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.

Recap

Well, it's been quite an interesting journey these last few days. There were many highlights:

I went to dinner on Sunday night with my parents, my brother, and his wife and baby. Aside from the fact that I had the biggest steak of my life (I'm still digesting it 38 hours later), there was one moment that went largely unnoticed. We were sitting around the table and my brother said something like "Noah, of course I love you unconditionally because you're my brother, but aside from that I really do like you; you're a good person." It was entirely unnecessary, didn't need to take place, but it was not unappreciated. Thank you. You are a big part of what I am today.

I saw many of you last night at dinner. I'm sure it was difficult for some of you to make it out on a weeknight at that hour, so thank you all for coming. I was overwhelmed, even humbled, and that is a rare thing. Sometimes I'll walk out of a packed synagogue on Friday night and someone will say "big crowd this shabbos; it's a little overwhelming," and usually I'll say something like "I thought it was underwhelming." Mobs of people hanging out at Post-Davening-Mt. Sinai-Sponsored-Schmoozing-Time doesn't really impress me that much. In fact, I tend to thrive on those situations. But last night was a different animal altogether. After most of the people had left I was pacing around the back of the restaurant feeling exhausted but wired. I couldn't sit down because I was so fidgety. One of my friends commented that she had never seen me like that before. I don't know what that feeling was, or what it continues to be, but I imagine it can't be bad. So for all of you who participated in my birthday, thank you for making it my best one ever.

For those of you who read my post yesterday and expressed their concern, I think the events of the last few days should put those worries to rest. I don't even know why anyone was concerned in the first place; that story took place EIGHT YEARS ago! I think the reason why I reacted so strongly that night was that it was a time of transition for me. Until that summer I was an awkward, nerdy, goody two-shoes (still am). After that summer I was more self-confident, sophisticated, funny, etc. I guess I expected for people to have a newfound respect for me, but apparently you can't earn that sort of thing in only a few months. Either way, most of the people from high school, as I realized later on, weren't really the kind of people whose respect I needed, at least at that point. I should have realized that the 10-15 close friends I had were more than enough. I would take their friendship over the respect of my 85 other classmates every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Needless to say, anyone who knows me now will agree that I can confidently assert that I'm quite well adjusted, so don't worry. Anyway, I was told that I should put a warning on top if I'm ever going to write something sad, so I'll be sure to do that in the future.

My brother called me up yesterday, presumably to tell me where my car was (he had to borrow it for work). But he also informed me that today is National Grammar Day. I was SO excited. In honor of National Grammar Day, I leave you with some grammatically complex sentences. Enjoy:

1. The problem is, is he can't do it.
2. I don't know what you're talking about.
3. Someone forgot their shoes.
4. ...to boldly go where no man has gone before.
5. Who is it? It is I.

Birthday Blog

Okay, let's just get it over with. It's my birthday. Yay. I guess I couldn't really call it a coincidence, but today is merely the time when the Earth happens to be in the exact same location in its journey around the sun as it was on the day I was born. Otherwise it's just an ordinary day. Don't take that to mean that I don't appreciate all the birthday wishes I've received. Keep them coming! Just to let you know how much I appreciate them and I guess to let some of you inside my head, I want to share a very personal story:

In 11th grade, Ramaz took all of us on "Junior Retreat," a weekend getaway, which was designed to strengthen the bonds of our friendship before we began to seek our own fortunes out in the real world. They had a ropes course, various sporting events, and a beautiful Shabbat planned. I remember an awesome game of tackle football that we played in the snow. I remember my friend breaking his knee on a tackle and then intercepting the very next pass and returning it for a touchdown. There were some great times.
After Shabbos, some students prepared a slide-show, which had pictures of us from school. You know, there were pictures of us talking, and hanging out, maybe doing funny things, etc. And as we were all watching the show, we would applaud for the people in each picture to varying degrees. Out of the 100 or so pictures, there might have been one or two of me, and to my chagrin, I received very little applause. Now don't get me wrong, I have great friends from high school, and we're all still close, but I was really sad that I hadn't had enough of an effect on the rest of my class throughout the years to garner more than a few claps.
After the event, before we went to bed, I laid out on the grass outside of our bunk. It was cold and beautiful outside; the sky was cloudless and I could see a million stars. And on that night I cried. I wept uncontrollably for what seemed like forever. I cried to G-d, and I cried to my mother, and I'm crying now just remembering it. Here I am, sitting at my desk, and I'm crying. For every birthday wish I received last night and so far today, I shed a tear to erase the ones from that moment on that empty field. I know that no matter what I might have felt on that cold December night, I have friends today who care about me. So again, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your wishes.

Just as an aside, no fewer than three people told me this weekend that they missed me over Shabbos. They said it felt strange when they looked over to my seat in synagogue and didn't see me there. That meant a lot to me too. Look how far I've come.

Okay, so you ever hear that math problem that asks how many people you need in a room to have a reasonable chance of two of them having the same birthday? Well, most people seem shocked that the answer is only 23. In case anyone is interested, here's how it's done:

First, understand that the easiest way to determine the probability of two people having the same birthday in a room of N people, is to figure out the probability of everyone having a different birthday and then subtracting that probability from 100%, okay? It should make sense that there are two options: a) everyone has a different birthday, or b) some people have the same birthday. The probability of one plus the probability of the other equals 100%. Great.

The probability of the only two people in the room having different birthdays is (1-(1/365)). Very high. The probability of all three people in the room having the different birthdays is (1-(1/365)) x (1-(2/365)). You might see a pattern developing. The general formula for the probability of all N people in the room having a different birthday (assuming there are fewer than 365 people in the room) is: 365! / ((365^N)(365-N))!

The exclamation point is the symbol for the "factorial" function, which means you multiply the number by each integer below it until you get to one (ex: 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120)

Great, so the probability of any of N people in a room having the SAME birthday comes out to 1 - (365! / ((365^N)(365-N))!). Now all you have to do is plug in your number for N, the amount of people in the room. For N = 23, the probability is about 50.7%. Just for argument's sake, if you have 100 people in a room, the probability that two people have the same birthday is around 99.99996%.

Excellent! Now, in case you were curious, if you wanted to figure out the probability of someone having the same birthday as you, that's a different problem. That's the same thing as asking what's the probability of two people having a specific birthday, whereas the previous problem doesn't care about which date the people share. The formula for the probability of someone in a room of N people having the same birthday as you is: 1 - ((365-1)/365)^N. In order for there to be a greater than 50% chance of someone having the same birthday as you, there needs to be 253 other people in the room.

Okay, that's the end of today's math lesson (thanks to wikipedia for all the info).

I went on facebook last night to check out the myriad wall posts I received, and I noticed that on the top of the page it has a little birthday box. It says something like "Happy Birthday, Noah! From all of us on The Facebook Team, have a great day!" You know what? That's really nice. It's unnecessary and quite meaningless, but still.

Since I absolutely could not fall asleep last night, I found myself watching last year's World Series of Poker on ESPN2 at about 1:30 am. At that hour you see the most random commercials. One of them was for a TimeLife series of CDs called "I Can Only Imagine." It's a collection of 22 Christian faith songs. The first thing I thought was that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen (one of the songs was actually called "Kel Shakkai," except with the real words, without the "K" and "dd" instead of "kk"), except then I realized that I basically listen to the exact same kind of music only in Hebrew. I can only imagine what people think of my taste in music.

I went to KJ for Seudah Shlishit, and they had a presentation of several Ramaz students who had gone to York, Pennsylvania for a few days to volunteer for a project called Habitat for Humanity, in which they helped other volunteers build houses for people who lost theirs for varying reasons. It was really quite nice. But the part I found noteworthy was that the students had become friends with the local Chabad Rabbi on facebook. It's ridiculous how far facebook has extended its grasp. Facebook is insane as it is right now, but can you imagine what it will be like for those high school students by the time they're our age?

Okay, I'm done. Wait, you know how when you go to a wedding or an engagement party you wish everyone there a Mazal Tov? I don't mean just to the bride and groom, but to everyone you see. What do you do at a birthday party? I think I'm gonna go ahead and wish everyone a Happy Birthday today, and I will continue to do so at other birthday parties. Az Happy Birthday everyone.

Random Baseball Jazz

I'm listening to the Max Kellerman show on 1050 ESPN Radio, and one thing he likes to do is these live commercials. He does live commercials for Dr. Modell's laser eye surgery, and for Car-cash, and a few other things. Recently he started doing one for this baseball drills video for kids. And each time he says something like "this product is so effective because it turns those boring old drills into a game, and it's the game that kids love, not the drills." Normally, Max, I agree with you, but not in this case. I think baseball drills are TONS of fun. What could possibly be boring about batting practice, or shagging fly balls? Even practicing turning a run-down or a double play is fun. I dunno, maybe I just love baseball that much.

My brother sent me an interesting tidbit this morning. He directed me to a game pitched by Rick Wise on June 23rd, 1971, in which he threw a no-hitter and hit two home runs. That got me thinking about the greatest individual performances by a baseball player in a single game. I could only come up with two other examples, so I'll show them here. I want you all to vote on what you think is the best of the three performances. Enjoy:

Rick Wise: 6/23/1971: 2 for 4, 2 R, 3 RBI, 2 HR (1 solo, 1 2-run), 8 TB, 9 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 Ks, 0 HR, 0.11 WHIP, 89 Game Score, 0.00 ERA, Win.

Tony Cloninger: 7/3/1966: 3 for 5, 2 R, 9 RBI, 2 HR (2 grand slams), 9 TB, 9 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 Ks, 2 HR, 1.00 WHIP, 64 Game Score, 3.00 ERA, Win.

Micah Owings: 8/18/2007: 4 for 5, 4 R, 6 RBI, 2 HR (1 solo, 1 2-run), 11 TB, 7 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 7 Ks, 3 HR, 0.43 WHIP, 66 Game Score, 3.86 ERA, Win.

I like Tony, but pitchers were better hitters back then.

I Can't Say It Any Better

I guess I've done some of this before, but never on such a magnitude. I'm actually going to paste an entire article from firejoemorgan.com. They say everything that needs to be said. I would be oveir on bal tosif were I to add anything to it. I'm gonna try to get away with this being my own post only because it seems like I will have access to the baseballprospectus.com PECOTA projections, which I will use to add into my Mets preview, so I'm gonna be working on that. Enjoy the article (bold is quoted from the New York Post, and regular is firejoemorgan. Beware a few swear words. Apologies in advance to you REAL Yankee fans):

This Is What We're Up Against

Sure, sometimes it seems like we've said everything there is to be said about EqA and VORP and why batting average and wins are for stupids. We're repetitive, redundant, reiterative, repetitious, redundant, redundant and redundant. We get it.
Then we take a step back and remember that 99.999992% of baseball fans think like the people in this article:

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! STUDY SAYS DEREK JETER'S THE WORST

No, nobody is kidding. This is old news, of course, to the other 0.000008% of us.

