eftda wrote:na its cool...
but ya. IMO, the long ball sucks. I love small ball. single... steal... bunt... sac fly.... works all the time if the number one hitter gets on
Not to hijack the thread, but you'd be surprised how little it actually does work. First, the #1 guy actually has to get on, which happens about 35% of the time. Then, the guy on first has to actually steal successfully, which will happen about 60% of the time. Then, the sac bunt to move him over to third has to go down successfully, which happens about 75% of the time. Fourth, the last hitter has to hit a deep enough fly ball to center-right, which will happen about 15% of the time. If he Simple math tells us that the chance of all that working out is roughly 2%, or twice every nine games.
On a home run, at least one run scores 100% of the time, so I'd rather have one of those than sacrifice the outs.
But I digress...
I don't know enough about Mota's stats, but I do know that Dotel gave up too many HR's last year in Oakland. He'll probably revert to form in 2005.