TheRealMattKain

Was that article written by someone who learned English as a second language? Too/to errors, subject-verb agreement mistakes, awkward sentence structure... what a mess. This was anything but "an interesting read." Sorry, but I have hard time finding credibility in something that looks like an entry in a Junior High School newspaper.

Brilliant. Anyway, sorry for getting off track on an excessive punctuation tangent. Topper, let's get back to the heart of the issue here so I can understand where you're coming from. So you are... A) OK with what happened in the Twins/A's game B) Do not think that the game was decided by a bad umpire call C) Do not think that replay would have had any effect on the game

Yes, I'm serious. Are you serious that you cannot see that that the ump is to blame? (I even used one more question mark than you to prove my point). It doesn't matter how the Twins got to the point that they were at. It doesn't matter if the Twins had a 100 run lead. The bottomline is this:- The Twins were down by one run - Cuddyer scored what would have been the tying run - The umpire made the wrong call, instead of giving the Twins a run, he gave them an out and the game was over You honestly don't think that was the ump's fault? Who cares that the Twins gave up a 10 run lead? Totally irrelevant to the argument. The Twins were down by a run, they should have tied the game, the ump blew it, the A's were given a win due to a terrible call. It's as simple as that. Example. Let's say you're $1000 in debt to the International House of Question Marks for all those question marks you used in your earlier post. You buckle down and save for a month - pinching every penny so you can pay off your debt to the IHQM. You're on your way to the IHQM to pay off your debt when I suddenly roll up and steal your $1000 at gun point (I was going to say "exclamation point", but the pun was too terrible). Oh oh. Now you're still in debt, but it certainly isn't my fault. How could I be to blame? Sure I stole your sweet, sweet money, the very money that you were about to use to pay off your IHQM debt, but you were the one who got yourself into debt in the first place. Not me. Sadly, I'm not so sure the judge would buy my argument. (edit: excessive punctuation --1992)

Are you kidding? It's a shame how many games are decided by one lousy call. Just off the top of my head, how about Defilice's walk off strikeout? If the correct call was made, the Brewers would have been up to bat, instead the Cubs won on a botched call: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap?gid=290703116 Or what about the Twins/A's game the other night? Cuddyer scored the tying run at home, was incorrectly called out, the A's were handed the win: http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/6133263/16154788 http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap;_ylt=AiJwfvquj.gGdt6.uYLCtAcf0bYF?gid=290720111 I'm assuming you watch baseball, right? You honestly cannot think of a game where a single call changed the outcome? I find that hard to believe. edit: added additional link

Shenanigans. This list has been up since yesterday and no major news outlet has reported a word on it. This seems not unlike the George Clooney death rumors. Fake.

Wow. As a child of the '80s I feel like the greatest icon of my generation has passed. My cultural bearings are completely confused right now.

You do not understand how a run-scoring simulator works. It does not "lump them into one calculation" or say "a walk is worth X number of runs regardless of situation." A probability is assigned to the likelihood of an event occurring based on prior outcomes. In our case these prior outcomes are things like batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage, etc. For Willie Walks-Every-Time there is a 100% chance that a walk will occur because Willie walks every single plate appearance. Your claim that it is "not incorporated in the calculation" is completely incorrect. The complete opposite is now true. We are now incorporating an absolute known outcome rather than a probability into the simulator (again, there is a 100% chance of a walk occurring). If the outcome for all 9 lineup spots was known, then the simulator would be 100%, picture-perfect accurate. Do you see what I'm saying? By adding an event with a known outcome, the simulator actually gets closer to being correct (not more incorrect as you assume). I shouldn't have to give a stats/combinatorics lecture here - this is nothing more than basic probability. Now you're just being absurd. The effect of these potential side-effects is so minor that it is irrelevant compared to the huge gains that a walk every plate appearance would create. Again, I see that this really boils down to your not understanding how a lineup/run scoring simulator works. A set of event probabilities based on player statistics is used to determine a likely outcome. None of your above arguments would alter the set of event probabilities for the remaining 8 players in the lineup enough to eliminate the tremendous advantage having a player walk every single time would produce. The bottom line is this: if you fail to see how massively valuable a theoretical player who walks every plate appearance is, then you also fail to see the importance of on base percentage. You can quibble and come up with as many silly "what ifs" as you want. If you really don't see how beneficial a perfect 1.000 on base percentage (even if it's all generated via walks) is, then you're really missing the importance of on base percentage in general. As has been said several times in this thread already: not making outs in baseball is huge. Anyway, I see that our understanding of this is radically different. I suggest playing with the simulators a little bit and seeing what kind of results you get (or maybe reading up on probability theory since it has a pretty useful application for baseball - my fantasy team can attest to that). Thanks for a lively discussion. EDIT: fixed some minor typos

