SB Nation User Blog: obsessivegiantscompulsive

Lincecum for Cy Young: Ballot Stuffing

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:45:38 -0000

I have a crazy idea but don't the time to deal with it, so I thought I would post this here in case anyone is as crazy (or more so) than I am.

I don't know who are the two NL beat writers who get to vote from each NL city for the Cy Young award, but what if someone puts together a nice Tim LIncecum stats package, find and post the beat writers e-mail addresses, and a number of interested Giants fans reading this would e-mail this stats package to each voter, perhaps we can influence the vote.

The genesis of this scheme is the common refrain I've heard over and over again about Lincecum's chances: he should win BUT the voters might not even be familiar with Lincecum's achievements, particularly the East Coast writers, other than that stats that show up in newspapers, wins, strikeouts. By a number of us sending such information, hopefully one gets through to the writer and he's informed.

Don't know if this would work, but it would sure be a heck of a story for the Internet age.

I would nominate Sharkrog to write up the standard boiler plate letter except that he might be too busy too.

OT: Pulse Smartpen

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:32:17 -0000

When I saw the ad for this product here, I just had to post about it.

This is absolutely amazing technology. Check out the demo videos at www.livescribe.com. This is the adult version of the Fly Pen that is targeted at kids. The pen's sweet spot is aimed mainly, I think, at college students, but they are also marketing it at business people because it would work fine in business settings, like at a conference or business meeting.

Basically anywhere you need to write down notes from a speaker, but sometimes (often on my part) miss something interesting or perhaps even can't hear that well.

I just got mine yesterday. The technology basically links up an audio recording with the text you write on their special paper which is encoded with tiny dots (giving the paper an off-white color) that has a unique pattern such that the computer, using the tiny camera near the tip of your pen, knows which sheet of which notebook you are writing on. Both are electronically recorded so that you can post both of them on-line to share with others. That includes the words and graphs and other drawings you make on the notebook - once you start the recording.

I haven't used it yet in a live circumstance. But the demos they have are awesome. WIth the pen they provide headphone/microphones so that you can record in 3D sound. I haven't heard this in action yet, though.

So, how it works is that you start the recording by tapping the pen on the special encoded drawing of the Record command button at the bottom of the page (all basic controls that you would expect of any recording and playback device is printed at the bottom of every sheet). Then, as you write down your notes, including drawings, it records the audio as well. When you are done you click on the Stop button. Now the fun begins.

Now lets say you remember that at one point the speaker said something you know you didn't write down, at a chart you drew in your notes. You click on the chart (or word you know you were at in your notes) and the pen's speaker will boom out to you the recording starting from that point. Like any recording, you can start, stop, jump around (fast forward/backward), even replay last 10 seconds. All so that you can catch every word said.

Another neat feature, which they claim but I haven't verified yet based on my own crappy handwriting, but it is suppose to be able to search on your written notes for words. That way, you don't have to flip your pages to search, you just use the computer.

Which brings me to another thing. Obviously, you can't do much to the content with a pen interface and a tiny OLED screen on the pen, so they have a dock that downloads all your Sessions to your computer. Once it is on the computer, that is when you can do the search of your notes.

And they also give you space to download your Sessions on-line and share with others. And you are suppose to be able to use the pen to click on the screen (I guess you switch to a stylus at that point so you don't ruin your screen) as if it was your actual notebook and do the same replay of the audio at that point of the notebook.

They have also provided printed interfaces to a calculator, with scientific, statistical, and financial functions, to a keyboard (not sure what that is for yet), and to a piano application where you can draw out the keys on a piece of paper and then can "play" your piano by tapping on the keys you just drew out. But that is it for now, though they plan on having other applications available for sale in the future, perhaps by other companies/people creating applications for the pen (that is their hope at least).

Reportedly, they at some point will allow you to be able to print out the note paper on a printer, which will kill some of their business selling notebooks, so I can see why they are delayed in releasing that. In addition, they have promised a translation application that can take your written word and provide you a translation into another language, which you can hear off the pen.

Now, one negative I found on-line while investigating this product, and it is kind of puzzling they didn't deal with it, but the pen has no clip or anything that will prevent the pen from rolling off the table. It is a round cylinder and it will roll. Some reviewers were down on that, but the company does provide a pen holder case that you can stick your pen in, plus if you attach the headphone to the top, that also helps stop it from rolling. But yeah, I can see it being an inconvenience,

Another negative is that there is currently no way to go beyond the notebook they provide and the 4 pack spiral notebooks they sell. Each notebook has a color and unique identifier, but if you bought another set, when you write in the, say, red notebook, your old notes for the red notebook will get written over with your new notes, giving you double notes overwriting each other. I assume they will get this fixed at some point, otherwise you would have to delete all your old notes in order to move to a new set of 4 spiral notebooks. Also, if you have 5 classes that you need to take notes for, you are out of luck.

