SB Nation User Blog: JediLeroy

QOTM: Early Thanksgiving Edition

JediLeroy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:09:24 -0000

Since nobody else wants to do it, I will. I'm too lazy to go back farther than a month. Besides, it's not Quote of the Last 2 or 3 months. Let me know if I missed anything.

Excretory Activity edition
Poppy: Isn’t there a children’s book called "Everybody Engages In Excretory Activity"?
salb918: My excretory activity don't work in the playoffs

Snarky wit edition:
5Aces: Sorry, was using your own words. Next time I’ll try to put some thought into it.

Best HaHaGuyEver edition
Flashfire:

67MARQUEZ: This one is ova.
Oblique: Not to egg you on, but I agree.

DyeLongJustice: Halifax is cool ... but Victoria would have to be on the list, because thats where Richie Harden is from…and this is an A’s blog afterall.
PaulThomas: Surprisingly, it turns out Victoria specializes in producing spilt milk

Apricot: Congratulations! And thank you for both my $10 payment, and monkeyball’s $10 payment.
Nico: Foolshgame22 is in charge of making the payments, so they should be arriving any day now.
monkeyball: unfortunately, he sent them electronically via ByrnesPal. The payments will be taking indirect routes through banks in Nigeria, Ukraine, and Switzerland before reaching their destinations.
nevermoor: Although the delivery will be made at the normal time...By a delivery man who makes a sprinting dive at your door to edge out the USPS.
monkeyball: better hope they're addressed to your office … because he’ll never come close to touching home …

Nico: ... please check with your doctor before reading AN vigorously, especially if you have an erection lasting more than four hours.

MMunoz33: Bobby Crosby is good for baseball; Patience is a virtue!!!!
asfansince1989: he's definitely been good for all the pitchers he's faced
oblique: And for the baseball itself...Assuming that being hit by a large wooden stick is bad for a baseball.

Nico/PaulThomas tag-team edition
monkeyball: Even Crosby is a good pitcher at this level?
mikev: His 3/4 to sidearm delivery is hard to pick up.
Nico: Watching Crosby, you'd also think that a ground ball is hard to pick up.
PaulThomas: Yes, especially for the first baseman.

Too hard to describe edition

Cheezombie: how many unique accounts are registered?
gigglingone: only 5--There’s Blez, BBG, Paul Thomas, salb918, and all the rest are Nico
Monkeyball: qotm
oakinboston: there i go again...qotm-ing myself

PaulThomas: Why would they do that, and why do so many people think Garrett Atkins is good at baseball?
scatterbrian: I don't understand why everyone is on the Atkins diet
67MARQUEZ: Atkins is s horrible diet...Who loses his person 5-10 pounds a year

WadellCanseco: The world may have been perfect at some point.
Nico: Yeah it was - but then the Big Bang happened. Stupid Big Bang.
DMOAS: Sorry, it was an accident, I tripped on the power cord.

MrIncognito (during a heated debate about playoffs and the merit of walks): Also, Jeremy Giambi and Miguel Tejada forgetting how to run the bases has nothing to do with walking, nor does Jermaine Dye snapping his leg in half.
JediLeroy: Technically, Dye's injury does..

sactownbull: This baseball by the numbers bull can only go so far. At some point you have to use so good old fashioned baseball sense.
Graham: Why?
JediLeroy: At some point we need to get off this "electricity" thing and go back to good old fashioned.. "not-electricity" thing

TexasAsfan: I think someone is going to be really smart and offer Penny an incentive laden deal, I hope the A’s are the first to do it. I worry that a time with deeper pockets will beat us to it though.
grover: Time has deeper pockets than us all

nevemoor: Projected 2010 Infield based on compiling AN Posts:

1B: Barton
2B: Cardenas
SS: Cardenas
3B: Barton/Cardenas

Man we’re loaded in the infield.

xbhaskarx: beane is not Dunn yet...and Furcal of you cust haters!
Nico: That was Lowe, but I’m still willing Teixeira pun with you.

Creepy edition X2
JediLeroy: Speaking of weird dreams...PaulThomas was much less snarky in my dream last night than I would have expected....I have no idea why PaulThomas was in my dream. I’ve seen him once, and for about 5 minutes (at AN day).

carp: ...the sheer volume of fantasy GM ideas is a little creepy
oakinboston: [trades Bobby Crosby and Vince Mazzaro for Yunel Escobar while watching carp sleep]

Blicks: Randy Fucking Wolf wants 4/40?
iglew: That's his middle name? As if "Randy Wolf" wasn’t already evocative enough.

