letter from aziz
Re: the Yankees being lucky. They are TWELVE games over their
Pythagorean wins. The next biggest is 5, which about 4-5 teams have.
The Braves, BoSox and Astros are right on. The Cubs are down 6, which
is the biggest drop.

I'm not a big proponent of Pythagorean wins, but 12 is insane. I just
might bet against them in the playoffs.

Oakland can score on anyone, that's true. But they do have a
statistically mediocre offense. I suppose their park has something to
do with that. Anaheim's looks even worse, but they have injuries to key
players to blame for that. Anderson and Glaus both missed a ton of
time.

How about them Astros? And those god awful Cubs (as you said, .327 team
OBP). Sad. The Astros can definitely knock someone off. Wait, that
would be the Braves. Shit... We can handle them. Chipper got hit in
the wrist today. But they didn't even bother to X-ray so it can't be
that bad.

Speaking of the Braves... Since the break we have a .358 OBP, which is
tied with the SF Bonds's for 1st in the NL. We also have the best team
ERA in baseball, #2 rotation and #5 pen. We're only #19 in K/9 (Anaheim
has a 9.02/9 for their pen!!!), which says a lot about our defense (and
park, as always).

Yeah everyone talks about Beltre, but Izturis was huge too.

I don't mind so much if Barry is on steroids. The fact is that I'm
positive it's true though. The morality of it is up to others. I'm
with you that I don't care because so many others are on them too. It
actually may be a very big factor in the offensive explosion of the past
decade. Pitchers don't have any good juice.

I agree that RJ should win the CY, but he won't. But I don't think
Clemens is a bad choice. I think he's clearly in the top 4-5 starters
(RJ, Sheets, Schmidt, Zambrano... Peavy missed too much time), and top 8
if you include Gagne and Lidge. His walconpow is very very good, and
he's in a hitters park. He doesn't deserve it, but I look at his
numbers and they are exceptional.

-----Original Message-----
From: julien headley
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 12:04 AM
To: aziz al-doory
Subject: RE: From Rotoworld

arizona, yeah, ha!

injuries to sexson and gonzales combined with down years from young
players combined with really bad luck. we should have realized that
last year was lucky for them. and curt schilling is a big deal.

la i think the improvements from beltre, izturis, and cora were what did
it. mostly beltre. jesus. and bradley helped. and i should have thought
about just how handy it is to have eric gagne. the dodgers are built for
their park like no other team. contact hitting, fly ball pitching . . .
it's
beautiful.

marlins/detroit: turns out pudge is a big deal. plus improvements by
young tigers, like omar infante and brandon inge. and how bout
carlos guillen!

cardinals, yeah. jeez.

i don't think the a's offense is bad. chavez is a great hitter, as is
hatteberg. durazo is good, kotsay is good, byrnes is good. then it's
guys. the thing about them is they can score against anybody.

looks like they're tied in the west. reminds you how good vlad is.

the yankees have been *really* lucky this year, considering their
injuries. but it also goes to show you what a great manager joe
torre is. him, cox, showalter, larussa. that's the top tier.

they don't have the team to win in the postseason, though. not
enough contact hitting. not enough pitching, strangely enough.
not enough defense. too old. none of these things make much
difference in the regular season, but it'll add up in the playoffs.

the astros i think had a lot of bad luck, and weird managing, and
their offense didn't really come together until that winning streak.
plus after clemens and oswalt they had problems. beltran has been
huge for them. and craig biggio . . . they said he was too old, but
he just keeps hittin.

i just figured out what it is about the cubs---their offense is bad.
sammy sosa sucks. corey patterson strikes out way too much. lee
also strikes out a bunch. ramirez is good and alou is pretty good
and barrett has had a nice year, but there's just nothing there.
they can't beat good pitching. nomar is good but his health is a
question.

turns out dusty baker is not a good manager. it was his left fielder
won all those games in san francisco.

my thing about barry and steroids is i don't care. everybody is on
something, and the line is so blurry that you can't say anything
meaningful anyway. i guess people just have a need to hate.

mauer, yeah, i didn't think he'd develop power so quickly. hope
his knees hold up.

in other news, ichiro suzuki is a motherfucker. he's my other
choice for mvp. or gary sheffield cause he's a warrior.

nl cy? to me it's gotta be rj. but it doesn't look like he'll get it.
sheets has been good, but same problem. lidge would be a good
choice, but he won't get it because he doesn't have enough
saves. i just hope they don't give it to clemens.