For $150 for a 1Gig SmartPen, $199 for 2Gig, that is a pretty good price for the technology I think. Plus $20 for a 4 pack of spiral notebooks, $25 for 2 pack of journals (hardbound), $6 for extra pen ink cartridges. But you do start off with one notebook and two spare ink refills, so you can wait a bit before getting the rest if you want.

I normally don't buy first generation technology, but I am obsessive about note taking so I am hoping this will help me catch every word in my meetings. They had promised 3-4 weeks for delivery but they basically sent me mine in a little over 2 weeks, which I think is pretty good; people had been complaining on-line about slow delivery, but I was very satisfied, though it would have been nice if they sent me an e-mail notifiying me it was shipped. However, they did provide a tracking function on-line that I didn't notice until after I got the pen, so it is up to you to check periodically.

Here's an Idea...

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:10:17 -0000

With the Ecko website stirring up debate on Bonds and the 756 ball, apparently the owner of 755 is copying Ecko with a website of their own, called End The Debate, which offers a vote to, what else, "end the debate" and voters can vote just Hall of Fame or destroy it.

Call me naive but I still think it's unproven whether Bonds deliberately took steroids or not. It appears that he might have been fed them but was not aware - it could also have been a nudge-nudge-wink-wink type of deal as well. Nobody knows.

No matter how you feel about the situation, as baseball fans, we should at least feel that these balls are part of history, good or bad, else we should go out and burn Shoeless Joe Jackson's collectibles, and probably all the racists and 'nare-do-wells who populated the league before the Babe made everything legit. Heck, if we take the logic far enough, we should blot out the history of baseball pre-Jackie Robinson, as players could have fought to include non-whites, just as much as owners could have, so even if they weren't racist, they were supporting racist behavior. But that won't make it go away.

So I've been voting to save Bonds's balls and encourage anyone reading this to do likewise. Again, good or bad, they are a part of baseball history and we should preserve them, as destroying them would not remove what happened in history, anymore than, say, destroying Nazi artifacts would make their blot on history go away.

Plus, obviously both sites are trying to make money off of their investment in the balls. At least Ecko's site provides two ways of saving the ball - the Hall of Fame could always position the "*" away from the viewer. The other site is clearly commercial, and by making it a yea or nay vote, clearly it will be smashed since there are a lot of anti-Bonds fans out there.

Preserve baseball history, vote for the Hall of Fame:

http://www.vote756.com/marcecko/
http://endthedebate.com/

Rebuilding the Giants: hindsight

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:06:10 -0000

OK, I've been in a debate with Boof about the Giants and he brought up something I had to see if others agreed with him or not, which was when the Giants should have rebuilt.

His statement, quote, was "Most everyone seems to recognize that the rebuilding of this team is going to take a long time. It's a process that should've started in earnest after the 2002 season."

Do people really believe that?

That would mean that you are rebuilding:

the season after going to the World Series,
one season after signing Bonds to a huge contract, and
after two of the best seasons ever by a ballplayer, Boof either relegates Bonds to a rebuilding program that will most likely last to the end of his contract OR trade Bonds as part of the rebuilding program.

I don't understand that. But maybe my mind is getting skewed by our ongoing arguments and I'm not seeing things straight, so I have to see if I'm seeing things correctly or not, to see what others think.

Poll

Would you have rebuilt after 2002?

Yes

16 votes

No

94 votes

110 votes | Poll has closed

Sabean signed to two year extension with option

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:55:04 -0000

Read it and celebrate/weep (depends on your inclination): http://mlb.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20070713&content_id=2084034&vke y=pr_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf

Oddly enough, the bottom part looks like what I wrote in some of the comment threads. :^)

I understanding being upset over the way the last few seasons have gone, but to throw the baby out with the water when he has rebuilt the pitching staff seems extreme to me. He had many years of success, then was hamstrung by lousy draft position due to that success and by poor free agent availability.

Whatever. He's signed now so the banshees can wail now....

Linden has been waived to AAA

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 00:01:38 -0000

And this time, nobody claimed him.

Not a surprise, they had all sorts of opportunity to play him (I have Cabrera, Willingham, and Hermida on my fantasy roster), and they always played someone else. They just wanted to acquire him for nothing, so they used the MLB spot on their roster to get him, hold him for a while, then send him down, viola, instant free prospect.

Well, be careful what you wish for.

Poll

Who will stick in the majors first?

Todd Linden

5 votes

Lance Niekro

4 votes

Wendell Fairley

53 votes

62 votes | Poll has closed

I'm Rooting for Frandsen, But Really...

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 02:16:29 -0000

I've been staying away but I couldn't hold my tongue on this one. I like Frandsen, I'm rooting for him with all my heart, but he hasn't shown enough in the minors yet.

