SBNation.com User Blog: Rochestie4ever

Summer Shootaround: Pac-12

Rochestie4ever — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 16:52:40 -0000

Summer Shootaround: Pac-12

Yesterday ESPN had it's annual basketball best/worst case scenario previews for the Pac-12, and most of it is about UCLA and Arizona. But the funny part was that they called Faisal Aden WSU's "de facto team leader"....

2011 Marlins MVP: Mike Stanton

Rochestie4ever — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 01:03:56 -0000

2011 Marlins MVP: Mike Stanton

From ESPN's Sweetspot blog Marlins Daily

Larry Scott against expanding Pac-12

Rochestie4ever — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:57:37 -0000

Larry Scott against expanding Pac-12

Not sure if you guys have already heard his comments, but this suprised me a bit

The All-WAR teams

Rochestie4ever — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:26:36 -0000

With the announcement of the All-Star rosters yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at how the teams stacked up against eachother in terms of WAR. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the stat...

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) the link will take you to the Fangraph's description

I realize that any all-in-one metric of a player is going to have it's flaws, and I'm certainly not saying this is "perfect," but this will give you a better idea of a players value to his team than relying on stats such as batting average or RBIs.

To find the numbers below, I took the WAR totals from each player, added them up and divided to find the "Average WAR." I would have liked to compare the WAR totals without finding the average, but I wasn't sure how to deal with the uneven number of hitters between the AL and NL (DH and lack therof) so finding the average was the obvious choice.

Also, I only included batters in the data below, and decieded to skip completely on any pitchers.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) the link will take you to the Fangraph's description

Also, I only included batters in the data below, and decieded to skip completely on any pitchers.

FIrstly, I compared the starters.

AL- 3.13

NL- 3.525

This suprised me, as I thought the AL would be superior by far. What further amazes me is how the NL could have been much higher if Andrew McCutchen (4.6) or Shane Victorino (4.2) had made the team as they rightfully shoud have. Seeing these "Snubs" with such high WAR stats, I decieded to make an all-snub WAR team. I didn't include a DH, and the players are a combonation of AL and NL. To find these players, I simply went position by position on Fangraphs and selected the highest WAR player that was not on either team. I should add I decieded to put Ben Zobrist in RF instead of second base because Dustin Pedroia also had a very high WAR at second. The average suprised me.

All-Snub- 3.44

Yes, that is higher than the AL starters. This only further illuminates the brokenness of the voting system.

For the "bench," the AL was king

AL bench- 2.53

NL bench- 2.425

When combined, the total rosters are very close

Combined bench and starters, AL- 2.9

Combined bench and starters, NL-2.865

For anyone who would like to know, here is the "Snub" team

Shane Victorino

Andrew McCutchen

Ben Zobrist

Kevin Youkilis

Johnny Peralta

Dustin Pedroia

Mark Teixeira

Miguel Montero

I'm almost positive I've misspelled some of the players names, so I apologize in advance. Also, This is my first fanpost here so take it easy on me, and any feedback would be awesome. Thanks!

All data is thru July 3rd and is from fangraphs, so a big thank you there.

Pac 10 fantasy basketball- Team A vs Team B

Rochestie4ever — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 04:57:48 -0000

Taking the lead from another fanpost here on Cougcenter, my friend and decied to "draft" players from the pac 10, and we were hoping you all could enlighten us on who would win. We both watched a lot of Pac-10 games this year, but we did this draft off of only memory and without any statistics, so don't critisize us too much.

We drafted with the snake system, so my friend took picks 1, 4-5, 8-9, 12-13 ect.

This is meant to be as if these to teams took the court tomorrow, as a fully functioning team, who would win the game

The following players are in the order they were picked: (Team A picked first) Sorry in advance for spelling errors

We drafted with the snake system, so my friend took picks 1, 4-5, 8-9, 12-13 ect.

This is meant to be as if these to teams took the court tomorrow, as a fully functioning team, who would win the game

The following players are in the order they were picked: (Team A picked first) Sorry in advance for spelling errors

Team A Team B

Derrick Williams

Isiah Thomas

Jeremy Green

Mathew Bryan-Amaning

Jared Cunningham

Josh Smith

Marcus Simmons

Anthony Brown

C.J. Wilcox

Thanks guys!

Poll

Who would win a game between these two teams?

Team A wins easily

6 votes

Team A wins close game

9 votes

Team B wins easily

7 votes

Team B wins close game

6 votes

28 votes | Poll has closed

Do we want Klay to stay for his senior year?

Rochestie4ever — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 18:51:45 -0000

Do we want Klay to stay for his senior year?

Interesting perspective. What do you guys think?

Who is this teams "Leader"?

Rochestie4ever — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:32:26 -0000

As Selection Sunday nears, bubble talk is heating up. I won't get into specifics about bubble talk, but if you must your better off discussing it with Mr. Nusser. As he stated, most people have a generalized idea of what makes a "Tournament Team". I'm certainly not saying that is what the selection committee will look at in less than a month, but one of those conceptions is that successful teams have a true "leader." So, for the sake of entertaining all of you, I pose the question, who is this teams leader?

We cannot begin this discussion without starting with Klay Thompson. Make no mistake, if he has to, he could put the team on his back and go all Jimmer Fredette during a game. His quietness restricts his vocal leadership though. Believe me, I have no idea what goes on at practice or during team meetings, but he just doesn't seem the type to fire the whole team up before a big game. Klay is a different type of leader than us as Cougar fans are accustomed to, but he sure is good at putting the ball in the basket, so you won't hear me complaining.

More after the jump.

Another candidate is the highflying Marcus Capers. As with most teams, there is generally one player who completes the selfless and inglorious things that help a team win. This category fits Capers, and he seems to have accepted this role. He is an awesome player, but I don't think he is this teams leader.

Lodwick is much more of a mystery to me. He is another one of our juniors, but he was red shirted, which makes him a year older academically. That definitely has given him the respect of the younger players.His role was thoroughly discussed earlier this site, so I won't dissect that. What I will say is he makes his teammates around him better. His effort and communication on the defensive end greatly improve our zone. However, he doesn't play enough minutes (averaging 22.6) or take enough shots (again, averaging only 2.9) to fully impact an offense the way a leader is "supposed to." At WSU's page on Kenpom, he is listed under the "invisible" category, because he uses less than 12% of our possessions.

To me, a leader has to be able to take over a game, and when called upon take the last shot. Not to mention create opportunities for their teammates and get them to play as hard as they can when on the floor.

DeAngelo is a similar story. Although less often, a post can be a teams go-to-guy (case and point Derrick Williams at Arizona) but I don't think DeAngelo is as polished as Derrick Williams. The other issue I have is his playmaking ability is dependent on the guards getting him the ball near the basket. Without the ability to control the game, I'm going to go ahead and say he is not our leader. One heck of a sidekick though, when he gets going its hard to stop.

Now we move on to Reggie Moore. When Moore is attacking the basket with reckless abandon and shutting down his man on defense, this team is very hard to beat. He also has his moments of immaturity when his youth cracks through the television set. Sometimes he settles for contested jumpers and his defense soon follows. You probably could make a case that Reggie is also our leader, along with Klay, but I am still waiting for the conventional wisdom "leader."

All this does is make me miss Rochestie even more.

This was my first time posting one of these, so don't trash it too bad.

Poll

Who is this teams leader?

Klay Thompson

8 votes

Reggie Moore

9 votes

Abe Lodwick

5 votes

DeAngelo Casto

0 votes

Marcus Capers

2 votes

No true leader

29 votes

53 votes | Poll has closed