I’m starting to think the Giants are being undervalued and underrated by the season prognosticators. That have a real nice rotation, what’s not to like about Lincecum and Cain? The Panda is going to have a crazy year at the plate. They have a fine bullpen too, with one of the game’s most under-appreciated closers Brian Wilson. They might make some noise in the NL West, which in recent years has been a weak division.
Yes!
Great young starters in Lincecum and Cain. People forget Cain is the younger. Plus Bumgarner (although his velocity is down a bit) should be coming up and might be another Cain. Zito had a great day today and has been so overrated (due to his crazy contract) that he’s now underrated.
I just don’t see anyone other than Sandoval that is better than league average at the plate.
I see them losing a lot of 3-2 games and ending up with a 82-80 record.
Belgian Pie says the Twins are underrated. He says Denard Span could well lead the league in runs scored this year.
:bravo: :bravo: :bravo: I Love It! :bravo: :bravo: :bravo:
Edgar Allen says, “Invest your money wisely.” He just bet all his money on the Twins to go “ALL THE WAY in 2010!”
In today’s big game - the Twins over the Angels 10-1.
Seen way too much of that kid already. And that’s a hockey speech moment not baseball. :raspberry:
That’s why it didn’t work for the Sox.
Vernon Wells is on fire. And the Jays are 2-1. So far so good. Too bad there’s soooooooooooooo looooooooooooooong to go yet.
Ricky Romero pitched a nice game against Texas’s hot bats too. All good.
I’m in the process of buying a house - and my job may yet kill me - so I haven’t yet caught urge to listen to any ball (in my opinion, pre-playoff ball is best when it’s heard - not seen - via scratchy AM radio while my oversized butt is parked on a porch somewhere, cold one in hand, the sound of the game competing with the sounds of locusts and crickets and freeing up the eyes to watch fireflies).
So far all I’ve managed to accomplish by way of ‘preparation’ (as if) is read this article. Although it’s not written by the inestimable Roger Angell, it’s a pretty good read.
Anybody following the J-Hey Kid? Or the Second Coming?
(Did y’all know that Angell is the stepson of EB White?)
[quote=“McGrath”]…African-American, six feet five and two hundred and forty pounds, yet somehow still lanky, with room on his frame for filling out—for acquiring what Heyward’s father, Eugene, calls his “man strength.” Darryl Strawberry, with whom Heyward had been compared by scouts, told the Times, “That kid has the goods.” Keith Hernandez invoked Willie McCovey. Online retailers were already selling T-shirts that read “The J-Hey Kid.” In fact, by the time I arrived, in the second week of the Grapefruit League schedule, Bruce Manno, the Braves’ assistant general manager, was so tired of recounting Heyward’s exploits that he groaned when I approached him near the dugout steps. “Twenty-seven years in baseball, and this is what I’m going to be remembered for,” he said, shaking his head. “I got friends calling me who I haven’t heard from in years, saying, ‘What happened?’ ”
What happened is that Manno had parked his car, a Toyota 4Runner, in a sliver of a parking lot beyond the right-field bullpen on a day when the left-handed Heyward was making batting practice seem superfluous. “We had an eyewitness,” Manno said. “The ball came down at an angle like this”—he traced a descending arc with his hand—“and hit the sunroof.” The impact shattered the glass and bent the frame that held it in place, rendering the whole apparatus terminal. “Fox is making a miniseries about it,” Manno said, deadpan.
