Good morning to you from the dank marshes of peninsular Florida, where last night the allegedly offensively inept Clearwater Threshers scored in double digits on the Brevard County Manatees, against a starting pitcher who is Milwaukee's #3 prospect. This game had managers getting tossed, players getting halfway to first base before being called back to the batter's box, and other crazy shenanigans. So, let's do the time warp again and jump to the action.

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Since discipline has (yet again) (or is it still?) become a topic of conversation among hockey fans, I wanted to take a little look at how suspensions have played out from the 2009-10 season to today. I am looking only at regular season and post season suspensions, including carryover from preseason (i.e. if a player is suspended 5 games and serves 2 preseason and 3 season games, I'm counting it as 3 games). After the jump, suspensions by team by year:

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So, Eric and Don and I had a little back and forth going in the thread on playmakers affecting their linemates' shooting percentages, over yonder. The question came up about whether those players were actually improving their teammates, or getting a boost from playing with good players. I don't think we're at the point of answering that directly yet, but jump down with me to take a look at how those players do with good shooters and bad shooters.

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So, Clearwater's in town again, playing a four game series at the Brevard Manatees (motto: "Fear the Sea Cow"). Naturally, yours truly is planning on attending all four games, which began last night with a July Fourth game that was extremely crowded. I'll update this as I get a chance after each game with stats and things I noticed.

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NOTE: Front page promotion. Interesting stuff! - WC

Over the last three days, I've attended three games at Brevard County's Space Coast Stadium between the Brevard Manatees and the Clearwater Threshers. For anyone who's not aware, the Threshers are the Phillies' A+ affiliate in the Florida State League, while the Manatees are a Milwaukee Brewers farm team. I kept some notes during the games to give you guys an idea of what I saw. My notes are below, and any questions will be welcomed. For the first game, I sat directly behind home plate, about 9 rows up. For the second and third games, I sat at the outer edge of the infield along the third base line, 3 rows up. The most memorable part of the first game for me was that the seat in front of me was empty, but the two seats next to it held Julio Rodriguez and Jarred Cosart, who had the night off to do scouting on the other team. The crack TGP scouting team is proud to report that both of them like sunflower seeds. Without any further ado, the recaps.

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In all seriousness, I'm wanting to start work on a (long-term) hockey stats project, but don't know where to go for all the stats I want in (relatively) easily accessible form. I'm looking for all sorts of stuff - traditional boxcar, blocked shots, Corsi, hits, penalties, that sort of information. I'd like to get it for both player and team, but player's more important (since I can theoretically sum all the players to get the team stat for a lot of them). I'm already quite aware of behindthenet.ca, but do any of the other stats folks out there have good sites for getting some of the numbers that they don't look at over there?

OK, gang. Since Kreeeeder's OT fanpost has dropped off The List on the right, even though I tried to bump it up this morning with a rec, I think it's time for a new thread devoted to the random stuff that doesn't really belong in hockey-related threads (but will wind up there anyway ). Talk about whatever you want, just keep it civil and respectful of one another (unless it's a "Geoff's a slut" joke, those are always funny). We've got Oscars coming up, an allegedly Super Bowl game, lovely weather (y'all get snow - I get tornadoes), and all sorts of other shenanigans. Again, talk about whatever, just keep it respectful if you disagree on something, because we all agree on what really matters - our beloved Flyers.

Based on a conversation prior to the Detroit game, I decided to look quickly at how the Flyers shot in 2010. However, I didn't want to look at just the standard goal scoring percent, since that only looks at goals per shot on goal, not goals per shot. So, after the jump, a look at the Flyers who have scored a goal, based on goals per total shot and percent of shots on goal. I'll leave analysis for the comments, since I want to get the numbers out there to be looked at.

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Since I hadn't seen much about the arbitration thus far, I went looking for information on who our new System Arbitrator is. After doing some digging, I found that it's Richard I. Bloch, a 67-year-old arbitrator who's originally from New Jersey, but has lived in DC for years. He seems eminently qualified, based on his history (after the jump).

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During the discussion of Brandon Bass, a point came up about whether Rashard could guard power forwards. I got curious, and there was a list provided by a commenter of forwards that he felt Rashard didn't guard well. This list was David West, LaMarcus Aldridge, Carlos Boozer, Pau Gasol, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Lamar Odom, Amare Stoudemire, Chris Bosh, Antawn Jamison, Josh Smith, Andray Blatche, Dirk Nowitzki, and Zach Randolph (that's a heck of a list...). I removed Duncan, since I still consider him a C, but looked at the others. What I did was figure their points per game and rebounds per game for the last three seasons, since Rashard moved to PF. Then I looked at the PPG and RPG against Rashard. By comparing the two, there's a "Lewis Factor" where a positive means the opponent does better than average, a negative means they do worse than average. It's not 100% precise, since there will be some time against Lewis' backup, but given that none of our backup PFs are shutdown specialists and the overall averages also include time against backups, their effect on the numbers should be (relatively) minimal. Areas where Lewis holds opponents to less than average are bolded.

