Ladies and gentlemen, Juan Gonzalez! Take a bow, Gonzo.

Injured in the top of the first inning of his first game back in the majors. We all knew he wouldn't last long, but sheesh. I hope Ryan Ludwick likes road trips. Are we even allowed to bring Ludwick right back again?

Edit: And the Indians finish May at .500 after all! Hooray!

And for anyone who wants "my take" on Mike and Larry Brown: Mike good, Larry bad. We can only hope that Larry gets distracted by the next job offer soon enough that he doesn't get the chance to seriously screw up The Destiny of LeBron. In fact, let's get the rumors started right now... say, I hear the, um, Kings will be looking for a new coach and/or front office guy in February or so...

In one of those weird press leaks, it appears that Mike Brown has agreed to be Dan Gilbert's next whipping post. Brian Windhorst wraps up the important details nicely. If only Brown somehow was involved with the Browns rather than the Cavaliers, we could all be certain of his future greatness. Why, you ask? He would follow in the line of Browns greats named "Brown", like Jim Brown, Paul Brown, um... Orlando Brown... Courtney Brown? Okay, nevermind. Brown will be the Cavaliers' 6th coach (Wittman, Lucas, Smart, Silas, Malone) in the last 1501 days: a span during which there has been a coaching change every 250 days. If Brown lasts only that long, he will be fired on February 3rd, 2006.

But more important are my opinions on the matter. As you may recall from my guide to the Cavaliers' off-season, I hoped for a coach that was an unknown and not a college coach. I don't think any other candidate fits the bill better than Mike Brown. This whole "next Phil Jackson" business sounds a little ridiculous--but a lot of that depends on your personal take on Jackson's overratedness.

It seems that no one is bringing up how strange it is for a team to hire a coach before a GM. The Browns had the exact same situation this off-season and let Savage pick his own coach. Most in-fighting between the front office and the head coach can be avoided if the GM gets to pick his own man.

Now the Cavs only need to find some statistical nerds and not hire Larry Brown, he of no front office experience. Just as being a good player does not make you a good GM (Isiah Thomas), being a good coach does not make anything but a good coach. Why can't they hire Sonics GM Rick Sund, who for some reason Seattle likely won't resign?

I've had my fair share of Indians binges, but until this week I had never attended four in row, and I certainly had never attended back-to-back Indians games in different cities. All told, the Indians went 2-2 in my presence, but finished on a particularly high note, thanks to C. Charles Sabathia and possibly the greatest home run I've ever seen in person. Possibly. (The other candidates: Manny and Thome's back-to-back solo shots in the ninth to win 2-1 on April 16, 2000, aka "the Chuck Finley game".)

Great American Ball Park is nice, in so much as it has comfortable aesthetics and is clean, but it suffers from too many other problems. The people of Cincinnati don't seem to care; I don't think they realize that their new ballpark is nothing more than a faceless, soulless copy of almost every new park to have been built since 2000. To sum it up in a word: bland. Come to think of it, "bland" pretty much covers my opinion of the whole metropolitan area. (No offense to my many relatives there. It was a pleasure to see them all this weekend.)

Now the Tribe has won two more, including the opening game against Minnesota earlier tonight. At 20-23, they will now have to go 5-2 in order to meet Alex's proposed goal of finishing the month at .500 or better. It's certainly possible. We have now somehow gotten a win out of an Elarton start, and, lucky for us, the Indians don't have to face Johan Santana during this four-game series.

That's all for now. I'm trying to finish the next edition of Jersey Numbers this week. Also: does anyone want to go to the Indians games in Chicago on June 3-5? I know we have readers in Chicago and Indiana. Drop me a line.

This is the third in the neverending series of reviews I started last summer, grading the food at the various Cleveland sports venues. I know I promised to do some Browns Stadium and Gund Arena ones over the winter, but I never got around to it. Sorry. Anyway, if you're curious, here are links to Volume 1 and Volume 2, both from last summer. Whereas last year I tried to review mostly new items, in honor of all the changes they had made, this year I'll try to work in a few old favorites as well.

