with joey in school and lacking the time/enthusiam to actually write anything worth reading this site has become little more than a forum..espn dallas has better coverage now! wtf!! used to love this site..

Well....bye

I too am disappointed - disappointed in the way that people always find some way to ruin a good thing. Case in point - all this bitching about Joey. Case in point #2 - even though Texas is playing .700 baseball, the forum and regular posts are littered with comments complaining about Ron Washington. I guess for some people, it's just never enough.

@jh

And your contributions help how?

Joey is in school and taking finals. The problem with the site isn't Joey. It's that as the Rangers have gotten more popular, there seem to be a lot of people posting on the site who don't know much about baseball. We have people criticizing Mike Napoli because he has a low batting avg. (as if batting avg. is a good measure of offensive production). Yet his wOBA is .382 and his wRC+ is 139. Those are both above his career #s and #6 in the league among catchers. We have people saying Feliz is off to a good start because his ERA is 3.8 (as if ERA is a good measure of pitching performance). Yet Feliz's xFIP and SIERA are above 5. It's clear that Feliz has gotten extremely lucky (BABIP of .194 and LOB% of 80%) despite an atrocious K/BB rate of 1.29.

It used to be on this site that most of the regular posters understood basic sabermetric concepts and stats. And even those who didn't embrace sabermetrics understood the ideas and offered up useful comments. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I think that's in part a product of the Rangers success, which has attracted sports fans with no specific interest in baseball. And it's probably due in part to the fact that Joey hasn't been posting much analysis. Joey's analyses have always been saber-oriented, which I think attracted a certain audience and kept the discussions at a relatively high level. But obviously, Joey has personal obligations that don't permit him to post as frequently. That's completely understandable. I would just hope that we could try to maintain a quality discussion among ourselves before the comments and forum posts degenerate into ESPN.com fodder.

And don't get me wrong. I don't think all baseball fans need to be saber-oriented. I have plenty of friends who are Rangers fans who have no idea what fielding independent pitching means. It's just that this site has always been a site for saber-oriented Rangers fans. There are plenty of sites out there for Rangers fans who don't want to dig deeper than batting avg. or ERA. And I think those sites are great for the purpose they serve.

Rfan what do you think about me am I annoying

@jh

Good riddance!

Don't let the door hit you...

You act like you paid for something and aren't getting your money's worth. Do you really need to be reminded that this is a free site and is maintained at the whim of it's owner? If that owner has a real life and you have to come in second for a while, then you get to learn what it means to be a grown up and deal with it. Joey isn't the problem with this site, the problem is uneducated 12 yr olds that think they are owed something for nothing.

As a recent college grad, I'm surprised Joey even had time to do this in his undergrad, let alone his Masters. Although, I do think there should probably be somebody who can start/moderate chats in Joey's (completely understandable) absence.

Where do you see people raving about Happy's ERA or flipping b/c of Nap's BA? I understand Matches' schoolin and such takes a toll, but a pass off of power for a week or two couldn't hurt, and i think jh has a valid point.

Its a young and exciting season with so much to write about, and we've been spoiled by Matches for so long, but compared even to this years offseason and ST the frequency and quality of posts has decreased (albeit understandably).

Can we get some analysis on Yu's awesomeness? Happy's control issues? Young's increasingly frequent rally-killing ground out's? The sloppy defense last night that cost us? Harry and Dutch's inability to avoid the big inning?

FEED US!......please

If you have a problem with bbtia, get the hell out of here. We don't want you.

It's not like you're paying a subscription fee and not getting anything for it.

And now hopefully this topic will sink. Let it die, guys.