Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim signed 32 year old, free agent Center Fielder Torii Hunter, to a five year $90 million deal. Today, the New York Metropolitans traded Lastings Milledge to the Washington Nationals for Catcher Brian Schneider and Center/Left Fielder Ryan Church. Ryan Church will make ~$400,000 this year. Let's compare the two and see who's getting more bang for their buck:
Hunter: 600 ABs, 94 Runs, 172 Hits, 45 2Bs, 1 3B, 28 HR, 107 RBI, 18 SB, 40 BB, 101 Ks, .287 BA, .334 OBP, .505 SLG, .839 OPS, 122 OPS+, 2 FRAA (Fielding Runs Above Average), 8.00 WARP3, .292 EqA, 24 Win Shares, 5.60 RC/27, .64 WPA
Church: 470 ABs, 57 Runs, 128 Hits, 43 2B, 1 3B, 15 HR, 70 RBI, 3 SB, 49 BBs, 107 Ks, .272 BA, .349 OBP, .464 SLG, .813 OPS, 114 OPS+, 14 FRAA, 7.10 WARP3, .288 EqA, 19 Win Shares, 5.70 RC/27, .15 WPA
Church (Projected to 600 ABs): 73 Runs, 163 Hits, 55 2B, 1 3B, 19 HR, 89 RBI, 4 SB, 63 BBs, 167 Ks, 18 FRAA, 9.06 WARP3, 24 Win Shares
Hunter is clearly better than Church, although not by very much at all. Church has far better plate discipline, as exhibited by his nine more walks in 130 fewer at-bats. And Torii Hunter's highly touted glove is - by at least one metric - only slightly above average, whereas Church played outstanding outfield last year. Church's numbers also suffered because he played his home games at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. Let's look at his home/road splits:
Home: 229 ABs, 24 Runs, 61 Hits, 20 2B, 0 3B, 5 HR, 30 RBI, 1 SB, 28 BBs, 49 Ks, .266 BA, .356 OBP, .419 SLG, .775 OPS
Away: 241 ABs, 33 Runs, 67 Hits, 23 2B, 1 3B, 10 HR, 40 RBI, 2 SB, 21 BBs, 58 Ks, .278 BA, .342 OBP, .506 SLG, .848 OPS
That OPS and SLG difference is ridiculous. Now let's be crazy and project his away stats to 600 ABs and Church becomes a carbon-copy of Torii Hunter except with more strikeouts and more walks:
Away: 600 ABs, 82 Runs, 167 Hits, 57 2B, 2 3B, 25 HR, 100 RBI, 5 SB, 52 BB, 144 Ks
I have absolutely no problem paying this man $400,000 to hit 6th in my lineup every night. Not only that, but he'll be hitting in the Mets lineup surrounded by Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Moises Alou, and Carlos Delgado, az he should get much better pitches to hit. This was not nearly as poor a move by Omar Minaya as everyone thinks.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
By Request, Football
For some reason I completely forgot to follow up my post about the most important stats in football. A friend reminded me over the weekend, so I went ahead and did some analysis this morning. Just in case y'all forgot what I was doing, I'll paste from the original post: "I thought about it for a while, and I came up with two answers: a. starting field position, and b. percentage of offensive series resulting in a first down or a score." Thanks, again, to one of my devoted readers for pointing me to the drive stats listed on footballoutsiders.com. I can't believe I didn't think to check there for the stats; I mean they wrote Pro Football Prospectus 2007, which I read cover to cover. Anyway, here are the results of my analysis (all stats through week 11):
I realized while I was compiling and sorting my data, that in order to be thorough I would have to do hours and hours of research. I really should look at offensive and defensive stats for the past few seasons, and then try to come up with a reasonable way of combining my two stats, because they certainly don't contribute to wins and losses evenly. Instead, all I did was look at offensive stats for this year, ranked the teams one to 32 in each of the two stats, and then I added up the rankings and ranked the sum.
For example, the New England Patriots' average starting field position is the 33.94 yard line, second best in the league. Their drive success rate is 84.3%, best in all of football. One plus two equals three, the lowest sum out of everyone, so they get the best ranking.
For one more example, the Kansas City Chiefs' average starting field position is the 28.35 yard line, 26th in the NFL. Their drive success rate is 59.3%, second worst in the league. 26 plus 31 equals 57, the hightest sum out of everyone, so they get the worst ranking.
Next, I decided to compare their rankings to their winning percentage. Here's where I ran into trouble, because luck plays a big role in wins and losses. One bounce of the football can mean the difference between 6-4 and 5-5; between a .600 winning percentage and a .500 winning percentage. Az additionally, I elected to look at Pythagorean projected winning percentage, which takes into account only points scored and points given up. For example:
The San Francisco 49ers have scored 113 points and given up 223. Inputting those numbers into the Pythagorean formula looks like this: 1 / (1+(223 / 113)^2) = .204. Their actual winning percentage is .200, so that's a very good projection.
Anyway, I determined that the results of the analysis were inconclusive. My system projects the Patriots, Steelers, Cowboys, Colts, Giants, and Buccaneers to be in the top nine. This agrees with their Pythagorean projections. However, my system loves the Browns (4th overall), Bengals (7th overall), and Redskins (8th overall), and their Pythagorean projections are 15th, 20th, and 18th respectively.
Next time I'll look at turnover differential and see what that data will show. I'm looking forward to comments.
I realized while I was compiling and sorting my data, that in order to be thorough I would have to do hours and hours of research. I really should look at offensive and defensive stats for the past few seasons, and then try to come up with a reasonable way of combining my two stats, because they certainly don't contribute to wins and losses evenly. Instead, all I did was look at offensive stats for this year, ranked the teams one to 32 in each of the two stats, and then I added up the rankings and ranked the sum.