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Given some of the recent discussions on how stats are related to luck, I wanted to look at how the luck of various pitchers compares, using the difference between ERA and FIP as a crude measure of pitchers' luck. I also wanted to look at the difference between starters, middle relievers, and closers. Just to establish some sort of basis, I took the top ten players in Quality Starts, Holds, and Saves, as well as anybody else with the same number of those as the tenth guy. I then calculated "Luck" as their ERA-FIP, divided by 9 to get Per-Inning Luck, multiplied by IP to get Total Luck, and then summed everyone's Total Luck, divided by Total IP, and multiplied by 9 to get a Weighted Average Luck for each group (snazzy acronym suggestions will be accepted). One caveat: by taking the top pitchers of each group, presumably I'm also getting some of the luckiest pitchers, so their WAL will presumably be better than average for their position.

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Given the Dan Carcillo re-signing, I wanted to take a quick look at how the various Flyers did this year in drawing penalties as opposed to taking them. I originally just did a count, but quickly realized that tended to overemphasize things for the main players. Instead, what I'll be giving is the list based on penalty differential (penalties drawn minus penalties taken) per 60 minutes played.

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Given the discussion over Duhon's wearing of #25, I wanted to go over everyone who's worn each number, just out of curiosity. There were a lot of names I wasn't familiar with, and a lot of duplicate numbers, even of our more famous (or well-regarded) players. There were also some players who wore multiple numbers (Keith Bogans, Anthony Johnson, Jeryl Sasser, DeShawn Stevenson, and Johnny Taylor).

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Following up on the post I made around the end of the season regarding cap space and players signed. With the ongoing trades and the new cap set, I wanted to set up a running look as trades happen, to be updated every couple days as things change. The way I'll be looking at it is:

1. Each team's currently signed players who played last year (including injury call-ups and such) up to a maximum of 12 forwards, 6 defensemen, 2 goalies.

2. If the team exceeds those numbers, the cheapest players will be dropped first.

3. I will also list how many RFAs the team has, since they're easier to hold on to. A listing of 9 F (+2 RFA) would mean 9 forwards are signed, and the team also has 2 RFA forwards not yet signed with a team.

4. This won't include carry-forward bonuses, because I don't have a good reliable source for them.

5. I am also including buyouts that I'm aware of, since they're the gift that keeps on giving.

6. Teams with a full lineup (12 F, 6 D, 2 G) will be bolded - even though they may make more moves, they could (in theory) be done.

7. Changes will be done in bolded italics to make them visible.

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As we've mentioned plenty of times, the Flyers are excessively deep at Center, pretty deep at Left Wing, and shallower than Gary Bettman's gene pool at Right Wing. As such, I wanted to go through and see who's available at that position. Since I don't watch many of the other teams (I don't get Versus), I'm going by nhlnumbers' list of positions. Since we don't have picks to give up, here's who's available from each team's list of unrestricted free agents, with last year's cap hit and basic stats:

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Since there's been so much talk about cap space and cap hits, I wanted to look at the Eastern Conference contenders and see just where each team lies regarding filling its roster and cap room. I'm only going to consider their returning players from their current roster, since I'm not up-to-date on who's expecting to call up which prospects. For the sake of time and my sanity, I'll be looking at the teams that scored more than 80 regular-season points, which are the top ten teams (the playoff teams + NYR and Atlanta). Please note that some numbers may be off slightly due to bonuses (I tried to account for them as best I could); the differences shouldn't be more than $0.5MM or so for any given team.

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As we approach the end of the NBA season, it comes time to look forward to the next opportunity to pick up new players, the NBA draft. The Magic have two picks this year, at #29 and #59. The Magic cannot trade their first-round pick unless they get another first-round pick (as they didn't have a pick last year due to the Alston acquisition). So, what should the Magic be looking for, and what's likely to be available?

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According to Hockeysverige, Joacim Eriksson has signed a two-year deal to play for Elitserien team Skellefteå. Skell's coach stated that they picked him up because he has good hands in addition to good blocking ability. He's also considered to be calm and disciplined. He'll probably start the season as a backup to Andreas Hadelov, who was the goalie that got them promoted from Allsvenskan to Elitserien. This is another step in young Eriksson's development, and I believe it to be good news, as it means he'll face better competition, hopefully in preparation for coming over to North America.

According to Rotoworld, JC Romero and Brad Lidge have both been placed on the 15-day DL, retroactive to March 26. The earliest they'll be available is April 10. Given Blanton's injury, Commissioner Amaro may be climbing the stairs to light the Pedrosignal. This is also bad news for TGP Fantasy managers BudVugger (who has Lidge) and j reed (who dropped Blanton upon learning of his injury). Hopefully both players will recover fully and be able to contribute to the Phils this season.

As seen at The Phield, we've managed to pull off the first upset in the Lauber region, knocking off The Phillies Zone by a score of 395-220. Up next we have Phillies Nation on Friday. We'll need everybody to be on their A game, as the Nation beat That Balls Outta Here by the redonkulous score of 558-185. In the race to finish second in Lauber, High Cheese and The Fightins will battle it out the same day.

So, I'm going to be heading down to Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland next Saturday to see the Phillies play the Tigers. Does anyone have anything in particular they want me to watch for in the game? I'll be taking notes and photographs. However, if there's any particular player or position or situation that anyone wants information on, let me know. I can't promise anything, but if you let me know ahead of time, it's more likely I'll actually pay attention to something you want reported on.

Since speculative trades are a significant hobby around here, and there's criticism about the offensive prowess of our small forwards, I decided to look briefly at who's a better long-range shooter than our current pair, and what it would take in purely contract-balancing terms to get each of those players. I don't have enough of an ear to the ground to know what various teams are looking for. Some guys are just flat out untradeable, though, so I won't even bother with star players on rival teams. They'll just get a "Next."

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