The Mavs And The Spread

by A.J. Coltrane

From the Wall Street Journal: The Dallas Mavericks covered against the spread 15 times in a row(!) prior to Game 2 of the NBA Western Conference Finals.

The Mavs were 5 point favorites in Game 2, but lost to the game and ended the streak.

The WSJ piece has an odd title – “The Team Las Vegas Can’t Figure Out”. But then there’s this:

“There’s clearly a major disconnect between perception and reality here,” said Andrew Garrood, executive director of Las Vegas Sports Consultants. “It’s safe to say we won’t see anything like this again for a long time.”

and

Bell said the Mavs have been receiving a boost from the bookmakers this postseason because of their opponents. Their first-round foe, the Portland Trail Blazers, were a media darling and a popular pick to win among analysts and fans. Meanwhile, the Lakers are a marquee team that typically receives a disproportionate number of bets, which swayed the line a bit in Dallas’s favor throughout that series.

Representing the "206" - Jason Terry of the Mavericks.

I think the excerpts above spell it out pretty well — the title of the piece is something of a misnomer: It isn’t Las Vegas that hasn’t figured out the Mavs, it’s all the squares who continue to bet for the “media darlings.” It’s the same reason that I have to be truly convinced before I’m going to place a bet on any of the following teams: Yankees, Red Sox, Cowboys, Notre Dame, or whoever is the current “flavor of the month” in the media.

The piece would have been better served with a different, more appropriate title: “The Wrong Way To Bet On Sports”

But that would stink of helping to teach people how to gamble on sports, and there’s no way they could publish it like that.

Lightning Fast Pitch Softball

by A.J. Coltrane

From Foxsports(dot)com.

Two California high schools combined for a record 95 runs Tuesday when Cuyama Valley scored 13 times in the seventh inning to earn a dramatic 48-47 victory against Coast Union in a fast-pitch softball game.

The game lasted 3 1/2 hours.

That’s about the same amount of time as a typical Red Sox – Yankees game!

Some napkin math: The softball game lasted seven innings. That means there were 42 outs in the game. 95 runs were scored. There were probably about two runners left on base each half inning — 28 runners were (hypothetically) stranded in total. That’s a total of 42 + 95 +28 = 165 hitters coming to the plate during the course of the game.

Now for the Red Sox/ Yankees game: 54 Outs. Each team would have something like 8 hits and 4 walks. Between the two teams that’s 24 baserunners. 54 outs + 24 baserunners = 78 hitters.

What’s all that come out to?

The Red Sox Yankees game averages 2 minutes, 42 seconds between hitters.

The 95 run softball game averaged a hitter every 1 minute and 16 seconds.

Could you imagine going to a game and seeing 165 plate appearances lasting one minute each?

Sounds like ping-pong.

Battle of the TTO Kings

By Blaidd Drwg

Over the weekend, the Mariners played the White Sox. There is really nothing all that special about 2 teams that are floundering pretty badly at the plate going against each other and you would expect some pretty low scoring games, which you got.

There was, however, an interesting side bar to this series – it involved two of the career leaders in TTO% (remember that – if not check here and here) – Adam Dunn and Jack Cust. Below is a chart showing their 2011 campaigns through the end of the day Sunday (I also added in Mark Reynolds for a reason to be explained shortly).

	PA	HR	BB	SO	TTO%
Jack Cust	127	0	25	37	48.8%
Adam Dunn	117	3	19	36	49.6%
Mark Reynolds	127	3	16	34	41.7%

Dunn has a slight lead over Cust right now. Here is how they both did over the weekend:

	G	PA	HR	BB	SO	TTO%
Dunn	3	14	0	2	3	35.7%
Cust	3	12	0	0	4	33.3%

I will admit – it was somewhat disappointing to see 26 PA between the 2 of them and no HRs. Dunn hit a bomb to the warning track on Saturday and Cust hit one off the CF fence on Sunday, but that was as close as either came. The interesting thing about Dunn is both his walks and none of his strikeouts came against Felix Hernandez.

