The Windy City

Az I just got back from my first business trip in my life (by "just got back" I mean about a month ago. Sorry guys, I was lazy and I had a free trial of Rail Baron on my office computer. Now that it expired I'll have to find other ways to occupy myself during my minimal down-time). The Company sent me out to the Chicago office for a couple of days of training, so I left New York early on Monday morning and stayed in Chicago through Wednesday evening. I want to devote this space to my reflections on that city.

Now, I've never actually stayed at a hotel in New York because... well... I live here, so I couldn't really compare my hotel experience in Chicago to anything here. I did rather enjoy the king-size bed and wide-screen TV, however. I was a bit curious why they went through the trouble of putting those TVs in the rooms but didn't go all the way and get HD service. And the shower left a bit to be desired, but what can you do; you can't have it all.

Anyway, since I was at the office all day I didn't really have a chance to do much sight-seeing; I basically stayed around downtown Chicago the entire time. One thing I noticed was that compared to New York the streets are very clean. This is something I noticed the first time I was in Chicago four years ago for a wedding, but that experience was a bit different because it was a Saturday night; downtown is essentially EMPTY on Saturday night. I was like "where are all the people? I thought this was a big city..." There was no lack of people this time, which is what made the clean streets all the more impressive.

Another thing I found impressive was the fact that every street downtown is a big street. Midtown Manhattan has a few big streets: every avenue, 34th street, 42nd street, etc. Otherwise, every street is a side street. Downtown Chicago has no side streets; every street is a major thoroughfare.

Now here's where things start to make less sense. There are places in New York that have subway tracks above ground. Those places tend to be not-so-good neighborhoods, e.g. 125th street, south Bronx, etc. But downtown Chicago has the elevated train running right through it. It was very strange to see fancy stores and nice restaurants and bars right next to elevated subway tracks.

Three words: Cops on Segways!

Now, as everyone knows, my favorite movie is The Matrix. The movie was actually filmed in Sydney, Australia, but the city is supposed to be Chicago. Az after work on the second day, I walked around downtown to see a couple of sights. I was very excited to find that my hotel was very close to the intersection of Wabash and Lake Streets. In the movie, Tank tells Neo that there is an exit from the Matrix at Wabash and Lake, so that was pretty cool. I almost walked to the Adams Street bridge, which is where Neo first gets picked up by Trinity and the others, but it was a bit far. Anyway, you bet your Segway I took a picture of the Wabash and Lake street signs.

Now for something completely unrelated to Chicago. It was so long ago that I read this, but it was probably in either The Hardball Times, or Baseball Prospectus, or Joe Posnanski. I read in one of those places that because of how Andy Marte is working out, teams should be wary when they trade for prospects from the Atlanta Braves. Marte, who was once a highly touted prospect in the Braves' system, was traded to the Cleveland Indians, and he has been bounced between the Major and Minor Leagues for the past couple of seasons. Anyway, that innocent statement got me thinking: wouldn't it be possible for a team to create a fake prospect? Think about it. I'm John Schuerholz, fromer Braves general manager, and I want to create some fake value. So I take one of my young players in the low Minor Leagues and I make a deal with him. I tell him "listen, you and I both know that your career is going nowhere, but I have an idea that's going to make you a rich man." I tell him that I'm going to pay a few of our opponents' pitchers to tip their pitches, i.e. make it known to our batter what he's going to throw. That will artificially inflate our man's stats and make him a better prospect. Other franchises will start to look at him and perhaps make us an attractive offer to trade for him. That team might decide to pay him much more than he's worth based on his now inflated Minor League numbers. So he gets rich, we get an actual good player or two, and all that's left is just another failed prospect. Seriously, take a look at Marte's Minor League stats:

In four full Minor League seasons from rookie ball through AAA, Marte OPSed .828, .844, .910, and .878. In those four seasons he walked 41, 67, 60, and 64 times. In his two Minor League seasons with Cleveland, he OPSed .773, and .766, and walked just 34 and 21 times. Wha happen?

Mmmmm, I can just smell my first baseball mystery novel. That thing would sell like hot Segways.

Back in the Swing

Today is my fifth day at my new job, and things are pretty busy, which is why I have had little chance to post. I mentioned in a recent post that things would slow down for a while, but they'll pick up eventually.

Anyway, I have a bunch of things to discuss. I'll start off with the non-baseball-related jazz so as to not alienate the vast majority of you. I'll begin with the story of my first day of vacation two Mondays ago. Some of you have heard this story before, but it needs to be available in print, at least for posterity. So I was driving to the East Side on Sunday morning so I could pick up my mom. I was playing softball against my brother, and his wife and my eight month old nephew were gonna come too, az my mom wanted to join the party. On the way home my brother called to tell me that the baby was sick so he and his mother were going to stay home. Fine. Anyway, while I was driving down the Harlem River Drive, I noticed that something just didn't feel right with the car. I exited and pulled over and inspected my tires. Yep, my front passenger's side tire was definitely not going to make it through the day. Az I drove home very slowly and convinced my mother that she needn't go to the game because the baby wasn't going anyway. And then I even learned that my brother had to stay home with the sick baby too, and Mom definitely didn't need to come watch just me. But now I had to carry all the softball equipment, including the bats, balls, catcher's mask, and my glove, by myself. Combining that with the threat of imminent rain made for a very unpleasant 45 minute walk. Anyway, the weather held up and we won our game, so that was nice. I had the others take the equipment back up to the Heights for me and I went back home. I figured I could run errands and spend the night at home and then bring the car in for service early in the morning. Az I traveled around the city like a normal human being for a day; I walked over to my brother's apartment to borrow a book and then grabbed the 6 at 77th and Lex. I went down to the village for a bit of shopping and then back up to 96th street to rent some DVDs. Then I walked down to 86th to buy some shorts at Modell's and then went home. Now we get to the annoying part. I got up at 7:00 to bring my car to Paragon Acura in Queens. I got there and they asked me if I had an appointment. I told them I never needed an appointment before, so the surly gentleman told me they changed their policy recently. Fine. After a bit of needling I convinced them to take my car. Then the same surly gentleman tried to sell me four new tires. I agreed with him that I needed three new ones, but the fourth had just been replaced about eight months ago. He sheepishly consented and he said my car would be ready by 2:00. Then I took the subway back home and napped for an hour and a half or so. We had a family bris at 11:30, so I went with my grandmother and met my brother there. We stayed for about an hour and then I went to the West Side to meet a friend for lunch. I got a call at 1:30 from Paragon, and they told me that they couldn't find the wheel-lock key for my tires (when I first got the car I splurged a bit. Wheel locks are special bolts that you put on each wheel that prevent them from being stolen. You need a special key to attach to your wrench to be able to remove the bolts). I told them it was either in my trunk with the spare tire or in the pocket between the two front seats. The service guy insisted that he could not find it; he was even looking for it while he was on the phone with me. So I told him I could get there in half an hour; az I headed over and followed the service guy to the back. Needless to say, I found the key in no more than ten seconds; it was right where I said it would be, in the pocket between the front seats. By this time they had taken my car off the rack because they couldn't do anything with it, so they said I had to wait until they put it back up; I should expect to wait until at least 5:30. It was 2:30 and I was stuck on Northern Boulevard. There's NOTHING there except for car dealerships, az I gave them a piece of my mind and took the subway back home again. When I finally came back at half past five they actually expected me to pay full price for the service. I told them in no uncertain terms that I pay top dollar for their respect and competence, and if they want to keep my business they'll treat me like a human being and waive the service fee. So I ended up with three brand new tires for the low low price of $747.46. Anyway, that was quite a poor start to my vacation.

Moving right along, last Wednesday I stayed at work for the first time until 7:00 pm. And you know what? The concept of staying at work late is something I find abhorrent, but in practice it's really quite pleasant. Seriously, the instant the clock strikes five and I no longer have to be there it's as if a load has been lifted from my shoulders and I can work more freely. There are fewer people around, nobody calls me, and I can work at my own pace with no distractions. Now if only I could avoid getting to work at 8:45...
On the fourth of July I went shopping at an outlet mall in Long Island. I had a coupon for Lids, a hat store, so I went in to check out their inventory. The first thing I noticed was that the store was divided up; along the right wall were the white hats and along the opposite wall were the black hats. And I don't mean the color of the hats; I mean the hats along the right wall were for white customers and the others were for the black customers. The white hats are the ones with curvy brims, just one price tag, and they are usually fairly empty with small logos. The black hats start off a size larger, have flat brims, and have very large logos and patterns. I didn't have a problem with it; I just found it noteworthy.
Okay, that's all the non-baseball content for today. Those of you who appreciate my sport or even those of you who think David Wright and Grady Sizemore are cute are invited to read on (all stats are through Sunday, July 6th).

I had read last week that Grady Sizemore, the center fielder for the Cleveland Indians, was leading the American League in home runs. This surprised me because one doesn't really think of Mr. Sizemore as a home run hitter. Indeed, PECOTA projected Sizemore to hit .277/.367/.490, with 25 HR, 90 RBI, and 20 SB. PECOTA nailed the batting average and on-base percentage (Sizemore is actually hitting .269/.372), but were way off on the slugging percentage. Sizemore, to this point, is slugging .541 and is on pace to hit 36 HR and steal 33 bases. When I first saw those stats, I was astonished at how similar they looked to Carlos Beltran's stats from two years ago. In 2006, Beltran hit .276/.353/.525, with 33 HR, 112 RBI, and 23 SB. I always thought he'd be more of a prototypical leadoff hitter with a bit of extra pop, but he's actually turning into Carlos Beltran. Another words, if Cleveland wants to make better use of Sizemore's skill set, they better move him to the middle of the lineup.

Az it looks like the Mets are starting to hit a little bit better, and we're a drop over the halfway point of the season, around where you'd expect the All-Star break to be. So I went ahead and looked at some stats, and what really stuck out for me was David Wright. I know I wrote about him recently, but I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that his numbers look similar to his first half from last year. A quick scan of the stats confirmed my suspicions. Through 86 games last year, Wright hit .292/.373/.506, with 16 HR, 51 RBI, and 18 SB. This year, through 87 games Wright has hit .286/.382/.501, with 16 HR, 66 RBI, and 9 SB. He has exactly the same amount of hits as he did in first half last year (97), one less single (58 to 59), and the same amount of doubles (21). If he can duplicate his second half from last year, then he'll be a top MVP candidate again, and then we'll see who should have been an all-star.

A Really Good Day

And no, this has nothing to do with women.

