In light of yesterday’s re-affirmation that the California proposition system is a dumb one, y’all need to take advantage of your enfranchised status and vote! Or just peruse the samples, and if you’re feeling photo-critique-y, then contribute your expert opinion.
*holding arms way way far apart* This much.
So, as we suffer through the Rays-Sox game tonight, K reminded me again why I love her so much.
“He’s the worst of all of them. He says nothing, and he takes a long time saying it, and he’s not coherent… and that’s from someone who knows nothing about baseball.”
Of course, just one inning after this fantastic assessment, he re-verified his should-be-fired-ness by stating “I don’t really like this (the Rays) rotation. Sure they have Garza and Kazmir, and some good young guys in the minors, but after that I’m not impressed.”
What a freaking moron. I leave it to Jeremy to tell us exactly where the Rays’ staff ranks in MLB, but I’d put it in the top 5 especially looking ahead a few years.
I really want to learn how to hack a DVR and install a voice-recognition-and-mute algorithm.
[P.S. K also said "call the post 'How Much Joe Morgan Sucks.' " Have to give credit where credit is due.]
1. PECOTA and Baseball Prospectus
We’ll never see that kind of hardcore analysis on TV newsmedia, but it’s nice to see some really solid numbers cast out into the echo chamber of the blogosphere.
And, since there’s still the swine flu thing, let’s follow the advice of David Letterman: “Be sure to sterilize your pans!”
… for failing a drug test (twice?), although he says that it’s due to a sexual performance drug that was okayed and prescribed by a non-team-sanctioned doctor.
You can read a lot about this all over the place, and Bill Simmons’ take is worth a read, but I wanted to share K’s reaction to the news, for which I am rather proud.
Me: So, the big news of today is that Manny got suspended 50 games …
K: For having horrible hair?
She calls them “poop-dreads” and she’s not wrong.
Lightly muddle together the mint leaves and sugar with a few drops of water in the bottom of the glass. Then almost fill the glass with crushed ice and pour the Bourbon over it. Garnish with a sprig of mint.
mmmmmmm. Oh yeah, the race is ~6pm EST, fyi. Don’t forget your hat.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to ever get to watch Niekro, and was pretty young when Candiotti was still pitching, so the only knuckleballers that I’ve watched with any kind of critical eye have been Charlie Hough and Tim Wakefield. I remember being transfixed when (I think it was) Fox debuted their super-slow-mo camera showing Hough’s knuckler as it dodged and darted, and so with Wake coming just a few outs short of a no-no a couple days ago, I decided to delve into PitchF/X and see what I could do.
Turns out that process was a lot easier than expected, thanks to Dan Brooks. I still want to write my own PFX tool, but for this post I’ll get started with his stuff.
What’s amazing about Wake is that when he’s on, he’s able to control this ball that essentially travels 50 feet and then is a study in random walks. Let’s start with perhaps the most basic of PitchF/X charts, showing the strike zone superimposed on each pitch’s location (marked as a ball, strike, or put in play (X):
So, this wasn’t a case of Ron Kulpa getting fooled into calling strikes; Wake seemed to have pretty good control of the thing.
Anyway, now let’s look at one of my favorite charts, showing the horizontal and vertical movement of Wake’s pitches:
What’s so fancy about that? Well, nothing, it looks like a random mess of splatter-paint, but that’s exactly the point! For comparison, here’s what Houston’s Mike Hampton did that same night, with a more conventional arsenal:
… where here you can see each type of pitch and how it moves – the four-seam fastball (FF) stays up relative to the two-seamer (FT), his big-breaking curve is rather distinct from his slider, and note that one reason for his success on Tuesday night was that his change-up had movement very similar to the two-seamer.
So with that comparison, you see why I love the blind-man-with-a-paintball-gun result of Wake’s Break Chart. Up, Down, Left, Right, it was moving all over… and big kudos to our rookie backstop Kottaras for handling both the weight of the moment and the bite of the knuckler.
I feel like I lost an uncle today, or maybe a good friend. Harry Kalas, voice of the Phillies and NFL films, passed away today, and it’s just not fair.
It’s almost impossible to think of Harry without also thinking of his long-time friend and broadcast partner, Richie Ashburn. The two of them worked together for 27 years (Ashburn passed in 1997), and were a pair unlike any other – they were close friends and were able to play off each other perfectly, knowing what the other was thinking and either filling in perfectly or getting out of the way as needed. Listening to Harry and Whitey broadcast a game was like being invited over to their house, as a couple of buddies described the game and did it well… each summer night weaving the story of the game with intelligence, humor, and a clear passion for the sport.
