So, who will be the first Angel to homer against Erickson Friday?
No fair picking Guerrero, that's a gimme.

I'm going for Cabrera.

Whoever is leading off.

http://tinyurl.com/9n8x8

Let's make it our goal to get Jason Grabowski into the game as a write in candidate.

vr

Xei

Tracy contends that he doesn't want to "stunt" our fair Choi's progress.

That being said, Washburn is hardly an overpowering lefty. I say give Choi his shot.

I have this fantasy that Depo and Tracy have hatched a scheme to build up Saenz trade value and let him go at the deadline.

And Sunday will be an epic Paul Byrd-Derek Lowe matchup!

... To answer the question "Is it still a pitcher's park after the remodel?"

There have been 40 games played by the Dodgers; 20 at home and 20 on the road, so this works out nicely.

The Dodgers and their opponents have scored 238 runs (11.9 per game) in the 20 games the Dodgers have played on the road -- and only 172 (8.6 per game) in the 20 games at Dodger Stadium.

It's still early, of course. But all evidence seems to say that Dodger Stadium is as much a pitcher's park now as it ever was.

Yep, as long as Old Maid Saenz can play 3B I'd do the same. I might sit Choi against a top tier LHP if after given a fair chance to hit lefties he doesn't do very well, and then put Perez or Edwards at 3B and Old Maid over to 1B.

vr

Xei

Source: accuweather

So it will be a warm one. Bring your sunscreen. I'll be at a one year olds birthday party (yay!).

vr

Xei

http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~28569~2876856,00.html

All about Weaver, being left in too long, having a tired shoulder, Tracy willing him to be the Staff Ace™ despite knowing that he has a tired shoulder (which renders the 119-pitch outing inexcusable).

See, LA Times? This is what sports reporters do - write stories about the team and its players beyond in-game accounts, instead of focusing on the owner.

Starters 11th (13th in 2004)
Relievers 25th (3rd in 2004)

Houlton, Carlyle and Schmoll have accounted for 35% of our reliever IP. Correction around the bend.

Nomo/Lima started 25% of games in 2004. Erickson + injury concerns kind of wash. Still the overall pitching should approximate 2004- 6th in OPS, 4th ERA.

On the Daily News article, also agree that it's better than what's in the Times, but the author fails to note that the reason we're paying Jeff Weaver 9 million a year is because that's the contract we took on to get rid of Kevin Brown. Such is the price of getting out of those kinds of contracts (as the Mariners are soon to find out).

Normally with a Boras client in his walk year, you expect him to post big numbers. If Weaver doesn't turn it around, he'll be pissing away a big payday.

My lineups would be:

Izzy, Drew, Kent, Choi, Bradley, Ledee, Phillips, Edwards, pitcher ... vs R

Izzy, Drew, Kent, Bradley, Saenz, Repko, Phillips, Edwards, pitcher ... vs L

Can the Apocalypse be far behind?

J.Francis 0.245
D.Cruz 0.101
R.Durham 0.083
M.Alou 0.075
L.Gonzalez 0.069
C.Sullivan 0.051
D.Relaford 0.044
B.Hawpe 0.033
B.Tomko 0.014
L.Niekro 0.012
JD.Closser -0.036
T.Helton -0.043
E.Alfonzo -0.066
Y.Torrealba -0.079
G.Atkins -0.087
J.Ellison -0.100
D.Mohr -0.103
P.Feliz -0.214

just eondering where you get your win expectancey and in game win share numbers from? Intersting stuff..

caffine, I tell ya...

I wrote a program (VB) that reads the expectancy data from the expectancy calculator then I input the play by play data using my program and it calculates each players win share for that game. There is still a little bit of fine tuning left and some subjectiveness when it comes to who you assign a negative value to on a play besides the pitcher.

Program works this way:

Before and after each discrete event (hit, so, bb etc...) each team has a certain percent chance of winning. If the Dodgers win expectancy is 55% when Choi comes to the plate with a runner on 2nd with 2 outs and tie game in the bottom of the 4th inning and he gets a single to drive in the run and the win expectancy goes up to 65%, then Choi is credited with a 0.1 win share and the pitcher -0.1 This is done until the game is over. All win shares added up should equal 0 and no win share can be greater than 1.0 or less than -1.0

This is just my program and the way I calculate it. There may be different or better ways. But it's fun to keep track of nonetheless.

vr

Xei

Normally with a Boras client in his walk year, you expect him to post big numbers. If Weaver doesn't turn it around, he'll be pissing away a big payday.

That's what we thought about Derek Lowe and his 5.42 ERA in 2004.

Your process is similar to one described in the book "Curve Ball: Baseball, Statistics, and the Role of Chance in the Game" by Jim Albert and Jay Bennet. It's known as Player Game Percentage (PGP). If you look it up on Google, there are some interesting references. One is a web page where they use the process to calculate MVP contributions in the World Series. The only difference I can see is that PGP calculates expected win percentage based on probabilistic run distributions, whereas you use historicals, right? Also, the book has some thoughts on how to attribute value to the defense. Nice work.

#38

... Choi and Saenz platoon in my lineup as long as Saenz is murdering the ball. A guy with an OPS of over eleven hundred against LHP just HAS to be placed in the lineup somewhere -- and I'd rather Olmedo play first than third.

I didn't forget about Antonio Perez; actually, you could substitute "third baseman" in place of "Edwards" in that 8th spot. Edwards is doing OK at bat and is adequate in the field, so I would presume he'll see the majority of work at third until he starts to hurt the team (because, ideally, you can't really "platoon" two guys that hit from the same side of the plate).

I like Perez, and I'm pretty confident he'll get his shot before the season is over. But he's not going to get that shot at 2B as long as Kent owns the position.

Though the reason is not what I was expecting. No Gold Glove shortstop has ever batted .340. The six highest AVG's for a Gold Glove shortstop were:

1) .333 for Vizquel in 1999 (AL)
2) .331 for Yount in 1982 (AL)
3) .330 for Renteria in 2003 (NL)
4) .323 for Ripken in 1991 (AL)
5) .319 for Larkin in 1995 (NL)
6) .319 for Trammel in 1983 (AL)

Of the six, three (Yount, Ripken, and Larkin) also won the MVP award. All of the MVP award winners hit at least 15 HRs (29 for Yount, 34 for Ripken, 15 for Larkin), which bodes poorly for Little Cesar.

The other SSs to win the Gold Glove and the MVP in the same year are:

Wills who hit .299 with 6HR in 1962 (NL)
Versalles who hit .273 with 19HR in 1965 (AL)
Rodriguez who hit .298 with 47HR in 2003 (AL)

Wills may be the best comparison for Izzy, but I don't expect Cesar to steal 104 as Wills did in 1962. If he does, his current pace would have him get caught stealing 208 times :). At that point we'd need to find Steve a pretty white jacket.

Thanks to BaseballReference.com for the assist.

Well, players can't just will themselves to a great season. They can work a little harder, prepare a little more, party a little less. But whether or not they have a big year is largely out of their control. We remember the big "walk years" but I bet there've been just as many busts or at least "no different than usual" FA years.

I wasn't meaning second base. I think he'll be seeing a lot more action at third than Edwards will, was my earlier point.

"I'm feeling MUCH better now..."

And last year we went 10-9 when scoring exactly 3 runs. This year 1-5. It's the pitching stupid!