So the early part of the day went pretty much as expected. The subway was the subway, work was work, etc. But then my co-workers took me out for lunch as sort of a congratulations-you-got-a-new-job/good-riddance-to-bad-rubbish "celebration." That really was very nice. We (3 Jews (one observant (me)), a Greek, an Asian, and an Italian) went to Taam Tov for some good, old-fashioned Bukharian food. Perfect. Then we walked off our meal with a pleasant stroll over to Bryant Park and a quick trip to the new Bank of America headquarters on 6th Avenue between 42nd and 43rd streets (somehow they scored the address "One Bryant Park." I guess it's all about who you know).

Anyway, I finished up work after lunch and then walked to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue and 58th Street. I didn't know exactly where it was az I looked it up online. I thought "hmm, that looks like FAO Schwartz... Did FAO Schwartz become the Apple Store?" So I walk over there and then I realized that the Apple Store is UNDER the plaza in front of FAO Schwartz. I have never been to such a store in my life. I dunno if any of you have been there, but it's very difficult to explain it; you have to see it for yourself. It's one gigantic room of Apple products (iphones, ipods, macbook airs, etc.), and it's full of people trying them out. Seriously, I think if you got rid of all the people the place would look empty. I mean almost none of the space was taken up by the product displays; it was mostly just people. And there were A LOT of people. Here's how I could tell it was a high-class place. There were two people standing at the entrance (under the enormous Apple logo) whose sole purpose was to drop customers' umbrellas into a device that made them come out in bags so they wouldn't get everything wet. What a place! Anyway, I didn't buy anything, but I did order a refurbished 4 GB Nano online for $99. I figure either I'll switch back to AT&T after another year and just buy an iphone, or my new company will supply me with a blackberry rendering an iphone redundant, so I think the refurb Nano is a good stop-gap.

I left the Apple Store and walked to Columbus Circle to catch the A-train uptown. I had to hurry because my student's math final is today (Thursday), and we had a lot to cover. I got back to my apartment, changed my clothes, wolfed down a cinnamon bun (dinner of champions), ordered the refurb Nano online, checked my DVR to make sure So You Think You Can Dance was being recorded, and high-tailed it up to Riverdale. Six hours later and we were done with Trigonometry, Limits, and introductory Calculus. Gotta give the kid props for sticking with me for that long; I hope he does well. Seriously, can you believe that I sat down and did math for six hours? I didn't even notice; the time just flew by. A lot of you will assert that I could do it because I was getting paid an obscene amount of money, but I can safely say that I would have done it for a quarter the price (not gonna do it for free; my time is still valuable). Math is just that fun for me.

When I finally arrived back at my apartment at almost 1:00 am, a Cap'n Munch sandwich from Chickie's was waiting for me. It was a bit soggy and essentially at room temperature, but it was still delicious. Meanwhile, the Mets were down 4-3 to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the ninth inning, and no one can hit Francisco Rodriguez these days. But a hit by Jose Reyes, a wild pitch from K-Rod, and another hit by David Wright, and the Mets had tied it up. Damion Easley's home run in the 10th won it, and a perfect tenth inning from Billy Wagner shut the door. I couldn't be happier with how the day went.

Side note completely unrelated to yesterday's events: ESPN has recently hired a couple of castoffs from other sports ventures: Warner Wolf ("Let's go to the videoTAPE!") and Rick Reilly. Now I never really had any strong feelings about Rick Reilly; I never really read Sports Illustrated. I wasn't too impressed with his work, but whatever, who cares? I still don't read his stuff on ESPN. But I actually do get to hear from Warner Wolf every day because he has a few 30-second spots on Mike and Mike in the Morning between 9 and 10 am. And my conclusion: he is dumb. I fully respect ESPN for getting these guys because they are big names and appeal to sports fans of all ages, but some things I won't tolerate. I have zero doubt that Warner Wolf knows a million times more about sports than I do, but that doesn't mean he's allowed to tell us what athletes are thinking. Here's the basic gist of what he said this morning:

"A recent poll was taken of a bunch of Major League Baseball players, and they were asked who they think is the most over-rated player in the game. The top-five vote-getters were Derek Jeter, Barry Zito, J.D. Drew, Alex Rodriguez, and Kevin Youkilis. It comes as no surprise that four of those guys play for the Yankees or Red Sox. Maybe the voters were just JEALOUS. Four of those guys are also some of the highest paid players in the game! Warner Wolf, 1050, ESPN New York..."

No no no no no no no no no no no no and no. Does he really think that players are calling those guys over-rated because they're jealous of how much money they're making?! Now I'm certainly not arrogant enough to say what those guys are thinking, but I think it makes a lot more sense to say that those voters think those five players are over-rated precisely BECAUSE they're making so much money. As far as I'm concerned, getting paid too much money for what you're worth is exactly what it means to be over-rated. Come on Warner; you're not senile yet. Think a little bit.

Another side note completely unrelated to anything previously said with the exception of a Mike-and-Mike shoutout: On the radio they have various hosts do commercials for different products. Mike and Mike do commercials for Olevia HD-TVs and Colin Cowherd (another one of those guys ESPN employs to appeal to a certain kind of sports fan), who I hate, does commercials for Vizio HD-TVs. Now I know absolutely nothing about the relative quality of Olevia TVs compared to Vizio TVs, but what I DO know is that I would never ever buy a Vizio instead of an Olevia, because I love Mike and Mike and I hate Colin Cowherd. There's gotta be some kind of marketing analysis behind all this.

Just Play

Okay, seriously. Can we just get over it already? Willie Randolph was fired as manager of the Mets. Honestly, who cares? I'm not upset that the Mets fired the manager, but I AM upset that we're gonna be hearing about it on the radio and on TV and reading about it in the newspaper and online. I'd rather just hear/read/watch actual baseball. People are going absolutely bonkers about this, "oh, Willie Randolph is such a nice man... how can the bad old Mets do this to a New York legend?" And even the people who are in favor of the firing are taking it way too seriously. Is Willie putting on his second baseman's glove and taking the field every day? Is he picking up a bat and stepping into the batter's box to face the opposing pitcher? No and no. The identity of the manager has a negligible effect on the performance of his team. A manager can't make bad players into good players no matter how good a manager he is. I'm so fed up with this. I want the players, the fans, and especially the media to wash their hands of this whole situation so we can get back to actual real baseball. Mets are playing the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim tonight, and I might even mute the sound so I won't have to hear all the commentators and announcers talk about "Willie this" and "Willie that." Just let them play.

What's Wrong with Wright?

Wow, that title had all four words starting with "W." That's some serious alliteration right there.

Anyway, we're now 68 games into the 2008 baseball season and the Mets are pretty much stuck in neutral. Two posts ago I looked at each player to try to determine what was going on, and I mentioned that David Wright was getting a bit unlucky:

"Am I concerned? Nope. David's really been hitting the ball hard all year. As I expected, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is around 40 points below what it should be. His Line-Drive percentage is a robust 23.5%, which should translate to a .355 BABIP, but his is sitting at .310 currently. It's only a matter of time until those line drives start falling in for hits and his stats rise accordingly."

But now I want to look at David Wright more in depth. Let's examine his secondary stats and compare them to his numbers from last season:

Let's start with his slash stats: Batting Average/On-Base Percentage/Slugging Percentage/OPS
2007: .325/.416/.546/.963
2008: .276/.373/.485/.858
Those stats are way down this year.

And now his counting stats:
2007: 30 HR, 107 RBI, 113 Runs, 34 SB, 42 Doubles, 94 Walks, 115 Ks
2008 (pace): 29 HR, 119 RBI, 100 Runs, 19 SB, 43 Doubles, 100 Walks, 114 Ks.
Now those look almost identical! Looks like he's just hitting fewer singles.

Let's go deeper: Walk Percentage/Strikeout Percentage/Walk-to-Strikeout Ratio
2007: 13.5% / 19.0% / 0.82
2008: 13.5% / 17.9% / 0.88
So this is starting to look fishy. He's walking just as often and he's striking out less. Looks like the progression of a player who is getting better at judging the strike zone. So why are his stats down?

Let's keep going: Ground Ball Percentage/Fly Ball Percentage/Ground Ball-to-Fly Ball Ratio/Home Runs per Fly Ball Percentage/Line Drive Percentage/Batting Average on Balls in Play
2007: 39.3% / 37.5% / 1.05 / 16.1% / 23.2% / .362
2008: 38.4% / 40.6% / 0.95 / 13.2% / 21.0% / .298
Okay, so ground balls are down and fly balls are up; that's usually a good sign. But line drive percentage is down, and home run percentage is WAY down. And as I said last time, his actual batting average on balls in play is .32 points below what it should be, which accounts for his low overall batting average.

One step further: Swing percentage at pitches outside the strike zone/swing percentage at pitches in the strike zone/overall percentage of pitches swung at/contact percentage on pitches outside the strike zone/contact percentage on pitches in the strike zone/overall contact percentage
2007: 21.66% / 64.83% / 42.54% / 66.24% / 88.76% / 82.84%
2008: 20.79% / 68.69% / 44.40% / 62.20% / 90.44% / 83.74%
So he's swinging at more balls overall, which is fine because he's swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone and more pitches in. And he's making more overall contact, which is also fine because he's making contact more often on pitches in the strike zone.

Conclusion: I have no freakin' clue why his numbers aren't up to par. All signs are pointing to Wright's continued development in terms of reading the strike zone. He's walking more than last year; he's striking out less often, he's hitting more fly balls, and he's swinging at better pitches. The only thing that looks wrong is his line drive percentage. Considering that he's swinging at better pitches I expect that number to change. Besides, he usually picks it up in the second half. I'm prepared to submit that David Wright is just getting unlucky. His luck is bound to turn around sooner or later.

Special thanks to fangraphs.com for advanced statistics.

Note: According to the fantastic website hittrackeronline.com, of David Wright's 31 home runs last year, twelve of them were "just enough," tied for third most in the NL. "Just enough" means that it cleared the fence by less than ten feet. Also, he led the NL in "lucky" home runs with ten, two more than the next most. A "lucky" home run would not have been a home run without help from the weather or other conditions (Colorado, for example). Az 22 of his 31 home runs could easily have been outs were it not for a bit of outside help. Some might say that it's a skill to use the conditions to your advantage. Others will posit that there were probably a bunch of fly balls that fell just short of the wall and that the "lucky" and "just enough" home runs have evened out with the ones that didn't make it over the fence. Either way, Wright might not be quite the impressive slugger that he appears. Maybe those lucky ones have just not been quite enough this year. Hopefully everything will even out as the year goes on and some of those outs will turn into home runs.

Uptown A Experience?

That subject came up over the weekend. I was at a Shavuot lunch on Tuesday and for some reason the ice breaker was to tell a commuting story. The story I told can be read in my post "Ridiculous," from August 8th, 2007. Anyway, we were talking about the subways, and someone who gets up like three hours earlier than I said that he likes the Downtown-A-Experience-Guy too. Az we were musing about what he says on his way back to Manhattan; does he say "this is the uptown A experience...?"

