SB Nation User Blog: eponymous_coward

Nunc dimittis

eponymous_coward — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:11:58 -0000

Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace:
Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum
Quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum:
Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae Israel.

Counting up M's Strengths

"Jack has a relentless pursuit of being right," Allison said. "He understands the whole aspect of a player, and that there are many different lenses through which to view a player.

"One of his first hires [in Milwaukee] was bringing in Tony Blengino, a complete Bill James disciple. Jack brought him into the office not only to educate all the staff, but himself. To him, it's just part of the different brushes that complete a player."

Blengino, 44, had caught Zduriencik's attention as an author of a series of books on minor-league prospects, a project that required him to scout and evaluate young players. But Blengino says he learned far more from Zduriencik than the other way around.

"When it comes to evaluation, no one's better," Blengino said. "Just the fact he took a chance on a guy like me with an unconventional background shows he's always trying to learn more. ... Jack has never surrounded himself with one-size-fits-all people."

Added Blengino: "Jack's the best at what he does. To me, he's been deserving to have this opportunity as a GM for a long time. He's a great teacher and has incredible passion. His burning passion for the game is readily apparent to everyone who knows Jack."

Why does Tug Hulett suck?

eponymous_coward — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:05:34 -0000

I've been trying to figure this out from his minor league stats, and drawing a blank.

He has a minor league OBP of around .400, and he's consistently beaten his league's OPS in every league he's played in (OK, well, not the American League, but that has a pretty serious Small Sample Size Theatre problem).

On top of that, he's hit for OK power the last couple of years- not great, but 25 HRs means he flashes SOME power. Beats what Princess Willie did in the minors, anyway.

Oh, and he steals bases at a decent clip- about 20 a year at a 76% success rate.

So what's the deal- why does everyone think he's the new WFB? Terrible defense? Bad breath? I don't get it- this guy looks to me like he could give you a year of .270/.350/.380, 15 steals and tolerable defense in the majors for 300 K at 2B. Sign me up, please.

Wow, this is a pretty epic scale of suck.

eponymous_coward — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:14:09 -0000

Mariner C:

.242/.289/.356

Mariner 1B:

.241/.316/.358

Mariner DH's:

.223/.272/.339

MLB 8th place hitters:

.246/.317/.370

Wow, 3 lineup positions where the M's hit worse than a bad middle infielder. Oh, wait, they played Miguel Cairo and Jose Vidro at those positions, didn't they?

And while we're looking at lineup order...

Mariner 6th place hitters:

217/.275/.308

Mariner 7th place hitters:

.229/.294/.365

Mariner 8th place hitters:

.242/.308/.313

Sort of the same thing, but man...

But the suck doesn't end there:

Mariner 4th place hitters, compared to MLB

.250/.328/.413 - .281/.358/.483

And 5th place:

.259/.309/.412- .264/.337/.450

The bottom line is the Mariners have had 4 competent lineup spots for the year (Ichiro, Loafie, Raul and Adrian), and the rest of the lineup is at around a 75 OPS. The old players have been disasters of varying quality (Kenji, Turbo, Cairo, Sexson, Wilkerson, Bloomquist, Burke), and not a single young player has played well, which means they've also been a disaster in aggregate (Yuni, Clement, Reed, LaHair, Tuglett).

All that being said, between the facts that several positions are below replacement level, the M's this year are below their Pythag projections for W-L (-6), and as a group, their under-peak players (the young players mentioned above+ Loafie) should improve means it shouldn't be too hard to take this group into a 70-75 win team next year (think what Bavasi did between 2004 and 2005), so that's not the correct standard to evaluate whoever gets brought in- basically, pure dumb craps table luck should regress the 2009 Mariners to the mean. It's how far they go PAST the 70-75 or so win mark and how the team is set up for 2010 that we should judge the job our new GM is doing.

See, THIS is what Baker does best.

eponymous_coward — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:50:13 -0000

Giving insight into the clubhouse.

It's full of all the little details that you can't get unless you're a beat writer- player reactions, detail and so on. Baker's a fine beat writer. It's just when he tries to start doing roster analysis that he turns into a big pile of FAIL.

So Geoff, if you're listening, stick to this kind of stuff, and try not to play armchair GM, OK?

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

eponymous_coward — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:36:17 -0000

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

Going by the sabermetric stat Runs Accounted For, Ibanez has accounted for 25 percent of Seattle's runs this season, the highest percentage of a team's runs contributed by an AL player. The formula for RAF: (runs plus RBIs) minus home runs.

