Category: Sports

2014 Bracket of Peril – The Results Show

By Blaidd Drwg

Well, this year’s “Bracket of Peril” was definitely perilous for all of the participants. Not only did no one pick the eventual champion UConn, no one in the pool had more than one final 4 team, and that was a just about everyone and we all had Florida. Most of our fates were sealed during the elite 8 when everyone’s final 4 teams except for Florida were knocked out.

As a result of that, there were 2 players left standing, with the bracket hinging on the Florida-UConn game.  The way it played out JD (sorry, we will only use initials, but you know who you are) had Florida losing the title game and TJ had Florida winning it. Basically, if Florida won the National Championship, TJ would have claimed the CSE title, otherwise we had a tie (I hate total points as the tiebreaker; it is like using rock-paper-scissors or penalty kicks to break a tie). As you know, Florida was upset by UConn, leaving us with the kiss your sister moment of having to crown co-champions in the 2014 Bracket of Peril.

There was much rejoicing.

Congratulations to JD and TJ for surviving, ending the reign of Annie S., and we look forward to you defending your title in 2015 when we introduce even more peril.

Until then, enjoy the accolades that come with winning and this picture of a grail-shaped beacon since we can’t actually afford a real trophy.

Disclaimer: Castle Anthrax not included. There is just too much peril.
Disclaimer: Castle Anthrax not included. There is just too much peril.

Jose Fernandez in 2014

By Blaidd Drwg

Jose Fernandez has a goal for his sophomore season – to have an ERA of 1.95. Not a bad goal for a 21ish year old who pitches in a pitcher’s park. David Schoenfield had a great article about that here.

Fernandez posted a 2.19 ERA in his rookie season. Pretty damn impressive, so what are the chances that he does it again?

One of my favorite things that he mentioned in the article:

Look, I wouldn’t bet on a 1.95 ERA but I wouldn’t bet against him either. Since 1950, only 15 different starting pitchers have had least two seasons with an ERA under 2.25. Since 1980, only three have done it — Greg Maddux (five times), Pedro Martinez (four) and Roger Clemens (three).

Odds are definitely against him, but scoring in the league is down, so you never know. My point in posting this – If you don’t think that Pedro Martinez belongs in the HOF, think about the above statement. In the expansion era, which saw the highest scoring in baseball history, Pedro Martinez had an ERA below 2.25 four times and an ERA less than 3.00 another 4 times, including 2002 when his ERA just missed the cutoff at 2.26. Oh, and his ERA+ during that stretch from 1997 to 2005? Just a lousy 187. That is Sandy Koufax dominant folks (actually it is significantly more dominating than Koufax, but that is for another post).

I Don’t Know Why You Say Goodbye…

By Blaidd Drwg

 

…I say hello. Why do I have the feeling I have used that one before? Anyway, just a couple of tidbits from the transaction wire on opening day.

Heeee's baaaaaack!
Heeee’s baaaaaack!

Vlad Guerrero signs a one day contract with the Angels and retires.

Vladdy probably would be a HOFer if he had not spent most of his prime years playing in Montreal. He will forever be remembered by me for 3 specific things:

1)      In 2002 in the last game of the season in Montreal, wrapping a double in the 5th inning of the game to tie the Expos single season hit record with 206 and getting a tremendous ovation for it. For years, that score card hung on my wall.

2)      In 2003 in the last game of the season in Montreal (see a pattern here), getting pulled from the game in the 7th inning after taking the field for warm-ups. It was known that Vladdy was going to be signing somewhere else in the off-season (the Expos weren’t going to attempt to keep him) as a free agent and he was loved the way that Dawson, Raines and Carter were in that city. He trotted off the field to a 5 minute standing ovation and 2 curtain calls. I have never seen anything like that before or since and that is how a departing player who is that loved should be sent off.

3)      In 2004, after signing with the Angels, was a 10-1 shot for AL MVP. Vlad had been murdering the ball in the NL for the last 4 seasons and I liked the odds. I put down a c-note on that line. Needless to say, he paid for my 2005 trip to Vegas.

Of course, in what seems like it should have been an April Fool’s joke, Vlad signed his contract on the field before last night’s Angels game and was honored with throwing out the first pitch to the only other player in Angels history to win an MVP – Don Baylor. Baylor received the pitch and then proceeded to break his leg trying to catch the pitch. Seriously.