…Heyward had also, notably, plunked a moving Coca-Cola truck in what was now being referred to, by some observers, as Jason’s Junkyard, although a few of his biggest batting-practice shots had cleared the twenty-foot wall behind the parking lot. “Then Jason hit one in Lakeland, the other day, during the game. A monster shot,” Cox continued. Heyward, facing the young Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer, had fallen behind, oh and two, then waited patiently—abnormally, for a player of his age—until the count ran full before turning on a fastball and drilling it over a row of palm trees. The ball struck the roof of an external batting cage and skipped out of view. Lacking Rybarczyk’s metrics, Terry Pendleton, the Braves’ hitting coach, figured the distance travelled as the length of two consecutive fly balls hit with a fungo bat. But it was something less quantifiable in Heyward’s hitting that stuck with most observers. “I said, ‘God dang, there’s a different ring to that bat,’ ” Cox told me. “It’s not a woody sound.” The pitcher Tim Hudson said it sounded like a gunshot. “It’s just a different pow off the bat,” Pendleton said, smacking his hands together. “There are just some guys that hit the thing, and it’s, like, Oooh, that’s different. That’s way different.” Cox said, “I first heard that sound with Henry Aaron.”[/quote]
[quote=“flike”]Anybody following the J-Hey Kid? Or the Second Coming?
[/quote]
Jason Heyward is off to a roaring start. There are ups and down though. He’ll get a few hits and a HR in one game, and then go 0 for 5 in the next with a bunch of strikeouts. Rookies. It’s to be expected.
Who is the Second Coming?
[quote=“k.k.”]Jason Heyward is off to a roaring start. There are ups and down though. He’ll get a few hits and a HR in one game, and then go 0 for 5 in the next with a bunch of strikeouts. Rookies. It’s to be expected.
Who is the Second Coming?[/quote]Yeah, rookies. As his father says, Jason still has room on his frame to add some ‘man strength’. I’m sure dad means brains, too.
The Second Coming is the Nats’ Steven Strasburg, who I believe has already been sent down; for seasoning, sez the team. I think they want him to pitch every four days instead of every five. In fact, his AA Harrisburg Senators beat the Altoona Curve Sunday afternoon. His first pitch as a pro clocked in at 99 mph. He’ll be all of 22 years old come July of this year. 
[quote=“Ben McGrath, writing for the New Yorker,”]It was easy, after a while, to assume that any overheard superlative was in reference to Heyward, so I had to remind myself that nicknames like the Second Coming and the Anointed One were intended for someone else: the Washington Nationals’ twenty-one-year-old pitcher Stephen Strasburg.
Strasburg, unlike Heyward, had gone undrafted out of high school, in Southern California, and was reportedly recruited by Harvard and Yale, which seldom produce major-league prospects. He enrolled instead at San Diego State, his parents’ alma mater, where the Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn is the head coach. Strasburg quickly earned the nickname Slothburg. After nearly dropping out, he lost thirty pounds (from two-fifty to two-twenty) and added ten miles an hour to his fastball, thereby surpassing the hundred-m.p.h. level—baseball’s sonic boom—as a sophomore. The two-year transformation from Slothburg to Second Coming was made complete at last June’s amateur draft: Washington selected him first over all, and a record fifteen-million-dollar contract was negotiated within eighty seconds of the signing deadline by his adviser, Scott Boras, insuring that everyone would be watching what one writer referred to as the G.S.S.S.T.D., or Great Stephen Strasburg Spring Training Début. He didn’t disappoint. Two innings, no runs, two K’s. “When he throws the ball, it’s like an explosion,” the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera, one of his strikeout victims, said.[/quote]
Here was my prediction for Heyward in 2010. I said he would win the ROY with the following stats. With less than a month to go, I’ve put his current projected numbers after my earlier predictions. He’s a little better than I thought, especially at getting on base. What I didn’t know was what a great crop of rookies we’d see this year. Buster’s been bashin’ by the bay, and Garcia’s goin’ great in St. Louis (despite his last outing). So, as good as Heyward has been, he’s still got some competition for the ROY.
G 150 -142
AB 511-525
R 88-90
H 149-150
2B 30-32
3B 6-5
HR 27-19
RBI 90-77
BB 60-84
SO 149-131
SB 16-11
CS 8-7
AVG .292- .286
OBP .340- .393
SLG .499- .472
OPS .839- .865
And poor k.k. . . . I read recently about how the Blue Jays, due to strength of schedule, may be the 6th best team in MLB this year.