Soft Pretzel. I know what you're thinking: what's to review about a soft pretzel? But in fact the soft pretzels at Jacobs Field are one of the few things that actually did change between 2004 and 2005. Instead of a traditional pretzel shape, they now form the Indians' script "I" logo (see photo below). On the one hand, I think it's a brilliant idea--something people will remember about the Jake and a way to spread the Indians brand even further. On the other hand, I wonder if this is just an excuse to sell less pretzel for the same amount of money. They taste exactly the same, by the way. In the end, I think it's really cool that one of the few concessions items you can find at every stadium in America, which is exactly the same in every stadium in America, is just a little bit different here at Jacobs Field. Grade: A



Ballpark Sushi. Or "Market Sushi" as I believe it's now called. I like the old name, though. "Ballpark" and "sushi" are two rather adverse concepts in most people's minds. I like sushi well enough, but it's taken me until now to actually try the Jacobs Field variety even though they introduced it several years ago. I was, let us say, suspicious of the quality of the sushi. I have to say, though, that while it's no gourmet spectacle, it's certainly better than the average grocery store sushi. My only complaint would be the lack of options on the menu. They offer only "Combo #1" and "Combo #2", each consisting of three pieces of three predetermined kinds of sushi. You can also get a six-piece order of any indivdual type, but it costs about the same as the nine-piece ones. I had the #1, which had a salmon roll, a shrimp roll, and something else (I forget what). Grade: B-

Potato Knish. Available in only one place in the whole ballpark, as far as I know, and that's the kosher hot dog stand in right field on the main concourse. I'm all for the inclusion of Jewish food, so long as they're going to introduce Japanese, Mexican, Congolese and who knows what. Cleveland does have one of the nation's largest Jewish populations. Maybe it's because I was raised on big brisket sandwiches and matzo ball soup, but the knish seems somehow appropriate to me. You can eat it right out of its foil wrapper, it only requires one free hand, and it makes no mess. That makes for a good ballpark item. Unfortunately, the quality of the knish was so-so. The potato filling was quite good but the dough on the outside was too chewy and bland. I think it might have been sitting for quite a while before I ordered it. Something tells me these items haven't been selling too well. Grade: C+

Pierre's Ice Cream Pierre's has been the ice cream of choice at Jacobs Field since, I think, the beginning of time. And since I happen to like Pierre's quite a bit, this is a good thing. Plus, it's local. That's great. I will, for the moment, look past the fact that, on this particularly sunny day, they were out of my first choice of flavor, Moose Tracks, and that the one lady working the ice cream stand spent 25 minutes assembling each cone. I fell back on my ace-in-the-hole, Mint Chocolate Chip. I can't think of anything bad to say about Pierre's. Every ballpark has ice cream, but some only have soft serve, and some don't even have local brands, and some of those that do don't even taste that good. Grade: A-

That's all for now. Our next update might have to wait until Monday, since we'll be spending the weekend in Cincinnati for some great Indians road action. Stay tuned!

I love that magical moment each year when I first set foot inside Jacobs Field. I'm finaly in Cleveland for a few days and so Alex and I caught the last two Indians games. Yesterday (Tuesday), the Tribe pounded out 13 runs on 19 hits, compiling 33 total bases. It was quite a slugging display. (Speaking of which, do you know which Indian has the highest Isolated Power on the season? Surprise, it's Jhonny Peralta.)

In this afternoon's game, the Indians were all set to win, 1-0, until the ninth inning, when the Angels scored two on a couple of cheap groundball singles and a sac fly. It was one of Jake Westbrook's better outings. For some reason, the game started at noon, on a weekday no less. And for the good people of Los Angeles of Anaheim, the game started at nine in the morning! Good thing those idiots don't care about their sports teams. At least the poor, embattled Angels fans of Istanbul and Helsinki finally got to see a game that started at 7:00 PM. We bought tickets in the left field bleachers, but for some reason they were completely full, primarily with screaming children and school groups, so we snuck into the 300 level in right field where it was nearly empty.

Seeing as they were my first Indians games of the season, I'd like to give my impressions of some of the subtle changes they've made for 2005.

