The Worst Hall of Fame Arguments of 2008

The Baseball Hall of Fame's 2008 class will be announced next Tuesday. With a ton of columns being written by BBWAA members explaining their choices, I thought it would be a good idea to look at some of the infallible logic that went into their selections.

All of these arguments are from actual, real life Hall of Fame voters. Don't forget this.

8. Dave Buscema, against Bert Blyleven

"And I can let the mediocre win-loss record go a bit because he played for so many poor teams and excelled in the postseason when given the chance … but ultimately I still would have liked to have seen at least a little better winning percentage and/or more Cy Young votes, an ERA title and more than one 20-win season in 22 years."

I can let the mediocre win-loss record go, but I'm not voting him in because of the mediocre win-loss record and the mediocre win-loss record. I like how we're looking at Wins and Cy Young votes separately, as they're clearly not related at all.

Buscema is a first-time voter. Welcome, you'll fit right in.

7. Dan Shaughnessy, for Jim Rice

"People who played and watched major league baseball from 1975-86 know that Rice was the most feared hitter of his day. Managers thought about intentionally walking him when he came to the plate with the bases loaded. "

This pretty much summarizes every Rice argument. He was feared, dangerous, dominant, etc. etc.

The fact that in 214 career PAs with the bases loaded he hit .302/.299/.483 with zero intentional walks isn't really helping the second argument.

It is actually entirely possibly that Rice was, in fact, the most feared hitter of his day; I was not alive in "his day". But if people actually "feared" Rice more than Mike Schmidt, they were not very good at allocating their fear.

Rice: 7754 PAs, 350 HR, .304/.356/.520, 133 OPS+
Schmidt: 7657 PAs, 440 HR, .270/.386/.545, 154 OPS+

Beyond that, if he really was the "most feared", I kind of doubt he would have been 33rd in IBBs during that period. At least he led the league in something over that span.


6. Jon Heyman and Mike Nadel, both against Bert Blyleven and for Jack Morris

Heyman:

"2. [in] Jack Morris. The ace of three World Series teams, it's an abomination he may never get in... 10. [not in] Blyleven. Stat gurus love this guy, and it's understandable. One of the great compilers of his generation, he's fifth all-time in strikeouts, ninth in shutouts and 25th in wins. There's no doubt he was a superb talent who played a long time. But he was rarely among the ultra-elite in his 22-year career."

Nadel:

"Blyleven won more than 17 games only twice in 22 seasons. John had a higher winning percentage than Blyleven but fewer strikeouts and shutouts. Jack Morris, a great clutch pitcher who had the most victories in the '90s, is better than both."

I went over Heyman's article last week. There are two main problems with the argument here; the thought that Blyleven was never among the "ultra-elite", and the obsession with Morris' "clutchiness".

Years with ERA+ above...
150: Blyleven 2, Morris 0
140: Blyleven 5, Morris 0
130: Blyleven 6, Morris 1
120: Blyleven 11, Morris 6

The fact that Morris has three 20-win seasons to Blyleven's one doesn't mean Blyleven was less dominant, or had an inferior peak. It means his teams scored fewer runs for him.

As for this whole clutch thing:

Morris, career postseason: 7-4, 3.80 ERA, 92.1 IP, 32 BB, 64 K
Blyleven, career postseason: 5-1, 2.47 ERA, 47.1 IP, 8 BB, 36 K

Blyleven pitched 45 fewer innings, that's the only aspect in which he's inferior.

These two aren't voting Blyleven in because he didn't pitch for teams with big offenses, thus not racking up big win totals. And Morris is getting in because of one game. It's absurd.


5. Bill Conlin, for Jack Morris

"Besides going 254-186, righthander Jack Morris won 20-plus three times, made 14 Opening Day starts and pitched one of the great World Series Game 7s of all time, the 10-inning, 1-0 victory over the Braves in 1991."

HoF credential #1: Pitching 240.2 essentially league average innings in 1992 (4.04 ERA, 102 ERA+) in 1992. The Blue Jays scored an impressive 5.56 R/G in his starts, so he managed to go 21-6.

HoF credential #2: Making 14 Opening Day starts. 100% meaningless. This includes 1989 (6-14, 4.86 ERA, 79 ERA+) and 1993 (7-12, 6.19 ERA, 70 ERA+).

HoF credential #3: One game.

Convincing.

4. Gerry Fraley, against Tim Raines

"Raines’ case was hurt by his reluctance to run in all situations, as Rickey Henderson did. Raines seemed at times too concerned about preserving his stolen-base percentage."

In his career, Tim Raines stole 808 bases, and was caught only 146 times, good for a pretty incredible 85% success rate. We are holding this against him. If he was caught 47 additional times, bringing him down to Henderson's 80.8% career success rate, maybe he'd warrant consideration.

This is the extent of Fraley's argument. There is no further mention of Raines in his article.

3. Phil Rogers, against Lee Smith

"I’m down to one this year, as Smith has been passed by Trevor Hoffman for the all-time save lead and my vote for Lee Arthur was based on his being the leader. Sorry, Lee."

Two years ago, Trevor Hoffman had 436 career saves, so Phil Rogers voted for Lee Smith to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

This year, Trevor Hoffman has 524 career saves so Phil Rogers is not voting for Lee Smith to be elected into the Hall of Fame.

Sorry, Lee.

Edit: OMDQ adds:

"I’m down to one this year, as Aaron has been passed by Barry Bonds for the all-time homerun lead and my vote for Henry Louis was based on his being the leader. Sorry, Hank."

2. Tracy Ringolsby, against Tim Raines

"The biggest debates for me were Tim Raines, who obviously was overshadowed by Rickey Henderson, but also if you take Vince Coleman's five top years, I would say he outperformed Raines, too, and I don't see Coleman as a Hall of Famer."

In his top five SB years, Coleman stole 484 bases. In Raines' top five SB years, he stole 384. This is the only category in which Coleman outperformed Raines.

They were similar players in the sense that they were both fast, I guess. So maybe Ringolsby thinks the only thing that matters with guys who are fast is how many bases they steal? That must be it, since comparing Raines and Coleman as overall players is laughable.

Coleman, best 5 years: 3236 PA, .272/.330/.351
Raines, career: 10359 PA, .294/.385/.425

It's not close. In fact, in the comments of this post, tangotiger makes the amusing point that Raines' worst five years were easily better than Coleman's best five. Tim Raines is going to fall short of the Hall of Fame this year, and he has reasoning like this to thank.


1. Woody Paige, for Goose Gossage

"During a visit to Yankee Stadium in the late 1970s, I wanted to talk to Goose but was told he was cruel and gruff to reporters. I sheepishly introduced myself and said I was from Colorado, his home state, and he talked pleasantly for 30 minutes. We've been good friends since. I would vote for him even if he wasn't deserving."

Not much analysis needed here, beyond this. At least others were seemingly trying. Did you really expect someone else in this spot?

The Baseball Analysts (this post), BBTF (Fraley, Heyman, Buscema, Rogers, Conlin, Shaughnessy, Ringolsby), and Keith Law's blog were all vital to putting this list together.

No More Undefeated Odds

Well, the Pats did it. It looked pretty unlikely a couple months ago, but the chances steadily increased with each win. The graph below tracks their odds of going 16-0 since prior to the Colts game; the horizontal axis is how many wins they had, the vertical axis is their % chance of going undefeated.Big jump after the wins over Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, which makes sense. A similar increase after their 15th win over the Jets, which is kind of strange.

