Didn't know if I should make this a separate thread or not, so I'll throw it in here and see how it turns out. I've recently started watching the Barclay's Premier League, as both of my daughters are playing soccer now, and was wondering what teams, if any, that folks here follow and why. This is uncharted territory for me, as someone who has long been a detractor of football, but after watching it, however, I find myself at least intrigued by it, if not downright interested.
For myself, I haven't picked a team to be "my team" yet. However, in my proud tradition of hating front-runners, I am trying to avoid the usual suspects (Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U) and pick a team that is good but not Evil Empire level. I'm leaning towards Swansea City right now, although I also enjoy watching Tottenham and Southampton.
I enjoy watching the World Cup and the various international tournaments that lead up to it every 4 years, but I do not follow any of the various organized football (soccer) leagues in any country. I am aware of who some of the best players are and who the elite teams are, but don't follow any of the teams or players until they band together into national units for international competition.
So Mujica gets DFA's and Juan Nieves shown the door by the Sox in response to their pitching woes. IT's expected Matt Barnes will take Mijica's spot in the pen as a power arm there, having been scratched form his last start and moved to the bullpen in Pawtucket. There's also supposedly a short list of external and internal candidates for the pitching coach vacancy and a new coach may not be in place before the end of the Toronto series.
Scapegoats all around, but a new voice might be helpful to that staff, but they need to execute better, play better defense behind the pitchers, and hit with runners in scoring position. So it's not a bad step, but not a cure for what ails them by any means.
Didn't know if I should make this a separate thread or not, so I'll throw it in here and see how it turns out. I've recently started watching the Barclay's Premier League, as both of my daughters are playing soccer now, and was wondering what teams, if any, that folks here follow and why. This is uncharted territory for me, as someone who has long been a detractor of football, but after watching it, however, I find myself at least intrigued by it, if not downright interested.
For myself, I haven't picked a team to be "my team" yet. However, in my proud tradition of hating front-runners, I am trying to avoid the usual suspects (Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U) and pick a team that is good but not Evil Empire level. I'm leaning towards Swansea City right now, although I also enjoy watching Tottenham and Southampton.
My brother and I support Tottenham. When NBC started showing every match at the beginning of last season, we decided to pick a team to support. We had a couple criteria:
1) No carpetbagger owners - only teams owned by British people were candidates 2) No hooliganism - if the first thing that comes up when you google a team is about what infamous hooligans their fans are, they are off the list 3) No teams in danger of relegation - we don't like supporting frontrunners, but it had to be a team that wouldn't get relegated just out of practicality, because the Championship League is not televised in the U.S. Rooting for a team only to see them get dropped down and then we can't watch the games any more didn't seem to make any sense.
Those three criteria left us with just three or four teams to pick from. It came down to Tottenham or Everton, and I liked Tottenham better, so we went with them.
Post by The Captain on May 12, 2015 11:23:09 GMT -5
Something I've been pondering in the past few days (nothing earth-shattering, but bear with me) is how (or if) baseball's Hall of Fame voters are going to change their criteria for pitchers getting into the Hall in the current age of pitch counts, specialized bullpen roles, and shorter careers. These musings were brought on by Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners getting his 2,000th career strikeout and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers getting his 1,500th career strikeout in the same week.
The standard used to be "300 wins and you're in", with some players falling short of that figure but having other exemplary stats (ERA or strikeouts) to help bolster their case (Pedro Martinez who only had 219 wins but only lost 100 games, had over 3100 strikeouts, and a career ERA of 2.93). Well, what happens to the new pitchers who will never get anywhere near 300 wins, or is some cases, even 200?
Of the current active leaders in wins, only 4 have over 200 (Tim Hudson, CC Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, and Mark Buehrle), and there is really no one within sniffing distance after them (the five pitchers with between 150 and 176 career wins, which are the next ones on the list, are all at least 32 years old, with the youngest being Justin Verlander and he is the guy with 152). For as good a Felix Hernandez is, he is already 29 years old and only has 131 wins, so he's still five 14-win seasons away, but after him, the closest guy under 30 is Clayton Kershaw, and for as good as he's been in his young career so far (3 Cy Young awards in 7 seasons, along with an MVP award), he only has 99 wins, for an average of basically 14 per year. In order to hit even 200 wins, he would have to average the same number of wins for each of the next 7 years again, which would take him into his mid-30's.
So what will the "new" 300 wins be? Is it less about hitting a magic number and more about the entire body of work, or will the voters be primarily locked into statistical achievements that are, by and large, impossible to reach in the current game?
"As a youngin' I used to share the colt 45 on the street corners with my friends. I'm not proud." - icctrombone
"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever." - Baron Helmut Zemo
The fact that there is a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven should tell us all we need to know about expected future traffic.