PaulThomas: Actually there are two I's in Teixeira
Nico: But only one in "Texeira" ... None in "Texera" and five in "Iteixeiriai".
WaddelCanseco: Right. The Yankees got the one-I'd Texeira
andeux: in the land of Texera he'd be king

JediLeroy (who used the wrong reply button): What? I was traded?
JediLeroy: Plz ignore. Kthxbye.

notsellingjeans: I'm amazed that you neglected PT's favorite verbal weapon: "supernumerary" ... The young wordsmith is responsible for a staggering 62.5% of its AN usage (10 out of 16).
Nico: Small sample size (A term that is both redundant and overused!)

Jeremy Belvins: I was always like this. Remember oaktoon?
Nico: Wait -- does that mean *you* are AN? Or are you just oaktoon?
Jeremy Belvins: You're too quick! But, to answer your question, I think we all have a little Oaktoon in us.
kaweahkaweah: Ah...then your Oaktoon's wife.

Blicks: It was. I still think Cahill-Rodriguez-Mazarro-Coleman is too much for Escobar though.
WaddellCanseco: It looks like Yunel is about 25 runs better than C. Izturis on offense and a bit worse on defense (but a lot younger so that should converge). So let’s say 2 wins better overall. Are CRMC really 2 WAR?

rebus: Plus the A's have a gang of guys who can play second.
monkeyball: all of whom, if arrayed side-by-side on the field at the same time, might just barely approach Ellis's range
WaddellCanseco: But they'd look cool snapping their fingers and singing

Raiders19494: i say peace out and dont let hte door hit you on the way out.
Nico: Like Crosby would hit the door

devo: "However, it’s his durability that concerns the Orioles most." That makes sense … I’d be worried that he’d be durable enough to play, too …

Pickup line of the Month
Jennifer: AHHH!!!! I won’t be around my computer at all today! The suspense is going to kill me!
mikev: I'll just call you with relevant info. I can call you, right?

schmifty with the McCovey Chronicles Personal Ad of the Month: (Lincecum is) snaggletooth gross, greasy hair gross, weak chin gross, superscrawny gross, awkwardmotion gross, mullet gross, and lotsofgirlslikehimandthatsjustwrong gross.

Quoth of the Month
Nico: Reven-ewe shearing?
nevermoor: Quoth the Reven
Nico: nevermoor!

Analogy of the Month
MrIncognito: There was this big thing like 200 years ago.

It was the scientific revolution. It basically established that numbers and data should inform the way we view the world. So far, it’s done pretty well, bringing us things like the Theory of Gravity, flying machines, antibiotics, and now the internet. It works for baseball, too.

Humans are terrible at detecting patterns. If you’ve ever seen a shape in a cloud that looks like a bird or an animal you’ve experienced our bias for seeing things that aren’t there. We form hypotheses or ideas about how things work, then examine the data to see how that idea stacks up. That’s how we ought to asses our ideas. Experience informs our way of thinking, and we should give due respect to your 35 years coaching the game, but remember that people spend thousands of years believing that certain dances or rituals affected local weather patterns.

Appropriate Username of the Month
(Holliday Trade News Breaks)
what_the_crap: OH my god …. oh my god …. oh my god …

DLD 10/10/08 - Unnecessary Edition

JediLeroy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:18:56 -0000

So, it's 3 in the afternoon on a Friday in California and AN's already dead for the weekend. Why create a new DLD? Good question. I'll tell you when I find out.

Speaking of unnecessary things, I made this sweet animated .gif. I know it's on old meme, but I had some extra time. Plus, it fit pretty well.

There's a cool article about Brett Anderson at Scout.com.

OC: Were you able to add to your pitching repertoire this year, or are you still throwing the same pitches as you were at the start of the season?

BA: A little bit. I threw a lot more change-ups this year as I advanced up into the higher levels. I threw quite a lot of them in Double-A and then I threw a bunch in Triple-A in my two starts there. I think that was very beneficial because I hadn’t thrown too many change-ups in the lower levels in my first year and then I didn’t throw that many in High-A again this year. I think as I progress, it will be another pitch that I can add and throw to right-handers and kind of keep them off-balance from my fastballs and breaking balls.

Dump! Or don't.