But that's not the point of this post. I'm going on another rant about the public transportation system. Many of you take the B or D train a couple of stops every day; I take it two stops between Rockefeller Center and Columbus Circle. My rant is not regarding the frequency (or infrequency, to be more precise) with which those trains come, but rather the timing. As everyone knows, the A and D trains run on the same track at 59th street, az many times you'll be on the D train going uptown and it will stop just before the Columbus Circle station. It's a bit frustrating when you want to get on an A train and that train is the very reason you're own train has stopped, but there's nothing to be done about that. My problem is actually more of a psychological one. Now, I assume that there is some absurdly complex algorithm for determining when which trains should go where and how often they should come, but this just doesn't make any sense. Probably at least once a week I'll be on a D train that is waiting at the 7th avenue stop (one stop before Columbus Circle). It might wait for a few minutes, not really a big deal. But then it will stop again as it's approaching 59th street because of an A train in front of it! Now I want to ask a couple of questions:

1. If there's an A train in front of the train now, what was it waiting for at the 7th avenue station?
2. If the D train was going to have to wait for an A train to move anyway, why didn't it just continue waiting until the A train would have been gone?

See that's just screwing with you, you know? You're waiting for the subway doors to close and you're relieved when they finally do. But then you end up waiting again in between stations! Just have us wait only once.

Anyway, it will be a moot point pretty soon because I won't be taking the B or D train any longer come June 20th. It's quite probable that my ability to post will be curtailed for at least a little while as well. Hameivin yavin.

Projection Update

We're now one-third of the way through the baseball season (well, a tad more, but let's pretend). By now we should have enough data to compare to the pre-season projections. Az let's jump right in. All stats are through the first 54 games of the season extrapolated out to 162:

Johan Santana: 220 IP, 18-9, 216 Hits, 3.41 ERA, 36 HR, 195 Ks, 51 BBs, 1.203 WHIP, 3.824 K/BB, 7.905 K/9, 2.068 BB/9, 1.459 HR/9.
The projections were all pretty far off. The best was the ZiPS projection: 234 IP, 18-8, 192 Hits, 3.04 ERA, 28 HR, 244 Ks, 46 BBs, 1.017 WHIP, 5.304 K/BB, 9.385 K/9, 1.769 BB/9, 1.077 HR/9.
His actual stats are much closer to his 10th percentile PECOTA projection: 187.7 IP, 13-8, 173 Hits, 3.84 ERA, 25 HR, 188 Ks, 56 BBs, 1.22 WHIP, 8.0 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 1.2 HR/9.
Am I concerned? Not very. His 1st/2nd half splits are absurd. He really cranks it up after the All-Star break.

Pedro Martinez: No sample size to work with since he just got back from his injury. We'll check back with him at the 81 game mark.

John Maine: 192 IP, 15-12, 162 Hits, 3.66 ERA, 18 HR, 162 Ks, 90 BBs, 1.313 WHIP, 1.80 K/BB, 7.594 K/9, 4.219 BB/9, 0.844 HR/9.
The projections were all around the same, around a 4.00 ERA, around 7.5 K/9. The ERAs were off, and the HRs were off, but all in all, not bad work.
His actual stats are closer to his 75th percentile PECOTA projections, although his strikeouts and walks are off: 161.2 IP, 11-6, 144 Hits, 3.49 ERA, 17 HR, 142 Ks, 61 BBs, 1.27 WHIP, 3.0 BB/9, 7.1 K/9, 0.9 HR/9.
Am I concerned? A little bit. He has been better in the first half than in the second over the course of his career.

Oliver Perez: 179 IP, 12-9, 150 Hits, 4.83 ERA, 27 HR, 150 Ks, 123 BBs, 1.525 WHIP, 1.22 K/BB, 7.542 K/9, 6.184 BB/9, 1.358 HR/9.
Marcel and Bill James were excellent. Both have him at around a .500 record, a 4.50+ ERA, and a 1.43+ WHIP. Well done.
His actual stats are virtually identical to his 40th percentile PECOTA projection with a few more walks: 133.2 IP, 8-8, 128 Hits, 4.83 ERA, 18 HR, 127 Ks, 66 BB, 1.45 WHIP, 4.0 BB/9, 7.6 K/9, 1.2 HR/9.
Am I concerned? Yes. These stats don't include his start on Monday against the Giants (who can't hit a lick), in which he gave up 6 ER in 0.1 innings.

Mike Pelfrey: 168 IP, 6-18, 210 Hits, 4.98 ERA, 12 HR, 87 Ks, 75 BBs, 1.696 WHIP, 1.16 K/BB, 4.661 K/9, 4.018 BB/9, 0.643 HR/9.
Marcel and PECOTA were spot on. Both had him below .500, an ERA over 4.50, and a WHIP around 1.50. They also projected few strikeouts and home runs, although not quite as few as he's actually had.
His actual stats are close to his 25th percentile PECOTA projection: 123 IP, 7-8, 137 Hits, 5.25 ERA, 13 HR, 77 Ks, 61 BBs, 1.60 WHIP, 4.0 BB/9, 5.0 K/9, 0.9 HR/9.
Am I concerned? Yeah! But it's not his fault. The Mets need to play better defense. Castillo's knees need to be healthy, Reyes needs to routinely make routine plays, and Wright just needs to get a bit sharper. Then all of those Pelfrey grounders will get gobbled up instead of going for hits.

The sample size is still too small for the relievers and bench players. Maybe I'll do them at the 81 game mark. Onto the hitters:

Brian Schneider: 408 PA, 27 Runs, 6 HR, 45 RBI, 0 SB, 39 BBs, 60 Ks, .258 BA, .328 OBP, .317 SLG, .645 OPS.
All the projections are close. They all have him at around .250 with a .640 to .690 OPS with 5-7 HR and 40-60 RBI.
His actual stats are pretty close to his 75th percentile PECOTA projection, minus a few extra base hits: 34 Runs, 5 HR, 33 RBI, .260/.339/.376/.715.
Am I concerned? A little bit. I think with a healthy Ramon Castro backing him up and even pressuring him to perform, Schneider will pick up the pace somewhat.

Carlos Delgado: 654 PA, 75 Runs, 24 HR, 75 RBI, 0 SB, 66 BBs, 132 Ks, .228 BA, .307 OBP, .389 SLG, .696 OPS.
Everybody was off on this one. Nobody realized that last season's decline was real. It's really sad to see.
His actual power numbers are in line with his 75th percentile PECOTA projection: 22 HR, 77 RBI, 64 Runs, 48 BBs. But his rate stats are more in line with his 10th percentile: .229/.302/.397/.699.
Am I concerned? Who wouldn't be? He has sparks of brilliance, and he can get hot, but he's just not hitting with any consistency. This might be the end.

Luis Castillo: 567 PA, 81 Runs, 9 HR, 54 RBI, 27 SB, 81 BBs, 42 Ks, .274 BA, .384 OBP, .376 SLG, .760 OPS.
Everybody was off, but not as badly as for Delgado. Nobody expected Castillo to hit more than a homer or two. Everyone overshot his batting average, projecting around .290, but also no one expected him to walk so much.
His actual stats are very close to his 90th percentile PECOTA projection, believe it or not: 100 Runs, 0 HR, 40 RBI, 19 SB, 63 BBs, 43 Ks, .317/.391/.377/.768.
Am I concerned? I don't see much that is concerning. His batting average is down because he is really not swinging early in the count at hittable pitches. He is being extremely patient at the plate and trying extra hard to draw that walk. I would say that's not a bad strategy with Wright, Beltran, and Church hitting behind him.

Jose Reyes: 747 PA, 102 Runs, 21 HR, 75 RBI, 51 SB, 69 BBs, 99 Ks, .282 BA, .346 OBP, .477 SLG, .823 OPS.
Basically everyone had pretty similar projections and were also off, a la Luis Castillo. They pretty much nailed his batting average (all around .290), but they underestimated his power. They all had his SLG around .440.
His actual stats are right in line with his 75th percentile PECOTA projection minus a few hits: 113 Runs, 17 HR, 73 RBI, 61 SB, 57 BBs, 69 Ks, .308/.369/.483/.852.
Am I concerned? No. His early season struggles seem to have corrected themselves and he has begun driving the ball with authority to all parts of the yard. He's no longer getting fooled and popping the ball up to the opposite field. He needs to just keep it going and not wear down.

David Wright: 747 PA, 108 Runs, 33 HR, 120 RBI, 21 SB, 108 BBs, 117 Ks, .284 BA, .390 OBP, .531 SLG, .921 OPS.
Marcel and PECOTA really hit the bulls-eye here. They all have his batting average climbing over .300, and I fully expect that to occur. His second half last year was far better than his first.
His actual stats are very close to his 40th percentile PECOTA projection: 103 Runs, 28 HR, 96 RBI, 20 SB, 78 BBs, 104 Ks, .299/.388/.526/.914.
Am I concerned? Nope. David's really been hitting the ball hard all year. As I expected, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is around 40 points below what it should be. His Line-Drive percentage is a robust 23.5%, which should translate to a .355 BABIP, but his is sitting at .310 currently. It's only a matter of time until those line drives start falling in for hits and his stats rise accordingly.

Carlos Beltran: 705 PA, 114 Runs, 15 HR, 96 RBI, 21 SB, 105 BBs, 108 Ks, .263 BA, .370 OBP, .444 SLG, .814 OPS.
Blah blah blah, the projections are all the same again. Everyone's basically exactly right except on the home runs and walks. In fact, it seems like Beltran's missing home runs all turned into walks.
His actual stats are unlike any of the PECOTA projections. Man, he really is having a bizarre season. His power has just disappeared. He's turned into Luis Castillo on steroids. He's walking like crazy, but is on pace to have fewer home runs than his 10th percentile PECOTA. WTF is going on??
Am I concerned? I don't even know! Those extra walks are pretty freakin' valuable though, if you ask me.

Ryan Church: 561 PA, 102 Runs, 27 HR, 96 RBI, 3 SB, 51 BBs, 120 Ks, .309 BA, .376 OBP, .527 SLG, .903 OPS.
Man, Churchie is just destroying the projections, isn't he? Nobody had him batting higher than .274, OBPing more than .353, or slugging higher than .472.
His actual stats are right around his 90th percentile PECOTA projection: 83 Runs, 23 HR, 78 RBI, 7 SB, 57 BBs, 109 Ks, .295/.383/.540/.923.
Am I concerned? A little bit, because of the concussion he sustained a couple of weeks ago. In his first game back he hit a home run, so that's encouraging, but we'll have to see how he does over the next couple of weeks. Either way, I don't think I've ever seen anyone consistently hit the ball as hard as Church does. The man is a living line-drive.

