A baking and gardening journal. Mostly.
by Coltrane
Bill Simmons has signed on to baseball’s stat-head revolution. Here’s a fun article that discusses some of the more popular sabermetric work. The piece is a friendly way to introduce stuff that can be fairly intimidating. Stuff like OPS, VORP, WAR, FIP, UZR, and BABIP. Simmons is always entertaining, read it and be informed.
If this kind of work interests you check out the Fangraphs link to the right.
By Blaidd Drwg
In case you missed it, Larry Stone wrote an article entitled “Five rejected April Fools prank stories (No, Prince Fielder is NOT coming to Seattle)” in yesterday’s Seattle Times. He was trying to be funny, but in reality, 2 of the 5 stories would actually make the Mariners a better team if they happened:
2) Mariners trade Ichiro for Prince Fielder in blockbuster deal – Oh how happy would I be about this, a genuine power hitter in the lineup and a guy who probably has not hit his best seasons for a guy who probably is on the verge of a serious decline. Fielder is going to end up eating himself into the DH role in a couple of seasons, but the way I look at it, he is better than Ichiro currently and he will still be a significantly better than average hitter in 5 season when Ichiro is league average or worse. Besides, you can replace Ichiro pretty easily for a season while Mike Saunders gets ready to be a full time MLB player. Trade a slap hitter for a masher? In a second.
3) Griffey announces retirement – oh, one could only dream. I am not a fan of Griffey (and I am not shy about it) and I don’t understand how a city could love a guy who basically said that he hated it here and forced the team to trade him. The guy needs to call it quits – he was overmatched last season, but his ego is causing him to stay on. Yes, he can still hit mistake pitches over the plate a long way, but frankly, teams aren’t afraid of pitching to him anymore. He was pretty awful last season, is batting under .200 in spring training and is probably going to get 450 – 500 plate appearances this season since Wak just has to have him in the lineup (an probably batting 4th). If this team is serious about contending, can you really waste that many at bats on a guy who will hover in the low .200’s all season in an already suspect lineup?
by Coltrane
Tim Floyd (former USC and NBA coach) has taken over the helm at UTEP.
Steve Lavin (former UCLA coach and ESPN broadcaster) is now at St. Johns.
The really interesting one to me was Tom Izzo of Michigan State denying that he had been contacted by Oregon.
Ernie Kent is gone. Oregon has hundreds of thousands of Phil Knight’s dollars. They have the Nike empire behind them. Expect them to make a huge splash with their next basketball head coach. It may not be Tom Izzo, but don’t be surprised when it’s a household name. Keep in mind that many basketball camps and AAU teams are affiliated with a brand of shoes and clothing, either “Nike” or somebody else — it’s a huge amount of exposure.
Ernie Kent wasn’t a bad coach, but if Oregon gets a really good, really well connected coach and Nike throws its weight behind him — look out.
by Coltrane
Source: ESPN Tournament Challenge. Listed below are the odds that “America” gave each team to make the Sweet 16.
| Seed, Team, Odds | Rank |
| 1 Kansas – 90.3% | 1 |
| 1 Kentucky – 83.9% | 2 |
| 1 Syracuse – 82.7% | 3 |
| 2 West Virginia – 76.1% | 4 |
| 1 Duke – 73.6% | 5 |
| 2 Kansas State – 62.6% | 6 |
| 2 Villanova – 58.5% | 7 |
| 2 Ohio State – 46.8% | 8 |
| 3 Georgetown – 41.8% | 9 |
| 3 Baylor – 30.6% | 10 |
| 3 Pittsburgh – 25.7% | 11 |
| 3 New Mexico – 13.0% | 12 |
| 5 Texas A&M – 8.7% | 13 |
| 9 Louisville – 8.2% | 14 |
| 4 Wisconsin – 8.0% | 15 |
| 6 Notre Dame – 7.6% | 16 |
| 6 Tennessee – 7.0% | 17 |
| 6 Marquette – 6.7% | 18 |
