"After Delwyn Young's pinch-single in the ninth inning Tuesday night, Torre might feel compelled to give Young a start at his former position of second base if Kent is unable to play Wednesday."

And I love that SNL skit. Back when laughing during the skit was cool, before Jimmy Fallon ruined it!

Martin
Ethier
Kemp
Loney
Dewitt
Pierre
Maza
Hu
Lowe

Seriously: even if you are dense enough to think that Pierre has to bat leadoff, what kind of mania drives managers to believe that

Pierre, Maza, Ethier, Martin, Loney, Kemp

is better than

Pierre, Ethier, Martin, Loney, Kemp

The subjunctive and imperative mix together in a unholy marriage of verbs.

We need gpellamjr to tell us what mood that sentence was in.

Other songs in Chris Farley's fictional oeuvre:

Bruce Springsteen:
"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true?
Or is it something worse that sends me
Down to a van by the river
Though I know the river is dry"

Neil Young:
"Down by the river, I shot my baby
Down in a van by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead."

Richard Marx:
"I swear I left her in a van by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound"

"I jumped into [a van by] the river and what did I see?
black-eyed angels swimming with me
a moon full of stars and astral cars
all the figures I used to see
all my lovers were there with me
all my past and futures
and we all went to heaven in a little [van by the river]."

If there's no other opening, Kershaw could be sent back to the minors to help converse his arm and limit his innings.

http://tinyurl.com/6bzzpa

Hadn't thought of that song in a long long time.

"In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To the van down by the river so deep"

87 - soon, LaRoche will be taking grounders at second, Kent will be on the DL and all will be happy.

Trust in the Ch-i

Actually, I still like it.

How about this?

L-Ethier
R-Martin
L-Loney
R-Kemp
L-DeWitt

And ... I live in a van down by the river, when I'm not in the basement:)

My Simulator: 35.03%
LV Hilton SB: 40.00%
AccuScore: 36.00%

vr, Xei

I think one reason Pee Wee did not get a start today may have to do with them still being a little worried about his defense at second with a ground ball pitcher like Lowe on the mound. Of course, that's assuming the ground ball pitcher Lowe is the one that shows up today and not the line drive and fly ball pitcher that has shown up too often the past month. Maza hasn't looked too bad at the plate, either. Still, be nice to see them squeeze DY in there somewhere soon.

Did I mention (today) that the team misses Furcal? Just thought I'd say that (again).

(That's it for me. Night all.)

Argh, I have a meeting at 4 today. Guess I'll be watching this one on delay later on.

From Riverside Press-Enterprise game story from last Sunday.

Kershaw, who talked with Sandy Koufax before the game, said he was no more nervous than in any of his minor league starts and described it as "a pretty solid performance."

I'm going to give my Dodger win probability as well. I'm setting it at 100%.

In fact, if the Dodgers don't win tonight, I'll buy a Juan Pierre t-shirt.

Thanks and happy travels.
May 28, 2008 10:30 AM
Tony Jackson said:

My guess is that move will come only when they feel they can get Andy a significant number of ABs up here. They do NOT want him coming here and sitting around. <<

http://wiens-world.blogspot.com/2008/05/dodger-game.html

This team has had problems all year hitting against right-handed pitchers, their hot streak came during a stretch where they played a lot of lefties.

My question is: Are all other organizations utilizing these advanced statistics? I can't imagine that there are some that are ignoring things like FIP, BABIP, ISOP, etc., when they provide so much explanation behind the appearances of less-inclusive statistics (such as AVG, ERA, etc.)

Without giving any names, are there front office guys out there that are just completely ignorant to new-age stats?

For the record, I don't consider the Lakers three-peat to be a dynasty because it wasn't a long enough run. I'd say the Bulls in the 90s (though given the turn over in personnel between titles 3 and 4, it's questionable) and the Lakers in the 80s were the last true NBA dynasties.

There is no doubt that virtually every organization looks at a lot of analysis. Though I referenced FIP in this post, it served more as a confirmation of what our scouts were telling us.

I really don't understand the point of BABIP, other than stacking the deck for guys who strike out a lot, what's the point. I think I've made the argument more than a few times that a strike is the second (or third) least desirable outcome of a PA (behind double plays and triple plays, which are so rare as to not be statistically significant), so what is the advantage of removing them from the analysis? Why not remove GIDP? Or Line drive caught?