Final thoughts: As a whole, I think things are largely going the way they should, considering injuries to a few important pieces (Alou, El Duque, Pedro, Castro). Some more hitting should come from Beltran and a healthy Alou, and perhaps even a rejuvenated Fernando Tatis. The defense should tighten up a little bit, and with Pedro back, the pitching should be in better shape. We'll check back at the half.

The Best Driver of All Time

Yep, I'm talking about me. A bunch of us were at the Mets game last night, but only three of us stayed until the last out. I was driving, and the remaining two were my passengers. So after the game we walked over to my car, which was parked outside the stadium on Roosevelt Avenue. After a couple of right turns and a left, and we found ourselves going eastbound on the Grand Central Parkway. Two exits and a drop of traffic later, we got onto the Van Wyck Expressway northbound towards the Whitestone Bridge, my route of choice on the way back to the Heights from Shea. Az we crossed the bridge ($5 toll these days) and made our way towards the Cross Bronx Expressway southbound towards the George Washington Bridge. There should be very minimal traffic along that route at 11:00 pm. Lo and behold, as we were merging onto the Cross Bronx we noticed that the cars were mamash not moving. At all. Luckily it was 10:57, az I quickly turned my radio to News Radio 880 and heard the traffic report.

Remember my fourth post? On August 17th, 2006, I wrote a post listing a couple of things that shouldn't be allowed:
"1. Closing the lower level on the George Washington Bridge and only having two lanes open on the upper roadway. Closing west 178th street between Broadway and Ft. Washington is bad too.
2. When ESPN has little league baseball and ESPN2 has women's basketball at the same time."

Well, believe it or not, last night had both of those things on steroids. On the traffic report, we were told that the entire outbound lower level of the George was closed because of a tractor-trailor accident, and one lane of the upper level was closed because of another truck accident. I politely asked my passengers to buckle their safety belts if they had not already, and proceeded to reverse the car for 100 feet or so on the shoulder and got onto the Bruckner Expressway towards the Triboro Bridge. Okay, so it wasn't the best idea in the whole world, but there were only a couple of cars behind me. The awesome thing was that a bunch of cars in front of me started following my lead. It was drive-tastic! Anyway, we took the Bruckner entry road until it merged with the main part of the highway, and we hit traffic again! The right lane of the entry road was closed too, if you can believe that. Now one thing I absolutely refused to do was pay another toll for the Triboro Bridge; it's against my religion to do that. Az I exited the Bruckner towards the Major Deegan Expressway, where I would get off one exit later and get on the Third Avenue Bridge into Manhattan. Guess what. More lane closures on the Deegan! I'm sorry. You cannot have two-thirds of the GWB closed, the entry lane onto the Bruckner closed, and one lane on the Deegan closed all at the same time. It was absolute chaos. Anyway, another ten minutes on the Deegan before I got off. Once we were off the highway it was smooth sailing; we took the Third Avenue Bridge and exited onto 129th street and Lexington Avenue, and we took the city streets up to the Heights. In total, the drive took a drop over an hour, really excellent all things considered. We heard from someone in another car on the way back, and they had left about 20 minutes before we did. We were two minutes away from my apartment when they called, and they were still on the Cross Bronx. I felt terrible for them, but I was enormously pleased with myself.

Oh yeah, and when I finally got home I really wanted to watch SportsCenter so I could see highlights of the game; I wanted to see David Wright's two home runs. Would you believe that ESPN was broadcasting the Women's College Softball World Series and ESPN2 was broadcasting NASCAR Now? It was absurd. I guess it was the Big Guy telling me it was time for bed.

The List

On July 20, 2007, I wrote a post in which I described things that should not happen while walking on the street. These include stopping in the middle of the sidewalk all of a sudden, and re-entering pedestrian traffic from the side of the street. I'd like to add one more in there: walking backwards. It's ridiculous that I even need to say it, but seriously, if you're in Times Square and you're not putting on an act, don't walk backwards! I mean, are you kidding me?

Hey, ever notice that "Are you kidding me?" and "Are you serious?" mean exactly the same thing?

Az I read a post by Joe Posnanski yesterday, in which he struggles to answer the following question: who is the best everyday player in Mets history? This question is particularly relevant in the wake of Mike Piazza's retirement. He says that for now this is a very tough question, but it will become a moot point in a few years, at which time David Wright will own every single offensive team record. Meanwhile, I decided to come up with my own list of greatest everyday Mets players ever, counting down backwards from ten (stats current as of May 22, 2008. Stats are ranked among players with at least 1000 plate appearences):

10. Mookie Wilson: 4th in ABs, 4th in Runs, 4th in Hits, 4th in Singles, 7th in Doubles, 1st in Triples, 1st in Stolen Bases.

Granted the Mook wasn't a very valuable player, but he holds every Mets speed record to date (until broken by #9 in a year or two). And when you're involved in the most memorable play in Mets history, you need to be on this kind of list.

9. Jose Reyes: 2nd in Triples, 2nd in Stolen Bases.

Reyes is short of the all time Mets record in Triples (by 5) and Stolen Bases (by 33). He should reach both of those milestones this season, and will probably end up doubling both records by the time his career as a Met is over. As such, he will likely move up (or down) this list over the next few years. I'm looking forward to seeing him involved in many memorable plays in the near future.

8. Carlos Beltran: 4th in SLG, 5th in OPS.

He's only played in 479 games as a Met, but he has established himself as one of the most productive Mets on a game-to-game basis. He is also probably the very best defensive center fielder the Mets have ever had, and he is an outstanding base runner (63 SB and 17 CS).

7. Edgardo Alfonzo: 3rd in Runs, 3rd in Hits, 3rd in Doubles, 7th in HR, 5th in RBI, 6th in Walks, 7th in BA, 8th in OBP.

While Fonzie had a far-from-memorable career, his star shone extremely brightly during his years in New York. He brought a consistency on offense and defense, which helped the Mets win every day. He also remains the only Met to date to record a six-hit game. On August 30th, 1999, Alfonzo connected for three home runs and a double in a six-for-six day against the Houston Astros.

6. John Olerud: 2nd in BA, 1st in OBP, 5th in SLG, 1st in OPS.

The only reason Olerud's numbers don't propel him higher on this list is that he only played as a Met for three years. But in those three years he proved to be the best everyday hitter the Mets have ever had (at least according to OPS). He sported a juicy .425 OBP and brought gold-glove caliber play to first base. For more information on Olerud, see my post "A Walk Down the Memory Baseline," from January 8th, 2008.

5. Howard Johnson: 2nd in Runs, 8th in Hits, 2nd in Doubles, 3rd in HR, 3rd in RBI, 3rd in SB, 3rd in Walks.

Hojo's greatness can mostly be attributed to his longevity in a Mets uniform, however his production during the low-offense 1980s was well above league average. Among the five 30 HR / 30 SB seasons in Mets history, Hojo has three of them. In two of those seasons he won the Silver Slugger award for third basemen. His contributions to the Mets continue today as their hitting coach.

4. Keith Hernandez: 8th in Doubles, 7th in RBI, 5th in Walks, 4th in BA, 4th in OBP.

During his tenure in New York, Hernandez solidified his claim as perhaps the best defensive first baseman of all time. But he sure could swing the bat well too. He finished in the top five in MVP voting twice, and eighth another time. I'm surprised he didn't garner more than his minimal Hall of Fame votes, but he will always have a special place in the hearts of Mets fans. He continues to enchant fans with his intelligent (and oftentimes inappropriate) comments as an analyst during Mets broadcasts.

3. Mike Piazza: 7th in Runs, 6th in Hits, 4th in Doubles, 2nd in HR, 2nd in RBI, 9th in Walks, 6th in BA, 5th in OBP, 1st in SLG, 3rd in OPS.

Numbers three and two on this list are largely interchangeable, considering that they are the former and current faces of the franchise. Not much needs to be said about Mike Piazza, but those who are curious can read my previous post, "The Grimace," from May 20, 2008.

2. David Wright: 9th in Doubles, 9th in HR, 3rd in BA, 3rd in OBP, 2nd in SLG, 2nd in OPS.

The current face of the franchise will likely hold every single offensive record in Mets history within a few short seasons. He's 14th in Runs, but should be 2nd in three seasons. He's 9th in doubles, but should crack the top five this season. He'll also crack the top five in home runs sometime in July. The list goes on and on. We should watch David Wright play baseball as often as possible, because he is truly a unique talent, and he will hopefully man the hot corner at CitiField for the next 15 years.

1. Darryl Strawberry: 1st in Runs, 7th in Hits, 5th in Doubles, 6th in Triples, 1st in HR, 1st in RBI, 4th in SB, 1st in Walks, 3rd in SLG, 4th in OPS.

Man, Darryl could have been one of the all-time greats. Back in the mid- to late 1980s he was right up there with McGwire and Canseco as the up-and-coming young sluggers. His 1987 and1988 seasons are probably the best individual seasons in Mets history, yet he inexplicably lost the MVP award to a clearly inferior Kirk Gibson in '88. He was my favorite player growing up, and even though my bed time was early when I was six, I always used to ask my parents if I could stay up to see Strawberry's first at-bat.

Honorable mentions: Bobby Bonilla, Robin Ventura, Benny Agbayani (yeah, really. .834 OPS ranked 7th in Mets history), Lance Johnson, Lenny Dykstra, Ed Kranepool, Rey Ordonez (no, not really).

The Grimace

I promise I'll get to Mike Piazza in a minute, but first a little more driving. Some of you might be interested in that, while none of you are interested in baseball.

So I came up with a couple of new driving pet-peeves, which I'm sure everyone is just dying to know. You know how there are "turn only" and "exit only" lanes all over the place? Well they're there for a bloody reason! If you are in one of those lanes you better freakin' do what the signs tell you to do. If you're headed southbound on the Harlem River Drive and you're driving in the right lane near 125th street that is "exit only" onto the Triboro Bridge, then you sure as hell better be getting onto that bridge. If you decide to be cool and use that lane to get ahead of the traffic in the other two non-"exit only" lanes, then all you're doing is creating a problem. You're going to cut off someone in the middle lane, and while you're waiting to cut in you're preventing the people behind you from actually getting on the bridge; a privelege they have earned by being in the correct lane and by shelling out the six dollars for the toll. Honestly, I couldn't care less if getting on the Triboro Bridge costs you six dollars you don't have and takes you an hour out of your way; wait in traffic in the left two lanes like everybody else. The only way you are allowed to break this rule is if you're not going to screw anybody else. If there are few cars on the road (at maybe 4:00 am) then be my guest. Otherwise, make sure you're in the correct lane. You know the intersection on 96th street and 1st avenue? I've mentioned it before because it's a horrible traffic light situation what with all the traffic getting on and off the FDR Drive. Anyway if you're driving east on 96th street, the right lane is "right turn only" going towards York Avenue. I once saw a guy try to cut into the traffic going onto the FDR from that lane, but a traffic cop wouldn't let him and forced him to make the turn. It was outstanding.