Back when they were 8-0, BetUS had them at +200 to go undefeated, which seemed pretty ridiculous. But looking back, this actually wasn't a bad line. The money lines for their last 8 games were (approximately) as follows:

Their last seven games have really been unbelievable; they have been favored by an average of 18.4 points. Ridiculous.

If you had bet $10 on them to beat the Colts at -240, you would have ended up with $14.17. If you had then taken that money and bet on them to win in Week 10, you would have gotten to $15.11. Continuing this strategy for the rest of the season, you would have finished with $22.68 after tonight's win. So, in total, you would have been betting $10 to win $12.68; essentially a line of +127.

This is much worse than the +200 line BetUS had on them winning their last eight. This surprises me; usually with a prop like that, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. I guess it would have been impossible to know how heavily they would be favored in these games, but even if you slightly underestimated them, you would have found that +200 was the better option.

The fact that it was the better option doesn't mean it was a good option, however. Below is the % chance each of these lines indicates New England had of winning the game, after taking out the house advantage (which is 3.6% on these NFL money lines).

Multiplying all these percentages together gets us to a 33.2% chance they would go undefeated. Amazingly, that would imply a line of +201. So it looks like +200 was too high; in the long run, you would come out pretty much even on that. In hindsight, knowing the ridiculous margins New England was favored by in their final seven games, it probably should have been about +170, allowing the books to have their normal advantage.

I doubt tonight's win changes their SB odds; that's still probably at about 50%.

Heyman's Ballot

SI's Jon Heyman has an article up about his Hall of Fame ballot (h/t: BBTF). Sounds like fun. Here we go.

"Enshrinement in Cooperstown shouldn't be about numbers. If anyone thinks so, let's trash tradition and have a computer select the honorees."

First of all, ignoring the numbers is a terrible idea. But beyond that, people say this all the time, and then immediately resort to using numbers like Wins and RBIs. Let's see how this goes.

"Blyleven did some great things in his career, and he pitched a lot of dominating games. Yet he never had a truly dominating season. He threw 60 shutouts -- but won 20 games only once in an era when 20-game winners weren't nearly so rare as they are today."

20 is a number.

In 1992, Morris pitched 240.7 innings with a 102 ERA+ and won 21 games. In 1977, Blyleven pitched 234.7 innings with a 151 ERA+ and won 14 games. I honestly don't understand how people continue to think that number of 20-win seasons is some kind of meaningful measure of how good a pitcher was.

B-R has a very convenient feature where you can neutralize a player's stats. This puts them in an average offensive context, with average run support. If you do this, Morris is 229-204 with zero 20-win seasons. Blyleven is 325-227 with four 20-win seasons.

And no, Morris was not "pitching to the score"

"2. Jack Morris. The ace of three World Series teams, it's an abomination he may never get in."

An "abomination". Oh boy.

"Morris made 14 Opening Day starts, tied with Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, Walter Johnson and Cy Young, behind only Tom Seaver's 16 (the others already are or will be in Cooperstown)."

I am not going to waste everyone's time explaining how utterly meaningless this is. Well, at least not yet.

"Also pitched the greatest game of the past 25 years, winning Game 7 of the 1991 World Series 1-0 in 10 innings against a young John Smoltz."

On October 22, 1992, Morris faced off against a young John Smoltz in Game 5 of the World Series. He pitched 4.2 innings, allowing 9 hits and 7 runs. The Braves won, 7-2.

His career ERA is 3.90. His postseason ERA is 3.80. Yes, he was fantastic on 10/27/91. But we cannot be electing people into the Hall of Fame because of one game. This is not acceptable.

"The only two reasons I can think of for him not making it are: 1) he got hit hard his final couple years and finished with a 3.90 ERA, and 2) he was no charmer. Neither is a good enough reason to omit him. His impact was great."

On April 6, 1993, Morris started on Opening Day for Toronto (he pitched horribly). We are giving him credit for this. In 1993, Morris had a 6.19 ERA in 152.7 innings. We are excluding this data point.

If you take away those last two seasons (which is completely arbitrary and unfair, but let's do it anyway), Morris has a career 3.73 ERA (108 ERA+) in 3,530 innings.

Bert Blyleven had a 3.31 ERA (118 ERA+) in 4,970 innings. This is including a 5.43 ERA (75 ERA+) in 1988, and a 5.24 ERA (73 ERA+) in 1990.

"10. Blyleven. Stat gurus love this guy, and it's understandable. One of the great compilers of his generation, he's fifth all-time in strikeouts, ninth in shutouts and 25th in wins. There's no doubt he was a superb talent who played a long time. But he was rarely among the ultra-elite in his 22-year career."

Excuse me for not having a definition of "ultra-elite" handy. Let's try a few cut-offs:

Years with ERA+ above...
150: Blyleven 2, Morris 0
140: Blyleven 5, Morris 0
130: Blyleven 6, Morris 1
120: Blyleven 11, Morris 6

Blyleven pitched more innings than Morris (4970-3824). He had a lower ERA (3.31-3.90). He had a better ERA+ (118-105). He had a higher peak (see above). He struck out more guys (6.70 K/9 for Blyleven, 5.83 for Morris). He walked fewer guys (2.39 BB/9 for Blyleven, 3.27 BB/9 for Morris). He gave up fewer HRs (0.78 HR/9 for Blyleven, 0.92 HR/9 for Morris).

And here's my favorite part. Morris backers like to talk about the one WS game, but Blyleven was a better postseason pitcher. In 47.1 playoff innings, Blyleven had a 2.47 ERA. For Morris, it's 92.1 innings, but a 3.80 ERA.

This is not close. In fact, there is really no debate here. Yet Heyman has Morris 2nd on his list, and Blyleven 10th.

This is a great example of what happens when you have a preconceived bias, stubbornly forms an opinion based on nothing, and then tries to build an argument to explain himself.

(As I was about to post this, FJM put up a post on Heyman's article. Oh well.)

This Week's Links (12/24-12/28)

I finally purchased the new domain name that we voted on like two months ago. As you may have noticed, you are automatically redirected to vegaswatch.net when you type in the old URL. All the Blogspot stuff (bookmarks, RSS) should still work; please let me know if they don't.

Shyster with a hilarious post looking at his 1973 Topps set. He goes over about 70 of the cartoons on the backs of the cards. A few favorites:

"Steve does volunteer dentistry work." You can just do that?
"Dennis enjoys attending sporting events." Given his job, I would hope so.
"Ron loves New York for its fine knishes." First draft: "Ron is a Jew."
"Gary is a freeswing batter." In 1973 Maddox was a Vietnam vet and was already a supernatural centerfielder, yet Topps decided to comment on his .293 rookie on-base percentage. Nice.

Tracy Ringolsby:

"The biggest debates for me were Tim Raines, who obviously was overshadowed by Rickey Henderson, but also if you take Vince Coleman's five top years, I would say he outperformed Raines, too, and I don't see Coleman as a Hall of Famer."

In the comments, Tangotiger helpfully points out that Raines' five worst years were better than Coleman's five best.

The top 40 sports figures of 2007.

After a brief hiatus, one of my favorite college basketball blogs, Rush the Court, is back.

