Rox Talk

Woody Paige writes a thoughtful article on the upcoming season. The Rox brain trust has certainly shaken things up this Winter. As a fan, I can't really find anything at fault with the moves they have made. Problem is, all this is for nothing if the team can't win when it counts. Tracy now has a lot of pieces and parts. How is he going to mix and match and put out a winning team each day. Paige indicates a left and right pitching lineup. Using Baseball Musings lineup analysis this is what we got for right handed pitchers:

The numbers above are based on ZiPS projections. See next week on projections but a lineup above would average about 4.7 - 4.8 runs per game or about 778 runs (they had 770 last year).

What about left handed pitchers? Not a huge difference and it should be noted that the Rox faced 100 righties last year (and thus 62 lefties).
I don't envy Tracy and his matching up. My guess is he will find the hot lineup and go with it. Day games will have Helton taking the day and my guess is if Helton gets off to a rough start he will find himself riding the bench because this team is built for the now. They can't afford to be kind to the old guard...they have too much riding on the now!

Greg Rucka - Finder

The further adventures of Atticus.  Good book, good characterizations, although something about Atticus just bugs me.  Perhaps it is his attitude, how he takes everything (and this includes a lot of f--- up stuff) in stride and just keeps on pushing through.  His template is very much a "Hemingway Hero", which by the way I wrote about in my senior English thesis.  Good stuff...I probably relate a little too much?

Comic Splat

Iron Man #500

Finally the milestone issue. Got tired of this being one of Marvel's legacy books and still stuck on some volume 5 numbering system...now if we can only get the Avengers back on track...Overall good issue although this future look thing gets to be a bit boring. Why the Spider-Man crossover and why do we see Doc Ock in issue #501 (foreshadowing)? Does Iron Man really have no rogue's gallery? Writers need to stop looking at the man in the machine and start the machine being the book!

Scarlet #4

Bendis' anti-hero is starting to bore me...let's face it costumes and superheroes are just more fun...I don't need to read a comic book about the crap in the real world!

Avengers #9

Why is Bendis (this rip on Bendis post by the way) stuck on trying to create this supervillain out of the Hood. He is a cheese ball villain that Bendis has had around forever in the Avengers...remember this is the Avengers...they need to be going heads on with the best of the best villains not some punk from the street. Honestly he can defeat the best security measures of the Illuminati and find the gems of the infinity gauntlet? Come on let's put this to rest and move on to something more Avengers like!

Captain America #614

Brubaker has been the most consistent storyteller in the last 3-4 years. His book is not stale, the ebb and flow of stories are good, the art is complementary, and overall of all the books I get each month this one I know I will get a good read!

Amazing Spider-Man #652, #653, and #654

First blah storyline in a while. Not a fan of Caselli's art...just not distinctive and kind of blah. Anyway I tired of J.J. being part of spider-man...he is a foil at best with Peter...and this mayor thing and his son...who cares!

Secret Avengers #9

Gee another consistently good book by Brubaker. I heard he is done after this storyline. That will be sad because I think he could develop this team a bit more before handing it off.

Fantastic Four #587

Yes I bought into the whole death issue and yes the one who bit it was who I thought. No real surprises and the way he passed along I can see the character coming back in another year or two as a corrupted baddie who finds the pull of family to be greater and then comes back into the fold. I am so tired of these "death" of a major characters to be plot points. I mean if the book isn't doing well get a new creative team...find something that works. And to be bringing Spider-Man onto the team? Ughhh is spidey the new wolverine? Come on Marvel you are better than this...

Haiku Wednesday

Ski

Majestic Mountain

Skis Sing Softly in the Snow

Wind Whistles Wildly

Rox Talk

World According to WAR

WAR is all the rage and I'm sure something else will take its place but for now the baseball world is WAR. So now that FanGraphs (fWAR) and BaseballReference (rWAR) both have their dueling data, I thought I would look at the Rox over the years. First plot is fWAR versus rWAR. This includes all Rox batters from 1993 - 2010 who had at least 60 plate appearances (342 players).

Pretty consistent as you would expect as the really only basic difference between the two WAR is the fielding.

Fielding (!) what difference can that make well look at the second graph. This one plots the fielding component of fWAR with fWAR. And what about those two outliers way out to the left? That would be the stellar fielding seasons of Brad Hawpe (2008) and Dante Bichette (1999). It should be noted that all starting pitchers have a fielding component of 0 and by the way only three pitchers have a positive batting WAR (Hampton (2) and Jennings (1)).

So what about some other basic things about WAR. Well for one thing there is pretty good correlation between scoring runs and having a good WAR. No brainer there but it I think it shows that ultimately what wins ball games is scoring runs and those that score mean more to a team. Highest runs scorer of all time? That would be 1997's Larry Walker with 143 runs, followed by 1996 Ellis Burks (142) and Todd Helton rounds out the next 3 spots with his 2000, 2003, and 2001 season campaigns (138, 135, 132). And what about those outliers...that would be Neifi Perez in 1999 who scored 108 runs but had a fWAR of -0.9 and of course Dante again with his 104 runs and whooping -1.8 fWAR.

