This Week's Links (7/21-7/25)

Analyzing Sportsbook's "Game of the Year" lines.

Checking in on the AL MVP race.

Poor judgment by Melky.

One pitch, one out, Save #42. MVP? Um...no.

Seattle's use of Vidro continues to defy logic.

Rovell on issues with withdrawing from online betting sites.

This Week's Links (6/30-7/4)

A day early this week, since I can't imagine this site will be getting a whole lot of traffic tomorrow.

How good are the Angels? Sean Smith knows.

The streak lives! (See here for reference.)

The Schilling/Jack Morris comparisons are awesome.

Buster Olney, reporter? Fine. Buster Olney, analyst? No.

Something about some team that's doing well, or something.

A logo conspiracy? I think so.

A proposal (#17) to add a new wing to the Hall of Fame titled, "What The Hell, They Were Better Than Jim Rice".

This Week's Links (4/28-5/2)

So I understand that Braylon Edwards was on Costas Now this week?

Okay, let's think about this logically. Watch the video (here, here). Then read the responses from Posnanski, TBL, FJM, AA, and Leitch. Who, again, is bringing down the level of discourse?

The Sports VU's 08-09 SEC Basketball preview.

Odds on which NBA player is most likely to be the next to admit to marijuana use.

The Angels brought up their top prospect, Nick Adenhart, who has already undergone elbow surgery, and had a 19:15 K:BB rate in AAA, to pitch on three days' rest. Shockingly, this did not go well.

Oh, so this is why Hansbrough returned to school. Fair enough.

"Meathook Bobblehead Is a Spitting Image...of Johan Santana." Very true.

This Week's Links (4/7-4/11)

Scott's excellent Deadspin post, his reward for winning their NCAA tournament pool.

The 10 funniest MLB profile pictures on Yahoo!.

An FJM post this week linked to the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Good stuff.

Bruce Bochy screwed up.

Proof that Ichiro doesn't pad his SB totals after the game has been decided.

FJM fisks "The Most Ridiculous Article In The History Of Everything Ever".

Extended (eight minutes) highlights from Kansas' glorious victory.

This Week's Links (3/31-4/4)

Forgot about this one last week. Gary Thorne actually thinks Jose Canseco is the Yankees' first baseman. He manages to make Steve Phillips look competent in this clip.

I like Vegas Watch's pairing in the "Suckiest Sports Blog" tournament. I'm pretty confident this blog is worse than We Are The Postmen, and thus will advance.

Continuing the series, a look at how SEC basketball is shaping up in 2009.

And that happened.

The dimensions at the L.A. Coliseum were pretty nuts.

I really can't get enough of the Meat Hook.

Actually, Jeff Brantley, Edwin Encarnacion is quite clutch.

PTI pulled a pretty good April Fools joke. The high five could use some work though.

A very interesting Bill James Q&A over at Freakonomics. A sampling:

Q: Has looking at the numbers prevented you from actually just enjoying a summer day at the ballpark? Have we all forgotten the randomness of human ballplayers? By reducing players to just their numbers can we lose sight of the intangibles such as teamwork, friendships, and desire.

A: Does looking at pretty women prevent one from experiencing love? Life is complicated. Your efforts to compartmentalize it are lame and useless.

Find me someone who tells stories better than Joe Posnanski. Please.

Rehab has really changed Yao.

This Week's Links (3/24-3/28)

An article about yours truly in the Emory Wheel. Why they are asking a man who had Duke in the Final Four about how he picked his bracket, I do not know.

Joe Alexander had some amusing comments after WVU's win over Duke. This was probably funnier before the 81% FT shooter missed a vaguely important foul shot last night.

Posnanski has now incorporated video into his blog. And a pretty good one at that.

Dikembe Mutumbo explains how Isiah Thomas has been an inspiration to his career.

Voros McCracken met Brian Bannister.

FJM finally gets around to Plaschke's "eternal" Pierre column.

"DaJaun" Summers was on the cover of SI. Somebody got fired over this.

This Week's Links (3/10-3/14)

Arkansas beat Vanderbilt!? Impossible.

SI's Luke Winn refers to this blog as "esteemed". Questionable, but appreciated.