Looks like Gossage is going to be voted into the HoF this year.

Yes, I am going to link to Carl on a weekly basis. This week, his locks of the century. The analysis of the UGA-Hawaii game is absolutely stellar.

Posnanski relays an excellent Belichick story.

An interesting look at SLG% on different pitches in different locations.

Week 17 Undefeated Odds

This week's Patriots undefeated odds, from Bookmaker:


Well this got boring. It was a lot more interesting when there were nine possible outcomes. The Pats are favored by 13.5 in the Meadowlands on Saturday, and you would have to bet $11 on them winning straight up to win a single dollar.

So, they're almost 90% to go 16-0. But that doesn't matter at this point, really. If they go 16-0 and then lose in the playoffs, they won't be remembered as the "Undefeated" team, they'll be remembered (fairly or not) as the "16-0 Team That Choked in the Playoffs".

The question becomes, what are the odds that they win the Super Bowl? Those odds at seven different sites are below, as well as the % chance the line indicates they have at winning it.


Not even 50%. Assuming the two are mutually exclusive (which is not a perfect assumption, but that's okay), 88.6% to beat the Giants multiplied by 49.7% to win the SB gives them a 44.0% shot at finishing 19-0.

Also, BetUS has the over/under for the temperature at kickoff of the Super Bowl at 72.5 degrees. As you may have gathered, they have props on pretty much anything.

Photo: SI.

Blogpoll: Week Seven

Everybody's votes are here (Google Doc); the final ballot is as follows:

The Blogpoll has a new #1 this week, after Memphis' impressive 14-point victory over Georgetown. The AP and ESPN polls continue to be useless, as they will keep UNC as a clear #1 until they lose, no matter what.

Pitt moves up seven spots, to #8, after their big win over Duke at the Garden. Pitt has a big game at #25 Dayton on Saturday (8pm ET, ESPN2).

Kansas was #3 on all 12 ballots. This is amazing to me.

The team we had the least agreement on was Texas A&M. They were as high as 6th, but were unranked on one ballot. Both of those seem a little excessive, although I sympathize more with the optimistic view, as I had them 12th.

Vanderbilt comes in at #21; I had them 16th. I know they're undefeated and all, but their resume really isn't that impressive, but they almost lost to Tennessee State last weekend. Their schedule is pretty weak until they play UMass on 1/5, before starting SEC play.

Week 17 Playoff Odds

With one week left in the regular season, there are only three spots still up for grabs- the last playoff spot in either conference, and the #3 seed in the AFC.

The Titans control the fate of the AFC #6 seed. If they win, they're in. At Bookmaker, Tennessee is favored by 6.5 points against the Colts, and is -305 to win. So there's a 72.8% chance the Titans get in. That leaves 27.2% for the Browns, whose game against the 49ers has no effect on the playoff picture, unless the Titans' game ends in a tie.

The Chargers and Steelers are also still battling it out for the #3 seed, and the opportunity to avoid the big, bad Patriots until the AFC Championship game. San Diego is in the driver's seat- with a Chargers win, or a Steelers loss, they get the third spot. They are -380 to beat the lowly Raiders, and the Steelers are -200 to beat Baltimore. So that leaves San Diego with a 85.1% chance of grabbing the #3 seed, with Pittsburgh at 14.9%.

The race for the final spot in the NFC is a little more complex, as there are three teams involved. But there is a clear pecking order- first Redskins, then Vikings, then Saints. For Washington, it's simple- if they beat the Cowboys, they're in. They also backdoor their way in if all three teams lose. Washington is -460 to beat the Cowboys; the combination of these two scenarios gives them a solid 83.3% chance of getting in.

Minnesota needs a little help, but they'll be if they win and the Redskins lose. The Vikings go to Denver, where they are favored by favored by a field goal, and -175 to win. Even being favorites, they only have a 12.5% chance of overtaking the Redskins.

New Orleans, at 7-8, needs a lot of help- they only way they get in is if they win, and both Washington and Minnesota get upset. This leaves them as almost a 20:1 longshot, with a 4.2% chance of sneaking in.

Photo: Smarter. Scenarios: ESPN.

Tiebreakers At Their Finest

So I was checking what today's pathetic loss means for the Browns' playoff hopes. I was quite confused, on many levels, when I saw this:

You know what else is simple? The uses of "their" and "they're".

Anyway, beyond the grammar, at first this didn't make sense to me. After all, the Browns have another game left as well. Is it possible that Cleveland's Week 17 game doesn't matter? Apparently so:

This goes beyond no longer controlling their own destiny. The Browns no longer have any effect on their own destiny. I was trying to figure out the tiebreakers, and failing miserably, until I found this. Here's how it breaks down:

TEN wins, CLE loses: Titans are 10-6, Browns 9-7. Tennessee is in.

TEN wins, CLE wins: Both are 10-6. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, but they haven't played. Second is W-L % in AFC games. The Titans play the Colts, if they win that they'll be 7-5 in the conference. The Browns play the 49ers, and are currently 7-5 in the conference, so that's another tie. Third tiebreaker is W-L % in common games. Both teams have played the Texans, Raiders, Bengals and Jets. The Browns are 3-2 in those games; Titans are 4-1. Tennessee is in.

TEN loses, CLE wins: Titans are 9-7, Browns are 10-6. Cleveland is in.

TEN loses, CLE loses: Both are 9-7. First tiebreaker is still useless. But now, since the Titans lost to the Colts, they are 6-6 in AFC games, while the Browns are 7-5. Cleveland is in.

Got all that? In both situations where Tennessee wins, they are in. If the Titans lose, the Browns are in. So how does Romeo get the Browns hyped up for their game? There is one scenario in which Cleveland's game matters- if the Titans-Colts game ends in a tie.

"Tangiblizing the Intangible"

Please go read this post (via FJM). It is a statistical study of the "grittiest" players ever, which is a pretty funny idea. But the execution is even better than the idea- these guys clearly put some serious thought into this. A few examples:

"HYPOTHESIS
I hold that gritty players are those who sincerely want to win or succeed at baseball (determination), but due to a lack of natural skill (talent), are forced to do so through the least efficient means possible, resulting in an excessive amount of dirt on their uniform.

CS/SB stuff (SBINEFF): This is a statistic I call Stolen Base Inefficiency (SBINEFF). This looks for players who like to attempt lots of steals but are largely unsuccessful. Stealing bases produces minimal gains (one base) but comes with greater potential costs by raising the likelihood of being thrown out. Base-stealers (successful or not) also have dirty uniforms from sliding.

GIDP: Double plays are produced by well-struck balls that are able to cut through the infield grass. Aside from a bottle of hard liquor (eh, Mr. Furcal?) gritty players rarely hit anything well."

Head over there to check out the rest of the "GRIT" formula, as well as the most and least gritty seasons of the past 50 years.

This Week's Links (12/17-12/21)

Big Shot Levance.

ATHF's Carl breaks down the Mitchell Report. "How do you think Ted Williams fought all those Nazis, huh? Roids, pure and simple." (via Defensive Indifference)

How The Weakest Link relates to sports.

Pomeroy explains his individual stats, and looks at which teams have accumulated gaudy win totals against weak competition.

AA talks to Gus Johnson. This is one of my favorite calls ever.