I was reading a discussion of Frandsen's merits and one poster opined that with a career mid-400 SLG in the minors, that is good, because even if that drops to the low .400 range in the majors, that would be pretty good. And that if Frandsen could get his OBP to the major league average of around .340 and get an OPS of mid-.700, then he would be a top 2B. And if I had a goose that could lay a golden egg, I would own the Giants.

This poster shows his ignorance of how strong a hitters league the PCL is and how much the minors can boost a hitters stats. This would be like thinking Brian Dallimore would be a good addition to the Giants just because he won the PCL hitting title while playing for Fresno.

Making MLE equivalents was created by Bill James and is an widely accepted tool for judging how well a hitter actually did in the minors, whereby his minor league stats are translated into its equivalent MLB stats. A number of the major baseball books publishes MLEs for players, particularly Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Forecaster. So it is a well understood and accepted concept.

Last season, Frandsen hit .304/.358/.440/.799 in the PCL, which looks pretty good on the surface. And more importantly, it is close to Frandsen's career SLG of .453, so one would think therefore that his MLE translation for the PCL should be a close enough proxy for translating his career numbers to the majors.

But his MLE equivalent for the PCL in 2006 is only .273/.315/.379/.694. That's Neifi territory without the defense. See here: http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/pl/435/435623FrePCLb06.html

So no, just because he has been hitting what looks like a good batting rate in the minors, it does not mean that he's going to hit well in the majors, the leap is that great, as the translation shows. For a stark example of how this type of thinking can bite you in the ass, Pedro Feliz hit .298/.337/.571/.908 when he was 25 in the PCL - Frandsen was 24 last season.

However, I would take heart that he did push up his walk rate in the AFL, though as another poster noted, there were not that many ABs there. Still, despite there being only 85 AB/101 PA, he had as many walks (12) in 101 PA in the AFL as he did in the PCL in 321 PA. Yes, small sample, but to match it in 220 less PA? Got to be very encouraging. But now he has to prove that this is a real improvement in 2007, not a statistical aberration.

Lastly, it was noted that power develops last, if at all, and most sources I have read says that power starts kicking in around 26-28 (see Lance Niekro), then improves as the player reaches his physical peak from 28-32 (many disagreements over when peak is, this is roughly what I have seen). Who knows, maybe Kevin goes on a weight training plan and builds up muscles and starts zinging doubles into the corners and alleys. But right now, he is not that powerful a hitter, as evidenced by his low SLG, on an MLE equivalent basis (106 secondary average).

The consensus has been that Frandsen is a utility MI. The consensus has been wrong before.

I hope he makes it though, great story, sounds like a great person, has a great attitude, has done well in the minors, ya gotta root for him. But he's not there yet and you just have to take heart that he's been advancing every year to a new level. Hopefully he puts it all together.

Personally, I like what Goldstein did with his Top 10 list, showing the various dimensions you want to look at a prospect from, and giving some indication of how good he is relative to other prospects. I enjoyed it very much, best prospect breakdown I've ever seen in a compact format.

Hot Stove Show, KNBR 12/7

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:58:04 -0000

Notes from the show, available off sfgiants.com if you want a listen.

Biggest news: Giants seriously pursuing Zito

Notes:

Damon Bruce says he spoke to some Giants officials with knowledge of the situation and supposedly the Giants are still hot after Barry Zito.

JT Interview: what's he's going to do for Giants

Dave Fleming calling in:

- Agrees with fans wondering how much better did the Giants get while losing Alou and Schmidt
- Heard from a Giants official that the Giants interest in Zito is very strong, heard this from a reliable source. Interest is very serious, but obviously not a sure thing, depends on how bidding unfolds.
- Crazy what overpay means now, better to pay for quality like Zito than average level players. He is not the best pitcher out there but will be paid like it, however, he is one of the top pitchers around.

* Todd Linden interview:
- Playing winter league in Puerto Rico for Mayaguy team. Hitting .373, 4th highest in league, 20 games, 15 runs, 67 ABs, 25 hits, 4 HR, 16 BB.
- Came down to get ABs and to stay in shape
- Want to get a good approach, get good pitches to hit.
- Bochy did call him, but missed each other
- Home is near Seattle, WA, going back soon for Christmas

* Duane Kuiper interview

This confirms the rumors that the Chronicle noted about Giants seriously seeking Zito.

I hope that they are serious about chasing Zito, but does it strike anyone else as weird that there is so much news about who the Giants are pursuing? Usually most of this is kept on the down low until we are close to getting the player. I wonder if this was all PR that the Giants did to show to the fans that they are trying but not succeeding to sign young players.

I also wonder if this could be pay back to Boras for the Villalona incident. Boras was threatening to sue the Giants over it but then suddenly went silent after being hot and heavy. It could have been because it would have been suicide to sue a possible client over a deal gone sour, killing any chance of representing another Latin player. But maybe the Giants agreed to "pursue" Zito to give Boras leverage in the actual bidding, as payback for not being sued for Villalona?

