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To: JRI who wrote (236021)	4/16/2003 5:29:44 PM
From: reaper	Respond to of 436258

well, on those '91 Braves you had Justice when he was 25 (just as good as Sweeney today), Ron Gant when he was 26 before he got hurt (better than Beltran today), Smith and Bream were modestly above league average, Otis Nixon was very close, and you had 3 absolute black holes in Olson, Lemke, and Belliard. the difference maker was of course Pendleton, but remember he was (i) younger than either Tucker or Randa will be this year; and (ii) performed at an absolute ridiculous level of 40% above league average, so sure that kind of improvement could happen with one of the older Royals guys but its sooooo unlikely. what are the odds. well, Michael Tucker had OPS of 737 and 738 the last two years. his OPS has never been higher than 892 and never lower than 716. he experienced generally rising performance during his 20s, and then materially declined post his 30th birthday, as would be expected. his OPS so far this year is 720, right where you would expect it to be. not a real candidate for improvement. Randa follows the same path, with generally rising performance in this 20s and falling since his 30th birthday. the highest OPS he has ever posted was 836. while he is kicking butt right now (1065 OPS as i write this) that's not a great bet to continue, but as you point out Pendleton (another third-sacker) also had a ridiculous career year so sure its possible. the other material difference of course was that the Braves had Glavine and Smoltz (it was Smoltz' 3rd full year and Glavine's 4th), plus Steve Avery came out of absolutely nowhere at the tender age of 21 to win 18 games. while the Royals pitching is very good, do you see Glavine, Smoltz AND Avery?? then again, hind-sight is 20-20 and in 25 years i'll probably be writing about some other upstart team "do you really see guys as good as Runelvys Hernandez, Jeremy Affeldt and Chris George here...." it'll be a fun year (even if they don't ever play another game in Comisky....) Cheers

To: JRI who wrote (236021)	4/16/2003 5:42:36 PM
From: reaper	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

maybe we get a Cubs / Royals WS? Cubbies doing it again, with Zambrano striking out 7 in six innings and giving up no earned runs. that's actually one thing i don't like about the Royals pitchers is that their K rates are not high, whereas Wood, Prior and Zambrano (plus Guthrie and Farnsworth) are all striking out better than a batter an inning. Cubbies v. San Fran at Pac Bell in a couple of weeks, plus the Royals draw the Twins next week. then we'll finally get a good early read on what these teams are really made of. Cheers