Sunday, December 21, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Baseball Prospectus Needs Some TARP Funds
Joe Sheehan and Jay Jaffe both HATED that the Yankees did not offer arbitratrion to Bobby Abreu and Andy Pettitte. The gist of their argument was that arbitration meant either 1 year of a good player or draft picks, and if the Yankees wouldn't mind either of them on their team, then they turned assets into dust.
But they forgot to look at the other side of the coin. Abreu and Pettitte could be assets or they could be liabilities. The two players each made $16 million each last year. In arbitration they could easily earn $18 million each. Let's look at the opportunity cost of each.
Abreu's offensive has been steadily declining since his then-record-setting performance at the 2005 Home Run Derby, but he's still pretty good at the plate. His defense, however, is terrible. I'll leave the sabrmetric analysis for others, but with Damon, Melky/Gardner (or now Cameron), and Nady as full-time outfielders and Swisher and Matsui as backups, the Yankees hardly need a declining expensive OF taking playing time away from better younger players.
The case with Andy is even simpler. The Yankees knew that Pettitte only wanted to play for the Yankees. That leaves him with no leverage. Cashman wanted to give Andy a paycut, so offering arbitration would just be throwing money at him.
And the final argument is that Cashman knew what we didn't; that the Yankees were going to put the full-court press on CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett both. Knowing that, tying up $36 million in two players who are not the solution to the Yankees' problems would be dumb*. Fiscal responsibility, folks. It's a good thing.
* Now, none of us knew that, and of course Sheehan and Jaffe didn't know it when they wrote their posts. I disagreed with them well before Cashman signed CC and A.J., but I'm a slow blogger.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Bill Belichick is a Jerk
I can't believe Belichick challenged that play... up by 29 (five scores) with 2:33 left to go, he challenged the spot of a Raiders 4th-down conversion. This guy has no sportsmanship.
Wow, the Jets Pulled That One Out of Their Ass
So the Jets finally won a game against a team they should've beat. Thank goodness, it's about time.
The Jets looked like two different teams this game. During the 1st and 4th quarters, they looked like the team that dominated the Titans and went toe-to-toe with the Patriots. In the 2nd and 3rd quarters, however, they looked like the 4-12 Jets of last year.
Quick thoughts:
- They have GOT to find a way to get Leon "Hot" Washington the ball more (1 rush, 1 reception, 6 kickoff returns). His 47-yard TD run in the 2nd quarter just proved how explosive he can be.
- Mad props to Steven Johnson of the Bills. After his TD catch in the 2nd quarter, he pulled his celebration right out of "The Replacements" from Clifford Franklin (ball-glued-to-hands spike).
- Favre's first interception wasn't his fault (two crazy bounces), but the second one was. What was he thinking? I know Favre has thrown his fair share of deep bombs, but he does not have the arm for it anymore. He underthrew the receiver (Cotchery? Clowney?) by 10 yards.
- David Clowney made an impression in his first NFL game. He made a great catch by tipping the ball to himself twice. I hope he gets more chances to prove himself.
- The Jets had more luck in this game than they deserved. The Bills choice to throw when all they had to do was run out the clock, and then the lucky bounce into Shaun Ellis' hands... hopefully they had karma to spare.
Miami won and New England is already up 21-0 against Oakland, so the Jets still need to win out.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
It's A Problem!
Filip Bondy: Master of Words.
"There was an absence of despair, which is good. There was no sense of desperation, which is not."
There was no despair. That's good. There was no despair. That's bad.
"When he speaks to the media, the coach talks in circles about commitment and consistency. If his players require a more direct translation of this dire situation, then here it is: Things could get very ugly around here in a hurry."
Now, I'm not an NFL head coach, but if I were, I wouldn't give the same speech to the media and to the players. Anything the coach tells the media will be read by every other team in the league! Let's just give up all our secrets, shall we?
"Laveranues Coles, whose recent quotes about Favre demonstrate a very fragile truce, becomes even edgier and outspoken as locker-room dissenters are empowered by failure."
My favorite part about this line is that in the very same issue of the Daily News, Ohm Youngmisuk debunks the theory that Favre and Coles do not get along.
"Millions of dollars in salaries are jettisoned in the offseason, while Woody Johnson re-thinks the club's decision to build a contender quickly by splurging in the free agent market."
I think it's hard to dispute that Alan Faneca, Kris Jenkins, Damien Woody, and Calvin Pace have had an immensely positive effect on the team. Faneca and Woody have cemented the O-line (and made D'Brickashaw Fergason and Nick Mangold far better), while Pace and Jenkins have given the Jets one of the best run defences in the league.