Just a fleeting thought, who knows... :^)

Giants Hot Stove League Nov 30 on KNBR: Damon Bruce Needs to Read Here Daily

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 01:21:41 -0000

Broadcast available for now on http://www.sfgiants.com under their Sights and Sounds section in middle of the webpage (its a javascript link so I'm not sure how to link to it from here) Damon Bruce and Dave Fleming host.

Have to get this off my chest first: among Damon Bruce's first statements is that he wonders why the Giants haven't made a bigger effort to sign some players now, like Feliz and Hillenbrand, in order to secure some spots.

@*#!#$!#%! Don't be the host of the Giants Hot Stove League show and say something stupid like this!!!!! If he all he did was read the SF Chronicle and SJ Mercury daily, or better yet, read HERE, he would know why: Feliz's agent was asking for the world and after bragging about the interest in his client, came back, hat in hand, hoping the Giants would sign Feliz for one year at $4M. Besides which, if he read any of the threads here, he would know how bad Feliz (and Hillenbrand) really is.

Dave Fleming was great, he clearly disagreed, but did it so diplomatically, simply stating that Feliz is not that good a hitter and the Giants are making a good faith effort to improve the team, not settle. Plus I think he later noted that Hillenbrand clearly did not play well here and the team was disappointed, so while they had interest to sign him originally, that has waned.

My notes, for those who don't have the time or don't care to listen:

Dave was asked what his thoughts on Bonds was. He thinks he is returning but not inevitable yet, clearly the Giants are searching elsewhere and not making him a priority. However, with each signing of a big bat to another team, Bonds look closer and closer to returning.

Dave does not think Schmidt is returning, though that's not set in stone yet. He felt Schmidt had a problem with Felipe for a number of years now, but obviously he's gone now. Says the Giants are thinking that Cain has the skills to take over as the ace of the staff, though he won't replace Schmidt necessarily.

Bruce Bochy interview.

Bruce and Brian speak daily, to give his input. He would not go into specifics, so I assume that he has minimal power over shaping the roster, though I'm sure he can make suggestions or show interests.

About how he treats young pitchers, he thinks that the most important thing is to let them know that they have the manager's support. He then lists all the young pitchers he handled on the staff last season: Peavy, Young, Meredith, Hensley. For the future, he's a pitching and defense type of guy.

About Lincecum, Dave notes that he heard from sources that Lincecum will get a chance to make the team in Spring Training, then asks Bochy for his thoughts. Bochy says that it depends on the situation. Specifically about Tim, Bochy thinks he's a tremendous talent. His philosophy is that he would like to see the kid get used and develop, but players adjust at different speeds, and some are slow, like Dustin Hermanson. Then he notes that Lincecum is above average in tools and makeup, from what he hears.

About Matheny, Dave notes that here's two old catchers, must have a lot to talk about, have they spoken. Bochy says he has, but don't know where he is yet in his recovery. Want to work with him but health comes first. Hopefully Matheny will come in during spring training and they will see where he is.

Bochy apologizes for not giving many answers but notes that things should clear up regarding the roster over the next two weeks, particularly after the GM meetings.

Lastly, Dave Fleming afterward notes that Bochy gave a good answer to his question about young pitching, then notes the other big question for Bochy is that it is clear that the team will be lacking HR power and may need to generate runs, so how does he see that happening. Obviously, things will become a little clearer after the GM meetings.

Sorry if the notes are off or jumbly, but I just listened to it once and wrote furiously, but I think I got the gish of everything. There were other questions asked by callers later in the show but none were interesting enough for me to take notes.

Stats Show More IP Increased, The Better

obsessivegiantscompulsive — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 02:27:49 -0000

Someone noted before here, don't recall exactly who, in one of Steve's diaries that one should not increase a pitcher's load of IP more than 20-30 IP per year or risk blowing out his arm and/or harming his development. Someone on The Hardball Times take aim at that "rule of thumb" with some data - apparently Tom Verducci is also a believer of this rule and therefore disses Matt Cain: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-year-after-effect/

He ran his study two ways, trying to answer any objections one might have over the population of pitchers encompassed in either dataset and came to this conclusion: that rule is a bunch of hooey.

Or in his words: "But the evidence points to the opposite. Pitchers who see a large increase in workload are more likely to continue to be successful than those who don't. It's important to remember that correlation does not mean causation--just because throwing a lot more innings than a pitcher ever has before is correlated with future success does not mean that managers should be riding their young pitchers hard--but it does imply that Verducci's argument is incorrect, and there is absolutely no reason that we should expect these YAE candidates to do worse because they've overworked."

That fits with what a number of us thought, that this rule didn't pass the smell test, but it is always nice when the numbers support you too! :^)