February 17, 2008 -- How's this for junk science - even with three Gold Gloves, Yankees captain Derek Jeter has been labeled the worst fielding shortstop in baseball.

I'm so happy the New York Post is out there doing its thing -- being angrily, outrageously, passionately wrong about everything. Rare is the institution you can rely on day in and day out, but you can set your watch by the Post. Whatever time the Post says, you're guaranteed to know: it's wrong. Gold Gloves are a m.-fucking joke. Although I've learned nothing yet about this junky "science" study and of course I will learn nothing further by reading the rest of the article (thank you, Post!), I already trust it infinitely more than Gold Gloves, because Gold Gloves are liars. They are no-good cheating liars, and I would not let my fictional daughter marry a Gold Glove.

But the numbers prove it, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania said yesterday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in (of course) Boston.

Yes, these researchers from the University of Pennsylvania meticulously altered their data, fudged everything they'd worked on for months, slandered Jeter and praised A-Rod, all because they had a meeting once in Boston. Never trust a scientist! All scientists are Sox fans! Post! Post BREAKING NEWS: SCIENCE PLAYS FOR BOSTON!

Using a complex statistical method,

for nerds with calculators and pocket protectors and Daily News subscriptions,

researchers concluded that Alex Rodriguez was one of the best shortstops in the game when he played for the Texas Rangers.

This is an interesting finding. I wish I knew more about how the study worked. Just kidding: give me what Mike Birch has to say on the matter. Mike Birch works at Lids, the hat store.

"I don't know what they're smoking down at Penn," said Yankees fan Mike Birch, 32.

Take that, complex statistical study. Birch is insightful and funny. One time he sold me a sweet lid with the Under Armor logo on it. "I don't know what they're smoking"! Classic. Classic Birch."

That's preposterous. I completely disagree. Jeter's a clutch player."

In one corner: "The method involved looking at every ball put in play in major league baseball from 2002 through 2005 and recorded where the shots went. Researchers then developed a probability model for the average fielder in each position and compared that with the performance of individual players to see who was better or worse than average."

In the other corner: Mike Birch. Watches three innings a week, occasionally while sober. Listens to Mike and the Mad Dog "except when they talk too smart and shit." Watches "Rome Is Burning" with the sound off. I.Q. of 175. Graduated from Cambridge University. Fields Medal winner. I know who I'm taking."

It's ridiculous," said fan Jay Ricker, 22. "Jeter is all-around awesome."

I agree," said Science, 424. "Fuck me, that is a good argument. I might as well not exist. That's it. I'm taking 500 Darvocets. Humans, welcome your new overlord, Jay Ricker, 22. He is all-around awesome.

"He's better than A-Rod any day. Character has a lot to do with it. He's out there for his teammates, not just himself. He does it for the good of the team. That's the kind of guy you want on the field."

Yes. You would never, ever want a guy scientifically proven to be dramatically better at fielding. That is not the kind of guy you want on a field. No fielders. Just team guys.

Ricker added that "A-Rod's only out for the money. For him it's not about baseball, it's just about banking."

Studies have shown that A-Rod is, incidentally, the league's best banker. A lot of people don't know this, but he was heavily recruited by Blackstone and Goldman coming out of high school. Jeter is genetically incapable of using an ATM; he in fact only understands those letters to be the acronym for ass to mouth.

Fans said Jeter's greatness goes beyond the numbers he produces on the field."He has intangible qualities that can't be measured with statistics," said East Village bar owner Kevin Hooshangi, 28.

Fans repeated a thing they had heard innumerable times on the TV and radio. "I can't change my mind about this," despaired Kevin Hooshangi. "My whole worldview depends on it being true. Jeter has intangibles. Jeter has intangibles. He does. He does!" Hooshangi continued to chant about Jeter, tears streaming down his face. "I know he does. He has them. Intangi...(unintelligible sobbing)..."

"He's the ultimate teammate. It doesn't matter what his percentages are when he's making big plays in big games. He's the one with four World Series rings."

Theory: Jeter wears rings on fielding hand, rendering fielding borderline impossible.

However, Frank Angelo, 50, gave A-Rod his due. "He's the best shortstop in the American League playing third base," Angelo said.

Then Angelo realized what city he lived in, and what newspaper he was talking to.

But Jeter as one of the worst?

"That's not true," Angelo said. "He's a good fielding shortstop." He even said he would keep Jeter at short. "Jeter's the captain, he was there before A-Rod," said Angelo.

By this logic, Jeter never should have taken over for Tony Fernandez. Fernandez was there before Jeter. Jeter should've had to slide over to third. But wait, Wade Boggs was at third. No go. Already there. But hey, should Boggs have even been there? No! He took over for Charlie Hayes. That never should have happened. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE CHANGED POSITIONS EVER. After the original roster of the 1903 New York Highlanders died, all baseball should have stopped being played forever. Thanks, Frank Angelo.

But as Yankee fan Brittnay Thompson, 32, said, it's about who's good in May, and who's good in October."In big situations A-Rod drops the ball, no pun intended," said Thompson.

Thompson added, "Are you awake, FJM guys? We're still out here. Morons, I mean. We totally outnumber you. We're loud, we're close-minded, and we dominate the media. We'll never stop being dumb about baseball. Never. We'll always keep the idiot ball rolling. Is that a pun? If it is, I didn't intend it."