Clearly the failure is not with those four players.
"There was an absence of despair, which is good. There was no sense of desperation, which is not."
There was no despair. That's good. There was no despair. That's bad.
"When he speaks to the media, the coach talks in circles about commitment and consistency. If his players require a more direct translation of this dire situation, then here it is: Things could get very ugly around here in a hurry."
Now, I'm not an NFL head coach, but if I were, I wouldn't give the same speech to the media and to the players. Anything the coach tells the media will be read by every other team in the league! Let's just give up all our secrets, shall we?
"Laveranues Coles, whose recent quotes about Favre demonstrate a very fragile truce, becomes even edgier and outspoken as locker-room dissenters are empowered by failure."
My favorite part about this line is that in the very same issue of the Daily News, Ohm Youngmisuk debunks the theory that Favre and Coles do not get along.
"Millions of dollars in salaries are jettisoned in the offseason, while Woody Johnson re-thinks the club's decision to build a contender quickly by splurging in the free agent market."
I think it's hard to dispute that Alan Faneca, Kris Jenkins, Damien Woody, and Calvin Pace have had an immensely positive effect on the team. Faneca and Woody have cemented the O-line (and made D'Brickashaw Fergason and Nick Mangold far better), while Pace and Jenkins have given the Jets one of the best run defences in the league.
Clearly the failure is not with those four players.
Here ends my lame attempt to fill the void left by FireJoeMorgan.com.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Bold Prediction Wednesday! It's the Yankees Again
Prediction: Yankees fail to sign CC Sabathia. Yankees do sign Mark Texeira for $120M over 6 years.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Help Me Help You!
The best part of being at my parents' place in NJ is that they get every movie channel known to man. I've watched Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Jerry McGuire, Back to the Future Part 2, 6th Day, and a whole bunch of others that I can't remember. Of course, I also stayed up until like 3 every morning to watch them. Sweet.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Game Log: Gears of War 2
I just got Gears of War 2, and I love it. Here are some thoughts:
Multiplayer: I've only played about 4-6 hours of multiplayer, and it's been all Horde mode (you plus 4 of your closest friends vs. waves of bad guys). This game mode is more fun than I expected. Plus it's the only way I get to play as Baird. Booya.
Single player: Goddamnit this game is so huge! And I mean that. I've read the word "scope" used to describe GoW2, and they couldn't be more right. The most famous example is the developer making up for the Brumak scene from GoW1 (cut because of time pressure) by having you fight like five brumaks within the first 15 minutes of GoW2. That's big. Then you fight like three corpsers at once, two seeders, a ginormous worm, and a mega-fish (not all in that order). Not to mention new regular enemies and everything.
The basic gameplay hasn't changed too much; you still hide behind cover and shoot at bad guys. Two main things have changed: the enemy AI, and the scope (again). I've been flanked by grubs so many times it's getting me to think the XBox is sensient. And the battlefields are just much bigger (and much smaller sometimes) so you really get caught up in them.
I've said before that the #1 thing I look for in single-player games is immersion: how immersed can I get in the game. Whether it's emotional investment in the characters or just locked-in gameplay, if I forget about the outside world and are thinking solely as the protagonist, that's the win I'm looking for. GoW2 gives it all. They totally sideswiped me with an emotional scene; it came out of nowhere and I totally cried. But the thing is The dialog for that scene isn't even that great. I was just so invested that it hit me harder.
I have yet to finish the game so the ending may disappoint, but I'm already in love. I'll probably play though it like 4-5 times before it's all said and done.
Update 11/26/08: I've played a bit more multiplayer, all horde mode, with some new friends and random people (the matching system for horde is pretty solid). It's still fun, but I can imagine it getting kind of boring soon.
The single player storyline just totally surprised me, and not in a good way. Things happened that totally jarred me out of suspension-of-disbelief. I really hope they tie it all back together.
Multiplayer: I've only played about 4-6 hours of multiplayer, and it's been all Horde mode (you plus 4 of your closest friends vs. waves of bad guys). This game mode is more fun than I expected. Plus it's the only way I get to play as Baird. Booya.
Single player: Goddamnit this game is so huge! And I mean that. I've read the word "scope" used to describe GoW2, and they couldn't be more right. The most famous example is the developer making up for the Brumak scene from GoW1 (cut because of time pressure) by having you fight like five brumaks within the first 15 minutes of GoW2. That's big. Then you fight like three corpsers at once, two seeders, a ginormous worm, and a mega-fish (not all in that order). Not to mention new regular enemies and everything.
