Klaw Chat Wrap

Highlights from the Klaw chat:

James (North East, MD): Wieters will be the best catcher in baseball in 5 years, true or false? 

 Keith Law: (1:13 PM ET ) If Joe Mauer is still a catcher at that point, I'd stick with him. 

I was kind of hoping that one of the Texas catchers would be mentioned.

mike (Ny): KLaw are you going to provide any insight or just useless rants and stupid comments? 

 Keith Law: (1:14 PM ET ) All of the above, but I might save the insight until after you leave. 

It seems like so many people go out of their way to ridicule Klaw during his chats, that I even wonder why they waste their time following them.  At least he has a sense of humor about it.

Joe (SD): Speaking of idiotic, Cain threw 125 yesterday!! Granted guys like Clemens used to throw 130-140 no sweat, but what do you think might be the lasting effects on poor 24 year old Matt? 

 Keith Law: (1:29 PM ET ) I don't object to 125 pitches per se. I object to having a starter throw that many when his team has a 7-run lead in the ninth inning. If you don't have one reliever capable of getting three outs without giving up 7 runs, you need to reevaluate your bullpen. 

I know that pitch counts have been talked about ad nauseam here lately, but it is good to know that more and more people are coming around to the idea that pitchers have been overspecialized, and thus less effective.

Tim (Dallas): Longterm as a starter: Holland or Feliz? 

 Keith Law: (1:32 PM ET ) Both. 

Given the current pitching woes, is is good to hear a non-Rangers fan confirm what we want to believe.

Derrick (Tulsa, OK): Do you think baseball should be an olympic sport? Have you followed this year's olympic baseball at all? 

 Keith Law: (1:42 PM ET ) I don't care about it either way. I haven't followed it. If MLB isn't going to send its best players, then they might as well take it out of the Olympics. At least softball gets the best players to participate. 

This is pretty much how I feel about Olympic baseball.  Plus, that is some of the worst announcing I have ever heard.

Jarid (St.Louis): NL MVP ? 

 Keith Law: (2:09 PM ET ) Has to be Pujols, right? Leading the NL in VORP, plus-plus glove. Whether or not they make the playoffs is irrelevant. AL either A-Rod or Sizemore (happy now, Jacob?). 

Again, I was hoping to see Kinsler's name in this discussion.  Don't know if this is because he is injured, because he has a lot of errors, or just a plain oversight.

Dan (DC): I'll give you this: you clearly aren't sucking up the BBWAA for membership 

 Keith Law: (2:16 PM ET ) I've told them I'm not interested. They made up a reason to exclude me and Rob, and refused to back down when shown that their arguments were fabricated. Joining now would only increase their credibility. 

Interesting.  There is a lot of "Us vs Them" mentality with traditional and sabermetric baseball writers.  People like Neyer and Law could actually bridge the gap, but I guess that is out the window.  ESPN is pretty mainstream where as BA and BPro aren't.  So if ESPN writers are being kept out of the BBWAA, I don't see how others would get in.

Tony (Chicago): So Quentin's 154 OPS+ to Sizemore's 134 Ops+ is over come by defense? Really? we're not talking about a few percentage points here. I get your point on defense, but I'm not sure it justifies your Sizemore answer 

 Keith Law: (2:25 PM ET ) It's not just defensive value, but value of the offense relative to their position. What I'm saying is that getting Sizemore's stats from your CF is more valuable than getting Quentin's stats from your LF, because it's easier to find a good LF to go with Sizemore than it is to find a good CF to go with Quentin. This lies at the heart of how I value players for the MVP discussion or for rankings of free agents or amateurs or whatever. 

This probably explains why Hamilton is not in the discussion for MVP; his performance is not solely from CF.  Still 2B is not a position known for high offensive stats.  Where is Kinsler?

Wayne (Little Rock): I wish you guys would quit using the "AL" - "NL" excuse. 

 Keith Law: (2:36 PM ET ) I wish the leagues were somewhat comparable. And I wish for a million dollars and a pony. 

I just liked that response.

Joe (Blacksburg, VA): Isn't it funny how most people value players based on their fantasy value? Hence the unreasonable love for guys like Alexei Ramirez and complete disregard for defense. 

 Keith Law: (2:40 PM ET ) If you grew up reading a daily paper, like I did (Newsday), you probably grew up thinking about players in these terms because that's how most baseball writers have written about players. I didn't start to change my views on players until the mid-90s, right after I got out of college. If you were chatting with 1992 Klaw, I'd be arguing *for* wins and RBI and all that other garbage. I'd also be talking endlessly about grunge bands from Seattle and how guys who cook and read Jane Austen are a little questionable. 

Another player whose fantasy value is not proportional to the real world is... (this one's for you Dirkatron) Liriano.  Rotoworld had a column up today saying that Liriano's great number come from facing the AL's three worst offenses and the League's sixth worst lineup.  The Twins also have relatively weak schedule the rest of the way as well.  He only has a 20:10 K/BB ratio, and has reduced his velocity and shied away from his slider due to injury concerns.  The most asinine debates are internet debates, but I just couldn't resist.  Sorry.

Well that's it for the stuff that I found interesting.  No Murphy questions this week.  Click here for the chat in its entirety.