SB Nation User Blog: Lyle

Ask BA: minor league strength

Lyle — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:35:55 -0000

Ask BA: minor league strength

Congratulations to Roger for getting a question answered by Ben Badler yesterday.

Rockies showcasing Atkins

Lyle — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:53:06 -0000

The Denver Post says the Rockies will be showcasing Garret Atkins this week, in hopes of generating trade interest. So, simple question fellow McCovenitss: are we interested? What would be the relative advantages/disadvantages to adding him to the team? Who would you be willing to trade to get him? Perhaps more important, what do you think the Rockies are looking for in return (i.e., how highly do they regard him)?

Pablo seems pretty decent at 3B, and Atkins is struggling this year. Yet perhaps this is an opportunity to "buy low."

BA: early 2008 draft grades

Lyle — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:29:14 -0000

Here's the link, which I don't think is subscriber-only. Buster Posey comes in at a reasonable #5, and Brandon Crawford gets a gratifying #9. MCC crowd favorite Justin Smoak, although currently injured, comes in at #8 with the notation that, had he been playing all season, he'd probaby be higher on their list. Oh, and get this: he takes walks. He clearly wouldn't have fit in in our organization. I take no little pride in noting that my preference for our selection, Gordon Beckham, was listed as #1.

So, despite the fact that it's still pretty early to judge, are we McCovenites still happy with our selection of Gerald Posey? Any other thoughts about our 2008 draft?

Draft Musings

Lyle — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:18:59 -0000

As the June 9th draft approaches, some amateur players are beginning to establish themselves, either higher or lower. I noticed that Andy Seiler, on John Sickel's website, has a mock first round draft list, so I thought I'd mention it to get your reactions.

He assumes the following top picks:

Washington - Steven Strasburg

Seattle - Dustin Ackley

San Diego - Alex White

Pittsburgh - Grant Green

Baltimore - Aaron Crow

San Francisco - Tyler Matzek, LHP, Capistrano Valley HS(CA)

Of course, there's debate about who will be chosen above the Giant's slot, but just for fun let's assume Andy has the first five picks correctly predicted. The question for the McCoven is: If Strasburg, Ackley, White, Green, and Crow are off the board when it comes to the Giants' pick at #6, who do you prefer? (For those of you too lazy to click the link, he lists Zach Wheeler, Kyle Gibson, Donovan Tate, Rich Poythress, and Mike Leake as the next selections.)

So what do you all think? Matzek would certainly fit into the Bumgarner/Alderson mold, and we do seem to have a good history with that approach. Of course, there is the small matter of our ML offense needing help...

Merkin Valdez to have more surgery

Lyle — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:08:57 -0000

Merkin Valdez to have more surgery

Not sure if I'm doing this correctly, but I thought some of you would want to know this. This is Andy Baggarly's report, dated today, in Baseball America. It appears to be subscriber only; he says that Valdez had problems with his already surgically repaired right (throwing) elbow and came back to the US for a medical opinion, and the opinion is that Merkin needs more surgery.

I'm really disappointed for him, and for our bullpen next year.

Mods, please delete if there's already a raging discussion about this somewhere else - I looked but didn't find one.

McCoven Poll on Renteria

Lyle — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:34:33 -0000

Pretty simple, really. In reading the fanpost on the apparent signing of SS Edgar Renteria, it seems there are different opinions about the wisdom of this move. So let's have a poll to gauge the overall reaction. I'm imagining three general outcomes: (1) It was a brilliant move, Renteria hit well and his defense were excellent whereas Furcal did an Andruw Jones; (2) it was a so-so move, with Renteria being league-averagish while Burriss languished on the bench, Furcal didn't set the world on fire, and we wonder how the lost draft pick turns out for the Tigers; or (3) it was yet another terrible FA signing by the youth-averse Sabean, who was eventually fired for his overspending ways and over-30 man-love.

Poll

How will we view this move in November, 2010?

