News from SuSlu: MaEl’s livestock injury is “relatively severe” and he is expected to miss four to six weeks.
The MRI on Eric Chavez showed blahblahblah. Same shit, different day.
Lineup for the A’s:
Sweeney
Sweeney
Sweeney
Sweeney
Sweeney
Sweeney
Sweeney
Sweeney
Wolverine
andeux
Apricot
batgirl
Danny
oblique
devo
mk
dmoas
FreeSeatUpgrade
monkeyball
grover
Sharon
iglew
ptbnl
JediLeroy
Jennifer
Leopold Bloom
mikeA
MikeTheV
mjdittmer
nevermoor
ninathorsenkqed
Poppy
salb918
doctorK
sslinger
5aces
the dogfather
veganryan
whiteshoes40
xbhaskarx
FREE KRAUT! 
Now that’s a lineup I can get behind.
…er, yeah. You know what I mean.
Thank you for not posting the real lineup. I would not advise anyone to look at it.
Hmmm, who’s batting ninth?
I vote Travis. Just to switch it up a little bit.
& who’s pitching?
i’d like to request a vidcap of some sort of the uniforms being worn by the
a’soaks andm’srainers, if possible?They’re not as good as last year’s vs. the Rangers, but still great.
Sweeney was a late scratch with a scratch.
Wow. Those are some great pockets on the A’s unis.
The pockets are my favorite part (aside from the socks, of course).
The hats don’t match the tops.
Yeah. They need to be darker grey… they look white from a distance.
Huh. I thought they were white. But I was looking at the green. Ew.
Oh wow, I didn’t even notice that. Yeah, that green is pretty bad.
It seems like there were 7 walks that inning, but apparently there was only 1.
my firefox extensions are supposed to refresh this page automatically every minute. why is it not doing that?
{standard Branyan comment}
never mind.
Only 1,000!
What does the smiley face on the bottom of the page mean? Does it have a function?
I think it’s mocking us.
now that you mention it, it’s freaking me out.
BOO-YA!
My, my, my.Edit: I changed my mind. It looked like he trapped it. Well, at least he sold it.
When Buck does that, the ball rolls through and he gets injured.
Too true.
The left one, or the right one?
Ryan. Beautiful.
Although it may have hit the ground first (booooooooooooooooo-mikeA hey, just calling it like I see it -ws), but whatev. Minor detail.
He sold it better than Manny. Man, that play still makes me want to smash things.
{Non-krauthor getting uppity. Corrective action taken.}
I like it.
Wow.
They are just blowing my mind.
Suzuki just blew Ramon Hernandez’s mind.
Ramon pissed his pants thinking about that play.
Ramon saw that there was a chance his mind could be blown, so he got out of the way before it could be blown.
[flashback to Jose Guillen’s first game as an A — perfect throw home, and Ramon’s standing 15 feet in front of the plate]
footage of that play
I was hoping it really would be.
I was hoping it would be a Breaking Bad clip.
One of my favorite and most often recalled flashbacks. I was at that game. What. A. Throw.
First the A’s can’t score, and now i break the handle of my pot. THAT WAS A STRIKE.
Was that your only pot?
No, but an old favorite. Old Silver.
I almost bought a cast-iron skillet from some Amish last week. I want one. An
skilletAmish, not aAmishskillet. They are old school, and a great weapon!SkilletsAmish, notAmishskillets.I have one; they’re too heavy to use as a weapon. I mean the Amish. And also the skillet.
damnit, now my po
st doesn’t makessenserice.I am
nota fan of theeditsAngels.eh, that’s just
cruelperfect.I lol-ed
the missing handle caused me to drop my spoon into the soup. and that stupid smiley face just keeps smiling…
waited a little while for the soup to cool down, then I reached in, burned myself anyway, and dropped the spoon right back into the soup. Yay Petit!
no replay no replay no replay…
Cabrera’s such a party pooper. He put his pant legs down after the first inning. Are you allergic to high socks or something, dude?