For example, the New England Patriots' average starting field position is the 33.94 yard line, second best in the league. Their drive success rate is 84.3%, best in all of football. One plus two equals three, the lowest sum out of everyone, so they get the best ranking.
For one more example, the Kansas City Chiefs' average starting field position is the 28.35 yard line, 26th in the NFL. Their drive success rate is 59.3%, second worst in the league. 26 plus 31 equals 57, the hightest sum out of everyone, so they get the worst ranking.
Next, I decided to compare their rankings to their winning percentage. Here's where I ran into trouble, because luck plays a big role in wins and losses. One bounce of the football can mean the difference between 6-4 and 5-5; between a .600 winning percentage and a .500 winning percentage. Az additionally, I elected to look at Pythagorean projected winning percentage, which takes into account only points scored and points given up. For example:
The San Francisco 49ers have scored 113 points and given up 223. Inputting those numbers into the Pythagorean formula looks like this: 1 / (1+(223 / 113)^2) = .204. Their actual winning percentage is .200, so that's a very good projection.
Anyway, I determined that the results of the analysis were inconclusive. My system projects the Patriots, Steelers, Cowboys, Colts, Giants, and Buccaneers to be in the top nine. This agrees with their Pythagorean projections. However, my system loves the Browns (4th overall), Bengals (7th overall), and Redskins (8th overall), and their Pythagorean projections are 15th, 20th, and 18th respectively.
Next time I'll look at turnover differential and see what that data will show. I'm looking forward to comments.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Didn't Do It Justice
I should be embarrassed about my last post. I should hang my head in shame.
Before I continue to lambaste myself I have a little side issue to address. Don't worry, it's completely not sports related. Last week I received "Confessor" in the mail. It is the eleventh and final volume of Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series. This is my favorite fantasy series. I remember opening the first volume "Wizard's First Rule" on the Metro-North train to my aunt and uncle's house in Connecticut around nine years ago. I have been waiting for a long time for the series to end, and I can't wait to see what happens at the end. Just to put it in a frame of reference you can all understand, I'm going to continue the example using Harry Potter. A new volume in the series came out every three years, and in between the books would get discussed by fans endlessly. It would get discussed so much that the story would become the stuff of legend. And each time a new volume came out, it was as though the story was actually happening as you were reading it. Imagine you didn't know any of the stories in the bible, but you knew that the bible was the foundation of your belief system, or even that it was the basis for the beliefs of thousands of people. Now you're reading the bible for the first time, and you're internalizing the fact that what you're reading IS the bible. This is it. What you're reading is the only bible that there is, and the stories are the ones that everyone knows. Now let's go back to Harry Potter. As you read the last book you were thinking "wow, this is the story of Harry Potter. There is no other story about Harry Potter; there will never be any other story about Harry Potter." You almost start to think "who is J.K. Rowling that she can add on to the story that's already taken place?" You feel me? I'm definitely not explaining it well, but it's hard to articulate what I'm trying to convey. Anyway, the point is that this is the last part of the Richard and Kahlan story, and it can't ever be changed. I hope Terry Goodkind done good.
Anyway, I'm continuing to be beside myself with how badly I botched the last post. Thank the Lord for firejoemorgan.com. They made me realize how much more I should have written, and really how poor an MVP selection Jimmy Rollins is. I mentioned Hanley Ramirez a few times, but it didn't even occur to me that Jimmy Rollins wasn't even the best shortstop in his division this season. And you know what? I'm not even going to use fancy sabermetric stats, because the MVP voters don't look at those anyway; I'm gonna look at the old-fashioned stats. Since Rollins got 77 more at bats, I'm going to list Ramirez's actual stats and his projected stats with those extra 77 at bats (in parentheses):
Batting Average: Rollins: .296, Ramirez: .332
Runs Scored: Rollins: 139, Ramirez: 125 (140)
Hits: Rollins: 212, Ramirez: 212 (238)
RBI: Rollins: 94, Ramirez: 81 (91)
Doubles: Rollins: 38, Ramirez: 48 (54)
Triples: Rollins: 20, Ramirez: 6 (7)
Home Runs: Rollins: 30, Ramirez: 29 (32)
Total Bases: Rollins: 380, Ramirez: 359 (402)
Extra Base Hits: Rollins: 88, Ramirez: 83 (93)
Strikeouts: Rollins: 85, Ramirez: 95 (106)
Walks: Rollins: 49, Ramirez: 52 (58)
Stolen Bases: Rollins: 41, Ramirez: 51 (57)
Outs: Rollins: 521 (Led all of baseball, and the most outs of any MVP ever), Ramirez: 451 (505)
OBP: Rollins: .344, Ramirez: .386
SLG: Rollins: .531, Ramirez: .562
OPS: Rollins: .875, Ramirez: .948
I realize that projecting the stats isn't exactly fair, but even if I didn't do that, Ramirez still leads Rollins in BA, doubles, BBs, SBs, Outs, OBP, SLG, and OPS. They are tied in hits, and virtually tied in home runs. How can someone who is inferior to another player AT THE SAME POSITION, in just about every single important (and unimportant) statistical category beat the other in MVP voting 353 to 49? It just doesn't make any sense.