OK so high fWAR trends fairly well with runs scored. Guess what, another no brainer, would suggest the more plate appearances lead to more runs (!) Possibly a "Duh" but think about it...the underlying key of helping your team is getting to the plate...it could be that easy! Of course if you look at the Rox top ten list in plate appearances of all time and you find one Neifi Perez who has 3 of the top 5 spots and his combined WAR those years was -0.5 so maybe there is something more than just getting to the plate ; ) Of course the other seven have an average WAR of 6.1. Average fWAR for 600 plate appearances or more is 3.4 with a standard deviation of 2.7. Of course this is fairly rare as only 50 players have achieved this many plate appearances in a season. And by the way, Rox most successful season? - 2007 they had 5 players with 600 plate appearances...also probably shows how injuries can kill a season and steal plate appearances...

Portland, Oregon

Oregon in pictures...

Haiku Wednesday

Snowboard

The Yin to Skis Yang

Attitude versus Culture

Either way need snow!

Jill Jonnes - Eiffel's Tower

Vicomte de Vogue's quote is magical, "There was in this iron mountain the elements of a new beauty, elements difficult to define, because no grammar of art had as yet supplied the formal, but evident to the most biased art critics. People admired its combination of lightness with power, the daring centering of the great arches, and the erect curves of the prinicpal rafters, which ...leap towards the clouds in a single bound. What [people] admired above all was the visible logic of this structure....logic translated into something visible...an abstract and algebraic beatuy...."

And there you have it. Great book...so much more than just about the tower. Great stories on Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the World's Fair. Really a magical time of changes and the Eiffel Tower really showed the world that the old pre industrial world was dead and what the new world would be.

Rox Talk

Predictions

With pitchers and catchers scheduled to report on February 14, 2011 (that is only 28 days!), the statistical projections have started to appear. Fangraphs usually include these predictions on their player pages. Last year I analyzed James, Marcels, ZiPs, Chone, as well as the Fans. I then averaged the Big Four (excluded the Fans) and came up with an average runs scored or runs allowed for the expected Rox lineup.

In addition I tracked each quarter of the season to determine how these projections held true. The graph below is for the hitters. The white bar is the average projection, the red line is the first 40 games final projection, followed by the blue line which indicates projection through 81 games, followed by the green line indicating projections through 120 games, and then finally the black bar which is the final season total for that hitter. The graph below is the same setup but for pitchers.

Points of Interest:
- CarGo had a massive season and just kept going. His preseason projection had him scoring a measly 68 run
- Dex had a slow down in the second quarter due to his demotion to the Minors. He came back with a vengeance
- Rox can't afford to have another sub par year from their first baseman
- Please Tulo stay uninjured...what a season it could have been!
- Hawpe got injured and was never the same...eventually traded. Rox missed those runs
- Smith and Stewart need to excel, they certainly underperformed in 2010
- Iannetta needs to get out of the doghouse and make some noise, what is it with Rox catchers in waiting...they never breakout
- Thank god for Olivo
- Barmes and Spilly...meh
- Mora and Giambi show that projections for bench guys and off day players just don't work.
- Cook started slow, as usual, and sort of found his way...I hate seeing players age
- U-Ball nothing to say but man he was awesome especially early on
- Francis was hurt out of Spring Training
- De la Rosa hurt early in the season
- Hammel has shown such brilliance followed by crap...break out year in 2011 would be welcomed
- Boy they can project relievers of course the small sample size probably is the reason

Overall hard to put much weight in projections...sure it might make you sleep better in March but come October it really doesn't mean much!

40 Orbits

A milestone of sorts, I guess. Having lived a total of 14,600 days I am guessing that is a good thing, just think Alexander the Great only lived to 33! Now that the preliminaries are out of the way now is the time to live!

New York Times Metrics

Amanda Cox does it again with a fascinating infographic at NY Times. The colors mean this:

Looking at the big picture and thinking about the "Black Swan" one can see basically from my perspective that it is just a matter of luck. Figure I started investing in late 80s and pretty much unless I pulled everyting in the late 90s I will have to wait for the next big thing.

Haiku Wednesday

40

Another birthday

It beats the alternative

Candles getting hot...

Scientific Method

In Jonah Lehrer's New Yorker Article (12/13/10 edition), he writes an interesting article on how "well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It's as if our facts were losing their truth..." Drugs losing their effectiveness, wonder if it could be related to IQ testing which suggests that people in 1920s would be considered stupid today (the Flynn Effect)? Frightening thought if the rigors of the scientific method suddenly can't be trusted!

In a 1990 (Johnathon Schooler) study it was found by writing down something it actually decreased ones ability to better remember...it was called verbal overshadowing. Following this study many other areas showed that by putting things into words led to a decrease (so by me writing this blog summary I am effectively going to forget I ever read this...) in the ability not remember things.. Then of course the author of the verbal overshadowing article started relooking at some of his results and as time went by the results to his big ideal started growing weaker.