A Day at the Coliseum

JediLeroy — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:52:56 -0000

So, as we all know, Saturday was AN Day V: Tailgate Edition. Having lived in Utah the last five years, school and work dominated my life, and I was only able to visit California during the holidays--when baseball had gone into hibernation. It's not often that I get to go to games; the last one I attended was the fireworks game five years earlier. I had never been able to attend AN Day in the past, so it was very special to get to go this year. I'll write more about AN Day in a bit.

In ten days, I take off for Japan. I won't be coming back for at least three years, and might end up staying even longer if things work out. I'm going to be living on a remote island (population 200) in the Seto inland sea, which is between the main lands of Honshu and Shikoku, about 2 hours by ferry from Hiroshima prefecture. Uoshima, my new home, has no high-speed internet. What I'm getting at is that I'm pretty sure I just watched my last A's game for the next 3+ years. It meant a lot to me to be able to share this memorable moment with both my family (there were eight of us at AN Day) and AN.

I regret not being able to introduce myself to everybody. It was a little tough to settle in. When I first arrived at the tailgate party, I realized that Kelsey, my daughter, had completely saturated herself in pee. My wife had a change of clothes, but she was about an hour away from the ballpark. I had to drop everything and find my way to the official store so that I could purchase an A's onesie for Kelsey. When I got to the store, I found that there was no way in unless I showed my ticket. I was told that I wouldn't be able to exit and re-enter the park unless I bought another ticket. After spending five minutes trying to find someone that would understand my situation, I realized that I was losing valuable tailgating time, and just decided to give in and buy another ticket. They wouldn't let me exit through the entry gate, so I had to go up the long ramp to the second level and look for an exit ramp heading downward. Five minutes later, I found my way out and got in line at the ticket window for my $9 ticket from Hell.

With a new ticket in my pocket and a pink A's onesie in my hand, I stumbled hurriedly across the parking lot to our car, where pee-soaked Kelsey was sobbing uncontrollably. I changed her clothing, and then remembered that she hadn't eaten for a good while. I had my younger brother grab a rack of Paradox's fantastic ribs, which I tried to share with Kelsey. If there's one thing I learned through this ordeal, it's that you can't hold a toddler in your lap with one hand and eat ribs with the other. Ribs are pretty much a two-handed deal. When I neared the point of rib-induced meltdown, I had my family hold Kelsey (which wasn't easy, since she's not too familiar with them) while I got her some food that she could handle. When I tried to get something from out car, I set the alarm off. Yes. That was me.

From there, the rest of my eight family members started to trickle into the parking lot, and I had to exchange pleasantries and help them get situated. I would have loved to get to speak to more of you, but there just wasn't enough time. It was good to finally get to put names to faces, though. The grilling put on by Paradox and company was just incredible. Thanks to all who brought food and participated. Thanks to baseballgirl and all others who helped make this happen. It was great to get to exchange high-fives with McFood and Pam, and to hear Wes7 scream his head off.

Now, for some pics my dad and I took: Kelsey after the clothing change: A bunch of people: Me and Paradox before the game: Kelsey with one of her grandpas, Wes7 in the background: Me and Kelsey during the game: Kelsey and Mom: Some other family: Jack Cust before the game: Eveland before the game: Matt Murton in left: The outfield: The infield: Bleacher flags: Eveland and the Angels' dugout: Vlad strikes out: And Ziggy!

Even with all the craziness, the lack of offense, and the loss, it was a great experience that I won't forget. Those who can go to games: be glad that the A's are close to you.

DLD 5/13/08: 'Cause nobody else cares anymore

JediLeroy — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:46:38 -0000

A man dressed up as Darth Vader assaulted a church of Jedis with a metal crutch in Wales.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, attacked Jedi church founder Barney Jones — aka Master Jonba Hehol — with a metal crutch, hitting him on the head, prosecutors told Holyhead Magistrates' Court.

AN 3.0's awesome new search function has me reliving old times. Someone needs to bring back the GOG.

Some moron thinks that Fred Lewis and Jack Cust are better than Barry Bonds. Hey, I love Jack Cust. But I'd take Barry any day.

A woman in Malaysia woke up to find that her naked husband was, in fact, not her husband.

A JetBlue pilot made a passenger flying on a buddy ticket sit on the toilet for 3 hours, giving his seat to a flight attendant.

When Mutlu expressed reluctance to go sit in the bathroom, the pilot, who was not named in the lawsuit, told him that "he was the pilot, that this was his plane, under his command that (Mutlu) should be grateful for being on board," the lawsuit said.

Catfish Stew has an article about what's wrong with Suzuki, Harden and Zito.