Before I continue to lambaste myself I have a little side issue to address. Don't worry, it's completely not sports related. Last week I received "Confessor" in the mail. It is the eleventh and final volume of Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series. This is my favorite fantasy series. I remember opening the first volume "Wizard's First Rule" on the Metro-North train to my aunt and uncle's house in Connecticut around nine years ago. I have been waiting for a long time for the series to end, and I can't wait to see what happens at the end. Just to put it in a frame of reference you can all understand, I'm going to continue the example using Harry Potter. A new volume in the series came out every three years, and in between the books would get discussed by fans endlessly. It would get discussed so much that the story would become the stuff of legend. And each time a new volume came out, it was as though the story was actually happening as you were reading it. Imagine you didn't know any of the stories in the bible, but you knew that the bible was the foundation of your belief system, or even that it was the basis for the beliefs of thousands of people. Now you're reading the bible for the first time, and you're internalizing the fact that what you're reading IS the bible. This is it. What you're reading is the only bible that there is, and the stories are the ones that everyone knows. Now let's go back to Harry Potter. As you read the last book you were thinking "wow, this is the story of Harry Potter. There is no other story about Harry Potter; there will never be any other story about Harry Potter." You almost start to think "who is J.K. Rowling that she can add on to the story that's already taken place?" You feel me? I'm definitely not explaining it well, but it's hard to articulate what I'm trying to convey. Anyway, the point is that this is the last part of the Richard and Kahlan story, and it can't ever be changed. I hope Terry Goodkind done good.
Anyway, I'm continuing to be beside myself with how badly I botched the last post. Thank the Lord for firejoemorgan.com. They made me realize how much more I should have written, and really how poor an MVP selection Jimmy Rollins is. I mentioned Hanley Ramirez a few times, but it didn't even occur to me that Jimmy Rollins wasn't even the best shortstop in his division this season. And you know what? I'm not even going to use fancy sabermetric stats, because the MVP voters don't look at those anyway; I'm gonna look at the old-fashioned stats. Since Rollins got 77 more at bats, I'm going to list Ramirez's actual stats and his projected stats with those extra 77 at bats (in parentheses):
Batting Average: Rollins: .296, Ramirez: .332
Runs Scored: Rollins: 139, Ramirez: 125 (140)
Hits: Rollins: 212, Ramirez: 212 (238)
RBI: Rollins: 94, Ramirez: 81 (91)
Doubles: Rollins: 38, Ramirez: 48 (54)
Triples: Rollins: 20, Ramirez: 6 (7)
Home Runs: Rollins: 30, Ramirez: 29 (32)
Total Bases: Rollins: 380, Ramirez: 359 (402)
Extra Base Hits: Rollins: 88, Ramirez: 83 (93)
Strikeouts: Rollins: 85, Ramirez: 95 (106)
Walks: Rollins: 49, Ramirez: 52 (58)
Stolen Bases: Rollins: 41, Ramirez: 51 (57)
Outs: Rollins: 521 (Led all of baseball, and the most outs of any MVP ever), Ramirez: 451 (505)
OBP: Rollins: .344, Ramirez: .386
SLG: Rollins: .531, Ramirez: .562
OPS: Rollins: .875, Ramirez: .948
I realize that projecting the stats isn't exactly fair, but even if I didn't do that, Ramirez still leads Rollins in BA, doubles, BBs, SBs, Outs, OBP, SLG, and OPS. They are tied in hits, and virtually tied in home runs. How can someone who is inferior to another player AT THE SAME POSITION, in just about every single important (and unimportant) statistical category beat the other in MVP voting 353 to 49? It just doesn't make any sense.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Blah Blah Baseball Blah
There are a couple of items I would like to discuss today. First up is the recent announcement of Jimmy Rollins as the Most Valuable Player in the National League. Hold on. Before I start a Jimmy Rollins rant, I want to make it absolutely clear that I hold no ill will towards Mr. Rollins. None at all. In fact, I'm glad he had gaudy counting stats this year; he really helped two of my fantasy teams. Rollins had a terrific season, and he helped his team reach the playoffs. This is not, I repeat, NOT a post from a bitter Mets fan about how much I hate Jimmy Rollins. I'm only looking at statistics here; that's all. The last thing I want to hear from anyone is that I'm not being fair to Rollins and I'm only seeing one side of the story, blah blah blah. This post is simply a statistical analysis; you'll never catch me making references to leadership and intangibles and red glasses and pre-season announcements.
Right off the bat I'm going to ignore Stolen Bases, Home Runs, and Runs Scored. We all know Rollins can steal bases with the best of them, and his 30 Home Runs, while not astounding, were quite impressive. Runs scored are absolutely meaningless, az STFU. These are the stats I will be using: Walks, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, Runs Created, RC/27, Equivalent Average, Value Over Replacement Player, Win Probability Added, and Win Shares. And don't tell me that these stats don't capture all that Rollins brings to the table, because EqA, VORP, WPA, and Win Shares do just that. And just for the purposes of comparison, I chose eleven other players to examine, ten of whom got MVP votes, and one who's just interesting. Let's get started:
Walks: Jimmy Rollins walked 49 times this year, good for 46th in the NL. That's absolutely atrocious, especially for a leadoff hitter. Of all the guys on my list, only Ryan Braun had fewer walks, but he had over 200 fewer plate appearances than Rollins. I mean if you're Chase Utley and OBPing .410, then you're allowed to walk only 50 times, especially if you get injured and miss a bunch of games.
Noteworthy walkers: Pujols (99, 5th), Wright (94, 6th), Ryan Howard (107, 3rd), Todd Helton (116, 1st), Prince Fielder (90, 8th)
OBP: The .344 that Rollins posted is not good enough to be a leadoff hitter in the major leagues, and certainly not good enough to be MVP. In Moneyball, Bill James proclaimed that OBP is three times as important as SLG, az I think it should be more highly regarded by MVP voters.
Noteworthy On-Basers: Chipper Jones (.425, 3rd), Pujols (.429, 2nd), Wright (.416, 4th), Miguel Cabrera (.401, 7th), Matt Holliday (.405, 6th), Chase Utley (.410, 5th), Todd Helton (.434, 1st)
(Just as an aside. As I was looking up Chase Utley's stats on baseball-reference.com, I noticed that his full name is Chase Cameron Utley. I wonder if his parents were time-travelers and really liked House. Hameivin yavin.)
