…The Seahawks ranked 28th in total yards, 31st in rushing yards, 29th in time of possession and 28th in first downs per game. Those depressed rankings seemed understandable, in my view, given the state of the roster in general and the offensive line in particular.
Carroll could have lived with poor first-year production, I think, if he thought Bates were the right coordinator.
Making this move after only one season suggests the fit wasn’t right. Carroll is resoundingly upbeat. He doesn’t cuss out players. Bates isn’t much of a people person. He’s gruff and takes a harder line in his approach to players. Of course, Carroll would have known these things about Bates, it seems, because the two worked together at USC in 2009.
Absent something more, this is the sort of move that makes greater sense when the head coach has another candidate in mind.
Josh McDaniels’ name comes to mind immediately. Talks between McDaniels and the St. Louis Rams hit a snag this week, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported. McDaniels also interviewed with the Minnesota Vikings…
Of course, the baggage associated with Josh McDaniels may include … TIM TEBOW!!
——————–
Late edit: Less than three hours after this post, the Rams hire McDaniels as Offensive Coordinator. Whew.
Disclaimer – I wrote this after the first episode of “Top Chef: All-Stars” aired and have not revised any predictions.
I normally hate “All-Star” type shows – it is normally the, “hey, we have run out of good ideas, so let’s bring back some old contestants and put them through their paces again.” In the case of Top Chef, it isn’t a bad thing. For most reality shows, winning is more luck than skill. In Top Chef, it is almost entirely skill, so to have them bring back a group of contestants who generally finished in the top 5 or so of their respective seasons isn’t a bad thing. The real question is, how many of them have their hearts in it this time around? There is some serious cash on the line, so there is huge incentive. Besides, even if you hate the show, how could you not want to tune in every week to hear guest judge Anthony Bourdain be snarky? Makes me want to get a hold of all of the footage they have just to see what comments from Bourdain did not make it.
Fangraphs has a feature that allows you to compare the career value of major league hitters in graph form. For example, here’s Dale Murphy, Kirby Puckett, and Andy Van Slyke.
They were more comparable than I might have guessed.
Or how about Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Rod Carew, and Ichiro?
That one illustrates the greatness of Boggs — he’s significantly better than some good company.
Last one — since we’ve been on the subject lately: Edgar Martinez, Frank Thomas, and Jim Thome. Note that Edgar was the most valuable every season from age 32-38. (Try sticking Bob Horner into the 4th slot and see whatthat looks like.)
Ming Tsai’s Shallot Pancakes. It may look like quite a few steps, but it’s fast and easy. (Seriously, it’s super easy and the results are impressive.) The original recipe is here. The recipe below is scaled down in size.
Ingredients:
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup Very Hot Water
1 large Shallot, or substitute Scallions
~1 TBP Sesame Oil
~1 TBP Canola Oil, plus more for the skillet.
Sesame Seeds (Optional, but good.)
Salt
Step 1. Combine flour and hot water in a mixer or food processor. (I use a little food processor; the dough is ready in about 5-10 seconds. Pulse it a few times and it’s done.) When the dough comes together sprinkle a small amount of flour on a counter and knead for a couple of minutes — until the dough is smooth and not sticky. If the dough is sticky add small amounts of flour to fix it.
Step 2. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for an hour. (On Simply Ming, Tsai calls for overnight. The linked recipe calls for up to 48 hours.) In theory the minimum rest would be about 20 minutes — long enough for the dough to hydrate.
Step 3. Combine sesame oil and canola oil in a small bowl. Slice shallots thinly.
Step 4. Flour work surface and roll out dough to around 1/8″ thick. Brush Oil mixture over the top of the dough. Sprinke the dough with sliced shallots and salt.
The next time I made this I used more shallots.
Step 5. Roll the dough into a “jelly-roll.” Twist each end of the “jelly-roll” in opposite directions 3-5 times. (This will add more layers.) Roll the “jelly-roll” up like a snail, tucking the end underneath. Finally, roll out the snail to about 1/4″ thick.
The "jelly-roll", twisted.The Snail.The Snail, squishified.
Step 6. Heat a skillet over medium heat. (Ming recommends cast iron.) Oil the pan with 2-3 tablespoons canola oil. Brush the dough on top with the sesame/canola oil mixture and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Place the dough in the skillet, with the oil/sesame seed side down. Brush the new “top” with the oil mixture and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Cook each side 3-4 minutes per side, until golden brown. (The recipe calls for 2-3 minutes per side. I found mine took longer, especially on the first side, but I didn’t use cast iron.) Slice into wedges and serve.
