I'm not saying this to be a wiseass because if the Yankees go further than the Sox in the playoffs and win the World Series, Yankee fans will not care one bit that they won as a wildcard. But in terms of marketing don't you think the sales of this t-shirt will be horrible? 
Baseball Prospectus has a Postseason Odds generator that plays out the season one million times and gives you a percentage chance of a team winning their division and winning the wild card. Right now the Sox are a 96.35115% chance of winning the AL East, a 2.21765% chance of winning the wild card. So it looks pretty good for the playoffs. Buster Onley had a bit today in his blog where he writes that only one team has ever come back to win their division after falling over 14 games back. It was the 1914 Boston Braves. Yankee fans can't blame their pathetic-ness solely on injuries. Damon/Abreu/Giambi/Matsui/Cano are monumentally under performing. In fact, if it wasn't for Jeter/Rod/Posada hitting out of their heads, Yankees might be the worst team in American League. Boston lost their #1 starter in Beckett for over 2 weeks and managed to stretch their lead from 8 1/2 to 14 1/2 games. The Yankees can come in to Boston and sweep the series and still be over 10 games back. And how smart does Theo look right now? Passing on Pedro and Damon. Signing Varitek (which I strongly criticized because I'm a moron). This is shaping up to be a very pleasant summer.
Obviously Boston improved their pitching staff with the addition of Matsuzaka but almost a quarter of the way through the season the most noticeable improvement in the team has been their defense. Many argue that Boston was a great defensive team last year and point to their low error total and high fielding percentage. But fielding percentage is a very deceptive stat and can lead someone to think that a poor defense is good and vice versa. The problem with fielding percentage is that it only takes into account errors committed and does nothing to rate the speed of a defense. Putting yourself in a position to make a play is just as important, if not more important than making the play. Take a hypothetical 10 ground balls hit to two different shortstops. Shortstop A (Derek Jeter) is has a great glove and accurate arm but is very slow and has poor reaction time. Shortstop B (Miguel Tejada) is very fast and has great reaction time but occasionally misplays a ball with his glove or makes an errant throw every once in a while. In the 10 balls hit to Shortstop A (Derek Jeter) he fields 6 of them cleanly and throw the runner out at first, pumping his fist after each out. But 4 of the balls hit in his area go for hits. Shortstop B (Miguel Tejada) has 10 balls hit in his area, 8 of which he gets to because of his superior range but one goes for a hit and one he commits an error throwing to first base because he was off balance because he had to run 20 feet to reach a ball that Shortstop A would never have come close to. Now if you only use fielding percentage as a measure of defensive ability you would say that Shortstop A (Derek Jeter) is better than Shortstop B (Miguel Tejada) because his field percentage is 1.000% and Tejada’s is .888%. But you would be ignoring that of the 10 balls hit in his area Tejada turned 8 of them into outs and Jeter only turned 6 into outs. If you only consider the results an error is the equal to a play not made. This can be applied to team defense as well. If you only look at fielding percentage you are missing the more important stat which is the rate in which balls put into play are turned into outs or Defensive Efficiency. This brings me to the Red Sox this season. Last year many said that the Red Sox were a great defensive team due to their fielding percentage being the best in the American League when in fact their defensive efficiency was 12th out of 14 teams. Alex Gonzalez and Mark Loretta had undeserved reputations as great players at their respective positions. To be fair like Jeter both were very sure handed and had accurate arms but were very limited in their range and didn’t get to many balls hit in their area. In effect they were more Jeters than Tejadas. This season we have the much speedier Julio Lugo at short and Dustin Pedroia at second as well as a healthy Coco in center. This has lead to the Sox currently being 2nd in the league in defensive efficiency. At the same time their fielding percentage has dropped to 12th in the American League which makes some say that the loss of Gonzalez and Loretta has hurt their team defense. But the exact opposite is true. So with a great number of balls hit into play being turned into outs the pitching staff’s ERA has been lowered as well. When you look at a pitcher’s stats the ones most often used to judge their abilities are the stats that are the most dependant on the quality of the defense behind them (Wins/Losses/ERA). Taking Josh Beckett as an example I think his 7-0 start can be attributed to 3 things; fewer walks, giving up fewer homeruns, and most importantly a vastly improved defense behind him.
I used to think that there was no good reason whatsoever to go to Dedham. I need to reevaluate that opinion after learning of The Museum of Bad Art. If all art was this entertaining, I'd go to museums much more often. I firmly believe that if you can't do something well the next best thing is to make fun of people who do it poorly.
Now the Yankees have two chronic human growth hormone freaks on their team and possibly 3 if you want to add Andy Pettitte. It seems terribly unfair and whiffs of racism that Barry Bonds is solely pointed out as a performance enhancing drug cheat and guys like Clemens and Jason Giambi get away with the same offenses. Red flags fly all over the place with Clemens as they did with Bonds. But the mainstream media is almost completely ignoring his connection to performance enhancing drugs and play up the feel good story. The photo above is a fine example of Roger's frequent steroid rages.