SLG: Rollins finally shows a bit of respectability here, posting a .531 SLG, good for 15th in the NL. Still not MVP worthy, but definitely above average, especially for a shortstop.
Noteworthy Sluggers: Jones (.604, 3rd), Pujols (.568, 5th), Cabrera (.565, 7th), Ryan Braun (.634, 1st if he qualified for the batting title), Holliday (.607, 2nd), Hanley Ramirez (.562, 8th), Fielder (.618, 1st), Utley (.566, 6th), Howard (.584, 4th)
OPS: Obviously since his OBP is terrible, his OPS will also be poor, although his SLG makes up for it. His .875 is 23rd in the NL and still very good for shortstops. If only he walked more I could actually take him seriously.
Noteworthy OPSers: Jones (1.029, 1st), Pujols (.997, 4th), Wright (.963, 8th), Cabrera (.965, 7th), Braun (1.004, 4th if he qualified), Holliday (1.012, 3rd), Ramirez (.948, 9th), Fielder (1.013, 2), Utley and Howard (.976, 5th)
Enough! This is ridiculous and tedious, and frankly I don't have the time for it. Let's just say that Rollins sucks in the rest of the stats as well:
118 OPS+, Chipper Jones: 166
135 Runs Created (5th), Matt Holliday: 151
.298 EqA, Jones: .340
66.1 VORP (9th), Hanley Ramirez: 89.5
3.20 WPA (15th), Holliday: 5.06
28 Win Shares (6th), Wright: 34
All How can this guy be an MVP? Great player, no question, but Pujols, Jones, Wright, Cabrera, Ramirez, Holliday, Utley, and Fielder are all superior choices.
Moving right along, the Mets decided not to sign Yorvit Torrealba to an absurd contract, and instead went with Johnny Estrada. Estrada's stats are better than Torrealba's, and Bill James predicts him to have a much better year than him, but there's one thing about Estrada that scares me. Of all players with at least 150 plate appearances last year, Estrada saw THE FEWEST pitches per at bat. Most players see around 3.75 pitchers per plate appearance, and the best see around 4.25. Last year, Estrada saw 2.99 pitches per plate appearances. HoJo better teach the man how to walk or else his playing time will drop.
Let's keep up with the hot stove and see what else gets cooked.
Right off the bat I'm going to ignore Stolen Bases, Home Runs, and Runs Scored. We all know Rollins can steal bases with the best of them, and his 30 Home Runs, while not astounding, were quite impressive. Runs scored are absolutely meaningless, az STFU. These are the stats I will be using: Walks, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, Runs Created, RC/27, Equivalent Average, Value Over Replacement Player, Win Probability Added, and Win Shares. And don't tell me that these stats don't capture all that Rollins brings to the table, because EqA, VORP, WPA, and Win Shares do just that. And just for the purposes of comparison, I chose eleven other players to examine, ten of whom got MVP votes, and one who's just interesting. Let's get started:
Walks: Jimmy Rollins walked 49 times this year, good for 46th in the NL. That's absolutely atrocious, especially for a leadoff hitter. Of all the guys on my list, only Ryan Braun had fewer walks, but he had over 200 fewer plate appearances than Rollins. I mean if you're Chase Utley and OBPing .410, then you're allowed to walk only 50 times, especially if you get injured and miss a bunch of games.
Noteworthy walkers: Pujols (99, 5th), Wright (94, 6th), Ryan Howard (107, 3rd), Todd Helton (116, 1st), Prince Fielder (90, 8th)
OBP: The .344 that Rollins posted is not good enough to be a leadoff hitter in the major leagues, and certainly not good enough to be MVP. In Moneyball, Bill James proclaimed that OBP is three times as important as SLG, az I think it should be more highly regarded by MVP voters.
Noteworthy On-Basers: Chipper Jones (.425, 3rd), Pujols (.429, 2nd), Wright (.416, 4th), Miguel Cabrera (.401, 7th), Matt Holliday (.405, 6th), Chase Utley (.410, 5th), Todd Helton (.434, 1st)
(Just as an aside. As I was looking up Chase Utley's stats on baseball-reference.com, I noticed that his full name is Chase Cameron Utley. I wonder if his parents were time-travelers and really liked House. Hameivin yavin.)
SLG: Rollins finally shows a bit of respectability here, posting a .531 SLG, good for 15th in the NL. Still not MVP worthy, but definitely above average, especially for a shortstop.
Noteworthy Sluggers: Jones (.604, 3rd), Pujols (.568, 5th), Cabrera (.565, 7th), Ryan Braun (.634, 1st if he qualified for the batting title), Holliday (.607, 2nd), Hanley Ramirez (.562, 8th), Fielder (.618, 1st), Utley (.566, 6th), Howard (.584, 4th)
OPS: Obviously since his OBP is terrible, his OPS will also be poor, although his SLG makes up for it. His .875 is 23rd in the NL and still very good for shortstops. If only he walked more I could actually take him seriously.
Noteworthy OPSers: Jones (1.029, 1st), Pujols (.997, 4th), Wright (.963, 8th), Cabrera (.965, 7th), Braun (1.004, 4th if he qualified), Holliday (1.012, 3rd), Ramirez (.948, 9th), Fielder (1.013, 2), Utley and Howard (.976, 5th)
Enough! This is ridiculous and tedious, and frankly I don't have the time for it. Let's just say that Rollins sucks in the rest of the stats as well:
118 OPS+, Chipper Jones: 166
135 Runs Created (5th), Matt Holliday: 151
.298 EqA, Jones: .340
66.1 VORP (9th), Hanley Ramirez: 89.5
3.20 WPA (15th), Holliday: 5.06
28 Win Shares (6th), Wright: 34
All How can this guy be an MVP? Great player, no question, but Pujols, Jones, Wright, Cabrera, Ramirez, Holliday, Utley, and Fielder are all superior choices.