I think I follow you. This is simply where we disagree. Your fear is that programming limitations or potential bugs that may manifest in an extreme case cause you to mistrust the run scoring/lineup simulators. Maybe as a software engineer I tend to have a little more faith in these run scoring/lineup simulators. Sure, if plugging in my fictional player generated some sort of ridiculous run-scoring outcome (negative runs, 0 runs, infinite runs, etc.) then I would probably doubt the results as well. However, in my opinion the run scoring averages generated by these programs seem pretty much right in line with what I would assume a player that walks every at bat would add. What is interesting here, however, is that my theoretical player has no unknowns. If anything I would expect the simulator to work even better in this case. The outcome for my player is always known. My player gets on base every single time and my player never makes an out. That's huge. Think about it for a second. Given 650 plate appearances a year, a superstar with a .420 on base percentage gets on base 273 times and makes 377 outs. My player gets on base 650 times and makes 0 outs. That, my friend, is a massive difference (even if your guy hits doubles, homers, etc.). Sure, we can come up with all sorts of anecdotal scenarios (what if each time my player gets a walk, the next three batters strike out?). I can do the same. What about when Pujols slumps and goes 0-20? What about when Pujols strikes out with the bases loaded to end an inning? This is exactly the point of the simulator. It can run through thousands of scenarios to create an accurate gauge of what we would expect, on average, from a given lineup. Some of those scenarios might be the ones you mentioned (where my player gets a walk and it does not result in a run because the following hitters failed to bring him home). That's the advantage of letting a computer run a simulation (I feel silly even typing this). We can feed in a series of probabilities and let it compute a likely outcome. Repeat this thousands of times, and we start to get really, really close to what we would expect to happen in real life. . Your general line of thinking seems to be anti-statistic. Why do you trust OPS at all? Given a player with a 1.000 OPS how do we know that he won't strike out 100 times in a row? Or he could hit into 30 double-plays in a row, right? Doesn't that mean we should mistrust OPS as well?

One more time. You said: I still say YIKES. I know what you're trying to say here, but in an individual case, I will never take an out over a walk. That's just silly. I think what you really mean is that given certain situations where the outcome is unknown, you would sometimes rather have the player try to get a hit than take a walk. Now this is just getting frustrating. Where did this whole "Bill Hall types" thing come from? Nowhere in any of my posts is anything like this mentioned. You're totally losing sight of the argument. Let me try one more time to rephrase and refocus the debate. 1. Poster claimed that a hitter who walks every time would be far more valuable than anyone else in baseball. 2. You countered by saying this is not true. Your argument being that several current players would have a higher OPS than a theoretical player that walks every single plate appearance. You said: "Taking a walk every at bat would have been good enough for fourth in OPS last season. I think Chipper Jones, Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez were more valuable last year than the player you described." 3. I countered this by claiming that OPS is not a good tool to use to analyze this theoretical player. OPS overvalues slugging and undervalues on base percentage. Since we're talking about a player that walks every time, this is, in fact, the ultimate extreme case of where OPS does not successfully measure a player's offensive value. I claim that the true way to measure this player's value is to try plugging him into a lineup simulator and see how much additional offense he will produce. The results speak for themselves (I assume you have not tried a lineup simulator, correct?). Using a lineup simulator, we see that a player that walks every time will result in the team scoring more runs than a Pujols, Manny, etc. Me. To quote BrewJihad: There you go. My team would average more runs per game than yours. It's not even close. Getting back to your side (assuming that you still disagree), I must assume one of the following: 1. You are simply failing to follow the debate that you initiated (I admit that there are many different thoughts and arguments going on simultaneously in this thread so it could be a bit confusing). 2. You think computer programs that simulate run scoring using different lineups are bunk (if so, please explain). 3. You believe computer programs that simulate run scoring have some merit, but you still believe that in this case OPS is a better indicator of run scoring (if so, please explain). 4. You have not tried and/or possibly do not understand lineup simulators. If so, nothing wrong with that. Try one of these links to learn more: http://www.sportsquant.com/baseballapp.htm http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py