• New decorations. Last year the marketing was based around the script "I" logo and a teamwork concept, but this year they are clearly trying to market the individual players. Among the ways they are doing this is a series of new blue-green mural-type dealies depicting Indians players, located above each of the tunnelways all around the upper deck. I don't particlularly like them, although they might look better with actual fans sitting up there.
• The Batter's Eye bar in center field. I thought this was going to be more of a restaurant, but no, it's just a bar, where you can get a number of alcoholic beverages other than beer. There are barstools and tables all around, and the bartenders wear Hawaiian shirts. Weak, I say. The view of the game isn't even that good; in fact it's likely to be obscured. Just go to a real bar after the game; you won't have to pay $28 for twelve ounces of beer.
• New scoreboard graphics. Specifically, the short video introdctions for each Indians batter. I found most of them either cool or funny. Travis Hafner's is the best. Grady Sizemore's is the funniest/most awkward. I'm still completely in love with the new scoreboard, by the way.
• Make Your Own Slider doll. Lame. You get to pick out a custmized outfit for a Slider doll and watch as they dress it and stuff it and then let you take it home for, like, a million dollars.
• No more grilled hot dog stand behind section 148. Now this is a travesty. Now there is one less place in the lower deck to get the grilled kosher hot dogs.
• You can now walk a complete circle around the ballpark. This might have been true last year too; I can't remember. But for the first time I noticed that you can now cross between the bleacher area and the center field picnic area. The mere fact that bleacher people and non-bleacher people can now cross into each other's domain is new, frankly. At least I think it is. Anyway, this is a great development, for all people involved. The old system of bleacher internment never made sense to me, anyway.

That's more-or-less what I noticed to be different for this year.

As you may have noticed, I haven't written anything in a while. I apologize; a combination of moving back to Cleveland and then visiting Corey in Chicago has kept me away from computers. But I'm back, with a vengeance!

Corey and I have just returned from Swirling Garbage Field (aka US Cellular Field), where we've witnessed hopefully the beginning of the White Sox' historic collapse. Visiting that crap-heap only made me more anxious to get to Jacobs Field for the first time in 2005, which will probably be later this week.

I will now cop-out. On to the bullet points!

• Thanks to Basketball Reference's new-and-improved APBR stat query, we can now declare LeBron James' 2004-2005 as the greatest season ever by a Cavalier. He leads in PER (25.67 to Terell Brandon's 25.24 in 95-96), Player Wins (13.9 to Larry Nance's 11.5 in 91-92), and Points Produced (2122 to Ron Harper's 1827 in 86-87), among others.
• Here's something else I learned from the new stats query feature. According to Dean Oliver's Offensive and Defensive Ratings, DeSagana Diop's career Player Winning Percentage is .104, meaning essentially that a team of 5 Diop-caliber players would go 8-74. This is certainly due to his breathtakingly shameful Offensive Rating of 80. (To give some idea of what this means, 104 is generally league average, and Ira Newble, for example, has a career 97.5 rating as a Cav.) But to point out that Diop is the worst offensive player in Cavs history (and 3rd-worst in league history) is to understate the matter, because his Defensive Rating is actually the 2nd-best in NBA history! He rates a 93.8, trailing only Ben Wallace at 93.7. Oh yeah, and he has the 2nd-worst PER in Cavaliers history, too.
• Lately I can't decide: dunks or bloopers?
• The Indians won again for their first three-game win streak since Spring Training, probably. Now standing at 16-19, I think the Indians would be in good shape if they finish out May at least at .500.
• Corey and I had a very long conversation about two weeks ago on new Grady Sizemore nicknames. Up until now I've used "GSize", but that's a little lacking, or as Corey puts it, "lame". Corey is leaning towards "Supersize" while I had a different preference, which I've already forgotten. But I do remember saying "GSizzle" and "Grade-A Sizemore" a lot.
• You may have noticed that neither Corey nor I has yet commented on a certain Mr. Stupid, recently checked out of the Cleveland Clinic. So we decided to write him this haiku:

  Motorcycle man,
  You crashed in a parking lot,
  You stupid fucking moron son of a bitch, what the hell?