1. After the two years, this will be viewed as an excellent signing; we'll have easily gotten our money's worth.

31 votes

After two years, we'll be pretty meh. Renteria was okay, did better than Furcal, but wasn't anything special.

142 votes

After two years, we'll dislike this signing because it was another expensive stopgap move by the deposed Sabean that didn't work out; Renteria's stats fell off a cliff, while Burriss blossomed in the Twins organization.

86 votes

259 votes | Poll has closed

Division races projection recap

Lyle — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:33:17 -0000

Back on March 26th, Grant proposed that we try to predict all six division races in baseball. Forty-eight people made the attempt, possibly our highest response ever. Grant promised a prize of $20 from Amazon.com, although I'll let our winner take that up with Grant - he claims to be "worth three figures," so good luck collecting.

Grant proposed a five-point system; five points for the right team in the right finish, decreasing by one point for each place you're off. Slightly complicated, but at least there were no superdelegates to confuse the matter. So, for example, if you predicted the NLWest exactly right, you'd get 5 points for each position, 25 points total. So there were a grand total of 150 points up for grabs. There were two tiebreaker questions: (1) number of Giants wins, and (2) number of Velez starts.

Before I reveal our top scorers, here's a look at some of the interesting results. We did have a clear winner, so the tiebreakers weren't necessary. But they were interesting when viewed as separate contests.

Giants wins: Most of us were in the upper 60's and lower 70's, but only two people got the exact total (72) correct: Kernbergmaradona and satyricrash. Seven folks only missed by one, with Sky Kalkman, Goofus, Natto, Skaldheim, Poe, and oldjacket guessing 71 and mlb22 guessing 73. Five others predicted 70, and one predicted 74.

Velez starts: Guesses were pretty well all over the board, as you might imagine. Lowest guess was Skaldheim's 3; highest was 150 by both Kitspool and wilriv. Poe had the clearest vision here, accurately predicting 50. Tying for second place were mlb22 at 46 and Sky Kalkman at 54. Next closest was Mr_M with 63.

Some of the divisions were harder to predict than others, in particular the ALCentral. Most of us got the last-place finishes of the Pirates and Orioles. We figured the Cubs and Brewers were the class of the NLCentral (although most had them swapped). But the Tigers were the near-universal choice for first place; their last-place finish earned most of us only 1 point. Conversely, the White Sox were picked as high as third by only a few - most of us had them in last or next-to-last place.

In the NLWest, the division we should know best, no one predicted the exact outcome. Most of us had the Giants in last place; the Padres self-destruction took us by surprise. And the Diamondbacks were the most-popular choice for first place. Only eight of us foresaw the Dodgers winning the division: lyricalkiller, Victor Frankenstein, camwoody, Natto, Mr_M, W8ingForATitle, Lyle, and baetown.

Some people did, however, get entire divisions correct: Victor Frankenstein got the ALWest exact. Plus, he had the most entertaining team names. (Vic, there were two team in the NLEast I wasn't sure about, so I calculated your results both ways.) Mr_M got the NLCentral exact (a harder feat with six teams compared to Vic's four) and only missed the Giants/Pads in the NLWest. And friar got the ALEast perfect, correctly forecasting the Rays' success.

So, without further ado, here are our top scorers:

124 - Natto

120 - Mr_M, W8ingForATitle

119 - Grant, Skaldheim, Lyle, BaronVCE, Vic Frankenstein, Poe

Most exact predictions:

15 - Natto

12 - Mr_M

11 - Victor Frankenstein, jcb9, Cookyman, Scottsdale

10 - lyricalkiller, Kernbergmaradona, Sky Kalkman, Goofus

And special mention to our lowest scorers:

106 - mlb22

107 - oldjacket, satyricrash, NearestNorwich, friar; (satyricrash claimed to have just returned from the future - but apparently not one in this timeline).

