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Seahawks - Redskins GameDay

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... well, okay, "Talking Points," not GameDay, probably.  I been reading too many traffic-seducing Euro soccer headlines. Guess I shoulda went with "Is Walter Jones Preparing to Play This Sunday?!", followed by an article mentioning that he's not.

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=== Point ===

Dr. D will be watching the Vikings-Packers playoff game with more interest than almost any NFL game this year, that didn't involve the Seahawks.

Not only is this the most traditional rivalry left standing in 2012, but ... Minny has a decent chance of beating the Packers, with Adrian Peterson running the ball in cold weather, and if so, they have a good chance of beating the overrated Falcons. 

And if that occurs, the NFC championship game, Minnesota-Seattle at CLink, would be a Seahawks bye into the Super Bowl.  Having a bye during the NFC championship game would be ... valuable.

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=== CounterPoint ===

SSI fears for the officiating this Sunday.  Not everybody realizes that the Redskins are one of the most valuable sports franchises on the globe, sometimes THE most valuable.  Over the past decade the race has been between Manchester United, the Yankees, the Redskins, and a couple of other teams.

The furore over the Redskins' glamor (?) season has been preposterous.  And when the New York Knicks are making a lunge for a championship, the refereeing they get in Madison Square Garden makes the games there unwatchable.

Complicating this, the NFL is going to be royally ticked off about Richard Sherman's In-Yo-Face to their drug testing.  ... we read that the 2005 Super Bowl was fixed, which it was in my humble opinion, precisely because the NFL was annoyed at Mike Holmgren breaking code and mouthing off about things he shouldn't have.  Dr. D nevvvvvverrrrr underestimates the seaminess of NFL back-stage dealing.

Tout Wars and Safeco Field

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Cory Schwartz won this year's mixed Tout Wars with a record points total.  He's won multiple championships in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship and is currently vice president at the stats department of MLB Advanced Media.  So he's the state of the art.

It's interesting to see that the state of the art in roto is precisely where Dr. D left it four or five years ago, and where Ron Shandler left it twenty years ago.  (In the Hardball Times article, Schwartz is taking the Yoo-Hoo shower made famous by Shandler in a galaxy far, far away.)  It's possible that there are no fundamental gains to be made in macro baseball roster strategy.  Hitters are what they are, and pitchers are what they are.

A few excerpts from Estimable Schwartz' post-game interview:

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I prioritize offense first, bullpen second and starting pitching last in all leagues, with the exact distribution of dollars and draft picks determined by the league format. In a 15-team mixed league like Tout Wars I usually maintain a relatively typical 70/30 split during auctions, but the distribution of that 30 is somewhat atypical compared to other clubs. My split at Tout Wars this year was 71/29, with the $79 I spent on pitching only a dollar less than the league average...

John Benson, one of the pioneers of using analytics in fantasy baseball, taught me that "strength loves certainty, but weakness loves risk." As a result, I try to look for reasonably predictable offensive picks, with balanced category value and some upside, while I spend more aggressively and take on more risk in my starting pitching.

This aspect of Game Theory will be as true in two years as it is now.  It will be as true in 100 years.  In backgammon, if you're winning, you don't want a bunch of loose blots.  Time is on your side.  You want a conservative game, to let the dice and the clock do your work for you.  In a baseball game, if you're up 5-2 in the sixth, you don't want a sudden wild change in the weather.  The loser wants things muddied up.

Justin Smoak hits a 108-MPH homer

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Just a token nod to the blue and teal so's Matt doesn't file litigation over finding more sophisticated sports onsite :- )

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Justin Smoak scored and drove in the M's only run, on a 426-foot shot off a 17-win pitcher who otherwise fired a shutout.  ESPN's home run tracker gives us the trend on the force with which Smoak has hit his 2012 home runs.  The most recent dingers are at the top of the chart.  

The tags are No Doubt, Plenty (normal HR), or Just Enough.  You could project a hitter's next HR year off clustering of No Doubters or Just Enoughs.  As we recall, Adrian Beltre hit a ton of JE's among his 25 homers in 2008; he then hit 8 homers in 2009.

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You probably noticed for yourself how many of the first 11 dingers were below average (103.5 MPH) in their speed off the bat.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the weather, wind conditions, etc. in Safeco Field wouldn't have much or anything to do with speed off the bat.

It's a pleasure to look at that near-perfect little trend among the most recent 5 dingers.  And, hm, when was the last time Justin Smoak hit a 108+ MPH shot ... one since April 2011, off Andy Sonnanstine.  Smoak used to hit these 108+ MPH homers more routinely:  two of his first four 2011 homers were 110+ ... wouldn't it be nice if somebody went and organized his Speed Off Bat trends for us?

Safeco 2013

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Bat571 sez,

Jemanji - How about a thread on modifying Safeco for next year - would love to hear other's suggestions. For me, I'd like to see the Mariner's bullpen turned slightly inward (expanding the 'Pen), reducing the LF gap, lining it up with dead center at 400' instead of 405'. Put a 4' buffer of rhododendrens at the top of the fence (Guti's Garden?) to keep drunks from leaning out over the field in the area past the bullpen. Then engineer a sail system (maybe not ready for next year) to reduce the marine cross-flow. Then close the roof on cool marine-weather nights. What do others think?