That's all for now. We will make our triumphant return to Jacobs Field early this week. So you can probably expect some hard-hitting Indians coverage, and if Corey is up to it, a new edition of "Concessions Reviews". Put me on the board, YES!

A combination of things--my being really bored; Alex's discovering how to make good-looking graphs for the blog and desperately wanting something to put in graph form; our recently discussing Pythagorean win percentage with regard to the 2005 Cavaliers--led to our tracking the Pythagorean win percentages of the three Cleveland franchises over their entire histories. This is just for fun, since it's kind of hard to make sweeping generalizations.

First, the Indians (1901-2004):


One thing you'll notice as soon as you see the Browns and Cavaliers graphs is that, the more games you play per season, the closer to .500 you always end up. This makes sense--it's easier to keep up a .750 win percentage over 16 games than it is over 160--it simply means that when a football team goes 14-2, say, it's almost certainly benefitting from more than a little luck. Using Pythagorean win percentage instead of actual accounts for some of this, but only a little. The NFL season is an extremely small sample size. Let the 1972 Dolphins play 162 games in some sort of fantasy simulator, and I bet you they end up a lot closer to .700 (which would rank them among the greatest baseball teams of all time) than 1.000, their actual win percentage.

Anyway, the Indians graph doesn't tell us much that we didn't already know. They were unbelievable in '48, '54, and '95... and pretty horrible from about '59 to '93. If anything surprises me about this graph, it's how far below the '95 Tribe the '96-'01 teams were. The Central Division was really, really bad.

Now, the Browns (1950-2004):


As expected, the highs are higher--much higher--and the lows are lower. Much lower. I know it's a small smaple size, but the 2000 Browns are by far the worst team in Cleveland sports history. Even the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, the worst team in professional baseball history, managed a better Pythagorean win percentage. The funny thing about the '00 Browns (you know, "the Spergon Wynn year") is that, in winning their 3 games, they significantly overachieved. When they lost, their margins of defeat were laughably huge, leading to an expected total of about 1.5 wins, 14.5 losses.

And is anyone else vaguely distubed by the overall downward trend of the Browns graph? I know this appearance is almost entirely due to the Browns debuting as one of the NFL's greatest dynasties in the 50's; it's just not pretty to look at.

Now, the Cavs (1971-2005):


Although this graph "sits" the lowest (meaning the Cavaliers have been the least successful franchise), it is not nearly as depressing as I would have expected. There were a few jaw-droppingly terrible years, yes, during which the Cavs set quite a few records for NBA suckitude, but a couple of the great years are quite impressive. Also, pretend you can see the next ten years of this graph. If the LeBron Cavaliers blossom into what we think they can, the graph will be quite pretty, as it alternates between valleys and (increasingly higher) peaks (the peaks being "Miracle of Richfield", late 80's, and, I'm pretending, LeBron).

Here's one with all three teams together since 1950:


Or, if those last few decades are a little too bunched together for you, since 1970:



Now, I know I might be reaching a little here, but it seems to me that there have been overall periods of success and failure across all three sports. The 1950's were clearly a period of success. The 70's and early 1980's were a down cycle. The late 80's and mid 90's were up. And the 2000's have so far been down. If you squint, you'll see it too.

That's it for the graphs. But while I have the data in front of me, I thought it might be interesting to compare the Pythagorean and actual winning percentages of each team in each season, to see, perhaps, which squads have over- and underachieved the most in Cleveland history. I'm going to keep the three sports separate, though, because otherwise the lists would contain nothing but Browns teams. Small sample size, again.

Here are the 5 most overachieving/lucky Indians teams (ie: teams that won more games than they should have):

              Pythag. Actual  Diff.
1907 Indians   .504    .559   +.055
1995 Indians   .644    .694   +.050
1910 Indians   .418    .467   +.049
1954 Indians   .672    .721   +.049
1929 Indians   .488    .533   +.045

And here are the 5 most underachieving/unlucky (ie: teams that won less than they should have):

              Pythag. Actual  Diff.
1904 Indians   .632    .570   -.062
1906 Indians   .642    .582   -.060
1985 Indians   .424    .370   -.054
1947 Indians   .571    .519   -.051
1948 Indians   .672    .626   -.046