| 4 Purdue – 6.5% | 19 |
| 4 Vanderbilt – 6.5% | 20 |
| 5 Butler – 5.7% | 21 |
| 5 Michigan State – 4.8% | 22 |
| 7 Brigham Young – 4.6% | 23 |
| 6 Xavier – 4.5% | 24 |
| 4 Maryland – 3.7% | 25 |
| 8 Texas – 3.5% | 26 |
| 8 Gonzaga – 2.9% | 27 |
| 5 Temple – 2.8% | 28 |
| 7 Oklahoma State – 2.1% | 29 |
| 7 Richmond – 1.8% | 30 |
| 10 Georgia Tech – 1.5% | 31 |
| 7 Clemson – 1.5% | 32 |
| 11 Washington – 1.2% | 33 |
| 11 Minnesota – 1.2% | 34 |
| 10 Missouri – 1.2% | 35 |
| 13 Siena – 1.1% | 36 |
| 8 California – 1.1% | 37 |
| 10 Florida – 1.1% | 38 |
| 12 Cornell – 1.0% | 39 |
| 10 Saint Mary’s – 0.9% | 40 |
| 9 Florida State – 0.8% | 41 |
| 12 UTEP – 0.8% | 42 |
| 12 Utah State – 0.6% | 43 |
| 9 Wake Forest – 0.5% | 44 |
| 11 San Diego State – 0.4% | 45 |
| 13 Murray State – 0.4% | 46 |
| 9 Northern Iowa – 0.3% | 47 |
| 11 Old Dominion – 0.3% | 48 |
| 8 UNLV – 0.3% | 49 |
| 15 North Texas – 0.3% | 50 |
| 15 Morgan State – 0.2% | 51 |
| 15 UC Santa Barbara – 0.2% | 52 |
| 16 Vermont – 0.2% | 53 |
| 15 Robert Morris – 0.2% | 54 |
| 13 Houston – 0.2% | 55 |
| 16 Lehigh – 0.2% | 56 |
| 16 East Tennessee State – 0.2% | 57 |
| 16 AR-Pine Bluff – 0.2% | 58 |
| 14 Ohio – 0.2% | 59 |
| 14 Montana – 0.2% | 60 |
| 12 New Mexico State – 0.1% | 61 |
| 14 Oakland – 0.1% | 62 |
| 13 Wofford – 0.1% | 63 |
| 14 Sam Houston State – 0.1% | 64 |
When filling out my bracket I was looking for:
1. Teams that had guys who could create their own shot with the shot clock running down. This could either be a quick, slashing guard or a Wally Szerbiak equivalent.
2. Teams with experienced guards who share the ball. Note that this is often incompatible with the first point, above. Some teams like Texas lack a true point guard, running combo guards out there instead. Generally speaking I try to avoid teams with one guy who dribbles too much.
3. Teams with good size and length (duh). Ideally the team will have a Tyrus Thomas type, to shut down the J.J. Reddicks of the world.
4. Teams with a high basketball IQ. I was looking for guys who know how to play.
Teams I liked better than everyone else:
#21 Butler – They have the Szerbiak type and they’re fundamentally sound. Good size too.
#23 BYU – I put too much faith into the spreadsheets. Ken Pomeroy’s stats loved them.
#25 Maryland – Another Szerbiak type in Greivis Vasquez. This one didn’t work out either.
#31 Georgia Tech, #34 Minnesota, #41 UTEP, #42 Florida State — I liked them for the same reason I liked Baylor. They’re big, physical teams that I thought would “eat” smaller teams.
#37 California — Pac 10 Player of the Year Jerome Randle is a small guard with a great jump shot and good quickness, he can score on anyone. They had the misfortune of running into Duke early.
#47 Northern Iowa. A whole team of guys who know how to play. Good size, good shooting. I didn’t pick them to beat Kansas either.
Teams everyone else liked more than I did:
#14 Louisville — I never watched Louisville and thought that they’d succeed when the sledding got rough. No real team identity on offense.
#16 Notre Dame — The media picks one Great White Hope every year. This year it was Luke Harangody. Combined with the Big East pedigree it was no surprise that they were really overrated. It was also no real surprise that Notre Dame played just as well when Harangody was out with an injury.
#17 Tennessee, #22 Michigan State, #26 Texas — All teams built around little combo guards who dribble too much. It’s ok to have a *big* combo guard, but little ones can be disaster when they get a long athelete harassing them.
#20 Vanderbilt — I didn’t “get” Vanderbilt. Nobody on that team really grabbed me.
#33 Washington — After looking totally disfunctional all year the Huskies turned it on in the tournament. Far and away my biggest surprise.
