Mephistopheles

Hey at least UT-Austin is a good school.

I think you can give UCLA eighteen points for each touchdown, three points for each extra point, six points for each two point conversion, nine points for each field goal and six points for each safety and they'd still come up short.

Alright guys. Post your predictions of the score for the Big XII title game and the SEC title game. All posters who post in CFB threads should do this. JUST DO IT! Itll be fun. PRIZES WILL BE COMING

I went and bought a 45-35 shirt today.

There was plenty of bad luck he ran into, obviously you don't have that LD% and that low BABIP w/out bad luck. It's hard to tell what was a fluke with him. I think his 53 BBs his rookie year were a fluke, the 27 HRs and 44 DBs in '07 were a fluke (prob. closer to 20HRs and 35DBs), and all of '08 was a fluke. He is quite the enigma. I really don't think last year affects his median level of production, just the uncertainty surrounding the distribution of his percentiles.

The fact that it's so unprecedented would make me even less likely to project a rebound. Guys who had a drop of 200 points or more on OPS over their previous ~800 PAs or so and then had a full season the next year after the big drop. There are 87 such guys from 1900-2006. On average they recovered 60% of their lost OPS. I made no restraints on age. A majority of the players seem to be guys at the end of their careers. Most of the guys that have a longer history of production gained more of it, obviously, when they weren't old. Quite an impressive list though. Babe Ruth (x2), Nap Lajoie, Rogers Hornsby, Max Carey, Bill Nicholson, Roy Campanella, Hack Wilson, Jakie Robinson, Al Rosen, Frank Robinson (x2), Will McCovey (x2), Elston Howard, Jimmy Wynn, George Scott, Dick Allen, Hank Aaron, Joe Morgan, Ted Simmons (x2), Fred Lynn, Reggie Jackson (x2), Jeff Burroughs, Bill Madlock, Alan Trammell, Ken Griffey Jr, Gary Sheffield, Albert Belle, Frank Thomas, Larry Walker, Jason Giambi and of course Corey Patterson. It really is quite a list. Even if he gains back 60%, as expected, that's going to be in the 740-50 range for his OPS. Given the fact that most of these guys were on the tail end of their career, I would suspect him to gain more of that back since he was 29 and has a decent length of production than what I have used.

I'm not saying he didn't regress last season. I'm not sure how much of it true regression was, or just how much was just a bad year. Complete collapses in discipline, power and everything just like his is nearly unheard of for a 29 year old without an injury. If he did play through a injury (most likely wrist) as I suspect, then we'd expect catastrophic deterioration of his discipline, but very little to no deterioration of his true discipline level. (think he has to overcompensate by starting his swing earlier etc). Of course I'm merely speculating that the cause was an injury, but if the cause was an injury thats now healed, we can for the most part completely forget about 2008. If not then well yes it does change things. Still, just his discipline regressing doesn't explain all the suck he did. I'm sure before making this deal the Cardinals asked for medical reports and such. If there was something he was trying to tough out, I'm sure they know. That being said, despite me saying his true talent level may still be around .280, there's one thing I didn't take into account that I should. Namely Derrek Lee and Jeff Bagwell among countless others. He IS coming off a season-ending wrist injury. We should expect his power not to be totally 100% until July at the earliest. So yeah I guess a .265 or so expected line immediately (due to almost all of his value as a hitter coming from the home runs) is more likely than the .280 number I've thrown out there - though I think his true talent level is still around .280. I just forgot to take into account that.

So is everybody ready for two great football games tomorrow? Bama and Florida is hyped up as the best conference title game in history. I think Mizzou will put up a good fight tomorrow too

Even if you take out Coors and PETCO from his stat line from 04-07 his OPS is over 800.

which is why VORP blows.

The point of WHIP (and ERA) are to consolidate a pitchers talent or production into one concise stat that's relatively easy to compute on the fly and explain to the common fan. The point isn't for it to be the most advanced indicator of talent level. It has its uses as a gateway stat. That being said, it's also a better gauge on production for a reliever than ERA since it's going to map more accurately to runs bequeathed. There's also more randomness attributed to what some call 'luck' in ERA. You have the randomness with BABIP, but then you have the randomness with pitching success in clutch situations, ie runners on base. WHIP has no such problems.

The Cotton Bowl should absolutely be a BCS Bowl. Bring back the Bluebonnet Bowl dammit. Texas Bowl my ass.

Well, for a reliever, WHIP is more important than ERA, since they come in fairly often with runners on base.