Who said anything about giving you an entire arsenal of superstars? (Reread, please. Don't complain about misquoting if you're going to do so as well - thank you). As stated in my previous post, given a one for one swap, you would get the raw end of the deal.. In other words, if you and I had identical teams filled with "real" players (in other words, no Henry Homers-All-Day or Tony Triples-Too-Much), I would gladly give you any player on my team to have Willie Walks-Every-Time (even a Pujols, Jones, or Manny superstar quality player). In doing so, I would score more runs, and, a majority of the time, I would win and you would lose. Again, go to the link in my previous email and try a few passes at the lineup simulator to see what Willie Walks-Every-Time would add.

Dude, I think you misread. I asked for one Willie Walks-Every-Time. That's pretty much all I would need. Sometimes extreme examples are needed to help illuminate the more realistic, everyday scenarios. I'm quoting you out of context, but all I can say is YIKES. Seriously? Surely you've seen this before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gaedel

Maybe the perfect example of this was when Donovan McNabb, a superstar, multi-million dollar professional qurterback did NOT know that a football game could end in a tie. Being able to play a sport at a high level does not automatically qualify one as an expert on strategy, statistical analysis, or even the darn rules. Remember, these are athletes (many of whom do not have college educations) not brain surgeons or rocket scientists.

In general, OPS is a decent statistic to use when evaluating a player's offensive contribution. However, when we talk about an outlier or extreme case like a player that walks every plate appearance, OPS fails to have much value. It's already widely known that OPS overvalues slugging and undervalues on-base percentage. An imaginary player that walks every PA is simply the worst case example of OPS failing to successfully measure a player's offensive contribution because it undervalues on-base percentage. I mean, come on, this imaginary player also has a BA of .000. That should be a big flashing indicator that this very extreme, and very imaginary player cannot be evaluated with many easy-to-compute statistics. To really get a sense of how insanely amazing a player that walks every PA would be, try plugging the numbers into a lineup simulator and see what happens. For example, go here: http://www.sportsquant.com/baseballapp.htm Without changing anything, click the "compute weighted event probabilities" and then click the "Compute Runs Per 9 Innings" to see how many runs the default lineup would generate over 1000 simulations. Run it a bunch of times. You'll see that the lineup generates about 3.6 - 4.0 runs per game. Normal, right? Now put a player at the top of the lineup that walks every plate appearance (in the first row, set the "BB/HPB" column to 1 and set all the other columns in the first row to 0). Now run the simulator. The average runs per game will now jump to about 6.5. That's a big difference. For fun, try sticking two guys at the top of the lineup that walk every time. Now we're seeing over 10 runs per game! Now, I'm not sure how detailed this simulator really is, but I'm certain you will find the same thing with any simulator you try. A player that walks every plate appearance would have more offensive value and add more runs to a team than anyone else in baseball. Anyway, if I'm a GM, I would gladly trade you Pujols or Chipper or Manny for Willie Walks-Every-Time. And you, sir, would watch as my team walked all the way to the World Series (well, unless we have the Nationals' pitching rotation).

