Haiku Wednesday

Paradise

Sand between my toes
White powder under my skis
A hug from my wife

2008 Running

Well that is my year in running....here is to a better 2009!

Rox Talk

Tale of Two Pitchers?

Okay so the column on the left is 2007 and the column on the right is 2008.  The top line is the number of strikes thrown by the pitcher and the percentage of the total number of pitches thrown by pitcher (i.e. 63% of pitches thrown were strikes).  The next three lines describe the type of strikes and the percentage of the type by total strikes (yeah don't ask me why they are greater than 100%, 43 extra pitches of some sort!).  The final five rows deal with what happened to the batter or the ball (Groundball, Flyball, Line Drive, Strike Out, or Other [Walks]) with the percentage based on total batters faced.  So basically the percentages are the same except a bit more flyballs and little less strikeouts in 2008.

So what about these next numbers.  Again the ratios (ratios used since the 2008 pitcher didn't pitch as many innings) are pretty much the same from 2007 and 2008. 

Moving on we start to see a big giant difference in the next series of numbers and that is HR allowed.  5 percent difference in Home Runs in 2008!   The percentage with these is simply the percent of hits allowed (runs allowed, HR allowed, BB allowed) per batter faced. 

And so we have a pitcher who pretty much had the same basic pitching stats with some more flyballs, little less strikeouts, and some more home runs which led to the following bottom lines (see final tally below). Pretty fascinating that difference between a 17 win season and a 4 win season is so small...was Jeff Francis strikeout pitch in 2007 turning into a homerun pitch in 2008?  Did batter's adjust to Francis and Francis not readjust?  What did the Red Sox's find during the 2007 World Series that had the rest of the NL looking for?

Christmas Gifts

This year's gift was the fabulous and always entertaining

iPod Touch 16 GB!

In addition received another baseball History Shots, two books (Haiku Book, Outliers, and The Natural), new water bottle, cool globe that when it is dark shows the night sky, book on sky scrapers, Nike running jacket, and some games to include Scotland Yard.

Haiku Wednesday

New

Throw off the decay

Slate is clean, crisp, and shiny

Be like a seedling

Michael Chabon - Mysteries of Pittsburgh

This is Chabon's first novel, written while still a student.  He received something like $150,000 for it while most first time novelists get about $6 - 7 K.  I have to eventually get to all his work and basically this book was kind of like his M.O. for all his books.  Some parts amazing, other parts kind of slow, and some parts kind of shocking.  Anyway Mysteries started out well, had some definite good wackiness (Phlox), then got interesting, and then ended shockingly.  So I enjoyed the first 2/3 but not the last third.  I mean overall the novel was good and I just have to admit that I had a hard time enjoying the homosexual relationship described in the book.  I'm not a homophobe but to read about two men having sexual relations is just not easy to read.  It did fit with the book so I'm ok with it but it isn't easy to enjoy.

page 39:  "It was as though she had studied American notions of beauty from some great distance and had come all this way only to find she had overdone the clothes, a debutante from another planet"

Rox Talk

This is my crazy pitching blog post, stop if you hate numbers ;-)

Basically Cook and Jimenez were the work horses for the team. De la Rosa was the surprise and savior. The first four pitchers accounted for 75% (2007 had 5 pitchers to account for 75% of the IP) of the starts and overall the starting pitching accounted for 61.7% (2007, 64.1%) of the innings pitched for the entire team. If a quality start is defined as a game score of 50 then only Cook and Jimenez averaged a quality start during the season. Cook's 81 game score was the highest for the team (2007, high game score was 77). Hernandez had the distinction of having the lowest game score of 5 (beating out Fogg's game score of 4 last year)! 

In addition to the the above stats, I also looked at some other wacky stuff. One question I have always had was what would be a starter's record if he won (or loss) those games because of relievers (or was bailed out by the offensive or relievers and got the no decision)? Also which pitcher actually pitches with the lead? 

So in normal speak the Roxs starters were 54 - 62 with 46 no decisions (versus 55 - 47 and 61 no decisions in 2007). In my revised look the starters were 76 - 74 with 12 ties (versus 84 - 60 with 19 ties in 2007). Cook would have won 18 games. Once again Jimenez was the unluckiest as he left 16 games winning and the bullpen could hang on only 12 times. As I mentioned last year I don't think this revisionist look at pitching stats mean anything because over a pitcher's career my guess all the blown saves or offensive help probably average out. To me the bottom line is what does the team do when a certain Starter is on the mound. When Cookie step to the rubber the Rox won 19 times accounting for 25.7% of the total team wins. 

If the above study looked at the underbelly of starting pitching (who has luck, no luck, or just happens to pitch that day the offensive was asleep) this next look is what does the Starter do for themselves (i.e. keeps the team in the game by keeping the lead or keeping the game tied). Of the starters, Jimenez pitched with the lead 70% of the time and Cook pitched with the lead 67% of the time. The team overall pitched 62% of the time with the lead or tied (versus 67% in 2007). Finally what did the starters throw to during the season.

Well as you guessed it Cook led the team in Groundballs and Jimenez and de la Rosa had lots of strikeouts.  Interesting to see that Jimenez and Cook have very few flyballs which probably leads to their success.

This Week in Comics...

Buffy #20

A filler issue...ha pretty fun little issue.  Taking a page from the old days when supposedly Buffy was being shopped as an animated show.  Well the show never happened but taking the characterizations and throwing them into a dream makes this special kind of fun.  Although it is a little sad because Buffy goes back to her days before becoming a serious slayer.

Iron Man #8

Tony Stark post Invasion has Tony being a thorn in Osborne's side and we've barely begun.  My question is when does Pepper put the suit on?  Has there ever been a female to wear the suit?   Anyway it looks like Tony has gone underground and rogue.  Should be a good one...

Spider-Man Noir #1

The X-men Noir was okay but this one seemed to work a bit better.  I have to admit I am a fan of new takes on old characters.  With only 4 issues each will the story have enough time to develop anything worth while (i.e. Alpha Flight).

X-men #505

OK what is up with this storyline? First you build up this Maddie thing then you put it on hold for two issues and lose whatever you were trying to build. Of course then you throw in this play with Emma joining up with Norman (?) Your killing the story. Ughhh stories makes comics and maybe Fraction is trying to keep Dodson off of the Maddie story since it is more female driven? Oh well whatever..

Time Magazine - List Issue

Time Magazine - 12/22/08 Issue

Top 10 Discoveries

8.  Red Sox jersey in Yankee Stadium concrete

10 Most Memorable Olympic Moments

1. Phelps ' Photo Finish (2 cm  |--------------| )

My Personal Top 10 of 2008 (not in any order)

10.  Yuengling and Harpoon

9.  Guitar Hero

8.  X-men:  Messiah Complex

7.  Lego Force Unleashed Rogue Shadow

6.  Iron Man

5.  Book of the Year:  Laika - Nick Abadzis and Hilary Sycamore

4.  Music Group I Liked This Year - Placebo

3.  Baseball Research - Number of Hits to Score Run

2.  iTouch

1.  Fresh Maine Lobster

Haiku Wednesday

Light

December Darkness

The sun is on vacation

Rudolph shines the way