Cleveland Hiring More Analytics Staff

post from Royals Review on 09 February 2010 07:03:29 PM. © Royals Review

Cleveland Hiring More Analytics Staff

And they announced their new job openings on Lets Go Tribe.

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http://www.royalsreview.com/2010/2/9/1303047/cleveland-hiring-more-analytics

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BP comes up with new pitching statistic

post from The Crawfish Boxes on 09 February 2010 07:03:26 PM. © The Crawfish Boxes

BP comes up with new pitching statistic

I can hear some people saying, "oh, another pitching statistic; that's all we need." However, Baseball Prospectus has come up with a new stat which it claims to be superior to ERA, FIP, and x-FIP, called "Sierra," The formula: SIERA = 6.262 ? 18.055*(SO/PA) + 11.292*(BB/PA) ? 1.721*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) +10.169*((SO/PA)^2) ? 7.069*(((GB-FB-PU)/PA)^2) + 9.561*(SO/PA)*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) ? 4.027*(BB/PA)*((GB-FB-PU)/PA) The description of some of the factors which the formula accounts for (like GB pitchers being hurt less by walks due to the GIDP possibility) is intriguing. BP hasn't shown us how pitchers stack up on this stat...yet. I'm sure we will hear more in the future.

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http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2010/2/9/1303239/bp-comes-up-with-new-pitching

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Me and Ted's Head

post from The Ghost of Babe Ruth on 09 February 2010 07:02:00 PM. © The Ghost of Babe Ruth

The Internet has been buzzing about my recent face-to-face with Ted Williams's head. I think I'm ready to talk about it now.

As you know, it came during my big 115th birthday bash last Saturday. That party was a doozy, let me tell you. It's taken me a few days to process everything that happened and everyone who was there. I mean, Curt Cobayne sang me happy birthday, and I have no idea who that dude is! In fact, I could barely understand that he was even saying happy birthday because it sounded like he had marbles in his mouth. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington played a gig, too. They got a kick watching that Cobayne guy doing all his antics. I mean, when he finished singing Happy Birthday, he did a goddam stage dive!

All the usual suspects were there, like Claire and Lou and some other Yankee teammates. Mickey Mantle was there, but Roger Maris knows not to show his face. He knows why. We also had some of my buddies from back in the day.

I was gonna say the highlight of the evening was chatting with Ted's head, but I'm not gonna lie -- it was spooky. For me the highlight was actually eating my cake. I had a double-decker triple chocolate doozy. Everybody else had some bullshit carrot cake that Claire ordered.

But what you really wanna know about is Ted's head. As you know, when he died, his idiot son announced that Ted had wanted his head to be cryogenically frozen so that some day it could be brought back to life. His daughter cried bullshit and fought it tooth and nail until finally a judge agreed with the boy. So now Ted's head exists forever out here all on its own. Here's a good story that explains it all.

So there I am at my party, yukking it up with Jack Dempsey and Babe Didrikson, trying to figure out how I could get Babe alone because who wouldn't want to do it with somebody with the same name as you, when this severed head floats up over to us. We all jumped up about 6 inches each when it said, "Hey Babe. You been avoiding me?"

Babe and Jack got the hell out of there and it was just me and Ted's head.

"Yeah, I have," I said. "You wanna know why? Because you're a fucking severed head!"

Ted thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "Nobody ever had the guts to tell me that to my face," he said, laughing. Then he immediately segwayed into a big diatribe about how he hated the music, the food, the cake, and the guests.

I said, Why'd you come at all, you douche. He said, "Because the one thing I wanted most out of life was that when I walked down the street, people would say 'There goes the greatest party-planner who ever lived.'"

I laughed but Ted looked serious. Then all of a sudden, some young guy with a napkin came up and wiped Ted's mouth.

"Babe, meet my son John Henry. He did this to me, so now he owes me big time. He gets me shit and cleans me up."

I shook John Henry's hand. Yikes, what a wussy handshake.

"Time for us to go, John Henry," Ted said. And with that, he was gone.