By Blaidd Drwg
According to ESPN, the Red Sox will not offer Josh Beckett a 5 year deal, similar to the one that they gave John Lackey this off-season. I personally am not a big fan of Josh Beckett – for all of his talent, he has been very inconsistent over his career and seems to be on an every other year schedule of having a good season, and I don’t think giving a 5 year deal to a pitcher over 30 is a good deal to begin with, but this seems a bit odd to me. A comparison of the two over the last 4 seasons:
| Josh Beckett | John Lackey | ||||||
| IP | ERA+ | Salary | IP | ERA+ | Salary | ||
| 2006 | 204.2 | 95 | 4,325,000 | 217.2 | 129 | 3,334,000 | |
| 2007 | 200.2 | 145 | 6,666,667 | 224.0 | 150 | 5,833,333 | |
| 2008 | 174.1 | 115 | 10,166,666 | 163.1 | 119 | 7,333,333 | |
| 2009 | 212.1 | 122 | 11,166,666 | 176.1 | 118 | 10,000,000 |
Th have roughly the same value and made very comparable salaries over those seasons. Their value is actually so close, that the #1 comp for each of them on Baseball-Reference is the other – and the similarity score is 971, so that is damn close. The other 3 close comps among active pitchers for Josh Beckett – Chris Carpenter, Carlos Zambrano and Jake Peavy – all of whom signed big money, long term contracts with their respective teams.
I thought that the Sox made a huge mistake in giving 5 years to Lackey, who while good, has shown some tendency to be injured over the last couple of seasons and I think the Sox are going to regret years 4 and 5 of that deal when they are paying $18+ million a year for slightly above league average pitching. It is probably all just a ploy by the Sox to try to get Beckett signed for under the going rate for a front of the rotation starter, but it will be interesting to see how it works out for them. Josh Beckett is going to get his 5 yr/$80+ million contract, the question is, which team will give it to him.
by Iron Chef Leftovers
To fully quote the line from PCU – “‘A Bridge Too Far.’ Caine and Hackman in the same movie. This is my thesis man! This is my closing argument! I CAN STOP WATCHING TV!”
We write about food, sports and games on this site and now Seattle based author Cynthia Nims has brought it all together in her new book, “Gourmet Game Night: Bite-Sized, Mess-Free Eating for Board-Game Parties, Bridge Clubs, Poker Nights, Book Groups, and More”.
It is available just about everywhere and it has a good number of quick and easy finger foods that work nicely for game night, watching a sporting event or just having people over. Everyone should go out and buy this to support a great local food author (and check out a her other works while you are at it).
By Blaidd Drwg
All of the mock drafts I have seen seem to be pretty high on Jimmy Clausen, the Notre Dame QB, who if you believe the hype, will be the next Joe Montana. I keep hearing about his poise, maturity and ability to deal with pressure – all of which lead a perennially overrated ND team to an amazing 6-6 record against a soft schedule. All of the hype is taking me back to the 1993 draft when the debate was all about who should be the first choice in the draft – Rick Mirer or Drew Bledsoe. We all know how well that worked out.
This, combined with the end of the Brady Quinn era in Cleveland (remember when he was the second coming of Montana?) did get me thinking – who has been the most successful ND QB drafted since Montana. The answer surprised me – Steve Beuerlein. He is the only one to appear in a pro bowl, and his stats in every category are higher than the other 5 ND QBs drafted over the last 29 years – COMBINED.
| YR | Draft Rd/Pos | Player | Games | YDS | TD | INT |
| 2007 | 1/22 | Brady Quinn | 14 | 1902 | 10 | 9 |
| 2000 | 7/214 | Jarious Jackson | 5 | 114 | 0 | 1 |
| 1993 | 1/2 | Rick Mirer | 80 | 11969 | 50 | 76 |
| 1987 | 4/110 | Steve Beuerlein | 147 | 24046 | 147 | 112 |
| 1984 | 11/281 | Blair Kiel | 25 | 1296 | 8 | 7 |
| 1980 | 4/89 | Rusty Lisch | 30 | 547 | 1 | 11 |
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Eventually a ND is QB is bound to do something in the NFL – just maybe teams should wait a few more rounds before picking him.
by Blaidd Drwg
It appears the Phillies have had internal discussions about making a trade offer of Ryan Howard for Albert Pujols. The Cardinals would be insane to take that deal – Howard is older than Pujols, he is not nearly as good as a defender, not even close to being in the same league as a hitter and can’t really hit lefties all that well. They are both FA’s after the 2011 season and I can’t imagine there will be more than about a 6 or 7 million per annum difference in their contracts. Besides, would you really want to take the chance on the guy who’s body type does not age well and will probably be a DH in 3-4 years anyway?
by Blaidd Drwg
Back on 2/16, I posted this:
“Outside of Adam Dunn and Jack Cust (the 3 True Outcome Crew), Tug Hulett (don’t ask), Jason Kendall and Brian Giles (who are both looking like they should hang ‘em up), I just don’t really follow any individual player that closely.”