Moving right along, the Mets decided not to sign Yorvit Torrealba to an absurd contract, and instead went with Johnny Estrada. Estrada's stats are better than Torrealba's, and Bill James predicts him to have a much better year than him, but there's one thing about Estrada that scares me. Of all players with at least 150 plate appearances last year, Estrada saw THE FEWEST pitches per at bat. Most players see around 3.75 pitchers per plate appearance, and the best see around 4.25. Last year, Estrada saw 2.99 pitches per plate appearances. HoJo better teach the man how to walk or else his playing time will drop.
Let's keep up with the hot stove and see what else gets cooked.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Letting it Go, and Another Thing I Won't Let Go
Apparently, the upper managment of the New York Metropolitans has heard the cries of our bondage, and has finally agreed to lead us out of the land of Torrealba. Reports are that the Mets have ceased negotiations with Torrealba and his agent. I guess they've decided to use the $14.4 million for something other than toilet tissue.
By the way, remember the old commercial for Publisher's Clearing House? "The house where dreams come true." Wasn't the tune to those words exactly the same as the tune for the end of the Chuck E. Cheese's commercial? "Where a kid can be a kid." For some reason I think they were the same.
Now that we're through with that bit of insanity, it's time to move on to another one. I've been saying this for the last month or so, and I really thought it might actually happen one of of this weeks. For the tenth straight game, the New England Patriots have emerged victorious, and for the ninth time out of the ten, they absolutely destroyed their opponent; this time they defeated the Buffalo Bills 56-10. As my esteemed colleague noted last night, "it's like they're playing Madden '08." Even with a 35-7 halftime lead, the Patriots continued to trot their best players out on the field in order to humiliate their opponent and flip a collective bird at the rest of the league. But honestly, what's the point of playing any sport? It's to win a championship. Why oh why is Coach Bill Belichick sending out his prized players after the outcome of the game has already been determined? I've been saying for the past month that they need to be punished. Seriously, the Bills hadn't even touched quarterback Tom Brady all night, yet they continued to play their conservative defense through the end of the game. I really think the Bills should have sent all eleven defenders after Tom Brady and knocked the stuffing out of him on every single play, even after the plays ended. Yes, the players and team would have been fined, and they would have given up more points, but so what? Bill Belichick needs to be taught a lesson. If he's going to say "F**k you!" to the NFL, then he deserves to have his players get hurt.
Now, I'm sure some of you out there are thinking "this guy's just a bitter Jets fan who hates the Patriots." I can assure you, that even though I am a Jets fan, I'm certainly not bitter, and I certainly don't hate the Patriots. And I absolutely do not wish any harm upon Mr. Brady; he is, after all, the father of G-d knows how many children. But for all of Bill Belichick's strategic genius, I honestly and truly believe that he deserves to be punished for putting in his best players when they have already won the game, and the vessel of G-d's wrath should be Brady.
By the way, remember the old commercial for Publisher's Clearing House? "The house where dreams come true." Wasn't the tune to those words exactly the same as the tune for the end of the Chuck E. Cheese's commercial? "Where a kid can be a kid." For some reason I think they were the same.
Now that we're through with that bit of insanity, it's time to move on to another one. I've been saying this for the last month or so, and I really thought it might actually happen one of of this weeks. For the tenth straight game, the New England Patriots have emerged victorious, and for the ninth time out of the ten, they absolutely destroyed their opponent; this time they defeated the Buffalo Bills 56-10. As my esteemed colleague noted last night, "it's like they're playing Madden '08." Even with a 35-7 halftime lead, the Patriots continued to trot their best players out on the field in order to humiliate their opponent and flip a collective bird at the rest of the league. But honestly, what's the point of playing any sport? It's to win a championship. Why oh why is Coach Bill Belichick sending out his prized players after the outcome of the game has already been determined? I've been saying for the past month that they need to be punished. Seriously, the Bills hadn't even touched quarterback Tom Brady all night, yet they continued to play their conservative defense through the end of the game. I really think the Bills should have sent all eleven defenders after Tom Brady and knocked the stuffing out of him on every single play, even after the plays ended. Yes, the players and team would have been fined, and they would have given up more points, but so what? Bill Belichick needs to be taught a lesson. If he's going to say "F**k you!" to the NFL, then he deserves to have his players get hurt.
Now, I'm sure some of you out there are thinking "this guy's just a bitter Jets fan who hates the Patriots." I can assure you, that even though I am a Jets fan, I'm certainly not bitter, and I certainly don't hate the Patriots. And I absolutely do not wish any harm upon Mr. Brady; he is, after all, the father of G-d knows how many children. But for all of Bill Belichick's strategic genius, I honestly and truly believe that he deserves to be punished for putting in his best players when they have already won the game, and the vessel of G-d's wrath should be Brady.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
I Can't Just Let This Go By Unnoticed
Player X: .255 BA, .323 OBP, .376 SLG, .699 OPS, 75 OPS+
Player Y: .285 BA, .331 OBP, .556 SLG, .887 OPS, 127 OPS+
One of these players was just signed by the Mets to a three year deal worth $14.4 million. The other was the Mets' backup catcher last year and makes no money. One of these players put up these numbers last year at Coors Field. The other put up his numbers at a pitcher-friendly Shea Stadium. Which one do you think is which?
Duh, Player X is the newly acquired Yorvit Torrealba, and Player Y is Ramon Castro. If Torrealba gets more at-bats this season than Castro I'm gonna go ballistic.
