I remember last year's criticism of the Seattle Seahawks: "No team with a losing record should be in the playoffs!"  This is probably true.  In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that every team should hit a minimum standard before they reach the playoffs.  Why should 8-8 division winners go when the occasional 10-6 team stays home without a wild card berth?

And so, I offer up an alternate playoff system.  It's simple: Every team that reaches ten wins gets to go to the playoffs.  Every team with nine or fewer wins stays home.  Elegant in its simplicity.  You can even keep the current division structure, which would facilitate existing rivalries.

I can think of a few objections to this:

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I swung tickets for tonight's game.  (They're cheap for this series!)  My wife and I are dropping the kids with grandma and heading to the game.  We're going to roll into the area around Safeco around 5:00-5:30 tonight.  I'd like to find a place to eat around the ballpark.  It's been about five years since I've stopped around the park for dinner, and I'm sure stuff has changed since then.  Preferably, somewhere we can go in, and have a nice, sit-down meal.  It's date night, after all.

I've eaten at the Pyramid Ale House before and like it.  We might try and get in there.  Anyone else have any recommendations for places around the ballpark?

I'm looking at the difference between WPA and wRAA as a tool for measuring leverage. 

Background: I've got a coworker who has argued that Ichiro's hits come "when they don't matter."  I don't believe this is true and I'd like to test the hypothesis.  I think the best way to do this is WPA vs. wRAA.  My understanding is that wRAA is a straight linear-weights, context neutral stat that includes plate appearances, stolen bases, and caught stealing.  WPA only uses the same events, but is entirely context-dependent.  Taking the difference between the two should yield an answer on whether a player's contributions come in low-leverage moments.

I'm using Fangraphs as my data source, because they're awesome.

However, I have a couple of questions on the use of these stats to make sure that I'm doing this properly.

First: Do they, in fact, cover the same events?  (Or so close that I can get away with it.)

Second:  Which wRAA do I use?  There's the wRAA that's listed as such on Fangraphs, but then there's the batting component of WAR listed at the bottom of the page.  They're different, and it looks like the batting component of WAR is park-adjusted; should I use that?

Third: What's the conversion factor?  I know that +10 wRAA = 1 win.  And +0.50 WPA = 1 win.  So 10 wRAA = 0.50 WPA, and I can work the conversion from there, yes?  But then I start going around about the math and wonder if +10 wRAA gets you from 81-81 to 82-80, and is thus worth +1.00 WPA.  (And I'm aware that 10 runs = 1 win is a convenient abstraction, and the actual run value varies a bit from year-to-year.  And I'm wondering if that's significant enough that I need to account for it, or if I can use the standard 10 runs = 1 win.)

Or, am I attacking this problem from an entirely wrong angle, and there's a better way to do the analysis?  (Or even someone who's done the legwork for me, and I can point to the results?)

Thanks in advance for the help with the questions.

This is the most common draft order that I've been seeing.  It's got the Seahawks at six, and then again at fourteen using Denver's pick.

We need to thank the nice people in Kansas City for beating Denver this weekend, which gave the 'Hawks a mid-teens pick instead of a pick down in the 18-20 range.  Plus, Cleveland won on Sunday, which moved the Seahawks up from seven to six.  Wasn't that nice of them?

So now we get to start rampant draft speculation.  Who's that top-six player the 'Hawks get at #6?  And then who do they look to get at fourteen and thirty-eight?

(If I might indulge in a little wishcasting of my own: I hope that the 'Hawks pick up a defensive lineman, an offensive lineman, and a quarterback with their top three picks.  I'm less concerned about the order that they come up with 'em, but I think those are the three positions that the Seahawks need to invest in.)

Mike Tanier, in this week's Walkthrough on Football Outsiders asks, "What Do I Know?"

It's an interesting and useful question.  Because really, what separates Tanier from the rest of us?  The ability and willingness to sit down and immerse himself in football for hours on end, and then share what he's learned with us.  Tanier makes the point that he's only got a 5-10% advantage over the rest of us in his ability to research information and spit it back to us.

Indeed, he says, "Anyone could do this, by being a committed researcher."  Like, say, John Morgan, who's made the leap from "anonymous blogger" to "dedicated and informed commenter" by some serious research and football-watching.  And all the better for us, who get to read his great commentary.

Just watch out, John.  The next guy's looking over your shoulder, and he's got the tools to be you.

Surprised nobody's mentioned this one yet.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is pushing for a longer NFL season.

Goodell wants a 17 or 18 game season, with fewer preseason games.  Says the Commish: "A key point is the fans also recognize players they want to see are not in those preseason games; that’s why they are not attractive. They want to see those players play.”

Obviously, huge issues to work out with the NFLPA and the rest of the league.  I doubt this gets done for the 2009 season, or even 2010.  It is, however, a real possibility as part of the 2011 season, assuming Goodell avoids a strike.

(And how, you ask, does the league get a 17 game season?  Easy.  Each team plays one game at a neutral site, and this gives the NFL a chance to move some more games to international locations.)

The NFL has a quarterback problem.  To wit: Nobody in the NFL has the least idea what makes for a successful professional quarterback.  Back in December, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article for The New Yorker talking about The Quarterback Problem.  An excerpt:

But Couch was a flop in the pros. It wasn't that professional quarterbacks didn't need to be accurate. It was that the kind of accuracy required to do the job well could be measured only in a real N.F.L. game.

Gladwell weaves it in to talking about a couple other professions where it's been very difficult to predict future success: teaching and financial advice.

When we start talking about the Seahawks' draft, this is a good point to keep in mind: Nobody really knows what predicts future success in an NFL quarterback.  It'd be great if the Seahawks could find gold in a QB at the top of the draft, but it isn't a given.  Drafting quarterbacks is an inherently risky proposition.

Slate has an excellent article today talking about solutions to the NFL's overtime coin toss problem.

Simply put: The team that wins the toss in overtime wins the game about 60% of the time.  In the '08 season, that number was 70%.  And we all remember that Peyton Manning never saw the field against the Chargers in the first round of the playoffs.  The NFL's OT system has to change.

I always appreciate well-designed systems that use good incentives to promote optimal solutions.  It's one reason that the study of economics appeals.  And the suggestions in this article include methods that would balance overtime and create tension (and thus entertainment!) for the viewing public.