Here are the 5 most overachieving/lucky Browns teams:

             Pythag. Actual  Diff.
1965 Browns   .565    .786   +.221
1976 Browns   .457    .643   +.186
1972 Browns   .543    .714   +.171
1969 Browns   .592    .750   +.158
1973 Browns   .449    .571   +.122

And here are the 5 most underachieving/unlucky:

             Pythag. Actual  Diff.
1991 Browns   .490    .375   -.115
1954 Browns   .849    .750   -.099
1966 Browns   .740    .643   -.097
1987 Browns   .761    .667   -.095
1984 Browns   .399    .313   -.087

Here are the 5 most overachieving/lucky Cavs teams:

                Pythag. Actual  Diff.
1985 Cavaliers   .413    .439   +.026
2004 Cavaliers   .404    .427   +.023
1992 Cavaliers   .672    .695   +.023
1990 Cavaliers   .490    .512   +.023
2001 Cavaliers   .348    .366   +.018

And here are the 5 most underachieving/unlucky:

                Pythag. Actual  Diff.
1994 Cavaliers   .638    .573   -.065
1982 Cavaliers   .248    .183   -.065
1997 Cavaliers   .574    .512   -.062
1980 Cavaliers   .510    .451   -.059
1986 Cavaliers   .409    .354   -.055

Among the notable "lucky" teams are the '95 Indians, the '54 Indians, and the '04 Cavs. Among the notable "unlucky" ones are the '48 Indians and the '87 Browns.

That's all I have for now. I don't know if any of this has been interesting to any of you, but I hope it has. If you're one of those who still doesn't believe that Pythagorean win percentage is a better indicator of team success than actual win percentage, I encourage you to express your arguments to me and I would be happy to continue the debate.

Let me take you back. All the way to February 18, 2002.

Alex Rubin wrote:

First off, I am completely opposed to Danys Baez going to the rotation. Last year, he was almost unhittable. He showed his prominence by working his way from long reliever to setup man in a month! He has the heart, nerve, and the stuff to be a dominant-Mariano Rivera-type closer. You can tell he doesn't crack under pressure. But, he cannot handle the long innings required to be a starter. He couldn't even take 4 innings of relief last year, that makes me nervous. He definately started to wear down at the end of the year and in the playoffs. Also, Baez has three pitches, a great fastball, curve, and a split under development. A good starter needs at least 4 (unless you're a knuckleballer). So, Baez does not have the stamina or pitches to be a great starter; but does have the pitches and heart to be a dominant closer.

On the side, I love Bob Wickman, and I understand why we resigned him. I wouldn't argue that it was bad to resign him. I just think Baez has more of a future at closer than Wickman. It's a tough situation the Indians have put themselves in.

Everyone in the national media is talking about how the Indians have a good rotation. I wouldn't be so sure. Colon is always going to be a mystery, Cy Young or .500? Sabathia has the stuff, but we don't know if it was just run-support. Finley is so terrible! He gets overpaid ridiculously, and pitches 4-5 innings an outing, it's unbelievable! Does having a good September of 2000 (!) really make eveyone forget that you're a dinosaur? Hopefully the John Hart sentiment that "well, he's a lefty, so he's got to be good" leaves us very soon.

Now onto the "prospects": I really like Ryan Drese. He showed great command at the end of last year in the rotation when we needed him. He is obviously not overpowering, but he does what it takes to win games. Tim Drew has been absolutely awful so far. I really don't know what his problem has been. The only things going for him is that he's young and his brother [J.D. of St. Louis] is really good. Jake Westbrook is interesting. He was a great long reliever, but not so good in the rotation. I guess he just can only make it 4 innings effectively, which is fine considering we might have Chuck Finley and Omar Olivares in the same rotation (ouch!). Riske should not be in the rotation, almost for the same reasons as Baez. He's a good reliever, period.

Danys Baez had the heart and the nerve to be a closer, eh, Alex? Did he also have the eyebrows to be a closer?

Honestly, though, I don't want to tease the poor kid too much, but when I came across this, it was just too good. I used to be this way too. Well, a little.

Heh. I remember Omar Olivares.