Reporting a bug got me an SMTP bounceback

eponymous_coward — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:07:04 -0000

This is the mail system at host smtp.dailykos.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

                   The mail system

<bugreport@sbnation.com>: host mail.satanosphere.com[69.9.170.114] said: 550
    <bugreport@sbnation.com>: Recipient address rejected: Mail appeared to be
    SPAM or forged. Ask your Mail/DNS-Administrator to correct HELO and DNS MX
    settings or to get removed from DNSBLs; in postmaster.rfc-ignorant.org; in
    abuse.rfc-ignorant.org (in reply to RCPT TO command)

Bug report was

New contact from sbnation.com:

Subject: Bug in URL handling
Department: Support

Name: (me)
Email: (my email)

Comments:
You seem to have an issue where a double dash in a URL ruins the URL.

The URL I tried to use was:

www.faniq.com/video/1968-World-Series--Bob-Gibson--Classic-MLB-Footage--Harry-Caray--YouTube-3511

In this SB Nation Fanpost here:

http://www.lookoutlanding.com/2008/8/7/588879/tim-lincecum-vs-felix-hern

You see that the -- isn't escaped. Is this some sort of code for SB Nation formatting or something?

This team is SO STUPID

eponymous_coward — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:16:19 -0000

This team is SO STUPID

[Jared] Wells has a 96-mph fastball, but after a 2007 conversion from starter to reliever, he goes much more often to his slider and his split-finger. The Mariners are considering moving him back to a starting role because of the quality of his pitches and because with J.J. Putz and Brandon Morrow, they are well stocked with closers.

Welcome to False Hope. Population: Seattle Mariners.

eponymous_coward — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:47:28 -0000

I think it was inevitable, the Mariners getting on a mild hot streak, as they just simply aren't a 100-loss team without some severe extenuating circumstances. Really, if you compare the 2004 and 2008 rosters, it's pretty obvious which team is better (if still flawed), and which team is complete garbage.

The concern has to be that the junta in charge of the Mariners, Lincoln and Armstrong, does what they inevitably do and commits another fundamental attribution error regarding the nature of the 2008 Mariners, thinking that installing Pelekoudas and Riggleman made this team into a contender. I'd have to say that given the past history at work here, this is a definite possibility. It's very easy to live in a certain river in Egypt when you're writing $110 million dollars in payroll checks, and not so easy to reject your ways of thinking when you think "hey, we built a 116 win team this way" (completely missing the fact of that 116 win team having a great accumulation of talent), especially since Pelekoudas is likely to be quite comfortable in an organization he's worked in for almost 30 years (and vice versa).

Let's hope that El Jefes Lincoln and Armstrong DO decide to blow it up, and come this offseason, we're looking at a roster minus the Washburns and with the extra flexibility for a "new-look" GM who's comfortable with advanced analysis. Because God Help Us All if all tanking 2008 gets us is More of the Same.

Time for another facepalm

eponymous_coward — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:15:49 -0000

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/2008/06/nothing_is_off_limits.html

Armstrong was asked if the team was less likely to be active at the trade deadline, given an interim GM.

"Not necessarily,'' he said. "But we might be active the other way. We may, instead of trying to acquire players, we may find some good fits where we can help ourselves.''

Armstrong said that "we're already looking ahead to the future'' and told me afterwards that he'll be keeping a closer eye that usual on all player moves made under interim GM Lee Pelekoudas.

Yeah, I can see how THAT'S going to help things. If only Bavasi had taken Armstrong's advice on not trading Carl- or signing Joh-, well, it's not like Armstrong was around when we traded Lowe and Varitek for Slo-

Oh, Christ, we're going to be boned at the deadline, aren't we?

Progress

eponymous_coward — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:24:29 -0000

Everyone remember Geoff Baker and how hard it was to get him to take defensive stats seriously?

Well...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2004458624_mari05.html

Some ills that have ailed the Mariners are easier to diagnose than others. Four regular starters are hitting .236 or poorer, including Jose Vidro and Adrian Beltre, Wednesday's fourth and fifth hitters. Three-fifths of the rotation has an ERA of 5.90 or higher. And the Mariners rank last in the American League in defensive efficiency.

I can remember the 1980's, when on-base percentage and slugging percentage weren't well known compared to batting average. Progress, folks, progress.

SB Nation User Blog: eponymous_coward

Nunc dimittis

Why does Tug Hulett suck?

Wow, this is a pretty epic scale of suck.

See, THIS is what Baker does best.

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

Reporting a bug got me an SMTP bounceback

This team is SO STUPID

This team is SO STUPID

Welcome to False Hope. Population: Seattle Mariners.

Time for another *facepalm*

Progress

Time for another facepalm