The Diamondbacks announced the retirement of C Henry Blanco and added him to their coaching staff .

Henry Blanco is 42 and has hit about .150 over the last 2 seasons and probably should have started his coaching career years ago. I will be honest, I had absolutely no idea he was still even playing until this article a couple of days ago.

Grady Sizemore makes the Red Sox opening day roster.

Not only that, but he is their starting CF! It is a great comeback story for a guy who has missed most of the last few seasons with injuries, but I can’t help thinking that he is going to break down about a week after he has to play a few cold weather games. My guess, he is on the DL before April 15th.

The hyphen is back!

Ryan Rowland–Smith made the Dbacks roster. You remember him – failed M’s pitching prospect from Down Under who imploded in 2010 and then dropped off the planet. Well, he is finally back in the bigs after 4 seasons in the minors. Hopefully he sticks around, I always did like him.

Back In My Day

by A.J. Coltrane

Excerpts from Ken Pomeroy:

I’ve tweeted about this a couple times, but it’s worth documenting in a more permanent location: This season, free throws were shot at a better rate than in any previous season in the history of college basketball. To date, my calculations indicate that D-I teams have made 69.82 percent of their attempts from the free throw line. According to the NCAA record book, the previous best was the 69.7 percent made in the 1979 season.

It’s an odd phenomenon, but analysts, journalists, and coaches appear to be programmed to bash fundamentals. That’s another subject deserving of its own article, but criticizing modern free-throw shooting has always been a dubious exercise within that realm. After all, that’s one fundamental we can measure, and free-throw percentage has essentially been constant for the last 50 years.

But my perception is that most people in the game feel like free-throw shooting was better way back when. And if people can’t get that right, one should be skeptical when other fundamentals are criticized. Are players really worse at setting screens, or scoring with their off hand than they were 30 years ago?  I think it’s reasonable to wonder whether we’ve been lied to all along about those things as well.

At least in one respect, the modern player is more fundamentally sound than he’s ever been. And that might be the one subject that’s more boring to write or talk about than random variation. Even in the short time we have left this season, we may hear someone else lament about the state of free-throw shooting. This is one case where that person will not just be wrong, but as far from the truth as one could possibly be.

Bold emphasis mine.

 

My feeling is that college players execute fundamentals as least as well as they once did, when they choose to. Given the free throw shooting numbers, I’d think that jump shooting is as good or better than it’s ever been too. It’s just that today’s defenses are now way more athletic and sophisticated. The court is only so big, the athletes playing on it have gotten bigger and longer over time, and it’s hard to shoot well with a hand in your face all the time.

This may be old fogeyism, but I think the player development system (read: AAU ball) encourages the best players to look for their own shot, and doesn’t reward things like setting screens, blocking out, or sharing the ball. There are more “combo” guards today than there have ever been — primary ball handlers who are programmed to shoot first and think about distributing the ball (or anything else) second.

I think the change in emphasis is what’s bothering the fossils.

Mad Libs: The 2014 Mariners Starting Rotation Edition

By Blaidd Drwg

Let’s play a game of Mad Libs:

The Mariners 2014 rotation to start the season will be Felix Hernandez, Erasmo Ramirez, James Paxton, (Insert name of failed M’s prospect) and (Insert name of another M’s failed prospect).

Remember, Iwakuma and Walker are out for at least the first 2 weeks of the season. The Mariners released their scrap heap recalmation candidates, Scott Baker and Randy Wolf on Tuesday and they were the 2 most likely guys to start for the Mariners coming out of spring training. I am guessing that the other 2 spots are going to go to Hector Noesi and Blake Beavan, and yes, I am serious about that. They would only have to make 3 spots assuming that Iwakuma and Walker are back when they are supposed to be back (the M’s schedule in the 2nd week of the season has enough off days that they don’t need a 5th starter), but there is a huge risk to this team gaining any real traction if they have to slog through 3 potentially disastrous starts. Other than 3 games in Miami and 2 in NY, all of the rest of the games in the first month of the season are against AL West opponents, and only 3 of the 22 games are against the Astros.

If the M’s don’t get back Iwakuma and Walker when expected and/or Ramirez and Paxton are not as good as advertised, this is going to be a long season yet again – the M’s have absolutely no depth in their starting rotation right now. I bet the backup plan is to trade Nick Franklin for a middle of the road starter if someone flames out.