Did that just happen?
That slide was awesome. I love Cust.
Jack Cust is a 5-tool threat.
Hahahaha. 1st in the majors!
I assumed it was actually first in pro ball.
I looked this up, but he actually had two seasons with double-digit steals in pro ball… IIRC, a Pioneer League season (and that’s a short season too) in Lethbridge and a Texas League season in El Paso.
He’s faster than I thought.
Just got to a TV. I have that O
hatface.Do people come up and say “is that your O hat?”
Whoa. RIP, Jack Kemp.
He’s the most famous graduate of alma mater. Was, I mean. He’s dead.
I dated an Occi gal for a while in 1988 or so.
Did she show you her Occi face?
What the feck was that?
Whoa. Petit is fast.
I didn’t need reminding, but Suzuki has a really good arm.
Willkommen auf frei kraut.
+ein
Geren’s really cute when he warms up the pitcher between innings.
Except he almost hurt himself trying to squat down. Honestly, who doesn’t, though?
I’m hungry.
I ate all the soup. Sorry.
What kind?
split pea.
I was hoping for clam chowder.
Do I look like I live in Boston?
Can’t you whip some up?
I’ve got pureed bananas with rice cereal, or steamed/pureed carrots.
When you give babies pureed bananas instead of candy, people don’t try to steal it. That’s smart.
Walking JP down to meet Mrs M earlier this evening, we almost got run down in a crosswalk by two hipster-tribe doofuses on fixies. Had a really fun shouting match with them. They quickly realized it was a mistake to mouth off to me. And that there were 20 other pedestrians ready to kick their asses, plus a line of cabbies yelling at them.
Stupid fans. Get out of the way.
What, exactly, is “European-style lounging”?
Naked.
That was a nice 180-degree hop by Bailey.
Now let’s get
a DPa dozen runs and some clam chowder.I find even the worst chowder only leads to a half-dozen runs.
Uhh … odd approach to that by Holliday.
So the oak leaf behind the O on the hats kind of looks like a bear.
or an elephant
“sometimes inconsistent”?
Endy is not
Ichiroclam chowder.In the helmet and throwback uni, Gallego looks like he just stepped out of Super Mario Bros., or maybe Speed Racer.
Hire Bob Hoskins Now!
Ha!
there we go, G.
Lol! That shift worked real well for ya, didn’t it?
I just got home, turned on
the game, andwescored! Hooray!Who is editing my shit?
It wasn’t me.
Do they not throw breaking balls in the NL?
Suzuki will hit a grand slam.
Cust should really have a hyphen in his uni #.
fuck you, ump
Oregon music?
Annoying commercials – current hate list:
1) AT&T “rollover minutes”
2) Comcast “speed boost”
3) Subway “five dollar”
no mini sirloin burger?
I haven’t seen it recently.
I hate that one more than i’ve hated anything in years.
eh, I haven’t seen it enough to hate it that much. The “this is our country” ads though… those actually made me mad. I mute my computer when a MGD ad comes up, and the five dollar footlong ads are becoming unbearable.
A lot of it is that that song stayed with me like the klown kollege ad stayed with Homer.
my mom and her partner sing that commercial to eachother. Strange, they think that I actually like living at home. PLEASE SOMEONE EMPLOY ME!!!111
1. I love those ads
That can’t possibly be true.
These uniforms are awesome.
They look like something out of the WBC.
The WBC is awesome.
That can’t possibly be true.
Completing the thought from the bottom of the Derby thread:
2. Good Lovin, Cumberland, Cryptical>Other One>Drums>Morning Dew, St. Stephen>Revolution, Help on the Way>Franklin’s. And then (duh) E: Samson
Revolution?
As in The Beatles.
The Anaheim media market?
I hate work.
And WTF Ellis? I’m over this DL crap. I mean, I thought I was over it last year but this is IT.
not a strike.
I think I’m going to buy some of those socks and hang them up at Christmas.
Yes.
