SB Nation User Blog: Wonko

Giants Bench CC Brown

Wonko — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:05:55 -0000

Giants Bench CC Brown

Aaron Rouse will take his place. Rouse was much maligned in Green Bay a couple of years back, but probably not as much as CC Brown (of course it was Green Bay and not New York). The one interesting thing about Rouse is that he's tall. Almost as tall as VJ and Floyd and definitely taller than Gates and Naanee.

Chargers receive 24-hour extension

Wonko — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:48:11 -0000

Chargers receive 24-hour extension

Just like Jim Steeg said, this game is a little tougher sell because of the outdated reputation for Raiders games at the Q.

iPhone App: Second Guess the Manager

Wonko — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:01:02 -0000

iPhone App: Second Guess the Manager

Follow the link and you get a good description. The basic idea is that you can use win probabilities to figure out if it's a good idea to bunt, steal, hit and run, etc. It'd be really cool it you could just pick a live game and have it set up the situation, but the world is not that cool yet so you will have to enter the inning, outs, and baserunners.

H/T to ESPN Insider Rob Neyer.

Brees vs. Rivers

Wonko — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:13:16 -0000

Brees vs. Rivers

Here we go again...

(ESPN Insider subscription required)

I thought the analysis would go a little deeper than it did. Basically, he points out that the Chargers failed to understand one of the truisms in football after the 2003 season. The offense wasn't bad, it was just unlucky because they stunk on 3rd down. The truism is that teams that are good on first and second down, but don't have similarly good performance on third down will tend to see their third down performance increase the following year. Football Outsiders saw this in 2004 when they first did their projections and predicted a successful offense for the Chargers that year (they almost threw out the projection system when that result came up, but decided to trust it instead).

Further analysis in the article basically shows that Brees has played better the last 3 years than Rivers, but having Merriman and Kaeding still keeps the Chargers from looking bad. However (and I've said this for years), if you don't draft Manning and instead go with Larry Fitzgerald in that draft, which would you rather have: Fitzgerald and Brees or Rivers, Merriman and Kaeding. I personally can't tell which is better, (the article claims that Brees/Fitzgerald would be) but I'm pretty sure the Chargers could have used Fitzgerald on the field in 2004 much more effectively than they could use Rivers.

Week Two DVOA Rankings: Chargers take a plummet

Wonko — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:14:03 -0000

Week Two DVOA Rankings: Chargers take a plummet

The Chargers production (DVOA) is not looking good after two weeks. Their projection (DAVE) is still hanging in there. There's also some hidden value here. DVOA hasn't being adjusted for opponents yet. When all is said and done I think the Baltimore and Oakland defenses will come out as above average squads and the Chargers offensive DVOA will get adjusted accordingly. Can't say the same for the defense though, maybe a little boost for the Ravens, but the Raiders offense will most likely stay below average. I can't complain too much, you don't usually expect to get a lot of respect after a loss (even from a computer).

Fort Wayne wins Midwest League Championship

Wonko — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:49:08 -0000

Game 3

Fort Wayne Tin Caps	4
Burlington Bees	3
Box Score

Tin Caps lead series (3-0) Best of 5

There's too much too say here for me to cover it in my normal format, I'll just put up MiLB.com's wrap up.

It was a special bunch of players that assembled in Fort Wayne this summer. The unforgettable group will leave town as the first team to play with a new name in Parkview Field's inaugural season, and most importantly, to the first to clinch a division title.

"It was just a magical, magical season from start to finish," manager Doug Dascenzo said.

And win No. 101 was certainly the most thrilling. The TinCaps took a four-run lead off Jaff Decker's two-run homer and held on to beat Burlington, 4-3, completing a series sweep to clinch the Midwest League title.

The 'Caps scored in the second and third innings before Decker -- the Padres' first-round compensation pick in '08 -- doubled the cushion with one stroke. Starter Mike Watt allowed three runs -- one earned -- on four hits over 5 1/3 innings for the victory.

"We brought our closer [Brad Brach] in who's been strong all year long, and I'm looking over in center field [at Blake Tekotte], and there's one out, then two outs," Decker recalled. "We get the third hitter 0- 2 and then we just had the feeling like, 'OK, we're going to do this.'"

And the instant Bach got Hilton Richardson swinging for strike three, Decker and Tekotte ran in to join the joyous scrum of players haphazardly strewn in a pile around the mound.