This is what I was talking about in the live-blog. I can't do better than AA's title- "Digger Phelps Has No Idea What's Going On". That is even an understatement.

Dusty Baker is going to ruin Joey Votto. It's not funny. Okay, maybe a little.

Bob Costas hates bloggers.

BPro Unfiltered headline: "Braves, Angels Have Most Heart". Scientific evidence follows.

Hasheem Thabeet is an excellent Scrabble player.

An interview with Ken Tremendous.

Posnanski's "Stats I Like".

A compilation of forecasted standings. I'm going to do something with all these when the picks for all the ESPN guys are posted.

This Week's Links (3/3-3/7)

UConn lost to Providence last night. I do not know why everyone is (was?) so high on them. Yes, Thabeet is a defensive force inside- they are first in the country in 2-point FG defense. But their perimeter defense is terrible. Their offense is okay- Price and Thabeet are very good, Adrien is solid, Robinson is athletic but uninspiring. Their undoing last night was 21 turnovers. Depends on the draw, of course, but I'd be shocked if they win more than two games in the tourney.

Favre Moses Kinsaul's parents are mean. Or maybe just dumb.

When something in the NBA catches my attention, you know it must be impressive: LeBron went absolutely nuts against the Knicks. This was after talking to Jay-Z in the middle of the game.

Posnanski has been doing some very amusing AL division previews: East, Central, West. Here's Oakland's:

To the Moneyball man go of all the spoils
The most famous GM on American soil
But this part ain’t funny
He’s still got no money
And a roster that’s filled with ex-Royals

The Indians are not on Sunday Night Baseball in the first half of the season. But at least we all get to enjoy the BBTN team of Ravech, Kruk, Steve, and EY. Remember when that show used to be insightful? That was a long time ago.

FJM's Junior has a great idea for the Mets' 2008 slogan:

How about a billboard that just shows Baseball Prospectus' playoff odds in real time? That would be a good slogan.

I'm serious.

This Week's Links (2/25-2/29)

I am going to Tucson for the weekend. Hopefully they can hang with UCLA on Sunday. Probably not. At least it'll be warm.

Tiger at +1015 to win the Grand Slam? Not so fast.

Pomeroy with a fascinating look at shot selection.

A fan asked Steve Phillips to sign his jersey, "Steve Phililps, Met Killer". That is awesome.

60 Minutes is going to run a feature on Bill James.

Comparing this year's Rays team to the '69 Mets.

Jon Heyman makes up a new derogatory term for the sabermetric crowd: VORPies.

Yahoo:

A leaner, more muscular Victor Martinez stepped into the batter’s box Friday morning on one of the back fields at Chain of Lakes Park.

You know it. The Indians also won their ST opener.

Consistency

In mainstream sports reporting, the term "consistent" is entirely meaningless. When Joe Morgan says, "He's the most consistent hitter on the ballclub", he is telling us absolutely nothing (I think he really means *best*, but that's a discussion for another day). In coverage of college basketball over the next month, we will be bombarded with discussion of how team X has to be more "consistent" to make a deep run. It's all BS.

"Consistency" does have an actual, significant application however, and can be interesting when discussed intelligently. First off, it's important to note that being consistent is not necessarily a good thing. If you're a 12 seed playing in the first round, the last thing you want is to consistently play to the level of a 12 seed. If you do this, you will lose almost every time. It would be in your best interest to play like a 6 seed half the time, and like one that belongs in the NIT the other half. If you have inferior talent, it is to your advantage to be inconsistent.

The opposite is true when the situation is reversed. Kansas, the team that currently sits atop the Pomeroy ratings, would greatly benefit by being more consistent. On some nights they absolutely destroy teams (KU 84, Nebraska 49), but on others they play far below their talent level (Oklahoma St. 61, KU 60). The Jayhawks would benefit greatly from being more consistent and playing to their true level of talent every night- they'd almost never lose.

With that being said, the following is my attempt to quantify how consistent the 73 BCS teams have been this year. Simply put, all I've done is calculated the standard deviation of a team's performance against the spread.

It is important to note that this is very different from how each team has performed against the spread (or against expectations). That can be measured with the average of their performance against the spread- for example, UCLA has beaten the spread of their games by an average of 2.3 ppg. That is interesting in itself, and I'll have a post about it later this week, but is irrelevant when discussing consistency.