[quote=“zender”]Here’s my prediction for Heyward in 2010. He wins the ROY with the following stats:
G 150
AB 511
R 88
H 149
2B 30
3B 6
HR 27
RBI 90
BB 60
SO 149
SB 16
CS 8
AVG .292
OBP .340
SLG .499
OPS .839
Actually, I’m sure things like OBP and SLG don’t exactly match the stats, but I don’t have the time to make it work.
For Strasburg, I predict a June 4th call up with an
ERA+ = 1.28
WHIP = 1.19
K/9 = 9.1
Rocky Raccoon’s favorite player is Orlando Hudson.[/quote]
Phhhhhhhhht. I have Heyward with 515 AB in 151 G. And I have Strasburg with 9.06 K/9.
So, ipso facto. FAIL.
Heh. Ahem. 
Seriously, did you make those numbers up? I should confess that, if there exist any open sabermetric or pythagorean data models for baseball out there in the interwebs, I am clueless of their existence. Did you pull these out of your bad place, or just where the heck did they come from?!?
If my head is my “bad place”, yes, that’s where I got 'em. 
Sabermetrics gets very involved, but you don’t need to know much to increase your appreciation of the game. You soon figure out how valuable OPS+ is compared with batting average for judging batters, or how much better ERA+ or WHIP are than Wins when evaluating a pitcher.
As for pythagorean projections, it’s just an elegant way (Bill James invented) to see if a team got lucky or not by looking at how many runs they scored and gave up. Seattle was lucky last year; Toronto has been a little lucky so far this year 
as they’ve won 6 and lost 3 while scoring two more runs than their opponents (41 and 39).
Vernon Wells has been playing out of his head, but the real Vernon Wells will never repeat his 2003 numbers; it is simply magnified because he’s hot at the start of the season. Sorry, k.k., at least you’ve still got your KTV.
I’ve been following baseball since I was 5. I looked at the box scores first when I opened the paper as a child, and I talk baseball regularly with a guy who is involved in a number of fantasy leagues. If you want to learn a lot about baseball, read some of Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts OR join a fantasy baseball league ( I never have); that forces you to learn about players that your average fan can dismiss.
I’m a pretty serious fan, and I’ve always been good at math. However, of the above numbers for Heyward, I only did a quick check on the batting average. It is likely that the slugging percentage and on base percentage won’t match the numbers I have given. I’ll likely be way off, but I reserve my right to predict the prospects. Anyway, the numbers are my own.
There are probably a million people who are more “into” baseball than I am.
Baas Babelaas loves Boof Bonser even though he’s no longer on the Twins.
[quote=“On The Brink”]Another Twins Fan in the house. I can’t wait to get back for a game in their new stadium…no roof and real grass! Not a lot of foul ball territory, for sure a hitters park.
[/quote]
Oh, Man! THAT is BEAUTIFUL!
I hope they keep that mound of dirt between second and third. :neutral:
For the first time in 29 years, rain fell on the Twins at home. The fans chanted, “Out-door-base-ball!”
Omniloquacious was speechless when he met Cal Ermer
How are they ever going to make up all the snowed out games?
How do they do it in chicago, colorado, Detroit or the other northern cities? People make it sound like it’s the north pole in MN but snow isn’t that common in April in MN. It happens but not that often and usually not enough to stick for long.
[quote=“flike”]Seriously, did you make those numbers up? I should confess that, if there exist any open sabermetric or pythagorean data models for baseball out there in the interwebs, I am clueless of their existence. Did you pull these out of your bad place, or just where the heck did they come from?!?[/quote][quote=“zender”]If my head is my “bad place”, yes, that’s where I got 'em. 
Sabermetrics gets very involved, but you don’t need to know much to increase your appreciation of the game. You soon figure out how valuable OPS+ is compared with batting average for judging batters, or how much better ERA+ or WHIP are than Wins when evaluating a pitcher.
As for pythagorean projections, it’s just an elegant way (Bill James invented) to see if a team got lucky or not by looking at how many runs they scored and gave up. Seattle was lucky last year; Toronto has been a little lucky so far this year 
as they’ve won 6 and lost 3 while scoring two more runs than their opponents (41 and 39).
