topper09er

T had to lunge pretty far to swing at ball 4 on the first full count pitch

Rick Ankiel might have something to say about best arm in the league

He just doesn't have the veteran-ness to hit 6, too bad because he would be an upgrade there.

ATL up 3-1 top 5 StL ChC scoreless entering the 2nd SF AZ just getting started EDIT: in 1 hour

Got any stock tips or sure bets for the ponies, Topper?Well in my very limited time at the Dairyland Greyhound track I usually bet on the dog that took a "current magic number" right before the race, but I don't think that was a very effective method

GIDP machine up, too bad Weeks isnt running because he should go early in this count.

Random observation, Corey laughs at Uecker way too much, it seems phony since he laughs as if he just heard the best joke of his life every time Ueck makes any joke. Like hes trying to suck up to him, we get it, Uecker is funny. He says plenty of things that evoke actual laughter, just not every time he opens his mouth.

Good question. He wasn't even in the camera frame although he clearly should have been at least somewhere in the neighborhood of the ball. I thought it looked foul. Inning over.Yeah Im not saying he should have caught it, although some MLB SS may have been able to, but he might have been able to get there before Braun did

Where was Yuni on that? If he didnt even move an inch for it.....

Nice, 1 foot short of a dinger

Nats announcers say insane statistic that Tim Hudson 143-2 in his career when his team scores 3+ runs. Tim Hudson is 164-47 when his team scores 3+ runs

Braves up 3-0, now top of the 2nd

Uncertainty is different from being subjective. The numbers are obviously rounded (to the nearest half run over an entire season!) because the calculations cannot possibly achieve that level of accuracy due to the sample size. Your original statement that anyone who uses WAR as the center of their argument should immediately be ignored is way off base, you have not shown any good reason to do so other than in your opinion WAR tells you things that your intuition does not agree with. To say WAR is useless because the positional adjustments may be off by a few runs over the entire season. Also what alternative do you suggest, if you disagree that Ellsbury could more valuable than Fielder what stats do you recommend to back up your stance? I assume you are talking about 2008, according to fangraphs Fielder put up 1.7 WAR and Ellsbury put up 4.3. WAR Breakdown: SeasonTeamBattingBase RunningFieldingReplacementPositionalRARWARDollarsSalary 2008Brewers25.1-9.8-9.223.1-12.317.01.7$7.6$0.7 SeasonTeamBattingBase RunningFieldingReplacementPositionalRARWARDollarsSalary 2008Red Sox-0.44.121.220.3-2.542.74.3$19.2$0.4Traditional stats: SeasonTeamGPAHHRRRBISBAVGOBPSLG 2008Brewers15969416234861023.276.372.507 SeasonTeamGPAHHRRRBISBAVGOBPSLG 2008Red Sox1456091559984750.280.336.394 So the big difference comes from defense, the biggest problem with WAR. Single year defensive values are not very reliable and more like a 3 year average is better. Fielder's average from '07-'09 = -4.9 runs, For Ellbury Ill just use his career average since its about 3 full seasons, = 9.3 R/150G. If you use those values you get Fielder = 2.1 WAR, Ellsbury = 3.1 WAR. Whats wrong with that? Fielder is way above Ellsbury hitting and way below in everything else? Do you not agree with that? How do you justify Fielder being more valuable than Ellsbury? The important thing to note is that WAR says who is more valuable, not necessarily better. It is more valuable to a team to have a the same hitter play OF than 1B, take Jeter as an example. The Yankees are better because he can play SS instead of 1B. The way it is now the Yankees have Jeter and Texiera, but if they have Jeter at 1B and Marco Sucaro at SS they are worse off, even though Jeter is providing the same offense from either position.

What is subjective about WAR? Read through this and show me where any subjectivity comes in:http://www.insidethebook....le/how_to_calculate_war/ What is NOT subjective about it? Arbitrary "value" given to different positions, Uzr is part of the formula, estimated factors for games played, etc. But the biggest problem is the junk science that is the leap between above/below avg performance and win shares. It is impossible to conclude player x is worth 2.7 wins a year. There's just now way to prove it. The values are not arbitrary: "Since players move around (albeit infrequently) from position to position, and we have decent defensive measurements, we can compare positions more or less directly. Well, most positions: we have the problems of dealing with infield to outfield and the issue of left handed players not being able to play third base, shortstop, catcher, and second while being favoured at first. But these things can be taken into account by tweaks to the calculations, and after some work you (by you I mean Tom Tango) end up with the following values for our positional adjustment (in runs per 600 PA): http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/299646/posadjust.png Please, please note that these values are not set in stone. You could tweak a lot of the numbers up and down by a run or two and nobody would bat an eyelid. This is a guideline, and while it’s close it’s not perfect by any means. The second thing to pay close attention to as that those are run values per 600 plate appearances. In reality, while plate appearances will obviously dovetail pretty closely with defensive chances, it’s not an exact match. We’re also exposing ourselves to a significant selection bias by only looking at players considered capable of moving around the diamond. Furthermore, these adjustments look at the sum of raw defensive ability – they don’t take into account how an individual position stresses different tools (arm is more important in right field than left, for example). None of these points are enough to recommend not using the above values, but as with everything we look at, the holes in the model are instructive." (http://www.fangraphs.com/.../positional-adjustment/) Even if you think those values are off they do not make a huge difference in the calculations, so you can look at WAR and round up or down depending on which way you think the positional adjustment should go. And if you dont like the defense part just ignore it, look at offensive WAR or wOBA.