What I'm measuring here is how consistent each team has been in its performance against the spread (ATS). For example, if team X plays six games and beats the spread by 5 points in each, their average ATS is 5, and the standard deviation is 0. If team Y plays five games, covers by 9 three times, and covers by 1 the other three, their average ATS is still 5, but the standard deviation is 4.4. Clearly, team X has been more consistent than team Y, and this shows in the standard deviation.

Using this method, here are the 12 most consistent teams thus far in conference play (a lower number means a higher consistency):


When you think about this year's Indiana team, I doubt "consistent" is the first word that comes to mind. But on the court, they've been exactly that. They've played right to expectations (6-7-1 ATS), and done so reliably- all but one of Indiana's Big Ten games have been within nine points of the spread. With all the drama surrounding this team, it's anybody's guess how this will translate into March, but their talent level (a 4 seed) is pretty clear.

A second solid Big Ten team also makes the list, that being Purdue. They've gotten here in a very different fashion than the Hoosiers, going 11-3 ATS, and outperforming the spread by an average of 5.3 ppg. The Boilermakers have consistently exceeded expectations, beating the spread by between 3 and 8 points in 7 of their 14 conference games.

The third consistent tournament lock is Stanford. They've beaten the spread by an average of 2.1 ppg, and have been within 10 of that number in all but one of their Pac-10 games. This indicates that the projected #3 seed will have no trouble in the first couple rounds, but the odds are stacked against the Cardinal pulling off two upsets on the second weekend to reach the Final Four.

Now, the most inconsistent teams:

Two teams that are surprisingly high in the Pomeroy ratings- Marquette (10) and Kansas St. (11), appear here. The Wildcats' standing is pretty clear- they are world beaters at home (+15.6 average ATS, even after last night), but weak on the road (-3.3 average ATS). Even so, it's hard to know which team will show up in the tournament. When I think of a team that's extremely inconsistent- capable of beating just about anybody, or losing to Texas Tech, Kansas St. is the first team that comes to mind.

Marquette is another interesting case. After starting off Big East play 3-7 ATS, they have covered in their last six games. They lost their first three conference road games by an average of 17 points, but are 4-1 away from the Bradley Center since. Either they are very inconsistent, or they have improved as the season has progressed. Regardless, this is a team capable of making a run in March, and is likely underseeded as a 5.

The consistency numbers for the 49 teams that did not make these lists can be found here.

Photo: Yankees Chick.

This Week's Links (2/18-2/22)

The St. Louis under won, 39-14 (74%). Arizona is up now; we're going alphabetically the rest of the way.

Baseball Prospectus 2008 comes out on Monday. Probably the best $13.17 you'll spend this year. Unless Xavier (80:1 at BetUS) wins it all.

Very old, but this Russell Westbrook dunk against Cal was absolutely filthy.

Baseball Musings predicts how many R/G each team will score in '08. A commenter alertly notes, "Looks like another long year for Matt Cain."

STF interviews SI's Luke Winn.

Ozzie Guillen, being awesome:

‘’Then if you’re a nice guy, they are going to treat you the same way. [Expletive] it, be an ####### then. I would rather be an ####### winning than be a nice guy [expletive] losing. Give me an ####### who can win, don’t give me a nice guy who can [expletive] lose.’"

ESPN jumped the gun on the UAB-Memphis game. How does that happen? Is it really so difficult to wait two minutes?

Silver adjusts PECOTA for strength of schedule. Seattle's prediction descends even lower. 85 wins. Right.

With Leather was on the foxnews.com front page. Also from WL:

"Seriously, if I said that Raul Ibanez could run down a routine fly ball, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'd be lying."

Derek Jeter: a below average fielder!? Man, what are they smoking down at Penn?

Joba Joba Joba

I am going to try to use a very bad Mike Celizic article to intelligently discuss what the Yankees should do with Joba Chamberlain this year. We'll see how this goes. I suppose I've gotten off to a bad start with the title, as far as the "intelligently" part is concerned.

"The plan all along had been to use the 22-year-old Chamberlain as a starter, the role in which he excelled as a minor leaguer. But last year he proved to be an exceptional reliever, and in this era of ball, there’s no one more important to a team than a great closer."