posted by Junior # 8:09 PM

Mighty

The time between the double-whistle signifying the end of the Super Bowl and when pitchers and catchers report to spring training is one of those dead periods of the year. The only "sports" going on are "basketball" and "hockey." The other time (which admittedly is not as bad as this one) is after the NBA and NHL finals end, when the only sport being played is baseball. Those of you who watch Sportscenter on ESPN will remember this sad period from last year by these three words "Who's more now?" Hameivin yavin. Anyway, this dead time on the sports schedule provides us with an opportunity to predict and project the upcoming baseball season. Sooo... that's what I did! What did I do? Here's what I did:
As of now, there are four widely recognized, freely available lists of player projections on the internet: the CHONE projections (http://home.comcast.net/~briankaat/statsite.html), the Marcel projections (http://www.tangotiger.net/marcel/), the ZiPS projections (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/), and the Bill James projections (available on http://www.fangraphs.com/). As far as I know, these are the only projections out there that are based on statistical analysis and not just general estimation. I'm still unwilling to shell out the cash for a subscription to Baseball Prospectus, mostly because there's so much information available out there for free that it's just not worth it. Also, I read Joe Sheehan on Baseball Analysts anyway. The point is, I think I have enough trustworthy projections that I can survive without Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA projections.
Okay, so I downloaded the spreadsheets for each of those projections (Bill James is not available in spreadsheet format, so I won't be using his numbers much in my analysis. I'll mostly use him to provide credibility to the other projections), and had an awesome time fiddling around with them. I summed and averaged a bunch of the columns so that I could get league averages to which I could compare the Mets' numbers. I went to http://www.mlb.com/ and copied down the 40-man active New York Mets roster and found their relevant projected stats. Then, for each of the projections, I compared their stats to the league averages. In order to determine how good (or bad) each player was compared to the league averages, I only used rate stats. For pitchers I used ERA, WHIP, K/BB, K/9, BB/9, and HR/9 (CHONE projections also included Runs over Replacement, so I used that too), and for batters I used SB%, BA, OBP, SLG, and OPS (ZiPS included Runs Created projections, so I used that too).
If you've gotten this far, it means that you care a lot about baseball, or about my feelings on the Mets. Or you just like me a lot. Anyway, if you've gotten this far because you care a lot about baseball, I'm going to explain how to calculate all of those stats. This is important because I had to calculate the league averages on my own. What I mean is that I didn't need to calculate David Wright's Slugging Percentage because it was given to me in the projection, but I needed to sum the necessary components of the mathematical formula so that I could calculate the league average Slugging Percentage. Anyway, I will use Marcel's Johan Santana as my example for pitchers and David Wright as my example for batters:
ERA: (Earned Runs divided by Innings Pitched) times nine. Santana: (71 / 193) * 9 = 3.31
WHIP: (Walks + Runs) divided by Innings Pitched. Santana: (48 + 164) / 193 = 1.098
K/BB: Strikeouts divided by Walks. Santana: (198 / 48) = 4.125
K/9: (Strikeouts divided by Innings Pitched) times nine. Santana: (198 / 193) * 9 = 9.233
BB/9: (Walks divided by Innings Pitched) times nine. Santana: (48 / 193) * 9 = 2.238
HR/9: (Home Runs divided by Innings Pitched) times nine. Santana: (23 / 193) * 9 = 1.073
SB%: Stolen Bases divided by (Stolen Bases + Caught Stealing). Wright: 23 / (23 + 4) = .852
BA: Hits divided by At-Bats. Wright: 170 / 539 = .315
OBP: (Hits + Walks + Hit By Pitch) divided by (At-Bats + Walks + Hit By Pitch + Sacrifice Flies). Wright: (170 + 72 + 5) / (539 + 72 + 5 + 6) = .397
SLG: ((1 times Singles) + (2 times Doubles) + (3 times Triples) + (4 times Home Runs)) divided by At-Bats. Wright: ((1 * 106) + (2 * 38) + (3 * 2) + (4 * 24)) / 539 = .527
OPS: OBP + SLG. Wright: .397 + .527 = .924
Great! Now I'll use those numbers and compare them to the league average and come out with some new stats. I called these new stats "Plus" stats. What I did was I took David Wright's projected BA of .315 and divided it by the league projected BA of .270. Then I multiplied this by 100. (.315 / .270) * 100 = 117. I called this 117 David Wright's BA+. I did the same thing for each of the other stats (keep in mind that the OPS+ and ERA+ numbers I calculated are not the actual OPS+ and ERA+, which are real sabermetric stats that involve more complex calculations. These "Plus" stats are my own). I'll give one more example, because for some of the pitching stats it's better to be below the league average. I took Johan Santana's projected ERA of 3.31 and divided it by the league average ERA of 4.49, and subtracted the result from one. Then I multiplied that by 100 and added 100. ((1 - (3.31 / 4.49)) * 100) + 100 = 126, Santana's ERA+.
Okay, now I'm done explaining. Now I'll provide some notes on each player on the 40-man roster who I belive will get significant playing time, and then I'll give a little analysis on the team as a whole. This might be my longest post ever. Who's excited?: (Players I will not be mentioning: Adam Bostick, Willie Collazo, Ruddy Lugo, Carlos Muniz, Steven Register, Brian Stokes, Jason Vargas, Anderson Hernandez, and Angel Pagan)
Johan Santana:
Marcel: 193 IP, 3.31 ERA, 198 Ks, 1.098 WHIP, 126 ERA+, 122 WHIP+, 206 K/BB+, 139 K/9+, 133 BB/9+, 96 HR/9+.
CHONE: 212 IP, 2.50 ERA, 232 Ks, 0.948 WHIP, 60 RoR, 143 ERA+, 134 WHIP+, 298 K/BB+, 152 K/9+, 149 BB/9+, 113 HR/9+, 653 RoR+.
ZiPS: 234 IP, 3.04 ERA, 244 Ks, 1.017 WHIP, 134 ERA+, 131 WHIP+, 306 K/BB+, 156 K/9+, 145 BB/9+, 114 HR/9+.
Bill James: 216 IP, 3.00 ERA, 228 Ks, 1.069 WHIP.
Clearly Santana is an elite pitcher. Marcel is known for its conservative pitching projections, which were quite accurate last year. But even if Santana puts up those numbers, he would likely still be one of the top three pitchers in the NL. But if he manages to put up numbers like the other projections would suggest, then it will be one of the best pitching seasons we've seen in the NL in a long time. Jesus, his CHONE projections of 2.50 ERA, 0.948 WHIP and RoR+ of 653 would be absolutely absurd. I can't wait to watch him in person. As stated on The Hardball times website, "Oh, and if his price tag is really bothering any of you, think of it this way: in 2007 the Mets paid $23.25 million to Tom Glavine, Paul Lo Duca, and Shawn Green. In 2008, they'll be paying roughly the same amount to Santana, Brian Schneider, and Ryan Church."
Pedro Martinez:
Marcel: 87 IP, 3.93 ERA, 80 Ks, 1.23 WHIP, 112 ERA+, 113 WHIP+, 154 K/BB+, 125 K/9+, 119 BB/9+, 110 HR/9+.
CHONE: 63 IP, 3.14 ERA, 62 Ks, 1.095 WHIP, 11 RoR, 128 ERA+, 123 WHIP+, 197 K/BB+, 137 K/9+, 130 BB/9+, 111 HR/9+, 120 RoR+.
ZiPS: 150 IP, 3.24 ERA, 145 Ks, 1.100 WHIP, 129 ERA+, 126 WHIP+, 233 K/BB+, 145 K/9+, 132 BB/9+, 123 HR/9+.
Bill James: 125 IP, 2.88 ERA, 135 Ks, 1.024 WHIP.
Pedro is an interesting variable this season. He is clearly an effective pitcher when he's healthy, but he has been anything but healthy for most of the past two seasons. The Marcel and CHONE projections are very conservative with only 87 and 63 expected Innings Pitched. I was prepared to disregard the ZiPS projection because it varied so differently from the other two, but Bill James is also optimistic about Pedro remaining healthy enough to log 100+ innings. If the Mets can get 300+ innings between Pedro and Johan this season, this will be a scary rotation.
John Maine:
Marcel: 163 IP, 4.03 ERA, 141 Ks, 1.282 WHIP, 110 ERA+, 109 WHIP+, 112 K/BB+, 117 K/9+, 95 BB/9+, 88 HR/9+.
CHONE: 155 IP, 3.89 ERA, 124 Ks, 1.348 WHIP, 19 RoR, 111 ERA+, 106 WHIP+, 105 K/BB+, 111 K/9+, 93 BB/9+, 107 HR/9+, 207 RoR+.
ZiPS: 178 IP, 4.15 ERA, 148 Ks, 1.315 WHIP, 110 ERA+, 111 WHIP+, 130 K/BB+, 124 K/9+, 95 BB/9+, 107 HR/9+.
Bill James: 200 IP, 4.05 ERA, 169 Ks, 1.355 WHIP
All of these projections seem to think that the John Maine of the second half of last year is the real John Maine. His first half was outstanding, but he came back to Earth in the second half, allowing many more homers and walking more batters. Each projection has him walking more batters than average. He will still be an above-average pitcher, but we shouldn't expect anything spectacular out of him.
Oliver Perez:
Marcel: 160 IP, 4.50 ERA, 147 Ks, 1.438 WHIP, 100 ERA+, 98 WHIP+, 97 K/BB+, 124 K/9+, 71 BB/9+, 80 HR/9+.
CHONE: 148 IP, 4.14 ERA, 152 Ks, 1.196 WHIP, 14 RoR, 105 ERA+, 116 WHIP+, 174 K/BB+, 143 K/9+, 118 BB/9+, 81 HR/9+, 152 RoR+.
ZiPS: 176 IP, 4.04 ERA, 170 Ks, 1.324 WHIP, 112 ERA+, 110 WHIP+, 136 K/BB+, 144 K/9+, 85 BB/9+, 98 HR/9+.
Bill James: 190 IP, 4.69 ERA, 196 Ks, 1.453 WHIP
Wow, I am surprised. Here I thought that in his third season with the Mets under pitching coach Rick Peterson that Perez was primed for a breakout season. None of the projections agree with me, however. They all think he'll walk too many guys, give up too many home runs, and allow too many baserunners. I'm going to go against the grain a bit, and say that he will have an ERA below 4.00 and be better than any of these projections claim. That's Schmutter's Bold Preseason Prediction #1.
Mike Pelfrey:
Marcel: 95 IP, 4.83 ERA, 66 Ks, 1.505 WHIP, 92 ERA+, 93 WHIP+, 79 K/BB+, 94 K/9+, 80 BB/9+, 117 HR/9+.
CHONE: 119 IP, 4.01 ERA, 102 Ks, 1.403 WHIP, 9 RoR, 108 ERA+, 102 WHIP+, 106 K/BB+, 119 K/9+, 87 BB/9+, 119 HR/9+, 98 RoR+.
ZiPS: 150 IP, 4.86 ERA, 90 Ks, 1.487 WHIP, 94 ERA+, 99 WHP+, 87 K/BB+, 90 K/9+, 87 BB/9+, 123 HR/9+.
Bill James: 139 IP, 3.95 ERA, 118 Ks, 1.281 WHIP
