And they say the baseball demo is aging. . .
peter
Carpenter to undergo elbow surgery
This past Wednesday I wrote about Chris Carpenter:
So how is Carpenter doing? He threw Tuesday and said he felt fine, though we all know from experience that a pitcher always say that about his arm unless the darn thing is about to fall off (or maybe already has fallen off). Past history suggests that if all goes well, he’ll be back in two to three weeks, and maybe he’ll be able to slog through the season.
Or, of course, after a few more promising episodes throwing off a mound and then in a simulated game, he’ll be pulled from a rehab start and shut down to have surgery. He then might be in position to try to help the Cardinals secure a playoff spot in September.
We now know that it was the latter possibility that came to pass. I bring this up because I pursued Carpenter aggressively in Tout Wars NL and now face likely ruin this season in that league because of it. Carpenter’s demise is a reminder why the so-called experts don’t push the prices of any starting pitchers, which is why I’ve had pretty good success in recent years in Tout Wars loading up on starters.
Just not this year. Will I go after the best starter again next year? Despite the risk, if the prices for top starters stay low, I’ll be there.
Ricciardi reveals Blue Jays weren’t up front about Ryan’s injury – MLB – Yahoo! Sports
This sort of obfuscation (a long word that means lying) is common, but I doubt is quite so blatant as in this case. And is rarely copped to so directly. It kind of makes it hard to do reasonable projections.
Federer, Nadal meet on half-grass, half-clay court
This is like Maddux gets to pitch in LA in his prime, Bonds gets to hit in Coors in the early oughts. Weird, but a strange and brilliant concept. Federer is clearly the best player on any surface other than clay today, but does that make him the best player in the world?
This gets me wondering why some promoter hasn’t concocted an exhibition to pit top pitchers versus top hitters in extra-game situations. I know I’d watch 100 pitches from Santana in Minnesota versus Pujols, followed by a similar exhibition in St. Louis. Talk about fantasy sports. Especially if the money went to charity.
Ask Rotoman at mlb.com
What in the world can we do about pitching? I have some common sense advice. Why aren’t there any hitting free agents? More common sense. Two for one deals? Times when the common sense approach doesn’t work. The column is out now.
Big Lead Brewers
I’m not contesting the idea that the Brewers are for real, I suspect they are, but I think the idea that you can tell this because their two recent blow outs have flipped their Pythagorean Ratio is a fallacy. Bill James’ Pythagorean Ratio held that a team’s winning percentage should be the same as its Runs Scored (squared) divided by its Runs Allowed (squared). When a team’s winning percentage deviates from the predicted outcome, it’s a good time to look for reasons. These are usually a disproportionate proportion of one-run outcomes one way or the other (in other words, better or worse than average relief pitching or clutch hitting).
The point is that it’s an evaluative tool that draws its power over the long term of the season. A reminder that it is easy to overuse any and all of the tools at our disposal.
Ask Rotoman at MLB.com
This week’s mailbag elicits opinions about Phillip Hughes, Alex Gordon, John Maine, Tom Glavine, and a lesson in how to deal from strength. It’s live now.
The Jock Exchange
I wrote about ProTrade a couple of months ago, or you would probably better say that I linked to it. I was impressed by the software and the user experience, but to tell the truth I haven’t been back.
Michael Lewis’s story in the premiere issue of the new Conde Nast business magazine about ProTrade suffers from some boosterism, but you can also call that enthusiasm and conclude that he’s right. The future in sports projecting will be culling increasingly sophisticated information from the crowds. ProTrade didn’t invent this business, by a longshot, but they’re very nicely positioned to take advantage of it.
I haven’t been back to ProTrade after my initial foray. But Lewis’s description of all the funny money, the emotional backing, that a sports exchange will draw into its market, is provocative.
The only problem is that a whole lot of die hard financial folks also happen to be sports fans, too. So what happens when Merril Lynch starts a Football Trading division?
MLB – New York Yankees/Boston Red Sox Box Score Friday April 20, 2007 – Yahoo! Sports
I was at the gym today and overheard two guys with a history talking about the Yankees.
A: He hit another one.
B: Let’s see what he does in September when they count.
A: Tonight it’s the Red Sox.
B: You’re already making excuses?
A: He’s been incredible.
B: Wait until September.
We now know that A-Rod did his part against the Sox, hitting two more homers (giving him 12 in 15 games, which I heard in the gym is the fastest pace ever at the start of the season–actually, earlier today it was 10 in 14 games that was fastest) but the bullpen coughed up the win in the 8th inning.
I’m on record believing that A-Rod’s choking last year was just a distortion of the way we look at situations. For instance, he led the league in lead changing RBI, so what if he struck out a few times when he could have padded that lead. The same things happen to everyone.
But the extroverted manage the situations better. Derek Jeter can screw something up and we remember all the good times. A-Rod screws up and we remember only the other screw ups. That’s what did A-Rod in last year.
Which is why I feel like we’re seeing a new, more emotive A-Rod this year. Maybe some of last year’s criticism got to this world famous introvert and made him see that if he wanted to enjoy the rest of what will surely be an illustrious career he better make sure he’s the one telling the story. Whether it was a friend, relative or some sort of shrink, the fist pumping hard running A-Rod who showed up for spring training has certainly changed the story.
Though hitting 12 homers in 15 games helps that, too. The real test will be when he strikes out with the bases loaded against the Sox in July, or even better August. And whether anyone then will remember the leads he gave his team in April that they squandered, which is why that strike out mattered at all.
Baseball Prospectus | Unfiltered
Christina Kahrl gets mad at fantasy baseball
Ten years ago when people got mad at fantasy baseball it was possible to blame ignorance of the game, but recent spiels by George Vecsy and this one from Christina Kahrl of BP are mind-bogglingly daft (as irrational as Murray Chass ripping on Win Above Replacement as a measure of a player’s value).
There is no special virtue to real baseball fandom, and no decadent inevitability to following your fantasy team. What Christina derides as the mindless accumulating of points rather than the apparently higher calling of putting together a winning baseball team is, as Baseball Prospectus has done much to prove over the years, very similar to the putting together of a winning baseball team.
I’m a big fan of the BP blog, Unfiltered. The shorter format and less formal setting showcase the BP talents much better than the longer form pieces, at least on a daily basis. Even Christina’s misguided spew is sort of fun. Just don’t give it credit for any real thought, it’s really just a ladle of tomato-y gravy.