108 - i did my job, boonitez

* * * * * CONGRATULATIONS, NATTO! * * * * * * * * *

OT: Evan's Election Projection recap

Lyle — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:43:47 -0000

Since thirteen of us were foolhardy enough to venture guesses on the election, I thought I'd do a recap for those interested (warning: no Trade Matt Cain content).

Here are the numbers so far (MN Senate race will be a run-off, so we won't know those results for at least a couple of months, as I understand it):

Electoral Vote: 364 - 174 (based on cnn website). I'm giving Missouri to McCain and N. Carolina to Obama, based on their current leads in those states. Idaho Nick was our closest guesser at 360-178. Second closest was jponry with 374-164 - if Missouri were to go to Obama, she'd only be off by only one.

Popular Vote: 120,500,791. Most of us guessed higher, so Speedforthewin's 120,000,000 was easily the closest. Second closest was oldjacket's 130,000,000. postiveuphemism thought there would be more than 150 million votes.

Popular vote percentage: The latest numbers I have are 53% for Obama and 46% for McCain. kennv is our winner at 52.5-46.5 - very impressive! Second place is jponry with 52-46, CB30 and oldjacket with 52-47, and Idaho Nick with 53-47. nvsfg thought Obama would win 56-44%. On the other end of the spectrum, I predicted a much narrower 48.8-46.9. I know nothing.

Senate: Small problem here, as four races are officially undecided. The CNN website indicates a 13,000-vote lead for the Democrat in Oregon; a 3,400-vote lead for the Republican in Alaska (newly-minted felon Ted Stevens); a 114,000-vote lead for the Republican Saxby Chambless in Georgia; and a statistical tie in Minnesota. Georgia state law requires that the winning candidate must have 50% of the vote, minimum, or there must be a runoff - the vote now is precariously close to the magic 50% number, so there may or may not be a runoff. I'm going to give Oregon to the Democrats, and Alaska and Georgia to the Republicans. Minnesota will take months to decide, so I'm going to leave them out of the numbers here. So for our purposes, the result is 56-41-2. So we a tie for winner here, with oldjacket (56-42-2) and Evan (57-41-2) the closest to the result. Thus, oldjacket is pulling for the Republican in Minnesota, and Evan is pulling for the Democrat, Al Franken. positiveuphemism again had the highest Democratic guess at 60-40. Neifichicken, on the other hand, predicted the Republicans would have the edge 51-47-2....or was that a typo, Neifi?

House: some races are apparently not yet decided. I didn't delve too deeply into this; CNN is reporting the results as 254-173 with eight races not decided. I hate uncertainty, so I'll go with MSNBC's numbers (I'm assuming they've predicted the likeliest of outcomes), so let's go with 259-176. With that, kennv is our closest prognosticator at 257-177. Second place goes to the math-challenged bgunn with a 258-176. Third place goes to the equally math-challenged Lyle at 257-177. Bgunn and I have clearly forgotten that 435 number from our Civics classes.

See, Evan, you did quite well. As for me, I'll stick to baseball predictions, and guess nothing in 2012.

Projection recap: Aaron Rowand

Lyle — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:07:07 -0000

Last December's free agent signing of Aaron Rowand generated lots of comments by us Giants fans. I think Ott summed it up best:

So, which Rowand are we getting? The .270/.320/.420 from his worse years, or the .310/.370/.515 from last year? If the former, then yeah, this stinks. If the latter, I don't hate this move.

So let's see how our group wisdom turned out:

AVG OBP SLG HR

Rowand 2008: .271 .339 .410 13

McCoven: .286 .352 .462 18

AVG: The lowest guess was .263 by koel; the highest was .315 by antinous. Our winner at .270, the second-lowest guess, was jasomack. Coming in second at .274 was groug.

OBP: We did better on this prediction. Ever-optimistic antinous had the highest guess at .380; lowest guess was .330 by jasomack. Tied as our winners were koel (.338) and Dan from NM (.340). Jasomack's low guess was good for second place.