There's quite a bit of disparity here among the projections; Marcel and ZiPS think Pelfrey will be below average and CHONE and James think he'll be above average. It's likely that Pelfrey will fall somewhere in between, which is just fine with me for a #5 starter. It's rare for teams to have a league-average fifth starter, az I'll take it. Pelfrey is still a relatively unknown quantity because of his limited major league experience. I'm interested in seeing how he does, especially with the knowledge that El Duque is there to steal innings from him. Speaking of which...
Orlando Hernandez:
Marcel: 148 IP, 4.50 ERA, 123 Ks, 1.358 WHIP, 100 ERA+, 103 WHIP+, 99 K/BB+, 113 K/9+, 87 BB/9+, 76 HR/9+.
CHONE: 141 IP, 3.77 ERA, 124 Ks, 1.298 WHIP, 19 RoR, 114 ERA+, 109 WHIP+, 124 K/BB+, 122 K/9+, 101 BB/9+, 109 HR/9+, 207 RoR+.
ZiPS: 142 IP, 4.25 ERA, 119 Ks, 1.331 WHIP, 107 ERA+, 110 WHIP+, 121 K/BB+, 125 K/9+, 87 BB/9+, 94 HR/9+.
Bill James: 139 IP, 3.95 ERA, 118 Ks, 1.281 WHIP.
You see, since nobody really knows how old this guy is it's hard to predict when he's going to start showing his age. Some of these guys think he's already starting to regress, and the projections reflect that. Either way, it looks like El Duque will be right around league-average or slightly above. The Mets will probably use him out of the bullpen a lot, either as a situational guy for an out or two at a time, or as a long-reliever.
Pedro Feliciano:
Marcel: 63 IP, 3.57 ERA, 53 Ks, 1.317 WHIP, 120 ERA+, 106 WHIP+, 106 K/BB+, 114 K/9+, 93 BB/9+, 131 HR/9+.
CHONE: 41 IP, 3.51 ERA, 35 Ks, 1.268 WHIP, 5 RoR, 120 ERA+, 111 WHIP+, 135 K/BB+, 119 K/9+, 112 BB/9+, 122 HR/9+, 54 RoR+.
ZiPS: 65 IP, 3.19 ERA, 58 Ks, 1.246 WHIP, 131 ERA+, 116 WHIP+, 134 K/BB+, 133 K/9+, 91 BB/9+, 145 HR/9+.
Bill James: 68 IP, 3.57 ERA, 61 Ks, 1.309 WHIP.
Feliciano will be one of the prime setup men for Billy Wagner. Willie Randolph will often bring him in to face a couple of tough lefties earlier on in the game, and also to pitch the seventh inning to get the ball to Aaron Heilman for the eighth. He is projected to have an ERA in the mid-threes and not allow terribly many base runners. He'll also strike out his share of batters. He should be a solid presence in the middle of that bullpen.
Aaron Heilman:
Marcel: 77 IP, 3.62 ERA, 61 Ks, 1.221 WHIP, 119 ERA+, 113 WHIP+, 127 K/BB+, 107 K/9+, 116 BB/9+, 121 HR/9+.
CHONE: 112 IP, 3.46 ERA, 95 Ks, 1.277 WHIP, 15 RoR, 121 ERA+, 111 WHIP+, 125 K/BB+, 118 K/9+, 106 BB/9+, 129 HR/9+, 163 RoR+.
ZiPS: 87 IP, 3.21 ERA, 73 Ks, 1.184 WHIP, 130 ERA+, 120 WHIP+, 156 K/BB+, 125 K/9+, 112 BB/9+, 142 HR/9+.
Bill James: 87 IP, 3.41 ERA, 72 Ks, 1.230 WHIP.
Again, I find this surprising. Heilman has had many problems in the past, so I find it amazing that they all project him to be so effective. They think he won't walk many and give up very few home runs. I hope they're right. With Heilman, Feliciano, Sanchez, and Wagner coming out of the bullpen, a lot of these games might be over after five or six innings. That would be a huge improvement over last season.
Duaner Sanchez:
Marcel: 31 IP, 3.77 ERA, 24 Ks, 1.323 WHIP, 116 ERA+, 106 WHIP+, 100 K/BB+, 105 K/9+, 95 BB/9+, 116 HR/9+.
CHONE: 69 IP, 3.65 ERA, 54 Ks, 1.319 WHIP, 8 RoR, 116 ERA+, 108 WHIP+, 108 K/BB+, 109 K/9+, 99 BB/9+, 130 HR/9+, 87 RoR+.
ZiPS: 69 IP, 3.52 ERA, 53 Ks, 1.304 WHIP, 123 ERA+, 112 WHIP+, 113 K/BB+, 115 K/9+, 90 BB/9+, 137 HR/9+.
Bill James: 61 IP, 3.98 ERA, 45 Ks, 1.361 WHIP.
Man did we miss him last season. If it weren't for that freak traffic accident we'd have had a pretty decent bullpen. The projections say that he'll be solid coming out of the bullpen. If he can keep his walks down and return to form, then this bullpen will be scary.
Jorge Sosa:
Marcel: 105 IP, 4.46 ERA, 69 Ks, 1.419 WHIP, 101 ERA+, 99 WHIP+, 86 K/BB+, 89 K/9+, 97 BB/9+, 84 HR/9+.
CHONE: 119 IP, 4.24 ERA, 81 Ks, 1.378 WHIP, 4 RoR, 103 ERA+, 104 WHIP+, 95 K/BB+, 95 K/9+, 100 BB/9+, 79 HR/9+, 44 RoR+.
ZiPS: 4.47 ERA, 77 Ks, 1.427 WHIP, 103 ERA+, 103 WHIP+, 89 K/BB+, 88 K/9+, 92 BB/9+, 101 HR/9+.
Bill James: 112 IP, 4.38 ERA, 75 Ks, 1.426 WHIP.
Sosa seems to be your typical long-relief / spot-starter guy. He might stack up as a decent #5 starter on another team. He was pretty effective last year in his handful of starts, and held his own out of the bullpen the rest of the season. I'd say he's a good guy to have around, but I don' think he'll quite reach his Innings Pitched projections unless the Mets are inundated with injuries.
Scott Schoeneweis:
Marcel: 60 IP, 4.65 ERA, 41 Ks, 1.450 WHIP, 96 ERA+, 97 WHIP+, 79 K/BB+, 93 K/9+, 83 BB/9+, 113 HR/9+.
CHONE: 65 IP, 4.57 ERA, 43 Kso 1.523 WHIP, 5 RoR, 95 ERA+, 94 WHIP+, 89 K/BB+, 92 K/9+, 97 BB/9+, 114 HR/9+, 54 RoR+.
ZiPS: 56 IP, 4.34 ERA, 39 Ks, 1.464 WHIP, 105 ERA+, 101 WHIP+, 80 K/BB+, 104 K/9+, 59 BB/9+, 136 HR/9+.
Bill James: 60 IP, 4.50 ERA, 36 Ks, 1.467 WHIP.
I think Scotty should be relegated to the role of a LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY). By all projections he doesn't strike anybody out, walks his fair share, and doesn't give up many home runs. I say bring him in once a game to get out that one left-handed hitter. Any more action than that will come to no good.
Billy Wagner:
Marcel: 66 IP, 3.27 ERA, 67 Ks, 1.227 WHIP, 127 ERA+, 113 WHIP+, 152 K/BB+, 137 K/9+, 110 BB/9+, 108 HR/9+.
CHONE: 69 IP, 2.74 ERA, 80 Ks, 1.058 WHIP, 15 RoR, 137 ERA+, 126 WHIP+, 227 K/BB+, 161 K/9+, 129 BB/9+, 130 HR/9+, 163 RoR+.
ZiPS: 73 IP, 2.71 ERA, 84 Ks, 1.082 WHIP, 141 ERA+, 127 WHIP+, 221 K/BB+, 172 K/9+, 115 BB/9+, 121 HR/9+.
Bill James: 69 IP, 2.74 ERA, 82 Ks, 1.014 WHIP.
Wagner remains one of the best closers in the game. As my brother reminded me last weekend, Wagner has the highest K/9 ratio of any pitcher with 500 IP ever. Even as he gets older, Wagner continues to mow down opposing hitters in the ninth inning. Expect another productive season for Billy this year.
Ambiorix Burgos:
Marcel: 44 IP, 4.50 ERA, 40 Ks, 1.409 WHIP, 100 ERA+, 100 WHIP+, 105 K/BB+, 123 K/9+, 83 BB/9+, 81 HR/9+.
CHONE: 85 IP, 3.92 ERA, 90 Ks, 1.424 WHIP, 7 RoR, 110 ERA+, 101 WHIP+, 106 K/BB+, 147 K/9+, 60 BB/9+, 106 HR/9+, 76 RoR+.
ZiPS: 67 IP, 4.97 ERA, 67 Ks, 1.388 WHIP, 92 ERA+, 106 WHIP+, 138 K/BB+, 150 K/9+, 82 BB/9+, 50 HR/9+.
Bill James: 45 IP, 4.60 ERA, 46 Ks, 1.422 WHIP.
I really couldn't tell you how much of an impact Burgos will have this year. The Met bullpen is pretty well stocked, so unless there are a couple of injuries I don't see Burgos getting much of a shot. And it's really a shame, because he has a blazing fastball that goes about a million miles per hour, and we never really got a chance to see it. Maybe he'll be lights out in spring training.
Joe Smith:
Marcel: 47 IP, 4.02 ERA, 41 Ks, 1.426 WHIP, 110 ERA+, 99 WHIP+, 108 K/BB+, 118 K/9+, 91 BB/9+, 107 HR/9+.
ZiPS: 49 P, 3.66 ERA, 49 Ks, 1.322 WHIP, 120 ERA+, 110 WHIP+, 129 K/BB+, 124 K/9+, 95 BB/9+, 151 HR/9+.
I find it intriguing that a pitcher like Smith, who got to pitch a bunch of innings last year is absent from two of the projections, especially considering his favorable expectations from the remaining two. Both Marcel and ZiPS expect him to be above average. He's still young though; a few months or another season in the minors couldn't hurt.
Matt Wise:
Marcel: 56 IP, 4.18 ERA, 43 Ks, 1.393 WHIP, 107 ERA+, 101 WHIP+, 108 K/BB+, 104 K/9+, 103 BB/9+, 107 HR/9+.
CHONE: 56 IP, 4.02 ERA, 41 Ks, 1.339 WHIP, 6 RoR, 108 ERA+, 106 WHIP+, 116 K/BB+, 102 K/9+, 112 BB/9+, 100 HR/9+, 65 RoR+.
ZiPS: 54 IP, 4.00 ERA, 42 Ks, 1.315 WHIP, 113 ERA+, 111 WHIP+, 135 K/BB+, 116 K/9+, 106 BB/9+, 120 HR/9+.
Bill James: 40 IP, 3.83 ERA, 31 Ks, 1.275 WHIP.
Wise looks like he'll shape up to be a nice addition to the pen this season. Interesting how he's projected at average or above average in every single area. I'll admit that I never heard of him before I looked at the Mets active roster, but I look forward to hearing a lot of him this year.
Brian Schneider:
Marcel: .253 BA, 8 HR, 56 RBI, 2 SB, .326 OBP, .365 SLG, .692 OPS, 94 BA+, 97 OBP+, 86 SLG+, 91 OPS+.
CHONE: .251 BA, 8 HR, 42 RBI, 1 SB, .316 OBP, .365 SLG, .678 OPS, 96 BA+, 99 OBP+, 92 SLG+, 96 OPS+.
ZiPS: .238 BA, 5 HR, 43 RBI, 1 SB, .316 OBP, .318 SLG, .634 OPS, 3.5 RC/27, 94 BA+, 99 OBP+, 81 SLG+, 89 OPS+, 83 RC/27+.
Bill James: .249 BA, 7 HR, 51 RBI, 0 SB, .328 OBP, .362 SLG, .690 OPS, 4.06 RC/27.
Well, he probably won't hit much worse than Paul LoDuca, and he'll probably play a helluvalot better defense. I still think that Ramon Castro should get a lot of at-bats because he's clearly a better hitter. Schneider has been quite durable and he's not old, so I don't think Willie Randolph will hesitate to use Castro as a pinch hitter quite often. I mean usually managers like to keep one catcher in reserve because it's the hardest position on the field to replace. But in this case, I think Randolph can be more flexible.
Ramon Castro:
Marcel: .262 BA, 11 HR, 42 RBI, 2 SB, .330 OBP, .454 SLG, .784 OPS, 97 BA+, 98 OBP+, 107 SLG+, 103 OPS+.
CHONE: .242 BA, 5 HR, 18 RBI, 0 SB, .320 OBP, .396 SLG, .716 OPS, 92 BA+, 101 OBP+, 101 SLG+, 101 OPS+.
ZiPS: .250 BA, 6 HR, 21 RBI, 0 SB, .318 OBP, .434 SLG, .752 OPS, 4.6 RC/27, 98 BA+, 100 OBP+, 111 SLG+, 106 OPS+, 109 RC/27+.
Bill James: .252 BA, 16 HR, 50 RBI, 0 SB, .322 OBP, .469 SLG, .791 OPS, 5.15 RC/27.
Uch, he's such a better hitter than Schneider. I mean look at those Slugging Percentages! He's an extra-base-hit machine! Erm, that is when he makes contact... But I guess that's why he's not an every day player. I think if Schneider sucks it up or gets hurt, and Castro gets an opportunity to play every day, he'll really show us what he can do. Those over-100 OPS+s are very good for a catcher.
Carlos Delgado:
Marcel: .265 BA, 25 HR, 90 RBI, 3 SB, .349 OBP, .485 SLG, .833 OPS, 98 BA+, 103 OBP+, 114 SLG+, 109 OPS.
CHONE: .256 BA, 31 HR, 86 RBI, 0 SB, .350 OBP, .489 SLG, .839 OPS, 98 BA+, 110 OBP+, 125 SLG+, 118 OPS+.
ZiPS: .257 BA, 26 HR, 93 RBI, 1 SB, .349 OBP, .476 SLG, .825 OPS, 5.9 RC/27, 101 BA+, 110 OBP+, 122 SLG+, 116 OPS+, 140 RC/27+.
Bill James: .269 BA, 30 HR, 101 RBI, 2 SB, .373 OBP, .508 SLG, .881 OPS, 6.48 RC/27.
Heee's baaaaack! After a horrible 2007, all of these projections feel that Delgado will bounce back, especially Bill James. If he can truly return to form, then the middle of the Mets batting order, Church, Wright, Beltran, Delgado, and Alou should terrorize NL East pitching. A lot of the blame for the Mets' struggles last year can be placed on Delgado. He'll be eager to show that he still has the skills that made him one of the most fearsome sluggers in all of baseball for the last decade and a half.
