It’s getting to the point where it’s almost embarrassing how much better the Western Conference is than its Leastern counterpart. Right now, not only is every prospective playoff team in the West above .500, there’s a possibility they could all land on the impressive side of .600. 50 wins is a nice milestone to reach and there’s a very good chance that every single Western Conference playoff team could reach it. This will of course make the road to the NBA Finals that much harder since the talent level in the West is so far superior to the frauds in the East that if an Eastern Conference team does win it all it will completely delegitimize the NBA (if it wasn’t already).

I mean, right now Cleveland has to only beat Toronto and the winner of the Milwaukee/Atlanta series to make the Eastern Conference Finals. Orlando only has to beat Miami and the winner of the Charlotte/Boston series.

The Lakers meanwhile would have to play a tough Portland team and whoever’s left standing in the Utah/OKC matchup. Denver would have to face San Antonio and the winner of the Dallas/Phoenix contest. Is that fair that the Western Conference playoffs will be so filled with epic while the East is boring and overhyped? Mostly I feel bad for the children.

Record needed for each team to win 50 games: Read the rest of this entry »

According to rule 10.17 of the MLB rulebook, a Win will go to a starting pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game and his team does not relinquish that lead. Such pitcher must complete either five innings of a game that lasts six or more innings on defense or four innings of a game that lasts five innings on defense.

So there you go. That’s a win. All those words up there. Who talks like that?

You know I can’t help but think that if they weren’t called Wins and Losses, the people who still use them would have moved on from them a long time ago right along with the rest of us. Instead, we hear people say things like, “the object of the game is to win, so give me a pitcher with the most wins over a pitcher with the highest C.L.A.P. any day,” or some shit like that. Which of course is silly because based on the definition I pasted up top, they’re a completely arbitrary set of rules that really have nothing to do with whether or not a pitcher’s team won or lost. If a Win was called by any other name, nobody would mention them. But since they were given a name that people associate with a team’s overall success, they’re still treated with high regard even though the rules given to a pitcher’s wins and losses do not equate evenly to a team’s wins and losses.

I don’t think we’ll ever convince the higher-ups to get rid of them completely because they’ve been counted for over a hundred years now. Plus the 300 benchmark for Wins is still pretty cool. So here’s what I propose: we change their names. And since I’m the person mentioning it, we’re naming it after me. From now on, a Win will be called a Happy and a Loss will be called a Sad.

Hey did you see that Jake Peavy is on his way to 20 Happys?

This could work*. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night the Phoenix Suns scored 152 points in regulation against the hapless Timberwolves. While many might frown against running up the score against such an awful team with victory already in hand consider the following:

• Not one starter played more than 29 minutes last night.  All of them sat out the fourth quarter and much of the third.
• The Suns pulled Channing Frye, their backup center because he kept scoring too many threes.  They replaced him with Blake Griffin’s brother, old whatshisname.
• Louis Amundson scored a season high 20 points and the TWolves defense either couldn’t stop him or they stopped trying.  Louis Amundson is that player on every team that the crowd loves even though he’s not that good because he’s scrappy and works hard.  Except this year he seems to have gotten better.
• Former NBA player Haywoode Workman is a ref.  I didn’t know that.  Anyway, he was making jokes with Alvin Gentry in the 4th quarter after the Suns kept playing defense and sending guys to the line.  I imagine the joke was something along the lines of “Don’t you have someplace else you’d rather be?  Tell your team to stop fouling and hurry up.”
• This is the second time the TWolves have given up at least 146 points this season.

The Mets had 6 catchers report to Spring Training this week with previous MLB experience. 6!   They had 2 others who came as non-roster invitees.  The catchers include:

• Rod Barajas, 34: Considered the favorite to start…sorta.
• Henry Blanco, 38: 67 games played last year.
• Chris Coste, 37: Didn’t he play for their heated rival last year?
• Mike Nickeas, 27: No Major League Experience
• Francisco Pena, 20: Wonder if Omar was responsible for signing the guy named Francisco?
• Shawn Riggans, 29: They’d be better off with Tim Riggins…get it?  From FNL?
• Omir Santos, 28:  A guy I’ve still never heard of ever and never will…not even if there’s a fire!
• Josh Thole, 23: I would give anything if his name was pronounced “Tool.”

Want to have more fun?  Go look at this list and find where each of these guy’s name appears on it.  I set the min PAs to 150.

Roman was excited about this week because pitchers and catchers and catchers and catchers and catchers and catchers reported to Mets Spring Training.  When pitchers and catchers report to Mets camp, the rest of Florida runs out of trucks!  The hotels lock up their all you can eat buffets!  We might have to write a new Rainbow Coalition post because the Mets have the most catchers!  The Mets have so many catchers, the rest of the team has to share a glove!  I’ve heard of pitchers preferring a specific catcher but this is ridiculous!

God I love baseball.

It appears that rumors about the growing respectability of the Eastern Conference have been highly exaggerated.

As of today:

Only 6 Leastern Conference teams have winning records.
Only 4 Bestern Conference teams have losing records.

If the playoffs started today, 3 Bestern Conference teams with winning records would not make the playoffs.  The worst team of the lot is on pace to go 44-38.  That team, the Houston Rockets, would be a five seed in the Leastern Conference playoff picture.

I feel bad for the great Western Conference Champion that will have to expend so much energy getting to the NBA Finals against superior talent that he won’t have his best game ready when he faces a weaker Leastern Conference opponent.  Then again, he won’t need his best game to beat them.