STF interviews Basketball Prospectus' John Gasaway.

Another potential replacement for the BBWAA awards: The Pozcars.

Week 16 Undefeated Odds

This week's Patriots undefeated odds, from BetUS:


75.5% is probably low, if anything. For -550 to be a profitable wager, they would have to have a 84.6% chance of going undefeated, so it's probably between those two numbers.

This week, they are favored by 22. The money line is +1200/-2500 at BetUS, which indicates the Pats are 92.6% to beat Miami.

If they beat Miami, it will be interesting to see what happens in Week 17 against the Giants. New England will already have the #1 seed locked up, while the Giants may be fighting for their playoff lives. So the question becomes, how much will Tom Brady play? Results Disoriented has some interesting analysis. It concludes with this:

"With the 2% probability of a serious injury costing them 38% of their chance at a championship, the Pats are costing themselves less than 1% of a Super Bowl title in expected value by letting Brady play the whole game, while giving up 25% of their chance to go undefeated."

Essentially, Belichick & Co. would have to value winning the Super Bowl over 25 times as much as going 16-0 for it to make sense to sit Brady against the Giants. I'm sure they won't do this kind of analysis, but I think they'll come to the same conclusion- it's worth risking the tiny chance Brady gets hurt in Week 17. This is especially true for Belichick and Brady, as they've already got three rings.

Update: Sportsbook has Week 17 lines posted, and has New England as 11-point favorites. As far as I can tell, that gives them about an 86% chance of winning (there isn't a money line yet). So, if they are 92.6% to win this week, and 86% to win next week, that's 79.6% to go 16-0. Which is right in the middle of my original two numbers. A 20% chance of them losing one of the next two seems high to me, but it looks like that's what it's at.

Blogpoll: Week Six

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:

There haven't been that many games over the last week and a half because of finals, but that all changes on Saturday, with Georgetown @ Memphis, Tennessee @ Xavier, and Texas @ Michigan St.

#3 might be too high for Kansas. Georgia Tech really isn't that good, yet they almost sent that game to OT. You look at their resume, and the only thing that really qualifies as a quality win is the USC game (and Arizona at home is decent; but they probably should have won that game comfortably, rather than in OT). If Texas wins @Michigan St. on Saturday, they'll definitely be at least 3rd next week. (Man, the Longhorns' schedule is impressive; Spartans on Saturday, then Wisconsin, TCU, and Saint Mary's, then the Big 12. Sadly the UT-KU game isn't until February 11th, and there's only one of them.)

Duke-Pitt at the Garden tonight, which should be pretty good (it better be; I spent way too much on tickets on eBay). Duke is favored by 5.5, which seems about right. Both teams have strong New York followings; I'm sure it'll be a pro-Duke crowd, but I'm interested to see what the Pitt turnout is like.

I am "hosting" this whole blogpoll situation next week, so we'll see how that goes. Oh, and no more finals, so after I get a little sleep things will be back to normal around here. Although I have no idea what qualifies as "normal".

Roger Clemens Is Awesome

Roger Clemens made this big statement today. If you somehow missed it, it's here:

"I am disappointed that my 25 years in public life have apparently not earned me the benefit of the doubt..."

First of all, if anything had happened in the last two days in CBB or MLB, I would be writing about that. Sadly, nothing has. Georgia Tech almost took Kansas to OT, but they couldn't get the ball over half court when they had the opportunity to tie the game with five seconds left.

Secondly...what have you done to earn the "benefit of the doubt"? You think the 4,672 strikeouts accomplished that? The seven Cy Youngs? You clearly haven't been paying attention.

What's great about this situation is that someone is blatantly lying, and whomever it is has a lot on the line. Either it's Roger, or it's Brian McNamee (from the Mitchell Report):

"Federal law enforcement officials and members of my staff participated with me in all of the interviews [with McNamee].

"During each of the interviews, the law enforcement officials warned him that he faced criminal jeopardy if he made any false statements."

McNamee has a lot more on the line (although it's closer than it probably should be). If he's lying, he's risking going to jail. If Roger is lying, he's risking...what? He's got $121 million (plus a lot more in endorsements) in the bank. He could lose those AT&T commercials, and his "reputation", but that's about it.

It seems like quite a stretch to think that McNamee told the exact truth about Pettitte, but made up this elaborate lie about Clemens, and manged to give the same story to both Mitchell and the cops. Not to mention the circumstantial evidence of Clemens dominating the NL at age 42, and retiring eight times.

Photo from Seth Mnookin's site, after searching for "roger clemens muscles", and CBC.

Excellent perspective: Clemens' Denial is a Play for the Future [Shysterball]

Woody Paige Is Thorough

Rob Neyer and Keith Law don't get into the BBWAA, and thus don't get a Hall of Fame vote, because they don't attend enough baseball games. Woody Page is a BBWAA member, and get a HoF vote, for reasons that are entirely beyond me.

Now, Woody is asking for help filling out his ballot. In doing so, he's making it quite clear that he needs help in a variety of areas.

"Gossage — During a visit to Yankee Stadium in the late 1970s, I wanted to talk to Goose but was told he was cruel and gruff to reporters. I sheepishly introduced myself and said I was from Colorado, his home state, and he talked pleasantly for 30 minutes. We've been good friends since. I would vote for him even if he wasn't deserving."

Doesn't this violate some kind of rule? It should. I'm kind of amazed that someone, even a man who aimlessly yells on TV for a living, would write that they don't care if someone is deserving, they're voting for them because they're friends. How is this okay?

"Murphy — Got my vote, but he won't get in. He was two short of 400 home runs and hit only .265, but he won back-to-back MVP awards, made seven all-star teams and earned five Gold Gloves. He played 26 games for the Rockies in their first season, 1993, before retiring. I vote for Rockies. He was who a ballplayer should be. And he always remembers my name. I'm a sap.

"Andre Dawson and Tim Raines — I'm voting for them. Both are borderline. But I was amazed by, and wrote columns about, Dawson and Raines when they played for the Denver Bears. Dawson passed through in 1976 on his way to the Montreal Expos, and Raines was the 1980 minor-league player of the year as the Bears' second baseman. (Raines did have a cocaine addiction problem but overcame it.)"

Notice that there is no ellipsis. This is the entirety of his reasoning. "They're borderline, but they played for a local minor league team, so I'm voting for them." End of discussion.

Article II, Section I of the BBWAA constitution (as described here), "spells out four objects as its reason for existing":

"Subsection D: To foster the most credible qualities of baseball writing and reporting."

Credible is the first would that come to mind when reading this article, really. Back to Woody:

"Jim Rice — He has been shut out for 13 years, mainly because he primarily was a DH..."

Little known fact (definitely not avaiable with six seconds of research on B-R)- Rice played 1543 career games in the outfield, and 530 as a DH. There was exactly one year in which he played over 100 games at DH. So I really don't think the fact that he "primarily was a DH" is keeping him out of the HoF.

"Don Mattingly — Another former player, now a coach, who I became friends with, so I'm prejudiced. I like voting for friends.."

From the Posnanski interview with BBWAA President Bob Dutton again:

" Most of the criticism of this decision seems to argue that Rob and Keith know much more about baseball than many current members. That might be true."

Just maybe.