The vibe out here on Bay Area sports talk radio is that the Giants want a bat for Sanchez. Not just any bat, but an MLB-ready, productive bat (one idea kicking around is to go after Tejada). The Giants aren't just looking for a bunch of so-so prospects. They definitely feel that, with some lineup help, they have a legit chance at the wildcard this year. Sanchez, it appears, is who they're hoping to trade to bring that lineup help in.

Fixed. Come on, just look at the fashion highlights that San Diego baseball brought us: http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/81435dad931f847c6743d1cc3e8e11f60968530.pjpg http://images.yuku.com/image/bmp/f9c15c9b8862de3b70551135ec9ac36d2b966d6.bmp

Thanks for the help everyone. To summarize, so far my list includes: New Glarus Central Waters Sprecher Point Brewing Capital What do people know about Sand Creek Brewing? BeerGeek also has some of their stuff. MK

www.beergeek.biz sells both New Glarus and Sprecher. has anyone ever tried buying from them?

I'm in the process of buying my first house out here in the California Bay Area. Assuming that everything works out, I would like to get a present for my agent. The idea that everyone seems to have is to just get her a nice, pricey bottle of wine. However, the other day during a random conversation she mentioned that her only vice is her love of beer. Being a Wisconsinite, I thought the perfect gift would be a variety of cases of beer from local Wisconsin and Milwaukee breweries. In my opinion, it would be a little more unique and have more of a personal touch than just running out and getting some California wine. Here's the catch - I don't drink. Never have. So, despite being a Wisconsinite, I don't know the first thing about local beers. I know Wisconsin is overflowing with microbreweries so this shouldn't be too tough. Anyone have any thoughts? Here's what I'm wondering: 1. Do any of the local breweries ship beer nationally or provide some sort of online shop? I'm thinking of trying to buy several varieties by the case. Should I try to buy directly from a brewery or does anyone know of any sort of online distributor? 2. What would people recommend for good, local beer? The more unique and "Wisconsiny" the better. Brewerfan, I know you can help me here. MK

And now Tony Gwynn Junior gets a Yahoo front page article? I'm hoping to see Rob Deer next... http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/ae315793806ad2376e625672d3acaf4a88f6bf4.pjpg

Wow, never thought I'd see Mark DiFelice on the Yahoo front page: http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/5c6158938660d73c29ae411d56ba947c139558d.pjpg

Tonight 2 minutes of replay saved the Brewers from an erroneously called 2 run Marlin homer. Instead of cursing the heavens that Wes Helms tied the game and worrying that Hanley Ramirez or Jorge Cantu might beat us in extra innings, we can all sit back and thank instant replay for helping us enjoy first place where we rightfully belong.

Hmmm... maybe not "worry" but we shouldn't completely discount the unearned runs. Dillard's ERA may be 2.31 but his RA is around 3.86. That's a big difference. There is a compelling argument in "Baseball Between the Numbers" suggesting that RA may be a better indicator or predictor than ERA of a pitcher's true skill. I don't want to get too into it and hijack the thread, but I think the basic idea is that ERA can often over-estimate how much fault belongs to the defense and under-estimate the roll that a pitcher plays in allowing supposed "unearned" runs (then again, Dillard does play with Mat Gamel). There a little bit on the wiki page covering this same topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_average

I'm a little nervous about Dillard's AAA numbers this year. The ERA, WHIP, and homerun rate look nice. But 15 Ks and 12 BBs? That's not exactly a strikeout to walk ratio to be excited about. 9 earned runs looks solid, but 6 unearned runs? Even with a shoddy defense that's quite a few unearned runs to let cross the plate.

Aha. I thought it was odd that the numbers show that hitters do better with only a runner on 1st than with only a runner on 2nd. I would have thought that having a runner on 1st would create more force out opportunities for the defense than having a runner on 2nd, hence lowering the batter's OPS (more inning ending force outs, more cases where a fielder's choice rather than a hit is awarded). Your thought, however, is more in tune with the numbers.

Oops. Sorry, I should have made it more clear. Those numbers are for the entire of baseball (both NL and AL).