Hairyducked Idiot

Sutcliffe correctly nails that the seventh-inning stretch has nothing to do with honoring Caray.

Grand slam range!

So we can either look up the stats or spout off some crackpot psychoanalysis, I can live with that. That's not crackpot. That's cognitive biases 101. Ahh, excuse my ignorance. Excused, along with the pointless snark.

He's hitting .305 with a .397 OBP You'd think with how often this happens, people would stop assuming things without looking them up. Our brains aren't wired to watch the games, then go back and recall a certain player's at-bats in certain situations with any degree of accuracy. So we can either look up the stats or spout off some crackpot psychoanalysis, I can live with that. That's not crackpot. That's cognitive biases 101.

He's hitting .305 with a .397 OBP You'd think with how often this happens, people would stop assuming things without looking them up. Our brains aren't wired to watch the games, then go back and recall a certain player's at-bats in certain situations with any degree of accuracy.

I award seven interwebs to you.

Wind says no to Lee just right of center.

Throw the ball down the freaking middle and take your lumps if it finds a hole, Z. Thank you.

Close game, Cubs fall behind by one in the middle innings, lots of depressing messages in the game thread. I go back to the 12-3 game and laugh.

The Dodgers batters have made some of the most amazing non-swings I've ever seen. These are legit balls, but how on earth do you take them with two strikes?

Shoulda been 3-1 but the batter makes a horrible swing decision (tried to check, but way too late). Full count...obligatory runners running reference in 3...2.. didn't even get down to one.

Two straight average ground balls find holes, then a plunking in the middle of the back loads the bases with two outs. Key, key at-bat coming.

:( We're well past the point in the season where this season's record, especially pythagorean record or third-order wins, has some predictive value :( Their Pythagorean and third-order are pretty much in line with their current record, 1 game off. The real issue is, can the players that are so vastly overperforming their predictions (Ludwick, Schumaker, Izturis, Wellemeyer, Looper, etc) continue this pace? I think at the 60-game point, you have to answer "possibly."

:( We're well past the point in the season where this season's record, especially pythagorean record or third-order wins, has some predictive value :(

Soriano with his version of a battle before popping out. Swing at everything, foul a bunch off. Not bad.

What's that a difference of, 1/8th of an inch? I can live with that margin of human error.

Very solid. DPs in each of the first two innings. Not "OMG NO HITTER TIME" dominant, but solid.

He's throwing a lot of close pitches that the batters are doing a nice job to lay off, but I wouldn't call it squeezed.

I agree. The eyes are creepy and stupid. I want the Superstation back. I sent them an e-mail to that effect yesterday. I don't mind the name or even the slogan, but that logo is hideous. I keep assuming instead of my nightly dose of Corner Gas, I'm about to get some seizure-inducing crappy anime.

Soriano shows fairly decent range, and some idiot tried to Bartman him in the exact spot. Two idiots, on replay. *sigh*

Two straight very borderline pitches, but I'd say legit calls, for the walk.

I think the "or something" is that he's not very good and needs to be demoted.

Not specifically, but you find places to get the game here: http://myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=12878&part=sports

That's exactly what I meant. If we use Win Shares and VORP, we ignore that a good reliever's value comes partly from the fact that he can be used in situations where run prevention is more critical than in normal situations. It's not that they are cumulative, it's that they ignore context. It's fine to ignore context for a starter or a position player, because their playing time isn't determined by context, the context is more or less random. A relief pitcher's appearances are completely determined by context, so any stat that ignores it when calculating the value of the reliever is asinine. That's completely irrelevant. We're not trying to come up with some sliding scale where we determine who is better relative to others at their position, we are determining absolute value to the team. The statement that "average starter > average reliever" is completely irrelevant unless you state what scale you are measuring by. Talent? ERA? Wins added to team performance? The average starter is worth more than the average reliever in terms of wins and talent, less in terms of absolute run prevention per inning. But none of that is relevant because starters are on a much narrower band than relievers. While the average starter may be worth more than the average reliever, the best relievers can be of comparable value to the best starters, unless you believe that all innings and situations have equal likelihoods to decide wins and losses, which is absurd.

Win Share totals disagree with you. Over the past four years, the best reliever year (2004 Brad Lidge - 17.2 pitching win shares) comes in as the 38th best pitching year over those past four years, the equivalent of 2007 Zambrano/Lilly. A good example of a pitcher that was both an effective starter and reliever is John Smoltz. In 2004, he was the fourth most effective reliever in baseball (Lidge, Gagne, Benitez). He finished the year with 12.1 Pitching Win Shares. The next three years, he was an effective starter, with Win Share totals of 21.1, 19.4, and 17.5. That's because win shares are awarded to pitchers based on total runs prevented, exactly the sort of system that underestimates a high-leverage reliever. You might as well just use VORP. What are your specific problems with SNLVAR and WRXL? Why are they wrong when they show the best relievers and starters to be closely packed? Win probability is an incredibly important concept to bullpen usage. If we ignore it, then we shouldn't have any bullpen roles at all. Just pull a name out of a hat every time the pen is needed. And it's the exact opposite of arbitrary. Arbitrary would be if the numbers were made up. They aren't.