Category: Sports

Round Two

by A.J. Coltrane

Atlanta represents a very different opponent. They’re going to throw the ball. A lot.

  Run Pass Overall
Seahawks Offense 3rd 27th 17th
Falcons Defense 21st 23rd 24th
       
Falcons Offense 29th 6th 8th
Seahawks Defense 6th 10th 4th
The line is Atlanta by 2.5. The Over/Under is 46.
 
According to Scouts, Inc., DE Chris Clemons is Seattle’s best player, and he’s out with an ACL injury.
 
See:
 
 
I don’t see either team really stopping the other. The Seattle defensive backs and linebackers are going to have a rough time covering Jones, White, and Gonzalez. Atlanta probably won’t really be able to shut down the Seattle running game.
 
The Washington and over didn’t work out last week, but this week the Seahawks won’t be facing a crippled quarterback. If this week’s game comes down to a shootout I’d put my fictional money on the more proven quarterback with the vastly superior receiving corps. For silly prediction purposes I’ll take Atlanta and the Over.
 

R.A. Dickey and Long Term Contracts

By Blaidd Drwg

R.A. Dickey is the reigning Cy Young award winner in the NL. R.A. Dickey has had 2 great and 1 pretty good season in his career. R.A. Dickey is under contract with the Mets for 2013 (making $5 million). R.A. Dickey is looking for a long-term contract from the Mets (I have heard 4 years north of $50 million). R.A. Dickey is 38 years old.

I think Dickey’s success story has been an amazing one. He was a 1st round pick of the Rangers in 1996, was pitching with no ligaments in his elbow, didn’t make his MLB debut until 2001 at age 26, didn’t get another shot at the majors until 2003 at age 28, was generally pretty lousy for most of his career, developed a fast knuckleball, went to the Mets and then finally seemed to be able to get MLB hitters out at age 35, winning the Cy Young last season.

That being said, I really don’t think you want to sign a guy who has a very short track record and is at an age where most pitchers are not really effective. Maybe Dickey will surprise me and be effective well into his 40’s, but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it. The other red flag – he had a massive jump in his K rate. His last three seasons, the rate hovered around 5.5/9 IP. Last season, it was 8.9/9 IP. I just see this ending poorly by 2014 or 2015 for any team that signs him to the deal he wants or really anything longer than 2 years.

Post Script: I wrote this article about a week before R.A. Dickey was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays on 12/17 for 2 high ceiling prospects and Dickey received 2 year, $25 million contract extension, which seems a little high on the dollar side (appearantly to account for the higher tax rate in Canada) but about right on the years.

Round One

by A.J. Coltrane

The line is Seahawks by 3, even though they’re the lower seed and they’re playing on the road. The Over/Under is 46. This is exactly the kind of game that I don’t like to gamble on — see the chart below.
  Run Pass Overall
Seahawks Offense 3rd 27th 17th
Redskins Defense 5th 30th 28th
       
Redskins Offense 1st 20th 5th
Seahawks Defense 6th 10th 4th

Both teams prefer to run and have strong run games. Both teams are good at stopping the run. Either one or both teams may be forced to throw more than they’d like, and the game may come down to which quarterback has the better day.

…and to make it more interesting…

Both quarterbacks are rookies, and each has had an efficient season to this point — they’re 3rd and 4th in Quarterback Rating, behind only Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning. Maybe they’re both capable of a big day. At the very least each will provide a direct-comparison yardstick to use in evaluating the other. To me that’s going to be the most interesting part of watching the game.

This is likely one of those games that the team giving up the fewest turnovers wins.

Which is why I don’t like to gamble on this kind of game. I visualize a lot of cringing happening on Sunday, no matter what outcome you’re rooting for.

—-

For the purposes of silly predictions: I’ll take the Redskins and the 3 points and the Over.

Observations on the New Mexico Bowl

By Blaidd Drwg

I love college bowl season – you can get some interesting matchups, especially when you involve some of the mid-major teams in the early bowls. Case in point is the New Mexico Bowl played on December 15th. It involved a 7-5 Nevada team vs. an 8-4 Arizona team. So what, you might ask. Well, let’s just say this sums up the kind of game you would expect (numbers represent their ranking among FBS teams):

  Arizona Nevada
Passing Offense 25th 52nd
Rushing Offense 16th 7th
Points Scored 16th 17th
Points Allowed 106th 102nd

Two teams with high powered offense and no defense, you would expect this game to play out like a video game, which it effectively did. Nevada rolled up 659 yards of offense in this game while Arizona managed a “meager” 578. The teams collectively converted 5 out of 6 4th down chances, combined for 7 turnovers, Nevada lost leads of 21-0 and 45-28, Arizona recovered an onside kick and went 49 yards in about 27 seconds to score the winning touchdown in a 49-48 victory. The game, despite its lack of defense, was actually very entertaining to watch. Arizona actually scored two touchdowns in the last two minutes of the game to pull of the come-from-behind victory.

One thing I had not realized about Arizona – their running back Ka’Deem Kerry, ended the season with 1929 yards and 23 TD’s. How much more under the radar could this guy be considering he is from a BCS conference and plays for a team that was ranked at one point this season. Oh, and he will only be a junior next season.

