Ladies and gentlemen… Mike Blowers

I like the Nate Silver shout out thrown in there.

How important is the MLB All-Star game?

Depends on who you are. For the Dodgers, it’s worth 4 to 5 times(!!) more than a current regular season game. Sky Andrecheck crunches the numbers:

I calculated that the Dodgers have a 39.0923% chance of advancing to the World Series. After a regular season win, this chance increased to 39.2781%, while after a regular season loss, this chance decreased to 38.8368%. On average, this resulted in a change of 0.215% in probability to advance to the World Series and hence, a 0.108% change in probability of winning the World Series (0.215% times 50%). Thus, a regular season game is worth about 0.108% in championship probability to the Dodgers (only about 39% as important as an average game). An All-Star win however, will increase their chances of winning the World Series from 19.5462% (39.0923*.5) to 20.0387% (39.0923*.5126), a difference of 0.4925%. Comparing this mark to the .108% for the regular season game and we find that the All-Star game is not only worth more than a regular season game to Los Angeles, it is worth vastly more than than a regular season game. In fact, the All-Star game is worth somewhere on the order of 4 to 5 times more than a current regular season Dodgers game.

A fuss was made over Chad Billingsley bowling over the catcher during a Dodgers-Padres game this past weekend. Would Billingsley have done so at the All-Star game? Likely not. But this analysis shows that if there is one game the rest of the season in which LA players should sacrifice life and limb, it is Tuesday night’s “exhibition” contest.

Baseball ethics

Steve Gimbel asks if it’s cheating for a catcher to “frame” a pitch. Join the discussion.

UT goes to Super Regional!

I listened to almost all of the 25-inning epic game Saturday night against Boston College. Longest game in college history.

Austin Wood

It featured huge performances from Austin Wood who threw 12 and 1/3 innings of no-hit relief. His final line was 14 K, 13 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 4 BB. Austin Dicharry then came in and dominated the rest of the game.

I didn’t catch last night’s game… but they won 14-10 over Army with a walk-off grand slam off the bat of Preston Clark.

Truly amazing. I gotta get tickets to the Super Regional.

Series summary here. Hook ‘em!

Why? Because baseball’s fun, goddamnit!

Have a great weekend! USF v. UCONN:

(Danke: Sullivan)

UT seeded at #1 going into NCAA Baseball tourney

Rich over at Baseball Analysts breaks down the 64-team field:

The top eight national seeds are as follows:

1. Texas (41-13-1)
2. Cal St. Fullerton (42-14)
3. LSU (46-16)
4. North Carolina (42-16)
5. Arizona St. (44-12)
6. UC Irvine (43-13)
7. Oklahoma (41-18)
8. Florida (39-20)

While Texas goes in as the favorite, it has been 10 years since the last No. 1 overall seed (Miami) won the College World Series. Along the same lines, no top-eight seed has emerged victorious since Rice in 2003.

Hook ‘em.

It. Was. Awesome.

Mariners’ game today was epic. Via Lookout Landing, the win-expectancy chart for the 15-inning sweetness:

15-10! Cue pump-up music.

Catch

The beginning to a favorite of mine:

ON APRIL 6, 1965, my brother, Nicholas John Duncan, died of what his surgeons called “complications” after three unsuccessful open-heart operations. He was seventeen at the time–four years my elder to the day. He’d been the fastest sprinter in his high school class till the valve in his heart began to close, but he was so bonkers about baseball that he’d preferred playing a mediocre JV shortstop to starring at varsity track. As a ballplayer he was a competent fielder, had a strong and fairly accurate arm, and stole bases with ease–when he reached them. But no matter how much he practiced or what stances, grips, or self-hypnotic tricks he tried, he lacked the hand-eye magic that consistently lays bat-fat against ball, and remained on of the weakest hitters on his team.