The BBWAA tries to take itself all seriously, and makes entry into its little club very difficult (well, sometimes). Which is fine. And it's somewhat inevitable that their members aren't going to be perfect, and may even have some questionable voting tendencies. But don't write an article advertising just how little you care- that makes it really difficult for anyone else to take your organization seriously.

Hat tip: BBTF.

I Don't Think This Is Helping...

BBTF has a Newsblog Discussion about Pettitte's HGH admission. Interesting discussion. But I wouldn't make a post about just that, obviously.

As you know if you have a blog, the content of Google ads is determined by the content of the page. You may see where I"m going with this- the Google ads for the BBTF discussion:

Week 15 Playoff Odds

Disclaimer: I know pretty much nothing about the NFL this year.

SportsBetting (and Sportsbook, for that matter- they have the same lines) has posted odds for a few teams to make the playoffs. Let's take a look.

Now, these may be meaningful to you, but they're not to me. However, Football Outsiders conveniently has a page where they list each team's % chance of making the playoffs. So let's compare.

This first table is for the odds that each team will make the playoffs. The first number is the % chance they would need to have for it to be a profitable bet. The second number is the % chance Football Outsiders (FO) gives them of making the playoffs. And the final column is the FO number divided by the first number; the higher that number, the more profitable the bet.

The one that really jumps out here is the Bills (+600). If they had a 1 in 7 chance the bet would break even, but FO thinks they have nearly a 1 in 5 shot. They are 7-6, and their final three games are @CLE, vsNYG, @PHI.

Now, the same thing with the odds that each will miss the playoffs:


Looks like the Vikings' +400 line is the best one available. I don't really understand why their line is so high. The Giants are 9-4, and have an 83% chance of ending up as the #5 seed. So that leaves one spot for the Vikings (7-6), Redskins (6-7), Lions (6-7), Saints (6-7), and Cardinals (6-7). Just looking at that, it seems like their chance of not making the playoffs is much closer to 34% than 20%.

The Jaguars also look like a nice longshot, at 50:1.

Week 15 Undefeated Odds

This weeks' Patriots undefeated odds, from BetUS, and Bodog:


The odds at BetUS are just much better, for the realistic options. This actually causes the BetUS percentages to be higher, since the percentages (before adjusting) for all their odds add up to 108%, while Bodog's add up to 124%. So the BetUS 16-0 odds end up being more favorable to wager on, and they also indicate the Pats having a better chance of winning out.

At BetUS the Pats are now -130 (53%) to go 19-0, and EV (47%) to lose at some point. The Dolphins are -250 (66%) to go 0-16, and +175 (44%) to win at least one of their next three.

New England is favored by 22.5 points against the Jets on Sunday. At BetUS, New York is 12:1 (8%) to win, while the Pats are 1:25 (92%) .

Finally, BetUs also has odds on Michael Vick starting another game as an NFL QB; "Yes" is +200 (31%), "No" is -300 (69%).

Edit: This is a good point by j holz in the comments:

"you might want to point out that you can bet the Dolphins to lose this week at -170 at almost any book. Combined with the +175 to win any of their next three games, that's a pretty solid freeroll."

So, if you bet $17 on Miami to lose this week, and $10 on them to not go undefeated, you will come out even most of the time, with the opportunity to win both bets if they lose this week but win one of their last two games (@NE, vsCIN).

This Week's Links (12/10-12/14)

I should probably link to MJD's Smorgasbord every week.

Doesn't it seem like Santana could be asking for more than this?

The entire list of BBWAA members.

Gasaway on the four super freshmen.

Two excellent Dugouts this week; Thome and Fukudome, and the "MeTrain".

Sheehan (with added Mr. Irrelevant link):

"The commission’s original work consists of passing along enough hearsay to keep a team of defense lawyers in business until the Rapture."

I had not realized Joba Chamberlain had a 1192 ERA+ least year. That is incredible.

Because they clearly don't have more important things to be thinking about, MLB bought FireKennyWilliams.com.

Deadspin:

"The World Pie Eating Championships have been canceled because the dog who was supposed to be guarding the pies instead ate them."

Mitchell Report Live-Blog? Why Not

(Updated at 8:29pm)

The Mitchell Report is going to be released/announced at 2pm today (ESPN had me fooled for awhile; their *coverage* starts at 1pm, but God knows I'm not watching an hour of Skip Bayless discussing steroids). I really don't care all that much, but I figure something interesting is bound to happen, so I'll be live-blogging it. Don't expect any brilliant insight, but stop by a little before 2pm eastern.

10:51 Apparently, Roger Clemens is going to be named in the report. Off to an excellent start already.

11:04 MLBTR reports that "the Yankees are in for a bad day (but Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are not in the report)".

11:22 I really like this picture, on ESPN.com's front page right now:

This is not a man to be taken lightly.

11:33 According to some source, "[n]o Mets from the current 40-man roster are named."

11:42 Deadspin has what may be the list. There is one name that stands out. A lot. And it ain't the shirtless guy in the picture.

12:45 ESPN has a very, very lose definition of "breaking news".

Also, shockingly, that original list probably isn't entirely accurate: "A high-ranking MLB official said there are several errors in the list provided to WNBC.com by two sources."

Thankfully we have Skip Bayless and Steve Phillips to guide us through these trying times.

1:22 Case in point: "Commissioner Bud Selig expected to speak at 4:30 ET" is decidedly not breaking news.

1:25 I am currently flipping between ESPN and this fat camp show on MTV, which is absolutely compelling television.

1:27 Heyman has more names. Nothing terribly shocking.

1:30 The Twins have signed Adam Everett, after he was non-tendered by the Astros yesterday. So it looks like their middle infield will be Everett (.248/.299/.356 career line) and Nick Punto (.245/.314/.321). Terrifying.

1:47 Dan Wetzel on Clemens:
"[Clemens and Bonds] are just two guys who had it all, foolishly went for more, and have now lost everything."

Really, now?

1:49 Jose Canseco is in attendance. Fantastic.

1:56 Jeremy Schapp has the report. It looks long.

Roger Clemens took steroids. Once again- this is news?

1:57 People who wrote checks to Radomski: Paul LoDuca, Denny Neagle, Fernando Vina, David Segui, Miguel Tejada, Rondell White.

Schapp could not have possibly done a worse job on this.

1:59 Here comes George Mitchell.

2:01 Apparently Cossack said "Priestley" instead of "Grimsley". Now that is funny.

Oh, and Mitchell is talking and saying nothing of interest. They're going to post the entire report on MLB.com though.

2:06 That was quick. Here it is (.pdf file).

2:15 No Pujols, it looks like. (The above link opens it up in an internet window; there's no actual list, but plenty of names.)

2:17
Marvin Bernard
Barry Bonds
Bobby Estalella
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde (!)
Lenny Dykstra
David Segui
Larry Bigbie
Brian Roberts
Jack Cust
Tim Laker
Josias Manzanillo
Todd Hundley
Hal Morris
Matt Franco
Rondell White
Roger Clemens
Andy Pettitte
Chuck Knoblauch
Jason Grimsley
Gregg Zaun
David Justice
F.P. Santangelo
Glenallen Hill
Mo Vaughn
Denny Neagle
Ron Villone
Ryan Franklin
Chris Donnels
Todd Williams
Phil Hiatt
Todd Pratt
Kevin Young
Mike Lansing
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Adam Piatt
Miguel Tejada
Jason Christiansen
Stephen Randolph
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Paul Lo Duca
Adam Riggs
Fernando Vina
Kevin Brown
Eric Gagne
Mike Bell
Matt Herges
Gary Bennett Jr.
Jim Parque
Brendan Donnelly
Chad Allen
Jeff Williams
Howie Clark
Nook Logan (!)