The basic gameplay hasn't changed too much; you still hide behind cover and shoot at bad guys. Two main things have changed: the enemy AI, and the scope (again). I've been flanked by grubs so many times it's getting me to think the XBox is sensient. And the battlefields are just much bigger (and much smaller sometimes) so you really get caught up in them.
I've said before that the #1 thing I look for in single-player games is immersion: how immersed can I get in the game. Whether it's emotional investment in the characters or just locked-in gameplay, if I forget about the outside world and are thinking solely as the protagonist, that's the win I'm looking for. GoW2 gives it all. They totally sideswiped me with an emotional scene; it came out of nowhere and I totally cried. But the thing is The dialog for that scene isn't even that great. I was just so invested that it hit me harder.
I have yet to finish the game so the ending may disappoint, but I'm already in love. I'll probably play though it like 4-5 times before it's all said and done.
Update 11/26/08: I've played a bit more multiplayer, all horde mode, with some new friends and random people (the matching system for horde is pretty solid). It's still fun, but I can imagine it getting kind of boring soon.
The single player storyline just totally surprised me, and not in a good way. Things happened that totally jarred me out of suspension-of-disbelief. I really hope they tie it all back together.
Monday, November 17, 2008
I Thought Slavery Was Illegal
The Yankees sold a man to another team for $1 million. That's 0.7% of the money needed to sign Sabathia.
Gaming 2: Return to Gamingdom
I was on call this weekend for my project's release. This meant I had to stay within 30 minutes of a computer at all times and have my Blackberry on me all the time (yes, they nailed me with a BB again. Sonuvabitch!). However, this bore unexpected fruit; Annie had plans both Friday and Saturday night. I could not make plans that required me to leave the house. Solution?
Video games.
I played more games this weekend (probably close to 12 hours) than I have the past 2 months combined. It was awesome.
Mostly I played Gears of War 2, but I snuck some Fable 2 in there as well (game logs on both forthcoming). The main takeaway I had was how much I miss playing games. Even a 30-45 minute gamebreak is refreshing. I guess I'm just hard wired for gaming.
Video games.
I played more games this weekend (probably close to 12 hours) than I have the past 2 months combined. It was awesome.
Mostly I played Gears of War 2, but I snuck some Fable 2 in there as well (game logs on both forthcoming). The main takeaway I had was how much I miss playing games. Even a 30-45 minute gamebreak is refreshing. I guess I'm just hard wired for gaming.
Friday, November 14, 2008
I Was Almost Murdered
I teach Pep Band at Tufts. I don't have an office, but I do have some storage space in an old office attached to the auditorium's "green room". One day this year, I went to go get my supplies, as usual. I walked up the steps from the basement to the green room when suddenly two angry Tufts police officers and two weird looking dudes in odd-fitting suits got in my way. One cop looked angry, confused, and worried all in one, said, "You can't go this way!" Odd, I thought. "I just need to get to the green room." The cop was insistent: "You can't go this way, you'll have to wait." The two weird looking men shared a smirk.
It was at this point that I realized that this was not a normal situation. The cops were worried, but not about me.
"OK, well, I'm a music professor, I need to get my music supplies from the office in the green room," I said.
The two cops looked nervously at each other, then the speaker looked at the two weird men. They made no motion whatsover. Apparently, that was the go ahead.
"OK, you have a key?" I did. I walked in the green room to see a table of bottled water, ice, and snacks. The green room never had anything but a dirty sofa in it, but now it was totally decked out. Thoroughly creeped out, I grabbed my stuff (forgetting half of it) and left quickly.
When I got to the classroom, I mentioned this encounter to one of the students who had arrived early. He said, "Oh, the Queen of Jordan must be speaking in the auditorium." Wait, what?
"The Queen of Jordan? For real?" I incredulously asked.
"Yeah, Queen Rania is here for the Issac Fares lecture series."
Then it all became clear.
The weird looking dudes were her bodyguards.
Their suits fit weirdly because they were concealing Uzis or sawed-off shotguns under the jackets.
The cops were worried I might get hassled, or worse, shot.
All because I was within 40 feet of Queen Rania without proper authorization.
Awesome.
It was at this point that I realized that this was not a normal situation. The cops were worried, but not about me.
"OK, well, I'm a music professor, I need to get my music supplies from the office in the green room," I said.
The two cops looked nervously at each other, then the speaker looked at the two weird men. They made no motion whatsover. Apparently, that was the go ahead.
"OK, you have a key?" I did. I walked in the green room to see a table of bottled water, ice, and snacks. The green room never had anything but a dirty sofa in it, but now it was totally decked out. Thoroughly creeped out, I grabbed my stuff (forgetting half of it) and left quickly.
