End of Year Wrap Up

Well another orbit around the sun. Only managed 201 posts (5 more than 2009 and I was busy studying) so need to up that total for the new year. Comic reviews continued to suffer and well any sport beyond baseball was non existent (sorry AF football). Overall beyond the baseball, haikus, and occasional book review it was a pretty pathetic year. So this is 2010 in a nutshell:

- 31 books read (favorite, Non-Fiction - "Packing for Mars" / Fiction - "Cosmopolis" and "The Hunger Games" / TPB - "I Kill Giants")

- Best Comics this Year - Spider-Man

- Best Movie seen was "Avatar"

- Favorite Album - XX

- Best Comic Cover was Scott Pilgrim Volume 6

- 58 Haiku's Written

- My Favorites Haiku's

Daylight
Sol makes its comeback
Everlasting solar dance
Your pale skin rejoices

Butterfly
Metamorphosis
Nature's real life magic trick
Version 2.0

Rake
Nature's detritus
Sheds her coat upon the ground
Backs everywhere groan

10/10/10
Date is ten ten ten
Binary is forty-two
The answer to life

Solstice
Sun's shortest work day
Night time stars work overtime
Astronomers smile

Top Posts
39 Circles

Ghost Writers
Mouse Art

Admantium

Second American Revolution

The Greatest Sting Ever...

Top Baseball Posts

2009 Starter's Line

2010 Predictions

Runs Scored or Runs Allowed?

39th Batter

2010 Runs Estimator

2009 Pitching Rotation Match Ups

Periodic Table of the Rox

Win Probability Added - Offense vs Pitchers

Why Am I a Terrible Fan

Symmetry

Top 10 Viewed Features of 2010 on NYTimes.com

Beautiful

Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse from Justin Majeczky on Vimeo.

Good year, things to look for next year....U2 concert (again!), Sucker Punch, Super 8, 1Q84 (Murakami's New Book, Sept '11)

Haiku Wednesday

Ice

Water's evil twin
Plays havoc with modern world
Unless you have skates!

Nassim Taleb - The Black Swan

This book was stunning. Not at all what I expected. Of all the business/human nature/gotcha books that I have read this one struck a cord. Know not an event in the world goes by without me thinking that no one could have predicted it...that is why it happened.

From world events to where I put my money this book can rock some of your core foundations. So much of what we do has been built into our heads and/or we all follow the herd in almost everything we do. The question then is do you follow your own thoughts hoping for that big payoff or do you play it safe and gamble like everyone else?

"It is often said that the world seems to have been built to the specifications that would make our existence possible...However our presence in the sample completely vitiates the computation of the odds...The one who is still kicking (by accident) will feel that, given that he cannot be so lucky, there had to be some transcendental force guiding him and supervising his destiny...The problem here with the universe and the human race is that we are the survivors"

Another thing that was interesting in this book is all deep the author goes off on philosophical rants. Wow never really comprehended some of the inane things people can think about. I was also bit shocked by how arrogant the author was against other economist. Wow talking about taking the gloves off and using your book to slam home your opinions about people. While I certainly belief he is own to something the basic ideal to me is that a black swam is so rare so unexpected that by simply considering it no longer allows you to call it a Black Swan. Think of Katrina or the Housing Bubble...if people really considered these events to be a real probability...chances are it would have never happened...therefore how does the concept become useful?

Other interesting quotes from an otherwise fascinating book....

"A nerd is simply someone who thinks exceedingly inside the box" (i.e. Don't be a nerd)

"Don't be a sucker"

"It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

"The future ain't what it used to be" - Yogi Berra

Haiku Wednesday

Resolutions

...And out with the old
New goals, fresh slate, refocused
Just one more cookie!

Magazine Tid-Bits

Nintendo is made up of three kanji characters, from nin, ten, and do, which means "leave luck to heaven"

Esquire 1-11 Issue - Collected Wisdom of Others - Things to Live By

"Never eat at a chain restaurant while on vacation"

"Always think fastball. You can adjust to an off speed pitch"

Rox Talk

A Pitch Thrown

In past posts, I have shown how many pitches thrown in an inning typically lead to a run. Data collected from 2008 - 2010 seasons (Rox pitchers and Rox opponent pitchers) indicate that usually 23 pitches lead to a run. Using a best fit curve of the data (run rate calculated as a ratio of total runs scored in an inning per instances of that pitch count), it would indicate in the model that as the pitches go up, the amount of runs increase.

