DLD 4/2/09

THT has a look at Matt Weiters and finds a beef with PECOTA:

These translations, similar to Major League Equivalencies, are just as robust looking as the projection itself. The card gives us a translated batting line of .301/.396/.513 for his High-A performance, and a translated batting line of .349/.436/.627 for his Double-A—and yes, you are reading that correctly, his translated line says he would have had a higher slugging percentage playing in the majors than he did at Double-A!

Those figures are unbelievable, by which I mean literally that I do not believe them.

…

It’s not for me to tell you where Baseball Prospectus came up with this year’s difficulty ratings – quite frankly, I can’t figure it out. What I can tell you is that they don’t appear to be supported by the data itself. To put it bluntly – they’re wrong.

It isn’t really about Matt Weiters; the article presents a very cogent criticism of BPro’s methodology.

Craig Calcaterra with a relevant anecdote about the Giants buying a stake in their San Jose-based minor-league affiliate:

Back when I was in private practice, I represented a park district that wanted to turn some old railroad lines in the middle of nowhere into a bike trail. They built about 85% of the trail, but the last little stretch was held up by this group of Mennonite farmers who lived next to the right-of-way and claimed the land where the tracks used to be was theirs. “How could that be,” I wondered? The railroad had tracks on that property since the 19th century, and they gave the tracks directly to my client. The Mennonites, however, had all manner of questionable and ancient legal documents which they claimed their great great great something or other had reserved the rights if the railroad ever left, yadda, yadda, yadda. I read these things, quickly figured out that, while it could be a pain, we could get that land for the bike trail if we were determined enough to do it.

Right before I filed my lawsuit to quiet title, the Mennonites parked a mobile home on the right of way and claimed they were home schooling a bunch of Mennonite farmer kids there, which immediately turned us into the bad guys and complicated my little lawsuit. Five years later, and I think the Mennonites have moved on to consulting with San Francisco Giants:

The Mennonite Athletics of San Jose has a ring to it…

Submitted without comment:

Now, the awe people once felt about flying through the clouds is tempered by additional fees, cramped seats and horrifying tales of fellow travelers.

Take, for instance, “Mr. Poopy Pants” — a grown man who allegedly soiled himself 10 minutes into a flight from Florida to Minnesota. And then he just sat there.

DLD 3/31/09

Stuff to read through while you delay writing your dissertation…

Tigers release Gary Sheffield.

When Sheffield arrived at the Tigers’ clubhouse Tuesday, he knew something was up.

“People were looking at me funny,” he said.

Teammates or staff?

“Staff,” he said.

That’s because teammates didn’t know yet that Sheffield was about to be released.

When asked if he was stunned after it happened, Sheffield said, “I’m not stunned. But you don’t really know what to feel or what to call it.”

The Tigers will eat a delicious $14 MM.

Make sure you are well protected from the Conficker worm.

Security researchers are racing to head off an Internet worm that is scheduled to phone home for instructions Wednesday, possibly to cause widespread damage.

Researchers who have studied Conficker call it one of the most complex pieces of malicious code they’ve seen.
Known as Conficker or Downadup, the worm has been sitting dormant inside the 10 million to 12 million Windows PCs it has managed to infect all over the world since it emerged in November.

Obviously never spent time with the inner-workings of PECOTA.
World Series hero Cole Hamels will be out to start the season:

Hamels threw 65 pitches in a minor league spring training game Monday and allowed 10 hits and three runs in four innings. He walked one and struck out five.

“He was fine,” Dubee said. “I’m not looking at [how many] base hits he gave up or anything. His command is not there. That’s for sure.”

Dubee said he asked Hamels to throw more fastballs than he normally would and reported that his fastball was clocked at 85-88 miles per hour. In previous starts this spring, Hamels had raised concerns by topping out in the lower 80s.

So that’s Hamels, Lackey, Duchscherer…and, yet, my understanding is that Rich Harden is ready to go.  Speaking of pitchers, THT looks at Nick Adenhart of the dreaded Slegna:

• No swinging third strikes
• Fell behind often—1.6:1 ratio of 1-0 to 0-1 counts
• Barely ventured over the inside half against left-handed hitters
• Batters swung at only 35 percent of his curveballs when they were in the strike zone
• Other than that, he fooled no one—the swing rate on his pitches out of the zone (15 percent) was half the league average
• Even Adenhart’s change-up is below average in terms of missing bats (20 percent whiff rate, which is a good 10 points lower than league average for change-ups)

I wanna be…YOUR LINK DUMPER!  Why don’t you call my screen name?

DLD 03/28/09: Is this thing on?

Post author: salb918

As long as we’ve got a new blog, we might as well get the action started. Vince Shlomi, of ShamWOW! fame, has been arrested on charges of felony aggravated battery:

According to Shlomi, 44, on Feb. 7 he met a prostitute named Sasha Harris at a nightclub and pre-paid her $1,000 for “straight sex.” When they returned to his $750-a-night hotel room (those infomercials really pay well), the couple began kissing when Harris suddenly bit Shlomi’s tongue and “would not let go.”

OK, let’s get this thing going! I imagine it will take a while for us to find our rhythm, but we’re all friends here and it’s my sincere hope that any disagreement you might have with me will not worsen my incipient cannibalism.