Luis Castillo:
Marcel: .290 BA, 4 HR, 42 RBI, 17 SB, .357 OBP, .371 SLG, .728 OPS, 107 BA+, 106 OBP+, 87 SLG+, 95 OPS+, 96 SB+.
CHONE: .293 BA, 4 HR, 49 RBI, 13 SB, .364 OBP, .369 SLG, .733 OPS, 112 BA+, 114 OBP+, 94 SLG+, 103 OPS+, 94 SB+.
ZiPS: .294 BA, 3 HR, 44 RBI, 18 SB, .361 OBP, .359 SLG, .720 OPS, 4.7 RC/27, 116 BA+, 114 OBP+, 92 SLG+, 101 OPS+, 110 SB+, 112 RC/27+.
Bill James: .299 BA, 3 HR, 40 RBI, 20 SB, .370 OBP, .360 SLG, .730 OPS, 4.85 RC/27.
Castillo is an interesting hitter. He has absolutely no power, and will hit very few extra-base hits. Nontheless, he manages to walk a lot and makes contact, so he still gets on base a ton. The Mets have zero Second Base prospects, so they need stopgap until they can get somebody young, az Castillo looks like he'll be a fixture in this lineup for the next four seasons. I DON'T think he should bat second like he did last year; I think Ryan Church should hit second and Castillo should hit eighth.
Jose Reyes:
Marcel: .292 BA, 12 HR, 62 RBI, 59 SB, .351 OBP, .442 SLG, .793 OPS, 108 BA+, 104 OBP+, 104 SLG+, 104 OPS+, 109 SB+.
CHONE: .294 BA, 13 HR, 69 RBI, 50 SB, .342 OBP, .440 SLG, .782 OPS, 112 BA+, 108 OBP+, 112 SLG+, 110 OPS+, 117 SB+.
ZiPS: .285 BA, 15 HR, 70 RBI, 71 SB, .356 OBP, .444 SLG, .800 OPS, 5.7 RC/28, 112 BA, 112 OBP+, 113 SLG+, 113 OPS+, 119 SB+, 135 RC/27+.
Bill James: .289 BA, 14 HR, 67 RBI, 69 SB, .348 OBP, .442 SLG, .790 OPS, 5.57 RC/27.
I'm upset that all the projections took Reyes's second half dropoff last year so seriously. Before that he was being touted as maybe the best all around player in the game. Now nobody projects him to have an OPS higher than .800. Don't get me wrong, he's still an outstanding player, but he's no longer expected to be that elite player. I think he'll outperform all of these projections. Schmutter's Bold Preseason Prediction #2: Reyes's OPS is higher than .825 and he outperforms Jimmy Rollins.
David Wright:
Marcel: .315 BA, 24 HR, 98 RBI, 23 SB, .397 OBP, .527 SLG, .924 OPS, 117 BA+, 118 OBP+, 124 SLG+, 121 OPS+, 115 SB+.
CHONE: .301 BA, 26 HR, 96 RBI, 19 SB, .387 OBP, .518 SLG, .905 OPS, 115 BA+, 122 OBP+, 132 SLG+, 127 OPS+, 115 SB+.
ZiPS: .313 BA, 29 HR, 113 RBI, 23 SB, .405 OBP, .540 SLG, .945 OPS, 8.4 RC/27, 123 BA+, 127 OBP+, 138 SLG+, 133 OPS+, 125 SB+, 200 RC/27+.
Bill James: .318 BA, 31 HR, 111 RBI, 27 SB, .407 OBP, .554 SLG, .961 OPS, 8.52 RC/27.
What a stud! There are a lot of sabermetricians out there who think he's the best player in the NL, and I don't know if I can argue against it. Now that Miguel Cabrera is gone, the only other players in the NL that have a chance to be as good as Wright for the foreseeable future are Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Hanley Ramirez, and Ryan Braun. Utley's and Howard's numbers get inflated by their ballpark, and Ramirez and Braun are brutal defensive players, so it's really down to Wright and Utley. Those two will be challenging each other for the MVP all season. And if Delgado and Beltran can provide him some support and protection in the lineup, it will only help Wright more.
Moises Alou:
Marcel: .300 BA, 16 HR, 59 RBI, 4 SB, .359 OBP, .493 SLG, .852 OPS, 111 BA+, 106 OBP+, 116 SLG+, 112 OPS+.
CHONE: .282 BA, 17 HR, 59 RBI, 3 SB, .349 OBP, .459 SLG, .808 OPS, 108 BA+, 110 OBP+, 117 SLG+, 114 OPS+.
ZiPS: .302 BA, 13 HR, 48 RBI, 2 SB, .365 OBP, .489 SLG, .854 OPS, 6.6 RC/27, 119 BA+, 115 OBP+, 125 SLG+, 120 OPS+, 157 RC/27+.
Bill James: .292 BA, 19 HR, 60 RBI, 3 SB, .360 OBP, .477 SLG, .837 OPS, 6.28 RC/27.
I don't care if he is 93 years old, dude can still rake. I mean nobody expects him to play more than 100 games or so, but he'll still manage to be productive when he's healthy. Guy's a professional hitter, period (comma period period). I'm not too crazy about the prospect of Endy Chavez taking over when Mo gets injured, but that's the risk you take. I hear we've got this guy named Martinez down in the minors...
Endy Chavez:
Marcel: .283 BA, 4 HR, 35 RBI, 8 SB, .333 OBP, .407 SLG, .740 OPS, 105 BA+, 99 OBP+, 96 SLG+, 97 OPS+.
CHONE: .277 BA, 4 HR, 38 RBI, 15 SB, .326 OBP, .379 SLG, .705 OPS, 106 BA+, 103 OBP+, 97 SLG+, 99 OPS+, 109 SB+.
ZiPS: .275 BA, 2 HR, 27 RBI, 7 SB, .319 OBP, .379 SLG, .698 OPS, 4.1 RC/27, 108 BA+, 100 OBP+, 97 SLG+, 98 OPS+, 97 RC/27+.
Bill James: .273 BA, 2 HR, 19 RBI, 7 SB, .318 OBP, .368 SLG, .696 OPS, 4.19 RC/27.
Endy's a nice little stopgap for when Moises Alou inevitably goes on the disabled list. He filled in nicely a couple of years ago, and he will always have a special place in Mets fans' hearts for stealing a home run from Scott Rolen in game seven of the 2006 NLCS. And everyone likes to pull for the little guy. He has absolutely no power, but he always plays hard and will surprise us with the occasional home run. He's an outstanding defensive outfielder and will come in late in many games as a defensive replacement to spare Alou's rickety knees any excess punishment. All in all he's not a bad guy to have around.
Carlos Beltran:
Marcel: .271 BA, 26 HR, 92 RBI, 18 SB, .355 OBP, .498 SLG, .853 OPS, 100 BA+, 105 OBP+, 117 SLG+, 112 OPS+, 116 SB+.
CHONE: .271 BA, 28 HR, 87 RBI, 23 SB, .373 OBP, .496 SLG, .869 OPS, 103 BA+, 117 OBP+, 127 SLG+, 122 OPS+, 124 SB+.
ZiPS: .261 BA, 26 HR, 93 RBI, 15 SB, .347 OBP, .476 SLG, .823 OPS, 5.9 RC/27, 103 BA+, 109 OBP+, 121 SLG+, 116 OPS+, 134 SB+, 140 RC/27+.
Bill James: .275 BA, 32 HR, 106 RBI, 23 SB, .364 OBP, .515 SLG, .879 OPS, 6.73 RC/27.
I feel like Beltran is the forgotten man in this Mets lineup (as much as a man making $119 million can be forgotten); he's just so quiet and unobtrusive. Everyone marvels at Wright's youth, and Reyes's excitement, and Delgado's smelliness from last year, but Beltran really proves his worth day after day. He plays an excellent center field, steals bases, and hits for power. I think the Marcel and ZiPS projections are a bit low, and James might be a bit high, but if Carlos can put up an OPS of .850 and hit 30 home runs, we'll be very happy.
Damion Easley:
Marcel: .250 BA, 11 HR, 38 RBI, 3 SB, .325 OBP, .414 SLG, .740 OPS, 93 BA+, 96 OBP+, 97 SLG+, 97 OPS+.
CHONE: .249 BA, 6 HR, 25 RBI, 2 SB, .329 OBP, .402 SLG, .731 OPS, 95 BA+, 103 OBP+, 103 SLG+, 103 OPS+, 97 SB+.
ZiPS: .242 BA, 6 HR, 22 RBI, 1 SB, .321 OBP, .392 SLG, .713 OPS, 4.3 RC/27, 95 BA+, 101 OBP+, 100 SLG+, 100 OPS+, 102 RC/27+.
Bill James: .235 BA, 6 HR, 20 RBI, 1 SB, .326 OBP, .395 SLG, .721 OPS, 3.95 RC/27.
Ruben Gotay:
Marcel: .272 BA, 7 HR, 34 RBI, 4 SB, .337 OBP, .415 SLG, .752 OPS, 101 BA+, 100 OBP+, 98 SLG+, 98 OPS+.
CHONE: .251 BA, 8 HR, 48 RBI, 6 SB, .315 OBP, .373 SLG, .688 OPS, 96 BA+, 99 OBP+, 95 SLG+, 97 OPS+.
ZiPS: .245 BA, 7 HR, 41 RBI, 4 SB, .304 OBP, .361 SLG, .665 OPS, 3.6 RC/27, 96 BA+, 96 OBP+, 92 SLG+, 94 OPS+, 86 RC/27+.
Bill James: .258 BA, 3 HR, 16 RBI, 2 SB, .321 OBP, .406 SLG, .727 OPS, 4.33 RC/27.
Marlon Anderson:
Marcel: .278 BA, 8 HR, 36 RBI, 6 SB, .335 OBP, .443 SLG, .778 OPS, 103BA+, 99 OBP+, 104 SLG+, 102 OPS+.
CHONE: .267 BA, 9 HR, 34 RBI, 5 SB, .322 OBP, .419 SLG, .741 OPS, 102 BA+, 101 OBP+, 107 SLG+, 104 OPS+.
ZiPS: .257 BA, 6 HR, 29 RBI, 4 SB, .319 OBP, .410 SLG, .729 OPS, 4.4 RC/27, 101 BA+, 100 OBP+, 104 SLG+, 103 OPS+, 105 RC/27+.
Bill James: .262 BA, 3 HR, 15 RBI, 3 SB, .323 OBP, .402 SLG, .725 OPS, 4.57 RC/27.
Easley, Gotay, and Anderson are going to be the Mets top utility guys. They can play the infield and the outfield, and they can be used to benefit from the platoon advantage. They'll be good for a little pop off the bench, and will fill in nicely when Castillo, Delgado, Beltran, and Church need breaks or get injured. This is really shaping up to be be a solid bench. I should do some research on play from non-starters from recent successful teams.
Ryan Church:
Marcel: .274 BA, 15 HR, 65 RBI, 6 SB, .350 OBP, .465 SLG, .815 OPS, 102 BA+, 104 OBP+, 109 SLG+, 107 OPS+.
CHONE: .244 BA, 13 HR, 45 RBI, 5 SB, .324 OBP, .414 SLG, .738 OPS, 93 BA+, 102 OBP+, 106 SLG+, 104 OPS.
ZiPS: .272 BA, 17 HR, 63 RBI, 3 SB, .351 OBP, .469 SLG, .820 OPS, 5.7 RC/27, 107 BA+, 110 OBP+, 120 SLG+, 116 OPS+, 135 RC/27+.
Bill James: .273 BA, 15 HR, 66 RBI, 4 SB, .353 OBP, .463 SLG, .816 OPS, 5.71 RC/27.
For my in-depth Ryan Church analysis, see my post from November 20th, 2007, entitled "Church v. Hunter."
Mets Pitching Totals:
Marcel: 4.20 ERA, 1.345 WHIP, 106 ERA+, 104 WHIP+, 109 K/BB+, 113 K/9+, 103 BB/9+, 103 HR/9+.
CHONE: 3.84 ERA, 1.303 WHIP, 112 ERA+, 109 WHIP+, 124 K/BB+, 118 K/9+, 105 BB/9+, 106 HR/9+, 136 RoR+.
ZiPS: 4.25 ERA, 1.342 WHIP, 108 ERA+, 109 WHIP+, 125 K/BB+, 117 K/9+, 98 BB/9+, 110 HR/9+.
Bill James: 3.83 ERA, 1.281 WHIP.
By all accounts, this staff will match up with the best in the league. It's clearly the best staff in the NL East, and it will be interesting to see how it matches up with the staffs in the NL West, namely the staffs of the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres. Either way, what was considered a weakness in the team last season is now a strength, especially if the pitchers can stay healthy.
Mets Hitting Totals:
Marcel: .278 BA, .348 OBP, .446 SLG, .793 OPS, 103 BA+, 103 OBP+, 105 SLG+, 104 OPS+.
CHONE: .269 BA, .338 OBP, .419 SLG, .757 OPS, 103 BA+, 106 OBP+, 107 SLG+, 107 OPS+.
ZiPS: .251 BA, .341 OBP, .392 SLG, .733 OPS, 99 BA+, 107 OBP+, 100 SLG+, 103 OPS+, 119 RC/27+.
Bill James: .279 BA, .325 OBP, .453 SLG, .778 OPS, 5.31 RC/27.
I'm going to ignore the ZiPS projection because it has the most players on it. It gives projections for many players that probably will not see any major league plate appearances this year. The other projections show that the Mets' lineup will be above average all around. Again, they need to get good production out of Carlos Delgado and they need to stay healthy, but I guess I can say that about any team. Look for the Mets to go through some cold stretches, but the pitching should hold up its end of the bargain and minimize these cold stretches.
Final Bold Preseason Prediction: The Mets won 88 games last year, and that included a horrible month of September. I predict that the Mets will win 96 games and lose 66 games and win the NL East. Beyond that, who can say? The playoffs are a crapshoot anyway, right?