Runs-Pitches
1-23
2-30
3-36
4-41
5-45
6-49
7-52
8-56
9-59
10-62

Although following this logic out, eventually you would be scoring runs without throwing a pitch!Either way it is interesting to see what the break point is but then how quickly runs compared to the number of pitches and how it adds up after the initial run is scored.

One interesting thing to consider when looking at this data is comparing pitchers' runs allowed with pitches thrown in an inning and comparing to what would be expected. For instance, three years of data indicate that if a pitcher throws 13 pitches in an inning then the runs expected for this would be 0.121. Add up the season totals and the table below shows what the 2010 Rox starters did.

Of the eight starters, only two starters had less runs then their expected runs. Jimenez, I can believe, because he throws a lot of pitches (and was saved by a lot of double plays...). Hammel is the troubling one because the data would suggest that he gives up a lot of easy runs which is one way of saying he throws very few pitches but gives up a bunch of runs on low pitch counts. Which is better? Hard to say will have to look back at previous years...

Independent Innings?
One question that comes to mind is if pitching (or offense) is extremely efficient or inefficient in one inning does it effect the next inning? Note the graph below shows pitches in inning x (y-axis) followed by pitches thrown in inning x+1 (x-axis). This is independent of pitcher, so some of the data below could be one pitcher followed by a different pitcher in the following inning. Also it should be noted that 70% of all inning x was between 9 - 20 pitches and in inning x+1 70% was between 8 - 19 pitches. And thus this overlap (meaning inning x had a pitch between 9 - 20 followed by an inning x+1 of between 8 - 19) accounts for 49% of the back to back innings.

Some other observations are that if you pitch inning x between 20 - 68 then 20% of pitches in inning x+1 was less than 20 pitches. If you pitch inning x between 3 - 20 then 17% of pitches in inning x+1 were greater than 20 pitches. Pitching inning x greater than 20 followed by inning x+1 greater than 20 amount to about 8%.

Just one other point and that would be that in 3622 of 7708 instances inning x was less than inning x+1 meaning that generally less pitches are thrown in inning X+1 (53% vs 47%). My guess is that with additional data and data that includes other teams that this number would generally get closer to 50/50 and that generally inning x and inning x+1 are independent. Just for kicks in 2010, Jimenez had 92 instances (out of 194) where he threw more pitches after inning x. It would seem in 2010 he seemed to throw less in inning x+1 then inning x.

Solstice

Sun's shortest work day
Night time stars work overtime
Astronomers smile

Rox Talk

The Year in Graphs

Graph 1 shows Rox 2010 winning percentage versus historical (1993 - 2009) winning percentage and pythagorean winning percentage through the different months of the season. What a great start, too bad the rest of the year was average! Graph 2 shows projected wins versus previous years (2007 - 2009). It was so hopeful midway through the year - then the post All Star hangover, then a late in year surge followed by the awful collapse.
Graph 3 shows the average runs scored per game both home and away. Who loves the humidor? What is with scoring on the road?

Wimisical data for the next three graphs. Home run rates for temperature, wind speed, and wind direction (2007 - 2010, purple points indicate 2010 grey squares is average). Interesting how wind speed doesn't do much for home run rates.

Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games

"When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold."

Absolutely fabulous book. This was one of those books that I actually didn't read at times so that it would last longer. Why is it that books written for young adults are better than the drivel that is written for adults. I mean this book just isn't afraid to go down roads that adult writers wouldn't ever touch. I mean to write with such audacity, "Survivor - With Children" Is it meant to be a commentary to adult readers? Do kids and adults read this book differently? Or am I just reading into it?

Haiku Wednesday

Boots

They're made for walking
So says the song - but really?
They make you look cool...

Bits and Pieces

Daniel Handler is Lemony Snicket (and Leslie McFarlane is Frank Dixon better known as Mr Hardy Boys...)

Isca Greenfield-Sanders - Light Leaks - Beautiful

Jim Sanborn - Kryptos - Three parts of this famous enigma have been solved...now a hint has been given for Part IV - Berlin...hmmmm

Nate Silver - Go Figure - Nice article on the flaws of the BCS...

Ski Haiku

Picture perfect run

Not Elks, just some powder tracks

Like knives through butter

Haiku Wednesday

Cookies

I am the Monster
Gimme some tasty morsels
Me like sugar ones!