My dad is always asking for "my take" on things. "So, what's your take on last night's game?" "So, what's your take on the draft?" "So, what's your take on Eric Snow?"

(Somehow, though I'm not sure why, this reminds me of postgame interviews, in which reporters, too lazy to ask real questions--or perhaps deeming the athletes themselves too dumb to comprehend real questions--say things like "Talk about that third inning. You really settled down there." This always cracks me up. I wish the athletes would respond with things like "I agree".)

Anyway, a couple of days ago my dad asked for "my take" on what's wrong with the Indians. Everyone is very worried about the Indians. The truth is, though, that while I'm certainly not happy about the current standings, I have so thoroughly taught myself not to overreact to anything that happens in the month of April that I'm not particularly worried about the Indians at all.

Besides, if anything is wrong with them, it's the offense. And it stands to reason that the offense will improve. I'm more focused on the fact that, for a team with a struggling offense, the Indians have played pretty well. The pitching, nearly all of it, has been superb. Their won-lost record does not currently reflect how well they've actually played, on the whole. As of yesterday morning (meaning before the Minnesota series started), Baseball Prospectus' adjusted standings (which go by third-order wins and losses; read the stuff at the bottom of the linked page for a very basic explanation) had the Indians in fourth place in the Central, but only about two games behind the first-place Twins (yes, the Twins). According to BP, the Indians have actually played well enough for a record of 12.2 wins, 11.8 losses. This is different from Pythagorean wins and losses, by the way, and supposedly more useful, as information.

Meanwhile, on an mostly unrelated note, I am growing tired of hearing "Omar would have made that play" every time Jhonny Peralta does something suspect in the field. By this I mean not so much that I am tired of actually hearing it, but that I am frustrated from constantly thinking about all the people out there who are probably saying it whenever such a Peralta play occurs. I've heard the TV announcers say it a number of times, besides. It has already become a popular joke between Alex and me. Now, whenever Jhonny gets a hand on a ball, we say "Omar would have done it better", and if, say, Jhonny makes a routine throw to first with the bases empty, we might kid "Omar would have turned two".

I am a big fan of Game-O-Graphs, but sadly the site that hosted them (stdev.net) is down for the count. Fortunately, ESPN.com has a feature like Game-O-Graphs, "Game Flow" on their Shot Chart page for each game (click the Game Flow button), but it's a little harder to access. I've compiled essentially a running Game-O-Graph for the entire Cavs season. Not to beat a dead horse, but these graphs are cool. This is just a running tally of the difference between the Cavaliers' total points scored and allowed game-by-game:



For a winning team one would expect a more or less constant slope. The Cavs had this up until the 53rd game of the year: a 82-106 blowout loss at Indiana. Before then the Cavaliers were 31-21, afterwards 11-19. In fact, using the Game Flow, we can almost pinpoint the moment the season turned: down only 2 after a Lucious Harris jumper with 8:11 left in the 2nd quarter, the Cavaliers then gave up a 21-6 Pacers run. This plainly contradicts Corey's conclusions on the season: it looks like the Cavaliers did in fact begin to choke big time, as seen in the sharp drop in point margin.

Let's not get carried away, though. The Cavs looked good and then sucked. Except that they never looked that good even during the "peak". Here's another graph, computing the Pythagorean win percentage of the team after each game:



The extremes of the early season can be ignored for sample size issues. What I noticed is that the team wasn't even projected to win over 50 games during their peak. Sure, they regressed during the second half of the year, but now it doesn't look so drastic. The Cavs went from being a 49 or so win team in late February to 43 (according to Pythag.) wins at the end of the season.

Sadly, it's just that the Cavs picked the wrong part of the season to peak/have an easy schedule. As Brian Windhorst says,:

Had the Cavs started 12-20 and then finished 30-20, everyone would've hailed them. Instead it was the other way around and they were deemed failures.

Ending on a sour note is never fun, but personally I'm not worried at all. Looking on the bright side, the team's late-season troubles has all but forced DGilb to make moves that could've been unpopular if the Cavs peaked at the end of the season instead of at the start, like fire John Paxson or say goodbye to Jeff McInnis.