Rich Harden was sporting goofy beard-like thing he had growing on his chin. Just because he took Chad Gaudin's spot in the rotation doesn't mean he had to try to grow an ugly beard like Gaudin's. Gaudin's beard-like thing kinda suits his mug in a strange sort of way, but it just looked totally out of place on Harden's baby face.

Rad Hardin, anybody?

Dump.

DLD - 5/12/08 One sy lla ble at a time

JediLeroy — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:12:41 -0000

I need se ven ty five words to be a ble to post a D L D. I found out that you can do one sy lla ble at a time and it counts as a se pa rate word.

I hope you do not have an A M D pro ce ssor and win dows X P S P 3 .

B A R T goes cra zy.

A N Day is co ming.

Dump.

Kentucky Joe in 2008

JediLeroy — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:34:30 -0000

I want to preface this by saying that I am not a statistician. This could all be hogwash, so bear with me.

Last year, Joe Blanton reach career bests in a few categories, including strikeouts (140) and K/9 (5.48). While Blanton is pitching deep into games this year (sample size warning), he is not striking out many batters. Blanton's 3.56 K/9 is by far the lowest of any of the A's starters, and good for 45th out of the 48 pitchers who have amassed at least 40 innings this year.

In addition to his low strikeout totals, Blanton is giving up 10.5 H/9, as opposed to last year's rate of 9.39. While his BB/9 is as solid as it’s ever been, his WHIP has jumped to 1.347 (last year: 1.217). His ERA+ is 99, even though he’s seemingly having a good season. It’s not a huge sample, but on average, Joe’s struggles typically seem to escalate after the fifth inning.

That Joe struggles later in the game isn’t any huge revelation. Conventional wisdom says that batters get more comfortable after having seen a pitcher a couple times already. On top of that, pitchers tire and lose effectiveness as a game goes on. With decreased command, pitchers will typically either walk more batters or leave pitches in the zone for hitters to demolish. The graph isn’t perfect, because with such a small sample, one bad inning can skew all the rest of the data.

So, is Bob Geren leaving Blanton in too long? While Blanton has given up 15 runs (12 earned) in the 40 first-through-fifth innings that he’s pitched, he has been tagged for 12 runs (all earned) in the 15 2/3 innings that he’s pitched beyond the fifth. Blanton’s blanked the opponents in four seventh innings so far and given up two runs and one run, respectively, in the other seventh innings he’s pitched in. He’s had one shutout eighth inning and given up runs in both of the other eighth innings he’s pitched in. While he’s pitched six shutout sixth innings, he’s allowed a lot of people to reach base.

Joe gives up a lot of hits, and almost always has baserunners to deal with. It’s hard for me to make any conclusions with this data, other than the obvious ones. Perhaps you guys have some insights.

Let’s go back to the subject of strikeouts. With only eight starts in the books, it’s probably a bit premature to try to find the reason why Joe isn’t striking anybody out. Is it his stuff?

I found an article at THT from February that tries to find the best pitch in the majors in 2007. It’s an interesting study, though I’m not sure if it accounts for park effects. According to the study, Joe Blanton had the second-best slider in the majors last year. His changeup was also rated second in the majors, while his sweeping curveball was ranked 15th.

Most pitchers with good offspeed stuff still throw fastballs the majority of the time to keep hitters off-balance. Blanton is no different. He threw his fastball 54.2% of the time last year, and is only slightly below that amount in 2008 (53.5%). His changeups have been slightly more frequent this year than in the past, moving from 15.1 to 16.9. So early in the season, it’s fair to say that this could be random variation. His curveball selection has risen from 14.4% to 20.9%.

Last year, Joe Blanton threw his slider 16.3% of the time (567 times out of 3481 total pitches). This year, he has only thrown it 8.7% of the time. In essence, he has thrown the curveball in place of the slider almost half the time. Why has he been so stingy with the sliders? Could the lack of second-best-in-the-league sliders have anything to do with his dangerous decline in strikeouts?

DLD 3/28/08 - Preason Seaview

JediLeroy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:35:13 -0000

It's that time of year again. The smell of fresh-cut grass, garlic fries and trough urinals is almost upon us. Yes, the A's already opened the season in Japan with a split against the Bostonian juggernaut.

Yes, they will keep this winning streak until at least Tuesday, April 1, when they take on the Red Sox again.

Once again we're left with a patrol-craft-load of questions and hopes:

We know the A's are down with the Brown. But how will he do?

MR. Sweeney is also a giant question mark.