2013 Hall of Fame Ballot

By Blaidd Drwg

This year the Hall of Fame ballot gets crowded and interesting. Steroids argument aside, you have two guys who statistically are among the 10 best players in the history of the game and 4 guys who have a strong case that they should be in the Hall, and those are just the guys who are on the ballot for the first time this year.

If I had a vote, my ballot would have the 10 name maximum on it this year and probably for the next 4 or 5 years. Here is how it would look (keep in mind the steroid questions are a non-issue for me):

The New Guys
Barry Bonds – No brainer, only some guys named Babe Ruth and Cy Young have higher career WAR’s than Bonds
Roger Clemens – Easily the most dominating pitcher of the last 40 years, which is saying a lot.
Craig Biggio – He was overshadowed by the gaudy power numbers of his era, but this is a guy who hit, took walks, stole bases and won 4 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. Heck, he even switched to the outfield when the team asked him to. Basically he was the 1990’s version of Robin Yount.
Mike Piazza – Arguably the best hitting catcher in MLB history. Not bad for a guy who was drafted in the 62nd round of the draft as a favor by Tommy LaSorda to Piazza’s father.
Curt Schilling – Forget the bloody sock in 2004. Schilling was among the best in baseball for the better part of a decade, should have won at least one Cy Young award and is probably the best post season pitcher in the 2000’s and maybe the last 50 years.

The Returning Guys
Jeff Bagwell – He needs to be in. The guy could hit and run and field and, unfortunately, got lost in the shuffle by playing his entire career in Houston.
Alan Trammell – Larkin is in, Trammell was better.
Rafael Palmiero – Do I need to say anything more than 500 HR and 3000 hits?
Tim Raines – I think last year was “The Rock’s” last, best chance. The ballot is too crowded and I don’t think he has enough support.
Mark McGwire – The guy was a masher but he was the modern version of Ralph Kiner.

Sadly, I think that Jack Morris will get in this season, despite being less than qualified and not even being better than another guy who should not be anywhere close to getting elected – David Wells. Don’t believe me, look it up. Wells and Morris had very similar regular season numbers and Wells was a better post season pitcher than Morris.

My prediction for election – Morris is the only guy who gets in because the writers are idiots and won’t vote for anyone they suspect might have been involved with steroids, even without proof.

The Strike Zone, Morales, And Vick

by A.J. Coltrane

1.  First off, here’s a look at the size of a MLB strike zone, by count. (Hint:  It’s not even remotely the same, depending upon the situation.) Includes very cool visuals.

2.  The M’s trade a pitcher (Jason Vargas) for a hitter (Kendrys Morales). It’s basically just defense for offense. Both players have one year left before free agency. Morales is represented by Scott Boras, so I’d assume Morales is basically a rental. Actually, I kind of hope that he is. Morales is Cuban, so who knows how old he is, really? Plus, it’s Scott Boras we’re talking about dealing with here. Pass.

USSM has two posts with excellent analysis of the trade and the aftermath.

3.  Finally, because I couldn’t leave it alone:  The Jets are reported to be seeking to trade Mark Sanchez and they have an interest in Michael Vick.

Good Lord. Really?!

Repeat after me:  “If Michael Vick is the answer, you’re asking the wrong question.”

The M’s Top Prospects

by A.J. Coltrane

The M’s top 15 prospects over at Fangraphs. The top six are the ones that might matter sometime this year.

I wouldn’t say the Seattle Mariners organization is the deepest system in the majors but it has some of the best upper-tier talent among the 30 baseball clubs. What’s even more impressive with the organization is that so many of those top prospects are pitchers and up-the-middle position players. Also, unlike a lot of the top systems in the game, the bulk of Seattle’s talent is at the double-A and triple-A level suggesting better days are ahead for the Mariners and their fans.

Nice to see that the M’s are almost recovered from the Bill Bavasi regime — four years later.

Now it’s time to start winning.

1969 Seattle Pilots Photos

By Blaidd Drwg

This is really cool – the Seattle PI/MOHAI uncovered some photo negatives from the Seattle Pilots 1969 spring training and some game images.  Below is my favorite photo of the bunch. It amazes me how something like this can just disappear into an archive and get discovered some 43 years later.  You can see all of the photos here.

Photo: MOHAI/Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection / SL

R.A. Dickey Interview

by A.J. Coltrane

Tim Kurkjian does an interesting interview with Orel Hershiser and R.A. Dickey about the development of R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball. Hint:  Charlie Hough has a big role.

In a related note, I had it in my head that Charlie Hough was active something like 1955-1975. His career actually ran 1970-1994(!) From wikipedia:  “He was converted into a starting pitcher in Texas, where he pitched from 1980–1990, making his only All-Star team in 1986. He left Texas as the franchise leader in wins, strikeouts, complete games and losses.”

Hough is still only 64 years old. I expected he’d be closer to 80. I’ll blame in on Bill James, who sort of talked about him as though Hough was older than Methusela, even in 1985.