playoff predictions, how'd I do?

Guess: Rays over White Sox in 5.
Result: Rays over White Sox in 4.

Short by one. Don't think I missed anything, really.

Guess: Red Sox over Angels in 5.
Result: Red Sox over Angels in 4.

Short by one again. I underestimated Mike Sciosia's ability to smallball his team right out of the playoffs.

Guess: Cubs over Dodgers in 5.
Result: Dodgers over Cubs in 3.
You don't get much more wrong than that. I'm not sure if I underestimated the Dodgers or overestimated the Cubs. Maybe I underestimated the Dodgers, or overestimated the health of the Cubs starters. Or maybe I'm just stupid.

Onward:
Red Sox over Rays in 7.
The Sox health problems don't matter as much as you would think, thanks to their depth. These teams are both very good at every aspect of the game, but the Sox just hit a little better. Really, it is a toss-up though.

Phillies over Dodgers in 7.
The media is pretty much already giving this one to the Dodgers, but this actually about as dead even a match as you can find. Cole Hamels is the best pitcher on both teams, and while the Dodgers have a much deeper staff, that counts less in the playoffs when teams go to three man rotations. Ryan Howard could inflict some unholy terror onto the Dodger's mainly right-handed starters.

playoff predictions

"My #@$% doesn't work in the playoffs." Billy Beane.

Just to keep my mind off the economy, really.

Rays over White Sox in 5
The Rays are a better fielding, better hitting, better pitching team. The White Sox just lost their best position player, Carlos Quentin and are surprisingly mediocre hitting-wise for a team that hits so many home-runs. But the same caveat applies to all of the first round: any team can win a five-game series. This has the most entertaining managerial matchup in the playoffs. The Rays are managed by a guy who's about as intelligible as Alan Greenspan, while the White Sox manager just likes to call everyone a "faggot".

Fun Player to Watch For: Javier Vasquez is an underrated pitcher, and one who's manhood was called into question by his boss last week.


Red Sox over Angels in 5
Two great starting pitching staffs, two great bullpens, two not as good as you think closers. The difference is that the Red Sox just hit way better than the Angels. Also, I believe that the rally monkey will get eaten by a leopard.

Fun Player to Watch For: Good Jonathan Papelbon, as opposed to the guy who showed up in September. Kevin Youkilis, the Greek (Jewish, actually) god of walks had a breakout year, too.


Cubs over Dodgers in 5
Two extraordinary pitching staffs from top to bottom. Dodgers have more depth in the bullpen, but I think the key guys for the Cubs are better. A good pitching staff can more easily shut down the Dodgers as they are a lineup that lacks depth. As with with many Torre teams, the Dodger bench is filled with useless players but also has Jeff Kent's mustache. The Cubs have probably more depth in their lineup than any team in the playoffs. On the Dodger's side, I know Satan is pulling for them, and he could decide to intervene.

Fun Player to Watch For: ManRam is the most interesting guy on either team. Angel Berroa is interesting in that he's bad at just about every aspect of baseball and yet holds a job on a contending team, making Rafeal Furcal's health pivotal.


Phillies over Brewers in 4
I really want the big, fat Milwaukee Brewers to win, but unless C.C. Sabathia is pitching, they really aren't even very good. The hitters don't get on base, the bullpen is awful, and the rest of the rotation is a crap shoot at best. The Phillies, meanwhile have the most underrated starting pitching corps in recent memory. They have the 3rd best Runs allowed in baseball, despite pitching in a yard about the size of Don Zimmer's pants. Jamie Moyer, in particular put a sub 4 ERA at an age when most baseball players are just the best insurance salesmen in Gil's office.

Fun Player to Watch For: I've always liked Ray Durham. I have a weird feeling that if the Brewers pull this off Ray-ray and young pitcher Yovani Gallardo will be mixed up in it. Also, Scott Eyre may be on the Phillies roster for the sole purpose of getting Prince Fielder out. That at-bat could be pretty fun.

statistical anomalies: 2007 Diamondbacks

The 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks deserve special recognition. Generally regarded as a good baseball team, the Diamondbacks were not exceptional at pitching; they probably had the 11th best pitching staff in baseball, with the second best bullpen. The Diamondbacks were certainly not exceptional at hitting; they scored 712 runs, the fifth lowest total in the majors and only ahead of teams which can be described as the summer school remedial art class of baseball.


In fact, the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks were not particularly good at any aspect of the game except for relief pitching, a notoriously fickle and small sample size driven area of the game. And therein lies the exceptional nature of the Arizona Diamondbacks, this very unexceptional team won 90 games, yet somehow allowed 20 more runs than they scored.


This may not sound impressive, but it runs afoul of one of the most regular statistical regularities in the universe. Devised by stathead godling, Bill James, the Pythagorean expectation shows the number of wins that a team can expect from it's run differential. Indeed, the difference between a team's expected record and actual one is normally distributed, with a mean of -.042.


The exceptionally lucky and unexceptionally talented Diamondbacks outperformed their Pythagorean expectation by 11.097 wins. This places them 9th on the list of all time over performing teams. There's no postseason hardware for defining the left most tail of the normal distribution, but I think we should thank the Diamondbacks for having lucked themselves into an intellectually interesting record.


Most teams that outperform their Pythagorean expectation come back down to earth in their next season, though over and under performance do have some persistence into the next season. If one were given to making predictions, predicting that the 2008 Diamondbacks would win fewer than 90 games would seem to be a gimme.


Unfortunately for would-be prophets the Diamondbacks have a feature that may serve to confound the simple predictive powers of Pythagoras. Their abysmal lineup featured a number of very young hitters, and young hitters can be expected to improve until their late twenties.


I feel the foolish urge to make predictions, so here we go. The Diamondbacks will improve their runs scored and run differential, but their record will get worse. Now, I don't have particularly good reasons to predict this (like most prognosticators). The Diamondback bullpen will probably be much worse than it was in 2007, but the starters could go either way or be subject to attrition and turnover. I just think it would be appropos.

BLB

Despite being a baseball guy, and a Giants fan, I just can't give a crap about Barry Bonds and his legal troubles. I can only give a nod to Grant Brisbee as to why.

christmas present

Really? For me?

Are you sure it's not too expensive? Did you save the receipt? oh.

No. It's lovely. Thank you. I'm going to really enjoy it, I just know you're on a budget, and I'm worried that it's too much.

Yes, I know, at least it's not very breakable. I've heard the other models can be very fragile.

Well, thank you. You probably shouldn't have