The uniforms look like Christmas and I like it.
He was safe, but umpires usually call outs on those.
nice slide by crosby
So did the Oaks wear jerseys that were faked to look like vests?
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
WHAT?!? That never works!
Not only did it work that time, but it actually worked FOR us.
That can’t possibly be true.
I like this Gregorio Petit fellow.
Hmm, maybe Petit really just can’t hit in the PCL…
We need an inverse of AAAA name for people who suck in the minors but hit well in the majors.
>>>
∀∀∀∀
FKwits?
nice! that was a hell of a slam by crosby
no — THIS is the worst fucking ad
Geren looks like a fool in the Oaks hat. Even more so than usual.
TCPBT
Trying to hit HRs to CF against the A’s is silly.
wuertz has a funny little short-arm delivery
Speaking of which, where’s Erubiel Durazo?
I’m guessing Mexico, but I have no clue.
On the replay it looks like the catcher was trying to block the plate w/o the ball — was already on his knees and got too low to get the big hop. Bad baserunning gets something good for a change.
So what’s the deal with Ziggy, do we know if it’s the regular flu or Hamthrax?
He’s being held in quarantine.
I think Geren said he doesn’t have the swine flu symptoms… but I don’t remember where I read that. So, who knows.
Maybe we need to wear the throwback unis against the M’s more often.
I love me some Petit.
CHOUCROUTE DE TRIOMPHE!
Merci.
Un Petit victoire. Tres bien.
Gregorio should really take Not-Corey’s uni #.
For the first time in five tries, the A’s managed to beat a team that frequently starts Endy Chavez in LF and often starts Mike Sweeney at DH.
Aw. That was a cute interview.
It’s nice to see a major league ballplayer so giddy. You’re back in the bigs, have a great game, and Ellis’ injury makes it likely you’re going to hang around a while.
More Braden love: that promo they played in the (7th?) was some quality VO work.
The funny thing, to me, is that Crosby’s decision to ignore the stop sign and try to beat Ichiro was a typical dumb decision by Bobby.
But Ichiro’s throw was tough for the catcher to grab, so Crosby gets credit for being aggressive.
It was still dumb. I’m glad it worked out.
who is giving him credit? I’ll give him credit for a nice shove when the ball had already bounced away.
I’m watching the post-game show. They’re giving him credit.
The A’s, and Crosby, and most importantly us, were due for some good luck.
I’m not sure it was all that dumb. I mean, say he holds up — there’s still less than a 35% chance the A’s score. I’d guess, even discounting the actual outcome, there was a b]e===========8 [cat just stepped on the keyboard — either that, or I had a stroke] better than 35% chance of the throw/catch/tag somehow going awry.
I wonder if that is true. Where are your stats back that up? I thought fk was saber. (looks at you with cross eyes and falls in process)
More seriously though, I wonder if someone has crunched the numbers on something like that.
well, as for if we score if he holds up at third, it would be something like …
BAnext hitter + ((OBP-BA)next hitter * OBPhitter after that)
if things are really simplistic.
Now, I reckon that it’d be near impossible to find something that simplistic for the fielding component of this, but it’d have something to do with … Ichiro’s arm, distance to the plate (for both throw and runner), competency of Rob Johnson behind the plate (which if you believe LL is 0, so Bobby running would be a smart thing to do), and Croz’ speed. I don’t have a clue how to model that, but seeing the replay several times, unless Rob Johnson is truly incompetent, it was ill-advised.
there’s no way of figuring out the chance of scoring on the play. I’d say it was somewhat less than 35%. For the first part there’s also the chance of a wp/pb, an error (not counted in ba) and the extra chance of getting an insurance run, all of which add up to a non-negligible amount.
The insurance run is kind of important in the long run, but I thought about that and decided that getting the one run home and a run expectancy matrix are two different things?
I suppose you could add errors, but then you’d need spray charts and all kinds of things to figure out where stuff is going to get hit, and WP/PB at the major league level when Josh Bard isn’t catching Tim Wakefield is a small amount, but admittedly non-negligible.