Blocking the Box

Just a heads up: the big Mets post is on the way. I'm still doing research and some analysis, so hopefully it'll be thorough and robust.

Anyway, an incident on the road last night reminds me of another driving story. First let's recap yesterday's events:

I was intending to go home after work, but I hate taking public transportation between the East Side and the Heights, az I usually just go back to my apartment, change, and then drive to the East Side. I had a lot of dirty clothes (comes with the territory when you have to wear a suit to work every day), so I needed to make a quick cleaners run. Az I tossed my clothes into the car and drove up to Monarch on Ft. Washington and 187th Street. I dropped off all the jazz and then decided to drive south on Ft. Wash to 178th Street where I would make a left and head down to Amsterdam. I heard on the radio that there was police activity on the George Washington Bridge, so I figured there might be a little congestion getting past the entrance on 179th Street. Hah! "A little congestion!" Famous last words right? Well, there wouldn't have been nearly as much congestion if people weren't so stupid. The people in the cars driving westwards on 179th Street towards the bridge all assumed that since the traffic on the bridge was moving so slowly, they had the right of way over the cars driving north and south. So they mercilessly and selfishly blocked the box preventing cars from getting by. It would have been fine if it were just one jerk; it happens. But EVERY SINGLE CAR did the same thing. I literally waited at the same green light three times because zero cars could get by. And by the time the cars moved they had a green light again and the cars behind got caught in the box again. It's a vicious cycle; "oh, that guy is blocking the street because he wanted to get through the light before it changed, so I can do it too." It's like the traffic equivalent of ma'aras ayin. It was a freakin' disaster. On the bright side, since there were so few cars getting across the bridge in either direction there was almost no traffic on the Harlem River Drive southbound, az I actually ended up getting home earlier than I normally would. Funny how things work out sometimes.

Anyway, that reminded me of another fun-filled driving event in the Heights. Remember when they started using those extendo-accordion-type city buses? Well, a couple of years ago I was returning to the city from a wedding? An engagement party? No nafka mina there. Anyway, one of my passengers requested to be let off at the subway station on 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. No problem. Az I get off the bridge and head east to St. Nick, and then make a left to go north. Because of traffic on 181st Street, it took literally 20 minutes to drive two blocks. I mean my passenger got out after like five, but I was still caught. And here was the problem: 181st is SUPPOSED to be a big street. There are SUPPOSED to be two lanes, but everyone decides that they can double park, az there's really only one lane open. This makes it very difficult for buses (which travel on 181st because, again, it's SUPPOSED to be a big street) to get by, and since they're stopping anyway to drop off/pick up new travelers anyway, things don't move very quickly over there. So there I am, sitting on St. Nick between 180th and 181st and when the light turns green none of the cars going north can get by because the buttocks of one of the extendo-accordion-type buses is blocking us. Okay, I can understand. It took two lights, but the bus finally moved. But just as our light was about to turn green, ANOTHER extendo-accordion-type bus did EXACTLY the same thing as the one in front of it. And nothing is more infuriating than two people doing the same dumb thing twice in a row. I mean don't get me wrong; I do stupid things all the time, but I never make the same mistake twice, and certainly not in rapid succession. Just because you are a bus, and you provide a valuable service to the citizens of the city, it does not mean that you are allowed to cause gridlock.

Okay, that's my driving rant of the day. Stay tuned for the big baseball post. I know you're all excited.

So... Confused...

I mentioned in my earlier post that I read between 20 and 25 baseball blogs a day. Some of my favorite writers are Joe Sheehen of baseballprospectus.com and baseballanalysts.com, Rich Lederer of baseballanalysts.com, everyone on firejoemorgan.com, and Rob Neyer and Keith Law on ESPN. Law also has his own blog called "The Dish," which also includes his various ramblings on things unrelated to sports, mostly cooking. Az I was browsing The Dish this afternoon, and I noticed that one of the labels he uses is "Grammar," so I clicked on it, and four posts showed up. In one of them he makes fun of the New York Times copy-editors for missing something:

From the times: "...And the Giants, boosted by a 7-1 road record and the knowledge that none of the five top seeds are currently on even a two-game winning streak, see reason to view their postseason outlook optimistically."
Law: “None” takes a singular verb - none of the top five seeds IS currently on a two-game winning streak. So that’s bad, but not uncommon. What’s awful is that some copyeditor at the Times liked that sentence and used it for a pull quote, repeating the grammatical error...

Schmutter: Now, I'm pretty sure that using "none" with a singular verb is technically correct because the word "none" is an archaic contraction of "no one," which would definitely take a singular verb. However, I'm positive that these days the word "none" should ALWAYS take a plural verb. How can I respect a writer who corrects grammar incorrectly? I will have to do some research on that, but again, I'm positive I'm right.

Meanwhile in another of his grammar posts, he comes up with this gem:

Newsday: It’s generation-spanning plot combines one of the season’s favorite themes (the guileful acts of children) with one of its trendiest (turmoil in Afghanistan). And it premieres on the heels of nettlesome publicity involving stage-parent outrage and threats of bodily harm targeted at its youngest stars. … Like it’s author, “The Kite Runner’s” morose protagonist is the son of a Kabul diplomat who relocates to California as the Russians begin their incursions into Afghanistan.

Law: I deleted one paragraph in the middle, but in the span of five sentences, Jan Stuart manages to use the correct “its” twice and the incorrect one twice, even though every instance called for the same word (”its” without its apostrophe). This has to be one of the easiest grammatical rules to remember, and I see it screwed up all the freaking time. All Stuart had to do was remember Strong Bad’s helpful song:
If you want it to be possessive, it’s just “I-T-S.” But, if it’s supposed to be a contraction then it’s “I-T-apostrophe-S,” … scalawag.

Yes, Law just quoted Strong Bad. I don't know what to do! First he performs a MAJOR grammatical faux-pas, but then he quotes the King of Grammar Corrections himself! It's like that Halloween costume commentary by Strong Bad where he shows a picture of an attractive girl dressed up as Homestar. Hilarity ensues:

STRONG BAD: Dar, dar dar dar dar DA-A!! So confused... what to think?? Hot Homestar?!? My brain is splitting in half!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Oh, hey Strong Bad!
STRONG BAD: Daa! You get outta here!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: Whoa, you sound tense. Do you want me to give you, like, a back rub or anything?
STRONG BAD: Uh... yes! No! I... don't know! Next picture, next picture!!
HOMESTAR RUNNER: I think this is the last one, sweetie.
STRONG BAD: WAAAAA!! {trails off as though he's running away}
HOMESTAR RUNNER: I should probably stop calling everybody "sweetie".