2:23 Internet Purchases:


2:26 Prediction: in a week (if that), everybody is going to have forgotten about this.

2:30 This link might be more helpful.

3:01 I've lost interest. What have we really learned? Steroids were (and are) bad, and ran rampant. More testing would be good. Nothing terrible groundbreaking here, is there?

3:16 AA has Cossack's 90210 slip-up. Nate Silver also has a post on Unfiltered.

6:33 Apparently, Roger Clemens is denying this whole thing.

Of course he is.

8:25 The fun never ends. The Sporting Blog has the "Anti-Mitchell Report", and apparently Jose Canseco wasn't allowed in the press conference.

Leitch sums it up well:

"But honestly: This is what MLB paid $20 million for? This took nearly two years? Essentially, Sen. Mitchell has two sources, a bunch of media reports, Jose Canseco's book and every player in baseball (save two) ignoring his requests to talk. The only reason Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are in here is because they were unfortunate enough to have acquaintances who had no choice but to talk. The report has brought us no closer, because nothing possibly could. We don't think this is going to bring us any closure, because the report is so obviously not comprehensive."

8:29 FJM has five new Mitchell Report-related posts; I'm not about to link to all of them, but you should go there.

Blogpoll: Week Five

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:


(Sorry, I have a final in nine hours; no time for witty remarks.)

Tejada Traded to Astros

After a few days quite days, there has been another "blockbuster trade":

"The Baltimore Orioles traded shortstop Miguel Tejada to the Houston Astros on Wednesday...[t]he blockbuster trade, first reported by The Baltimore Sun, sends five players to the Orioles -- outfielder Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate, and third-base prospect Michael Costanzo."

The big name here is obviously Tejada. And once again we've got a gap between perception and reality. In 2004, when has 28, Tejada was a very dangerous hitter, with a .311/.360/.534 line. Since then, his numbers have been in a steady decline. The most disturbing trend (if you're Ed Wade) is his ISO (SLG-BA), a good measure of a hitter's power (horizontal axis is Tejada's age, blue line is league average):

This isn't a new thing. Players peak in the late 20s, then begin to decline. The Astros now get to pay $26MM for two years of the decline phase of Tejada's career. Either they keep him at SS, where his defense has been declining, or they move him to third, where his bat will be much less valuable.

So what did they give up? A good amount. Luke Scott hit .255/.351/.504 last year, which is actually significantly better than Tejada's .287/.344/.477 career line. Scott didn't have much of a platoon split last year, but in his career he's been much better against righties, with a .276/.364/.534 career line. Seems like he's a guy who's undervalued because his BA isn't impressive, but he makes up for it with a high walk rate.

24-year old Matt Albers has an impressive minor league resume, but that performance hasn't yet translated into the majors. He had a 2.17 ERA in 116 innings in AA in 2006, walking 57 while striking out 121. One of Albers' main strengths in the minors was how few HRs he allowed; just 27 in 599.2 minor league innings. A lot of his struggles with the Astros over the last two years (5.87 ERA in 125.2 innings) were caused by a reversal of this trend, as his HR rate more than tripled, to 1.36 HR/9.

Baseball America recently rated Patton as Houston's third-best prospect, and said he has the best control in their system. The 21-year old split 2007 between AA and AAA, posting a combined 3.51 ERA. His strikeout rate isn't great (93 in 151.1 innings), but he has only allowed 30 homers and 127 walks in 445 minor league innings.

BA also rated Michael Costanzo, 24, as the best power hitter Houston's system, and their six-best prospect overall. He hit 27 homers in 508 AA at bats in 2007, and also drew an impressive 75 walks. Impressive numbers, but he strikes out too much, with 157 Ks last year.

A quick look at the 26-year old Sarfate's minor league stats gives one the impression that the reliever throws hard (8.7 K/9) but doesn't have a very good idea of where it's going (5.0 BB/9).

These guys all have their flaws, but the Orioles couldn't have expected to get a top-tier prospect in this trade. Overall, I think they did extremely well for themselves, picking up a ton of cost controlled seasons in exchange for Tejada, who is both expensive and declining.

Vegas' Take on SOS

Yesterday's Clemson post got me to thinking about early season strength of schedule. There are many ways to quantify the strength of a opponents; the RPI does it, as do Pomeroy's ratings.

I figured it would be interesting to use point spreads to compare the strengths of various teams' non-conference schedules. So, to start off, I took the average number of points each top 25 team has been favored in each game this season. The one problem here is games for which there weren't spreads at all. It turns out that the average margin of victory for (current) top 25 teams in those games was 30 points. So, instead of the spread, I split the difference between 30 and the actual margin of victory. So if a team wins one of those games by 40, the number included in their average is 35.

Using this, as well as the actual spreads for each other game, here is how much each top 25 team has been favored by, on average, so far this year:

(A bigger number means an easier schedule; using this metric Kansas has played the easiest schedule of the top 25 teams, Butler the most difficult.)

An interesting list. Although rather than strength of schedule, I think it would be more accurate to think of this as how challenging the schedule is to that particular team. For example, if another team had played UNC's schedule, they would be lower on the list, since they wouldn't have been favored as much in the same matchups.

Therein lies the problem; doing it this way is biased against the top teams. This can be seen pretty obviously in the fact that Kansas, Memphis, Duke, Georgetown, UCLA, UNC and Texas all have one of the ten easiest schedules. So, to remove the correlation between rank and SOS, I made a little adjustment, which gives us a new list:

This is better. Let's look at some of the extremes here.

1. Tennessee, 21.1

The Volunteers played West Virginia and Texas on back-to-back days in Jersey a couple weeks ago. Those are both difficult games. But that's pretty much it. Here's the rest of their schedule, along with the line for each game:

That is pathetic. They haven't left the state, and the only non-home game on that list is against Chattanooga. Three games with no line, and no game in which they were favored by less than 16 points. So they've played two competitive games; they got blown out in one, and they beat WV by two on a neutral court in the other. Not much of a resume. It does get better the rest of the way, as they have upcoming games at Xavier and Gonzaga.

2. Pitt, 20.3

Pitt is kind of in the same boat. They've notched two solid wins in the last week (@Duquesne, @Washington), but their schedule prior to that was ridiculous. Four games without a line, and favored by 13.5, 24, and 22 in the other three, respectively. But it's not all bad for Pitt. They did win those games by an average of 30 points, which is somewhat impressive. Then they played (and won) two tough road games, and their difficult stretch continues, with their next three against Oklahoma St. (at home), Duke (at MSG), and @Dayton.

3. Kansas, 20.3

The Jayhawks are victimized a little bit by being really good; they were favored by fifteen at home against a solid Arizona team. They won that, and also won @USC. But (and I think we're beginning to see a trend here), the rest of their schedule hasn't been very tough. Two games without lines, and they've been favored by an average of 29 points in the other five. They have some decent games before Big 12 play begins (@GT, vs Miami OH, @BC), but for a team with Final Four aspirations, they really haven't challenged themselves over the first couple months of the year.