I am pretty clearly a big fan of statistics. But I really wish the "save" stat had never been invented. If there wasn't a magical stat associated with finishing games, people probably wouldn't make silly statements like this. In 2007, Jonathan Papelbon was a "great closer". Jake Peavy was probably the best starting pitcher in baseball. Let's compare.

Papelbon: 58.3 IP, 15BB, 84K (wow; 13.0 K/9), 1.85 ERA, 256 ERA+
Peavy: 223.3 IP, 68BB, 240K, 2.54 ERA, 159 ERA+

I am ignoring wins and saves, because they are stupid and counterproductive. You cannot look at this and say a great closer is more valuable than a great starter. It's just not true. Peavy pitched four times as many innings.

"Last year, as Rivera’s set-up man, Chamberlain pitched 24 innings in 19 games. He gave up just 12 hits and one earned run while striking out 34; his ERA was 0.38. I submit those are better numbers than he would have had as a starter."

I'm honestly asking here- is HatGuy making a joke? Or does he actually feel it necessary to argue that Chamberlain would have had an ERA+ lower than 1192 if he was a starter? He must be kidding. Has to be.

"I know it’s a huge sacrifice in the short term to put a potentially great starter in the pen at the age of 22 to be a back-up and an insurance policy."

I love this. If he is pitching the 8th inning, he is a "back-up and an insurance policy". If he's closing, "there’s no one more important to [the] team". Why is this so difficult to understand? Either way, he is pitching high-leverage innings late in games. If anything, he'll be better put to use in a setup role, where he won't come in with three-run leads and will be allowed to pitch more than one inning.

"It’s the most important job in baseball. The Yankees got a kid who’s showed he can fill it. Leave him there."

I'm so lost. There are so many things wrong with this ending. The closer is the most important job in baseball, right? The one that requires a special skill, a "closer's mindset". First of all, that's not where you'd be leaving him- he'd be an "insurance policy", a setup guy. And secondly, how has he proven to have this innate closing skill? The guy has one career save. Fantastic article, really.

OK, enough of that. Joba threw 116 innings last year, including the playoffs. I believe the conventional wisdom is that you don't want to increase the workloads of young pitchers by more than about 30IP. So how long should they hold back and keep him in the bullpen?

Let's say he pitches 35 innings per month as a starter, and 12 out of the pen (these are guesses, but I think that's probably about right). So if he's relieving for three months, and then starting the rest of the way, that'd be 141 innings through the regular season. Maybe that's being a little too conservative, but that's probably a good strategy- chances are he'll be needed for at least one start in October. The Yankees would extract maximum value out of Chamberlain, both this year and in the future, if they kept him in relief until at least mid-June, and then moved him into the rotation.

That's in a vacuum, though. In reality, the decision won't be nearly that measured. If Rivera gets hurt, Chamberlain will be thrust into the "most important job in baseball", and I'd bet he stays there at least the rest of the season, and possibly far beyond that. On the other hand, if Mussina is as bad as he was in August last year, Hughes gets hurt again, or Kennedy struggles, he'll be forced into the location and likely stay there for the rest of his career.

It'll be very interesting to see how this plays out. I understand the Yankees' situation, and would probably be making the exact same decision myself. But it's pretty incredible that the future role of one of the best prospects in the game could be determined by which of his teammates is the first to get hurt.

Photo: Us Versus Them.

This Week's Links (2/4-2/8)

Bob Knight stepped down.

The FJM guys reveal their identities; Ken Tremendous is a writer for "The Office".

The Giants are not going to score many runs this year.

The Rays actually sent David Pinto a letter asking him to stop using "Devil", and fining him for doing so.

Sheehan's AL Spring Training previews; East (subscriber-only), Central (free), West (free). He is not optimistic about the Tribe.

Giants fans express their feelings towards Tiki.

Rafael Betancourt really was incredible last year.

This Week's Links (1/28-2/1)

Breaking down some NHL futures odds, and some Super Bowl prop bets that are actually football related.

"Chris Berman Is Somewhat Perturbed With The Help". Very old, but worth watching.

Our old friend Marty Noble, at it again.

Larry Johnson advises a blogger on how to get rich.