Now this one really pisses me off. U-turns are illegal in most places, and I admit that I have made many U-turns in my day. However, as with most things, I have no problem with people making U-turns as long as you're not screwing anybody else. Make a U-turn when no one is around. However, inasumch as they are illegal, don't start your U-turn when there are cars coming at you from the other direction. You see, this is the opposite of "not screwing anybody else." Never has this bothered me more than yesterday evening. I had to go to the cleaners on Ft. Washington Avenue to drop off my tuxedo before driving home to the East Side, az I drove up Overlook Terrace towards Ft. Wash. Now Overlook Terrace is one lane in each direction, i.e. an inopportune place to make a U-turn. Believe it or not, a car coming down the hill started to make a U-turn just as I got there; I literally had to slam on the breaks. Okay fine, I wasn't in a terrible hurry, whatever. Now a plain old K-turn should get the job done, but this driver was so incompetent that it was more like a pentagram-turn. Hey, just as a little tip, don't be afraid to get up close and personal with the parked cars. You don't need to start reversing when you're 10 feet away from the next car; keep on going until you're a foot away. That way you won't have to change directions 84 times to turn around (a la Austin Powers). At that point I started honking the guy. And then you know what he did? He actually decided better of things and began undoing his K-turn. Az after switching from Drive to Reverse countless times, he ended up going in the same direction as when he started. Needless to say, I was displeased.

Now onto baseball. I was reading baseballmusings.com yesterday, and Pinto wrote a post about Ryan Ludwick, the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder who hit his twelfth home run. He noted that "his .767 slugging percentage is more than twice his .342 batting average, meaning his average hit is more than a double." So that's pretty cool. Since I'm obsessed with slugging percentage these days I decided to check last year's stats to see if anyone accomplished that feat last season. It turns out that among players who qualified for the batting title (bizarrely 3.1 plate appearances per team game, or 502 plate appearances over 162 games), six did it in 2007 (in reverse order):

Jim Thome: .275 AVG, .563 SLG, 119 Hits, 65 1B, 19 2B, 35 HR, totaling 2.042 bases-per-hit (BPH).

Alex Rodriguez: .314 AVG, .645 SLG, 183 Hits, 98 1B, 31 2B, 54 HR, totaling 2.055 BPH.

Adam Dunn: .264 AVG, .554 SLG, 138 Hits, 69 1B, 27 2B, 2 3B, 40 HR, totaling 2.094 BPH.

Prince Fielder: .288 AVG, .618 SLG, 165 Hits, 78 1B, 35 2B, 2 3B, 50 HR, totaling 2.145 BPH.

Ryan Howard: .268 AVG, .584 SLG, 142 Hits, 69 1B, 26 2B, 47 HR, totaling 2.176 BPH.

Carlos Pena: .282 AVG, .627 SLG, 138 Hits, 62 1B, 29 2B, 1 3B, 46 HR, totaling 2.225 BPH.

I would say A-Rod's feat is the most impressive because he's the only one who accomplished it with a batting average above .300. Let's see how these guys are doing this season (all stats through May 20th):

Jim Thome: .206 AVG, .418 SLG, 29 Hits, 15 1B, 6 2B, 8 HR, totaling 2.029 BPH.

A-Rod: Nope.

Adam Dunn: .234 AVG, .508 SLG, 32 Hits, 17 1B, 4 2B, 11 HR, totaling 2.171 BPH.

Prince Fielder: Nope.

Ryan Howard: .183 AVG, .396 SLG, 31 Hits, 16 1B, 4 2B, 1 3B, 10 HR, totaling 2.164 BPH.

Carlos Pena: Nope.

Just for fun, let's look at Jason Giambi: .204 AVG, .469 SLG, 23 Hits, 9 1B, 6 2B, 8 HR, 2.299 BPH. Wow!

And now, Lance Berkman, who is absolutely ripping it up so far: .388 AVG, .776 SLG, 66 Hits, 33 1B, 16 2B, 1 3B, 16 Hr, 2.000 BPH. Ridiculous.

Anyway, that was a fun exercise. Let's move on to the reason for this post, the retirement of Mike Piazza.

I don't think I need to go through the stats; he's clearly the greatest hitting catcher of all time, and he's a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. Everyone knows this. I want to share a couple of my own memories of him. A few posts ago I regaled you with the story of the eighth inning of a Mets game against the Braves on June 30th, 2000: "I remember watching the highlights and seeing the fans by the first base line going absolutely berserk. Piazza is running towards first base and when his batted ball clears the fence he pumps his right fist in boyish glee. Here's a guy who's making $90 million and he's going ballistic because he hit a ball over a fence during a game in June." Another one I remember vividly was a game on April 28th, 1999. I was watching it at my cousins' house in Connecticut. The Padres were the defending National League champions; they had lost the World Series to the Yankees in 1998. Trevor Hoffman, the Padres closer, had saved 23 consecutive games and was coming off a season in which he had saved 53 games with a 1.48 ERA. The Mets were down 3-2 in the ninth inning, and Piazza hit a monstrous home run to right field with John Olerud on first. Mets win 4-3. It was such an unbelievable home run; the pitch was probably six inches outside and eight inches high, but nobody I ever watched could hit a ball the other way like Mike Piazza. Nobody got around on pitches with such incredible bat speed like Piazza (except Gary Sheffield). And when he hit a home run, he would scrunch up his face in a classic grimace. It was as though he was so excited to hit a home run but he didn't want to show it, so it turned into a snarl. I remember Roger Clemens beaning him in the head. I remember Clemens throwing the bat-head at him in the World Series. I remember his first hit as a met, an opposite field double into the gap. I remember being at my buddy's house in Great Neck on a Saturday night, when they announced the trade on Sports Center. I remember watching games at home and my grandma saying "that Mike Piazza... oooh is he good looking!" Mike, thanks for all the memories. I'll end with a quote from Mike as reported by the Associated Press: "But I have to say that my time with the Mets wouldn't have been the same without the greatest fans in the world," he said. "One of the hardest moments of my career was walking off the field at Shea Stadium and saying goodbye. My relationship with you made my time in New York the happiest of my career and for that, I will always be grateful."

Foolishness

I'm gonna mix it up this time and do a little football. This is not because I have nothing to say about baseball (don't get me started), rather it's because I just heard something absolutely maddening on the radio. I'm listening to the Michael Kay show, as I do every day, and I have grown to enjoy this show very much over the past ten months. I don't always agree with what Mr. Kay says, but at least he gives a viable argument and usually doesn't sound like a complete moron. But just now, Michael said something along the lines of (and I paraphrase): "The Jets lost a lot by winning that last game against the Chiefs. If they lost they would have gotten the third pick in the draft and been able to draft a top flight quarterback or running back. Instead, they settled for the 6th pick."

The two players about whom Mr. Kay is speaking are Matt Ryan, quarterback out of Boston College, who was the third pick in the draft by the Atlanta Falcons, and Darren McFadden, running back out of Arkansas, who was the fourth pick in the draft by the Oakland Raiders. I have no doubt that these two players are immensely talented, however, recent history has shown us that quarterbacks and running backs who were drafted early have had records of success which are highly suspect. Those well versed in football will know what I mean when I mention Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, Andre Ware, Kijana Carter, Curtis Enis, Tim Couch, David Carr, and Joey Harrington, to name a few. These were all highly touted, and highly drafted college quarterbacks and running backs who never were or have yet to be successful in the NFL. Granted, there are always highly drafted players who do succeed, including Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, Drew Brees, Carson Palmer, etc. but there is much evidence to show that these players have succeeded in large part because of the offensive linemen behind whom they play. Anyway, it certainly seems like drafting a quarterback or a running back with a high pick is risky business indeed. It seems that it is much safer to draft an offensive lineman or a defensive lineman/linebacker, since their skill sets seem to be more easily transferable to the pros.

I'd like to point to the two (arguably) most successful teams in the NFL last year. The New York Giants and the New England Patriots were ranked first and second, respectively, in team sacks (53 and 47). The Patriots were ranked fifth in fewest sacks allowed. Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward, and Laurence Maroney, were all among the league leaders in yards per carry. All of these point to superb play from the offensive and defensive lines and linebackers from these teams. The Patriots' offensive line allowed Tom Brady to set the record for touchdowns in a season. Granted, you do need an excellent quarterback to accomplish such a task, but even Brady wasn't a high draft pick (199th in 2000). With the outstanding play of the offensive line and the quarterback, the Patriots were able to win every single one of their games in the regular season. The only game they lost was the Super Bowl, in which their offensive line was outplayed by the Giants' defensive line and their linebackers. One would be hard-pressed to show that the Giants won because of their quarterback (19/34, 255 Yds, 2 TDs, 1 Int).

What I'm trying to show is that the Jets did well this off-season. They filled the holes they had and strengthened themselves on their offensive and defensive lines. The signed left guard Alan Faneca, a perennial pro-bowler, to a five-year contract. This will only help their young left tackle, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, to achieve the lofty goals the Jets expected him to reach when they drafted him two seasons ago. Nick Mangold, the Jet center, has proven himself to be an outstanding player, and with the three of them anchoring the offensive line, Kellen Clemens should be given plenty of time to throw the football. He ran into a lot of trouble by having to scramble all the time last season.

The defensive line and linebacking corps received significant upgrades this off-season as well. They obtained nose tackle Kris Jenkins from Carolina, and signed right outside linebacker Calvin Pace. With those two in place, including the newly drafted Vernon Gholston at defensive end, the Jets have an excellent blend of youth and experience on defense. With Jenkins and Pace joining Eric Barton, David Harris, Shaun Ellis, and Bryan Thomas, the Jets should be far better in preventing the run and in attacking the quarterback. In the secondary, Darelle Revis, last year's first round pick, will only get better, and he is joined by Dwight Lowery, whom the Jets drafted in the fourth round. I would venture to say that this team is better now than it would be had it drafted McFadden or Ryan. Remember when everyone laughed at the Houston Texans for drafting Mario Williams ahead of Reggie Bush? Meanwhile, Williams made mincemeat of offensive linemen and quarterbacks alike last season while Bush struggled in his second season.

I would love to hear Michael Kay change his tune this season. But that's still several months away. Meanwhile, it's back to baseball.