     John lived his entire life on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon–650 miles from the nearest Major League team–and in franchiseless cities in the fifties and sixties there were really just two types of fans: those who thought the Yankees stood for everything right with America, and those who thought they stood for everything wrong with it. My brother was an extreme example of the former type. He maintained–all statistical evidence to the contrary–that Clete Boyer was a better third baseman than his brother, Ken, simply because Clete was a Yankee. He combed the high school every October for fools willing to bet against Whitey Ford in the World Series, and if he couldn’t find one there he knew he’d find one at home: me. He may not have been the only kid on the block who considered Casey Stengel to be the greatest sage since Solomon, but I’m sure he was the only one who considered Yogi Berra the second greatest. And though he would concede that Ted Williams, and later Willie Mays, had slightly more productive careers than Mickey Mantle, even this was for a pro-Yankee reason: Mantle was his absolute hero, but his tragic hero. The Mick, my brother maintained, was the greatest raw talent of all time. He was one to whom great gifts had been given, from whom great gifts had been ripped away. The more scarred his knees became, the more frequently he fanned, the more flagrant his limp and apologetic his smile, the more John revered him. And toward this single Yankee I too was able to feel a touch of reverence, if only because, on the subject of scars, I considered my brother an unimpeachable authority: he’d worn one from the time he was eight, compliments of the Mayo Clinic, that wrapped clear around his chest in a wavy line, like stitching round a clean white baseball.

Mariners wooooooooooooo!

We’re going to the playoffs, baby! Bust out the champagne!

…

Well, it might be a bit premature. But, it is actually looking like a possibility:

We’re 10% of the way through the season (already?!) and a current look at the PECOTA-adjusted playoff odds shows this:

Yeah, that’s the Mariners up top both in current standings and in likelihood to still be playing after game 162. Interestingly, each individual team is projected to finish below .500, though it is still likely that one of the teams takes advantage of its crippled zebras for companions and breaks away from the pack. As it stands now, PECOTA thinks the Mariners are the most likely candidate to be that team.

Thank God for MLB TV… otherwise seeing M’s games would be pretty rare down here in Tejas.

A little disappointed… but this wasn’t surprising

A-Rod tested positive for steroid use back in 2003. The testing then was done randomly, and supposedly (although, clearly not) anonymously.

It’ll be interesting to see how the politics of this plays out–if there’s some sort of case brought by the players’ union since the testing turned out to be unfaithful to its anonymity claim:

The MLBPA issued a statement on Saturday, saying “Information and documents relating to the results of the 2003 MLB testing program are both confidential and under seal by court orders. We are prohibited from confirming or denying any allegation about the test results of any particular player[s] by the collective bargaining agreement and by court orders. Anyone with knowledge of such documents who discloses their contents may be in violation of those court orders.”

(Danke: Jason)

Ho. Ly. Shit.

Check out this what this kid just did at the third annual International Power Showcase High School Home Run Derby at Tropicana Field:

• 460 feet to the top edge of the Jumbotron in right field; 119 mph off the bat
• 484 feet to the back wall of the stadium, 15 feet above the Jumbotron; 122 mph
• 485 feet to the back wall, just below the orange Bright House “target” sign; 123 mph
• 405 feet on a blistering line drive around the RF pole; 118 mph
• 502 feet to the back wall, in the vicinity of the first “A” in the Tropicana Field sign, 20 feet above the top of the Jumbotron; 124.5 mph
• 477 feet to right-center field, halfway up and a few feet to the left of the Jumbotron; 119 mph.

Bryce Harper is a high school sophomore!

On how impressive those homeruns were:

Notice the white ball toward the top, left-center of the photo. It traveled 502 feet, the longest of the event and on record at Tropicana. According to Rybarczyk, the ball would have exited Yankee Stadium. Greg told Baseball America’s Rode, “It was hit at precisely the right direction to get just to the left of the upper deck in Yankee Stadium, but to the right of the bleachers and back bleacher wall. It would have cleared the back wall of Yankee Stadium with probably about 15 to 20 feet to spare.”

Rode added, “Another one of his shots traveled 484 feet and at its angle would have landed in the right field Upper Deck of Fenway Park, which has never been done.”

Of course… that’s with a metal bat. But, to be fair, HE’S SIXTEEN YEARS OLD!

His vital stats:

ATHLETIC INFORMATION

Showcase State: NV Height: 6′3″ Weight: 205 Primary POS: C Secondary POS: 3B Bat: L Throw: R Arm Strength (MPH): 95 BTA: .593 Stolen Bases: 33 Home Runs Hit: 12 60 [yd dash]: 6.8 Home to 1st: 4.2

Damn. Bryce Harper: I want to have your babies.