And on the other end of the spectrum...

23. Michigan St., 11

The Spartans have two things going for them in this analysis. The first is that Vegas doesn't seem to think they're all that good, as they were 2.5 point underdogs against BYU on a neutral court, and favored by only one against Missouri in the same situation. So Vegas hasn't given them the amount of respect that their current #10 ranking might indicate, which allows their schedule to look more difficult than it actually has been by this metric.

But they've also played five competitive games, which is a lot at this stage. There were the two I already mentioned, plus UCLA (neutral), NC State (home), and Bradley (away). They were underdogs in the game against the Bruins, and favored by nine and five in the other two. Sure, they've played four games against overmatched opponents, but those are outweighed by the other five.

24. Marquette, 10.7

The Golden Eagles have had a strange year. They've only played seven games. Two of those were been very difficult (Duke on a neutral court, @Wisconsin). In a third (Ok. St., neutral), they were favored by only 3.5, but won by 30. Their other four games have been against IUPUI, Utah Valley St., Chaminade, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Because they've been underdogs twice, and only played four non-competitive games, their schedule comes out looking tough. It's been somewhat challenging to this point, but after their next four games (Sacramento St., IPFW, Coppin St., Savannah St.) they'll be much higher on this list.

25. Butler, 10.5

Now this is a schedule. The Bulldogs are obviously different from most teams on this list, as they have to notch some big wins in the early months before flying under the radar in the Horizon league come January (actually, come December; they've already played two league games). Even so, what they've done is impressive. Butler has been favored by between 5 and 12.5 points in each of its first nine games; that is some incredible consistency. They haven't lost a non-conference game yet, but did fall @Wright St. on Saturday. It's interesting to compare their schedule to Gonzaga's; the Bulldogs (Spokane version) have to play a difficult early season schedule as well, but have also sprinkled in some blowouts (Montana, Idaho, UC Riverside, Cal State Northridge).

Clemson's Refusal to Play Anyone

I understand that in some cases it's advantageous to schedule weak out of conference opponents (like, say, certain college sports that arbitrarily decide a champion, mostly based on W-L record). But in college basketball, isn't it pretty clear that playing nobody in November and December doesn't improve your chances come tournament time? It doesn't give you a chance to build up an impressive resume, it hurts your RPI, and keeps you off the national radar.

Most teams seem to have figured this out. A good example this year is Texas. They started off ranked 16th, with people questioning how they'd fair after losing Durant. Wins against Tennessee (in New Jersey) and UCLA (at Pauley) dispelled that notion pretty quickly. They're now in the top five in both polls, and probably have the most impressive resume in the country- if the tournament started today (it doesn't), they 'd get a #1 seed.

Then, there's Clemson. Last year, they didn't receive a single vote in either preseason poll. Their pre-ACC schedule was as follows: Arkansas St., Monmouth, @Old Dominion, Furman, Appalachian St., Mississippi St., Charleston Southern, @Minnesota, Wofford, Georgia Southern, Western Carolina, Georgia, Georgia St.

Not surprisingly, they started off the year 17-0, climbing as high as 14th in the coaches' poll after winning their first three ACC games (which, really, reflects on how little attention the voters were paying, but that's another story). They proceeded to go 4-10 the rest of the way, finishing 7-9 in the conference and losing to Florida St. in the first round of the ACC tournament. They finished with a solid 21-10 record, but missed the NCAAs because they had a weak conference record and lacked a single impressive non-conference win.

So, they learned their lesson and put together a challenging non-ACC schedule this year, right? Not so much. The Tigers began the year 29th in the coaches poll. Their current record is 8-0, after beating Furman, Mississippi St., Old Dominion, Presbyterian, Gardner-Webb, Purdue, South Carolina, and East Carolina. Once again, they've ascended in the polls, and currently sit at 14th. They play DePaul, Mississippi and Alabama in the next month, but those teams aren't exactly powerhouses this year. They played one tournament team before January last year (ODU); they'll be lucky to match that number this year.

It really seems like they're putting themselves in a terrible position. By not playing anyone in November and December, their only chance to showcase themselves in the ACC. If, like last year, they don't have a stellar conference resume, they have nothing to fall back on. At least give yourself the opportunity to beat someone in the first couple months of the season. If you lose, what's the big loss? It's not like overall W-L record is a main criteria that the committee looks at in March.

Paw: here.

Michael Vick Odds Revisited

When you heard that Mike Vick is going to jail for 23 months, I'm sure your first thought was "How much money could I have won on that?" Well, mine was at least. Back in August I had a post looking at various odds on Vick. Many of them are still up in the air ("Will M Vick ever throw another pass as an NFL QB", "Will he run for public office by the end of 2010"; seriously, go to the link and look at all of them). But today's ruling clears up this one:

How much Jail time will M Vick be sentenced to?

Lets see what I had to say about these at the time:

"If you're morbid enough to bet on this, it seems like 19-30 months at 2:1 is
probably a good call. Although the "prosecutors will recommend a sentence of a
year to 18 months," given the judge's reputation, it seems like two years is
pretty realistic."

First of all, my "analysis" doesn't really make sense, since two years falls within the 19-30 months range. I think I meant "it seems like 10-18 months is is pretty realistic." But that's not the point.

Sadly, I was not "morbid enough" to place a wager, but I did call it correctly. 23 months pays out at 2:1, much better than the favored 10-18 months at 1:3.

Note: Did he get fined? There were odds on that as well, but I can't find it anywhere.

Edit: Richard makes a very good point in the comments:

"Interesting comment someone left on your August post:

--------------
Anonymous said...Let's focus on the word JAIL. Anybody who thinks this guy is gonna get actual time behind bars is nuts. He wouldn't have accepted a plea bargin that included time. Now he'll turn on his fellow dog fight buddies who aren't millionaires and who WILL do time. You can take a boy out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the boy. Maybe he just wanted to outdo his brother.
------------------------

Ha"

Fight Night Odds

Big fight tonight, so I thought I should take a look at some of the odds on various sites. I don't follow boxing closely at all, although I did watch the brilliant Mayweather/De La Hoya 24/7 on HBO last year (50 Cent's appearance on a Segway was classic), culminating in an interesting if uneventful fight. Sadly, this year I haven't been able to watch Mayweather/Hatton 24/7, although I've heard that has been quite entertaining as well.

On Saturday night it's Floyd Mayweather Jr. (38-0, 24 KOs) vs Ricky Hatton (43-0, 31 KOs) for the Welterweight Championship. The odds for each to win the fight:

In total, it looks like the books have Mayweather at about 65 percent to win. But this is a big fight, so the odds get much more detailed than that:

Interesting (if not surprising) to look at the differences between Decision and KO for each fighter. If Mayweather wins, there's a 73% chance it'll be by knockout; if Hatton pulls the upset, there's only a 54% chance he'll win by KO.

There are actually odds for the exact round in which the fight will be won, and by whom. This fight is probably going to go the distance; Bodog has the O/U at 11.5, with the over being -230 (66%), and the under at +180 (34%). Finally, The Greek has the breakdown of each individual round:

Ken Williams Is A Comedian

This is brilliant (via FanHouse and BBTF):

"Reacting Wednesday to the blockbuster deal that sent power-hitting third baseman Miguel Cabrera and former All-Star left-hander Dontrelle Willis from the Florida Marlins to the Detroit Tigers — wrecking the Sox’ latest offseason plans — [Chicago White Sox GM Ken] Williams said: 'All this has done is put the Tigers in a better position to contend with us.'"

