Jeff Sullivan notes that the Mariners/Rangers game took 162 minutes, the same number of games in a season. I wonder, if you assigned a win or loss to each minute, how would the teams do? Given that Texas won 9-2, I suspect they dominated. I suppose you could put a time stamp on the ups and downs in the win probability graph, and minutes with no change gives each team 1/2 win.
Mike Napoli continues to be one of the great pickups of the winter, going 2 for 3 with a walk to raise his slash line to .299/.398/.611. Napoli’s WAR stands at 3.4 wins, Vernon Wells at 0.2, so one could argue that this trade is the reason the Rangers lead the Angels by 1 1/2 games.
Sooner or later Napoli will return to earth, defined as something more like his career .853 OPS. But the Rangers are getting everything they can out of him in a close race that shouldn’t be close.
Hard to believe, but Napoli often sat at the start of the season so the Rangers could get Torrealba’s mighty .720-OPS bat into the lineup. At least Napoli is playing every day now.
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