Ming’s “Dim Sum Dipper”, pictured above, is 1/2 cup soy, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1 TBP Sambal Oelek. You may want to halve (or less) those amounts… It’s basically a 2:1 ratio of soy to rice vinegar and a dash of something hot.
This recipe is so good, and so easy.. I figured I must have overlooked it in a cookbook at some point. So I went looking. The nearest thing I could find was in Jeff Smith’s “The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines”, but that recipe used lard to maintain the layers instead of oil. That would explain why I haven’t made it. (Two points: Cookbooks by Jeff Smith are still readily available for cheap — go figure. Also, Smith says that he got the recipe out of cookbooks by someone named Pei Mei. A little research and.. there it is! (One of the books anyway, Smith references Volumes I-III.) Published in 1969. It’s actually Fu Pei-Mei.)
The neat thing about this recipe is that it makes a nice “laminated” dough (think phyllo) with very little time or effort involved. The recipe can also be scaled to whatever size is needed — the ratio is 2:1 ap flour to hot water, everything else is negotiable.
I’m thinking pesto might be a good substitute, or a roasted red pepper coulis…
Joe Posnanski, long suffering Royals fanand quite possibly the best and most intelligent baseball writer on the planet, may have written the single best sarcastic piece on the Hall of Fame ever. You can find it here. If someone were ever stupid enough to put me in charge of a baseball team, Joe P. would be the first guy I would hire (and you won’t find a bigger Rob Neyer fan on the planet who isn’t related to him).
On an somewhat related note – why are arguably the 3 best baseball writers all Royals fans – Neyer, Posnanski and Rany Jazayerli? I could chalk it off to the suffering in a small market, but then why the hell can’t I name a single guy who writes about baseball and is a Pirates fan?
Joe P. is an impressive writer who spends a lot of time backing up his arguments. His latest piece however is sarcasm at its best (for those of you who know the Bad Wolf, you know he loves his sarcasm). Joe has as very logical argument for redefining the Hall of Fame, renaming it the Willie Mays Hall of Fame for the following reason:
I cannot tell you how many times in my life, much less in the last month, I have received emails that basically say something like: “Willie Mays — now THAT is a Hall of Famer. That is who I have in mind when I think of the Hall of Fame, not (Player X) who you wrote about.”
So, that’s my mission here — to create The Willie Mays Hall of Fame.
The article is written in typical Joe P. fashion – he gives the criteria for selection, the rules of the game and then goes about methodically analyzing the data.
I won’t tell you the conclusion, but lets just say I agree with him. If you are a baseball fan, or just a fan of sarcastic journalism, you should read the article.
On a side note – Coltrane – we need to add Joe P. to the blogroll.
The Concept: It’s a zombie B-movie! Players play either the zombies or the heroes in one of a number of scenarios provided with the game.
The heroes are all drawn from horror movie archetypes such as The Sheriff, The Jock, or the Farmer’s Daugther. Both the heroes (by searching in the buildings) and the zombies get access to cards that represent items and events that mess with the other side. (See the Chainsaw, below right, for an example of a hero card.)
The heroes’ focus is to survive the zombie horde long enough to accomplish the scenario objective, such as “Find Two Cannisters Of Vaccine”, or, “Save The Townsfolk.”
Why I Like It:
1. The game board is modular and randomly assembled, so each game evolves a little differently.
2. The heroes win or lose as a group, so teamwork is needed to defeat the zombie player.
3. Flying Frog Productions (the publisher) did a great job with the artwork and capturing the feel of being in a B-Movie Horror. (These guys are local. They’re based in Kirkland.)
4. It’s a fairly lightweight game that is easy to learn and plays reasonably briskly.
5. The rulebook is well put-together and well worded.
6. Shotguns, Chainsaws, and Zombies — how can you go wrong?
Things Go Wrong For Father Joseph. (He's in the grey.) -photo by jon_a_ross-
The 2010 NFL regular season is now over. How’d the predictions go in this September post?
Team
2009 PPG
2010 Predicted PPG
2010 Actual PPG
Raiders
12.3
17.1
25.6
Redskins
16.6
20.5
18.9
Eagles
26.8
25.4
27.4
So, what happened?
Raiders:
Passes: Jason Campbell 67% of team attempts, 84.5 rating; Bruce Gradkowski 31% of team attempts, 66.3 rating. Aggregate rating 77.5.