Okay, enough for today, sweetie.

To Be a Writer

Here I sit, humbly, at my bizarre looking keyboard and U.S. Trust Company owned CPU and CRT monitor, attempting to transmit my thoughts on an amazing week of sports. Those of you who know me would describe me as a generally laid back fellow who likes sports (especially baseball), mathematics, and grammar, and who occasionally has the audacity to put his ideas down in print. I read a lot. Whether it's a few stolen minutes of Torah on the subway, a dozen pages of the latest fantasy book, or one of 20-25 sports blogs that can be found in my internet bookmarks, there are almost always some words somewhere that are being seen by my eyes and interpreted by my brain. When one is exposed to so many authors on a daily basis, one tends to notice the varying styles of said writers. I find that when I write, I usually do so in a similar manner to the one in which I speak. Most of the good sports writers out there write the same way. Granted, these people can't be blamed because a statistical analysis generally does not provide one with much opportunity for linguistic creativity. On Friday, I read a post on baseballanalysts.com that honestly gave me chills. I don't know how he did it, but the writer had me totally engrossed in his short story. Maybe it was the words he used; his verbs, adjectives, and adverbs were all so powerful. I'm going to paste some of his sentences here in the hopes that I might soak in some of his expertise. His name is Russ McQueen, and here is how he writes:

-The new guy took the mound and things changed. An air of expectancy took hold, and the place got quiet. Sounds were reduced only to those necessary. It felt like a premonition of something terrible, or terribly great, like right before a big fish takes your lure and you know in your gut he's about to hit.

The first batter took his stance. Fast ball, strike one called. Not bad, right down at the knees and on the inside corner. With considerable zip. Not the one he wanted to hit, I thought. But then the new guy threw something I had never seen before. It was gorgeous, and it was terrible, and I wasn't sure I had seen it correctly. Fast like a heater, but in front of the plate it made a wicked dive, down and a little bit away from the batter, who buckled at the knees. Strike two called. Hearts beat faster – I know mine did.

"Throw it again," I prayed.

He did, only this time the batter mustered up a feeble excuse for a swing and made his retreat back to the bench, where he joined other mortals to watch the continuing carnage.

Five more up, five more down. One guy grounded out, but everyone else fell to that monstrous, terrifying curve ball.

I've seen the Grand Canyon and the Grand Tetons. I've walked into Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park and Wrigley Field on a Sunday afternoon. I've been to dozens of countries all over the world and seen it all. But I have never seen anything more riveting than that curve ball on that one cool, gray Saturday morning.

I have always remembered that awesome pitch as a big hammer the new guy swung and pounded batters with. It certainly went way beyond any fair deal I ever witnessed. To say "he threw a curve" was to understate the terror of the act. However ordinary the new guy looked to begin with, to me he had become substantially taller, heavier, and more dangerous.

For a moment there was no one sitting between me and Mr. Roebuck. "That's some kind of a curve ball," I managed, trying to make it sound as casual as I could so Mr. Roebuck wouldn't think I was overly impressed.

"Son, that's a pure yellow hammer," replied Roebuck. "And that is Bert Blyleven."
end

That kind of writing makes my heart beat slightly faster even now, after reading it three or four times. Apparently I need to use words like "pray" and "terrible" and "riveting" and "carnage" and "monstrous."

Meanwhile, there are a few other things I've read with which I'd like to bore you for a little while. Here is an excerpt from the firejoemorgan.com post about an article by Bill Plaschke. Plaschke's words are in bold and Ken Tremendous's are not:

-[Unitas] was football's Babe Ruth, and Bart Starr was its Lou Gehrig, and Sammy Baugh was its Ty Cobb, and Joe Montana was its Joe DiMaggio.

Dan Fouts was its George Sisler. Rich Gannon was its Paul Molitor. Rob Johnson was its George Kendrick. Jim Zorn was its Mark Loretta. Al Toon was its Wil Cordero. Marc Edwards was its La Marr Hoyt. Joe DeLamielleure was its Rick Rhoden. And, most obviously of all, Billy Joe DuPree was its Kevin Tapani. That's just a no-brainer.

Tom Brady is football's, well, um, Alex Rodriguez....right. He's the best player in the game.

Except that Alex Rodriguez, as boneheads like you are fond of pointing out, has never won a championship. So defend this statement, please.
end

The reasons I pasted this excerpt are a) because it's freakin' hilarious, and b) when I sent it to my brother, he responded by saying that I'm the Paul Assenmacher of bloggers. I still maintain that I'm the Juan Berenguer of bloggers, but that's neither here nor there.

I imagine there are two small items that my loyal readers (hello, hey, what's cookin'?, how's it shakin'? 'Sup, my man? There, now I've greeted all five of you) are expecting me to address. I will do so in chronological order. Bear in mind that I won't be saying much because most of the stuff I would say has already been said.

On Tuesday/Friday, the New York Metropolitans traded for Johan Santana, the best pitcher in all the known universe. It was a great deal; I'm very excited; he's going to make a huge difference. I woke up on Saturday morning to an argument between two of my roommates. I listened for a while, but I didn't actually join the discussion until I heard one of them say "how much of a difference can he make?" I was going to dive into a Win Shares analysis, but my brain wasn't entirely functioning yet. The point is, if Santana were on the Mets last year they would have made the playoffs. Period. It's as simple as that. Yes, the Mets are paying him an exorbitant amount of coin, but think about it for a second. I'm too lazy to do the actual math right now, but I've read that the average team pays between $4 and $5 million per win. If Johan Santana is worth five more wins over the course of the season than the average pitcher, then paying him $22 to $23 million is not really that ridiculous. If a slightly above average pitcher like Barry Zito can command $18 million a year for seven years, then $23 million for the best pitcher in existence is really a bargain. Okay, enough. If you want to read more analysis on the trade, read Rob Neyer's blog on ESPN, or aarongleeman.com, or beyondtheboxscore.com, or thehardballtimes.com. They're all way way better than me.

The New York Giants won the Super Bowl yesterday. I remember after the Super Bowl last year, I wrote that I can't wait for the Jets to play in one. Sitting with my friends in front of the TV yesterday was a riveting experience. The tension in the room was palpable. I'm not a Giants fan, but I was nervous all game too. I can only fathom how the Giants fans must have been feeling. I really don't know what else to say. I'm glad the Giants won; I'm glad the Patriots lost; I want the Jets to win. That's it and that's all.

I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about Johan Santana and the Mets in the coming weeks. I'll mix in a few non-sports posts too. Peace.

It's All About the Timing

You ever feel like the entire day would go differently if just one thing had gone your way? I'm not saying that this is one of those days; I'm just tossing it out there.

So I drove to the East Side this morning, and here's why. Usually when I want to go home for dinner I just go back to my apartment after work and then drive home. That way I don't need to get up half an hour early. But this time I need to run an errand that just happens to be on my way to the East Side from work. Az everyone knows you need to leave an extra few minutes to account for traffic, az I left around 7:45 from the Heights. Traffic traffic traffic... yada yada yada... and I get off the FDR southbound at 96th Street. Everyone knows that it's a horrible intersection over there because you have traffic going in like 19 directions:

1. Southbound going through to York Avenue.
2. Southbound making a right onto 97th Street.
3. Southbound making a right onto 96th Street.
4. 96th Street making a right entering southbound.
5. 96th Street going straight entering northbound.
6. Northbound going straight onto 96th Street.
7. Northbound making a left towards York Avenue.

Anyway, they have a pretty clever traffic light sequence, but it's still a ridiculous place to be. Az they had a couple of traffic cops there directing cars this morning, and as my light turned green, there was one car making a left towards York Avenue, which prompted the cop to hold us up at the green light for about two seconds. Let's just say I was the very first car that missed the light. If the cop hadn't held us up for those two seconds I would have been gone.

Then, somehow, I managed to get into traffic on East End Avenue of all places! I mean, I guess it makes sense because there's a southbound FDR Drive entrance on 79th Street, but there's NEVER traffic on East End. Not to sound pompous or anything, but when you live on Park Avenue you're paying for the privelege of relative peace and quiet and no buses. When you live on East End Avenue, you're paying for the privelege of relative peace and quiet, no buses, and no traffic (and the hassle of there being no subways around. That's why East End isn't Park Avenue). Whatever.

So I dropped in on the fam for a couple of minutes, then I headed out to go to work. The buses on 79th Street were packed to capacity as usual, az I just walked up to Lexington Avenue over to the 6 train. I took the 6 down two stops to 59th Street, and here's where the real insanity occurs. There's about 20-25 steps that go down to the N, R, W platform on 59th Street, and there were literally 1000 people on those steps going up or down. I have never in my life seen such pedestrian traffic anywhere. I was actually inching my way towards the steps crammed among the throngs of subway riders. From the time I stepped off the 6 train, it must have taken me ten minutes to travel the 50 feet to the steps and then down them. Most of the people were courteous, although I did hear these two gems:

a) There was one "lane" of downward traffic on the steps that was on the left side, and a man going up bumped into a woman going down, az she says "excuse me."
The man replies "You people shouldn't be on this f**king side!"
To which she responds "This is nobody's fault. Let's all try to be more courteous."

b) One woman near me got pressed up against another woman, and the one in back clearly copped a feel, so the one in front says "please be a girl, please be a girl..." She was visibly relieved when she saw that it was a girl.

Anyway, I was only a few minutes late to work, az it all worked out in the end.

Express Check-Out

My brother requested the use of my car this weekend, az I got up early and drove to the East Side and left the car by my parents' apartment. As I usually do when I go to work from home, I took the six train down to 59th street, and then took the N or R, or whatever yellow train stops there to 49th street. When you get out of that station, you are standing at the north end of Times Square. As everyone knows, the billboards there are absolutely huge, and I saw something that was definitely post-worthy.

The problem was that I wasn't going to write up a post just for that, so this morning I planned to do a little bit of research to explain why the Mets should trade for Erik Bedard instead of Johan Santana. I must admit that I let my emotions get the best of me since Bedard starred on my second place fantasy team this year. It turns out that most of the support I expected to find doesn't actually exist. Erik Bedard is actually a few days OLDER than Santana, not a few years younger as I suspected. Santana's K/BB ratio is actually still way way better than Bedard's. The point is, the only thing Bedard has going for him is that he's logged far fewer innings on that left arm of his than Santana has. I just think Bedard is the sexier, less well-known pick in this situation, and he will probably be cheaper in the long run. Even so, I wasn't going to waste a lot of space posting up research that doesn't support my claim, az I decided to just put up some of those thoughts before moving onto the Pastrami of the hot open sandwich that is "Express Check-out."