Why do I mention Mark Reynolds above – well, the M’s move on to play the Orioles now, so we get to see the battle of Cust vs. Reynolds in the TTO arena.

A Tale of Two Lineups

By Blaidd Drwg

As I sit here this morning thinking about the Mariners game Friday night, I am struck by the lineup they fielded. You have Ichiro and Figgins at the top, Bradley, Olivio, Smoak and Cust in the middle and Wilson, Saunders and Ryan and the back end, Not exactly Murderer’s Row, but it was good enough to get them the win last night after Brendan Ryan, who was batting under .190 going into the at bat, punched a single up the middle to score the winning run.

Jack Cust - The Sluggardly Slugger who leads the Mariners in walks.

Talking to Annie at the game made me realize this lineup is pushing the extremes at both ends of the OBP spectrum. Generally the league average OBP is somewhere around .325. You are above average in the .365 to .375 range and, if you are over .400, you are an OBP machine. Conversely, anything under .300 means you probably shouldn’t be a regular in the lineup.

Here is how the lineup last night looked with their OBP listed as of 5/7:

Player	OPB	OBP+
Ichiro	.356	109
Figgins	.270	83
Bradley	.318	97
Olivo	.236	72
Smoak	.413	127
Cust	.361	111
Wilson	.278	85
Saunders	.242	74
Ryan	.270	83

The OBP number is basically how good a players OBP is relative to league average with 100 being league average. This lineup is basically split between the guys who get on base at an above average clip and the guys who are really bad at it. There isn’t much room for middle ground in this lineup, which has a lot to do with why the Mariners are still only in a 3-way tie for 10th in the AL in scoring with Baltimore and Chicago. The interesting thing is that the Mariners are actually second in walks in the AL, only 3 behind the Red Sox. How are they doing it? “Walk this way” and I will show you:

Player	Walks	BA	OBP Spread
Jack Cust	23	.200	161
Justin Smoak	16	.315	98
Milton Bradley	13	.215	103
Ichiro	11	.304	52
Ryan Langerhans	11	.173	143
Brendan Ryan	8	.191	79
Chone Figgins	8	.222	48
Michael Saunders	7	.184	58
Luis Rodriguez	7	.220	127
Miguel Olivo	6	.200	36
Jack Wilson	4	.243	35
Adam Kennedy	4	.275	36
Chris Giminez	4	.263	128

The OBP spread is OBP – BA, it is a quick and dirty way to see how much of a players OBP comes from walks. A value of 100 is considered a very patient hitter, 60 would be about league average and a value of 40 would be a free swinger. I caution you that these numbers are skewed by sample size, but it does illustrate how you can be at the bottom of the league in scoring while being near the top in walks – THIS TEAM DOES NOT HIT. Putting guys on base is great, but it doesn’t help you if you don’t drive them in, which is the Mariners problem. If Eric Wedge handed me the keys to the castle for one day, this is the lineup you would see:

Figgins – 3B
Bradley – LF
Ichiro – RF
Smoak – 1B
Langerhans – CF
Cust – DH
Kennedy – 2B
Giminez – C
Ryan – SS

There isn’t much to work with and I hate Langerhans, but honestly, he is the best option for this lineup right now. If the bats eventually come around and the guys who are walking now continue to do so, this team will have a legitimate shot at a .500 record. If they continue to hit like a bunch of bush leaguers, I will stand by my original win prediction.

How To Move an NBA Franchise in 13 Easy Steps

By Blaidd Drwg

The NBA has a “relocation committee” headed by he-who-must-not-be-named-in-Seattle. In honor of the NBA, in its infinite wisdom, “allowing” the Sacramento Kings to stay in Sacramento for one more season before a decision is made on allowing them to move to Anaheim, I present you with how to move an NBA franchise in 13 easy steps:

Own a team in a smaller market like Seattle, Vancouver, Charlotte or Sacramento.
Build that team into a successful contender with a strong and loyal fan base (or buy a franchise already in that state in one of the smaller markets).
Start complaining about how your 20 year old arena, which had been good enough up to that point an provides your team with a great home court advantage, is no longer good enough because you don’t have 100 luxury boxes despite selling out all of your games and that you don’t get all of the revenue from the stadium that was built with money other than your own.
To prove your point, stop investing in quality player, causing the team to stop winning and people to stop coming to the games. In addition – keep the GM that has run your team into the cellar of the league and fire your coach (who can’t win with the player you are drafting) 3 or 4 times in the process (thanks to Lloyd for pointing out the omission)
As the attendance drops, start publically saying that you can’t compete since the outdated arena isn’t drawing fans and that the cure for that is a shiny new arena, built with public money of course, which the team gets all of the revenues from.
Lobby the state legislature, which is trying to cut budget deficits, to raise taxes on the local population to fund the stadium. Pepper them with promises of increased tax revenues, new jobs and more money pumped into the local economy, even though there is no evidence that any of those things come from a new stadium.
Wait for the legislature to vote. If they pass it, hold a big ceremony to celebrate your victory (although I would refrain from lighting the ceremonial cigars with $100 bills in public). Donate a few of the nosebleed seats (you know, the ones that are about 2 miles up behind the beams that you probably couldn’t sell anyway) to local underprivileged kids a year to show how you are “giving back to the community”. If you are successful in getting the stadium, go back to step one in 10 years, otherwise:
If they fail to pass the funding, let the team sink further, drawing less people and continue to point out the need for a new stadium and how the old stadium is completely ruining the franchise. Go back to the legislature with that.
If they still won’t give you a stadium, start finding other smaller markets without an NBA franchise and let them know you would be happy to move your team to that city and make them a major league city if they give you a shiny new stadium with 100 luxury boxes and all of the revenue build by public money. Good candidates for this are San Diego, Las Vegas, Memphis, Oklahoma City, New Orleans and Kansas City. This is plan B.
Use the aforementioned deal to try to hold your current state’s legislature hostage – meanwhile stocking up on young talent that will make you competitive in 2 -3 years.
If your current state’s legislature still won’t budge, start packing up the moving vans and take up city B on their offer, saying how much you regret having to move the team and how you feel bad for the people of your original city, but it is a business.
Move into city B’s shiny new building with your suddenly competitive team and talk about how happy you are to be there.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Where The Money’s At

by A.J. Coltrane

ESPN has published a list of the 200 best-paying teams. The top 10:

Rank	Team	Average Annual Salary Per Player
1	Barcelona	$7,910,737.00
2	Real Madrid	$7,356,632.00
3	New York Yankees	$6,756,301.00
4	Los Angeles Lakers	$6,540,690.00
5	Orlando Magic	$6,367,114.00
6	Chelsea	$6,020,741.00
7	Inter Milan	$5,999,643.00
8	Boston Red Sox	$5,991,203.00
9	Denver Nuggets	$5,990,174.00
10	Manchester City	$5,863,585.00

The M’s are #71 at $2.88m per player, the Seahawks are #80 at $2.80m per player — The top NFL team is the Redskins at #70, $2.91m per player.

In fact:

Soccer	Baseball	Basketball	Football	Rank
5	2	3	0	Top 10
10	6	9	0	Top 25
16	11	23	0	Top 50

Most of the NBA is clustered between $4.5 and $3.8 million per player per team, which happens to fall in the #26-#50 range.

Here’s an odd one: The top paying NHL team, the Detroit Red Wings, pay better than the best paying NFL team, the Washington Redskins. I hadn’t expected the NHL to pay that well. That’s also a byproduct of the NFL’s 20 game schedule and a 53-man rosters.

I’ve used All About The Benjamins elsewhere, so here’s Weird Al’s “All About The Pentiums.”

Check out the lyrics.

“Double clickin on my mizouse!”

