Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Win Shares
A win share is a sabermetric neo-stat created by Moneyballers to assess a players' value to his team. You'll find it detailed on many SABRSites, such as Baseball Propsectus and The Hardball Times. For an old, but good, explation of win shares, click here.
Supposedly, a good way to project a team's wins in the upcoming year is to add up all their players' win shares from the previous season. 2005 win shares can be found here.
Using this team projection formula, I have been able to estimate that the Yankees will win 105 games in 2006, the Mets 89, the Phillies 83, and the Braves 76. Take it for what it's worth.
I'll get to a few more teams in the next few days.
Yuksaku Iriki, Miracle Man
Above is NY Mets pitcher Yusaku Iriki, who Omar Minaya was so impressed by that he gave him a major league contract, thus losing Aarom Baldiris on waivers to the Rangers. Check out Iriki's website, and listen to the background music while you're at it.
Supposedly, a good way to project a team's wins in the upcoming year is to add up all their players' win shares from the previous season. 2005 win shares can be found here.
Using this team projection formula, I have been able to estimate that the Yankees will win 105 games in 2006, the Mets 89, the Phillies 83, and the Braves 76. Take it for what it's worth.
I'll get to a few more teams in the next few days.
Yuksaku Iriki, Miracle Man
Above is NY Mets pitcher Yusaku Iriki, who Omar Minaya was so impressed by that he gave him a major league contract, thus losing Aarom Baldiris on waivers to the Rangers. Check out Iriki's website, and listen to the background music while you're at it.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
End Of An Era
Well, it ended in reality on October 2, but Mike Piazza is officially done as a Met as Ken Rosenthal reports Piazza has agreed to a deal with the San Diego Padres.
The Mets go to San Diego from April 20-23 (Thursday-Sunday) and host the Pads from August 8-10 (Tuesday-Thursday). I'll make a pilgrimage out to Shea that week to see Mike play one more time.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Farewell, Anna
The Mets dealing Kris Benson to Balitmore for a retread reliever certainly isn't an attempt to make the team better. It's to, a) Dump $15 million, and b) Dump Anna Benson.Sure, Anna's a right-wing nut (read some of the pro-gun rants on her website) who's a loose cannon and will be in Playboy by this time next year. But Kris Benson is a decent starter, which isn't easy to come by these days, and to only receive Jorge Julio (5.90 ERA in 2005) and John Maine (6.30 ERA in 2005) is a travesty.
We're a New York team, right? We generate boatloads of revenue, we pour money into the team at every turn so Omar can make this team better. The idea isn't to have the team dump a decent starter just to save money and get rid of a divisive figure.
More than likely, every player involved in this trade will pitch poorly in 2006. Maine is unproven, Julio isn't any good, and Benson will struggle in Camden: he gave up 24 home runs in 28 starts, while in the National League and pitching at Grand Canyon East, Shea Stadium, for half of his starts. Now that he faces the Yankees and Red Sox every week in a bandbox, he will start looking like a slimmed-down, better-looking Sidney Ponson on the mound.
One positive to take from Julio, possibly, is his K:BB ratio. Statheads proclaim this the best measure of future performance, and Julio's was a very decent 58:24 in 2005. Maybe he'll get some people out at Shea.
Or more likely, not.
Farewell, Anna!
Monday, January 09, 2006
Rev It Up
I walked outside today at about 10:00 AM, and I made an observation: it was goddamn warm. Now, it's only in the 50's today in suburban New York, but it feels warmer. The temperature, and the smell, made me think of something:
Baseball.
Now, writing about the offseason is a bore, and I don't have all that much time in the winter anyway (comparitively,) so I didn't write. But we're about to get started again for 2006.
What did 2005 hold for me, personally? It was tough. Emotionally, the toughest thing I've ever been through unfolded for me -- twice.
But baseball provided a salvation. The Mets were watchable again, for the first time in 5 years, and gave us some glimmers of hope. David Wright is wicked; Pedro looked like, well, Pedro; Beltran blew, but you can't win 'em all; and so on.
All signs point to 2006 being even better in Flushing. The bullpen is better, Pedro can't pitch in the WBC because of his toe, Wright and Jose Reyes are a year older, and so on.
The same can't be said about our associates up in Beantown, as the Sox are seemingly looking at a steep fall. Maybe even to third place in the AL East, after Toronto had a spendy offseason. But we'll root our asses off for them, because we're good people.
I'll be making some predictions after the offseason winds down and we hit February. They'll be done through our syndicate. I'll place that link in the NavBar, so nobody gets lost.
Get pumped for '06. It's coming.
Baseball.
Now, writing about the offseason is a bore, and I don't have all that much time in the winter anyway (comparitively,) so I didn't write. But we're about to get started again for 2006.
What did 2005 hold for me, personally? It was tough. Emotionally, the toughest thing I've ever been through unfolded for me -- twice.
But baseball provided a salvation. The Mets were watchable again, for the first time in 5 years, and gave us some glimmers of hope. David Wright is wicked; Pedro looked like, well, Pedro; Beltran blew, but you can't win 'em all; and so on.
All signs point to 2006 being even better in Flushing. The bullpen is better, Pedro can't pitch in the WBC because of his toe, Wright and Jose Reyes are a year older, and so on.
The same can't be said about our associates up in Beantown, as the Sox are seemingly looking at a steep fall. Maybe even to third place in the AL East, after Toronto had a spendy offseason. But we'll root our asses off for them, because we're good people.
I'll be making some predictions after the offseason winds down and we hit February. They'll be done through our syndicate. I'll place that link in the NavBar, so nobody gets lost.
Get pumped for '06. It's coming.