When I got to the classroom, I mentioned this encounter to one of the students who had arrived early. He said, "Oh, the Queen of Jordan must be speaking in the auditorium." Wait, what?
"The Queen of Jordan? For real?" I incredulously asked.
"Yeah, Queen Rania is here for the Issac Fares lecture series."
Then it all became clear.
The weird looking dudes were her bodyguards.
Their suits fit weirdly because they were concealing Uzis or sawed-off shotguns under the jackets.
The cops were worried I might get hassled, or worse, shot.
All because I was within 40 feet of Queen Rania without proper authorization.
Awesome.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Things To Remember To Do When Sick
- Drink lots of tea (or other electrolyte-holding drinks).
- Drink even more water.
- Go outside for a short walk to get the blood pumping and get some fresh air.
- Eat, if possible.
- Take painkillers.
- Sleep.
Games To Play
- Gears of War 2
- Fable 2
- Castle Crashers
- Braid
- Trauma Center 2
- Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Importance of Compensation Picks
A lot of Yankee fans don't really get the way free agency and compensation picks work. Fair enough, it's somewhat complicated. That said, they also ignore the ramifications of these picks. Whoa dog, hold on a sec. MLBTradeRumors.com reports that Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain were both picked by the Yankees with compensation picks. How about them apples?
Resign Giambi
This is my pipe dream:
1) Yankees do not sign Teixeria.
2) Yankees sign Giambi to a $5M/1Y or $8M/2Y deal.
3) Giambi holds down 1B until Posada moves there or someone else takes over (because we all know Posada's going to need some time there before his deal is up).
My reasons are this:
1) Giambi is a great teammate; this may be not appreciated but is important.
2) .247/.373/.502, 128 OPS+, in 145 games.
3) Yeah, he's a terrible defender. But his WARP-1 (Wins Above Replacement Player, defense adjusted) was 4.5 for 2008. For comparison's sake, Jeter had a 4.4 WARP-1 in 2008.
Come on, Cashman, pull the trigger!
1) Yankees do not sign Teixeria.
2) Yankees sign Giambi to a $5M/1Y or $8M/2Y deal.
3) Giambi holds down 1B until Posada moves there or someone else takes over (because we all know Posada's going to need some time there before his deal is up).
My reasons are this:
1) Giambi is a great teammate; this may be not appreciated but is important.
2) .247/.373/.502, 128 OPS+, in 145 games.
3) Yeah, he's a terrible defender. But his WARP-1 (Wins Above Replacement Player, defense adjusted) was 4.5 for 2008. For comparison's sake, Jeter had a 4.4 WARP-1 in 2008.
Come on, Cashman, pull the trigger!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Revelations, Chapter 1
April 14th, 2008:
Ed: My chest has been sore for like a week now
Joe: ouch man
Ed: and of course I keep thinking it's my heart
Joe: have you seen a doctor?
Ed: yeah, and I have an awesome heart. still doesn't stop me from thinking
Joe: You know, you might be lactose-intolerant
Ed: what?
Joe: That happened to me.
Ed: No way man, I ain't lactose intolerant.
October 30th, 2008:
Joe: It's possible you're lactose intolerant then.
Joe: that's what I've been dealing with.
Ed: Awww fuck
Ed: you know
Ed: you're fucking right
Ed: guess what I have every morning of every day
Ed: COFFEE WITH CREAM/MILK
Ed: I have some on my desk RIGHT FUCKING NOW
November 3rd, 2008:
Ed: you smart person you
Ed: suggesting I might be lactose intolerant
Ed: then being right
Ed: you douche
Joe: :)
Ed: My chest has been sore for like a week now
Joe: ouch man
Ed: and of course I keep thinking it's my heart
Joe: have you seen a doctor?
Ed: yeah, and I have an awesome heart. still doesn't stop me from thinking
Joe: You know, you might be lactose-intolerant
Ed: what?
Joe: That happened to me.
Ed: No way man, I ain't lactose intolerant.
October 30th, 2008:
Joe: It's possible you're lactose intolerant then.
Joe: that's what I've been dealing with.
Ed: Awww fuck
Ed: you know
Ed: you're fucking right
Ed: guess what I have every morning of every day
Ed: COFFEE WITH CREAM/MILK
Ed: I have some on my desk RIGHT FUCKING NOW
November 3rd, 2008:
Ed: you smart person you
Ed: suggesting I might be lactose intolerant
Ed: then being right
Ed: you douche
Joe: :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)