Hamavdil Bein Kodesh L'Kodesh

After the post I'll let you all decide if there's some deeper meaning behind the title. It'll be like how people think J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings as an allegory of World War II even though he strenuously denies that claim. This is an entirely uninteresting line of discussion; let's just move on.

On Sunday night, for the first time, my family had a Passover seder at my brother's apartment. He makes one every year and invites all of his friends who are around. Now, I mentioned in my anti-Passover rant last year (More Road Rage, April 11th, 2007) that one of the reasons I dislike the holiday is that everyone always spends it with their families so there's very little variety from year to year. Az this year was a little different. My brother started at around 7:00, az I started off over there, went across the street to synagogue, came back for half an hour, went back to synagogue, and then came back to my brother's and caught up to them. Now some of you are probably wondering about a few aspects of the story. For those of you who aren't, I'll supply the questions:

a) Why would my brother have friends who are around? Why wouldn't they be having the seder with their families?
b) Why did they start so early?

Well, most of my brother's friends are not of the Mosaic faith. However, many of them have been going to my brother's seder for several years. He asks that they each bring a bottle of wine (Kosher for Passover of course), and a "dvar torah." By that I mean that they each bring some kind of reading from a newspaper or a book, or something they found online that is somehow related to Passover or freedom. When they reach the point at the seder when each person's reading is appropriate, they read. And six hours later they're done. This absolutely blew my mind. I don't even think I could get my JEWISH friends to have a holiday meal with me for that long, especially if they each had to bring wine and a dvar torah. I find that troublesome. I guess that being observant these past eleven years can maybe desensitize me from the beauty and wonder of Judaism. I have to remember that there's a reason we do all of these rituals and follow all of these rules. Hopefully next year I'll be looking forward to Passover instead of having my usual sense of foreboding. Props all around to my big bro, his wife, and his friends. Best Passover I've had in a long time.

Here's a slightly amusing anecdote from yesterday. I had to e-mail someone at work to get some data from him, so I looked him up in the directory. Let's call him Bloggy McSchmuttface. So I see a Bloggy C. McSchmuttface in there, az I sent him my request. He e-mails me back and says he's the wrong person. I apologized to him, and then about a minute later a get another e-mail from Bloggy McSchmuttface with an attachment, asking me if these are the data I need. Meanwhile, I went to ask my boss how I can contact the real Bloggy McSchmuttface. She finds his e-mail address, and it turns out that his actual name is Curtis B. (Bloggy) McSchmuttface. Great, az I go ahead and send my original request to Curtis. A minute later I get a phone call from Bloggy McSchmuttface telling me that he sent me an e-mail with an attachment, so why am I calling him now? I'm not gonna go through the entire embarrassing discussion where I ask him which Bloggy he is, but to make a long story short, the first Bloggy that I e-mailed ended up forwarding my request to the real Curtis Bloggy, so he's the one who sent me the attachment in the first place. I understand that was a confusing story, but imagine how confusing it must have been for me while it was happening!

I was doing my usual baseball blog reading yesterday when I came across an article that listed all sorts of different statistics that random writers/bloggers/statisticians presented over the years. They all involved some kind of measurement of bases as compared to at-bats, plate appearances, or outs. It turns out that a man named Bill Gilbert came up with a stat called "Bases per Plate Appearance" several years ago. He calculates it differently than I do, but it would still be unkind of me to use his title without showing the proper credit. Now since the purpose of my statistic was to determine if it's worthwhile to always walk any batter in a certain situation, I did not include double plays, stolen bases, and caught stealing in the formula. I will continue to use the same name in any future research, but I just thought I should mention that the name is not exactly original.

Many of you have read in this space about my (mis)adventures in driving. I contantly complain that drivers are too wrapped up in their own selfishness to be courteous to other drivers. A lot of people have told me things like "well if it bothers you so much when people do that stuff, why don't you just do it yourself?" You know, like when everyone is exiting from the right lane, so it's all backed up, and then someone speeds in from the center lane and tries to cut in front of all the cars that waited patiently in the right lane. I've definitely mentioned that before. Another thing I hate is when you're driving southbound on the Harlem River Drive the right lane becomes "exit only" at 135th street, but some people will drive on the shoulder to avoid the inevitable congestion that results from three lanes merging into two. Somehow those people never get caught, but I know that if I ever do it I'll get caught. You know what I mean. Here's one more. When you get off the George Washington Bridge's upper level and exit onto 178th street you can either make a left onto Ft. Washington Avenue or continue straight towards Broadway. You cannot make a right onto Ft. Wash because there is traffic coming off the Henry Hudson Parkway. Similarly, if you are coming off the Henry Hudson Parkway, you can either make a right onto Ft. Wash or continue straight towards Broadway, but you are not allowed to make a left onto Ft. Wash because of the aforementioned traffic coming off the bridge. So last night I was getting off the bridge and an SUV that had come from the highway cut me off and made the illegal left onto Ft. Wash, something I've wanted to do many times. And a cop TOTALLY nailed him! It was awesome! Booyah! He was DONE! He was SO DONE! Now don't think I'm reveling in that person's pain, far from it! What I really gained from that experience was the knowledge that not everyone will get away with screwing other drivers. If you drive selfishly you will inevitably pay for it. I can now sleep soundly knowing that the system, while not perfect, works.

More Odds and Ends (Even Odder, Still No End)

So someone suggested that I put labels on my posts so that my readers would be able to read (read: ignore) posts at their leisure. For example, this post would be labeled "baseball," az most of you would choose to ignore it. Go ahead; see if I care.

Yesterday, Alex Rodriguez hit the 521st home run of his career. He is now tied for 15th on the all time list with Willie McCovey and Ted Williams. The next two players he's set to pass are Jimmie Foxx (534 HR) and Mickey Mantle (536 HR). Meanwhile, Greg Maddux of the San Diego Padres has 349 victories on the mound. Among the people he should pass over the next year or two are Roger Clemens (354 Wins), and Hall of Famers Kid Nichols and Pud Galvin (364 Wins), Warren Spahn (363 Wins), and Grover Cleveland Alexander and Christy Mathewson (373 Wins). The A-Rod stuff seems closer to home because we've watched a lot of the players near him play. Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas (and technically Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds) are still active, and we all got to watch Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. Even Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson are still recent enough that many of us watched them play or at least saw a lot of their highlights. But still, when we're talking about a guy who's passing some of the all time greats like Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle, you know we're dealing with something special. I mean those guys don't even seem real to me; Williams, Mantle, and Foxx are just legends, stories grandparents tell the kids before bedtime about how things were in the old days. And in this day and age, with pitchers getting far fewer opportunities to win games, it's especially jarring to see the names that Maddux is going to pass. Pud Galvin and Kid Nichols are not real people; Warren Spahn is not a real person; Grover Cleveland Alexander and Christy Mathewson are about as far from real as you can get. Some of these guys were alive around the time of the Civil War. They pitched over 100 years ago. We might as well be talking about people like Robin Hood and King Arthur. The fact that a pitcher today has a chance to pass Christy Mathewson on the all time victory list boggles my mind to no end. I implore you, all you non-baseball fans out there, try to find time to watch Greg Maddux pitch. Even at his advanced age, he's one of the most efficient pitchers in baseball. Watch the way his four-seam fastball tails away from lefties. I know that some day I'm going to tell my children that I watched Greg Maddux pitch live, and if I have my way they will be suitably impressed.

Okay, now it's time to get started on my new statistical fetish. I discussed baseball with my brother over the weekend, and we talked a lot about Slugging Percentage and On-Base Percentage, so I was in the mood go back to my bases per plate appearance research, even though I don't have platoon split data. Anyway, here's how I figure Bases per Plate Appearance (BPA): I take a players total bases (Singles + 2x Doubles + 3x Triples + 4x Home Runs), and add walks. Then I divide all that by Plate Appearances (At-bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice bunts + Sacrifice Flies). The reason I use Plate Appearances instead of At-bats is that I'm trying to determine how much a player is worth each time he comes to the plate. It's for the same reason that I add Walks to Total Bases. Finally, the reason I included Sacrifice Bunts into Plate Appearances is that most sluggers don't ever bunt, so it wouldn't hurt their stats, and most players who would be high on the BPA list who would have a number of sacrifices are often "credited" with sacrifices even when they're bunting for hits, az this penalizes them. I calculated the BPA for all players with 100 or more plate appearances in 2007, and here are some notable findings:

- Barry Bonds had the highest BPA overall at .679. He accrued that over just 477 plate appearances, but still. He should definitely get signed pretty soon.
- The player with the highest BPA among those who qualified for the batting title (502 PA) was David Ortiz at .678 over 667 plate appearances. And a lot of analysts said he had a down year last year because he "only" had 35 homers and 117 RBI. Hey, remember how he also had 52 doubles?!
- Would you believe that Carlos Pena (.670) had a higher BPA than Alex Rodriguez (.665)? A-Rod had more total bases because he had 96 more plate appearances, but man! At-bat for At-bat, Pena was as productive a player as there was in all of baseball last year.
- Jimmy Rollins, the NL MVP comes in at 46th with a .551 BPA. He was beaten out by Chase Utley (.571), Pat Burrell (.587), and Ryan Howard (.642), three players on his own team (!).
- Jason Kendall had the lowest BPA of those who qualified for the batting title, .340 over 514 plate appearances (Nick Punto was right above him at .341).

Another thing my brother and I discussed regarding Slugging Percentage was triples (and inside-the-park home runs). He asserted that triples shouldn't count for SLG, because generally it's not the "sluggers" who are hitting them. Guys like Curtis Granderson, Jimmy Rollins, Jose Reyes, and Carl Crawford can really run, and it's for that reason that they compile a bunch of triples. Otherwise, the only times that players get triples or inside-the-park homers are when fielders screw up but don't get errors, or the ball takes a weird bounce. Here's an idea I had that might reconcile this problem: John Dewan has a plus/minus system for evaluating fielding. For every play that fielder makes/does not make, he assigns a number. If he makes a play that the average fielder would make then he gets zero points. If he botches a play that the average fielder makes then he loses a point. If he makes a play that the average fielder would not make then he gets a point. Simple. The best fielders at each position generally finish the season at around +20; think Adam Everett, Pedro Feliz, Grady Sizemore, Albert Pujols. The worst generally finish around -15; think Hanley Ramirez, Derek Jeter, Adam Dunn, Miguel Cabrera. So I think we can apply this system to extra-base hits. If a player hits a ball that would normall go for a double, then he loses a point if he only gets a single, gets zero points if he gets to second base, and gains a point if he makes it a triple. So if we could keep track of this plus/minus number for each player, we could see how many extra-bases a player takes over the average player.