SLG: We apparently expected more from Aaron. Antinous, consistent to a fault, predicted a high of .530; Natto went with an even .500. Most pessimistic prediction was .420 by our winner, jasomack. Second place, with the second-lowest guess, goes to Scottsdale.

HR: Most of us thought AT&T would depress Rowand's HR total. Even so, antinous thought he'd be good for 25 jacks. Viva Gigantes thought 24, and even sober-minded Evan guessed 23. Scottsdale averred only 8 HRs. Our tied winners, with guesses of 14, were Cookyman and koel. Just behind was Drysdalecousin with 15, and groug had 16.

Overall, jasomack won two of our four categories, and came in second in another. And in the fourth category, HR, he would have been listed as tied behind groug. Honorable mention to koel for winning (in ties) two categories.

I'll close with a quote from the projection thread by kennv: "Stupid Rowand. Stupid Sabean. Stupid stupid stupid."

Projection recap: Eugenio Velez

Lyle — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:20:32 -0000

Here are the results of our March 25 community projections for Eugenio Velez (or, as some of the McCoven fondly refer to him, Speedy McFuckup):

AVG OBP SLG HR 3B AB SB CS

E. Velez 2008: .262 .299 .382 1 7 275 15 6

McCoven: .267 .315 .398 4 8 344 33 8

Only 13 stalwarts were brave enough to record their predictions for all to mock afterwards. Overall, we did reasonably well. We clearly thought Eugenio would get more at-bats, which partially explains our higher expectations for SB, CS, & HR.

AVG: Evan had the lowest guess of .247; foothillsfan guessed a high of .285 (note: if you just average their guesses, you get .266 - only .001 off Velez's actual stat). We had three winners in this category, each missing only by .002: xanthan & jasomack with .260, and WilliamVanLandingham with .264.

OBP: Getting on base would seem to be the foundation of Velez's worth to the team. Jasomack was exactly correct with his McCoven-low guess of .299, Eugenio's actual result. Animal Mother came in second with .302. foothillsfan was the most optimistic, predicting .350.

SLG: We expected more from Velez - guesses ranged from a low of .327 (rock n jock) to a high of .450 (foothillfans). Most accurate was jasomack, who was right on with .382. Animal Mother came in second at 3.75, and xanthan was third with .390.

HR: No one guessed as low as Velez actual result of one HR. Lowest guesses, and our tied winners, were Lyle and xanthan with predictions of 2. WilliamVanL, rock n jock, and foothillsfan guessed 3. Most optimistic were tedfordfan, joebirdie3, and jasomack with predictions of 7 each.

3B: Velez spending half his games in spacious Mays Field should equate to lots of triples, right? Our guess of 8 was only one over Velez's actual total of 7. Perfect guesses were recorded by xanthan and foothillsfan. Grant was just behind with a 6, and Evan guessed 8.

AB: I thought the biggest question going into the season was just how many at-bats Eugenio would get on this team. Lowest prediction here was 263 (rock n jock), and highest was Baron's 403. Our winner was the 280 guessed by foothillsfan. Second place was 263 by rock n jock.

SB: Having speed is one thing, but actually stealing bases is something else. We way over-estimated Velez's success here; the lowest guess, and therefore our winner, was 23 by some guy named Grant. Lyle and Animal Mother tied for second with 25 each. Highest guess was 47 by both tedfordfan and BaronVCE.

CS: Strangely, we came pretty close on this one. No one guessed 6 exactly. Our winners were Lyle, xanthan, and Dan from NM with 5, and joebirdie with 7. Just behind were Grant, WilliamVanLandingham, and Animal Mother with 8.

Overall, it looks like xanthan was the best prognosticator, winning four of the eight categories (AVG, HR, 3B, CS). Special kudos to jasomack, who was exactly correct on OBP and SLG, and tied for closest AVG. Congratulations!