Vegas Thoughts, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

I had pretty much the same year that I had last year — 22-14 (61.1%) on straight bets. I lost the one money line that I chose to play:  Providence were 4 point underdogs against UNC and +170 on the money line, meaning that if Providence won outright then the money line paid loosely twice what the “cover” bet would have paid. Providence lost by two, and covered, but I’d bet on them to win, so…   [insert raspberry sound here]

I also tried to get the +150 money line bet on La Tech against Georgia in the NIT, (and I would have won), but the slowpoke working the sportsbook decided he needed to restock pens instead of taking bets, and we missed the cutoff to place a bet on the game.  [insert another raspberry sound here]

This year’s VCU (misunderstood by the public) team was Colorado. Colorado were mild underdogs against Pitt. They trailed 46-18 at the half and went on to lose by 33. There are a few like that every year that are real head-scratchers, but they’re a big part of the success I’ve been seeing the last few years, so I’m not complaining.

Also, people had no idea that Tennessee is really pretty good.

Final note:  I *could* have gone 22-12 (64.7%) this year, but I ignored the beautiful fairy in my ear telling me to lay off of Ohio State vs Dayton. Twice. Once before my defensible-but-not-awesome-Ohio-State 1st half bet, and again at halftime before an even more ill-advised 2nd half bet.  “Ohio State is playing as badly as they can play. They can’t play worse than this!”

Nope. But they can play equally badly in the second half.

——-

For Fun. Here’s what I think I like Thursday and Friday:

Thursday:

Dayton vs Stanford, Over 133.

Baylor +3.5 vs Wisconsin. This is the game that I’m the least “sold on” for Thursday.

Florida -5 vs UCLA. (Though UCLA is better than people think, still.)

Arizona -7 vs San Diego State

Friday:

Michigan -2.5 vs Tennessee. (Sorry Tennessee, we had a good run!)

Iowa State vs UConn Under 146. The game that I’m the least “sold on” for Friday.

Louisville -5 vs Kentucky

Virginia +2 vs Michigan State. (The Virginia +115 money line looks like a good play too. Either/or would be fine.)

 

For the purposes of the “For Fun  Bets”, I unpacked and unfolded my NCAA notes. The compacted smell of Vegas cigarettes wafted out. Now the notes are sitting on the couch, stinking it up. Yay Vegas.

The Mariners and Spending Money

By Blaidd Drwg

Reason #124342423 that Jack Zdurencik will be fired this season and the Mariners will continue hopelessly spinning their wheels. This is from a Jim Bowden article on ESPN.com:

Several general managers told me they don’t understand how the Seattle Mariners could give Robinson Cano almost a quarter-billion dollars and then claim not to have the money to bring back Kendrys Morales or make a run at Ervin Santana.

Seattle is emboldened by its lucrative local television deal, but many general managers are wondering what the Mariners’ plan is. How does a team spend that much money and go from fourth-best in the division to … fourth-best in the division. The Mariners haven’t really improved at all, and with so many needs they would have been better off spreading the money around.

Cano complained a few weeks back about the team not spending any money. I don’t think that he was wrong, and it appears that other MLB GM’s feel the same way. I am starting to think that the Cano signing was just to try to keep season ticket holders from defecting (I am still glad that I did not renew my tickets) and not about trying to make the team better. Unless they catch lightning in a bottle from about 5 of the guys in their lineup, this is basically a .500 team.

And for my next prediction – the Taijuan Walker shoulder tightness will end up being more serious than expected and he will need major surgery at some point before the end of the season and be out for all of 2015.

The 2014 Cheap Seat Eats Bracket Of Peril!

by A.J. Coltrane

It’s the 2014 Cheap Seat Eats (hosted by ESPN) tournament bracket! Match wits with the CSE writers! It’s free!

Same as last year:

Up to three brackets per entry.

Bracket Name:  Cheap Seat Eats

Password:  TakeMeOut  (As in, take me out to the ballgame, note that it’s case-sensitive, and there are no spaces.)

Link to the challenge!

The prize is absolutely nothing, which is what Sir Galahad gets in this scene from The Holy Grail:

 

Congratulations to last years’ winner, Annie S.!