Gasaway with a great analysis of conference play thus far. How is Duke still so underrated? (I understand the answer is that they don't have anyone taller than 6'8", but still- it's the Dookies!)

Scott Van Pelt is a funny dude.

Brian Bannister is an interesting dude.

Keith Law's Top 100 prospects. I miss the days of the Indians having a good farm system.

Lozo gets interviewed.

I thought this was pretty funny (Sheehan on the Twins, pre-Santana trade):

"You can win, in baseball, if you have a donut-hole construction—lots of middle, nothing on the outside. You cannot win as a donut."

This Week's Links (1/21-1/25)

This doesn't really belong in the links, but UCLA won @Oregon without Mbah a Moute or Mata-Real. That is impressive.

The Dave Lozo 2007 NFC Championship Live-Blog was quite a roller coaster.

Predictably, Carl is quite happy.

UNC-Asheville's Kenny George dunks without jumping. Really.

There is a 54.8% chance that NJIT goes 0-29.

"Royals leading Santana Race?"

I thought this was a good line:

"Seriously, I can’t figure Kenny Williams out. One moment I think he’s one of the more interesting, creative GMs out there, the next I feel like he’s channeling Steve Phillips."

Two from FJM: Woody Paige, and HatGuy. These need no further introduction.

The Indians extended "Senor Slo-Mo". I agree with this, I really like the $5MM 2010 club option.

Villanova is overrated. Agreed.

This Week's Links (1/14-1/18)

BBTF hands out some Gold Gloves.

Listen, Buster. Listen. He listened!

The Post not making much sense. Carl echoes the same thoughts, except Carl is joking.

Sheehan's '08 breakout candidates.

Duke or UNC?

Shaughnessy at it again.

Jack Morris for the HoF? In that case, how about Rob Nen?

Grant Wahl doesn't include UNC in his "Magic Eight". His reasoning behind this is questionable (see update).

This Week's Links (1/7-1/11)

Check out the Memphis write-up in Luke Winn's Power Rankings this week. Pretty cool.

" Jacobs Field, the home of the Indians since 1994, will now be called Progressive Field." Well that sucks.

I thought it was interesting that Rice's BA/OBP/SLG are nearly identical to his HoF comps; the difference comes in OPS+, where he's 13 points behind. No wonder the voters are having so much difficulty with him.

More Rice: Sheehan observes that people "feared" Rice because of his '75-'80 performance; he really wasn't that scary at all in the second half of his supposedly dominant stretch.

Last one: Shaughnessy explains to us that Rice was "capable of inducing an intentional walk when the bases are loaded," and a better hitter than Wade Boggs. I mean, I guess I am *capable* of running a marathon, but it's never, you know, *happened*.

Posnanski forces "Brilliant Reader Dan Gould" to eat his hat.

"Mike Downey discussed Goose Gossage's HOF legitimacy by citing his win total."

Keith Law is the Stephen A. Smith of baseball. I wonder how he feels about Cheese Doodles.

Boras, on Ankiel:

"You have a player whose contributions came first as a pitcher, then as a position player. The last player you’re really talking about is Babe Ruth.”

This Week's Links (12/31-1/4)

Hall of Fame edition, because there wasn't a whole lot else going on this week.

Looks like Gossage is in, while Blyleven, Rice, and Dawson all have a shot. Raines does not.

Dave Studeman's imaginary ballot.

OMDQ's imaginary ballot.

Heyman's ballot really was bad.

Jay Jaffe on this year's SP candidates (subscription only).

Posnanski on Morris, and the Pozcars results.

More on the Blyleven-Morris "comparison".

"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 (12/3-12/7)

An interview with Indians' AGM Chris Antonetti.

A website dedicated to Tim Raines' HOF campaign.

FJM tried out the whole user comments thing. This didn't last long.

Sadly, new Pirates' GM Neal Huntington is very smart, and doesn't want to trade Jason Bay to the Indians for Lee and Shoppach. This is unfortunate.

Doug Gottlieb is upset.

"Long Live the Boom King". Indeed.

I thought this Unfiltered post (by Sheehan) was fantastic:

"The notions of “clutch” and “choke” are post-facto labels we use to create narratives, not skills that actually impact the game on the field.

Writers, however…boy, can we choke."