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I am very concerned about his BABIP on overcast, odd days against pitchers with facial hair.

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How does he compare to the 15 other NL starting CF'ers? Who's he slightly better than and slightly worse than?

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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

Better than humping a cantaloupe. Not as good as marrying Halle Berry.

So far Jay has 1.1 WAR (fangraphs) on the year, despite missing almost a week. That's tied for 8th among all MLB outfielders, roughly on par with the adam jones/andre ethier tier. 6th among CF. So, pretty damned good.

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I've grown to like him more and more. I didn't have a very high expectation from him in any regard, but he's exceeded what I thought he could already. I love having him in the lineup, and I'm not sure what I'd do once everyone is healthy.

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I will say, you've always been really fair to Jay.

I'm a bigger fan than most. I think he can compete for a batting title.

BABIP is an interesting thing, I don't know how much it has to do with luck, and the old saying "hitting them where they ain't." Putting a ball in the gap is a skill. Not hitting can-o-corn fly balls is a skill; not grounding out feebly to short is a skill....and so on.

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That's an interesting statement wart. I have always wondered how much control batters have over their ability to place a ball when they hit it.

For example, in the 10th inning of Game 6, did Berkman see how dep the outfield was and then handle the pitch well enough to keep it from going too deep; would have have been able to drive it into a gap had the OF been playing regularly; or did he simply try to hit the ball as hard as he could, that's all he could do, and we're all lucky that the Rangers had the 'no doubles' OF alignment?

In comparison, obviously Jay was lucky to get a little bloop land earlier that inning, and he had no control over that.

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They say on average BABIP ends up around .300 when you average it for all players. But each player has their own for their career. It probably isn't realistic that Jay's BABIP will stay at .350, but that doesn't mean it will regress all the way back to .300 or below either. I think that's kind of what some people are saying in this thread.

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I think most big leaguers would tell you that the idea of guiding a 92 MPH fastball on the low outside corner into a 15 degree wedge no man's land between first and second base is an extraordinarily rare skill to possess even at that level.

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Reminds me of when they asked Musial how he handled the spitball and he said, "I try to hit it on the dry side."

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"You have to be concerned about the future, but you also have to be more concerned about the present. If you have to give up two or three young kids - who may not be able to play for several years - to get help for your team now, you have to do it." - Bing Devine, 1999

"They call baseball a game because it's too screwed up to be a business." - Jim Bouton, 1971.

"Big deal. Anyone can win games when the other team doesn't score any runs." - Curt Flood to Bob Gibson, circa 1968