----Original Message Follows----
From: "Aziz Al-Doory"
To: "'julien headley'"
Subject: RE: From Rotoworld
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:55:33 -0400


Yeah there's no clear cut MVP candidate in the AL either. Obv. it's no
contest in the NL. I think Santana allowed 1 earned run in September.

That bet never happened as we agreed it would be called off if either
player was traded. Too bad for me.

We have a $500 bet on who finishes higher, the Marlins or the Phillies.
It was looking like a slam dunk for me, but now the Marlins are 1 game
behind the Phils. I couldn't watch the Braves/Marlins the other day as
I had a rooting conundrum. I would never root against the Braves, but
they had clinched and are unlikely to fall behind LA... and I still
couldn't do it. I guess I can't root against the Braves no matter what.

Thinking back to other predictions...

Arizona.. oops.

LA.. I thought so! DePodesta was no small part of my prediction, I
thought he'd be able to improve the team. Some of the moves were
questionable, but I've looked deeper and they were better than I
thought. Especially since it appeared the deal for RJ was done.

Giants.. I tell you he's done steroids. His HAT SIZE has changed.
That does not happen in the weight room. Regardless, they are as always,
a better team than I predicted them to be. You had them pegged pretty
well.

St. Louis.. Lucky bullpen, maybe lucky rotation, and insane offense
(which we knew.. and who didn't? But it was more insane than we
thought. Rolen and Edmonds are having their best years, among some
others)

Braves.. You told me so. I gave up when Giles got hurt. Mazzone is
our MVP (again).

Mets.. lol. Unless they pull a Jaret Wright on Zambrano, they lost out
bigtime with those trades. Jesus.

Cubs.. suckas. Might make it anyway.

Astros.. Can't figure them out. Is their defense bad? Pen got a
little thin after trading Dotel.. Have to look at how their pen has
performed as a group.

Yankees.. fuckers. Not sure how I feel about their post season
chances. Very little Giambi, Mussina stinking, Vazquez stinking, and
still they may win 100 games.

BoSox.. Please beat the Yankees.

A's.. I got you on this one. Weak offense and pen like I said. Which
brings me to:

Angels.. I think I predicted 95 wins. They are at 89 with 6 left, so
they probably won't make it. But they might win the division.

Rangers.. What the? Almost this year's Marlins. Didn't quite have
enough in the rotation to make it.

Twins.. You said it. I didn't realize how good their pen was.
Santana's blowup was predicted by you and others, but jesus. Mauer was
better than advertised in his short, injury plagued season. You may
have a few things to take back.. Or not. :)

ChiSox: I maintain they'd be in it (as much as an AL central team can
be "in it") if Mags and the Big Hurt didn't miss most of the season.



-----Original Message-----
From: julien headley
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 12:29 AM
To: aziz al-doory
Subject: RE: From Rotoworld

i'm startin to think he's the mvp.

looks like you'll win that bet with pikula:
zito 4.54
lilly 3.92


----Original Message Follows----
From: "Aziz Al-Doory"
To: julien headley
Subject: From Rotoworld
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:55:26 -0400

hehe...

"In what was no surprise, Johan Santana was selected as the AL Player of
the
Week.
He pitched 15 scoreless innings in his two victories last week. The
truth
is, we're getting bored of telling you how good Santana is."
- posted by julien @ 2:54 PM