It's important that the A's get a lot out of their third baseman, Chavannrahan.

Was last year's quick start for Travic Buckton an abberation?

Will this be Bonnie Mursby's breakout season?

What of our catcher, Bozuki? Gotta be better than Melson Kendam.

As long as he can stay healthy, Rad Hardin should throw some excellent flames.

Our hefty, hirsute Jona Bleveland's performance is key to a winning season.

Hopefully we won't have to fear when Keiston Feet takes the mound late in the game.

Justan Duchscheree: possible trade bait? Will anyone value him as much as we do?

Will ChriGon adequately patrol the central garden?

Dally Dinarden should give us some decent middle relief.

Ellust should give us good power, defense, and bunch of strikeouts.

Since I'm using this as a DLD, I guess I should provide a link.

DLD 1/4/2008 - Nizzle Swizzle ChiSizzle

JediLeroy — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:14:15 -0000

In case you haven't heard, Nick Swisher was traded to the White Sox for three minor leaguers, two of which seem to have quite a bit of potential.

Some are happy.

Poppy, not so much.

The players are showing an extraordinary amount of trust in Beane.

When I heard about it, my jaw kind of dropped," A's closer Huston Street said. "But I think it sends a pretty clear message of the direction Billy's going in. To echo something (Eric) Chavez said before, I think we all trust Billy."

...trading the 27-year-old Swisher, who signed a long-term contract in May that could have kept him in Oakland through 2012, wasn't in the plans. That is, until White Sox G.M. Ken Williams began pushing hard for Swisher two weeks ago.

It's a risky move, but it could pay off in the long run.

Only the future will determine whether these were the nine right players, and for the sake of this team's future, they better be. Beane does not get a free pass on this one, not after creating the prospect of a desolate summer and anger among the few remaining faithful.

The old TINSTAAPP idea comes to mind.

Although there are a few categories of pitching prospects — particularly guys with good stuff, high strikeout rates and highish walk rates (think Homer Bailey) — that tend to improve more often than not, in general there is no systematic pattern of improvement after the age of 21 or so. Sometimes guys get better, of course, and sometimes they do so in a hurry — but you can’t take a young pitcher in a vacuum and expect him to improve the same way that you can for a hitting prospect.

Oh, and monkeys pay for sex.

Market forces also acted on the value of the transaction.

If there were several females in the area, the cost of buying sex would drop dramatically -- a male could "buy" a female for just eight minutes of nit-picking.

Monkeys get sex for nitpicking and I get to sleep on the couch. So unfair!

Official Kings website rant

JediLeroy — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:55:56 -0000

Every time I go to check the score of the game at the Kings' official website, I get lost. How could such a high profile company such as a professional basketball team have such a busy, unintuitive website?

What's the first thing that I get when I load up kings.com? Not including the annoying flash splash page that is up for Christmas, I get links for the dance team, a beach party, and all sorts of merchandise and ticket ads. I shouldn't have to load ESPN.com or the equally gaudy nba.com in order to find the score and game recap. The Kings' official website is like a fourteen year old girl's web browser: all sorts of tabs and unnecessary toolbars.

You might ask how all this is relevant to Sactown Royalty. Well, when I come here, I find good front page analysis and breakdowns of the games. What I don't find, however, is the score. Consider this a request to TZ (or whoever's doing the game recaps) to include the score in the already awesome recaps.

Poll

Should there be a score in the recap?

Yes

20 votes

No

2 votes

22 votes | Poll has closed

Haiku Friday (with bonus limerick)

JediLeroy — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:15:53 -0000

Barry Lamar Bonds
Stay the hell away from us
What else needs be said?

Rumors from Slusser
My inner peace is disturbed
Get thee hence, Satan

Broken down legend
Colossal waste of money
No bay for splash hits

Haren and Blanton
Ain't no hope of competing
Let's tear this shit up

The Outfield defense:
Jack fell down and broke his crown
Bonds tumbling after

The cream and the clear
Straight from the orange and the black
To the green and gold

Give me the big head
One thousand-plus O P S
Savior of the A's

Chamionship hopes
Keep Haren and Big Blanton
Asshole and Colon

The story of Barry Lamar--
The guy who could hit really far
The league as a whole
Won't touch him with a pole
And THAT is the A's kind of star

Poll

Which of the following is MOST correct?

Haiku > Limericks

1 votes

Haiku < Limericks

9 votes

I don't understand greater than signs

1 votes

The alligator eats limericks

8 votes

19 votes | Poll has closed