I suppose he is right, in some sense. But his word choice is quite poor; I would have used "destroy", "pummel", or "embarrass", rather than "contend".

At Least They're Consistent In Their Incompetence

The following is a list of the members of the BBWAA (from Wikipedia, so don't even think about questioning it's accuracy; although Wikipedia does say it's incomplete).

• Peter Abraham, The Journal News
• Dave Albee, Marin Independent Journal
• Maury Allen, New York Post, retired
• Dom Amore, The Hartford Courant
• Mel Antonen, USA Toda
• Phil Arvia, Daily Southtown
• Bill Ballou, Telegram & Gazette of Worcester
• Mike Bauman, MLB.com
• Ira Berkow, The New York Times
• Jeff Blair, Toronto Globe and Mail
• Barry Bloom, MLB.com
• Ron Blum, Associated Press
• Paul Bodi, MLB.com
• Hal Bodley, USA Today
• Thomas Boswell, Washington Post (non-voting member)
• Pat Borzi, New York Times
• Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Steve Buckley, Boston Herald
• Don Burke, Newark Star-Ledger
• Jim Caple, ESPN
• Mike Celizic, MSNBC
• Bill Center, The San Diego Union-Tribune
• Murray Chass, New York Times (non-voting member)
• Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Bill Conlin, Philadelphia Daily News
• Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Jerry Crasnick, ESPN
• Ken Davidoff, Newsday
• Jose de Jesus Ortiz, Houston Chronicle
• Mike Dodd USA Today
• Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune
• Rich Draper, MLB.com
• Gordon Edes, Boston Globe
• Bob Elliott, Toronto Sun
• Mark Faller, The Arizona Republic
• Jeffrey Flanagan, The Kansas City Star
• Gerry Fraley Dallas Morning News
• Tom Gage, The Detroit News
• Peter Gammons, ESPN
• Pedro Gomez, ESPN
• Ken Gurnick, MLB.com
• Mark Gonzalez, Chicago Tribune
• Jerry Green, The Detroit News
• Tony Grossi, The Plain Dealer
• Paul Hagen, Philadelphia Daily News
• Jim Hawkins, The Oakland Press
• John Henderson, Tampa Tribune
• Lynn Henning, The Detroit News
• Jon Heyman, Sports Illustrated
• Jerome Holtzman, Chicago Tribune
• Jeff Horrigan, Boston Herald
• Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer
• Rick Hummel St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle
• Chuck Johnson USA Today
• Richard Justice Houston Chronicle
• Dick Kaegel, MLB.com
• Ann Killion, San Jose Mercury News
• Bob Klapisch, ESPN
• Mike Klis, Denver Post
• Gwen Knapp, San Francisco Chronicle
• Michael Knisley, ESPN
• Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Doug Krikorian, Long Beach Press-Telegram
• Tim Kurkjian, ESPN
• Joseph Liao, World Journal
• Paul Ladewski, Daily Southtown
• Mike Lefkow, Contra Costa Times
• Bill Livingston, The Plain Dealer
• Seth Livingstone USA Today
• Bill Madden, New York Daily News
• Tony Massarotti, Boston Herald
• Sean McAdam, ESPN
• Hal McCoy, Dayton Daily News
• Dan McGrath, Chicago Tribune
• Paul Meyer Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Bernie Miklasz St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Scott Miller, CBS Sportsline
• Larry Milson, The Globe and Mail
• Jim Molony, MLB.com
• Carrie Muskat, MLB.com
• Bob Nightengale USA Today
• Mark Newman, MLB.com
• Marty Noble, MLB.com
• Jack O'Connell Hartford Courant
• Dave O'Hara, retired
• Buster Olney, ESPN
• Rob Parker, The Detroit News
• Jeff Peek, Traverse City Record Eagle
• Mike Peticca, The Plain Dealer
• Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times (non-voting member)
• Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Star
• Ray Ratto, San Francisco Chronicle
• Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News
• Phil Rogers, ESPN
• Bob Rosen, Elias Sports Bureau
• Ken Rosenthal, Fox Sports
• Roger Rubin, New York Daily News
• Jim Salisbury, The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Alan Schwarz, Baseball America
• Chaz Scoggins, The Sun of Lowell
• Dan Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe
• Bud Shaw, The Plain Dealer
• John Shea, San Francisco Chronicle
• Joel Sherman, New York Post
• Claire Smith, The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Bob Smizik, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Jim Sohan, Minneapolis Star Tribune
• Lyle Spencer, MLB.com
• Jayson Stark, ESPN
• Kit Stier, The Journal News
• Larry Stone, Seattle Times
• Joe Strauss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Jim Street, MLB.com
• Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune
• T.R. Sullivan, MLB.com
• Dave van Dyck, Chicago Tribune
• Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

So these 119 guys are apparently qualified. Included on that list are sixteen Web writers, who were recommended for approval yesterday:

"Sixteen of the 18 nominations were recommended for approval: Scott Miller from CBS Sportsline; Jim Caple, Jerry Crasnick, Peter Gammons, Tim Kurkjian, Amy Nelson, Buster Olney, and Jayson Stark from ESPN; Ken Rosenthal from FoxSports; John Donovan, Jon Heyman, and Tom Verducci from SI; and Tim Brown, Steve Henson, Jeff Passan, and Dan Wetzel from Yahoo. "

Who are the two that missed the cut, you ask? Oh, nobody you've heard of. At least there's a good reason for this (from comment #90):

"One of the requirements for membership in the BBWAA is the need to be at Major League ballparks. Several members questioned whether Rob and Keith meet that requirement.

Some board members informally contacted folks at ESPN with this question and were told neither Rob nor Keith regularly attend big-league games and do not need to do so in order to do their jobs.

I can guarantee you that if my supervisors reported that to the BBWAA about me, I wouldn't have a card.

Also, this is how the system works. Newspapers designate candidates for membership. Reporters don't apply on their own. We followed the same basic procedure in adding internet reporters.

One difference: Candidates have always been reviewed each year by a chapter chairman, but since the internet sites were applying through the national office, they were reviewed by the national board of directors.

I've been in contact with Keith and Rob since the vote. Keith said he does attend games on a regular basis and expects to increase his attendance in the coming year.

If that's true, and I have no reason to doubt Keith, I hope ESPN confirms this and resubmits his name next year for consideration. If so, I would expect him to be approved.

I haven't heard back from Rob at this point, but if the view on his need was similarly misrepresented, I hope ESPN also resubmits him as a candidate.

Bob Dutton
BBWAA president"

Oh. Nevermind. Because attending lots of Tigers games allowed Gage and Hawkins to make such informed selections in this year's MVP voting, right?

Just another addition to the long list of votes pathetically screwed up by this organization, I guess.

Update: FJM chimes in:

"Mr. Neyer, Mr. Law: you are not "beat" enough to be beat writers for the BBWAA. You do not spend enough time smelling players' sweat and managers' chaw. Your brand of writing -- writing about facts, information, and data -- will not be tolerated within their ranks. Gentlemen: congratulations."

Update 2: More debate in the comments of Law's blog.

Update 3: Another BBTF thread.