I went back to the party, thinking one thing: Happy fucking birthday to me.

---
Read more at www.theghostofbaberuth.com

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One Possible Response to Tebow Super Bowl Ad

post from 2 think good on 09 February 2010 07:01:00 PM. © 2 think good

The fact that there are people in our society who take offense to the Tebow family story being a part of the Super Bowl made me think. Who or what would constitute the flip side to the Tim Tebow story?

Dear Mom:

Hey, I know you're cringing at the thought of ever getting a letter or anything else from me. Thanks for having the courage to read it. I know you're feeling guilty, but this won't be that type of letter, trust us. I know you'll always feel conflicted about me and as you'll learn, that's not bad. I'm limited in what I can share, but I can tell you that if you're not conflicted at least part of the time in your world, you're not doing it right.

Let me get straight to my point. Turns out I have a soul and that soul remained untouched by sin. In a very real way, you were responsible for my existence and guaranteed where I got to spend eternity. The price for that need not be our eternal separation. That's the one thing I most want to tell you. The Enemy wants to keep that thought out of your head. To quote the chatty Polish dude among us lately, "don't be afraid." Nothing about eternity is ordained as long as you can take a breathe in your world.

This place is indescribable, so I won't try. But here is where tragedies come to morph into something else, something good. Even our separation can have a blessed ending. You won't truly know this until it's too late to do something about it. But like the kid from Dublin sings, this is a "place that has to be believed to be seen." The smart move [Tessio notwithstanding] is believing.

Peace

For a good recap of the Tebow controversy, check out Robert Molleda's blog post.

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http://www.2thinkgood.com/2010/02/one-possible-response-to-tebow-super.html

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Sizing Up Nick Blackburn

post from Nick's Twins Blog on 09 February 2010 07:00:00 PM. © Nick's Twins Blog

Nick Blackburn chose the right time to put together his best stretch of baseball last season. In his final four regular-season starts, he went 2-0 with a 1.65 ERA and dazzling 18-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, leading the Twins to a 4-0 record and helping propel them to a postseason berth. He added another tremendous outing against the Yankees in the ALDS, helping cement his reputation as a big-game pitcher and sending Twins fans into the offseason with a very favorable impression of his game.

The outstanding clutch performance down the stretch helped fans forget about the rough patch that had preceded it. In the 11 games prior, Blackburn had gone 1-7 with a 7.36 ERA. Opponents hit .356 against him during that span, pounding 13 homers in 55 innings. The ugly string of games included one in which Blackburn helped blow a 10-run lead against the Athletics -- perhaps the year's most painful game -- and several others in which he lasted only a few innings and gave his team almost no chance to win. At times during these grueling couple of months, Blackburn seemed downright incapable of getting major-league hitters out.

As he has often done during his time with the Twins, Blackburn bounced back from this troubling stretch and made the adjustments necessary to get back on track. But his brutal run following the All Star break served as a reminder of the fickle nature of pitchers who fall into Blackburn's mold: low-strikeout, low-walk hurlers who allow a great deal of contact. Since Blackburn doesn't overpower hitters, he relies on the balls they hit off of him being converted into outs. And since he doesn't induce ground balls at an overwhelmingly high rate, his control over what happens with balls in play is limited.

It wasn't long ago that the Twins had a pitcher similar to Blackburn manning their rotation. It might be tough to remember at this point, but early in his time with the Twins Carlos Silva was indeed the same type of effective strike-throwing righty who relied on a sinking fastball to induce weak contact. Like Blackburn, Silva tended to allow a lot of hits, but his ability to limit walks and homers while drawing the occasional double play enabled him to be a successful pitcher during his first couple years in the Twins' rotation. In fact, comparing Silva's first two years with the Twins to Blackburn's two years in the rotation helps illustrate the similar styles:

Silva, 2004/05: 23-16, 3.84 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 3.4 K/9, 1.0 BB/9, .301 BAA
Blackburn, 2008/09: 22-22, 4.04 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 4.4 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, .291 BAA

Of course, we all know what happened to Silva in his third year with the Twins. He imploded, posting a 5.94 ERA while coughing up 38 home runs in 180 1/3 innings of work. Silva followed up that disastrous campaign with another solid season in '07 before signing a lucrative four-year deal with the Mariners, which ended up being an utter disaster for Seattle as Silva quickly ceased to be even remotely usable.