The victory marked a 3-0 sweep over the Bees and gave the TinCaps their first championship in franchise history. Fort Wayne, who changed its name from the Wizards prior to this season, became a Padres' affiliate in 1999.

While the Wizards boasted some terrific teams in years past, according to third-year manager Dascenzo, this year's Fort Wayne squad was truly something special.

"They just came together right from day one," he said. "They loved to play the game of baseball, gelled instantly and kept it going all season long."

While opposing teams showed up to the yard at the scheduled time, the TinCaps came early and eager.

"We were showing up an hour or two before we need to be there just to hang out with each other," said Decker. "We are living with each other every day and still not getting sick of each other."

An uncommon camaraderie that undoubtedly came in handy down the stretch.

"It's a constant balancing act in developing individual skills as well as bringing them together and having them learn how to compete with each other and win together," Dascenzo said. "And that's the one thing that we have accomplished."

Brittany Ghiroli is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.

NFL TV Distribution Maps

Wonko — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:24:25 -0000

NFL TV Distribution Maps

Have you guys seen this before? Being that I don't subscribe to Sunday Ticket I only see games that are broadcast to me on Network TV (Fox and CBS), so it's nice to know what the networks are treating me to each week. It's also kind of fun to try to figure out their logic for how they break up the nation. For example, why did Fox decide that the Eastern part of Maine should see TB/Buf but the western part should see NO/Phi?

Midwest League Championship Game 2

Wonko — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:12:10 -0000

Game 2

Burlington Bees	0
Fort Wayne Tin Caps	2
Box Score

Tin Caps lead series (2-0) Best of 5

Fort Wayne Highlights:

With one out in the 6th Allen Dykstra hit his 2nd home run of the playoffs and made it 2-0. But this game was mainly about pitching...

Game decided by:

Shutting out the Bees was what decided the game. No Fort Wayne pitcher walked a batter and only 4 hits were allowed. Starter Chris Fetter gave up 3 hits and 4 in the first 5 1/3 innings to earn his first playoff win. Nick Greenwood followed that up with 2 innings, 3 K's and only 1 hit allowed. Alexis Lara was perfect for 2/3 IP and Nick Schumacher got the save with a perfect 9th inning.

The Tin Caps will now travel to Burlington and will only return to Fort Wayne for a game 5 (if necessary). Game 3 is at 7:30 Eastern Thursday September 17 and a Fort Wayne would give them the Midwest League Championship.

Midwest League Championship Game 1

Wonko — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:13:16 -0000

Burlington Bees	2
Fort Wayne Tin Caps	6
Box Score

Tin Caps lead series (1-0) Best of 5

Fort Wayne Highlights:

Do you need more highlights than Fort Wayne taking game 1? The bullpen (Alexis Lara, Nick Schumacher and closer Brad Brach) combined for 3 IP, no hits, no walks, no runs, 3 K's. A lights out performance that followed a solid 6 innings, 2 runs and 5 K's by starter Erik Davis.

Game decided by:

The bottom of the 6th was the big offensive inning for the Tin Caps. Cole Figueroa led off the inning with a double and, after a ground out by Allen Dykstra that moved Figueroa to 3rd, Justin Baum followed it up by driving him in with another double to break a 2-2 tie. Fort Wayne continued to rally with a walk by Monday's hero Robert Lara, a Blake Tekotte RBI single and a Dan Robertson RBI single to make it 5-2. The bullpen took over from there.

It was mentioned in comment yesterday that playing a Royals affiliate should make it easy to win this series. That is actually somewhat true. The Bees had a record 64-79, which is not very impressive compared to Fort Wayne's 94-46 record. However, the Bees are defending champs (for whatever that's worth in a league that turns over most of its players year to year), the split the season series with the Tin Caps and they had one of baseball's better pitching prospects on the hill today (Tim Melville). Nevertheless, the Tin Caps lead the series 1-0 and are now only 2 wins from the championship.

Week One DVOA Rankings

Wonko — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:01:09 -0000

Week One DVOA Rankings

Chargers actually did better than I thought. They came out slightly above average. Right on par with a team that would go 8-8 or 9-7. The Raiders came out as below average, I'm guess a lot of that had to do with that abysmal passing game. I guess I should have known better. Still, not what I want from this team, but it ain't so bad.