Tangentially Baseball-Related Items
by Corey
The heat at Jacobs Field this afternoon was quite palpable, as evidenced by this photograph I took:
Unfortunately, the Indians were not on fire. They were decidedly off fire, as the White Sox won, 11-0. The success of the White Sox frustrates me to no end. Going into today's game, they were hitting, pitching, and fielding at the level of a .557 team, according to Baseball Prospectus' Adjusted Standings. That means their 32-17 record (prior to today's blowout) was 4.7 games better than what they deserve. The Indians, by contrast, are about 3.9 games worse than they deserve to be, having performed at the level of a .569 team. Please note: the Indians have performed better than the White Sox in 2006. Sound familiar?
The Tigers are a slightly different story. Their 35-15 record is 4.9 games ahead of where they ought to be, but their third-order winning percentage of .602 is easily good enough for first place.
In happier news, I tried one of these:
Now, I never got to try an Albert Belle Bar back in the day, so I can't make the obvious comparison--I can only review the Pronk Bar on its own merits. I found the packaging to be nice; even though they depict Travis wearing some type of generic, baseball-type uniform, the colors are attractive and the layout is good.
Inside, you find this:
This is clearly some product that Malley's already made, but started selling under a different name. It's essentially a Crunch bar, but divided into segments, each with the Malley's logo imprinted on them. I had sincerely hoped, by the way Travis spoke with such gusto about his new candy bar, that we would have ourselves something original, or even interesting, but no. At least LeBron had the opportunity to conduct extensive chemical tests in a laboratory in preparation for Flava23.
Don't get me wrong, though; it still tasted good. It is chocolate, after all.
Unfortunately, the Indians were not on fire. They were decidedly off fire, as the White Sox won, 11-0. The success of the White Sox frustrates me to no end. Going into today's game, they were hitting, pitching, and fielding at the level of a .557 team, according to Baseball Prospectus' Adjusted Standings. That means their 32-17 record (prior to today's blowout) was 4.7 games better than what they deserve. The Indians, by contrast, are about 3.9 games worse than they deserve to be, having performed at the level of a .569 team. Please note: the Indians have performed better than the White Sox in 2006. Sound familiar?
The Tigers are a slightly different story. Their 35-15 record is 4.9 games ahead of where they ought to be, but their third-order winning percentage of .602 is easily good enough for first place.
3rd-Order W-L Actual W-L211 games' worth of watching the White Sox play over their heads has taken its toll on me; still, I am a realist, which is why I recognize that, from now until the end of the season, the Indians are a good bet to fare better than they have over the first two months, while the White Sox and Tigers are good bets to fare worse. Not that it will necessarily be enough for the Indians to overtake them in the standings: the Tribe's Playoff Odds are sitting at 18.0%, and that's before today's little embarassment.
Tigers 30.1-19.9 (.602) 35-15 (.700)
Indians 27.9-21.1 (.569) 24-25 (.490)
White Sox 27.3-21.7 (.557) 32-17 (.653)
In happier news, I tried one of these:
Now, I never got to try an Albert Belle Bar back in the day, so I can't make the obvious comparison--I can only review the Pronk Bar on its own merits. I found the packaging to be nice; even though they depict Travis wearing some type of generic, baseball-type uniform, the colors are attractive and the layout is good.
Inside, you find this:
This is clearly some product that Malley's already made, but started selling under a different name. It's essentially a Crunch bar, but divided into segments, each with the Malley's logo imprinted on them. I had sincerely hoped, by the way Travis spoke with such gusto about his new candy bar, that we would have ourselves something original, or even interesting, but no. At least LeBron had the opportunity to conduct extensive chemical tests in a laboratory in preparation for Flava23.
Don't get me wrong, though; it still tasted good. It is chocolate, after all.
12 Comments:
Perhaps if they're passing them around and eating them before games, as he said on Rome this week, they need to stop, because they're definitely not helping.
They did the same thing last year, in Ozzie's inaugural season at the helm.
They win the close games and the Tribe wins blowouts and loses close games, in general.
Is it so hard to admit that Guillen is a better manager than Wedge?
If it's true that outperforming (or underperforming) your expected record is the effect of a good (or bad) manager, we would expect the phenomenon to occur with certain managers year after year, even after switching teams, etc. But so far, no manager has shown a strong tendency for always out- or under-performing his expected win total based on runs scored and allowed. Any long-tenured manager, even if he is regarded as a great manager, is just as likely to underperform in a given year as he is to overperform.
Ozzie Guillen has now gone a season and a third in which his club has outperformed their expected win total, but let's not forget that he was also the manager of the White Sox in 2004, in which they underperformed their Pythagorean total. Maybe Guillen does have a rare ability to get his club to outperform its expected record on a consistent basis, but he would be the first, which seems to me unlikely.
Roger,
Having watched the Indians all season, I agree that they have looked like a .500 team or worse. But we may be taking their superior offense for granted. They have scored the 2nd-most runs in the majors. The fact is, they've scored 28 more runs than they've allowed, and that's after yesterday's 11-0 loss. The standings I posted above did not include that game, which means the Tribe had scored 39 more runs than they'd allowed. The pitching and defense side of things has been awful, but not nearly as awful as the offense has been great.
You use it frequently and I was just curious as to how accurate of a tool it has been historically.
Well, it definitely predicts future winning percentage better than actual winning percentage (or even Pythagorean winning percentage). Here is some research on the subject (not sure if a subscription is required).
I'm pretty sure that the correlation between 3rd-order W% and future performance is better than for any other statistic, traditional or otherwise, that's been tested.
When is Mota going to get the Riske exile?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8819614716
Where did you get yours, by the way? Do they sell them at Jacobs Field? I had trouble finding a Malley's location. I had never noticed before that Malley's is more of a west-side establishment.
There's a Malley's store on Chagrin Blvd. near I-271 (at Village Square). There's also one in Solon, one in Valley View, and one downtown, but I think that's it for anyone in or remotely near the east side.
To get the real Malley's experience you have to go to one of the stores with a parlor, Lakewood or North Olmsted are your best bets. Here you can get a Tin Roof sundae, once named for the old stadium because enough were sold each year to cover the stadium.
How do I know all this?
I've worked there for going on 7 years.
Oh, and P.S. THe candy is totally excellent.
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