Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Best of Times

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.

In personal sporting news I went to Martha's Vineyard to defend my title in the 30-39 age group at the Oak Bluffs Memorial Day Road Race. Last year I rather flukely won my division which was more evidence of a poor group of competitors than my skill. The good news is I cut 21 seconds of my time from last year running the 5K in 20:37 compared to my 20:58 in 2006. The bad news was that this time put me 21st overall (compared 15th in 2006) and 7th place in my age group. I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping to finish with my average pace under 6:30 minute miles which I consider the "fast line". But this defeat was quickly forgotten when I went back to my Mom's house and watched my Sporting Clube de Portugal win the Taca de Portugal on a fantastic goal by Liedson. Forca Sporting! View the beautifully homemade clip below.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dave,

Can I run that sucker with you next year. I estimate my finishing place to be roughly (without bragging) 245th place. If I don't drop dead along the route.

Dewy24 said...

Are you saying you would beat Kathleen O'Sullivan? IT'S ON!!

Anonymous said...

Yes- next year I will run too and so will aim for 246th place. I think Big John will have the advantage of his long legs and thus will nab the coveted 245th place. C-Bug and La Nola will be walking by then and so they will probably will beat us both. Also, they may outperform us due to the fact that they drink less beer than we do.

Dan Nolan said...

is that your camera work on that Liedson goal? I may have to contract your services for Dude v Cart II - The Suplex.

Dewy24 said...

No. That is not mine. I can spot talent, though, can't I?

Sporting just sold arguably their best player, Nani, to Man. U. for 25.5 million euros. This will not make Sporting's chances any better in the Champions League next season. They understand that they are a second tier European team but I would have like to see them keep the same squad intact.