"If you find a player that is less streaky over the course of "x" number of games, it is only because of random chance." So when Christian Laettner goes a perfect 10-10 from the floor and 10-10 from the line in the 1992 Elite 8 it ALL random luck, no room whatsoever for an increase in performance from being "clutch" or just focusing more when it really matters? And you know this for a fact as much as you know 1 + 1 = 2? You will not concede that it was possible for Laettner to control his performance at all instead of him just simply getting lucky? I am not talking about results which you can measure and is far more luck dependent, I am talking about performance like line drive percentages. It would be interesting to see if Pujols is a less streaky LD hitter than Jason Kendall.

Brewers need to average 31,024 fans/game this homestand to reach 3 mil. I would think that's a lock.

Tonight for the Cards is one of those times when the un-quantifiable reasons that a manager is important comes into play. Losing a game like that at home in this race could be enough for some players to dwell on it the rest of the season. We'll see if that was too much for them to take or if they can forget about it and continue playing as well as they have been lately. Before yesterday's glorious choke job they had won 12 of their previous 14 games.

What is subjective about WAR? Read through this and show me where any subjectivity comes in:http://www.insidethebook....le/how_to_calculate_war/

I really dont like treating baseball like a series of coin flips, I think that is far too simplistic. I think if a player is hot then they should have higher odds of getting a hit with successive good ABs. You are treating players too much like a random dice instead of dynamic people. To suggest a true talent .300 hitter has a 30% chance of getting a hit in every single AB of their career does not reflect reality, in my opinion. Also, it would be extremely interesting to actually set up the trial you are suggesting and compare it to actual results. Maybe you are correct and you would not find anyone less random than your theoretical floor, but I suspect you would.

If he ever pitches again his nickname should be Don Draper. I think we should hire a PI to check "Yuni's" papers if that even is his real name.

"I think a player can bunch together good performances for reasons other than randomness." Of course they can. Who is arguing otherwise? ________________________________________________________________________ Um what does this mean then? "I hope we can all agree that the vast majority of time that when a player is deemed hot or cold, they are simply exhibiting a random bunching of good or bad performance."

Edit: I finally figured out how to embed videos

New York - Top of 9thSCOREJason Motte pitching for St. LouisNYMSTLS Robinson in left field.26J Motte relieved O Dotel.26S Schumaker in right field.26W Harris walked.26N Evans safe at first on error by shortstop R Furcal, W Harris to second.26J Thole flied out to center.26J Pridie hit for J Satin.26J Pridie walked, W Harris to third, N Evans to second.26J Turner hit for M Acosta.26J Turner walked, W Harris scored, N Evans to third, J Pridie to second.36M Rzepczynski relieved J Motte.36J Reyes singled to center, N Evans scored, J Pridie to third, J Turner to second.46F Salas relieved M Rzepczynski.46R Tejada doubled to deep left, J Pridie and J Turner scored, J Reyes to third.66A Pagan intentionally walked.66D Wright struck out swinging.66W Harris singled to right, J Reyes and R Tejada scored, A Pagan to third, W Harris to second on throwing error by right fielder S Schumaker.86N Evans flied out to center.866 Runs, 3 Hits, 2 Errors

I'm sure there are certain factors that contribute to streakiness (health being the greatest I suspect). I hope we can all agree that the vast majority of time that when a player is deemed hot or cold, they are simply exhibiting a random bunching of good or bad performance. I am not willing to easily accept this, I think the results (batting average) are more of a bunch of random good and bad outcomes (balls finding holes, or lineouts), but performance is different than results. I think a player can bunch together good performances for reasons other than randomness. I would absolutely love for you or anyone else to prove your ability to identify which players are hot by watching them. This is not easy obviously, but since I believe hot streaks exist for reasons other than randomness then there must be some way to identify it. I cant prove it and maybe I don't know the right thing to look for, but I think there must be a way to do even if no one can do it consistently now. It may come down to simply asking the player how they feel, because I know from experience of just playing in high school that there were times when I knew I was gonna hit it hard 4 times that day and other days when I really hoped to not see first pitch strikes on the corner and fall behind in the count early. Obviously I would think someone who has spent 30 years in pro baseball would have so much more experience than me that they should be able to be better at identifies these things than me. There are definetly things that can be learned from watching the game that stats don't show, at least right now. I would not be surprised in the future to see stats that use cameras on the batter to identify things like bat path and swing speed to correlate with other things, but as of now the only way to gain this information is to watch the game. I can tell from coaching that a good coach should be able to pick a team just based on watching the kids play catch for 10 minutes on the first day of tryouts. You don't need to see anything else to know who the best players are going to be.