“The Raiders will make a big leap forward with Jason Campbell. Part of that will be due to JaMarcus Russell’s release, simple addition by subtraction.” [Actual Result — The Raiders scoring went up by 13.3(!) points per game.]
JaMarcus Russell must have been more of a black hole than I could have ever believed. The Raiders more than doubled their scoring output from 2009, finishing 6th in points scored. Also: Jason Campbell is a good quarterback, hopefully more people will see that now. He’s earned it.
Redskins:
Passes: Donovan McNabb 78% of team attempts, 77.1 rating; Rex Grossman 22% of team attempts, 81.2 rating. Aggregate rating 78.0.
“McNabb and new coach Mike Shanahan will score 3-5 more points per game than the 2009 Redskins. A big part of that will be (or should be) attributed to the upgrade from Zorn to Shanahan.” [Actual Result — The Redskins scoring went up by 2.3 points per game. How much of the credit should go to the coach?]
McNabb wasn’t worth the 5-6 points that John Clayton predicted — in reality it wound up being something of a lost season for McNabb. His status in Washington turned into a very public mess that was handled extremely poorly by McNabb, his agent, and the Redskins. I think other teams will now think twice before acquiring McNabb — he may be permanently damaged goods. (What happens if the next team feels the need to bench him?) Going into the year I felt McNabb was overrated. Now I think he’s cooked.
Eagles:
Passes: Michael Vick 66% of team attempts, 100.2 rating; Kevin Kolb 34% of team attempts, 76.1 rating. Aggregate rating 92.1.
“The Eagles won’t miss McNabb. Philadelphia was 5th in the league in scoring last year, so some regression back to the pack is figured in the chart below. Kevin Kolb will be an All-Pro within three years.” [Actual Result — Michael Vick miraculously resuscitated his career and the Eagles scoring went up by .6 points per game.]
It looked like I picked the wrong All-Pro, though I still think Kolb may get there eventually. Vick took almost exactly 2/3rds of the snaps, and I would guess that’s about as many as he *can* take, given his propensity to put himself in harm’s way. I don’t think Vick will ever get close to repeating his 2010 season; he had career bests in Completion Percentage, Yards Per Attempt, TD Percentage, and Interception Percentage — everything that went into his career best Passer Rating of 100.2, good for 4th in the league.
Everyone serious baseball fan should have an old copy of this book sitting on a bookshelf.
By Blaidd Drwg
This will be my last HOF related post, I promise, well my last one until the voting is announced.
One of the great things about technology is that we have access to all sorts of information that we never have before – I need to look up the stats from the catchers from the 1914 Braves, I no longer have to drag out my copy for “The Baseball Encyclopedia” or “Total Baseball” (BTW – I still have both sitting on my bookshelf), I can just hop online and get all the information I need from baseball-reference.com.
We also now have writers willing to share who they are voting for before the Hall of Fame results are announced.
In the Times today, Larry Stone wrote about his ballot. I have to admit, I applaud most of his selections (his votes cast look very similar to mine) and the only one that I might have any real quibble with is Edgar Martinez, who, in reality wouldn’t be the worst selection for the HOF. He gets extra points from me for voting for Larry Walker. My one real problem is his argument against Rafael Palmeiro:
After much deliberation, I finally determined where I would draw my steroids line, at least on this ballot: I draw it with Palmeiro, who failed his test after MLB had finally come out of its hazy netherworld of tacit allowance of the steroids culture. By 2005, an anti-steroids policy had been codified in the Basic Agreement, and the penalties were spelled out. Every player knew the consequences. And still Palmeiro — after wagging his finger at Congress — tested positive for a steroid.
If you believe the Chicago sportswriters, this guy should be in the Hall of Fame (and they are right!)
I am sorry, I don’t buy the argument. Palmeiro got caught cheating and he served the penalty prescribed by MLB. Let me ask you, if Palmeiro had been caught say doctoring his bat or scuffing a baseball, which would obviously give a competitive advantage to himself and his team, would you preclude him from the HOF?
Stone’s article was well written and thoughtful and really the Palmeiro exclusion was the only fault I could find. The ballots published today in the Chicago Tribune were another issue. Most of the voters flat out said they would not vote for anyone linked to steroids. Here are some of my favorite notes:
Pat Sullivan:
I also couldn’t find my way onto the growing Bert Blyleven bandwagon, though I suspect he will get in at last, and I ignored some very-good-but-not-good-enough players such as Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Jeff Bagwell and Juan Gonzalez, who made a cameo appearance in the Mitchell Report.