Probably not since they did not win a playoff series in 4 years.

The Lakers get the dynasty status because of the 3 peat (only MN Lakers, 59-66 Celtics, 90s Bulls, and the 00-02 Lakers have done it), plus they made the finals in year 5 of that run.

Sure, its more than likely that GMs (including the Dodgers) don't have Dewan's Fielding Bible on his desk or favorite links to BaseballProspectus.com and the like on his computer. Ned did say in a chat that there our people on his staff that do statistical analysis but did not go into detail of what they do and he also said it is all part of the process used to review players.

In fact DePodesta's answer seems to indicate that his mention of a certain stat only confirmed what the Padre's scouts were reporting not that they relied on one or the other more heavily.

I also would like to believe that if DePodesta is going to blog and take questions about the general state of the game, he would not just give a polite answer, he could say something like, I can't speak for other organizations, I only can speak for what I know the Padres use.

A couple of writers from Baseball Prospectus in the last few years have noted that there is not much in terms of analysis that is not commonly known in the business. Again, how it is used or if it used is a different question.

I refuse to believe that Ned knows what VORP or BABIP or FIP mean. Witness:

''Do I use VORP?" Colletti said, referring to one such sabermetric tool, Value Over Replacement Player. ''I may be using it and not even know it, and if I am, it's nobody's business. There are a lot of different criteria in judging players. I think I use, um, esoteric qualitative mathematical review times five. That's one of them."

Luck, to me, implies something that no one on the field has control over... a ball getting stuck in the tarp, a fan reaching out and taking the ball off the field of play, a pigeon being exploded by a Randy Johnson fastball.

But a guy getting to a ground ball, or making a diving stop, or making a great throw, is not luck, it is skill; just as a guy hitting the ball is a skill.

Fixed, sorry, two thoughts at once is not so good for typing

In other organizations (i.e. Red Sox), there are multiple stats people and they are highly influential, and the GMs are sometimes statistical analysts themselves to some degree.

Also, having a stats analyst doesn't necessarily mean you have a sabermetrician. I've heard that at least a few teams have statistics-degree types who can put together a good resume, but who have little actual knowledge of the key concepts of baseball analysis.

The same goes for pitching vs. hitting, I've still yet to understand why strikeouts are good for pitchers but not bad for hitters. You can't say a guy striking out is simply bad luck and therefore shouldn't count, when there was obviously skill on the other side in throwing pitches that induced a hitter to swing at a ball or not swing at a strike.

http://tinyurl.com/4xd6na

It's the balls in play stuff that are subject to outside factors (i.e. fielders). BABIP doesn't use strikeouts (or HR or BB or HBP) because all the responsibility for those events belonged to both the pitcher and batter.

The Ptolemies weren't bad either.

It's not a strategic decision to set the infield at double play depth or to put the shift on, or to hold the runner? And it's not skill for a hitter to adjust to those strategic decisions?

Sorry, I'm just skeptical by nature.

I sure hope it was worth losing Kyle Blair to get the stupid All-Star Game. Heck, by 2013 he could be pitching in the thing for some other team.

And even if you could constantly hit it to the worst defender, it would make a difference, but not a really big one. Last year, Kent missed 13 more plays than the average second baseman, so you'd get one more hit every 11 games if you could constantly hit the ball in Jeff Kent's direction. That assume some one is perfect at that sort of thing, which no one can be.

From Tony Jackson's blog (about 10 minutes ago)

Tony Abreu had season-ending surgery today, and the fact that ISN'T the lead item to this blog post should tell you where he stands in this organization. Anyway, they hope he can be back in time for winter ball back in the Dominican. ..

Actually, no, it's not. If you read interviews with hitters, you'll always hear that it's impossible to place the ball with that degree of precision. By swinging late, you can make a general attempt to hit the ball to the opposite field, but you have no way of controlling whether it becomes a grounder to the first baseman, a soft fly to right, or a single through the 2B hole. That part of it is luck.

Perhaps the key tenet of sabermetrics is that many things in baseball which are commonly believed to be the result of skill, are actually the result of chance.