It’s Jake At Eight

by A.J. Coltrane

The Tennesse Titans traded up to draft Jake Locker with the 8th pick in the 2011 NFL draft. Locker was the second quarterback selected, much to the surprise of about everybody. To some degree this is Tennesse pushing the “reset button” on the Vince Young pick. Locker and Young both had mid-4.5 second speed in the 40 yard dash and are all-around great athletes. Young possesses the bigger body, the bigger arm, loopy mechanics, and a loopy head.

This should be a great fit for both Locker and the Titans. Mike Munchak is the Titans new coach. Munchak is a former offensive linemen. If the Titans maintain their run-oriented philosophy it will take some of the pressure off of the quarterback position — Jake will be able to sit and learn behind Kerry Collins, taking over either late this year or early next year.

————-

The Seahawks drafted Offensive Guard/Tackle James Carpenter of Alabama in round one. (The link is to a Seattle Times piece by Jerry Brewer. Brewer is *very* skeptical of the pick.) I think the pick is solid — Carpenter played Left Tackle at Alabama and was the #2 rated Guard in the draft, and the #6 Tackle — if Carpenter doesn’t work out at Tackle he can be moved inside to Guard and team up with Russell Okung on the left side. This would echo the Walter Jones/Steve Hutchinson line of the Super Bowl Seahawks.

Here’s the CBS.sports draft profile for the 6’4″, 325 lb, Carpenter:

All-SEC for both of his years starting at left tackle, Carpenter was a pivotal part of the offensive success the Tide had during the past two seasons. He might lack the quickness the NFL looks for on the blind side, but likely is athletic enough for right tackle and also projects well inside at guard. A steady, durable and reliable performer, don’t be surprised if Carpenter ends up as a quality starter somewhere in the NFL.
Positives: Impressive athlete. Excellent technique, decent knee bend and good hand placement. Can sink hips and generate power. Slides feet and extends arms well in pass protection. Has power in hands and can move defenders. Can run and hit second-level targets. Good ability to anchor, seal, trap and pull. Well-schooled in an NFL-style offense. Tough and durable, never missing a start.

Negatives: Lacks the elite foot quickness needed for the NFL left tackle position. Somewhat stiff in hips and hence doesn’t change directions well. Frame is good except legs are a bit long. Vulnerable to double moves, especially inside. Pass protection set is somewhat high. Can be late off snap, mostly with a lot of crowd noise. Dives too much.

Mel Kiper has projected the Seahawks will take head-case QB Ryan Mallet in the 2nd round. My suspicion is that Mallet may be the second coming of Ryan Leaf or Jeff George. If the draft plays out that way I’m not going to be too excited. I still think Charlie Whitehurst needs more of an opportunity to show he can play, or not play.

————

The Browns traded out of the number six pick, effectively passing on Alabama WR Julio Jones. I like Jones a lot, I think he may prove to be the best WR in the draft. I think Colt McCoy was probably a little bummed about that development. Instead the Browns took massive Defensive Tackle Phil Taylor. Taylor supposedly has some issues with his work rate. The Browns need the help on the defensive line, but I’m still not enamored with the pick.

Late edit, Wow! Look what Cleveland got for trading out of the #6 slot! It’s two #1’s, one #2, and two #4’s:

To make the move, the Browns acquired Atlanta’s No. 27 overall pick and second- and fourth-round picks this year, in addition to Atlanta’s first- and fourth-round picks in 2012.

Cleveland fans should be ecstatic with that!

Expected Wins And The Bell Curve

by A.J. Coltrane

Disclaimer: Unusually shoddy use of sabermetrics and statistics ahead! This post is a thought experiment, a combination of ideas I’ve been kicking around. The concept can now “Fly, be free”, and go roost somewhere else.

Prior to the 2011 season, the sabermetric community and the gambling community agreed in their assessments of how many games the M’s would win. That number was about 69.5 – 70.

The Concept:

1. Given that the numbers and the public opinion are the same, let’s say that we “know” that Mariners will win 70 games in 2011 — that the M’s true talent level will produce exactly 70 wins.

2. Let’s say that we also “know” the standard deviation of season wins around that result. The difference would result from things like the team under or overperforming their expected wins relative to their run differential, or an unexpected player addition or loss, or something as simple as “luck.” This research has been done before, and the standard deviation of wins according to The Book is 6.4.