In an era when 99% of professional athletes give tired, cliche-ridden drivel when interviewed it is beyond refreshing to hear Ichiro Suzuki's response to an reporter's question on facing Daisuke Matsuzaka tonight.
Matsuzaka will not strike out 10 batters and walk only 1 in every game. Nor will he give up only 6 hits with just 1 being hit hard. I’m sure that he will be shelled at some point in the season. But with all of the expectations for this game that was one of the best debut performances ever. This is ridiculously premature for me to say but the $51.1 million dollar posting fee for him seems like a bargain. Does anyone think Andy Pettitte will be even close to this good?
It is a little difficult to say that after his Opening Day performance but it really wasn’t as bad as it looked. I would never say that I truly understand most of what the sabrmetric geeks say even though I’ve been accused of being one. But there is one thing that they believe that makes a lot of sense to me. When evaluating a pitcher ignore ERA and wins and loses and focus more on strike out to walk ratio, BABIP (batting average on balls in play), home runs per 9 innings and to a lesser extend ground ball to fly ball ratio. The most important thing to look at is BABIP. Master this stat and it will change how you look at pitching forever. Essentially the argument is that the only consistent way for a pitcher to succeed is to strike batters out. Once a batter has hit the ball, it is simply a function of chance and how good your team defense is if the batter will be out. When looking at a pitcher’s stats it is essential, especially early in the season, to look at his BABIP because he could be either the beneficiary of good luck or a goat of bad luck. Sometimes the ball is hit to fielders and sometimes it is not. On average a little under 30% of balls hit into play go for hits. So your average pitchers BABIP is going to be around .300. If you see a pitcher with a BABIP much higher or lower than .300, there will likely be a correction (I’ll talk about regression to the mean later). So what happened yesterday with Curt Schilling? He faced 22 batters, striking out 5 and walking 2 which is a respectable but not great 2.5/1 strikeout to walk ratio. Although there were quite a few well hit balls he gave up no homers. But they key stat to understanding the final score was that of the 15 balls that were put in play, 8 went for hits giving Schilling a horrible but unlucky .533 BABIP. And what about Schilling’s opponent Gil Meche? He faced 27 batters, striking out 6 and walking 1 (6/1 k/bb ratio). 20 balls were put in play and the Sox had 6 hits. What was Meche’s BABIP? Exactly .300. So the bottom line is that Meche did indeed outpitch Schilling but the bad luck shown in the poor BABIP had a lot to do with the final score.
That is a little harsh but I remember hearing a few months ago that the Sox were moving from WEEI to WRKO and not giving it too much thought. Now that the season is upon us and I’ve realized, to my horror, that I am going to have to endure endless promos for Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage’s radio shows that run on WRKO, not to mention the loathsome Howie Carr. WEEI politics were always annoying but generally contained to the fascist rantings of Grand Duke Wizard Jerry Callahan which were easy enough to avoid. But now the Red Sox have lent their brand name to a radio station that airs Michael Savage (who has suggested killing 100 million Muslims) and Limbaugh (mimics people with Parkinson’s among many other unpardonable offenses) simply because that station’s parent company (Entercom Communication) offered the most money. What is most upsetting about this is that the politics of the ownership and management is entirely at odds with WRKO’s. I guess the only remedy to this is to listen to the Sox Spanish radio broadcast on WROL.
Had my first Asahi Super Dry last night and I'm not ashamed to say it was because of this commercial. It is just my opinion but that is the greatest commercial ever made and I dare anyone to disagree. The part when Matsuzaka throws a pitch in a virtual Fenway is breathtaking. It took me considerably longer to drink than Dice K but I did put on my Yaz jersey in an imitation slow mo. C. Jo didn't get the reference and probably wouldn't have found it amusing if she did. It is a good beer although I'm not sure it is worth the $9.25 I paid for it at Blanchard's unless a portion of that goes to the Sox to pay Matsuzaka's posting fee. I also fully support the reemergence of dry beer. I never had a Bud Dry but miss it mightily. All said it is a fine beer and I'd order it at a restaurant but probably won't pick up another 6 pack. Narragansett had not been dethroned. It is tough to beat cheap drinkable nostalgia in 16 ounce cans.
UPDATE: According to the Anheuser Busch website Bud Dry still exists. Who knew?
The implications of this recent New York Times article are enormous. The most important of which is that the Boston Celtics name is, genetically speaking, inaccurate. The article basically says that researchers have found very little genetic differences between the English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh. The Irish, Scottish, and Welsh belief that they are primarily the decendants of the Celts is a myth used to create a false difference between them and the English. The truth is that the British Isles were settled by people from the Basque region of Spain. Here in Boston where psuedo-Irishness is way of life this bit of scientific truth wouldn't dampen the Saint Patrick's Day fun of public drunkenness and banning homosexuals from the parade.