Yorvit Torrealba?!?!?!1?!?!1?!?!?! For almost $5 million a season?!?!!1?!!1?!!?! Are you freakin' kidding me?!?!?!1?!?!?!!1?!?!!
Player Y: .285 BA, .331 OBP, .556 SLG, .887 OPS, 127 OPS+
One of these players was just signed by the Mets to a three year deal worth $14.4 million. The other was the Mets' backup catcher last year and makes no money. One of these players put up these numbers last year at Coors Field. The other put up his numbers at a pitcher-friendly Shea Stadium. Which one do you think is which?
Duh, Player X is the newly acquired Yorvit Torrealba, and Player Y is Ramon Castro. If Torrealba gets more at-bats this season than Castro I'm gonna go ballistic.
Yorvit Torrealba?!?!?!1?!?!1?!?!?! For almost $5 million a season?!?!!1?!!1?!!?! Are you freakin' kidding me?!?!?!1?!?!?!!1?!?!!
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
New Biggest Driving Pet-Peeve
Sorry to disappoint all of you, but my football post will have to wait. Just a quick thanks to one of my loyal readers for cutting my research time down by several hours.
Meanwhile, my nephew's bris was on Sunday morning. I'm proud to say that Binyamin Lev ben Yisroel Dov has entered into the covenant of Abraham, our forefather.
Here's a quickie. When I told one of my friends the name of my nephew, he was shocked because my brother and his father have the same Hebrew name, Yisroel Dov. And he said that it was a shame that his father's English name isn't as frum as my brother's, since his father is a Rabbi. Az then we got onto the topic of rabbis with secular names. Here are the ones we came up with. I will leave out last names so as not to embarrass anyone:
Rabbi Cary _____
Rabbi Dale _____
Rabbi Shawn Blair _____
Rabbi Harlan _____
I would love to hear some more from all of you; I think it's hilarious.
And now I will address the topic of my post. Before I start, I'll just say that it has been a pet-peeve of mine for a while, but now it's my biggest one. I've been noticing this more and more, recently, but the events of last night really take the cake.
I was driving back from a wedding with three women, and one of them requested to be dropped off on the Upper East Side. No problem, I know the East Side well, az it would only have taken an extra five minutes. The FDR Drive is great; I literally grew up on top of it, but when you're driving northbound you can get into trouble because the exits are spaced far apart. The woman requested to be dropped off on 86th street, az I could either have gotten off at 61st street or 96th street. I decided that 96th street was the better bet, so we just kept going. However, traffic stopped almost instantaneously after the 61st street exit. I turn on the radio and the first thing I hear is "I could give you 100 reasons to avoid the FDR Drive on the north-bound side." Oh good. Az we're sitting in traffic for about 20 minutes when we finally start to approach the 96th street exit. There's a long wait in the right lane because that's where everyone is going to exit. I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting...and the exit is slowly drawing nearer, and cars from the middle lane are trying to force their way into the exit lane. This one guy tries to cut in front of me into the right lane, but he literally has zero room there, so I honk a few times and inch my way up right behind the car in front of me so the dude can't fit in, and he starts to go absolutely berserk. He screamed several obscenities, including some horrible things about my mother, although the meaning was lost through the two solid windows in between us. If it wasn't really late and raining, I would have asked him politely to retract his statments and apologize for using such language in the presence of women, but I was persuaded to just let him go through.
Here's the point. If you want to pass someone on the road because they're going slowly, you're more than welcome to do so. You're not screwing anybody by speeding up a bit to pass the slow guy. But if cars are lined up to exit, it's horrible manners to speed your way to the front of the line and then cut in. I promise we're not going slowly because we enjoy it. Please wait from the back of the line like everybody else. I don't care if your wife and children are suffering a lingering, rotting death; everyone else is in a hurry too. And the last thing you should be doing is expecting the cars to let you in, as if it's your G-d given right to do this. And also, please please don't honk your horn. I mean, when there are thousands of cars literally inches away from each other, honking your horn will do no good; we're all trying to go as quickly as we can. And also don't use foul language, especially in my car.
Thanks,
Your Friend,
Schmutter
Meanwhile, my nephew's bris was on Sunday morning. I'm proud to say that Binyamin Lev ben Yisroel Dov has entered into the covenant of Abraham, our forefather.
Here's a quickie. When I told one of my friends the name of my nephew, he was shocked because my brother and his father have the same Hebrew name, Yisroel Dov. And he said that it was a shame that his father's English name isn't as frum as my brother's, since his father is a Rabbi. Az then we got onto the topic of rabbis with secular names. Here are the ones we came up with. I will leave out last names so as not to embarrass anyone:
Rabbi Cary _____
Rabbi Dale _____
Rabbi Shawn Blair _____
Rabbi Harlan _____
I would love to hear some more from all of you; I think it's hilarious.
And now I will address the topic of my post. Before I start, I'll just say that it has been a pet-peeve of mine for a while, but now it's my biggest one. I've been noticing this more and more, recently, but the events of last night really take the cake.
I was driving back from a wedding with three women, and one of them requested to be dropped off on the Upper East Side. No problem, I know the East Side well, az it would only have taken an extra five minutes. The FDR Drive is great; I literally grew up on top of it, but when you're driving northbound you can get into trouble because the exits are spaced far apart. The woman requested to be dropped off on 86th street, az I could either have gotten off at 61st street or 96th street. I decided that 96th street was the better bet, so we just kept going. However, traffic stopped almost instantaneously after the 61st street exit. I turn on the radio and the first thing I hear is "I could give you 100 reasons to avoid the FDR Drive on the north-bound side." Oh good. Az we're sitting in traffic for about 20 minutes when we finally start to approach the 96th street exit. There's a long wait in the right lane because that's where everyone is going to exit. I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting...and the exit is slowly drawing nearer, and cars from the middle lane are trying to force their way into the exit lane. This one guy tries to cut in front of me into the right lane, but he literally has zero room there, so I honk a few times and inch my way up right behind the car in front of me so the dude can't fit in, and he starts to go absolutely berserk. He screamed several obscenities, including some horrible things about my mother, although the meaning was lost through the two solid windows in between us. If it wasn't really late and raining, I would have asked him politely to retract his statments and apologize for using such language in the presence of women, but I was persuaded to just let him go through.