What does that mean?

It means that we could forecast the M’s ceiling and floor for season wins, as well as make a pretty good guess as to their actual odds for contention. Like so:

Wins	Percent
89-95	0.1%
83-88	2.1%
76-83	13.6%
70-76	34.1%
63-69	34.1%
56-62	13.6%
48-55	2.1%
41-47	0.1%

I rounded off the win totals of course, it isn’t possible for the M’s to win 4/10th of a game, anymore than it’s possible to have 6/10th of a kid, or be “kind of pregnant.”

In reality it’s hard to win fewer than about 48 games — a team composed entirely of fringe major leaguers would win around that many games. The 2001 Diamondbacks won 51 games. The 2004 Tigers won 43 games. Beyond that you have to go back to 1962 and the Mets, who went 40-120. I think it’s interesting that there was a 42-year gap between the terrible Tigers and Mets — I’d have to think that teams are almost never “pegged” for fewer than 60 wins in the new millenium.. there’s too much information available to even the most incompetent of baseball front offices, and the stakes are too high.

Blaidd wrote a post that focused in part on the M’s poor attendance so far this year. I’m wondering if maybe to some degree it isn’t “I already know how the movie ends, why bother going?” (That, and it’s been a cold spring.)

There was a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, that fans really didn’t know the talent level of their favorite team coming into a season. Information consisted of weekly Sports Illustrated fluff pieces, a skimpy sports section headed by people with homer-centric viewpoints, and, if you were lucky, a half-page in the Sporting News weekly baseball edition. You wouldn’t really know if your team had a shot or not until at least a couple of months into the season. Now, if somebody on the team gets a hangnail the fans know about it within a few minutes. The M’s opened the season 2-7, continued on to 4-11, and were declared DOA on the spot. Looking at the chart above, the M’s had less than a 2% chance of the playoffs this year before any games were played. The poor start basically finished their hopes for the playoffs.

And I think the fans “got it.”

Carmelo, Revisited

by A.J. Coltrane

Carmelo Anthony had 42 points and 17 rebounds against the Celtics last night. He got those numbers despite the fact that Chauncey Billups missed the game due to injury, and Amar’e Stoudamire departed at halftime with back spasms. I’ve compared Carmelo to Antoine Walker before, but what he did last night was impressive.

bernard-king — Bernard King, Carmelo's brother from another era.

What struck me while watching the game was just how difficult it was to do what Carmelo was doing. There were a lot of contested long-range shot attempts, but in this case most of them were still good shots to take. For anybody else they would have been bad shots. (Even for Carmelo on most nights they’d still be bad shots.) Last night though, it was a whole lot of “You Have Got To Be Kidding Me.”

Here’s the point: I think that some of the elements that make Carmelo Anthony “great” are the same elements that made Nolan Ryan “great.”

A while ago I read about Ryan in a baseball book, possibly by Bill James (or maybe Rob Neyer). The author said the that the reason Ryan was so widely respected by other players is that they realized how difficult it was to do what Ryan was doing — striking out that many batters and the way that he did it. Ryan didn’t win a whole lot more games than he lost, but he still had guys in awe of his skillset.

I get the same feeling watching Carmelo, only Carmelo’s Skill the ability to score at will.

If “scoring despite a high degree of difficulty” is what being a great player is about then Carmelo Anthony is truly a great player. Me, I’m not convinced that basketball has to be that hard.

——————-

Having said that — Carmelo won’t belong in the same room with Ryan in terms of career value when all is said and done.

Hitting The Roof At Safeco

by A.J. Coltrane

It took twelve years, but somebody finally did it. Ryan Raburn became a trivia answer last night by becoming the first player to hit the Safeco Field roof. (Technically it was a beam supporting the roof, but still.)

In other news: The final score was 8-3, Tigers. The M’s are now 5-12. It’s April 19 and Coolstandings gives the M’s a .2% chance to make the playoffs.

That was fast.