Well, I happened to be looking through the transactions for the week today, and I noticed this that somehow slipped below my radar:
Dodgers – Announced the retirement of OF Brian Giles.
His knee had gotten so bad that he couldn’t continue playing. I am going to miss seeing one of the most underrated players of the ’00’s and a truly nice guy. Looks like I was right about him needing to retire. Now if Jason Kendall would just do the same…
by Blaidd Drwg
With the plethora of predictions for the Mariners 2010 season out, it got me thinking, how did a team which scored 640 runs in 2009 manage to win 85 games. Their expected wins were 75 based on run differential and they managed to get lucky and win 35 games by 1 run. I really think this was closer to a 75 win team that got lucky than an 85 win team that was that good (winning close games really isn’t a function of anything other than luck), so I wanted to take a look at the other AL teams in the expansion era that scored 640 runs or less. I did pro-rate the 1994 and 1995 seasons to 162 games to even things out for those seasons. I also expanded the list to include any teams who scored more than 640 runs but were within 30 of the Mariners totals. The list:
| Year/Team | Runs Scored | Runs Allowed | Diff | Wins |
| 2002 Tigers | 575 | 864 | -289 | 55 |
| 2003 Tigers | 591 | 928 | -337 | 43 |
| 1998 Devil Rays | 620 | 751 | -131 | 63 |
| 2009 Mariners | 640 | 692 | -52 | 85 |
| 2008 A’s | 646 | 690 | -44 | 75 |
| 1997 Blue Jays | 654 | 694 | -40 | 76 |
| 2002 Orioles | 667 | 773 | -106 | 67 |
Interesting that the M’s are the only team on that list to go better than .500. There are some historically bad teams and just looking at runs scored and runs allowed, the M’s best comp are the 2008 A’s, who are almost a dead on comp – the A’s scored 6 more runs than the M’s and gave up 2 fewer. The difference really was the A’s were essentially a .500 team in 1 run games at 25-24. Yes, a lot has been made about how good the M’s defense was last season and I don’t think the A’s were a particularly great fielding team, but is the defense really worth 10 wins over the run differential? I guess we will see how this plays out in 2010.
So all of this got me thinking, is there another M’s team that looks comparable? The closest I found was the 1990 M’s who managed a 75-87 record, scoring 640 runs and allowing 680. Digging down, there are an amazing number of similarities between 2009 and 1990 versions of the teams – They both had relatively young pitching staffs, they both played in stadiums that were slightly pitching friendly, neither team got any real production from their Catcher or Shortstops, they both had marginal starters with career years (Jarrod Washburn and Erik Hanson) and both teams had solid bullpens and above average starting pitching. They were both extremely good defensive teams.
Here are the stats comps:
Batting
| AVG | OPS | OPS+ | HR | BB | |
| .258 | .716 | 90 | 160 | 421 | 2009 M’s |
| .259 | .706 | 97 | 107 | 596 | 1990 M’s |
Pitching
| ERA | ERA+ | IP | WHIP | SO | |
| 3.87 | 112 | 1452.2 | 1.3035 | 1043 | 2009 M’s |
| 3.72 | 106 | 1443.1 | 1.3339 | 1064 | 1990 M’s |
The 2009 edition was a bit better pitching, which makes sense considering they were a bit better defensively and the 1990 team was a bit better offensively thanks to the huge difference in walks compared to their 2009 counterparts.
So what happened in 1991? The M’s went 83-79 for their first winning season in franchise history. The only significant change to the lineup was replacing a truly awful Jeffrey Leonard with Jay Buhner and Ken Griffey Jr becoming a superstar. The pitching staff was slightly better, despite significantly WORSE defense:
| Field Runs Above Avg | Zone Field Runs Above Avg | |
| 50.4 | 55.4 | 1990 |
| -28.7 | -32.7 | 1991 |
I am a firm believer in advanced defensive metrics and I believe that you need a solid defensive team in the field, but I am really at a loss to explain how the 1990 and 1991 teams could be so different defensively and still gave up roughly the same number of runs.
I am skeptical about 2010 Mariners team. They downgraded their offense, so 640 runs in 2010 might be a stretch, they still have too many free swingers in the lineup, and I am not sure that the pitching (starting and relieving beyond Lee and Felix) will repeat their 2009 performances. My prediction – 77 to 80 wins for this team IF Felix and Lee are healthy and pitch a full season with the team.
FlatbreadGarden 