The Phoenix Suns have lost 18 straight games that were broadcast on TNT dating back to March 13, 2008 including preseason and playoffs.  That’s right, for almost 2 years the Suns haven’t won a game when it’s been shown on a specific television channel.  If I were Dan Shaughnessy I would call this a curse and try to make millions of dollars off it.

Yesterday we talked about how giving out defensive awards based solely on how few errors a fielder commits makes absolutely no sense.  Well today let’s marvel even further at the brilliance of the Gold Glove voters. Every Gold Glove winner was announced and in almost every case among the infielders the award was given to the player with the highest fielding percentage.  The exceptions are when a better player didn’t play enough innings at the position in which case it was justified to give the award to a more popular player.  Here’s the complete list of infielders from both leagues:

AL:
C: Joe Mauer–tied for best in FP and Errors.
1B: Tex–Lyle Overbay had a better FP and fewer Errors but played in fewer games.
2B: Placido Polanco–best FP and fewest errors.
SS: Derek Jeter–best FP and fewest errors.
3B: Evan Longoria–2nd best FP and 2nd fewest errors but in 24 more games.
P: Mark Buehrle–best FP and fewest errors.

NL:
C: Yadier Molina–best FP and fewest errors.
1B: Adrian Gonzalez–best FP and 2nd fewest errors in more innings.
2B: Orlando Hudson–This one baffles me.  The voters coulda gone with little Davey Eckstein!  2nd best FP and 2nd fewest errors.
SS: Jimmy Rollins–best FP and fewest errors.
3B: Ryan Zimmerman–This one confuses the hell out of me.  Zimmerman is the best defensive 3B in the league but he committed a ton of errors and wasn’t anywhere near the highest in FP.  How did this happen?
P: Adam Wainwright–best FP and fewest errors.

My point (yes I have one) is that if we’re just going to give the award to the player who commits the fewest errors, then why even have a panel of voters in the first place?

Travel back with me to a magical time.  A time when the Red Sox were on the cusp of winning their second World Series ring in a 3 year span.  A time when your good buddy Hef was only responsible for 2 children and was thus a much less miserable asshole than he is now.  That’s right, let’s travel back to the year 2007.   That year the Diamondbacks ended up winning the NL West with a record of 90-72 despite a run differential of -20.  They did so by winning most every close game they played due to a good bullpen anchored by Jose Valverde in his prime and a good starting rotation.  It also helped that every game that wasn’t close was a complete blowout of a loss.

Everyone assumed they would fall apart in the playoffs when their luck ran out and they were right…after they swept the Cubs in the first round.

So in honor of the luckiest team of the modern era, today we look at the teams that are playing above their run differential.  These are the teams that, for whatever reason, have won more games than other teams with a similar differential.  The rationale is this: if you score 700 runs in a season and all 700 runs in a season, the likelihood is that your record will be 81-81.  If you’ve allowed more runs than you’ve given up then the odds are you will have a record below .500.  Make sense?  For your own personal self fulfillment, the equation that determines expected wins looks like this: Read the rest of this entry »

Jesus Christ, Mark Reynolds is killing the ball lately.  He’s got a homerun in 4 straight games and 11 in the last 13 games.  This makes him and Albert Pujols the Major League leaders in home runs with 36 apiece.  This isn’t too preposterous for anyone who’s watched Mark Reynolds develop since he swings for the fences every time but his control over his bat has improved dramatically (even with his millions of Ks).  I once described him as a poor man’s Adam Dunn because of his high strikeouts and high HR totals but that no longer seems the case.  If anything, he’s becoming a poor man’s Albert Pujols.*

Reynolds: 151 Ks, 56 BBs, .377 OBP, .613 SLG

Pujols: 44 Ks, 83 BBs, .477 OBP, .684 SLG

Look at those numbers right there and marvel at the fact that Pujols has 36 HRs.  The guy strikes out only 44 times and has 36 HRs already.  That’s just incredible.  That requires the eye of a tiger and the bat control of a man who’s last name sounds synonymous with sphincter.

I expect HR hitters to strikeout these days which makes Albert Pujols that much more impressive.  And add that to the fact that he has almost twice as many walks as Ks just knocks my socks on my ass.  Pujols, you deserve every hyperbolic accolade you get. Read the rest of this entry »

With Justin Upton sitting out with a strained oblique muscle it was a very young outfield for the Arizona Diamondbacks last night.  The three outfielders in last nights game, Alex Romero, Gerardo Parra and Trent Oeltjen combined for a total of 177 career games including a grand total of 1 for Oeltjen who made his big league debut.

It turned out to be a good night though, as the trio of youngsters went 10-19 with a double, a HR and 4 RBI.  The most impressive thing for me (not necessarily in a good way) was that Oeltjen only saw 13 pitches in 7 PA.  That’ less than 2 per trip to the plate for those keeping score at home.  I’m guessing his OBP will never be more than 20 points above his BA when his career is over with.

Parra has to be in the running for ROY.  I’m not saying he’s the most deserving but he’s definitely in the top 3 for rookies this year.  Through 71 games he’s got a line of .290/.329/.434/.763 with 5 HRs, 11 2Bs, and 8 3Bs.  He also has 5 SBs.  All that and he allows the Snakes to keep Chris Young on the bench.  That alone should be worth at least another 3-4 WARP right?

Quick side note: Dan Haren came into pinch hit in the 12th inning since the bench was empty and hit a sac fly RBI.  Not only a CY Young candidate but great with his bat too.  In your emo face, Tim Lincecum.