I Think I Need to Change the Name of This Blog

Seriously, I should change the description to "One Man's Thoughts on Baseball, Driving, and Grammar." That's kinda like the post I had a while ago (Lighters, Shavers, and Pens, Oh My!), in which I note the absurdity of the Bic company, which sells three completely unrelated items. But if I changed the description I feel like I wouldn't have any readers. Hell, I don't have any readers anyway, but that's not important. It's not about how many people read; it's about how much I can get away with making fun of you all. I mean, it's about having a place for me to jot down my thoughts. Besides, I like "Schmutter's idea palace." If anyone has a suggestion for a replacement name, comment away.

Anyway, the point is I realized another driving pet-peeve last night, and this one really bakes my noodle (yeah, that's right. I'm trying to resurrect that fantastic line from the Matrix. We'll see if it takes hold). It's honestly one of the first things you learn when you take driver's ed, and it's something that is absolutely dripping with so much common sense that it almost boggles the mind that people don't do it. I'm pleased to present to you (drum roll please....) the turn signal! I'm going to share with you two instances from last night in which the turn signal was used (or not used, sigh...) in horribly noodle-baking ways:

1. After eating dinner at home, I drove over to my brother's apartment on 77th street between First and Second Avenues. I parked my car on 77th street, which goes westbound. After my visit (yes, don't worry, my nephew is extremely cute), I got back into the car and intended to continue west on 77th street. There was one of them ugly grey hatchback cars in front of me, and he was driving rather slowly. We arrived at the green light on Second Avenue at which I wanted to make a left turn, and the dude in front of me, continuing to go slowly makes a left turn (without signaling) into the second lane from the left. I was going to make another left onto 76th street, az I turned into the very left lane, and continued slowly towards the red light at the intersection. Then that very same dude cut into the left lane in front of me (again without signaling) and then we both turned onto 76th street. By this point I'm getting a bit exasperated. Now we're driving eastbound on 76th street towards First Avenue (again, very slowly), and once the light turns green he turns left onto First Avenue again without signaling!!! I would have been ahead of him two turns ago and not had to deal with him if he had just signaled once! It was one of the most frustrating things because I mamash had no idea what he would do next. It can be a very disturbing experience to have uncertainty on the road. The traffic system works on predictability, and when one yutz decides to be unpredictable, the entire system can break down.

2. After I finally arrived (uneventfully) back in the Heights, I decided to get Erin (my car. It's a hot name) a much deserved, and much needed car wash. I picked up a friend for company, because it's one of those cool car washes where they let you sit in your car while it goes through the conveyer. Az we're on the way back, driving south on Broadway at around 200th street, and we're stopped at a red light behind another car in the left lane. What happens? The light turns green, and all of a sudden, the guy in front of me puts on his left turn signal and makes me wait behind him until he lets the cars from the other direction go by (I've mentioned something like this before in my post "ACPJrB Redux," but bear with me anyway). As my friend can attest, I started going ballistic; I was yelling, and shaking, and quaking, and gibbering like a madman. If you don't have your turn signal on when that light turns green, I don't care if it takes you eleven hours out of your way, you better freakin' go straight.

It's so simple, my friends. The turn signal is there for a reason. I think I use it even more often than I should; I even use it in empty parking lots. On the road, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Now let's move on to something else. Last week my brother asked me about two pitchers, Goose Gossage and Lee Smith. I won't go through the entire statistical analysis, but the point of the discussion was that I wouldn't vote one into the Hall of Fame without the other. The basis for my claim was that Smith had better overall stats, but Gossage pitched several hundred more innings. I determined that Smith's case was slightly better than Gossage's, but my brother disagreed. He called me last night and asked me try to figure out how important Innings Pitched should be when determining a pitcher's greatness. I told him I would do some research and get back to him, az here it goes.

I went to baseballprospectus.com, because I know I can find VORP listings there. Again, VORP stands for Value Over Replacement Player, and the number represents an amount of runs. Another words, a player whose VORP is 35 is worth 35 more runs to his team than the average bench player. I figured that VORP was a good metric to use for this analysis because it's a sabermetric counting stat. What I mean is that most of the sabermetric stats (ERA+, EqA, OPS+, etc.) are either only relevant for hitting, or are rate stats that don't take into account how much you've played. For example, a player who has only one at-bat and hits a home run will have an astronomically high OPS+, but that player is clearly less valuable than someone who hits solidly for an entire season. So I chose VORP because it will reward players who accumulated the most numbers.

That being said, here are a few observations about my results:
-The top 34 in VORP for pitchers in 2007 were starters. Rafael Betancourt was 35th at 39.8.
-The Baseball Writers Associaton of America did well in voting for the Cy Young award, at least according to this metric.
-I can't believe how good John Smoltz still is; he was eleventh in all of baseball and sixth in the National League in VORP at 56.7.

The actual results of the study are as follows:
Pitching a lot of above-average innings is extremely valuable. The top twelve pitchers in VORP pitched over 200 innings. 13th was Erik Bedard, whose strong season (6th in ERA+, 3rd in the AL) was cut short by an injury. C.C. Sabathia won the Cy Young award in the American League, in large part because he pitched 40.1 more innings than Josh Beckett, even though the rest of their stats are comparable. Beckett's ERA+ was 145 to Sabathia's 143, but Sabathia's VORP was quite a bit higher, 65.2 (3rd in MLB, 1st in the AL) to Beckett's 58.6.
Here's another example of the value of pitching a lot of innings: Of everyone in the top 30 in VORP, the lowest ERA+ by far belongs to Joe Blanton, a slightly above average 106. Blanton's ERA+ was tied for 48th best in baseball last year. However, since he pitched 230 innings of 106 ERA+, he was 25th in baseball in VORP. Another words, being a slightly above average pitcher who eats innings is immensely valuable in this day and age.

In conclusion one can see... wait a minute. This is not a five-paragraph essay, and I'm not in sixth grade. The point is, I'm pretty sure my brother was right in arguing that Gossage had a better Hall of Fame case than Lee Smith. I'm also pretty sure that Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, C.C. Sabathia, and Fausto Carmona are going to make a s**t load of money over the next 10-15 years.