To be perfectly clear, this post is not meant to suggest that I expect Blackburn to meet the same fate as Silva. Plenty of pitchers have found prolonged success while posting middling strikeout rates and inducing grounders around 45 percent of the time (Joe Blanton is a good example). Furthermore, Blackburn is a good pitcher; he has put together three consecutive impressive seasons and has demonstrated that he can overcome his lack of overpowering stuff by making adjustments while pitching aggressively and fearlessly against big-league lineups.

But, Blackburn's post-break slump last year, along with Silva's 2006, should serve as a reminder that pitchers in this mold tread a rather thin line and don't have a whole lot of margin for error. If something is even slightly off, major-league hitters will take full advantage.

The Twins currently sport a solid rotation one-through-five, but they don't have much quality depth to speak of, so if Blackburn's game goes south it could mean trouble. For that reason, we'll all have to hope that the guy who takes the hill for the Twins this year is a lot more similar to that bulldog who took the team on his shoulders in the waning weeks of the 2009 season than the guy who was shelled repeatedly in the two months prior.

I think he will be.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.nickstwinsblog.com/2010/02/sizing-up-nick-blackburn.html

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Giants' new alternate uni's: tribute to Cal-Trans
workers

post from 22gigantes on 09 February 2010 06:27:00 PM. © 22gigantes

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http://22gigantes.blogspot.com/2010/02/giants-new-alternate-unis-tribute-to.html

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Same Card, Different Paths Card #40

post from 30-Year Old Cardboard on 09 February 2010 05:25:20 PM. © 30-Year Old Cardboard

?Same Card, Different Paths? ? Card #401966 Topps - Card #424 – AKA – ‘The Lee May Rookie Card’Lee May - May, a 3-time All-star and perennial MVP contender played 18 years in the big leagues. Splitting time between the Reds, Astros, Orioles, and Royals, May put up solid numbers for every team he played for. A career .267 hitter, [...]

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http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/%e2%80%98same-card-different-paths%e2%
80%99-%e2%80%93-card-40/

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Latest Headlines

This from the LohudYankeesblog:

? Chien-Ming Wang might be close to a deal. Ken Rosenthal reports that Wang has offers on the table and is close to making a decision. Rosenthal names the Dodgers and Mets as candidates, but says they?re behind some unknown teams. Meanwhile, the Nationals are said to be ?aggressively pursuing? Wang.

? Scott Boras to Detroit: Johnny Damon likes the Red Wings. So maybe the Tigers are still in the mix for Damon. The Braves might also be in the mix, but it seems that the Reds are not in the mix.

? Hardly the same big name as Wang and Damon, but former Yankees lefty Chase Wright has re-signed with the Brewers.

The Detroit Free Press story about Damon includes a mention of former Tigers outfielder Marcus Thames signing with the Yankees. The note includes a quote from Brian Cashman, who said Thames will compete for a job, ?against the Rule 5 pick Jamie Hoffmann and against any other players we bring to camp or who are available through the spring.?

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Breaking down the top 7 hitting prospects: #1
Mike Stanton

post from Marlin Maniac | A Florida Marlins Blog on 09 February 2010 04:35:10 PM. © Marlin Maniac | A Florida Marlins Blog

This prospect series is going to be a bit different from your normal, everyday prospect listing.I went over earlier about the projections I’m going to be posting up, and now you’ll see exactly what I mean in action.This series is going to[...]

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http://marlinmaniac.com/2010/02/09/breaking-down-the-top-7-hitting-prospects-1-mi
ke-stanton/

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The Road to Baseball Labor PeaceNew York or
Florida

?Salary cap?Those are two words you are unlikely to see when the 2011 collective bargaining[...]

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http://www.bronxbaseballdaily.com/?p=2689

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