Silly Domo. You're Not A-Rod.
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Bilbao 1-1 Barcelona: Regression to the Mean
What Pep Guardiola started with his lineups out of a hat, H1N1 and thigh injuries are finishing. It looks like Ibra, Messi, Marquez, Abidal and Toure could be out of the Inter match next week. We got another taste yesterday of what the patchwork lineup can do -- all foreplay, no climax, except for that sexy thug Dani Alves. I've heard this is what 2006-07 was like. I didn't like my old job much back then, and I'm not liking this.
The Times has a nicely-documented piece today about how baseball champions (like the 2009 Yankees) regress to the mean if they don't take a cold look at their age and their overachievers and move to replace the old and the one-offers. It's clear that not doing renovations is fatal: For those champions that turned over 25% of their roster or less, the average increase in losses from championship season to next was eight. For those that turned over more than 1 in 4 players, the average regression was less than 0.5 losses. I don't know how closely this might apply to soccer. It's arguable that Pep should have turned over more of Barca's squad, not less. He was ruthless about Sylvhino and Caceres, and Ibrahimovic has been far more of a complete player than Eto'o; but Maxwell and Chygrinsky have been frightening. Cock your head a bit, and you can now see that Henry's year was probably the last garden party in the sunset of a career; that Messi would regress a bit to the mean; that Puyol would slow a bit. You might have made a case to get rid of Henry, Puyol, maybe not sign Toure to an extension; push harder on Fabregas. Instead of turning over the roster, though, Guardiola keeps turning over the lineup, which is not exactly the same thing, especially when you're playing Messi as a false 9. Swine flu is one thing; not knowing how to play together three months into the season is another. It's starting to look a little like Liverpool of last year -- lots of ties, lots of wins, few losses, much disappointment.(Image credit: boldorak2208/Flickr through a Creative Commons license.)
Forgiving Buckner
The world is always rolling between our legs.
It comes for us, dribbler, slow roller,
humming its goat song, easy as pie.
We spit in our gloves, bend our stiff knees,
keep it in front of us, our fathers' advice,
but we miss it every time, its physic, its science,
and it bleeds on through, blue streak, heart sore,
to the four-leaf clovers deep in right field.
The runner scores, knight in white armor,
the others out leaping, bumptious, gladhanding,
your net come up empty, Jonah again.
Even the dance of the dead won't come near you,
heart in your throat, holy of holies,
the oh of your mouth as the stone rolls away,
as if it had come from before you were born
to roll past your life to the end of the world,
till the world comes around again, gathering steam,
heading right for us again and again,
faith of our fathers, world without end.
Showcase: 12,000-Faceted Diamond - Lens Blog
By the time the Yankees rushed the field to celebrate their 27th World Series victory, Robert Caplin had photographed the action — 12,000 times. The result is a romantic and captivating time-lapse presentation.
Mr. Caplin used three cameras to shoot that night so that he would have enough footage to “properly capture the narrative of the evening”; a narrative of ice melting into hot dogs, the greasy glass of a popcorn cart, the rise and the fall of the fans.
Much of the game was photographed with a tilt-shift lens, rendering the players as smudges of chalk pastel in a children’s book illustration.
Freak Repeat: Cy Young voters narrowly choose Lincecum again
Giants ace, Tim Lincecum, won an unusual second Cy Young award in a row. On most measures of performance, Lincecum improved -- yes, improved -- from his Cy Young season just 12 months ago. With the sub-par Giants offense, a return to playoff baseball is anything but certain. Nevertheless, we get the distinct pleasure of enjoying The Freak's unprecedented pitching virtuosity every 5 days. Congratulations to Tim! Go Giants!
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4671110
Old Brooklyn Dodgers Field (Not Ebbets)
Along 3rd Avenue near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY sits this low, unassuming building. The blandness of the structure certainly does not draw the attention of passersby, myself included, having walked by it dozens of times without thinking twice about it. But as I learned from a nice older Brooklynite who was having brunch next to me one day at the Station Cafe in Park Slope, the building (or what's left of it) is in fact the original home of the Brooklyn Dodgers (at the time known as the Brooklyn Superbas).
The building was called Washington Park, and was first used by the team a loooong time ago, 1898 to be exact, and remained the team's home park until 1912 when they moved to the famous Ebbets Field. It's currently owned and used by Con Edison, and although little remains of the structure, what does remain is the "oldest section of any former major league ballpark still standing in the country," according to Forgotten New York.