But if that formula as-is already gives a higher percentage chance of scoring than Ichiro not gunning down Croz at the plate, then it is a moot point.
Well, as to the first 35% claim — there were two outs. Sweeney’s up next. Give him a .350 OBP (which is generous) — sure, he could walk/hbp, but that punts it to the next batter, Cabrera, not only knocking the % down further individually but serially/multiplicatively (I think — someone pls correct me if I’m wrong).
The second is a wild-ass guess. Sure, Ichiro’s got a great arm, but, hey, anything can happen.
Plus, while that run isn’t an absolute 100% win (as it would have been had the A’s been the home team), it’s probably pretty close. Extra runs after that (in the classic, big-inning-maximizing sabr argument against smallball) are gravy.
‘Course, I’m giving Crosby more credit than he deserves, b/c in the postgame writeups he says he put his head down and didn’t even see Gallego’s stop sign.
I think we came up with the same thing.
Walk Off Balk (not always the best website to use, I know, not interested in rehashing years-old arguments) says that that run gives you an 81.2% chance of winning going into the bottom of the 9th; a second run would go to 92.5%, a 3rd to 96.5%, but that first run gives you a significant chance at winning already.
I still think it was dumb of Croz, but he scored the go-ahead run, so who am I to question it? I have a feeling that he is out at the plate more than two out of three times if you redo that play a thousand times, but that’s just a hunch; I don’t think you can prove it one way or another. (But hey. He won the game, did he not?)
One approach would be to use win expectancy, with three situations of interest:
1. Crosby scores, Petit on 2nd, 2 out => WE = 0.816
2. Crosby out, inning over => WE = 0.344
3. Crosby holds at 3rd, Petit on 1st, 2 out => WE = 0.525
So Crosby’s odds of scoring have to be better than (525-344)/(816-344) ~ 38% for the play to be worthwhile.
The larger point that we’re all missing is that Crosby came in contact with a human being and both (a) knocked him over and (b) didn’t break anything.
I don’t care about the run, the odds of (a) and (b) are about 1.2%
Right now on MLB network I just stumbled across a replay of the 72 world series
It is now over, but a replay of the 73 world series just started!
Question –
Came across a post at draysbay which said the A’s combined player value was the worst in baseball – including the hapless Natinals. I don’t know what exactly that means, but seriously, that can’t possibly be true… or can it?
Individual player values at Fangraphs here and team values here. (and A’s players here.)
It says the A’s are worth negative $2m, which, if nothing else, means paying our team is significantly overpaying them. I’m trying to understand the system of measurement, and I think it’s just a basic multiplying win values by some arbitrary dollar amount per win? And based off runs (WAR, if I read everything correctly), or something? I’m not sure.
But any statistic in which you are 30th is probably not good. And if you have negative values and it is based off WAR, that means we could be fielding a replacement-level team and be doing better? I mean, I’ve listened to most of this team’s games, and I don’t perceive them to be so bad that they are below replacement level… but I don’t know.
that’s just another way of saying the offense is off the a horrible start. They have a .646 team OPS and a team of replacement level players could do that. It’s good that they haven’t completely tanked with the offense being so bad. It’ll get a lot better, although it will be a fair bit worse than most of us thought at the beginning of the year.
It’s basically just saying that e.g. Mark Ellis, if he finishes with a .503 OPS, is worth less than nothing because everyone who has ever played in the majors except tony pena jr. can do that.
Oh. crap. I thought it included pitching in the team one, too. That’s why I was so puzzled.
Yeah, replacement level offence is the one I know and love.
Whu … how does one write an entire feature about official scorers, and yet never allow a critique of “errors” and AVG as meaningless stats? OK, fine, if FitzGerald himself doesn’t want to say it, fine — but it’s unprofessional/irresponsible not to interview at least one sabr type to say “This is why errors and AVG are meaningless and why no one who’s not an idiot pays attention to them any more.”