Here's the point. If you want to pass someone on the road because they're going slowly, you're more than welcome to do so. You're not screwing anybody by speeding up a bit to pass the slow guy. But if cars are lined up to exit, it's horrible manners to speed your way to the front of the line and then cut in. I promise we're not going slowly because we enjoy it. Please wait from the back of the line like everybody else. I don't care if your wife and children are suffering a lingering, rotting death; everyone else is in a hurry too. And the last thing you should be doing is expecting the cars to let you in, as if it's your G-d given right to do this. And also, please please don't honk your horn. I mean, when there are thousands of cars literally inches away from each other, honking your horn will do no good; we're all trying to go as quickly as we can. And also don't use foul language, especially in my car.
Thanks,
Your Friend,
Schmutter
Friday, November 09, 2007
Quick Update
Sorry I've been slacking for the last week or so. Things have been busy what with the new baby and all. For those of you who are not in the know, a baby boy was born to my brother and sister-in-law on Saturday morning, November 3rd, 2007, at 4:11 am via Caesarean Section. He was born at nine pounds, 14.8 ounces. Mother, father, and son have since left the hospital and are doing very well. They intend to move into their new apartment in the next two weeks.
Anyway, now that you're up to date, here's a coupla things I was thinking about over the last coupla days. Firstly, my "prediction" regarding Alex Rodriguez was right on target. Remember when I said: "Can you imagine what would happen if all the general managers got together and said 'What if none of us gives Alex Rodriguez a decent offer? What if we all decide that we're not gonna pay him more than $10 million a year instead of the $30 million+ that he's expecting?'" Now due to my horrifying lack of economical knowledge, I was unaware of the principal of collusion. No one else needs me to explain it, az I won't. I'm just a little bit shocked that I saw this happening.
Yesterday, my roommate who is not extremely knowledgeable in sports posed this question: "What is the most important statistic in Football?" He submitted that turnover differential might be it. I thought about it for a while, and I came up with two answers: a. starting field position, and b. percentage of offensive series resulting in a first down or a score. I'm pretty sure I should be able to find the starting field position stats for each team pretty easily, but since the second one isn't a tracked statistic I'll have to do that research myself. I'll try to get on that this weekend if I don't end up going to Atlantic City on Sunday afternoon. Anyone want to come with me?
Anyway, now that you're up to date, here's a coupla things I was thinking about over the last coupla days. Firstly, my "prediction" regarding Alex Rodriguez was right on target. Remember when I said: "Can you imagine what would happen if all the general managers got together and said 'What if none of us gives Alex Rodriguez a decent offer? What if we all decide that we're not gonna pay him more than $10 million a year instead of the $30 million+ that he's expecting?'" Now due to my horrifying lack of economical knowledge, I was unaware of the principal of collusion. No one else needs me to explain it, az I won't. I'm just a little bit shocked that I saw this happening.
Yesterday, my roommate who is not extremely knowledgeable in sports posed this question: "What is the most important statistic in Football?" He submitted that turnover differential might be it. I thought about it for a while, and I came up with two answers: a. starting field position, and b. percentage of offensive series resulting in a first down or a score. I'm pretty sure I should be able to find the starting field position stats for each team pretty easily, but since the second one isn't a tracked statistic I'll have to do that research myself. I'll try to get on that this weekend if I don't end up going to Atlantic City on Sunday afternoon. Anyone want to come with me?
Thursday, November 01, 2007
T9 Trouble
I think y'all can figure out where this is going, but I'll do it anyway. Text Messaging has become huge in today's society, especially among members of the younger generation. Who cares that it can be more expensive than phone calls! Who cares that it takes ten minutes to write six words! Passing notes in class has become a thing of the past. As a matter of fact, last night I exchanged about a dozen (twelve) texts with someone who was no more than half a dozen (six) feet away from me. In the wake of the rise of the texting phenomenon, phone companies had to come up with a way to make it more efficient. Enter T9, iTap, and all their other smelly brethren. Now you don't have to punch 4666444664 to get the word "going," or 866->6->666777->7776663 to type "tomorrow." (If you'll notice, I like to hit the right arrow to move the cursor to type a letter on the same number as the previous letter. The other standard option is to let the cursor move by itself just by waiting a couple of seconds. I tend to grow impatient.) Instead, you can just punch 46464 for "going" and 86667763 for "tomorrow." This so called "predictive text" thing is terrific! I just increased my productivity by over 100%! But here's the problem, and you all knew it was coming. Sometimes the same number combination can produce different words. For example, and this happens all the time, 63 can either be "me" or "of." Another words, you need to proofread your texts these days. Here are some other fun examples, courtesy of Wikipedia:
5477 = kiss or lips (can you imagine? I want to lips you on the lips. Ignore that last text. I meant I want to lips you on the kiss. Crap! Forget it, let's be shomer.
22737 = acres, bards, bares, barfs, baser, bases, caper, capes, cards, cares, cases.
This is a cool one: 76476633 can be either "Smirnoff" or "poisoned."
I know this will happen to me one day because I'm a loser: "Will you go out with of? I mean will you go out with me?"
"I am 735328464 you."
"What? You're selecting me? Hurrah!"
"Umm, no. Sorry, Schmutter, I'm rejecting you."
Don't you just love pop culture?