I was reading an article on the subway this morning, and the writer submitted that it would be advantageous if the Cincinnati Reds could combine the offense of Javier Valentin and the defense of their backup catchers. That got me thinking; may the Designated Hitter in the American League only replace the pitcher in the batting order? Wouldn't it be terrific if a team had a tremendous hitting pitcher (think Micah Owings, Mike Hampton, Carlos Zambrano, Dontrelle Willis), and a fielder who has no bat but plays maniacally good defense? That way you could have the pitcher bat for himself and have the DH replace one of the fielders. Az I went ahead and looked up the DH rules on mlb.com, and here are a few interesting things I found:

- Any league may elect to use the DH rule. So the NL could adopt the DH without having to change league rules.
- It's mandatory for a team to designate a hitter for the pitcher. If the team does not do so, they cannot use a DH for the remainder of the game.
- The DH spot in the lineup cannot move during the game. If the starting DH is batting 4th, then no matter how many times the DH has a pinch-hitter (or pinch-runner), his spot in the order stays at 4th.
- If a player enters the game as a pinch-hitter and then takes the mound, the DH spot is terminated for the remainder of the game. If the pitcher bats at any time, the DH spot is terminated for the remainder of the game. Furthermore, if the pitcher bats he can ONLY replace the DH in the order.
- If the DH goes out to play the field, the DH spot is terminated for the remainder of the game.

So it appears that my idea of DHing a fielder is not allowed. I should tell that to Mr. Dulny so he can retroactively give me the at-bats he owes me from 11th grade. Hameivin yavin.

Couple of Odds and Ends (Mostly Odd, Never End)

I went to my first ball game of the year last night and I had a few observations. Firstly, Citi Field is GORGEOUS! They did a ton of work on it during the off-season, and from the outside it looks ready to go. My friend and I briefly flirted with the hilarity that would ensue if Ryan Howard hit Citi Field with a home run and the entire thing came crashing down. Anyway, we've got 78 (plus playoffs) more chances to experience Shea Stadium in all its blueness, az take advantage while you can.

Another thing I noticed as the game plowed its way into extra innings is that the Mets did not exploit their platoon advantage during the game at all. There were so many times when the Mets best hitters had the advantage over the Phillie pitcher: Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, and Church against Adam Eaton (?), Beltran and Delgado in big spots against 90 year old Rudy Seanez (?), etc. That got me thinking today about which type of batter had the most extreme platoon splits. I always thought it was left-handed hitters, which is why I was so surprised when Seanez got the better of Delgado and Beltran. So I hit the stats. I found three league average hitters (100 OPS+) for their careers, and checked their platoon splits to get an idea of the average hitter splits. I list the percent difference between their platoon splits in Batting Average / On Base Percentage / Slugging Percentage, assuming that they hit better against pitchers of opposite handedness. Here's what I found:

Righties:
Rich Aurilia: 1.818 / 3.364 / 16.986
Hubie Brooks: 11.923 / 14.618 / 18.586
Eric Byrnes: 13.672 / 10.345 / 20.991

Lefties:
Doug Mientkiewicz: 1.873 / 0 / -2.415
B.J. Surhoff: -2.439 / -.300 / .730
Mark Kotsay: .356 / 3.030 / 2.200

Now, granted this isn't the most thorough research I've ever done, but until I can get the historical splits in spreadsheet format, I won't be able to do much. Anyway, it appears that I was incorrect. Righties tend to have a larger disparity in their success against pitchers of different handedness while lefties tend to be around the same or even have reverse splits. This is likely due to small sample size, because lefties (which are rare to begin with) have relatively few plate appearances against other lefties (still rare). In that case, the Mets righties should have handled the left-handed J.C. Romero last night and prevented the game from going to extras. Silly Mets.

I was watching highlights of the first game of the NHL playoffs, pairing the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils. In the third period, Sean Avery of the Rangers scored on Martin Brodeur, the Devils' goalkeeper, to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead. Few times have I ever seen an athlete so excited as Avery was at that moment; I mean he was going absolutely bonkers. I love it when the players go nuts. Here they are, making millions of dollars, and at that split-second in time they couldn't care less. These moments remind us of what sports are really about. The moment I remember most was from a Mets game on June 30th, 2000. I remember reading about the game in the morning because it was on a Friday night, and I didn't end up seeing highlights until after Shabbos. The Mets were losing to the Atlanta Braves (gosh I hated them in those days) 8-1 entering the bottom of the eighth inning. Here's how the inning played out:

Don Wengert on the mound.
Derek Bell singles to center (man on 1st).
Edgardo Alfonzo flies out to center (1 out, man on 1st).
Mike Piazza reaches on an infield single to 3rd, error on the 3rd baseman, runners advance (1 out, men on 2nd and 3rd).
Robin Ventura grounds out to second, Bell scores, Piazza advances to 3rd (2 out, man on 3rd, 8-2).
Todd Zeile singles to left-center, Piazza scores (2 out, man on 1st, 8-3).
Jay Payton singles to right (2 out, men on 1st and 2nd, 8-3).
Kerry Ligtenberg on the mound.
Benny Agbayani walks (2 out, bases loaded, 8-3).
Mark Johnson walks, Zeile scores (2 out, bases loaded, 8-4).
Melvin Mora walks, Payton scores (2 out, bases loaded, 8-5).
Terry Mulholland on the mound. Joe McEwing pinch-runs for Mark Johnson
Derek Bell walks, Benny Agbayani scores (2 out, bases loaded, 8-6).
Edgardo Alfonzo singles to left, McEwing scores, Mora scores (2 out, men on 1st and 2nd, 8-8).
Mike Piazza homers, Bell scores, Alfonzo scores, Piazza scores (2 out, 11-8).
Robin Ventura grounds out to 2nd (3 out, 11-8).

Armando Benitez sneaks his way through a nail-biting 9th inning, but for all intents and purposes the game was over with Piazza's home run. I remember watching the highlights and seeing the fans by the first base line going absolutely berserk. Piazza is running towards first base and when his batted ball clears the fence he pumps his right fist in boyish glee. Here's a guy who's making $90 million and he's going ballistic because he hit a ball over a fence during a game in June. These are the moments that we wait for as fans; when the players and we who support them are joined k'ish echad b'lev echad, as one person with one heart. Yeah, sure, stats and spreadsheets are a ton of fun, but there sure is some exciting stuff happening on the field of play.

The Way It Should Be Done

I was surprised not once, but twice yesterday. Now, it's a problem to begin with that I was surprised, because the things that surprised me should not be surprising; they should be expected.

I called Time Warner on Friday (this is the point where everyone thinks "I know where this is going." I mean, is there any other company that is so universally hated than Time Warner? Two friends, who happen to work for Time, were in my new apartment last night, and they totally agreed. One of them said something like "whenever they come to do service I always ask them if I can get free cable, and the guy always responds by asking if he can get free magazines." Anyway, I don't know ANYONE who has good things to say about their service. Which, incidentally is why I was so surprised) to schedule a service appointment so they could install cable in my new apartment. Az they came on Tuesday, but since my enormous television was still in my old apartment I had to ask a friend to bring his small TV over just to make sure the cable worked. So when we finally moved the TV in yesterday, we should have been all set. But lo and behold, the picture was black and white. I called them up, and the service guy was polite, courteous, and extremely helpful (his English wasn't too bad either). He solved the problem in no time and we were good to go. Again, this is the kind of thing one should expect from a company like Time Warner. At least for one day I was pleased with them.

The other surprise requires a bit of backstory. Some time over the summer I was on the john, and I was reading a newspaper article about a baseball equipment company that uses interesting technology in their products. Most baseball gloves look the same, but Akadema explores different ways of shaping them. For full details, check out their website: http://www.akademapro.com/. Anyway, since the average life of a Schmutter softball glove is around 13 years, the time came to get a new one. Just as an aside, there are few things more precious to a guy than his glove; no guy wants to get a new one. A guy knows every nook and cranny of his glove, almost as if it's been attached to his hand for his whole life. A guy would rather repair his glove every inning than have to buy a new one, but there comes a point when you just have to bite the bullet.

Az I went to the website and wrote down which gloves I was interested in seeing, and on the website they have links to sporting goods stores that carry their products. I'm about to make fun of every girl I know, so just beware: a baseball glove is like a pair of shoes; you don't want to buy one until you've tried it on and made sure it's comfortable. So I went to Sports Authority to try on some of the Akadema gloves, but they didn't have any. I asked one of the salesmen if they had, and they said that some things they only have for sale on the website. Bummer. Az yesterday, I went back to the Akadema website, got their phone number, and called them up. I told them I wanted to try on some gloves but couldn't find any in the stores, so the gentlemen told me I could come to their showroom at their headquarters in Hawthorne, NJ (just as a frame of reference, it's basically the next town over from Fair Lawn). So after work I drove out to Hawthorne, and I must have passed by their place three times before I found it. I was expecting some kind of fancy sporting goods store, but it looked just like an office. There were signs that said "For Academy, go around back," so I assumed the front of the office was owned by another company who didn't know how to spell "Akadema," so I went around back. I heard some people hitting softballs in a batting cage, az I knew I was in the right place. I walked through the batting cage area, presumably to where the showroom was, and a gentleman stopped me and asked me where I was going. I told him, and he said "there is no showroom. Wait, you're here for Akadema right?" I nodded. "Go back around to the front." I did. I walked into the front door, and it looked almost like a doctor's waiting room. There were a couple of chairs and a small window, behind which a man was sitting. Now I was feeling pretty foolish for driving all the way out there to some office in some no-name town in Jersey. I was all prepared to be upset at them for feeding my wrong information over the phone, etc. Az I sheepishly told the man why I was there, and he said that they're still building the showroom, but he'd be happy to have one of the workers show me some of their products. Excellent. I went inside and a young man named Kevin brought me a catalogue and asked me to show him which gloves I wanted to see. I told him I'm an infielder, I like a closed back, and I wanted a slightly longer glove. He gave me one and said that was the one I wanted. Az I wrote down the model and told him that I would buy it on the website (I noticed the gloves were $5 cheaper on the Sports Authority website), but he said he would give me a discount. Outstanding. Then I asked him if I could have a discount on batting gloves too, and he said "of course." Basically, I walked out of there with a catalogue ($3 value), a free cap (probably no more than a $3 value; the thing looks like a trucker hat made for a sever year old), a new softball glove ($105 value), and a pair of sheepskin batting gloves ($35 value), for a sum total of $100. It was a thoroughly pleasant shopping experience. I told Kevin he was a terrific salesman and he just acquired a customer for life. I was so pleased that I didn't even care about sitting in GWB traffic on the way home.

Just a couple of other noteworthy occurences at the Akadema headquarters. Kevin showed me the custom mitt they made for Manny Ramirez, the Red Sox Left Fielder, az that was pretty cool. Also, while I was there, they received a call from Jose Offerman, a former player, who wanted to know when his glove would be ready.