We've discussed before ... for a while there it looked like maybe the young lefty hitters were shaking off the home field to some extent, as the weather warmed up.  But it hasn't lasted:  the M's month-to-month splits show zero improvement since April, despite benching Chone Figgins, moving the offensive catchers into the lineup, and, for better or worse, sending Ichiro out.  

Their home/road splits remain catastrophic on the season:  they're slugging .401 on the road but a measly .319 at home.  Their home line of .216/.288/.319 is based on over 2,500 plate appearances and is easily exceeded by the deadball National League of 1906.  Here, let's underline it:

  AVG OBP SLG
2012 Seattle Mariners, home .216 .288 .319
1906 National League (16 HR per team, full season) .244 .310 .310
1906 Cubs .262 .328

.339
1905 NL .255    
1904 NL .249 .306 .322
1903 NL .269 .331 .349

Watching Safeco games this year has been worse than watching deadball National League offenses.  Teams of 120 years ago, all teams, would have been ashamed to hit .216.  I didn't see a single team with an OBP as low as the Mariners' Safeco OBP this year.  Think about it!

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In years past, Chuck Armstrong has consistently responded that the Mariners like the retro scoring environment, calling it "fair."  This year, they've made a few noises to the effect of "if we think it helps our team, we'll change it."

Dustin Ackley: "We're a Good Team Now"

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From Bill James Online a few days ago:

Strange stats. From 7/23/12 when Ichiro Suzuki went to the Yankees, until 8/31/12, the Yankees played .500 ball. 18 and 18. During that same span the Mariners went 22-14. With Ichiro, they were 42-55, 13 games under .500. Without him they're 8 games over .500. Is that too small a sample, or is there something there?
Asked by: mauimike
Answered: 9/2/2012
The chance that a .485 team would go 22-14 or better in a stretch of 36 games is 9%, meaning that every team of the calibre of the Mariners would probably have a stretch like that at some point.   Also, it's an edited sample; they're 22-14, but they've lost two games since then and I would presume they lost the game BEFORE you started counting, so they're actually 22-17 within the sample that is implied.   
 
I'm not saying the team ISN'T better without Ichiro.   It's entirely possible that it is.   We don't have very clear evidence. 

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That's mathematically true as far as it goes, although in kicking this soccer ball down the field, there's a minor point and two major points.  Minor point:  the M's beat the Red Sox in a series since that answer, and beat them convincingly, such that it appeared that the Mariners were the superior team.

Major point #1:  the statistical chance here, the binomial calculation, isn't as important as just watching the ballclub, as James allows in finishing up.  He's not saying that the M's aren't better.  He's saying that 22-14 is nothing super amazing from a stats point of view.  I agree.

Major point #2:  that .485 figure is taken from after the winning streak was completed.  If you define the "Before and After" split as "Before and After Ichiro Played Here," then the "Before" Mariners were 42-55, a .433 winning percentage.  I think you and I, on the day that Ichiro was traded, would have all agreed that the "Before" Mariners were a .433 club, not a .485 club, eh?  Anybody disagree?

Chase Headley

M's fans are in a froth about the radical realignment under discussion - no, not the Astros realignment.  The Ackley-to-1B realignment.  ... By 'in a froth' we mean that they're clicking onto baseball sites twice a week now instead of once a week.

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Quick Mail-Order R/X on Chase Headley 

You know how right hand hitters grow progressively more demoralized at Safeco as time grinds them down.  PETCO in San Diego can do that to lefties.  Headley's swing shape, and batted balls, had become warped by the electroshock that the park has applied to his lefty* swings:

Age HR per Fly Ball expected Power Index Grounders
24 11% 133 38
25 8 111 45
26 6 85 46
27 4 101 46

Funny thing, though.  This year, age 28, his grounders continued to go up, to 49%.  But!  His HR per fly ball has zoomed, to 14%.  Wow!  

Have the homers been legit?  Well, they haven't exactly been Peguero-like.  Above is the scatterchart, with Safeco overlay.  That's average, average in the sense of "solid."  He's averaged 394 feet on his homers, not inspiring.  Not a problem, exactly, either.

Three of his 11 homers have been "just enoughs" and two have been "no doubters."  Per that metric, Headley is fine to keep bopping.  About twenty a year.  There are a few Mariners who don't.

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.... M's 2 again

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=== Mike Carp Crawls Out of the Coffin ===

Has an unusually dynamic swing load when he's seeing the ball good.  It reminds you of Junior's swing trigger.

Check the position of Carp's head , and look in picture #3 at the coiling effect of his entire body, especially the closing distance between his knee and his front shoulder.    And it's as if he's jumping down into the path of the baseball...

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That's the basic idea, but it looks way better live.  You can get a sense of of the acceleration into the coil, a ready-to-pounce effect that Ken Griffey Jr. used to key his own swing.  When Junior was swinging great - like when he hit homers in 8 straight games ... you could see it in the dynamism of his coil as the pitch came in.

Here's a contrasting example from May 3.  His head stays higher, the bat waggle is less crisp and travels a shorter distance, and generally the coil is just not nearly as decisive, nor as well-sync'ed with the incoming energy.

Today Carp was visibly seeing the ball well.

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