expect him to come back into the game after about 1 1/2 years and continue where he left off from his rookie season.

[Old Sweater]

Jeff Francis (27 yrs. old) usually allows a lot of runs, which is just part of being in Colorado, I suppose. Last season, he started out 1-4, so this isn't foreign to him. He'll be fine.



Isn't Coors Field for Francis. He is either really on in his wins(2.39) or a BP pitcher(8.49) in his losses.

Jeff Francis career era

home/4.49
away/5.07

in 48 wins/2.39
in 38 losses/8.49
no dec 29/4.60

2008

4 losses/10.12/21 IP
4 no dec/3.12/26 IP


Rockies team era

2007
home/4.34
away/4.29
2006
home/4.72
away/4..59
2005
home/5.19
away/5.08


And it's the Rockies hitters that suffer more on the road then the Rockies pitchers.

[SamtheBravesFan]

Isn't Coors Field for Francis. He is either really on in his wins(2.39) or a BP pitcher(8.49) in his losses.

Jeff Francis career era

home/4.49
away/5.07

in 48 wins/2.39
in 38 losses/8.49
no dec 29/4.60

2008

4 losses/10.12/21 IP
4 no dec/3.12/26 IP


Rockies team era

2007
home/4.34
away/4.29
2006
home/4.72
away/4..59
2005
home/5.19
away/5.08


And it's the Rockies hitters that suffer more on the road then the Rockies pitchers.

*nods* Good points. You'll have to forgive me; It's very easy to point to Coors for Rockies players. ;)

[Old Sweater]

*nods* Good points. You'll have to forgive me; It's very easy to point to Coors for Rockies players. ;)


That happens a lot but the team home&away ERA splits is why I say there is a lot more to the Coors Hangover Effect then people think the last 3 years. Rockies batters are still striking out 20% more on the road while the pitchers ERA's are near the same.

[SamtheBravesFan]

That happens a lot but the team home&away ERA splits is why I say there is a lot more to the Coors Hangover Effect then people think the last 3 years. Rockies batters are still striking out 20% more on the road while the pitchers ERA's are near the same.

Huh, no kidding.

[Zagi-CRO]

*rolls his eyes* I don't know what Yu Darvish's posting fee has to do with this, but you have to take each of these people in their own contexts:

Justin Verlander (25 yrs. old) has pitched pretty poorly in terms of runs given up, coughing up four or more runs in seven of his nine starts. He has three or four walks in five starts, and he seems to be striking out less people, so it could be a command problem.

C.C. Sabathia (27 yrs. old) had walk problems earlier, but those seem to have settled down. He just pitched a complete-game shutout with 11 strikeouts and 2 walks yesterday and his strikeout numbers have been mostly up. I wouldn't exactly put him on this list to begin with.

Mark Buehrle (29 yrs. old) has never been too much of a strikeout pitcher, but whatever he's doing right now is causing him to get hit and hit hard. He allowed 9 and 10 hits (7 and 8 runs) in his past couple of games.

Barry Zito (30 yrs. old) was never really that good in the first place.

Jeff Francis (27 yrs. old) usually allows a lot of runs, which is just part of being in Colorado, I suppose. Last season, he started out 1-4, so this isn't foreign to him. He'll be fine.

And although Francisco Liriano is pretty young, (24 yrs. old) you just can't expect him to come back into the game after about 1 1/2 years and continue where he left off from his rookie season.

*rolls his eyes*

If it were preseason today whom would you choose:

Team A
C.C. Sabathia
Justin Verlander
Jeff Francis
Francisco Liriano
Mark Buehrle

Team B
Edinson Volquez
Ervin Santana
Cliff Lee
Todd Wellemeyer
Aaron Cook

??

[Old Sweater]

I'd pick the A team but as far as Cook and Francis go's I would pick Cook every single time.

[Zagi-CRO]

A future playoff due to actual numbers May/27

Tampa 97 - CWS 89
LAA 96 - Boston 94

CHC 97 - Arizona 93
Florida 95 - Houston 92
----------------------
It's surprising because Tampa, CWS, Houston, Florida nobody could expect so high.