soohockey15

Damn, the spread was the Sioux -88.5, and I took them. Rats.

I'm pretty sure that they show all Blackhawks games in the Chicago area. This happened after the owner died last year. And the New Year's Day game is on NBC I believe.

Hard to imagine any football, basketball, or baseball team would do this? C'mon now, that's a bit ridiculous.

That song is great, and you are wrong. I think it pumps sufficiently.

Actually, no. The women's program is in a better state than the men's, so shouldn't the coach be held to the same standard? I'm not looking to fire him now, but at the end of the year if they have these same losses, I think they should look at a new guy.

The guy can't get the job done. Plain and simple. Gophs come in here and beat us around like stepchildren two nights in a row and its embarrassing. We need to get some new blood in here. Maybe its because he can't motivate enough?

Easy solution for this would be to take everyone's cell phones away and chain them to their seats.

Wow they suck.

Fire Hak for sure. Everyone last night saw him miss on multiple open nets and he gave up a bunch of 2 on 1s going the other way.

I knew something was missing when I got home tonite. Then I logged on and opened up this thread and my daily quota of humor was sufficiently filled. Great job, SS.com posters, great job.

Its called an RSS reader.

The funny thing is that it isn't subjective. Everything that goes into the formula is measurable. By all objective measures, Mauer is the more valuable one.

Gold Gloves were announced today (yesterday for the NL). Joe Mauer won the first of many he will get over the course of his career. Congrats.

Uh, I'm going to go out on a limb and say meth.

I heard he was hanging out with Nate Hagemo.

Here is the link to the explanation of what it is, but BP is secretive about their formulas. It takes into account VORP (value over replacement player) and FRAA (fielding runs above average). I used WARP3, as it is the best one to use because it sets everyone to an equal season. Complicated, yes, but these guys know what they're doing.

Glad you brought it up, because you actually can measure how many wins a player is worth using a BP stat called Wins Against Replacement. Mauer led Morneau 11.8 to 9.7. Mauer also led the entire AL in this category. I think its accurate to call Morneau's defense below average by looking at this. Its not perfect, but you can't really find any good defensive metrics that say Morneau is anywhere near the top of the league defensively. He's not horrible, but he doesn't have great range and shouldn't be winning Gold Gloves any time soon. Also, there are more defensive stats to back this up. I read another interesting thing about RBI today. This season, Morneau had 558 men on base during his at bats. That might not mean much to you, but that's the highest total in either league since 1996. Also, Morneau drove in 18.9% of runners on base while Mauer drove in 18.7%. Morneau's high RBI totals are the direct result of Mauer being on base 41.3% of the time.

I watched nearly every Twins game this season. Look, I know what you're saying, but you really don't understand this whole thing. First off, stats give you the best picture you can get. They're tangible facts that are easily observed and measured. Second, I really don't care what Twins fans think, because those people are generally wrong. To a true baseball fan and observer, Mauer's valuableness would seem apparent. He does the single most important thing a hitter can do (get on base) better than anyone on his team and sixth best this season in all of professional baseball. He also is the best defensive player at his position in baseball. Not to mention the fact that he has two more batting titles than every other catcher in the history of baseball combined. This = MVP. Morneau is a pretty good (not great) offensive player. He plays average defense. It would be much, much harder to find a catcher to replace Mauer than a first baseman to replace Morneau. Also, relievers are extremely extremely overrated when it comes to talking how much value they bring. Don't get me wrong, Nathan is great, but he is far from irreplaceable. And I wouldn't say that the Twins have zero power hitters minus Morneau. Jason Kubel hit 20 home runs this year, 3 less than Morneau.

Just gonna make that claim with nothing to back it up? Mauer led the AL in wins against replacement player and win probability added. The NL leaders respectively were Albert Pujols and Lance Berkman (Pujols second in WPA).

RBIs are a really bad way of measuring player production. They're more a factor of where you hit in the lineup and whether or not the guys in front of you get on base than actual hitting skill. This is especially true when you realize Barry Bonds can hit .341/.529/.729 with 45 home runs and only drive in 90 runs (in 2003). Morneau had the 10th best OPS and 15th most home runs out of all first basemen. Couple that with his below average defense and you've got a guy who's relying solely on RBI. Not exactly MVP stuff. Mauer is the best catcher in baseball. His OPS was only 9 points lower than Morneau's and Mauer got on base more. He's playing a premium defensive position where offense is an afterthought compared to Morneau's position where defense is an afterthought and was even better offensively (higher VORP 55.5-45.5). Mauer is the MVP.

The Twins didn't play very good team defense this year. Not surprising when the entire infield has below average range. And lets ease up on Mauer. He's far and away the Twins MVP and one of the top 5 players in the game.

Haha, oh my, waaaaay too funny! LOL!!! Keep the laughers coming!!!

And I forgot to mention, that in that dryspell between Goehring and Parise, the defensive corps in front of Siembida, Kollar, etc was just brutal.

Stop, thats ridiculous. Actually look at his history.He recruited the greatest goaltender in Sioux history (his name rhymes with marl kering). Kollar was very good (not to mention highly recruited) and expected to carry the load. Not Blais' fault he decided to go off the wall. Aaron Schweitzer led them to a title and 97' and was also phenomenal. Jordan Parise wasn't too bad... Phil was also a Blais product. So you have two goaltenders that brought national titles. Parise who is the team single-season shutout leader and Lamoureux who is the team single-season leader in GAA. Yea, he was just terrible wasn't he. It took about five seconds to look stuff up too. Try it

I hate when people take unneccessary shots at the Gophers. They won it more recently than UND, and they are a pretty good squad...get over it