Comments on FIRE JOE MORGAN: Hotness!

P.P.S. A lot of people also wrote in to point out ...

2007-01-26T12:26:00.000-05:00

P.P.S. A lot of people also wrote in to point out that Henry Blanco should in no way be associated with anything involving "hotness." Theron sez:

I think it's funny that the Klapisch article mentions Henry Blanco as both a new face on the Cubs and an element in making them a hot team. Not only has he been a Cub since 2005 anyway, but he's a backup catcher. Maybe the true measure of the next hot division will depend on where Chris Widger ends up?

And Eli:

Additionally, Henry Blanco is not a "new face" to the Cubs. He's a familiar face, attached to a body that plays terrible baseball.

P.S. Kid Canada adds this to the discussion (as d...

2007-01-26T12:21:00.000-05:00

P.S. Kid Canada adds this to the discussion (as did many others, BTW):

Klapisch is giving divisions credit for its teams adding players...but if the player stayed within the same division, does that make the division "hotter" or merely maintain the previous level of "hotness"?

Jason Schmidt went from San Francisco to the Dodgers. Greg Maddux went from L.A. to San Diego. Jason Marquis (the EPITOME of hotness) went from the Cardinals to the Cubs. All of these moves just keep the hotness of those divisions at the same level. Although I would argue the NL Central would have gotten hotter if Marquis had gone elsewhere. His HORP (Hotness Over Replacement Player) was a disgusting - 182.76 last season.

You guys, I totally pulled my own Klapischistic bo...

2007-01-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

You guys, I totally pulled my own Klapischistic boner: I just announced that all the NL West parks were huge, and linked this to pitchers having low ERAs. I kind of knew that I would get hit for this...somewhere in the back of my brain was the feeling that, like, the Former BOB was a hitters' park. And lo and behold, several of you were less lazy than I was, and wrote in to chastise me. Here's Eric:

Chase Field is widely regarded to be a hitter's park, despite its size. [However, BP] lists Arizona as a better hitters park than all but Coors Field in 2004.

Here's David:

"PetCo is huge. Dodger Stadium is huge. It's like 534 feet to left center in PacBell. The former BOB is huge. Congrats on having the lowest ERAs, NL West."

Not so fast. Park factors from ESPN indicate the division skews toward hitters. -- http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor

Coors Field, despite the humidor bringing HR back down to reasonable levels: #2 hitter's park in MLB last year.

Chase Field is located in Phoenix, which is at about 1200 feet of altitude and which was most conducive to HR last year: #4 hitter's park.

Dodger Stadium, with the new extremely reduced foul ground: #10 hitter's park.

SBC Park, even with the 421 foot power alley in right center and its tendency to destroy left handed hitters' power: #16 hitter's park last year, right in the middle
of all MLB teams.

You're right about PETCO; best pitcher's park in MLB.

Also, not that I'm defending Klapisch's choice of a term like "Hot Index", or whatever, but one can be rationally optimistic about the NL West this year because
those of us who enjoy good pitching are looking forward to the possibility the division has the four best 1-2 starter combos in the league.

Schmidt/Penny
Zito/Cain, Peavy/Young
Webb/Johnson

is each better than any other team except perhaps Sheets/Capuano, or Willis/Johnson. Extend that to the AL, and the Central is the only one of the three AL divisions with that depth of pitching talent.

Fair enough. Thanks to all of you who correctly chastised me for a silly mistake.