No Way, a post??
Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Career plate discipline numbers for two patient Twins hitters:

O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone% F-Strike%
18.10% 56.20% 37.50% 72.90% 93.60% 88.70% 51.00% 53.50%
16.70% 60.00% 39.70% 64.50% 95.50% 89.40% 53.20% 57.00%

Who might those two hitters be?

The first is Joe Mauer, the 2nd is Denard Span. Yes, Span's numbers look better. His K and BB rates aren't quite what Mauer's are, but with pitch recognition and contact ability like that it certainly looks like we can expect Span to continue getting on base at a phenominal rate.

At this point I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that going forward Span is almost certainly the Twins 3rd best position player.

Also, so far Crede really seems to be living up to my prediction that he would be a defensive upgrade over Buscher/Harris but not much of an offensive upgrade. He currently leads all ML 3b in UZR but has been a below average hitter at 3rd.

Finally, if I keep posting (which is a big if) I'm going to mix it up and not only add music to the end of my posts. This one is just funny and makes a very good point:

Posted bySL__72 at 10:11 PM 0 comments  

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Spring Training!
Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Twins have now played 2 games already! They might not count for anything, but its awesome that baseball has started again. And tonight is New Year's Eve for the NFL which means FA signing begins tonight! In fact as I'm writing this it is now officially the new NFL year.

I was going to write about the Crede signing but Gleeman pretty much nailed it so it seems like a waste of effort now. Plus I was busy getting ready for my midterm over the weekend and didn't have the time or energy to write anything. Basically people are way to excited about it and while it could help, any gains over Buscher/Harris are likely to be on defense.

Supposedly Sage Rosenfels will become a Viking tomorrow. Bringing in a 30yo career backup isn't my idea of an exciting improvement. I also don't like his propensity for throwing interceptions. By pretty much any worthwhile metric he actually played worse last season than Tarvaris did. Combine this with the fact that he will be learning a new offense and we might be looking at another QB competition in training camp next year. That isn't the answer.

Plus, Tarvaris looked a lot better at the end of the season except for vs. the Eagles obv. But it doesn't look as bad when you compare it to what other QBs were doing vs. that defense at the end of the season:

K. Warner 21/39/235/3td/3int
E. Manning 13/27/123/1td
K. Dorsey 11/28/156/2int
J. Campbell 18/33/144
T. Romo 21/39/183/1int
T. Jackson 15/35/164/1int
E. Manning 15/29/169/2int

They were really on fire until Kurt got a second shot at them.

Basically, if you want to get a QB, quit taking shots on guys who aren't going to suck but who've never really had success anywhere. Go after Garcia, or Warner, or get someone who at least has some upside (ie draft someone or take a chance on an Alex Smith).

Finally, my final roster from the NFL Modern Draft. I think it was generally considered to be one of the better teams when people ranked them after the draft was done. I think only three people did complete rankings but it was ranked like #2, top10 and top15 by the three that did.

Offense:

QB: Steve Young
RB: Charlie Garner
RB2: Gerald Riggs
FB: Larry Centers
FB2: Lawrence Vickers

WR1: Derrick Mason
WR2: Santana Moss
WR3: JT Smith

TE: Eric Green

LT: Mark Tunei
LG: Mike Wahle
C: Jeff Christy
RG: Will Shields
RT: Lincoln Kennedy

Obviously I was going for a WC offense after drafting Steve Young. I think I had a huge step up on most teams due to having one of the few really elite QBs. I really focused on building a good OL for my offense and think it worked out pretty well. I think it will be very good at run blocking and solid at pass blocking. At WR I went for two guys who I think are good at getting open on any type of route and have good hands. I think having Larry Centers and Charlie Garner coming out of the backfield really gives my offense a unique twist as they are both prolific pass catchers. Gerald Riggs is a great change of pace from Garner (who was seriously the Westbrook before Westbrook) as he is 6-1, 230 and was a great power runner. Eric Green was an absolute monster for a few years. He was 6-5, 280, ran something like a 4.6 40 and was the Steelers leading in back to back seasons. Finally I added Lawrence Vickers, one of the best blocking FBs in the NFL right now, to help in the power run game. The basic plan for my offense is to have people running all over the place and let Steve Young figure out where to go with the ball...