This was probably one of the weakest ballots in years, with no slam-dunks. The only four players who made my cut all had Chicago ties: Harold Baines, Tim Raines, Lee Smith and Roberto Alomar.
Yes Pat, you ignored some very-good-but-not-good enough players, but you voted for Harold Baines, who had inferior numbers to Martinez, McGriff, Bagwell and Gonzalez and is significantly less deserving of election than Bert Blyleven. I understand casting the sentimental vote for a guy like Baines, but you can’t do that when you argue that someone like Bagwell shouldn’t make the hall. At least Raines gets a vote from Sullivan, although I suspect that it would not have happened if Raines had not played for the White Sox in his career.
Phil Rogers:
I’m not going to vote for Bagwell, but that’s because I feel his resume isn’t quite strong enough, not because of steroid suspicion. And if I’m not voting for Bagwell, I can’t keep voting for Harold Baines (most hits of any eligible player not in the Hall) after four years of support, so he’s off my ballot.
Ok, Phil, you feel Bagwell’s resume isn’t strong enough, but yet, you are voting for Larry Walker, who was never the dominant player Bagwell was during the same era, and you are voting for Jack Morris, who was never dominant, period. Another vote for Raines though, so I can sort of give you a pass.
Dave van Dyck:
So the question becomes: Who is deserving? This year’s ballot is especially tough because of the number of “borderliners.” And if you have to think long and hard about a yea or nay, the vote probably should be “no.”
So this year’s ballot included only three names.
Second baseman Alomar and closer Lee Smith helped define their positions in their era. And Jack Morris was a more dominant pitcher than Blyleven.
It was agonizing leaving off Blyleven and those for whom statistical arguments can be made such as Jeff Bagwell, Barry Larkin, Don Mattingly, Tim Raines and Larry Walker. Oh, and Alan Trammell, who should be more than an afterthought. But the Hall should be reserved for the very best of the best, not the best of the rest.
Lee Smith, who I love, was likely only the 3rd or 4th most dominant reliever of his era and probably gets the homer vote again. Morris more dominant than Blyleven, I would love to know the argument that backs that statement up. If the hall should be reserved for the very best of the best, how do you not make the argument that Bagwell and Raines don’t fit that bill?
Fred Mitchell:
I also voted for 12-time All-Star shortstop Barry Larkin (.295 with .975 fielding percentage) and big-game pitcher Jack Morris (254 victories) to move up the charts in the balloting. Morris was a member of three Series champions and had a 4-2 Series record.
I don’t understand how you can vote for Larkin and not Trammell, but that might be splitting hairs. Morris as a big game pitcher, HAH! He makes no mention of why he didn’t vote for Bagwell, Palmeiro or McGwire at all. He did at least vote for Blyleven.
Philip Hersh:
My ballot does include seven of the nine players I voted for a year ago (one was inductee Andre Dawson). I dropped Lee Smith and added Tim Raines (fifth all-time in stolen bases); Dave Parker (an exceptional all-around player); and first-year candidate Larry Walker (.313 career average, seven Gold Gloves).
Good for him for adding Raines and dropping Smith. I don’t understand Parker (maybe he is voting for Cobra because it is his last year on the ballot). He votes for both Larkin and Trammell but inexplicably votes for Mattingly and not for Bagwell. No reason is given for not voting for Bags, but I do think it is probably because of steroid suspicion.
Should be interesting to see the results on Wednesday.
Seneca Wallace on the possibility of Mike Holmgren returning to coaching:
“I kind of do just because things probably haven’t turned out the way he wanted on offense and being an offensive guy, I think he still has that itch to come back to coach,”
If Mike Holmgren really wants to coach again, and I always did believe that he had every intention of eventually making himself head coach of the Browns when he took the President of Football Operations job with them, he is going to do it.
Holmgren and Mangini have a meeting about the future of the Cleveland Browns on Monday. I would be willing to bet the mortgage payment that Mike Mangini is out of a job by the end of a week (especially in light of the thrashing that the Browns took this week) and Holmgren becomes head coach sometime in the next few weeks, right after the Browns pretend to interview a couple of candidates.
–UPDATED 3:20 PM – it didn’t even take to the end of the week – Mangini is out of a job.
FlatbreadGarden 