Well Greene's skill set is about as terrible a fit for PETCO park as any hitter in baseball. I think, save adjusting each hit in PETCO individually, his home stats have very little indication of his ability to hit away from PETCO. I dislike using split stats from one season, but we've got split stats for four years prior to last year where his OPS averaged near 850 or so. Yeah there's a bit of parkwork there with Coors, but he's also at a relative disadvantage in 2 of the other 3 parks in the division. There really aren't as many pure anti-flyball parks in the NL Central. His strength plays well in Minute Maid, Great American and Wrigley. His strengths aren't completely nullified in PNC, Busch or Miller park like they are in Dodgers, Pac Bell or especially PETCO. In most cases there isn't a drastic effect of a park on a particular player more than the normal one. Khalil Greene, both statistically, and scout-wise appears to be one. Perhaps .280 is a little on the optimistic side, but I do think he is true talent level is greater than his overall EqA average from 2004-07 (~.270)

I would rather see this than OSU. Already played OSU twice the last three seasons. I honestly can't remember the last time Texas payed Alabama, plus its a much better matchup. Two teams that were on the brink of the title game playing almost what would be a consolation match. Plus the top two Big 12 teams vs. the top two SEC teams would be cool. Texas and Alabama have met 8 times. Texas is 7-0-1. The last meeting was the 1982 Cotton Bowl. #6 Texas beat #3 Alabama 14-12. Bear Bryant went 1-7-1 against the 'Horns. That win was with aTm.

I'd say that Khalil Greene is more likely to hit 20 home runs than Mark DeRosa.

Do we really think that Mark DeRosa is going to hit like he did last year? Or even remotely close?

there's some talk that the bcs might try to make the fiesta utah and ohio state and the sugar texas vs alabama

i think my foe list rivals anyones here.

The Gods would just be toying with me if Greene really did go .280/.340/.520 or so this season.

you're right. me and imb! just like insulting each other. but in truth we love each other.

Found it! I saw this this afternoon. http://f3.yahoofs.com/ymg/ept_sports_ncaaf_experts__7/ept_sports_ncaaf_experts-921263744-1228431593.jpg?ympTfbADGptdz2Ar Really, OU fans are just inbred retards, no offence IMB!

I don't want to be right.

You would be correct. Colin would be incorrect. I've recovered the park factors that Baseball Prospectus has used in EqA for the last ten years. It's constant for each player on a team, with a few exceptions. It's actually scaled as to what percentage each player had in each park, which of course is better. It makes no finer tune adjustments. Well 1.5 to 2 wins isn't really different than what I am projecting, with the exception of me being a little more optimistic on the offensive side of the equation. As for how I calculated runs. I reconstructed the EqR based on 660 PAs so that would be 5.2*outs*eqa^2.5. I also have to make a side adjustment for OBP%, what in my actual analysis I ignored it for the reason that the two OBP%'s were close and we're talking about a small hand full of outs that Theriot used. Even in accounting the difference, as 10 outs, all of this will be negated by Ryan Theriot's caught stealing, and one vital thing that my DRA uses that EqA should but does not, GIDPs. Because Theriot is a groundball first hitter, as you know, he hits into a lot more GIDPs than your typical hitter. Greene, being an extreme flyball hitter, doesn't hit into quite as many as Theriot. It's only a small handful extra per year, but couple those with outs made on the bases and you close the gap, at least in my eyes, of the OBP difference between the two with respect to outs. FWIW: I'm expecting Theriot to OBP around .350 and I would expect Greene to OBP around .330. Over 660 PAs, that's 13 outs. I'd expect Theriot to ground into about 4 more GIDPs and get caught about 6 more times on base. So we're really only looking at an extra inning with respect to that 20 point OBP difference. You may think I am a little too optimistic with my OBP projection of Greene, but that's all we're differing on. There's nothing wrong with my analysis on how his .330/.280 projection gets the difference over 19 wins. EqA is park adjusted from a value standpoint. As I mentioned above it makes no adjustments further than that. Are there other ways that are better to make more accurate translations for a player, yes. But from a value standpoint, the way they do it would be correct. We are answering an entirely different question. Actually, my .280 EqA isn't really that far out of the blue. His road EqA the three previous seasons were .285, .282, .280 and the season prior to those three he nearly OPS'd 900 so he was up around that mark too. Anyways, component factors aren't perfect.

Why are you discounting Harden? We can throw Zambrano in there and be fine with any duo. Peavy won the pitching VORP title in 2007. Zambrano's consistently in the net 60-70 range.