Defense:

LDE Jevon Kearse
LDT Brad Culpepper
RDT Pat Williams
RDE Leslie O'Neal

SLB DJ Williams
MLB Patrick Willis
WLB Keith Bulluck

LCB Donnell Woolford
SS Adrian Wilson
FS Darren Sharper
RCB Terrence McGee

Nickle: Rod Hood
DT3:Corey Williams

The key to my defense is going to be that I have an elite-level pass rushing end on both sides. I also like that they were both solid in the run game though (especially O'Neal). After that I really built up the middle, getting P-Will, P-Will, Sharper and Adrian Wilson. My LB core is ridiculously athletic and are all tackling machines. They would be used in coverage more than they'd blitz. Adrian Wilson would probably be blitzing as much as any of my LBs. I also like the idea of having 4 players who all blitz some instead of one pass rushing LB who blitzes often. Corey Williams would come in for Pat on passing downs and probably for Culpepper in short yardage situations. The idea is to play a lot of cover-2 and cover-3 which is why I felt I could get by with below average (in this league) CBs, but considering where I got them I really like them. McGee has developed into a great CB in Buffalo and Woolford was the Bears best CB for like 5 years. Rod Hood is a really solid all-around CB and should be a great 3rd CB in zone or manned up on opposing team's #3 WRs.

My defense is all about the beast factor. Jevon was obviously the Freak, Pat just eats up opposing centers, O'Neal was sick, Willis is ridiculous, and of coarse Adrian is like the definition of beast:



Sharper will play center field and make the opposing QB pay when they make a mistakes, which will hopefully be often due to lots of pressure. Oh and DJ Williams and Keith Bulluck were awesome later round additions I think. Brad Culpepper is the captain of the defense and will be making calls for the defense line if/when he wants (stunts/etc.) He is a smart, high-motor guy who really understands the game.

The draft was a great idea and I learned a ton about NFL history, strategy, stats and a lot of other stuff as a result of it. I wasted a ridiculous amount of time on it (researching for my picks, reading about other people's picks, debating, etc.) but I think it was worth it. It was a lot of fun.


My favorite rap "CD" in a while is a mixtape put out by Clipse to both celebrate the launch of their new clothing line and promote their eventual 2009 release "Till The Casket Drops." You can download it here if you like.

Check out the Intro track:


Intro - Clipse

Posted bySL__72 at 9:38 PM 2 comments  

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Luis Ayala
Friday, February 20, 2009

This is just a quick one. On Wednesday the Twins finalized their deal with Luis Ayala. In order to make room for him on the 40 man roster they waived Bobby Korecky. Korecky, a 28yo minor league veteran, was quickly snapped up by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

This bothers me for two reasons:

First it isn't obviuos that Ayala is even better than Korecky. He is on the downside of his career and we are paying him $1.3m or so this season. Korecky would have cost us the minimum this year and next and not much more the year after that. And as he is younger so those future years are worth something (he shouldn't regress too much) while the Ayala deal is strictly for this season. That adds up to me thinking Korecky is probably a more valuable asset than Ayala.

The second reason it bothers me me is that they kept Drew Butera on the 40man roster instead of Korecky. Butera is the 5th catcher on the 40 man roster and his career minor league OPS is .625. And that is at levels AA and lower. WTF? How is he more valuable than a ML ready reliever?? I don't care how good he is defensively, that doesn't make any sense at all.

Posted bySL__72 at 11:47 AM 0 comments  

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Back again!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

It's been a loooooooooooooooong time. The time I used to spend writing posts has been eating up a whole bunch of other things. The NFL Modern Era Draft, which I mentioned, was a ton of fun but also was a huge time suck. Since that ended we've been doing a similar draft only building a Hollywood studio. Not quite as fun but also not so time consuming. Class and homework have stolen some time, poker has stolen some time and I've also been spending a lot of time reading/thinking/learning about economics.

I don't really want to get into a discussion of economics/philosophy/politics, but I did add a few links over on the left to some good economics sites. Since that is probably a little more important then sports, and with the way the Vikings season ended and Twins offseason has gone probably more fun to think/write about, it is getting some attention here.

That mises.org site has a TON of free learning material in the form of online books, books in mp3 form, classes in mp3 (or video) form, articles, etc. Their blog also has a good running commentary (a few articles a day at least) on our current economic situation.

Economics in One Lesson is just a short book written by Henry Hazlitt and published for the first time in 1946. Its an intro into free-market economics and the whole book is published online at that site. Its a quick read and will (hopefully) change the way you think about economics.

Lew Rockwell is the founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and is "a student and colleague of Murray N. Rothbard." The site itself is basically just a daily updated list of articles/blog posts/etc. to read.

If reading is too much work, check out this video about vocal investor/author Peter Schiff who is a supporter of the Austrian school of economics. It is, at the very least, entertaining:



I'm not going to promise to post a bunch because that usually just makes me a liar, but I do have a bunch of ideas (sports related ones!) to post about, so there might be some more interesting content coming up soon!

Oh, and as it has been a long time I have lots of music to post. I'm sure no one will like any of it because its too weird or something, but I don't care because it is all awesome. You probably don't remember, but quite a while ago I did a best albums of 2007 list. #1 on that list was an album called Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective. Well they have a new album out now and are the early leaders for my best of 2009 list. Here is one of the songs from Merriweather Post Pavilion:

Posted bySL__72 at 9:55 PM 1 comments  

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