Something I've been pondering in the past few days (nothing earth-shattering, but bear with me) is how (or if) baseball's Hall of Fame voters are going to change their criteria for pitchers getting into the Hall in the current age of pitch counts, specialized bullpen roles, and shorter careers. These musings were brought on by Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners getting his 2,000th career strikeout and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers getting his 1,500th career strikeout in the same week.
The standard used to be "300 wins and you're in", with some players falling short of that figure but having other exemplary stats (ERA or strikeouts) to help bolster their case (Pedro Martinez who only had 219 wins but only lost 100 games, had over 3100 strikeouts, and a career ERA of 2.93). Well, what happens to the new pitchers who will never get anywhere near 300 wins, or is some cases, even 200?
Of the current active leaders in wins, only 4 have over 200 (Tim Hudson, CC Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, and Mark Buehrle), and there is really no one within sniffing distance after them (the five pitchers with between 150 and 176 career wins, which are the next ones on the list, are all at least 32 years old, with the youngest being Justin Verlander and he is the guy with 152). For as good a Felix Hernandez is, he is already 29 years old and only has 131 wins, so he's still five 14-win seasons away, but after him, the closest guy under 30 is Clayton Kershaw, and for as good as he's been in his young career so far (3 Cy Young awards in 7 seasons, along with an MVP award), he only has 99 wins, for an average of basically 14 per year. In order to hit even 200 wins, he would have to average the same number of wins for each of the next 7 years again, which would take him into his mid-30's.
So what will the "new" 300 wins be? Is it less about hitting a magic number and more about the entire body of work, or will the voters be primarily locked into statistical achievements that are, by and large, impossible to reach in the current game?
Wins has become a stat that is largely irrelevant when considering pitching accomplishments. It used to be a 20 win season put you in contention for a Cy Young, now not so much (even though 20 win seasons are rare), it's things like K to walk ratio, ERA, WHIP, fielding independent batting average (FIBA), etc. etc. that are talked about when determining and voting for Cy Young winners, and I am pretty sure those types of statistical accomplishments will carryover into Hall voting when this generation of pitchers gets there. Wins has become perceived as a function of team performance not a measure of the pitcher's performance himself. You can pitch 8 innings give up 1 run and lose, or 5 innings give up 6 runs and win, it depends on how the team's offense performs, not on how you pitched, or go 7 innings not give up an earned run but lose because a fielder committed an error allowing 3 runs to eventually score.
It's already happening, the discussion about Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux when they were up for Hall election was not about their win totals, but about their other accomplishments. You already mentioned Pedro...the change in criteria has already occurred.
If you think of some of the best pitchers in the modern era-Bob Gibson (251 career wins), Koufax (165 career wins) Jim Palmer (268 career wins), Drysdale (209 career wins)-are often pointed to as the measure for that generation of pitchers, and the 300 win mark is not even a factor. In fact of the 74 HOF pitchers*, the average win total is 253 (a bit skewed by a handful of relievers though and Babe Ruth's 94 wins as a pitcher, but also by Cy Young's 500+ wins) and only 18* of them achieved that 300 win level.
The 300 win mark is more a measure of longevity, not necessarily the quality of the pitcher's career performance.
-M
*reflects only those elected traditionally, not through veteran elections after initial eligibility was expired-there are 24 pitchers who have achieved 300 wins and all are in hall except for Clemens, 5 however were not elected traditionally
Something I've been pondering in the past few days (nothing earth-shattering, but bear with me) is how (or if) baseball's Hall of Fame voters are going to change their criteria for pitchers getting into the Hall in the current age of pitch counts, specialized bullpen roles, and shorter careers. These musings were brought on by Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners getting his 2,000th career strikeout and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers getting his 1,500th career strikeout in the same week.
The standard used to be "300 wins and you're in", with some players falling short of that figure but having other exemplary stats (ERA or strikeouts) to help bolster their case (Pedro Martinez who only had 219 wins but only lost 100 games, had over 3100 strikeouts, and a career ERA of 2.93). Well, what happens to the new pitchers who will never get anywhere near 300 wins, or is some cases, even 200?
Of the current active leaders in wins, only 4 have over 200 (Tim Hudson, CC Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, and Mark Buehrle), and there is really no one within sniffing distance after them (the five pitchers with between 150 and 176 career wins, which are the next ones on the list, are all at least 32 years old, with the youngest being Justin Verlander and he is the guy with 152). For as good a Felix Hernandez is, he is already 29 years old and only has 131 wins, so he's still five 14-win seasons away, but after him, the closest guy under 30 is Clayton Kershaw, and for as good as he's been in his young career so far (3 Cy Young awards in 7 seasons, along with an MVP award), he only has 99 wins, for an average of basically 14 per year. In order to hit even 200 wins, he would have to average the same number of wins for each of the next 7 years again, which would take him into his mid-30's.