Anyway, the point of the post is that the billboard I sawr (I've been using that a lot recently. You know like when a 6 year old kid tells you he sawr something?) was an ad for a new show on TBS called "10 Items or Less." I couldn't help but giggle at such a blatant disregard for basic grammar (Ohmygod, it's supposed to be "10 Items or Fewer." Pay attention people). But then I got to thinking, you see those signs by the check out counter at the supermarket all the time, right? English is an always evolving language containing all manner of idiomatic expressions and other exceptions to the rules. Could it be that "10 items or fewer" should be catalogued as an idiom, thereby rendering it grammatically correct? I mean, I definitely say things that are technically not correct, like "what are you up to?" or "this is the sort of nonsense I won't put up with." (Shoutout to Church Dub for that one). I mean people will look at me like I'm a raving lunatic (even moreso than they already do) if I start saying things like "up to what are you?" or "this is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put." And worse, they'll probably think I'm some sort of maniacal Star Wars groupie. Anyway, the point is you shouldn't be embarrassed to speak the way you want to speak, especially around me. I might correct your grammar from time to time, but that's just my little way of saying I like you and I'm comfortable enough around you to bust your chops a little bit.

A Thursday Quickie

It suddenly occurred to me that after being swamped with work for the last three point five days, I'm actually free right now (I recently decided that I'm not going to use decimals anymore, unless I absolutely must. They're bulky and hard to use. I'm only going to be using fractions from now on. And no messing around with mixed numbers, you tricksters! Anyway, as I was saying, it suddenly occurred to me that after being swamped with work for the last seven-halves days, I'm actually free right now). Seriously, I have nothing to do, az in order to kill time for the last hour of the day, I looked through some of my old posts. My ninth post from August 31st, 2006 was a good one. It is entitled "Away Messages," if anyone is interested in reading it. The point is I mention that I made "a little SNAFU earlier with pronoun/antecedent agreement," which I didn't want to go back and fix. My excuse for that was "I just don't feel like going back to fix it. That's just my little way of sticking it to the man. Power to the people." You might be able to tell where I'm going with this. Basically, this episode reminds me of that commercial, which shows Sprint's CEO telling his assistant that he's now getting these ridiculous rates on his Sprint service. He says "that's just my little way of sticking it to the man." The rest of the commercial goes like this:

Assistant: But, you are the man, sir.
CEO: I know.
Assistant: So you're sticking it to yourself?
CEO: Maybe.

Anyway, it occurred to me while I was reading that post that I AM the man, az I was sticking it to myself. Just to set the record straight, I'm going to post the old sentence and then correct it, all for your viewing, reading, and grammatical pleasure. (Just so you know, the antecedent of the pronoun is "him or her")

Old sentence: "It could be that I really don't like talking on the phone and would prefer to speak in person, in which case I'd be asking for their whereabouts just on the off chance that they're in the neighborhood."

Corrected sentence: "It could be that I really don't like talking on the phone and would prefer to speak in person, in which case I'd be asking for his or her whereabouts just on the off chance that he or she is in the neigborhood."

Okay, so it's a little bit tedious, but at least it's robust. Now I can sleep easier. Easierly. More easily.

A Walk Down the Memory Baseline

Get it? It's like a walk down memory lane except I'm replacing "memory lane" with "memory baseline." It's a play on words. I'm merely using a different kind of place on which one might walk. Sigh...nobody understands me.

Anyway, I went to baseball-reference.com yesterday to look at their stat of the day blog, and all of a sudden my brain froze. Remember the Seinfeld bit from his live on Broadway special? I'm gonna botch this because I can't find some of the exact quotes anywhere, but it goes something like this:

"First ten years of my life I think the only clear thought that I had was 'Get candy!' Everything else was just an obstacle in the way of the candy. So when I first heard about Halloween my brain couldn't process the information. You're like, 'What is this? What did you say? Someone's giving out candy? Who's giving out candy? EVERYONE WE KNOW is just giving out candy? I gotta be a part of this! Take me with you! I'll do anything they want. . . I can wear that. I'll wear anything I have to wear. I'll do anything I have to do to get the candy from those fools who are so stupidly giving it away.'"

Anyway, that basically describes my reaction yesterday when I discovered that baseball-reference play index is entirely free until Friday. For those of you not in the know, the baseball-reference play index is an invaluable tool for looking up baseball statistics. For example, if you wanted to find out which players have ever batted .320, hit 25 HR, walked 100 times, and stolen 50 bases in the same season, you would just type those filters into the system, and the play index would produce the answers (there's only one, Joe Morgan in 1976). Usually the system will output only the top hit in the search and then skip the next 135 or so. Only paid subscribers have access to all that the play index has to offer, but this week it's all free. Az I was getting ready to look up all sorts of ridiculous s**t when my brain refused to behave itself. There I am, like a kid in a candy store, and there's just too much from which to choose. So this morning I decided to just fiddle around with the play index figuring that some ideas might pop into my head. Az I put in the search parameters that would sort every Mets batter from each season starting in 1990 by games played. So I'm browsing the Mets teams from each of those seasons, and something caught my eye in 1999, and that's where the idea for this post begins.

Remember John Olerud? He was well known for his sugary sweet lefty swing and his propensity for wearing a batting helmet while playing 1st base because his mother asked him to do so. He played for the better part of a decade and a half for the Toronto Blue Jays, New York Mets, and Seattle Mariners, and finished his career with very short stints with the Yankees and Red Sox. I remember him for his three seasons with the Mets in the late 1990s and for one big moment in the playoffs in 1999. I remember it clearly because the Mets started their National League Divisional Series on the road in Arizona against the Diamondbacks, so the game started at around 11:00 EST. Since it was past my bed time I held my radio under the covers and listened to the game until I fell asleep. I remember hearing Olerud hit a home run against Diamondbacks ace Randy Johnson, a feat made even more spectacular because he had only given up one homer to a lefty all year, and to this day has only given up 24 in his career (Oddly enough, I was at a Mets-Astros game earlier in the year, and Johnson who played for Houston at the time demolished the Mets 10-1. The only run he gave up was an opposite-field homer by the right-handed Roger Cedeno). The Mets went on to win that game 8-4, and then went on to win the series three games to one on Todd Pratt's walkoff home run at Shea Stadium in game four. I know I didn't see it live because it happened on Shabbat. I had gone for a walk with a friend that day, and we ended up walking from the Upper East Side all the way across the Queensboro Bridge and back. I was wearing my Mets jersey, and just as we were getting back to my building a man on a bicycle yells out "Mets won!" Little did I know what was in store for me when I turned on Sportscenter to see the highlights after Shabbat ended.

Anyway, the point is that John Olerud will always have a special place in my memories. So I'm looking at the 1999 Mets, and it occurred to me that Olerud really was a darn good hitter, az I clicked on him, taking me to his baseball-reference page. One of the cool things on baseball-reference is the comparisons they have for each player at each age. For example, on Alex Rodriguez's page, his top comparison at the age of 20 was Jimmie Foxx, at 21 it was Frank Robinson, at 22 it was Johnny Bench, at 23 it was Ken Griffey Jr., etc. For John Olerud, his top comps for ages 31 through 34 was Don Mattingly. Interesting. So I clicked on the link that shows you a comparison of the two players, and here were my findings:

Olerud (1989-2003): 6994 AB, 1076 Runs, 2079 Hits, 473 2B, 12 3B, 239 HR, 1145 RBI, 1198 BB, 935 SO, .297 BA, .402 OBP, .471 SLG, 11 SB, .873 OPS, 131 OPS+

Mattingly (1982-1995): 7003 AB, 1007 Runs, 2153 Hits, 442 2B, 20 3B, 222 HR, 1099 RBI, 588 BB, 444 SO, .307 BA, .358 OBP, .471 SLG, 14 SB, .829 OPS, 127 OPS+

These numbers sure do look uncannily similar. The only real differences are that Olerud struck out and walked about twice as often as Mattingly did, however the ratios are almost identical (.780 K/BB for Olerud, and .755 for Mattingly). Now don't get me wrong; I love Don Mattingly. I once saw an amazing poster of him in Cooperstown where he's dressed in a pin-striped suit, and he's holding his bat like a gun, and the title says "Hit Man." Outstanding. The point is, as much as I loved him, I just don't see how he can make the Hall of Fame. I'd be surprised to see Olerud garner much support once he gets onto the ballot, and I'd say his numbers are at the very least just as good as Mattingly's.

I Can't Believe I Have More Driving Complaints

I thought I had exhausted my supply of driving pet-peeves, yet clearly I have not. I realized two more last night. Not even one! Two! Well I guess one of them isn't really a pet-peeve; it's just the height of bad manners. Anyway, let's get started.

So last night, I, along with seemingly millions of other Jews, attended the Professional Bull-Riders rodeo at Madison Square Garden (the world's most famous arena!). Afterwards, several hundred thousand of us went to Jerusalem II to get pizza and sushi. Az there I am getting into my car on Broadway between 36th and 37 streets, and I want to make a right onto 36th street so I can go towards the West Side highway. We make our way westward, and I think it was between 9th and 10th Avenues that there was a truck double-parked, which was fine. There was clearly plenty of room for another car to get by, az it was no biggie. But here's the thing; there was a taxi that was dropping off a passenger, and he was stopped right behind the truck in such a way that NOBODY could get by. I mean, come on man! A little common sense! Either pull up another 20 feet in front of the truck, or pull back ten feet. Either way cars will be able to get by. Why do you have to stop in the exact wrong spot? It was entirely uncool and entirely unnecessary.

Here's the other one, and this one is just ridiculous. This is the type of thing that only happens when the other person is either a complete jerk or completely ignorant of his/her surroundings. Here's the sitch: I'm driving uptown on the West Side highway, and you know how there are traffic lights until about 59th street? Az I'm at 57th street and this yutz in a Mini Cooper is right in front of me. We've already gone through a couple of yellow lights, and I'm really anxious to make it through the last two traffic lights. So what does the moron in the Mini do? He slows down as the light is turning yellow and so do I, but at the last second he decides "hey, I can make the light," az he speeds up and goes through the next two lights leaving me stranded at 57th street. I was absolutely furious, as my passengers can attest. That's the sort of jerk move that you really have to try to do. It takes actual effort to be that ignorant. Meanwhile, he was probably up by 96th street by the time I got a green light. I'm really starting to believe that 99% of drivers are just plain bad.

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.