Vernon Wells has been playing out of his head, but the real Vernon Wells will never repeat his 2003 numbers; it is simply magnified because he’s hot at the start of the season. Sorry, k.k., at least you’ve still got your KTV.
I’ve been following baseball since I was 5. I looked at the box scores first when I opened the paper as a child, and I talk baseball regularly with a guy who is involved in a number of fantasy leagues. If you want to learn a lot about baseball, read some of Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts OR join a fantasy baseball league ( I never have); that forces you to learn about players that your average fan can dismiss.
I’m a pretty serious fan, and I’ve always been good at math. However, of the above numbers for Heyward, I only did a quick check on the batting average. It is likely that the slugging percentage and on base percentage won’t match the numbers I have given. I’ll likely be way off, but I reserve my right to predict the prospects. Anyway, the numbers are my own.
There are probably a million people who are more “into” baseball than I am.[/quote]
Regarding win projections. So do you use 2 as the exponential power in your pythagorean projection? Reason I ask is that I’ve seen this power upped as high as 98, which would seem to deemphasize defense more than a power of 2 (the higher the power, the more the projection amps up or emphasizes runs allowed in the denominator). The higher the exponential power used by the model, the more offense is valued and the less defense is valued when it comes to calculating winning percentage.
Gotta tell you, I’m pretty sold on the pythagorean expectation. Why? Well, in last month’s NC2A BB tournament, this guy, using a pythagorean expectation model, had Duke as the #1 team in the nation - followed by Kansas. The Wall Street Journal relied heavily on his model and predicted Duke to win the tourney. We had a helluva big laugh over this in my office…right up until Duke won the tournament.
So, pretty cool stuff. Personally, I always relate to a player, or a team, more than I ever relate to stats (and I like math a lot). So this is a struggle, to work this into my fan experience. For me baseball is all about the emotion, especially the dynamic relationship between pitcher and batter.
Oh, and your bad place is your ass, ya goofball.
Bill James, the inventor, uses 2, just like Pythagoras.
Square your team’s runs scored and divide it by the sum of the squares of your team’s runs scored and opponent runs.
So let RS= runs scored
and
OR = opponents runs
Expected winning % = RS X RS / ( RS X RS + OR X OR)
I can’t imagine upping the power as high as 98.
I can imagine using a multipier of 0.98 for runs scored and getting a more accurate formula.
So,
0.98RS X 0.98RS / (0.98RS X 0.98RS + OR X OR) = Expected win %
Anyway, I just eyeball it when I go to ESPN and see runs scored and given up for a team.
Currently: Washington, Detroit and Pittsburg all have winning records having given up more runs than they’ve scored. They’ve probably been lucky.
But it’s not all luck. A pythagorean projection assumes that teams are always trying their hardest to score and prevent each run. However, you only use your “proven closer”* in tight games. If you’re up 10-1 in the eighth, it’s garbage time, and you can let any ol’ scrub give up a half dozen runs. This also means that if you have lousy relief pitching and end up losing a lot of close games, you may underperform your pythagorean expectation.
Please, anybody, correct me if I’m wrong here.
19th inning . . . Mets and Cards are tied 0-0 
Edit to add: End of 19th . . . Mets and Cards are tied 1-1. :bravo: 19 pitchers used so far. Mets used 24 players!
Dragonbabe is a huge Delmon Young fan. She likes the way he flips his bat.
yeah…anyway…Yankees won today.
Yeah, bummer.
Some interesting stuff from that game…
Brett Gardner got three infield hits. First time a Yankee did that since Don Mattingly in 1992! 
DM was a solid hitter, but he was slow. He stole 14 bases lifetime, and 1992 was near the end for him.
This was the first time since 1926 that the Yanks started a season winning the first four series!
Isn’t that hard to believe for the best franchise of all time?
Arod and Jeter both homered. Arod’s was his 584th passing fellow roider Mark M. for 8th all time.
Any guesses how many lifetime home runs he ends up with, and how many hits Jeter ends up with? Jeter now has 2763.
bismark once said, “Bob Allison is better than Roger Maris!”