So what will the "new" 300 wins be? Is it less about hitting a magic number and more about the entire body of work, or will the voters be primarily locked into statistical achievements that are, by and large, impossible to reach in the current game?
Wins has become a stat that is largely irrelevant when considering pitching accomplishments. It used to be a 20 win season put you in contention for a Cy Young, now not so much (even though 20 win seasons are rare), it's things like K to walk ratio, ERA, WHIP, fielding independent batting average (FIBA), etc. etc. that are talked about when determining and voting for Cy Young winners, and I am pretty sure those types of statistical accomplishments will carryover into Hall voting when this generation of pitchers gets there. Wins has become perceived as a function of team performance not a measure of the pitcher's performance himself. You can pitch 8 innings give up 1 run and lose, or 5 innings give up 6 runs and win, it depends on how the team's offense performs, not on how you pitched, or go 7 innings not give up an earned run but lose because a fielder committed an error allowing 3 runs to eventually score.
It's already happening, the discussion about Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux when they were up for Hall election was not about their win totals, but about their other accomplishments. You already mentioned Pedro...the change in criteria has already occurred.
If you think of some of the best pitchers in the modern era-Bob Gibson (251 career wins), Koufax (165 career wins) Jim Palmer (268 career wins), Drysdale (209 career wins)-are often pointed to as the measure for that generation of pitchers, and the 300 win mark is not even a factor. In fact of the 74 HOF pitchers*, the average win total is 253 (a bit skewed by a handful of relievers though and Babe Ruth's 94 wins as a pitcher, but also by Cy Young's 500+ wins) and only 18* of them achieved that 300 win level.
The 300 win mark is more a measure of longevity, not necessarily the quality of the pitcher's career performance.
-M
*reflects only those elected traditionally, not through veteran elections after initial eligibility was expired-there are 24 pitchers who have achieved 300 wins and all are in hall except for Clemens, 5 however were not elected traditionally
I respectfully disagree with your assertion that Wins are becoming irrelevant. While we more SABRmetrically-inclined folks have long been against using wins as a metric by which to gauge performance, just turn on Baseball Tonight (ESPN) or MLB Tonight (MLB Network) and you can find more than a few of the talking heads discussing wins and losses for a starting pitcher as though they were still valid measurements of success. Sure, the pitcher may have a low ERA, WHIP and FIP while sporting a great K:BB ratio, but he just isn't doing his job if he isn't getting those wins, and it's especially bad if he's getting losses, even though that is mostly due to lack of run support. The guys on MLB Network are a little better with recognizing some of the nuances to a pitching performance, but the bozos on ESPN make my head hurt.
It's like RBI totals, which just like Wins/Losses, are more a function of the team's performance rather than an individual's performance. Just yesterday afternoon, I heard one of the sports talk guys here in Pittsburgh saying that the Pirates shouldn't drop a particular player to a lower spot in the lineup because "he just isn't an RBI guy" and wouldn't be as successful in that spot. Never mind that said player is a good hitter and would drive in runs just by the basis of being good at hitting the ball; he is perceived as not being a RBI guy because he's never driven in a lot of runs (mainly due to hitting high in the lineup and not having many previous opportunities to do so).
"As a youngin' I used to share the colt 45 on the street corners with my friends. I'm not proud." - icctrombone
"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever." - Baron Helmut Zemo
The fact that there is a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven should tell us all we need to know about expected future traffic.
This is why NHL executives are happier than NBA executives right now:
Eastern Conference Finals:
NHL: New York vs. Tampa Bay NBA: Atlanta vs. Cleveland
Advantage: NHL New York is the #1 media market, and Tampa is #13 but is located in Florida, which is the #3 state in population. Atlanta is the #9 market and Cleveland is #19, the smallest market left in the playoffs.
Western Conference Finals:
NHL: Anaheim vs. Chicago NBA: Golden State vs. Houston
Advantage:NHL Anaheim is in the #2 media market, and Chicago is #3. The Bay area is #6 and Houston is #10.
So true, but with one proviso: LeBron is a draw all by himself no matter where he plays, so that helps the NBA somewhat.
Well there is also the fact that the NBA will draw more viewers from it's smallest market left than the NHL will from it's biggest (no matter who the teams or players involved are) because, well Americans seem to like basketball and not care a whit about hockey unless it's the Olympic team.
1. Minnesota Timberwolves 2. Los Angeles Lakers 3. Philadelphia 76ers 4. New York Knickerbockers 5. Orlando Magic 6. Sacramento Kings 7. Denver Nuggets 8. Detroit Pistons 9. Charlotte Hornets 10. Miami Heat 11. Indiana Pacers 12. Utah Jazz 13. Phoenix Suns 14. Oklahoma City Thunder