Playoff game, 6/14/2009
Bases loaded, 4th inning. Matt hits a single, drives in first 2 runs for Twin Ridge, making it 5-2.
Tradin' times for the Tigers? Not so fast.
There's been much teeth-gnashing and wailing about the possibility the Tigers might trade Curtis Granderson and/or Edwin Jackson. There might even have been some rending of garments while I was out raking the leaves again; can't be sure. Displays of despair aside, I think trading either player, unless the team gets an unbelievable deal thrown at them (like a top-shelf shortstop/closer, corner outfielder and pitching prospect), is a big mistake. Here's why, and here's why both trades might happen anyway.
Curtis Granderson: Among the team's problems last year were a lack of speed, lack of left-handed bats and lack of power. And Granderson is a pretty speedy lefty hitter with plenty of pop. Sure, he regressed against lefty pitching last year and hit quite a few less doubles and triples than years past. But keep in mind that 2009 was the first year that he played regularly against lefties; even in 2008 he only played a percentage of the time against left-handed pitching. I don't think it's a stretch that a player as talented and smart as Granderson makes the needed adjustments and gets back on track atop the order in 2010. Plus, Grandy plays strong defense for a team that needs an outstanding centerfielder. Comerica Park is a huge outfield space to cover, and Granderson (usually) makes it look easy. Oh, and he's the face of the franchise. You deal Grandy, and you have to deal with a lot of peeved fans. Not to mention one less lefty bat, one less guy who can run, and 30 fewer homers (from a leadoff hitter to boot).
Edwin Jackson: Yes, he tailed off in the second half of the season. But he's still a young pitcher who throws hard, is durable and seems to still have room to learn and grow as a pitcher. Maybe the Tigers think Jeremy Bonderman is ready to come back and join Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello as the top three in the Tigers rotation. So what? You can never, ever have too much pitching. The Tigers have some good arms coming along, and Jackson could be a free agent in two years. But it's too early to worry about that. If you want to win in 2010, Jackson needs to be a Tiger. That Verlander-Jackson-Porcello trio atop the rotation immediately gives you a good shot at the Central Division title. (Sorry, I don't mean to damn those pitchers with faint praise.)
Bottom line, if the Tigers trade either Granderson or Jackson then the team finds itself immediately looking for players with the same attributes to replace them. Those are players that don't exist in the team's farm system right now, and would be as hard to come by in the trade/free agent market as Granderson and Jackson were for their new teams. Both players are hard-working and fan favorites, so there's no addition-by-subtraction factor (also known as, "Fernando Rodney may have saved a bunch of games last year, but it's OK if he leaves").
Why might it happen anyway? Because of the all the money the team has tied up in contracts for players who aren't worth what they're getting paid next year. Dontrelle Willis is unlikely to ever pitch for the Tigers again. Nate Robertson might be a fourth or fifth starter, or he might be cut in spring training. Carlos Guillen is an injury-prone player without a position. Magglio Ordonez is still productive, but making at least three times his market worth next season. In light of his lost summer and disastrous last week of the season, even Miguel Cabrera's contract doesn't look like a great deal at this point.
So the only way it makes sense to trade either Granderson or Jackson is if the Tigers get a blockbuster package of players and get to dump the contract of Willis, Robertson or Guillen on someone else in the process. The Tigers spent more on payroll, adjusted for team worth, than any team in baseball last year. They'd like to get that number down.
What I would advise the team to do (and they haven't asked, for some reason) is to bite the bullet and hold on to Granderson and Jackson. Both have affordable contracts in the near term, and both could be All-Stars for years to come. Especially in Granderson's case, dealing him would blow a whole in the center of the team, figuratively and otherwise. I say the Tigers swallow hard and learn their lesson from giving out big contracts so freely – something that needed to be done in Maggs' case when the franchise was a laughingstock, but is no longer necessary or a good bit of business. I have a feeling that Mike Ilitch feels the same way, or at least I hope he does. But punishing the 2010 Tigers for the bad contracts handed out in 2006-08 doesn't make much sense. And given how much of a challenge filling Comerica Park is going to be next year as it is, do you really want to give fans any more excuses to stay away from the stadium?