One of the possible reasons for this decline is simple, "regression to the mean." As more studies are done the sample size increases and thus something that was significant gets averaged out. Another interesting note is that when new exciting research is published articles that tend to buy into this new research are published whereas the null results tend not to get published. This publication bias tends to make people believe the results (dead birds in Arkansas anyone?). Of course bottom line is that often researchers want to be right...their careers and money is often dependent so initial successes are held onto to continue to prove a theory...it is human nature to want to be right (autism and vaccines? amazing how a meme will just hang around). Finally an interesting test was done on trying to replicate an experiment in three different locations. The researcher tried to control every variable and yet the results were vastly different at each site. The implication of this is that often times results and data "are nothing but noise" And what gets published or notice? Yup dramatic results that are statistically significant and unexpected.

Rox Talk

Hall of Fame Vote
Congrats to the newly elected players and to Larry Walker who received 20.3% of the vote. Due to total, he will remain on the ballot for 15 years. Unfortunately based on this chart and article, it is a long shot for him to make it. Although in the article it would suggest based on the players coming up it is unlikely Walker will be able to get the required votes. I might disagree with this assumption because a lot of the up and coming players are seemingly tied to steroid use and thus it might work in Walker's favor? Hard to say but next year Vinny gets on the ballot...Blake Street Bomber reunion...too bad the Big Cat got knocked off last year.

Link Dump

Some 2010 in review...

The two headed monster that was the Rox bullpen...here

Early Rox 2011 prediction...82-87 wins...a fringe contender

At least they made the most of their one at bat!

Rox never were in the race but they made it interesting...

2010 Year in Running

Hmmm, can you see where my consecutive days of running streak ended (542 days by the way)?

Haiku Wednesday

Cowboy

An iconic hat
spurs, chaps, and best friend the horse
Sunsets included

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

"I was thirty-seven then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover approach to the Hamburg Airport."

And so begins Murakami's most beloved book (at least in Japan). It was this book, which is so unlike his others, that made him a star in Japan (causing him to seek asylum in Europe). Never truly knowing what you are about to embark on, I had no idea that this was a more normal book.

Overall it was compelling. A love story on many levels and a coming of age story. As usual his female characters seem to be a bit extreme in their personalities. When reading this I tried to determine if I knew anyone who had similar characteristics has his characters...I really could not. Although that didn't make the book any less interesting because really what books have memorable characters without these characters being over the top anyway?

The love story is of coursed balanced by plenty of death. At least 4 people pass along. Not for sure but I think suicide rates in Japan are pretty high (wikipedia says in 2008 Japan was 5th overall and first among females). A thoughtful quote, "By living our lives, we nurture death." In the end a good story...it even matches the Beatles song...a little bit...

Rox Talk

Larry Walker - A Mighty Rox
Another former Rox will get a chance for the Hall of Fame on Wednesday. Last year the Big Cat didn't get enough votes to stay on the ballot for another year. This year I think Walker will get a little more love and stick around. Next few years are going to be interesting as far as what the voters decide to do with big number guys that peaked during the Steroid Era. Any Rox candidate will therefore have a double whammy because of the pre-humidor Coors Field Effect. Will voters simply dismiss the numbers any Rox player created?

Having watched Walker play I don't think I truly understood how awesome he was. The things he could do with his bat. And he had a rocket for an arm in Right Field. I recently took a tour of Coors Field and while standing on the field the tour guide reminded me that the longest homer hit by a lefty was by Walker which landed in the walkway in the upper deck. Standing on the field that is a massive home run! In retrospect a player's daily grind can become common place especially when the game seems so easy for someone. His year in 1997 when he won the MVP he had a WAR of 9.0 with 143 runs, 208 hits, 46 doubles, 49 home runs, 130 RBIs, 33 stolen bases, and on base percentage of 0.452. That is just insane and finally in today's world of great athletes taking themselves too serious who could forget Walker's bat against Randy Johnson in the 1997 All Star Game when Walker showed up to the plate with his batting helmet backwards? Finally I will remember Walker for one of the few Cardinals to show up in the 2004 World Series. His one and only World Series and he was awesome.

Unfortunately, I think it is a long shot for the Canuck which is too bad because he was a heck of ball player. The great columnist Joe Posnanski says it best in this column and I think this sums it up, "Then he went to Coors, and in 1997 he hit .366 with 46 doubles and 49 homers. You know how many other players in baseball history have hit .350 or better with 45 doubles AND 45 homers in the same season? One. Lou Gehrig in 1927. It was pure lunacy" Ahhh Nintendo Ball at its greatest. In addition to Joe's account here are some pretty graphs (here and here). In the last couple of years the voters have been pretty stingy letting in a candidate here and there. With a lot of what I consider shoo ins coming to the ballot in the next few years a lot of candidates need to make it this year or be left out. Will this year be a water shed?