Anyway, when I got back home, I ended off the day by lounging on my couch (which was successfully moved into our new place. Thanks guys) in front of the TV (which was also successfully moved into our new place. Thanks a ton guys) and watching the Mets slaughter the Marlins 13-0. It was really a lovely day.

My Favorite Things

Man, it's been a while. The reason I haven't posted anything recently is that I've got two big posts in the works. One of them is a product of a brainstorm I had with my brother regarding my previous post about Ryan Braun. After transforming Braun into a superhero, it was determined that his slugging percentage against lefties in Coors Field ca. 2000 CE (Okay, here we go. So you know how people of the Christian faith count the years starting from roughly the year of Jesus's birth (give or take 3 or 4)? Well, those peoples who do not believe in Jesus as the Lord are loathe to append the acronym "AD" to these years, "AD" standing for "Anno Domini," The Year of Our Lord (Jesus). However, we of the Mosaic faith struggle daily to be part of the modern world, and going around saying that it's 5768 would make us look like raving zealots. So instead we append "BCE" and "CE" to the Christian year to stand for "(Before the) Common Era." Now, I don't think this has quite the same ring as "Anno Domini," so I suggest using the latin translation of "Common Era." Presenting my next idiotic contribution to the world, "Communis Aetas." ) exceeded 1.000. Another words, the average at-bat for Braun under those circumstances produced a little more than a single. My assertion is that it would make more sense to intentionally walk Braun every single time he comes to the plate under those circumstances, thereby assuring that Braun only gets one base (and can't advance any other base runners more than one base). Now, in an effort to expand this analysis, I attempted to download a spreadsheet with player platoon splits from 2007 (a platoon split is a player's statistics against pitchers of different handedness). Sadly, this data was not available to me online, so I had to send an e-mail out to my good friend Joe Sheehan at baseballprospectus.com. He hasn't gotten back to me yet, but I'm still hopeful. Anyway, once I get the data you can expect a big post. Who's excited?

The second post is the reason for the title of this one. Many of you might know of the handful of items that make it onto my list of favorite things. The list is currently populated by 4 things:

1. Binoculars: Is there anything they can't do? They are so versatile. For an astronomy enthusiast such as myself, they can be used for a bit of amateur star-gazing. Needless to say, binoculars appeal to the pervert in all of us. Honestly, how many times have you been walking around or sitting somewhere and you wished you had a pair of binoculars with you? I rest my case.

2. Juice Boxes: Come on, what reminds you of your childhood more than juice boxes? This is the real reason why I give blood; they always have juice boxes on the table o' food afterwards. Is there a more quality item than the plastic bendy straw that comes attached to the juice box? And remember those Richard Lewis commercials for BoKu, the "adult" juice box? If that's not a ringing endorsement of a product then I don't know what is.

3. Trampolines: Can you envision a scenario in which you are not smiling or laughing on a trampoline? I mean you might as well rename the trampoline "the happy machine," because it's impossible to not have fun on one. It's like the parfait discussion that Donkey has with himself in the first Shrek movie; just replace every instance of the word "parfait" with trampoline (and add in an article or two and change some verbs): "You know what else everybody likes? Trampolines. Have you ever met a person, you say, 'Let's try that trampoline,' they say, 'No, I don't like trampolines?' "

4. Crayons: Writing implements made out of wax. Brilliant. Clean. Colorful. Perfect. If I could write in crayon while maintaining my unblemished record of moral and professional integrity, sign me up. If I had to draw a picture of my childood, I would take a bunch of crayons and draw a juice box happily sitting next to a box of 64 Crayola crayons. You know, the one with the crayon sharpener in the back.

Now, I recently got into a discussion with a friend about the relative merits of crayons over markers or vice versa. The pressure to co-author a post detailing this comparison proved to be too much for her, but she has agreed to offer her input, so for that I thank her.

Stay tuned for these exciting posts and more.

New Line of Work

Since I'm bored at work today, and since I'm somewhat on the prowl for a new job, I thought I'd explore my talents in other areas. Today I'm going to try my hand at wizardry. For my first trick, I'm going to take your average, everyday Rookie of the Year, and transform him into Babe Ruth before your very eyes. Now the reason I chose to use Ryan Braun for my magic trick is because Baseball Prospectus looked at his splits from last season. I didn't even realize until I read the article how much he destroyed left-handed pitchers. So one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had filled a spreadsheet with data. Now, the calculations I did would have looked even more insane had I done my Ruthian transformation on Babe Ruth himself... okay, I'll get to that in a minute. Meanwhile, check out how I changed the Hebrew Hammer (or as BP calls him, the Scourge of Southpaws) into the Sultan of Swat:

First I looked at his splits from last season:
Against RHP: 364 PA, .282 BA, .319 OBP, .526 SLG, .845 OPS, 19 HR, 18 2B, 4 3B, 62 RBI
Against LHP: 128 PA, .450 BA, .516 OBP, .964 SLG, 1.480 OPS, 15 HR, 8 2B, 2 3B, 35 RBI

Those numbers against lefties raised a few eyebrows. Then I decided to have some fun. I did the same thing with Ryan Church in a previous post ("Church v. Hunter," from November 30, 2007); I expanded his numbers against lefties to the full season. Last year, Ryan Braun had 492 plate appearances. Here's how they would have looked if they were all against lefties:

492 PA, .450 BA, .516 OBP, .964 SLG, 1.480 OPS, 192 Hits, 58 HR, 31 2B, 8 3B, 135 RBI

That would probably be the greatest offensive season of all time. Now, let's have some real fun. Baseball-Reference has a tool that allows you to see how a player would perform under different circumstances. The two free options are to see the stats were the player to play in an extreme pitcher-friendly environment, Dodger Stadium in 1968, or in an extreme hitter-friendly environment, Coors Field in 2000. Here's how Braun's 2007 would have looked had he played all 113 of his games at Coors in 2000:

481 AB, .366 BA, .414 OBP, .715 SLG, 1.129 OPS, 176 Hits, 31 2B, 7 3B, 41 HR, 128 RBI.

That looks like an MVP season to me. But wait, there's a lot more. What would happen if those stats were expanded to a full 162 game season:

689 AB, .366/.414/.715/1.129, 252 Hits, 59 HR, 44 2B, 10 3B, 184 RBI.

Again, that would be one of the best seasons of all time, among the top three seasons of hits, extra-base hits, total bases, and RBI.

Finally, let's complete the transformation and look at Braun's stats in 2000 at Coors Field were he to have every one of those at-bats against lefties:

689 AB, .509 BA, .577 OBP, 1.087 SLG, 1.665 OPS, 351 Hits, 107 HR, 54 2B, 13 3B, 272 RBI.

Tada!!! Wow. That's actually double what a fairly normal MVP season would be. That was a lot of fun.

I would LOVE to do the same thing for Babe Ruth, but unfortunately baseball-reference.com doesn't have splits that go back that far. But in case you were curious, I'll put his stats from his best seasons and for his career were they all to take place at Coors in 2000:

1921: 601 AB, .408 BA, .544 OBP, .913 SLG, 1.457 OPS, 245 Hits, 71 HR, 53 2B, 19 3B, 217 RBI
1927: 605 AB, .398 BA, .532 OBP, .863 SLG, 1.395 OPS, 241 Hits, 75 HR, 36 2B, 10 3B, 225 RBI
Career: 9608 AB, .386 BA, .521 OBP, .776 SLG, 1.297 OPS, 3712 Hits, 908 HR, 662 2B, 181 3B, 3133 RBI.

Terrifying.

The More Things Change... (aka That Guy Redux)

Remember one of my very first posts entitled "That Guy?" Well, it's very short az I'll just paste it here for your reading pleasure:

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

That Guy
So, you know how sometimes people say things like, "Don't be that guy!" Well, I was just "that guy." I was paying to go over the George Washington Bridge, and I gave the nice lady $6. I then sat there for about 30 seconds waiting for change. "Schmutter, don't be that guy." I've spent a good portion of my life trying to NOT be that guy, but I was tonight. I feel like I've failed some of you out there. Next time you see me, flick my ear.
end

Anyway, I was That Guy again last night. Let's start at the beginning. I went to a book signing at the Barnes & Noble on 18th Street and 5th Avenue last night. Four of the Baseball Prospectus guys came to sign and speak about their new annual Baseball Prospectus 2008. I especially excited to meet Joe Sheehan because I like his work on baseballanalysts.com in addition to his regular work on Baseball Prospectus. Anyway, they were pretty much just normal guys. Joe was the balding funny guy; Jay Jaffe and Steven Goldman reminded me of the Jeff Goldblum and Wayne Knight characters from Jurassic Park; and Derek Jacques was like a slightly flamboyant, Indian college professor. They were terrific. Az the 40 or 50 of us are hanging out, talking baseball for almost two hours, and then we went up to get our books signed. So while Joe is signing my book I tell him that I like his work on baseballanalysts.com a lot. So he says "that's a different Joe Sheehan. I've read some of his stuff and he's way smarter than I am." Now I feel like an idiot, so I try to salvage my dignity by trying to be funny. "Oh man! I can't believe I was just That Guy! I guess it's alright; you probably get it all the time," I said. His reply: "nope, this was the first time." Now I'm horrified: "I'm the ORIGINAL That Guy?! Ohmygod!" It wasn't very pretty. As I said in my old post, I've spent most of my life trying to avoid being that guy. The tolls on the bridge might have changed, but clearly I haven't very much. Anyway, there's still some small part of me that's hoping that Joe really is the same guy and he just has an alter-ego. Aside from that it was a very pleasant experience.

I started reading Baseball Prospectus 2008, and this morning on the subway I had a bit of a brainstorm. In the book, they make a big deal out of platoon splits, the disparity in how players perform against lefties and righties. For those who don't know, right handed hitters generally do better against left handed pitchers and vice versa. The disparity is very pronounced for left-handed batters. It's for this reason that switch-hitters are highly valuable in baseball today. Now, there have been only a handful of pitchers who pitched with both hands; baseball-reference.com lists only six, and only one in the last 99 years. But what if aspiring hurlers trained themselves to be able to pitch from both sides? That would potentially eliminate the hitters' platoon advantage. Then I started thinking what would happen if a switch-pitcher faced a switch-hitter? Would they both keep switching their positions in the batter's box/pitching rubber until the umpire forced the pitcher to throw? Can you imagine how comical it would be to watch the pitcher and the hitter dance around trying to get the advantage? I envision a lot of balks (illegal activity by the pitcher. See the Wikipedia entry for all examples). Anyway, it probably won't happen, but I thought it was a fun brainstorm.