I was hanging out with a friend last night while she was writing a paper, and it occurred to me that no one really writes papers any more. Honestly, when was the last time any of you wrote a paper with a pen or pencil? I know I haven't since like 5th grade. I think people should start saying "I have a paper to compose and type." That is obviously completely ridiculous, but isn't that what this is all about?
For those of you not interested in sports, know this: the next paragraph, while not sports-related, will be an introduction to the subsequent paragraph, which will be about sports. Another words, if you don't want to read about sports, stop after this paragraph. Anyway, remember back in high school a teacher would occasionally schedule an exam, or give you an assignment, which the entire class deemed unfair? Inevitably everyone would come together and decide that the class would boycott the test/assignment, because the teacher can't just fail everybody. But this never worked because there were always those goody-goody teacher's pets (read: Schmutters) in the class who were too scared to pull it off.
(Here..here's the sports part.) Can you imagine what would happen if all the general managers got together and said "What if none of us gives Alex Rodriguez a decent offer? What if we all decide that we're not gonna pay him more than $10 million a year instead of the $30 million+ that he's expecting?" This obviously would never happen, because inevitably one GM would think "hey, if I can get everyone else to go along with this I can get A-Rod for $11 million..." but wouldn't it be cool? Don't get me wrong, I really couldn't give a crap about how much money Alex Rodriguez makes, although if Barry Zito can make $126 million for seven years, the Rodriguez probably "deserves" to make at least 30. But wouldn't it be amazing if the entire league really stuck it to Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras? Boras, the guy who makes GMs nationwide collapse in collective apoplexy whenever a client of his becomes a free agent. The guy who ignores Major League Baseball rules by announcing A-Rod's decision to invoke his opt-out clause during the World Series. I would really love it if he got screwed.
Remember last year when I said that I was indifferent about the Mets signing Moises Alou for $7.5 million for one year? I heard this morning that they picked up Alou's option for another year. Now, I have nothing against Moises Alou; he's a very good offensive player. But he's like 139 years old and he only played 87 games last year. I really think the Mets should have Carlos Beltran, Carlos Gomez, and Lastings Milledge as the starting outfielders. Last year, Alou and Shawn Green earned a combined $19.33 million. Gomez and Milledge made a combined $766,000. I think they're both ready to play full time. Meanwhile, the Mets could spend the extra $18.67 million on a number two or three starter and a middle reliever or two. They could even (gasp!) make a run at signing A-Rod (I don't want to deal with this right now. I want to see what develops and then decide how I feel about it). I think the Mets should give the young'uns a chance.
Happy All Vegan Day.
5477 = kiss or lips (can you imagine? I want to lips you on the lips. Ignore that last text. I meant I want to lips you on the kiss. Crap! Forget it, let's be shomer.
22737 = acres, bards, bares, barfs, baser, bases, caper, capes, cards, cares, cases.
This is a cool one: 76476633 can be either "Smirnoff" or "poisoned."
I know this will happen to me one day because I'm a loser: "Will you go out with of? I mean will you go out with me?"
"I am 735328464 you."
"What? You're selecting me? Hurrah!"
"Umm, no. Sorry, Schmutter, I'm rejecting you."
Don't you just love pop culture?
I was hanging out with a friend last night while she was writing a paper, and it occurred to me that no one really writes papers any more. Honestly, when was the last time any of you wrote a paper with a pen or pencil? I know I haven't since like 5th grade. I think people should start saying "I have a paper to compose and type." That is obviously completely ridiculous, but isn't that what this is all about?
For those of you not interested in sports, know this: the next paragraph, while not sports-related, will be an introduction to the subsequent paragraph, which will be about sports. Another words, if you don't want to read about sports, stop after this paragraph. Anyway, remember back in high school a teacher would occasionally schedule an exam, or give you an assignment, which the entire class deemed unfair? Inevitably everyone would come together and decide that the class would boycott the test/assignment, because the teacher can't just fail everybody. But this never worked because there were always those goody-goody teacher's pets (read: Schmutters) in the class who were too scared to pull it off.
(Here..here's the sports part.) Can you imagine what would happen if all the general managers got together and said "What if none of us gives Alex Rodriguez a decent offer? What if we all decide that we're not gonna pay him more than $10 million a year instead of the $30 million+ that he's expecting?" This obviously would never happen, because inevitably one GM would think "hey, if I can get everyone else to go along with this I can get A-Rod for $11 million..." but wouldn't it be cool? Don't get me wrong, I really couldn't give a crap about how much money Alex Rodriguez makes, although if Barry Zito can make $126 million for seven years, the Rodriguez probably "deserves" to make at least 30. But wouldn't it be amazing if the entire league really stuck it to Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras? Boras, the guy who makes GMs nationwide collapse in collective apoplexy whenever a client of his becomes a free agent. The guy who ignores Major League Baseball rules by announcing A-Rod's decision to invoke his opt-out clause during the World Series. I would really love it if he got screwed.
Remember last year when I said that I was indifferent about the Mets signing Moises Alou for $7.5 million for one year? I heard this morning that they picked up Alou's option for another year. Now, I have nothing against Moises Alou; he's a very good offensive player. But he's like 139 years old and he only played 87 games last year. I really think the Mets should have Carlos Beltran, Carlos Gomez, and Lastings Milledge as the starting outfielders. Last year, Alou and Shawn Green earned a combined $19.33 million. Gomez and Milledge made a combined $766,000. I think they're both ready to play full time. Meanwhile, the Mets could spend the extra $18.67 million on a number two or three starter and a middle reliever or two. They could even (gasp!) make a run at signing A-Rod (I don't want to deal with this right now. I want to see what develops and then decide how I feel about it). I think the Mets should give the young'uns a chance.
Happy All Vegan Day.
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